Regarding your segment about Fatima, in the Argument from Miracles chapter, I would love to add a few more quick points about Fatima: (1) Lucia, the main seer of the Fatima apparition, made a failed prophecy about the end of WW1. On that fateful day in October 1917, Lucia said that WW1 would end "that same day". We have accounts written by a certain Father Formigao, who was sent to investigate the Fatima Appairiton, only about a week after the apparition, in which Fr Formigao said to Lucia that she must have misheard Our Lady, because the newspaper was still reporting on the various battles going on on the other side of the continent, but Lucia doubled down, telling Fr Formigao that that is what Our Lady said and that was that. Odd! You wouldn't expect that from an authentic apparition of Our Lady! (2) You will often hear about other prophecies, with these supposedly being successful. Namely, I am talking about the deaths of Lucia's cousins, as well as the start of WW2. The only problem is that Lucia's cousins died in 1919 and 1920, and the prophecy about their deaths was first mentioned by Lucia in 1927. And the prophecy about the start of WW2? That was made in 1941. WW2 started in 1939. So, the only successful prophecies were the post-dated ones, and the pre-dated prophecy failed. (3) Lucia said that Our Lady told her that she would appear "with Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel" ... the problem here should jump out at any faithful Catholic. There is no other "our Lady" than "our Lady", Mary, the Mother of God. Our Lady of Fatima simply IS Our Lady of Carmel who simply IS Our Lady of Sorrows. They're all the same person, there is no pantheon of Our Ladies. But, it was common for rural Portugeese villagers in the 1910s to not be entirely Orthodox in their understanding of Catholic theology. So, this really seems like something that Lucia would have made up, because this flies in the face of Catholic understandings of theology and who Mary is. Also, Our Lady of Carmel is widely understood by modern historians to be a complete legend, a myth. There are no contemporaneous sources that recount this apparition that supposedly occurred to St Simon Stock, and we have good reason to think that this tale was invented about 200 years after the life of St Simon Stock. So, yeah, there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of the Fatima apparition. I find that the average Catholic is quite confident in Fatima, and I do not know if the average Catholic has read the primary sources, like "Fatima in Lucia's Own Words" or "Critical Documentation of Fatima", both of which add much to consider.
@@macmac1022 Thanks so much for the kind words, Mac mac! Honestly I don't think I would make a very good teacher haha, I can hardly string together a cogent video on TH-cam, so how could I expect to fare any better in making presentations for lectures to a live class haha!!
@@Nontradicath That is exactly what a good teacher would say as they are humble LOL. You speak in a very understandable way and you listen well, I think you would do better then you think you would, and for sure could not be worse then some that we have today anyways LOL.
You're figuratively butchering the use of "literally." You could maybe say they're the Tom and Jerry of TH-cam apologetics. And please read The Master and His Emissary by Ian McGilchrist.
@@theintelligentmilkjug944 Literally butchering the word "literally" means to take the word, put it on a chopping block and hitting it multiple times with a steel cleaver. That's literally butchering and yes, everyone you know has been grievously misusing the term all these years. "Literally" is short for "literally (as opposed to figuratively)..."
What Trent said about lightning was ridiculous The reason we don't imprison lightning isn't because it's "determined by molecular forces" The reason we don't imprison lightning is because we can't.... I guarantee you that if there was a way to imprison lightning and preventing it from hurting anyone or causing damage ever again, we definitely would
@@KayleePrince-we5pb this is also a nice point. It indicates that we could still be justified in imprisoning someone even if they’re not morally responsible. This point is similar to the quarantine model discussed in my previous video responding to Trent
I think Trent is making an oblique reference to Sam Harris and his views on determinism. Harris has argued that the argument from consequence of how a society informed by determinism absolves persons from moral agency and accountability and thus also free from blame is a non sequitur. Even if it were the case that persons are as predetermined in their actions as lightning, hurricanes, or earthquakes a society would still have an interest and be justified in keeping those people locked up. If not to rehabilitate them then to simply keep them out of circulation.
@jlayman89 I don't think you even need to compare that to imprisonment. It's a *better* solution to the problem. Imprisonment itself only happens after we've already failed to prevent a bad outcome, *and* when we don't have a better solution than to restrain someone.
Your videos covering mainstream apologetics are by far the most informative for those who are more casual about philosophy of religion. If you ever decide to cover different apologists/arguments which fall into your field of interest I would fully support that.
Joe, I've seen a lot of TH-cam content centered around religion, and I have to say that your arguments and presentation of this material are second to none. Articulate, sure to explain the nuance but understandable all the same. Thank you!
4:00 water absolutely can become a solid on its own via black-body radiation. Wait around long enough, and it will freeze. Of course, you'll also have to wait for the earth to freeze via black-body radiation if that water is on Earth... but that just means the wait time increases :)
Came into the comments to say just this. But we should expand on the objection so it's not just quibbling with the example: it actually seems to refute the metaphysics being presented behind change, or at least requires a much more complex account of what actualizes the potential for water to freeze than just "cold air." If it is in fact water actualizing its own potential to freeze (for instance, because of its own emissions of radiation) then it would seem to at least refute the argument from motion.
@@benroberts2222At a minimum, Aquinas was arguing from ignorance of modern physics. Another example is that planets are actually made of particles that hold themselves up without any ultimate foundation. I don't think these arguments are salvagable given that they base assumptions don't hold.
Where can we find your paper under review re S5? I’m wondering how many, if any, of the arguments against S5 are just variations on those of Prior, Bob Adams, and Greg Fitch.
Thank you for giving voice to my absolute #1 pet peeve that apologists commit: how they will casually and with complete confidence assert an ontology that is over 2000 years old and is resoundingly rejected by the great majority of academic philosophers and almost every practicing physicist. The ontology of cause and effect is a PHYSICAL claim. Why should I believe there's such a thing as "a potential" that isn't just my conceptual formulation of likely future outcomes? What evidence is there of this? What does it explain that is not accounted for in much greater detail by the standard model? This should be the main focus of apologists, yet they always start their arguments with it already assumed.
I can't listen to Trent for this long. He's doing his part in making sure the vast majority of us non Christians never even consider or reconsider the notion.
You know what's funny? Some theist making the case for theism at first by relying on Aristotelian metaphysics or the argument from motion/change, but one moment later doing it by relying on the Kalam and entirely different metaphysics. Let's embrace incompatible metaphysical frameworks to make the case for god! And let's ignore that Aristotle himself maintained that the universe is eternal. It's such a refreshing and intellectual defense coming from Trent Horn! Not cherry-picking and rhetorical campaign at all!
I’m not sure that Kalam is necessarily incompatible with Aristotelian metaphysics. I also don’t think Aristotelian metaphysics, at least the portion used for the argument from change entail an eternal universe
I would love to see a discussion with Trent Horn and James Fodor about the resurrection! I would also love to see a discussion between you and Trent at some point soon!
@hermes2056 That’s not true, a lot of people convert because of Trent Horn’s work. I find a lot of the debates that Trent does to be really edifying, more so the informal discussions I think.
I listened so you don't have to. I couldn't make it past 15 minutes, though. Only 15 minutes in and here are some major issues regarding the rebuttal to Trent's Argument from Change: 1. @ 5:20 - Joe accuses Trent of "Circular Definition", yet the definition Trent Horn uses is from physics books. Is Joe saying that Physics (AKA science) is really just using circular definitions as a basis? Besides that, Joe is merely adding synonyms to Trent's definition, instead of using the words Trent said himself. Trent did not use synonyms of "change". @ 6:20 he says it's easy to imagine a hypothetical situation where God creates a "timeless" angel, yet Joe somehow fails to recognize the very obvious change of "God without any angels" to "God now has an angel". 2. @ 7:05 Joe says there are no good reasons to accept Trent's argument for change. Then he fails to say why, but just points to a book to read instead. You can't summarize? 3. @ 7:50 Joe asserts that Trent's argument is implausible because there is no such thing as potential existence, but only actual existence, because something either exists actually or not at all. However, as a human, I potentially existed before I was a fetus, and then I actually existed when I became a fetus. @ 10:15 he appeals to Zeno Paradox, which is actually a logical fallacy. " 4. @ 11:15 He states that there are superior definitions of change that should be accepted, and that would defeat Trent's argument. His example of a superior definition is (brace yourself): "X changes if for some predicate or property F, either X becomes F or X becomes not F." I kid you not. See 11:50. In this view, change is actually motion and is a function of position with respect to time. You never heard of this "at-at theory" because its application in science will neglect average velocities.
Thoughts about hitting him up for another debate? I could be laser focused on a specific argument or something. It's been a while since both of you actually talked and I love both of your contents
High school teacher here in Texas. Just searched tiktok and you're not making content. I think you could reach a lot of young people and equip them with some tools to navigate life with. There are a lot of bad arguments out in the market place, and unfortunately they are way more popular than Trent's bad ideas. I know you're probably way busy doing real scholarship. But a couple of 2 minute videos a day could boost your popularity!?
Most atheists aren't making positive assertive claims about the null hypothesis. They mostly rely on the lack of sufficient evidence for theists claims to make their arguments for them. If God's real, then it would be as obvious as it is in the Bible, and even then you had people worshipping other gods and disbelieving the Judean god, and people disbelieving Jesus to his face. That's all the evidence atheists need to believe in their own existence. And even if they're wrong, hey, then they they're wrong and most of them will be willing to accept that, or else continue believing what they believe, just like theists do. None of this shit matters, at least not until the knife gets twisted with politics.
I get this comment every time I respond to Trent Horn, and my response is always the same: (1) I’ve made quite a few videos defending theistic arguments [which amounts to 'rebutting atheism'] on my channel, and on other people's channels - including Alex O'Connor's channel and even Trent’s channel - I have criticized a number of atheistic arguments. (2) My philosophical research specializes in arguments for theism. Specifically: ontological arguments, the Kalam, contingency arguments, classical theistic proofs, and arguments against classical theism as a model of God, are my research interests in Phil Rel. I have published extensively only on these aspects of phil religion. It’s no surprise, then, that theistic arguments is my main focus on my channel. If people don't like me focusing on my research interests, they can unsubscribe. (3) Atheists on this platform tend to divide in two: those who are philosophically competent, and those who are philosophically incompetent. The latter aren't worth engaging. And the former tend to use arguments that I actually agree with, or have sympathies with: the problem of evil, divine hiddenness, religious diversity/confusion, and so on. So among the atheists on TH-cam worth engaging, typically they aren't pushing arguments I disagree with. Hence fewer critical engagement with atheists. (4) I’m filling a niche in the market. Almost no one on TH-cam competently addresses modal ontological arguments, modal cosmological arguments, classical theistic proofs, and even the Kalam. And certainly no one on TH-cam engages these with rigor and high quality argumentation. By contrast, apologists already saturate the market with billions of responses to atheistic arguments, and already bring on quality philosophers etc to respond to atheistic arguments. It’s no surprise, then, that I would fill what I see is a dire need in the market - competent criticism of theistic arguments. (5) I also just find theistic arguments with a metaphysical focus much more interesting than atheistic ones -- hence the differential focus on responding to these arguments (which I tend to disagree with, save stage 1 of contingency arguments). Notice: even though I agree with, e.g., versions of the problem of evil and evidential versions of divine hiddenness and religious confusion etc., I very rarely make videos on these topics. There are some other reasons too (e.g., differential weaponization of philosophy among certain groups in my experience), but these suffice.
