You are doing it again you are talking about the new testament God infact this new testament God you are talking about originates from the persian faith. The old testament God ie the sumarian and hebrew God even in the book of enoch, God is not represented in the same non physical way there is no God that is in essence moral soul spirit devil ect. Satan is a character that emerged in the ancient world during the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which began around 550 BCE. The name Satan comes from the Hebrew words ha-Satan, where ha means "the" and Satan means "opposer" or "adversary". This is when this new testament God started influencing the old testament hebrew texts. so you must be able to see your idea of God is not the same old testament God the God from the bible. you probably won't read this or pay any attention to what i have stated probably because it does not fit your view, and all your talk about your question's into faith and your focus around new testament idea of God while dissmissing any evidence of a different interpritation especialy a older and more original text. and i am starting to lose intrest as you have nothing to say of any particule inportance. try talking about enlil and enki from the sumarian text about how different they are to the new testament idea of God.
I am not really concerned about what any particular person BELIEVES. You may believe that there is an old man with a white beard perched in the clouds, that the Ultimate Reality is a young blackish-blue Indian guy, that the universe is eternal, that Mother Mary was a certifiable virgin, or that gross physical matter is the foundation of existence. The ONLY thing that really matters is your meta-ethics, not your meta-physics. Do you consider any form of non-monarchical government (such as democracy or socialism) to be beneficial? Do you unnecessarily destroy the lives of poor, innocent animals and gorge on their bloody carcasses? Do you believe homosexuality and transvestism are moral? Do you consider feminist ideology to be righteous? If so, then you are objectively immoral, and your so-called "enlightened/awakened" state is immaterial, since it does not benefit society in any way.
Why does it need to the letter combination GOD? Come up with a new word for a new meaning, otherwise big danger of equation fallacy. Delusion that eg. person in ancient times is talking about the same thing
Let's not forget that Rainn's religion, the Baha'i Faith, excommunicates believers who are openly gay. Just another fake religion full of bigotry and hate. There are so many contradictions in the Baha'i writings.
As to a devil there is no doubt, but it is he trying to get in or trying to get out? Nice discussion. I'd have loved to be there and shared this conversation with you both.
Hey rain huge fan and former Bahai. I just wanted to say that I’m a Christian now and one thing I wanted to ask you is how can you believe the Bahai principle of evil not existing when we see evil in our day to day and the old and New Testament speak to a physical and spiritual embodiment of evil
@@koushakoshkbaghi3159 Former Baha'i here too :) Evil does not objectively exist. Good does not objectively exist. It is just our collective subjective experiences of what we like and don't like that that we give the labels evil and good.
As a massive fan of the US Office, it's so surreal to see Rainn praising a UA-camr I've watched for years from humble beginnings. You're a brilliant man Alex. You have a long, great future ahead!
Some of the best conversations between two people can be about the idea of a God, but only if both people willing to learn from the other person, instead of trying to bend the other to their position or opinion.
I guess. I have a saying: theology is ontology *ON BLACK ICE* ( and, relatedly, teleology is metaphysics *ON BLACK ICE* ). I think that speculating about an entity said to be utterly beyond/transcendent to us is largely a waste of time. I think we should stick to studying and speculating upon being (ontology) and how reality is on a general level (metaphysics).
My man is on the come up. I remember being a subscriber of Alex when he was showing his 1000th subscriber and now he's at 1 million and has Rainn Wilson on his show. Love it. Atta boy Alex ur early subs are so proud of you.
I think the notion of God is entirely dependent upon the lived experiences of the individual. I have snowboarded for years now, but i only get to go abroad a couple of times per year. I remember on this one trip to Austria, on the last day of the holiday, we were on the chair lift heading back towards our chalet. The chair lift was very high up and was taking us over the resort horizontally towards another run down the mountain. The sun was low with a smattering of silver and orange / red cloud, I was with 3 of my best friends and we'd had an amazing day. The view was spectacular. I felt this surge of elation that I had never experienced before or since other than when my daughter was born. Even recalling this memory gives me a small taste of the feeling again. It was pure joy. If I was a theist, I might have been tempted to say that it was religious transcendence. And i can even see how the feeling I had could be felt by somebody who loves choir, or prayer. I just think that mainstream religions, specifically the Abrahamic faiths, have tried to claim these emotions as their own.
