I'm an atheist. I paused at 9:06, because I need to clarify this. I guess most of the atheists you hear from aren't very well read, which disappoints but doesn't surprise me. If God interacts with or has interacted with the natural world in any way, it would leave behind physical evidence that we could investigate. It doesn't matter if he transcends the natural universe. If he interacts with the universe, then he will leave behind physical evidence of that interaction. He has to, because he would be affecting physical things in ways that would be measurable and documentable. We know radiowaves and the wind exist primarily through their indirect effects, too, this isn't new territory for science. The problem with the Argument from Design is that it was created before we discovered evolution and realized that our sun is a star. When the earth was the center of the universe and we had no other explanation for how different species seemed perfectly designed for their environments, it was a genuinely compelling argument for at least Deism. But now we know that this appearance of design is the product of unguided natural forces in the form of biological evolution. God was shoved out when that gap in our knowledge was filled in. The Argument from Design just doesn't work anymore, because the appearance of design has already been explained naturalistically.
I'm also an atheist. You've done a good job pointing out there will be an impact by any force that could possibly interact with the world. I want to point out there are more problems with arguments for design. A response that recently became popular was questioning why a god would create a physical universe at all. Lots of theism seems to work perfectly well with a purely spirit based system, the physical world itself is a useless boondoggle. Religions like Christianity love to talk about how flawed and bad the material world is, they talk about a materialist view being "just" chemicals fizzing or whatever, but this same language works against them and causes their arguments to backfire, because it makes these chemicals fizzing worthless. If chemicals fizzing is so unimpressive, why would a god explain chemical fizzing? What's important on theisms is the spiritual aspects that discount these chemicals fizzing, the chemicals might as well not fizz. There's no intention behind the fizzing. So it's seems clear that a physical world is not explained by a god at all.
The last point, i believe in the time of jesus, most poeple coulnt read and write. Therefore, the vast mojority of story telling was orally. Someone eventually wrote them down. We will never know who. All stories have a point of view and some are told from a witness, its not proof that they were. I will never understand why christians hold to, that the gospels were written by eyewitesses. We have no idea who wrote them or why. As far as did jesus exist, don't know and don't care, the question is, was he the exception to all of reality and was he god, and i can't find any evidence for that other than a few stories. That wouldn't work for any one outside of religion. I am pretty sure the pharaohs existed, not so sure they were gods. I have defently seen the bible change people and theyclaim that is proof the validity. I have seen hinduism change people as well, yet you probably don't hold that to hgh esteem. I just can't understand, why christians hold this book to be of god. ramble over
Textual criticism doesn't verify the historicity of the accounts in the bible. It looks at trying to accurately get the correct original text, but makes no claim to the historical correctness of the original text. There's a lot of reason to believe, and many new testament scholars will freely admit, that there are good reasons to suspect the New Testament is not a reliable accounting of Jesus's life. In particular, it seems very clear that the gospel authors used the old testament as a source for events in Jesus's life, not writing from eyewitness accounts. In fact, the gospels pretty much explicitly state this several times when citing scripture. If you read professional academics on these things, new testament scholars, they'll tell you these documents are anonymous, and not eyewitness accounts. The arguments you are using are familiar to these professionals, and originate from popular level apologetics that are aimed at Christians to shore up their belief, but frequently vastly overstate the case and will pretty much straight up lie to you, I'm sorry to say. I recommend looking into the new testament review podcast, which is from phd new testament scholars, who will discuss research in these topics, and the hosts are also Christians, so I'm not even giving you an atheist resource! But they'll quickly dispatch the reliability of popular level apologetics texts for learning about the bible.
I'm an atheist. I paused at 9:06, because I need to clarify this. I guess most of the atheists you hear from aren't very well read, which disappoints but doesn't surprise me.
If God interacts with or has interacted with the natural world in any way, it would leave behind physical evidence that we could investigate. It doesn't matter if he transcends the natural universe. If he interacts with the universe, then he will leave behind physical evidence of that interaction. He has to, because he would be affecting physical things in ways that would be measurable and documentable. We know radiowaves and the wind exist primarily through their indirect effects, too, this isn't new territory for science.
The problem with the Argument from Design is that it was created before we discovered evolution and realized that our sun is a star. When the earth was the center of the universe and we had no other explanation for how different species seemed perfectly designed for their environments, it was a genuinely compelling argument for at least Deism. But now we know that this appearance of design is the product of unguided natural forces in the form of biological evolution. God was shoved out when that gap in our knowledge was filled in. The Argument from Design just doesn't work anymore, because the appearance of design has already been explained naturalistically.
I'm also an atheist. You've done a good job pointing out there will be an impact by any force that could possibly interact with the world. I want to point out there are more problems with arguments for design. A response that recently became popular was questioning why a god would create a physical universe at all. Lots of theism seems to work perfectly well with a purely spirit based system, the physical world itself is a useless boondoggle. Religions like Christianity love to talk about how flawed and bad the material world is, they talk about a materialist view being "just" chemicals fizzing or whatever, but this same language works against them and causes their arguments to backfire, because it makes these chemicals fizzing worthless. If chemicals fizzing is so unimpressive, why would a god explain chemical fizzing? What's important on theisms is the spiritual aspects that discount these chemicals fizzing, the chemicals might as well not fizz. There's no intention behind the fizzing. So it's seems clear that a physical world is not explained by a god at all.
I really enjoy your content and appreciate your efforts; may God bless!
The last point, i believe in the time of jesus, most poeple coulnt read and write. Therefore, the vast mojority of story telling was orally. Someone eventually wrote them down. We will never know who. All stories have a point of view and some are told from a witness, its not proof that they were. I will never understand why christians hold to, that the gospels were written by eyewitesses. We have no idea who wrote them or why. As far as did jesus exist, don't know and don't care, the question is, was he the exception to all of reality and was he god, and i can't find any evidence for that other than a few stories. That wouldn't work for any one outside of religion. I am pretty sure the pharaohs existed, not so sure they were gods. I have defently seen the bible change people and theyclaim that is proof the validity. I have seen hinduism change people as well, yet you probably don't hold that to hgh esteem. I just can't understand, why christians hold this book to be of god. ramble over
Textual criticism doesn't verify the historicity of the accounts in the bible. It looks at trying to accurately get the correct original text, but makes no claim to the historical correctness of the original text. There's a lot of reason to believe, and many new testament scholars will freely admit, that there are good reasons to suspect the New Testament is not a reliable accounting of Jesus's life. In particular, it seems very clear that the gospel authors used the old testament as a source for events in Jesus's life, not writing from eyewitness accounts. In fact, the gospels pretty much explicitly state this several times when citing scripture. If you read professional academics on these things, new testament scholars, they'll tell you these documents are anonymous, and not eyewitness accounts. The arguments you are using are familiar to these professionals, and originate from popular level apologetics that are aimed at Christians to shore up their belief, but frequently vastly overstate the case and will pretty much straight up lie to you, I'm sorry to say. I recommend looking into the new testament review podcast, which is from phd new testament scholars, who will discuss research in these topics, and the hosts are also Christians, so I'm not even giving you an atheist resource! But they'll quickly dispatch the reliability of popular level apologetics texts for learning about the bible.