Can you expand more on the definition of change being circular? To me it just seems aristotle is describing what he believes are intrinsic parts of nature and describing a process. Potency and act are not described in terms of change then, so I fail to see how it's circular
Forgot to comment I would love to see a discussion with Fodor and Horn on the resurrection. I think the RHBS model is a very good explanation for the minimal facts
First, objective morals wouldn't exist even if god did exist, because that system would be dependent on Trent's subjective opinion that doing what god says is moral. Second it's an appeals to consequence fallacy, Trent personally finding reality without objective morals to be unappealing does not make the alternative true. Finally the moral argument is used by apologists to defend actions they themselves find immoral but inconsistently justify using Divine Command Theory
Hey Joe there are arguments against naturalism that I've heard that I'd like to run by you. Is there a way I can contact you, to present these or something...?
16:37 Ironically, GR pushed me to take eternism seriously, God's omnipotence was what originally convinced me of it's truth. Obviously, this argument holds less water for me now.
I am curious. Is there a reason beyond thinking it's good for you to rebut Trent's argument because you think they're wrong for focusing on Trent a lot specifically? Perhaps it's the size of the audience that makes it worthwhile? My speculation (which you can correct) is that you have concerns about Trent's approach to apologetics. I think those concerns incude: running in well-informed philosophy of religion circles, being given reasons to reject certain points he makes at least on a few different occasions, and being concerned that his approach in some ways is, nonetheless, continuing to choose to passionately (in his own way) defend his faith with said points with good public speaking skills because he thinks it helps reassure his audience (and/or himself) in the faith while just kind of ignoring your points. Am I just off base here?
I think MoR spends so much time responding to Trent because he is one of the few active apologists that is worthy of responding to. Trent is just on another level and strikes a nice balance between making accessable but also somewhat robust arguments. Most other apologists are more accessable but lack any real philosophical robustness.
@Isaac_L.. I wouldn't say he's on another level. He gives quite hacky bad Catholic arguments at times. He is a very eloquent public speaker. I mean sure he's better than most but that's not really saying much. Since MOR focuses much more on high level arguments from those publishing in philosophy, it doesn’t explain the particular focus on some of the points made by Trent that are not high level arguments. It's not even like Trent's arguments are even the best of Thomism given that MOR has specialized in addressing cosmological arguments from Thomistic viewpoints.
@@blamtasticful Most of Trent's arguments that MoR responds to have little to do with catholicism and are used just as much by non-Catholic apologists as by him. I really think Trent is probably the best apologist outside of academia (but I'm interested to see who you think is also at or above his level). And MoR does have content responding to the likes of other popular apologists like WLC and Frank Turek.
@Isaac_L.. I tend to distinguish between apologists who have specialized more in Biblical Studies and those who have specialized in philosophy. I think there are better apologists on the Biblical Studies side of things such as Michael Licona and Craig Blomberg. On the Philosophical side of things people forget about William Lane Craig's contributions. There are individuals such as Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and Alexander Pruss who is very popular these days. J P Moreland is good for views where time didn't come into existence. To me, Trent is popular because of his long association with Catholic Answers, his speaking skills, and his reputation within thr Catholic community. I don't think he gets more points for referencing Thomism as he often doesn't even represent modern Thomists well. I think someone like Sean McDowell gives better answers than Trent depending on the question. Not saying Trent never makes good points.
The argument from motion/change is based on a patently false premise, the need for an initiator. There is no such thing as stationary in our relativistic universe. All mass/energy is born in motion and remains so as long as it exists. Photons for instance exist only at c. Even things that appear to be relatively stationary aren't when you examine them closely. No first mover, no first cause is ever required to make this happen, it is just how things work.
Motion here does not refer to movement. This name is very misleading. The argument really should be called 'argument from change'. You'd still be right, though. It is implausible that there ever was a state of non-existence that transitioned to existence. Furthermore, a middle-way state of affairs like 'potential existence' is just a primary facie absurd idea. Something either exists or doesn't, period.
@@Nexus-jg7ev Yes, it is not possible for change not to happen. The reason that something came from nothing is because in objective reality, nothing, a true zero energy state, is inherently unstable, it cannot persist. It naturally decays into a net zero energy state where mass and energy exist, where positive and negative energy add up to zero. The potential versus actual thing is another equivocation problem. Potential existence is subjective and actual existence is objective. Subjective existence and objective existence are two entirely different things, they cannot transition into each other.
@@letstrytouserealscienceoka3564 What is your opinion on some that argue that absolute nothingness has no capacity to change? Except arguing that then it surely had no capacity to not change.
@@Ryba125 My opinion is that there is no such thing as "absolute nothingness" except as a subjective notion. It is a philosophical notion that has no equivalent in objective reality. The closest thing that could possibly objectively exist is a true zero energy state, which is an actual physical thing. If absolute nothingness could exist and was not able to change then there is no way that anything could ever exist, which is rather obviously not true. An absolute nothingness most certainly precludes the existence of any form of agent.
So with regards with Ontological Pluralism, does it rule out transitional forms? Like cake batter in the oven before its finished baking...is it a cake, a pre-cake, just ingredients, something in between? Something with the potential to become a cake but with no clear point when it actually does? E.g. does a cake need frosting to be a cake?
How this argument is evolving is making me believe that the opposite arguement for God may end up proving Gods existence, because if the universe should be infinite, wouldn't it be that their is an infinite entity outside the infinite universe responsible for the cause of the infinite universe ? wouldn't it apply to God despite the fact that the Hilbert hotel hypothesis if explained in the real world will prove infinity contradiction rather than using mathematical theorem , I think this view should also make me believe in God
2:04:23 No, youtube has become over saturated with debates, and I have also noticed that watching debates is *generally* not very edifying and is more to entertain
I disagree. Many debates consolidate arguments in comprehensible packages and offer broad introductions for interested parties to explore further. Some suck, but plenty of long form individual presentations suck.
I don't understand the difference between potential and possible worlds. Trent said a glass of water has the potential to be frozen. You say that something is either actual, or it isn't- which makes perfect sense to me. The glass of water is actually frozen, or it's not. But then wouldn't you also say there is a possible world in which the glass of water is frozen?
It seems those are two different concepts. Certainly a possible world could contain an actualized potential of any existing potential, but possible worlds can contain other variations that aren't existing potentials.
@goldenalt3166 What do you mean by existing potential? If a potential is actualized, is that an existing potential? I would say if it is actualized then it's not a potential (anymore), so it isn't an existing potential. Would you consider a non actualized potential to be an existing potential, or do you think there isn't such a thing? Also, a non existing potential seems like a contradiction to me, but maybe that's just a semantic. You could say that in the case where there just is no potential it's a "non existing potential", which doesn't mean there is both a potential and at the same time that potential doesn't exist. Does that make sense? I also don't know what you mean by variations besides existing potentials. I have no idea what those could be, but that's because I don't think there are any potentials. I think there are only "actuals" where an actual just means a thing that exists, and any non existent thing is non actual; there are no "actuals" that were prior potentials. I could say, "there is a possible world that has actualized potentials", but that would just be a confused or inaccurate way of saying, "there are things that exist." I don't think there are possible worlds either. As I said, I don't see a difference between a potential and a possible world. There are only actual, existing worlds and worlds that don't exist, which I would call imaginary worlds.
@@JebeckyGranjola Yes, platonists believe that "potential"s are real things that exist. Whereas, "possible worlds" are real like things that could have existed. They are entirely different concepts. "Philosophy has no laboratory." So there's no way to disprove any of these. Which i agree makes them practically useless.
@goldenalt3166 I'm sorry that is not helpful at all. You didn't explain how these concepts are different. That's what I want to know. I know that an "existing potential" is a "potential that exists"- That's just a circular statement that doesn't tell me anything about the concept. That's why I asked a series of questions about how it relates to other concepts. You will need to answer that to make me understand it. You say that a possible world is a world that "could have existed." what's the difference between a potential and something that "could have existed?" That was my original question that still hasn't been answered. If something "could have existed" does that mean it doesn't actually exist? But something that has potential does actually exist? That's why I need to know what "existing" relates to in the phrase "existing potential."
@@JebeckyGranjola Maybe an example will help. There's a "possible world" where you never existed. Its not a real thing, just a thought experiment. Whereas, the "potential" for you to not exist in the future would be a real thing that actually exists now. There's no "potential" for you not to exist yesterday. But there is a "possible world" that you didn't exist yesterday.
Completely unrelated question but Joe you as a philosopher and scholar how can you assure that after 500 years or so your works will survive and be relevant/will gain importance for that era and humanity? Will your magnum opus or collection of your works be able to face test of time after 500 or so years later? Just like we currently studying the great works of old scholars. Yes we can't truly say anything with certainty but do you have any plans or will you plan in the future? Just a random Philosophical question you and many others like you working so passionately and working so hard on your expert subject.We are getting benefits from your works as well today but is your lifetime of hard work Worth it if just few years after your death it became almost or near non influencialy and non contributional? I was watching a video of Robert Greene where he was discussing similar things why he wrote 48 laws of power because he wanted to produce something which will last and be relevant even after 500 years.Also i was watching a biography video of ibn sina by let's talk religion and this same question came up in my mind for the current generation of philosophers or literature because most of the literature or works of our era's people will not survive or will not gain popularity which will make them irrelevant or non contributional on way or another after 500 or so years later. Just a random existential thought.
Yes it’s worth it to make the world better even if the effects only last a few years after ones death. I don’t know or love anyone 500 years from now, I love many people who live now. Making the world better for them is always worth it to me. I believe Joe’s work makes the world better, and so I think it’s worth it.
Much of that reverence for ancient figures is parasitic and unproductive. Why anyone still turns to Aristotle, for example, is beyond me. Virtually nothing he proposed in the arena of the natural sciences has stood the test of time at all.