I don’t think they do try to claim those things, but perhaps they do attribute something like a sunset, which seems self evidently so, to what created or allowed that sunset to be. I’m talking about God of course. Like when you receive a gift (or see a sunset) you don’t thank the gift or the sun, you thank who gave it to you.
Nature inspires me and brings an intense sense joy from time to time. Nothing religious. Just pure elation and awe over trees, sunsets, water, wildlife
@@forplaylistsetc I'm not denying your feelings. I'm denying your interpretation of them. A mother of four is told by god to kill her kids. I guess her feelings are just as good as yours.
Seems like an unsubstantiated leap to say abrahamic faiths attempt to claim that feeling as their own. Most theists acknowledge people can have that sort of experience without it having to be a religious transcendent event
Thats the thing I always tell religious believers. These sense of wonder and emotional attachment is not inherent to them and is found in ANY belief system and is more a measure of tribalism and your belonging to a group of people who interpret things the way you do and foster common view about things. Irrespective of its actual TRUTH about how everything truly works and the true nature of reality. Richard Carrier on his book 'Sense and Goodness without God' on section 10 on emotion imo explained the rational framework for exaplaining how emotions work and why they can be flawed. Essentially, Carrier spouts that for many religious believers, Capital 'T' truth is secondary to the emotional and existential benefits their beliefs provide. The value of religious beliefs for many lies in their ability to satisfy emotional needs, not in whether its actually rooted in the actual underlying fact of how nature and reality actually works. Derek Lambert of Mythvision for example, Told the story of oddyseus to her religious Aunt. His Aunt literally cried in tears hearing the story. The faith of many socialists in Marxism has indeed transformed some into more loving people, as they come to love the common man and care for his needs and welfare. Does that make Marxism true? The faith of many adherents of Dianetics has transformed them into loving people. Does that make Scientology true? The faith of Jim Jones’ followers made all of them, by all accounts, into much more loving people than they had been, even up to the moment they drank the poisoned punch. Was Jim Jones, then, right after all? Hardly. Thus, the transformative power of religion is no indication of its truth, but rather of a universal human longing for a loving society where we can experience happiness and purpose. But we do not need any supernatural dogma to have that. Secular Humanists can fall in love with an ideal, too-with nature and humanity-and their lives are likewise transformed by this just as much as for any religious devotee.
One of the many nice things about Christianity (I'm not a committed Christian at this point but thinking everything through) is the idea that God demystified himself for us. God is by nature hidden outside of time and space, and we can't really know anything about him, so God became a human being and came to meet us. If it's true it makes the universe a very cozy place. edit: What a lively comments section
"God is by nature hidden outside of time and space". I think that this is a very Newtonian, classical and deist perspective. I think this is a non-trinity view of Christianity. A Spinoza-Einstein synthesis view would be something along the lines of "god is space-time". In a Thomas Hobbes view of the world, this would mean that god is some kind of leviathan creature and we are all 1 part of it. If God was Jesus and God was the burning bush; then God has been of the world. God is also the holly spirit that remains in the world. I think that this is more along the lines of a trinity belief. I think there are many interpretations and meanings of Christianity. It is a very adaptable religion and it is why it has survived as long as it has.
@jackkrell4238 i think what he meant in saying is god is outside of space and time he's beyond it, and supposedly created it. God is spiritual non material being, an eternal being. Which then it's plausible than he can't be something that we can comprehend but in christianity by sending himself down so than we can understand him. It comes from the new testament that "the word became flesh" the logos came before us so that we may understand it according to christianity. It's definitely thought provoking if anything. I could be wrong in understanding 🫠
Thats what it is but unfortunately religions have taken advatnage of this idea of a ideal-perfect-person. If you want to look more into it, non dualism (swami vivekananda texts are good start)
I have met one Baha'i person in my entire life. I was a truck driver, and i was passing through Portland, oregon when i had to stop for the night. I met a homeless man outside of a Macdonalds who was asking for some spare cash. At this moment, I can't remember if i had any cash on me or not, but i invited him to come inside and eat dinner with me. We ate together inside the McDonald's and talked for about 3 hours about EVERYTHING. this included religion, in which he explained his religious faith of Baha'ism. Our conversation was very fruitful and I'll never forget it.