@@popsbjd Great question. I'll give you a far more detailed account than you bargained for. So my first realization that James existed was when the algorithm put his shiny new rebuttal to the FTA into my lap a few months ago. Well, as a fan of Luke's work and having frequently referred to his paper myself over the years, I picked up immediately that James seemed entirely unfamiliar with a certain paper that Luke had published a few years back (A Reasonable Little Question, freely available online). It's around 40 pages, easily digestible, and covers the bases in a manner that left 90% of James's video attacking strawmen. So I brought it up in the comments, referring to it by name. James gave me some retort about how is he supposed to know which of Luke's work he's supposed to read and he's already read very much of Luke Barnes thank you very much. Ok whatever. I scroll down the comments and lo and behold, I find that buried in the comments, Luke himself has weighed in, telling James to read the same paper I recommended, and he had a rather frustrated tone. Interesting. Well at some point someone lets me know that these two debated in the past, about two years prior. I went to check it out. In their debate, Barnes repeatedly referred to what was at the time his newly published paper. He tells James, specifically, to read that paper 4 different times in the debate, much to my interest of course. James spent an enormous amount of the debate attacking positions that Luke doesn't even hold and claims that Luke doesn't make. It was a striking mismatch and he seemed really uninformed about his opponent. Well fast forward a couple of years and James produces this medium length "modern" rebuttal of the fta that clearly has STILL not read the paper that his highly qualified debate opponent kept imploring him to read. So I send him a message asking him why he hasn't read the paper when Luke asked him to read it 4 different times in their debate. Crickets. Then at some point I went back to that video to see what Luke's TH-cam handle was as that was the last time I'd seen him comment. His comment was gone. Idk if TH-cam creators can remove comments but it seemed pretty suspicious to me. I asked him if something happened to Luke's comment. Crickets. Idk. James seems to be more interested in using his large brain to develop arguments against versions of the FTA that are weaker than the most updated versions. He seems unaware of the rebuttals to his objections that have existed for years now, but with no excuse because of that debate. Luke isn't the only one either putting out really solid versions of the FTA. There's a couple rabbis that made a podcast called physics to God, you can get a transcript. They move slowly and cover their bases in a way that makes James's video seem almost silly. There's no way that I should know more about the FTA and the state of FTA modern arguments than James since he's more qualified than me to understand physics research and has debated it in the past, but here we are.
@@harlowcj in his recent discussion with Robin Colin's, James cited that exact paper FWIW. I also don't think Barnes's responses actually address some of the issues James raises, specifically what can we know about what is possible if we vary the constants AND laws. It's epistemically dark.
@@popsbjd But it's not. Luke spends time in that very paper arguing precisely the opposite, that we know for a fact the more we tweak, the less chemistry friendly it gets. And not only that, but physicists have done an enormous amount of theoretical tweaking over the last century. This is not an epistemically dark area. Think about it this way. You have a grab bag of all theoretical particles and energy fields. You pull out 30 some at random, and assign all 30 a random value. Is it really so epistemically dark to expect you're not going to get a universe that ends up having chemistry? I'll check it the interview probably, but I was so put off by my interaction with James to this point I just have no faith that he gets it or is trying to. He tries to make things sound very complicated and unknown, but it's simply not.
The the work The Rationality of Induction, the chapter "The Myth of Formal Logic". Only a very very very (emphasize on very)shallow and narrow set of argument can be described as formal. Most formal fallacies are not actually formal at all. David Stove, check him
16:47 Very interesting argument! But I think that this problem of truth doesn't apply only to past-future propositions. The correspondence theory is also plagued by counterfactuals, possibilities, etc. For example, it is true that IF that bullet didn't miss Trump's head, he would be dead. And yet, there is nothing in the world that corresponds to that counterfactual proposition. It is a possible world. Unless we presuppose Lewis' far-fetched modal realism, I think the theory has to be modified in order to account for these exceptions.
That's why I was surprised to hear that this "there are multiple types of being" view is apparently unpopular among philosophers when the correspondence theory of truth is, if I'm not mistaken, the majority position. How can you have the latter without the former?
I like mathematical model of change because it allows for continuity and doesnt require binary is or isn't thinking. Y changed with respect to x if and only if Y(x) - Y(x+x0) is not equal zero. Where x0 Note that change in this view must always be with respect to some quality (time, space etc). Which is cool because it fits neatly with God being definitionally unchanging (being unaffected by either time, space or any other factor). Which should make any theist happy to work with it.
@13:31 Eternalism can't be used as a rebuttal as it (B-theory, Block Universe) is occasionalist. Thus using a case for theism as an argument against theism.
@@goldenalt3166 Schmidt's argument is DOA... you can't use a theist model of causation to rebut a theist model for causation to argue that causation isn't theist.
@@eenkjet You seem confused. Of course, theist's models can contain contradictory claims both to their own and other theists. Just because someone holds to a claim doesn't make it valid nor fit with other claims in a particular model. What was the specific reason that Smidt gave for this being a problem? And why do you think that's untrue aside from the fact that some kind of "theist" holds that view. It's like saying you can't object to a Muslim is using the trinity because other theists accept the trinity.
Already at the start 'Majesty of Reason' doesn't comprehend philosophy, logic, and linguistics. He thinks that a definition is circular because it uses words to define other words, but any intelligent person knows that all words are defined from other words, and the reason that the dictionary is ultimately not circular in it's definitions is that the meaning of those words comes from the real world experiences that each person acknowledges in the word. The words, and their definitions, recall to a person's memory some real world experience, and that is why the word has meaning. 'Majesty of Reason' doesn't understand how words are actually defined. Hence, when Trent defines change as a "potential coming to be actualized" he is not using words to define other words, but he is instead asking the listener to recall their real world experience of potential events being actualized. In other words, if you have had that experience then you know what his term means. However, in the same way you cannot describe color to a blind man, if you have not had that experience, or you fail to recognize the experience he is describing, then the word would seem meaningless, and its definition circular. To a man who is deaf, any attempt to describe music will ultimately seem like a circular definition. In this case, 'Majesty of Reason' is the deaf man. So what is "change? Well, you know that experience when the world was one way (potential), but then it was a different way (potential actualized)? We have all had that real world experience, and that is the experience to which we are referring when we use the word "change". Your car was spotless and new, but now it's rusty and old? That's change. You're hair was perfectly quaffed before the interview but afterward you look in the mirror to find it was total mess the whole time? That's change. Your bread was bread, but after popping from the toaster it's now toast. This experience we conceptualize with the term "change". Perhaps this is the first time 'Majesty of Reason' has ever analyzed how words are defined; it's a trait of biased thinkers to only use critical thinking on ideas with which they disagree. I say this because if this guy had ever analyzed how words get their meaning he would not have made such a rudimentary mistake.
Question: do you understand the Aristotelian metaphysics of "potentiality" and "actuality"? Judging by your phrasing ("he is instead asking the listener to recall their real-world experience of potential events being actualized") it seems you are basically illiterate on the subject.
Hey Joe, Would you mind if I send you two books on vedic philosophy with some new perspectives that no one has ever heard and they, I think provide some support to theistic case and are free of those objections(existential inertia and stuff because we think material cause isn't contigent) which christian and islamic philosophers face?
I think you need to be more concerned with your own mental health than to devote an entire channel to responding to one apologist. It's much easier to continue to have faith in your fellow man if you don't subject yourself to the frustration that tends to arise when engaging with the same interlocutor, which seems to become repetitive, because they tend to be repetitive. They may reply to points you've made in a given post, but in a month they will be presenting the exact same argument in their newer videos, like the interaction never happened.
in places like 33:20 how can you have the energy to continue to debate? He's saying, outloud, that he isn't open to discover the truth, and that he isn't following where the evidence leads, but that he reads the bible and is looking to find philosophical or scientific arguments that support it. Why waste time arguing with such a person?
All top-down (agent first) origin scenarios necessarily include the infinite regression issue, something that cannot be defined away. This means that if you reject the possibility of infinite regressions in objective reality then you also necessarily reject all agent first origin scenarios. If you accept the possibility of infinite regressions in objective reality then you also necessarily accept that no specific agent can sit at the origin because infinite regressions cannot have finite origins. Attempts to define a deity as being uncaused are inherently invalid, infinite regressions cannot be broken by simply defining them away.
lol the thing is, if it takes 2+ hours for the people to prove "why got is real", with all these fancy equations and stuff. imma just not care at that point. if god wants to be known, they can do it in a way that doesn't make me need to get a PHD in 5 diff topics and become a member of the global mental gymnastics team.
That's a pretty good argument against arguments tbh. I always just frame what theists are saying in a Bayesian way and ask myself or them "If a god existed, would you expect him to rely on your arguments to make his existence known to me or would he have done things a little differently?"
I would question the claim that most philosophical arguments for God are unnecessarily complex though. I feel like they tend to simply be very common intuitions and beliefs of lay believers simply put into technical language for the sake of academic discourse.
I love that modern apologists are unable to come up with better arguments than Aquinas and that Aquinas was obviously wrong and his arguments are easily shown to be fallacious.
@@bilbobaggins9893 I think that Joe and Fodor largely agree when it comes to the argument from miracles. I am not sure they would have a ton to disagree about.
@@Nontradicath I don’t mean they should debate that specific topic, I would just like to see the two of them debate in general. Joe is fun because he can debate both atheists and theists. Although as a theist I think he spends too much time against theism and wish he would spend more time against atheism. After all as an agnostic he thinks the evidence is equal for both but his channel doesn’t really suggest that.
@@Nontradicath also I would much rather Inspiring Philosophy do a resurrection debate with Fedor. I think Mike is the better debator, philosopher, and apologist.
16:30 The Euclidian 4D Minkowski manifold of SR, and the Rimeannian manifold of GR agree with observation, and make testable predictions that _have_ been tested and not found wanting. The same is not true of the Craig view of time, which does not fit in with reality, yet he persists (eternally!) to ignore its failure.
_Orrrrrr...._ Dyer could start trying to publish articles about TAG in reputable philosophy journals and see how far he gets when he's not just bullying people in a livestream for his incel fans?
@@JohnSmith-bq6nf I mean... he's right. Take any variety of TAG, flip all of the "gods" to "not-gods" and see if anyone has a meaningful symmetry breaker. Turns out that "logic is only possible if god" is about as right as "logic is only possible if not-god."
Defining change requires minimally a definition of identity, of which there is much ambiguity. Eternal actualization is only a problem for specific theologies and this part of his argument is only for generic deism. Naive notions of classical logic and existence are too restrictive to discuss this topic, something like modal logic is required to distinguish possibilities. The "becomes" definition of change is circular, "at" undefined without identity (any object is not identical to itself spatiotemporally between any 2 events assuming indiscernible identity). There are objective events in general relativity, otherwise you lose causality. Although piecewise differences in space or time are permitted, all observers must agree on spacetime intervals between events. Infinite regress is not contradictory but has a lot of metalogical baggage that virtually all logicians have strenuously avoided.
Yes, you should make a channel solely for responding to Trent Horn’s arguments. But aside from that, I wanted to ask you about part of your response to Dr. WLC’s argument for the causal principle: From what I understand, WLC’s argument for a causal principle is basically this: “If nothing brought about the universe’s existence, then nothing could also cease the universe’s existence because “nothingness” cannot bring about or constrain. Therefore, there needs to be a first cause of the universe’s existence.” But if it’s the case that “nothingness” cannot bring about or constrain things, shouldn’t that also apply to itself? And therefore, we’d have to assume that “something” exists even before the argument even begins?
How the fuck are u so productive. Im struggling and taking my time to work through ur material, but u just pump out more of them. I should be happpy im learning so much, but it just makes me mad lmao.
As an agnostic, why do you always attack theistic arguments and not atheistic ones? There are so many videos where you "rebutted" famous contents that christian apologetics produce.
@@mohammad_noori9362 (1) I don’t always attack theistic arguments; I’ve made lots of videos defending theistic arguments, and on other people’s channels - including even Trent’s channel and Alex O’Connor - I have criticized a number of atheistic arguments. (2) My philosophical research specializes in arguments for theism - ontological arguments, the Kalam, contingency arguments, classical theistic proofs, etc. - so it’s no surprise that this is my main focus on my channel. (3) I’m filling a niche in the market here. Almost no one else on TH-cam competently addresses modal ontological arguments, modal cosmological arguments, classical theistic proofs, and even the Kalam. By contrast, apologists already saturate the market with billions of responses to atheistic arguments. It’s no surprise, then, that I would fill what I see is a dire need in the market - competent criticism of certain theistic arguments. Many more reasons here, but these are 3 that came to mind
@@MajestyofReason Fair enough bro. BTW, I'm a big fan of you and really enjoy the stuff you're making about philosophy in general, and special fields like philosophy of religion and your video on Robert Nozick's "Experience Machine" was pretty stimulating for me. Unfortunately, in my country (Iran) there's no remarkable progress in analytic philosophy (specially philosophy of religion) and continental philosophers like Foucault, Hegel, Deluze, Spinoza, Heidegger and others are the topics of interest among our academicians. For example, we have only one book (written or translated) concerning modal logic (Written by Ziaa Movahed) and there is absolutely no paper regarding the use of modal metaphysics in arguments like ontological or contingency argument. Here, only people who are a bit familiar with english can learn about this stuff and your channel was a great help for me.
@@MajestyofReason Ashkan (your friend with whom you interviewed swinburne) is among the few people who are pretty good at doing philosophy of religion and write interesting essays on probability therory and its relation to theism and atheism in Farsi. Talking to him was very useful in my philosophical journey and part of my familiarity with you was due to my conversations with him
Isn't this just using a lot of words to say that "God _can_ break causality but nothing else can"? I think that regardless of whether you believe in the existence of gods or not, the train of carts is either moving infinitely or it can start moving without being pulled first. I fail to see how is that argument relevant to the existence or non-existence of gods in particular.
I don’t think he’s a nightmare so much as he’s helping to raise the level of discourse. Trent is just giving a quick pop level speech on arguments for God, and Joe just appears to also be throwing out some of the discourse around these ideas and particular objections. It’s very good and illuminating for both sides
I didn’t watch the video, but I can already tell that it presupposes and uses concepts like logic and truth, assuming they exist and are worth pursuing. That’s not a scientific endeavor. The fact that you posted this video proves the existence of non-material realities. Call it God, the Demiurge, or whatever you like, but you’re already serving or submitting to something non-material.
I'm sympathetic to this kind of reasoning, but it's not a "proof." It's an interesting idea that there are underlying facts about our reality and that we are capable of understanding and modeling them on a practical level because it benefits us, but it doesn't mean there's a conscious designer that created the universe or us with a specific purpose. Personally, as Theist I think it's reasonable to believe it. But I have yet to find "proof" of it.
@@josephtnied Yeah, I guess it depends on how you define "proof." If you're looking for scientific proof of something that science itself is nested in, you'll never be able to square that circle. The best you can do within the scientific realm is make probabilistic arguments or inferences to the best explanation, based on the phenomena we observe in the universe.
I don't get the circular definition thing. Aren't all definitions at some point going be 'circular' if by circular you mean synonymous? For example, if I asked you to define 'being' how would you do it? I'm guessing the first thing you would think of is 'existence,' but don't these two words basically mean the same thing? Further, it seems straw-manish to substitute synonyms in definitions (not accusing you of anything I just don't understand it and don't know how better to describe it). E.g., imagine someone said the word 'woman' meant 'adult human female'. Because 'female' and 'woman' can sometimes be used synonymously, does that mean I can substitute them and show how the definition is circular? Woman = adult human woman. If we take the typical thomistic definition of 'change' as 'the reduction of potency to act,' none of the words in the definiens are the same as the definiendum. Why would that not suffice for a non-circular definition? If we suppose we can make this substitution then we might be able to say change = the change of potency to act, but this seems to me like the woman example.
@toppedtop5787 The arguments are bad on their own merits. So the question has to be - why cling to bad arguments to support your worldview - ie what is so important about your worldview that you have to make bad arguments to justify it. He has a choice. He can adapt his worldview, accept he believes in God for emotional reasons, and stop making prescriptive videos about how other people are sinning - or he can do what he clearly wants to do...make videos attacking other people because they don't conform to his worldview.
In regards to the Resurrection, Loke has a newer book _Studies on the Origin of Divine and Resurrection Christology_ where he states the terms Paul uses _"are not ambiguous with regards to the nature of the seeing when they are used with reference to persons with bodies (such as Jesus)."_ Refutation: Paul does not specify whether these "appearances" happened before or after Jesus was believed to be in heaven. According to the New Testament, the appearance to Paul happened afterwards and he makes no distinction regarding the others in 1 Cor 15:5-8. This makes the type of "seeing" ambiguous and refutes Loke’s argument.
1:52:00 (Excuse the bad english and the rushed manner of this comment) One reason i dont like this objection is that the when i think about it life as a particle sounds horrible .Youre effectively just a particle in empty space with doing nothing but talking, thinking and wandering. No delicious food to eat, no hobbys to entertain yourself with, no soccer to play with your friends, no movie to watch at cinema which wouldn't even exist. Also how will they reproduce, will they be living eternally like this if not what will happen to their bodies will they decompose to quarks, after a trillions of years will the universe be filled with galaxy sized particles or quark corpses with the surviving particles swimming through the corpses. The main reason I dont like this refutation because what i think particles would do is complain about why god gave them such a dumb design
At around the 2 hr mark - surely Trent's story about Tahiti completely undermines what he's trying to argue for doesn't it? I mean, sure - to people who live in the tropics, the idea of ice is unfathomable, so yeah, of course they're going to think walking on water would take a miracle. But it isn't a miracle. And we know it isn't a miracle. And now we know that people living without the modern scientific understanding of reality are prone to inventing miraculous answers for things which are pretty trivial.
Regarding your segment about Fatima, in the Argument from Miracles chapter, I would love to add a few more quick points about Fatima: (1) Lucia, the main seer of the Fatima apparition, made a failed prophecy about the end of WW1. On that fateful day in October 1917, Lucia said that WW1 would end "that same day". We have accounts written by a certain Father Formigao, who was sent to investigate the Fatima Appairiton, only about a week after the apparition, in which Fr Formigao said to Lucia that she must have misheard Our Lady, because the newspaper was still reporting on the various battles going on on the other side of the continent, but Lucia doubled down, telling Fr Formigao that that is what Our Lady said and that was that. Odd! You wouldn't expect that from an authentic apparition of Our Lady! (2) You will often hear about other prophecies, with these supposedly being successful. Namely, I am talking about the deaths of Lucia's cousins, as well as the start of WW2. The only problem is that Lucia's cousins died in 1919 and 1920, and the prophecy about their deaths was first mentioned by Lucia in 1927. And the prophecy about the start of WW2? That was made in 1941. WW2 started in 1939. So, the only successful prophecies were the post-dated ones, and the pre-dated prophecy failed. (3) Lucia said that Our Lady told her that she would appear "with Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel" ... the problem here should jump out at any faithful Catholic. There is no other "our Lady" than "our Lady", Mary, the Mother of God. Our Lady of Fatima simply IS Our Lady of Carmel who simply IS Our Lady of Sorrows. They're all the same person, there is no pantheon of Our Ladies. But, it was common for rural Portugeese villagers in the 1910s to not be entirely Orthodox in their understanding of Catholic theology. So, this really seems like something that Lucia would have made up, because this flies in the face of Catholic understandings of theology and who Mary is. Also, Our Lady of Carmel is widely understood by modern historians to be a complete legend, a myth. There are no contemporaneous sources that recount this apparition that supposedly occurred to St Simon Stock, and we have good reason to think that this tale was invented about 200 years after the life of St Simon Stock. So, yeah, there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of the Fatima apparition. I find that the average Catholic is quite confident in Fatima, and I do not know if the average Catholic has read the primary sources, like "Fatima in Lucia's Own Words" or "Critical Documentation of Fatima", both of which add much to consider.
I like reading your comments, they have substance to them, something I can really think about. You ever get told you should be a teacher?
@@macmac1022 Thanks so much for the kind words, Mac mac! Honestly I don't think I would make a very good teacher haha, I can hardly string together a cogent video on TH-cam, so how could I expect to fare any better in making presentations for lectures to a live class haha!!
@@Nontradicath That is exactly what a good teacher would say as they are humble LOL. You speak in a very understandable way and you listen well, I think you would do better then you think you would, and for sure could not be worse then some that we have today anyways LOL.
@@macmac1022 Well you're very kind, but I am not quitting my current job any time soon, so, students everywhere can sigh a big sigh of relief haha!
@@Nontradicath LOL
Trent: *inhales*
Joe: Not so fast!
You and Trent are literally Tom and Jerry haha
You're figuratively butchering the use of "literally." You could maybe say they're the Tom and Jerry of TH-cam apologetics. And please read The Master and His Emissary by Ian McGilchrist.
@@lkae4 Isn't he literally butchering the word literally?
@@theintelligentmilkjug944 Literally butchering the word "literally" means to take the word, put it on a chopping block and hitting it multiple times with a steel cleaver. That's literally butchering and yes, everyone you know has been grievously misusing the term all these years. "Literally" is short for "literally (as opposed to figuratively)..."
Sad analogy because Tom never really catches Jerry :/
@Ikae4 irrelevant...