As a Christian I can listen to Alex so much more because, even though we disagree in the end, he makes the best attempt that any atheist I see in modern day to better understand the theology of Christianity to better communicate with Christians. He still get's his jabs in, but they mean more because he seems to better understand what he's talking about. I hope all atheist can learn from him. The reverse can't be done for Christians seeing as Atheists don't have a generic decree, but I am more enganged also when Christians listen and engage Atheists on their valid points. I see that there is less talking past each other when Alex talks to Christians or others.
He should try to understand Islam because Christians don’t even understand their own religion. Also, Islam is more clear and logical. There’s only one God, not three.
IMO, as a Christian, Alex is a positive example of one debating and dialoguing in good faith. A model for an Atheist or Theist. He got on Dinesh's case in public debate quite a bit, a little too obnoxiously at some points, but aren't we all human. To his credit, Alex also steelman's Christianity when speaking with Atheists who are being simplistic, reductionist, or downright prideful and lazy. Alex is cool. And he plays a decent guitar. 🤘😎👍
He raises a great point about debates over God not changing the atmosphere. A debate is so stringent in what it wants to achieve whereas having an "interesting conversation" about God evokes a high degree of openness to what you could talk about and how the conversation can make you feel or present yourself and your thoughts
If we're thinking about God all wrong, the likelihood that we'll require a new word, non-synonymous to 'God', to describe what it is we should be thinking, will likely be exceptionally high granting the definition of "God" is already next to meaningless.
Precisely. I mean, if we're going to accept redefining that word, why not a whole bunch of other words that have been shown to be empty or bad. Ghost, demon, alchemy, vitalism, etc. Do a thorough job of confusing everyone.
The problem is that we're thinking about God, you can't get to what the word God refers to by thought. That's why thousands of years of talking over relegion has not got us one step closer.
"Don't think - feel! It is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory." - Bruce Lee, student of philosophy (and fighting) with a quote consistent with Taoism, which is consistent with Wittgenstein.
The "finger pointing to the moon" is from a Zen saying and has nothing to do with directing one to a belief in God or "heavenly glory." It has to do with revealing that the self is illusory as a fixed form. All existence is impermanent. Focusing on the "finger" rather than what it indicates is confusing the method with the direct experience: direct experience of one's own mind, consciousness and its contents. Feeling can also be misleading as well if one regards it as revelatory. Meaning that, one has "insight" derived from "feeling" and then holds on to that. Sensations and emotions are impermanent just as thoughts are. Holding to "heavenly glory" is meeting the Buddha on the road. As another famous saying puts it, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." That experience is as impermanent as all others, so don't hold on to it as it too is subject to the flow of change. That is also confusing the finger for the moon. Wittgenstein also doesn't direct one to a belief in God, necessarily. He was an agnostic. He points out the limits of rational thought just as Buddhism does. Wittgenstein’s “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” in Tractatus does resonate with Buddhism and Taoism, and I get where you see the connection here with religious thinking in context of mysticism, but I think you are over reaching. I can see how I might be wrong here, and you might be correct. I don't think I'm wrong about what I stated about the finger pointing to the moon quote.
Yes. I learned a little Tibetan, and there it makes a grammatical difference whether you have seen something personally or just heard about it. Totally alien to European languages.
I appreciate even Job's confession, upon finally meeting God. "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes." - he had a concept of who he thought God was. But when God finally revealed Himself, Job realized his concepts were wrong. This is when Job's real relationship with God began.