What Trent said about lightning was ridiculous
The reason we don't imprison lightning isn't because it's "determined by molecular forces"
The reason we don't imprison lightning is because we can't.... I guarantee you that if there was a way to imprison lightning and preventing it from hurting anyone or causing damage ever again, we definitely would
@@KayleePrince-we5pb this is also a nice point. It indicates that we could still be justified in imprisoning someone even if they’re not morally responsible. This point is similar to the quarantine model discussed in my previous video responding to Trent
Isn't this almost exactly what a lighting rod is? We divert the lighting from the public and into the ground where it's held. So we already do this.
I think Trent is making an oblique reference to Sam Harris and his views on determinism. Harris has argued that the argument from consequence of how a society informed by determinism absolves persons from moral agency and accountability and thus also free from blame is a non sequitur. Even if it were the case that persons are as predetermined in their actions as lightning, hurricanes, or earthquakes a society would still have an interest and be justified in keeping those people locked up. If not to rehabilitate them then to simply keep them out of circulation.
@jlayman89 I don't think you even need to compare that to imprisonment. It's a *better* solution to the problem.
Imprisonment itself only happens after we've already failed to prevent a bad outcome, *and* when we don't have a better solution than to restrain someone.
@nio804 thats true. The lighting got where it "wanted" to go.
Your videos covering mainstream apologetics are by far the most informative for those who are more casual about philosophy of religion. If you ever decide to cover different apologists/arguments which fall into your field of interest I would fully support that.
As a Christian and Trent horn fan, I got a good laugh out of you using a Trent Horn style thumbnail against him.😂
Voting 'YES' to Fodor v Horn!
Joe, I've seen a lot of TH-cam content centered around religion, and I have to say that your arguments and presentation of this material are second to none. Articulate, sure to explain the nuance but understandable all the same. Thank you!
im in support of your new channel idea
4:00 water absolutely can become a solid on its own via black-body radiation. Wait around long enough, and it will freeze.
Of course, you'll also have to wait for the earth to freeze via black-body radiation if that water is on Earth... but that just means the wait time increases :)
Came into the comments to say just this.
But we should expand on the objection so it's not just quibbling with the example: it actually seems to refute the metaphysics being presented behind change, or at least requires a much more complex account of what actualizes the potential for water to freeze than just "cold air." If it is in fact water actualizing its own potential to freeze (for instance, because of its own emissions of radiation) then it would seem to at least refute the argument from motion.
@@benroberts2222At a minimum, Aquinas was arguing from ignorance of modern physics. Another example is that planets are actually made of particles that hold themselves up without any ultimate foundation.
I don't think these arguments are salvagable given that they base assumptions don't hold.
Aaargh, Craig’s arguments against an actual infinite are the ultimate zombie arguments. Completely dead but they just won’t go away…
@@ChristopherMenzel you’ve got that right, Christopher!
I’m glad to hear that Trent has given up on those arguments.
Where can we find your paper under review re S5? I’m wondering how many, if any, of the arguments against S5 are just variations on those of Prior, Bob Adams, and Greg Fitch.
@@ChristopherMenzel just email me at my Princeton email address - that’s on my website🙂
@@ChristopherMenzelProof of resurrection? 😂
I really do love Philosophy of Religion
If you make another channel, it absolutely must be called, "Majesty of Trent"
Thanks for the strong responses and resources! Glad your recovering from your surgery!
Just when I needed something to listen to on a 3 hour trip :)
Awesome video, and great to see the knee recovery progress!
“until they cry for their mothers” 😂😂
Thank you for giving voice to my absolute #1 pet peeve that apologists commit: how they will casually and with complete confidence assert an ontology that is over 2000 years old and is resoundingly rejected by the great majority of academic philosophers and almost every practicing physicist.
The ontology of cause and effect is a PHYSICAL claim. Why should I believe there's such a thing as "a potential" that isn't just my conceptual formulation of likely future outcomes? What evidence is there of this? What does it explain that is not accounted for in much greater detail by the standard model? This should be the main focus of apologists, yet they always start their arguments with it already assumed.
For Catholics, it's part of their dogma.
I can't listen to Trent for this long. He's doing his part in making sure the vast majority of us non Christians never even consider or reconsider the notion.
He's using WLC's "best" argument: the argument from lots of arguments.
You know what's funny?
Some theist making the case for theism at first by relying on Aristotelian metaphysics or the argument from motion/change, but one moment later doing it by relying on the Kalam and entirely different metaphysics.
Let's embrace incompatible metaphysical frameworks to make the case for god! And let's ignore that Aristotle himself maintained that the universe is eternal.
It's such a refreshing and intellectual defense coming from Trent Horn! Not cherry-picking and rhetorical campaign at all!
I’m not sure that Kalam is necessarily incompatible with Aristotelian metaphysics. I also don’t think Aristotelian metaphysics, at least the portion used for the argument from change entail an eternal universe
You dont have to accept that the universe is eternal to run the argument from change.
It’s not incompatible. There are aristoelian Thomists who accept kalam.
Maybe go read More about classical theism and it's positions on the eternity of the world before criticizing it.
I find it strange that the defences of the arguments seem to deny the trinity. But they don't seem to care about that.
I would love to see a discussion with Trent Horn and James Fodor about the resurrection!
I would also love to see a discussion between you and Trent at some point soon!
@hermes2056 Trent often does stuff on a more popular level, so hearing some more high-brow discussion could be incredibly fruitful.
@hermes2056 Ok buddy lol. If you say so.
@hermes2056 Philosophy isn’t dead. I have no clue what you mean.
Who’s playing word games?
Also, who is advocating for a reality tv level debate?
@hermes2056 That’s not true, a lot of people convert because of Trent Horn’s work. I find a lot of the debates that Trent does to be really edifying, more so the informal discussions I think.
I listened so you don't have to. I couldn't make it past 15 minutes, though. Only 15 minutes in and here are some major issues regarding the rebuttal to Trent's Argument from Change:
1. @ 5:20 - Joe accuses Trent of "Circular Definition", yet the definition Trent Horn uses is from physics books. Is Joe saying that Physics (AKA science) is really just using circular definitions as a basis? Besides that, Joe is merely adding synonyms to Trent's definition, instead of using the words Trent said himself. Trent did not use synonyms of "change". @ 6:20 he says it's easy to imagine a hypothetical situation where God creates a "timeless" angel, yet Joe somehow fails to recognize the very obvious change of "God without any angels" to "God now has an angel".
2. @ 7:05 Joe says there are no good reasons to accept Trent's argument for change. Then he fails to say why, but just points to a book to read instead. You can't summarize?
3. @ 7:50 Joe asserts that Trent's argument is implausible because there is no such thing as potential existence, but only actual existence, because something either exists actually or not at all. However, as a human, I potentially existed before I was a fetus, and then I actually existed when I became a fetus. @ 10:15 he appeals to Zeno Paradox, which is actually a logical fallacy.
"
4. @ 11:15 He states that there are superior definitions of change that should be accepted, and that would defeat Trent's argument. His example of a superior definition is (brace yourself): "X changes if for some predicate or property F, either X becomes F or X becomes not F." I kid you not. See 11:50. In this view, change is actually motion and is a function of position with respect to time. You never heard of this "at-at theory" because its application in science will neglect average velocities.
Happy for your recovering and seeing you play soccer again : )
Thoughts about hitting him up for another debate? I could be laser focused on a specific argument or something. It's been a while since both of you actually talked and I love both of your contents
High school teacher here in Texas. Just searched tiktok and you're not making content. I think you could reach a lot of young people and equip them with some tools to navigate life with. There are a lot of bad arguments out in the market place, and unfortunately they are way more popular than Trent's bad ideas. I know you're probably way busy doing real scholarship. But a couple of 2 minute videos a day could boost your popularity!?
You seem to spend a lot of times rebutting theists (especially trent) and their arguments , maybe try rebutting atheists every once in a while
God send u?
BuT tHe DiAlEcTiC
Most atheists aren't making positive assertive claims about the null hypothesis. They mostly rely on the lack of sufficient evidence for theists claims to make their arguments for them. If God's real, then it would be as obvious as it is in the Bible, and even then you had people worshipping other gods and disbelieving the Judean god, and people disbelieving Jesus to his face. That's all the evidence atheists need to believe in their own existence. And even if they're wrong, hey, then they they're wrong and most of them will be willing to accept that, or else continue believing what they believe, just like theists do. None of this shit matters, at least not until the knife gets twisted with politics.
I get this comment every time I respond to Trent Horn, and my response is always the same: (1) I’ve made quite a few videos defending theistic arguments [which amounts to 'rebutting atheism'] on my channel, and on other people's channels - including Alex O'Connor's channel and even Trent’s channel - I have criticized a number of atheistic arguments. (2) My philosophical research specializes in arguments for theism. Specifically: ontological arguments, the Kalam, contingency arguments, classical theistic proofs, and arguments against classical theism as a model of God, are my research interests in Phil Rel. I have published extensively only on these aspects of phil religion. It’s no surprise, then, that theistic arguments is my main focus on my channel. If people don't like me focusing on my research interests, they can unsubscribe. (3) Atheists on this platform tend to divide in two: those who are philosophically competent, and those who are philosophically incompetent. The latter aren't worth engaging. And the former tend to use arguments that I actually agree with, or have sympathies with: the problem of evil, divine hiddenness, religious diversity/confusion, and so on. So among the atheists on TH-cam worth engaging, typically they aren't pushing arguments I disagree with. Hence fewer critical engagement with atheists. (4) I’m filling a niche in the market. Almost no one on TH-cam competently addresses modal ontological arguments, modal cosmological arguments, classical theistic proofs, and even the Kalam. And certainly no one on TH-cam engages these with rigor and high quality argumentation. By contrast, apologists already saturate the market with billions of responses to atheistic arguments, and already bring on quality philosophers etc to respond to atheistic arguments. It’s no surprise, then, that I would fill what I see is a dire need in the market - competent criticism of theistic arguments. (5) I also just find theistic arguments with a metaphysical focus much more interesting than atheistic ones -- hence the differential focus on responding to these arguments (which I tend to disagree with, save stage 1 of contingency arguments). Notice: even though I agree with, e.g., versions of the problem of evil and evidential versions of divine hiddenness and religious confusion etc., I very rarely make videos on these topics. There are some other reasons too (e.g., differential weaponization of philosophy among certain groups in my experience), but these suffice.
@@vulteiuscatellus4105 see message above
I would love to see a debate between James and Trent!
Greetings from Brazil!
💚💛💙
Can you expand more on the definition of change being circular? To me it just seems aristotle is describing what he believes are intrinsic parts of nature and describing a process. Potency and act are not described in terms of change then, so I fail to see how it's circular
A trent horn and james debate on the ressurection is a cool idea ...
Forgot to comment I would love to see a discussion with Fodor and Horn on the resurrection. I think the RHBS model is a very good explanation for the minimal facts
it would be very helpful if you could post short videos responding to specific arguments or claims.
First, objective morals wouldn't exist even if god did exist, because that system would be dependent on Trent's subjective opinion that doing what god says is moral. Second it's an appeals to consequence fallacy, Trent personally finding reality without objective morals to be unappealing does not make the alternative true. Finally the moral argument is used by apologists to defend actions they themselves find immoral but inconsistently justify using Divine Command Theory
1:59:10 . . . "you've got a very large pickle and you're slobbering all over the pickle." 😮😮😮
Congratulations on the thing at the end! No spoilers. 🙂
Hey Joe there are arguments against naturalism that I've heard that I'd like to run by you. Is there a way I can contact you, to present these or something...?
I’ve sent him emails before and he’s responded very quickly!
@sneakysnake2330 the one on his website? Because that's for professional inquires, and mine is not professional.
16:37 Ironically, GR pushed me to take eternism seriously, God's omnipotence was what originally convinced me of it's truth. Obviously, this argument holds less water for me now.
Philosophy of religion has had Aquinas vs Hume, Russell vs Copleston, and now Horn "vs" Schmid
Epicurus vs Plato
I am curious. Is there a reason beyond thinking it's good for you to rebut Trent's argument because you think they're wrong for focusing on Trent a lot specifically? Perhaps it's the size of the audience that makes it worthwhile?
My speculation (which you can correct) is that you have concerns about Trent's approach to apologetics. I think those concerns incude: running in well-informed philosophy of religion circles, being given reasons to reject certain points he makes at least on a few different occasions, and being concerned that his approach in some ways is, nonetheless, continuing to choose to passionately (in his own way) defend his faith with said points with good public speaking skills because he thinks it helps reassure his audience (and/or himself) in the faith while just kind of ignoring your points. Am I just off base here?
I think MoR spends so much time responding to Trent because he is one of the few active apologists that is worthy of responding to. Trent is just on another level and strikes a nice balance between making accessable but also somewhat robust arguments. Most other apologists are more accessable but lack any real philosophical robustness.
@ldov6373 There's lots of Christian apologists so that doesn't explain his particular focus on Trent.
@Isaac_L.. I wouldn't say he's on another level. He gives quite hacky bad Catholic arguments at times. He is a very eloquent public speaker. I mean sure he's better than most but that's not really saying much. Since MOR focuses much more on high level arguments from those publishing in philosophy, it doesn’t explain the particular focus on some of the points made by Trent that are not high level arguments. It's not even like Trent's arguments are even the best of Thomism given that MOR has specialized in addressing cosmological arguments from Thomistic viewpoints.
@@blamtasticful Most of Trent's arguments that MoR responds to have little to do with catholicism and are used just as much by non-Catholic apologists as by him. I really think Trent is probably the best apologist outside of academia (but I'm interested to see who you think is also at or above his level). And MoR does have content responding to the likes of other popular apologists like WLC and Frank Turek.
@Isaac_L.. I tend to distinguish between apologists who have specialized more in Biblical Studies and those who have specialized in philosophy. I think there are better apologists on the Biblical Studies side of things such as Michael Licona and Craig Blomberg.
On the Philosophical side of things people forget about William Lane Craig's contributions. There are individuals such as Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and Alexander Pruss who is very popular these days. J P Moreland is good for views where time didn't come into existence.
To me, Trent is popular because of his long association with Catholic Answers, his speaking skills, and his reputation within thr Catholic community. I don't think he gets more points for referencing Thomism as he often doesn't even represent modern Thomists well. I think someone like Sean McDowell gives better answers than Trent depending on the question. Not saying Trent never makes good points.
The argument from motion/change is based on a patently false premise, the need for an initiator. There is no such thing as stationary in our relativistic universe. All mass/energy is born in motion and remains so as long as it exists. Photons for instance exist only at c. Even things that appear to be relatively stationary aren't when you examine them closely. No first mover, no first cause is ever required to make this happen, it is just how things work.
Motion here does not refer to movement. This name is very misleading. The argument really should be called 'argument from change'. You'd still be right, though. It is implausible that there ever was a state of non-existence that transitioned to existence. Furthermore, a middle-way state of affairs like 'potential existence' is just a primary facie absurd idea. Something either exists or doesn't, period.
@@Nexus-jg7ev Yes, it is not possible for change not to happen. The reason that something came from nothing is because in objective reality, nothing, a true zero energy state, is inherently unstable, it cannot persist. It naturally decays into a net zero energy state where mass and energy exist, where positive and negative energy add up to zero.
The potential versus actual thing is another equivocation problem. Potential existence is subjective and actual existence is objective. Subjective existence and objective existence are two entirely different things, they cannot transition into each other.
@@letstrytouserealscienceoka3564 What is your opinion on some that argue that absolute nothingness has no capacity to change? Except arguing that then it surely had no capacity to not change.
@@Ryba125 My opinion is that there is no such thing as "absolute nothingness" except as a subjective notion. It is a philosophical notion that has no equivalent in objective reality. The closest thing that could possibly objectively exist is a true zero energy state, which is an actual physical thing.
If absolute nothingness could exist and was not able to change then there is no way that anything could ever exist, which is rather obviously not true. An absolute nothingness most certainly precludes the existence of any form of agent.
philosophers should be required to obtain a physics degree. 99% of this actual/potential stuff would be finally put to bed.
So with regards with Ontological Pluralism, does it rule out transitional forms? Like cake batter in the oven before its finished baking...is it a cake, a pre-cake, just ingredients, something in between? Something with the potential to become a cake but with no clear point when it actually does? E.g. does a cake need frosting to be a cake?
But what's your favorite appetizer? Mines definitely the kalam dip.
So Trent managed to fill in several squares on my apologetics bingo card. Which part of that was the new case?
How this argument is evolving is making me believe that the opposite arguement for God may end up proving Gods existence, because if the universe should be infinite, wouldn't it be that their is an infinite entity outside the infinite universe responsible for the cause of the infinite universe ? wouldn't it apply to God despite the fact that the Hilbert hotel hypothesis if explained in the real world will prove infinity contradiction rather than using mathematical theorem , I think this view should also make me believe in God
2:04:23 No, youtube has become over saturated with debates, and I have also noticed that watching debates is *generally* not very edifying and is more to entertain
I disagree. Many debates consolidate arguments in comprehensible packages and offer broad introductions for interested parties to explore further. Some suck, but plenty of long form individual presentations suck.
Would love to see James debate Trent
I don't understand the difference between potential and possible worlds. Trent said a glass of water has the potential to be frozen. You say that something is either actual, or it isn't- which makes perfect sense to me. The glass of water is actually frozen, or it's not. But then wouldn't you also say there is a possible world in which the glass of water is frozen?
It seems those are two different concepts. Certainly a possible world could contain an actualized potential of any existing potential, but possible worlds can contain other variations that aren't existing potentials.
@goldenalt3166 What do you mean by existing potential? If a potential is actualized, is that an existing potential? I would say if it is actualized then it's not a potential (anymore), so it isn't an existing potential. Would you consider a non actualized potential to be an existing potential, or do you think there isn't such a thing? Also, a non existing potential seems like a contradiction to me, but maybe that's just a semantic. You could say that in the case where there just is no potential it's a "non existing potential", which doesn't mean there is both a potential and at the same time that potential doesn't exist. Does that make sense? I also don't know what you mean by variations besides existing potentials. I have no idea what those could be, but that's because I don't think there are any potentials. I think there are only "actuals" where an actual just means a thing that exists, and any non existent thing is non actual; there are no "actuals" that were prior potentials. I could say, "there is a possible world that has actualized potentials", but that would just be a confused or inaccurate way of saying, "there are things that exist." I don't think there are possible worlds either. As I said, I don't see a difference between a potential and a possible world. There are only actual, existing worlds and worlds that don't exist, which I would call imaginary worlds.
@@JebeckyGranjola Yes, platonists believe that "potential"s are real things that exist. Whereas, "possible worlds" are real like things that could have existed. They are entirely different concepts.
"Philosophy has no laboratory." So there's no way to disprove any of these. Which i agree makes them practically useless.
@goldenalt3166 I'm sorry that is not helpful at all. You didn't explain how these concepts are different. That's what I want to know. I know that an "existing potential" is a "potential that exists"- That's just a circular statement that doesn't tell me anything about the concept. That's why I asked a series of questions about how it relates to other concepts. You will need to answer that to make me understand it. You say that a possible world is a world that "could have existed." what's the difference between a potential and something that "could have existed?" That was my original question that still hasn't been answered. If something "could have existed" does that mean it doesn't actually exist? But something that has potential does actually exist? That's why I need to know what "existing" relates to in the phrase "existing potential."
@@JebeckyGranjola Maybe an example will help. There's a "possible world" where you never existed. Its not a real thing, just a thought experiment.
Whereas, the "potential" for you to not exist in the future would be a real thing that actually exists now. There's no "potential" for you not to exist yesterday. But there is a "possible world" that you didn't exist yesterday.
Completely unrelated question but Joe you as a philosopher and scholar how can you assure that after 500 years or so your works will survive and be relevant/will gain importance for that era and humanity? Will your magnum opus or collection of your works be able to face test of time after 500 or so years later? Just like we currently studying the great works of old scholars. Yes we can't truly say anything with certainty but do you have any plans or will you plan in the future?
Just a random Philosophical question you and many others like you working so passionately and working so hard on your expert subject.We are getting benefits from your works as well today but is your lifetime of hard work Worth it if just few years after your death it became almost or near non influencialy and non contributional?
I was watching a video of Robert Greene where he was discussing similar things why he wrote 48 laws of power because he wanted to produce something which will last and be relevant even after 500 years.Also i was watching a biography video of ibn sina by let's talk religion and this same question came up in my mind for the current generation of philosophers or literature because most of the literature or works of our era's people will not survive or will not gain popularity which will make them irrelevant or non contributional on way or another after 500 or so years later. Just a random existential thought.
Yes it’s worth it to make the world better even if the effects only last a few years after ones death. I don’t know or love anyone 500 years from now, I love many people who live now. Making the world better for them is always worth it to me. I believe Joe’s work makes the world better, and so I think it’s worth it.
Much of that reverence for ancient figures is parasitic and unproductive. Why anyone still turns to Aristotle, for example, is beyond me. Virtually nothing he proposed in the arena of the natural sciences has stood the test of time at all.
1:53:37 James Fodor just had a good discussion with Robin Collins on the FTA.
Fodor is a joke. I mean that. I lost all respect for him after I saw he learned NOTHING from his debate with Luke Barnes. We had a brief exchange...