There’s a great BibleProject podcast episode somewhere where they discuss the Moses and horn issue. I believe Dr. Mackie made the point that the word resembling horns is likely intentional as part of the theme of the sacrificial lamb up on the mountain offered to God. If you recall, Moses stood in the gap between God and Israel as a kind of mediator willing to die for the people. Really cool stuff.
I said a VERRRRRRRRY similar thing at my first *rave* that Rainn said at Radiohead. In 2016, still hanging onto the thought of faith and Christian belief but underneath it was under a lot of turmoil. I had an incredible time at that *rave*, also first experience with MDMA. That experience put me in this really interesting head space that I can only describe as "ego death", which is sort of rare on MDMA. I processed a lot of depression and self-worth issues right on the dance floor. And then that God like feeling came in and it was warm and comfortable. But as I "sat" with it in my mind I started to realize it didn't feel like the Christian God I heard about in the bible. Over the next few years, I wrestled with this until I realized I no longer believed in YHWH in 2018. That feeling I felt was the UNIVERSE and all consciousness all life. Plants, animals, and humans; I could feel it breathing and pulsing with life and love. We are all connected. I don't think we need a "being" at all. The laws of physics, chemistry, and the natural universe are GOD enough to me.
4:16 - 100% agree that translation is a massive factor in our understanding of ancient texts. There are huge discrepancies from what is written in the ancient Hebrew and Greek as to what it says in English in numerous passages. And a lot of the reason behind it being ignored is tradition and doctrine. What has been taught and old views of a passage are given precedent over new scholarship and archeological finds that further expand our understanding of ancient Greek and Hebrew. So, most of the push back is from the religious establishment, same as was the case in Jesus' day.
Fascinating that the discussion started with a critique of people imagining what God is and then worshiping that construct but then turned to Raine describing how he thinks of God. Same process, different construct. God - made by people, for people. :)
Im Christian but love learning and questioning. and i agree, that is a really interesting observation. Do you think then that maybe throughout the ages, culture would have dictated what people wanted God to be? I'd actually be interested to see that. Like with the Norse cultures, there was always like powerful war gods and stuff, but in Israel, it was a good and all knowing God, i wonder if this indicates differences in culture, like maybe the norse were more barbaric or something. Its cool to think about
How can you critique people on the meaning of a word. It would be as if I critiqued everyone’s conception of what a “fork” is and then provided an alternative that me and my friends prefer.
@@timere2407 YHWH is hardly good or all-knowing. What if Russell Gmirkin is right that the pentateuch was constructed in about 270 BCE by a bunch of scholars inspired by Plato, especially his Laws?
My big issue with his concept of "God" is that it almost abstracts the concept so far that it becomes a different thing entirely... Where it ceases to have the properties that we previously defined it by. When does it stop being the God that we were originally talking about? Is it even a Pantheistic representation at that point? Does it then become just a functional part of the universe as we know it? In which case we are DEFINED by it's existence. If "God is Physics" then what are we actually discussing any more? His point about the Radiohead gig (I have a similar experience of the brilliance of one of their shows- it's also strikingly similar to a moment of 'Kill Your Friends' by John Niven) is talked about widely in The God Delusion itself- how transcendent experiences don't have to be synonymous with religiosity or the supernatural. I was actually considering writing part of my dissertation on the effect of Music on effectively luring people into an environment and then an ideology. Before recorded music the only place to see it was likely to be the Church. People could easily misappropriate their love and feelings for the music as that of the "God" figure. Similar to the NSDAP's use of Wagner and other music at rallies. To induce feelings that then make people more likely to seek out that experience again. This is, fundamentally, just a beautiful moment that is subjectively framed as representative of whatever he defines this "God" to be. I thought we were seeking to ESCAPE subjective framing in this discussion?
Agreed if God is everything and all that transcends nature as well (panentheism) the word loses its meaning and anything can be justified as “Gods will”
Yeah, his idea of ‘God’ is so abstract and numinous that it essentially loses all meaning. I don’t think anyone really has the authority to say what ‘God’ should or shouldn’t mean. I like Rainn, but he’s essentially just talking in meaningless aphorisms here.