@@harlowcj what, specifically, should he have learned from his interaction with Barnes that he did not?
@@popsbjd Great question. I'll give you a far more detailed account than you bargained for.
So my first realization that James existed was when the algorithm put his shiny new rebuttal to the FTA into my lap a few months ago. Well, as a fan of Luke's work and having frequently referred to his paper myself over the years, I picked up immediately that James seemed entirely unfamiliar with a certain paper that Luke had published a few years back (A Reasonable Little Question, freely available online). It's around 40 pages, easily digestible, and covers the bases in a manner that left 90% of James's video attacking strawmen. So I brought it up in the comments, referring to it by name. James gave me some retort about how is he supposed to know which of Luke's work he's supposed to read and he's already read very much of Luke Barnes thank you very much. Ok whatever. I scroll down the comments and lo and behold, I find that buried in the comments, Luke himself has weighed in, telling James to read the same paper I recommended, and he had a rather frustrated tone. Interesting. Well at some point someone lets me know that these two debated in the past, about two years prior. I went to check it out.
In their debate, Barnes repeatedly referred to what was at the time his newly published paper. He tells James, specifically, to read that paper 4 different times in the debate, much to my interest of course. James spent an enormous amount of the debate attacking positions that Luke doesn't even hold and claims that Luke doesn't make. It was a striking mismatch and he seemed really uninformed about his opponent. Well fast forward a couple of years and James produces this medium length "modern" rebuttal of the fta that clearly has STILL not read the paper that his highly qualified debate opponent kept imploring him to read. So I send him a message asking him why he hasn't read the paper when Luke asked him to read it 4 different times in their debate. Crickets.
Then at some point I went back to that video to see what Luke's TH-cam handle was as that was the last time I'd seen him comment. His comment was gone. Idk if TH-cam creators can remove comments but it seemed pretty suspicious to me. I asked him if something happened to Luke's comment. Crickets. Idk.
James seems to be more interested in using his large brain to develop arguments against versions of the FTA that are weaker than the most updated versions. He seems unaware of the rebuttals to his objections that have existed for years now, but with no excuse because of that debate. Luke isn't the only one either putting out really solid versions of the FTA. There's a couple rabbis that made a podcast called physics to God, you can get a transcript. They move slowly and cover their bases in a way that makes James's video seem almost silly. There's no way that I should know more about the FTA and the state of FTA modern arguments than James since he's more qualified than me to understand physics research and has debated it in the past, but here we are.
@@harlowcj in his recent discussion with Robin Colin's, James cited that exact paper FWIW.
I also don't think Barnes's responses actually address some of the issues James raises, specifically what can we know about what is possible if we vary the constants AND laws. It's epistemically dark.
@@popsbjd But it's not. Luke spends time in that very paper arguing precisely the opposite, that we know for a fact the more we tweak, the less chemistry friendly it gets. And not only that, but physicists have done an enormous amount of theoretical tweaking over the last century. This is not an epistemically dark area.
Think about it this way. You have a grab bag of all theoretical particles and energy fields. You pull out 30 some at random, and assign all 30 a random value.
Is it really so epistemically dark to expect you're not going to get a universe that ends up having chemistry?
I'll check it the interview probably, but I was so put off by my interaction with James to this point I just have no faith that he gets it or is trying to. He tries to make things sound very complicated and unknown, but it's simply not.
Joe. In general terms, what is the bibliography for and against the resurrection?
I’ve heard Dale Allison has a good book on the topic.
Just for curious, how old are you? It's surprising to see a young philosopher. I have 30 years old and I envy your knowledge
The the work The Rationality of Induction, the chapter "The Myth of Formal Logic". Only a very very very (emphasize on very)shallow and narrow set of argument can be described as formal. Most formal fallacies are not actually formal at all. David Stove, check him
16:47 Very interesting argument! But I think that this problem of truth doesn't apply only to past-future propositions. The correspondence theory is also plagued by counterfactuals, possibilities, etc. For example, it is true that IF that bullet didn't miss Trump's head, he would be dead. And yet, there is nothing in the world that corresponds to that counterfactual proposition. It is a possible world. Unless we presuppose Lewis' far-fetched modal realism, I think the theory has to be modified in order to account for these exceptions.
That's why I was surprised to hear that this "there are multiple types of being" view is apparently unpopular among philosophers when the correspondence theory of truth is, if I'm not mistaken, the majority position. How can you have the latter without the former?
You should host a debate between James Fodor and Trent Horn on the definition of atheism :D
Oh god! The hypocracy of people claiming to define atheism is so bad.
Yes Joe, you should do that! 😁
I'm a tennis player and I know the obsession...I mean passion of sports.
I like mathematical model of change because it allows for continuity and doesnt require binary is or isn't thinking.
Y changed with respect to x if and only if Y(x) - Y(x+x0) is not equal zero. Where x0
Note that change in this view must always be with respect to some quality (time, space etc). Which is cool because it fits neatly with God being definitionally unchanging (being unaffected by either time, space or any other factor). Which should make any theist happy to work with it.
Yes to a James - Trent debate
Or Kamil - Trent debate
There's nothing like seeing MoR responding to Trent. I love it!
@13:31 Eternalism can't be used as a rebuttal as it (B-theory, Block Universe) is occasionalist. Thus using a case for theism as an argument against theism.
Lots of arguments for theism contradict other theism.
@@goldenalt3166 those would be models of theism? Models would need to be different as they are 'models' (plural).
@@eenkjet Yes and?
@@goldenalt3166 Schmidt's argument is DOA... you can't use a theist model of causation to rebut a theist model for causation to argue that causation isn't theist.
@@eenkjet You seem confused. Of course, theist's models can contain contradictory claims both to their own and other theists. Just because someone holds to a claim doesn't make it valid nor fit with other claims in a particular model.
What was the specific reason that Smidt gave for this being a problem? And why do you think that's untrue aside from the fact that some kind of "theist" holds that view.
It's like saying you can't object to a Muslim is using the trinity because other theists accept the trinity.
Already at the start 'Majesty of Reason' doesn't comprehend philosophy, logic, and linguistics. He thinks that a definition is circular because it uses words to define other words, but any intelligent person knows that all words are defined from other words, and the reason that the dictionary is ultimately not circular in it's definitions is that the meaning of those words comes from the real world experiences that each person acknowledges in the word. The words, and their definitions, recall to a person's memory some real world experience, and that is why the word has meaning. 'Majesty of Reason' doesn't understand how words are actually defined. Hence, when Trent defines change as a "potential coming to be actualized" he is not using words to define other words, but he is instead asking the listener to recall their real world experience of potential events being actualized. In other words, if you have had that experience then you know what his term means. However, in the same way you cannot describe color to a blind man, if you have not had that experience, or you fail to recognize the experience he is describing, then the word would seem meaningless, and its definition circular. To a man who is deaf, any attempt to describe music will ultimately seem like a circular definition. In this case, 'Majesty of Reason' is the deaf man.
So what is "change? Well, you know that experience when the world was one way (potential), but then it was a different way (potential actualized)? We have all had that real world experience, and that is the experience to which we are referring when we use the word "change". Your car was spotless and new, but now it's rusty and old? That's change. You're hair was perfectly quaffed before the interview but afterward you look in the mirror to find it was total mess the whole time? That's change. Your bread was bread, but after popping from the toaster it's now toast. This experience we conceptualize with the term "change".
Perhaps this is the first time 'Majesty of Reason' has ever analyzed how words are defined; it's a trait of biased thinkers to only use critical thinking on ideas with which they disagree. I say this because if this guy had ever analyzed how words get their meaning he would not have made such a rudimentary mistake.
Just ask him to debate trent.
Lol
Question: do you understand the Aristotelian metaphysics of "potentiality" and "actuality"?
Judging by your phrasing ("he is instead asking the listener to recall their real-world experience of potential events being actualized") it seems you are basically illiterate on the subject.
There is no case for the existence of a god unless you can produce the god. Words won't do it.
Hey Joe, Would you mind if I send you two books on vedic philosophy with some new perspectives that no one has ever heard and they, I think provide some support to theistic case and are free of those objections(existential inertia and stuff because we think material cause isn't contigent) which christian and islamic philosophers face?
I think you need to be more concerned with your own mental health than to devote an entire channel to responding to one apologist. It's much easier to continue to have faith in your fellow man if you don't subject yourself to the frustration that tends to arise when engaging with the same interlocutor, which seems to become repetitive, because they tend to be repetitive. They may reply to points you've made in a given post, but in a month they will be presenting the exact same argument in their newer videos, like the interaction never happened.
What are your views on non dualism and mysticism?
At only ten minutes in I am going to prophesy this video could be titled *"Joseph toots Horn"* .
in places like 33:20 how can you have the energy to continue to debate?
He's saying, outloud, that he isn't open to discover the truth, and that he isn't following where the evidence leads, but that he reads the bible and is looking to find philosophical or scientific arguments that support it.
Why waste time arguing with such a person?
All top-down (agent first) origin scenarios necessarily include the infinite regression issue, something that cannot be defined away. This means that if you reject the possibility of infinite regressions in objective reality then you also necessarily reject all agent first origin scenarios. If you accept the possibility of infinite regressions in objective reality then you also necessarily accept that no specific agent can sit at the origin because infinite regressions cannot have finite origins. Attempts to define a deity as being uncaused are inherently invalid, infinite regressions cannot be broken by simply defining them away.
lol the thing is, if it takes 2+ hours for the people to prove "why got is real", with all these fancy equations and stuff. imma just not care at that point. if god wants to be known, they can do it in a way that doesn't make me need to get a PHD in 5 diff topics and become a member of the global mental gymnastics team.
I’m actually captain of the mental gymnastics team. We won silver in Paris
@@MajestyofReason Damn, who got the gold?
@@chunawalahussain9445William Lane Craig, 17 Olympics in a row
That's a pretty good argument against arguments tbh. I always just frame what theists are saying in a Bayesian way and ask myself or them "If a god existed, would you expect him to rely on your arguments to make his existence known to me or would he have done things a little differently?"
I would question the claim that most philosophical arguments for God are unnecessarily complex though. I feel like they tend to simply be very common intuitions and beliefs of lay believers simply put into technical language for the sake of academic discourse.
Should you create a Channel just to respond to Trent Horn's videos? Yes.
Wake up babe, another multi-hour Majesty of Reason video just dropped!
sadly, babe is in hypersleep
I love that modern apologists are unable to come up with better arguments than Aquinas and that Aquinas was obviously wrong and his arguments are easily shown to be fallacious.
They are not "easily shown" because the thomists will always deny that you understood Aquinas (even though they don't explain it).
I would go to the ends of the earth in order to see a Fodor-Horn debate on your channel Joe!
I’d like to see Joe himself debate Fodor. I think that would be better.
@@bilbobaggins9893 I think that Joe and Fodor largely agree when it comes to the argument from miracles. I am not sure they would have a ton to disagree about.
@@Nontradicath I don’t mean they should debate that specific topic, I would just like to see the two of them debate in general. Joe is fun because he can debate both atheists and theists. Although as a theist I think he spends too much time against theism and wish he would spend more time against atheism. After all as an agnostic he thinks the evidence is equal for both but his channel doesn’t really suggest that.
@@Nontradicath also I would much rather Inspiring Philosophy do a resurrection debate with Fedor. I think Mike is the better debator, philosopher, and apologist.
Love you, Kevin
16:30 The Euclidian 4D Minkowski manifold of SR, and the Rimeannian manifold of GR agree with observation, and make testable predictions that _have_ been tested and not found wanting. The same is not true of the Craig view of time, which does not fit in with reality, yet he persists (eternally!) to ignore its failure.
Ugh god I love this thomistic stuff. More more more
Debate Jay Dyer.
_Orrrrrr...._ Dyer could start trying to publish articles about TAG in reputable philosophy journals and see how far he gets when he's not just bullying people in a livestream for his incel fans?
@@shassett79 You're so cringe, it's insane
Joe thinks tag argument is awful
@@JohnSmith-bq6nf I mean... he's right. Take any variety of TAG, flip all of the "gods" to "not-gods" and see if anyone has a meaningful symmetry breaker.
Turns out that "logic is only possible if god" is about as right as "logic is only possible if not-god."
@@shassett79 I know
I dont think you should do that, keep all the information is one place to make is easy for us to find.
Defining change requires minimally a definition of identity, of which there is much ambiguity.
Eternal actualization is only a problem for specific theologies and this part of his argument is only for generic deism.
Naive notions of classical logic and existence are too restrictive to discuss this topic, something like modal logic is required to distinguish possibilities.
The "becomes" definition of change is circular, "at" undefined without identity (any object is not identical to itself spatiotemporally between any 2 events assuming indiscernible identity).
There are objective events in general relativity, otherwise you lose causality.
Although piecewise differences in space or time are permitted, all observers must agree on spacetime intervals between events.
Infinite regress is not contradictory but has a lot of metalogical baggage that virtually all logicians have strenuously avoided.
Yes, you should make a channel solely for responding to Trent Horn’s arguments.
But aside from that, I wanted to ask you about part of your response to Dr. WLC’s argument for the causal principle:
From what I understand, WLC’s argument for a causal principle is basically this: “If nothing brought about the universe’s existence, then nothing could also cease the universe’s existence because “nothingness” cannot bring about or constrain. Therefore, there needs to be a first cause of the universe’s existence.”
But if it’s the case that “nothingness” cannot bring about or constrain things, shouldn’t that also apply to itself? And therefore, we’d have to assume that “something” exists even before the argument even begins?
How the fuck are u so productive. Im struggling and taking my time to work through ur material, but u just pump out more of them. I should be happpy im learning so much, but it just makes me mad lmao.
2:21:17 the face of pure disgust
Make a rebuttal video on one of dillahunty's videos
If his majesty can stoop to T Dump's level, he can definitely stoop to Dillahunty's level.
As an agnostic, why do you always attack theistic arguments and not atheistic ones? There are so many videos where you "rebutted" famous contents that christian apologetics produce.
@@mohammad_noori9362 (1) I don’t always attack theistic arguments; I’ve made lots of videos defending theistic arguments, and on other people’s channels - including even Trent’s channel and Alex O’Connor - I have criticized a number of atheistic arguments. (2) My philosophical research specializes in arguments for theism - ontological arguments, the Kalam, contingency arguments, classical theistic proofs, etc. - so it’s no surprise that this is my main focus on my channel. (3) I’m filling a niche in the market here. Almost no one else on TH-cam competently addresses modal ontological arguments, modal cosmological arguments, classical theistic proofs, and even the Kalam. By contrast, apologists already saturate the market with billions of responses to atheistic arguments. It’s no surprise, then, that I would fill what I see is a dire need in the market - competent criticism of certain theistic arguments. Many more reasons here, but these are 3 that came to mind
@@MajestyofReason Fair enough bro. BTW, I'm a big fan of you and really enjoy the stuff you're making about philosophy in general, and special fields like philosophy of religion and your video on Robert Nozick's "Experience Machine" was pretty stimulating for me. Unfortunately, in my country (Iran) there's no remarkable progress in analytic philosophy (specially philosophy of religion) and continental philosophers like Foucault, Hegel, Deluze, Spinoza, Heidegger and others are the topics of interest among our academicians. For example, we have only one book (written or translated) concerning modal logic (Written by Ziaa Movahed) and there is absolutely no paper regarding the use of modal metaphysics in arguments like ontological or contingency argument. Here, only people who are a bit familiar with english can learn about this stuff and your channel was a great help for me.
@@mohammad_noori9362 Wow! That's interesting (but unfortunate too). I'm glad to have you in my audience :)
@@MajestyofReason Ashkan (your friend with whom you interviewed swinburne) is among the few people who are pretty good at doing philosophy of religion and write interesting essays on probability therory and its relation to theism and atheism in Farsi. Talking to him was very useful in my philosophical journey and part of my familiarity with you was due to my conversations with him
Isn't this just using a lot of words to say that "God _can_ break causality but nothing else can"? I think that regardless of whether you believe in the existence of gods or not, the train of carts is either moving infinitely or it can start moving without being pulled first. I fail to see how is that argument relevant to the existence or non-existence of gods in particular.
Bro you're a nightmare for Christians apologetics 💀💀
😂 True.
I don’t think he’s a nightmare so much as he’s helping to raise the level of discourse. Trent is just giving a quick pop level speech on arguments for God, and Joe just appears to also be throwing out some of the discourse around these ideas and particular objections. It’s very good and illuminating for both sides
He is agnostic so a few of them he believes does hold water
No way, José (Benedetti)
I didn’t watch the video, but I can already tell that it presupposes and uses concepts like logic and truth, assuming they exist and are worth pursuing. That’s not a scientific endeavor. The fact that you posted this video proves the existence of non-material realities. Call it God, the Demiurge, or whatever you like, but you’re already serving or submitting to something non-material.
9/10 ragebait
@@Flame-ci7fw Let’s see if he bites 🤣…or even better, manages to understand my argument.
I'm sympathetic to this kind of reasoning, but it's not a "proof."
It's an interesting idea that there are underlying facts about our reality and that we are capable of understanding and modeling them on a practical level because it benefits us, but it doesn't mean there's a conscious designer that created the universe or us with a specific purpose.
Personally, as Theist I think it's reasonable to believe it. But I have yet to find "proof" of it.
@@anon_genz lol
@@josephtnied Yeah, I guess it depends on how you define "proof." If you're looking for scientific proof of something that science itself is nested in, you'll never be able to square that circle.
The best you can do within the scientific realm is make probabilistic arguments or inferences to the best explanation, based on the phenomena we observe in the universe.
yes please
Fodor - Horn?
Horn - Fodor?
Yes please.
Skills, though.
Reminds me of Denilson - not the Arsenal one, the original.
I suppose they couldn't wait for you though and bought Raheem instead.
"Joe Mama" 💀💀
I don't get the circular definition thing. Aren't all definitions at some point going be 'circular' if by circular you mean synonymous? For example, if I asked you to define 'being' how would you do it? I'm guessing the first thing you would think of is 'existence,' but don't these two words basically mean the same thing?
Further, it seems straw-manish to substitute synonyms in definitions (not accusing you of anything I just don't understand it and don't know how better to describe it). E.g., imagine someone said the word 'woman' meant 'adult human female'. Because 'female' and 'woman' can sometimes be used synonymously, does that mean I can substitute them and show how the definition is circular? Woman = adult human woman. If we take the typical thomistic definition of 'change' as 'the reduction of potency to act,' none of the words in the definiens are the same as the definiendum. Why would that not suffice for a non-circular definition? If we suppose we can make this substitution then we might be able to say change = the change of potency to act, but this seems to me like the woman example.
Thought I had this on double speed but no 😂
Trent Horn uses weak arguments to support his bad politics, so I'm all for a channel dedicated to explaining why he is so wrong all the time.
@toppedtop5787
He is rabidly anti LGBT.
@toppedtop5787
his attitude to LGBT.
@toppedtop5787The man just having bigoted views outside the arguments? Seems like reasoning to take him less seriously not more.
@toppedtop5787
The arguments are bad on their own merits. So the question has to be - why cling to bad arguments to support your worldview - ie what is so important about your worldview that you have to make bad arguments to justify it.
He has a choice. He can adapt his worldview, accept he believes in God for emotional reasons, and stop making prescriptive videos about how other people are sinning - or he can do what he clearly wants to do...make videos attacking other people because they don't conform to his worldview.
Martinez William Clark Charles Walker Elizabeth
In regards to the Resurrection, Loke has a newer book _Studies on the Origin of Divine and Resurrection Christology_ where he states the terms Paul uses _"are not ambiguous with regards to the nature of the seeing when they are used with reference to persons with bodies (such as Jesus)."_
Refutation: Paul does not specify whether these "appearances" happened before or after Jesus was believed to be in heaven. According to the New Testament, the appearance to Paul happened afterwards and he makes no distinction regarding the others in 1 Cor 15:5-8. This makes the type of "seeing" ambiguous and refutes Loke’s argument.
Al-Ghghghghghghghghazali made me laugh.
1:52:00 (Excuse the bad english and the rushed manner of this comment) One reason i dont like this objection is that the when i think about it life as a particle sounds horrible .Youre effectively just a particle in empty space with doing nothing but talking, thinking and wandering. No delicious food to eat, no hobbys to entertain yourself with, no soccer to play with your friends, no movie to watch at cinema which wouldn't even exist. Also how will they reproduce, will they be living eternally like this if not what will happen to their bodies will they decompose to quarks, after a trillions of years will the universe be filled with galaxy sized particles or quark corpses with the surviving particles swimming through the corpses. The main reason I dont like this refutation because what i think particles would do is complain about why god gave them such a dumb design
At around the 2 hr mark - surely Trent's story about Tahiti completely undermines what he's trying to argue for doesn't it?
I mean, sure - to people who live in the tropics, the idea of ice is unfathomable, so yeah, of course they're going to think walking on water would take a miracle.
But it isn't a miracle.
And we know it isn't a miracle.
And now we know that people living without the modern scientific understanding of reality are prone to inventing miraculous answers for things which are pretty trivial.
Please Joe Mama, your handsome face is distracting, only reveal it occasionally in the video otherwise retention will be lost.