Do you have more information on the connection between music and ideology? I always found it odd how in some religions, prayer is only recited in song as opposed to just being read aloud.
Regarding Radiohead, I'm also a big fan. Regarding Dawkins on transcendent experiences with great works of art and music. I was in Florence recently and had the opportunity to see Michelangelo's statue of David and was moved to tears by it. I'm an atheist, so there's that, but the work itself was so exceptional that I was emotionally affected by it without any regard for the religious overtones of the piece. Something similar happened to me at the Louvre when viewing the Venus de Milo.
Rainn Wilson's intuitions about God are deep and remind me of some of the greatest Christians theologians, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas in particular. The "insistent-self" sounds extremely similar to St. Augustine's notion of sin being the "falling in on yourself" and the comment about God not existing in the same way as that pen is on par with some of Aquinas' ideas about God. Very fascinating.
As much as I appreciate that Alex wants to focus more on investigating religious belief, I have to admit, I miss the old Alex who would call people out on their bullshit.
About the horns on Moses: one explanation of why Jerome translated the rays for horns is that the Classical world had a tradition of horns implying divine power, like how Alexander showed himself with horns in his coinage. It could be that he not only translated the word, but also the cultural context.
10:10 - This section made me think of the when Richard Dawkins rebuffal of Karen Armstrong that Daniel Dennett quoted in his AAI 2009 talk: "If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They’ll be right." This is just fucking sophistry, man. You have to call it out.
You are never going to get the masses to admit defeat in a public repentance from religion in a way that erases bigoted fundamentalism from existence. The best you can hope for are the underlying definitions to change while the label remains the same. Those "sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists" that are trying to weasel their idol out of the fires of truth are cowards and deserve to be called out, even if they probably won't. However, many of those "postmodern" thinkers are not just proposing a reactionary pivot; they've been trying to advocate for both a substantial pluralism and a more internally consistent theology from day 1 and have been mercilessly vilified because of it. I think some smug satisfaction out to be derived from the fact that these so called heretics, the even bigger targets of Evangelical cancel-culture than the atheists, are now finding a public voice and following. And what must the atheist worry about? The vague spiritualist make no such absurd moral and epistemological demands to the nonbelievers as the church does. If you're worried about fake news and ill-informed quackery, note that religion has yet to succeed from a siege on the ivory towers of science; sensationalism has yet to overwhelm a tradition of thinkers dedicated to cautious and precise thinking.
This is precisely why I'm an ignostic and not an atheist now. I can't hold a negative position to something that doesn't have a coherent, non-trivial, and non-contradictory basis.
I respectfully disagree, but before I write about why I disagree I should first say, as this is probably relevant to the discussion, that I am an agnostic. I should also disclose that I am not a big fan of Richard Dawkins and therefore biased. I disagree because it is not clear to me how saying God does not exist in the same way a pen exists is sofistry. It is also not clear to me why a congregation of believers should be considered the Golden Standard for Theism. I mean, I can imagine how this argument could be considered a valid viewpoint, but my critique is that it is not the only, and might not even be the most relevant Theist viewpoint. It seems to me, but this might be my bias kicking in, mostly a strawman argument.
@@marcelfabus5850 How is it a strawman? For something to exist, it must exist somewhere, somewhen, and have actual properties( you know, like a pen.) Also, why exactly are you an agnostic? Give me a coherent, non-trivial, and non-contradictory definition of god and then we can start talking evidence and argumentation.
An interesting interview and Alex does well not just correcting some of Rain's layman philosophy ideas and keeping the conversation flowing - he is getting very good at this. Either way, its always interesting to see how all human beings wrestle with our notion of existence, its inescapable to wonder how we got here, why does anything exist at all
Wonderful discussion! As someone that does not really think in words most of the time, this point hits very close. I often need to translate my thoughts to language when I'm talking/ writing and it's really often that a concept I'm thinking about does not really fit into language. The feeling of Wilson's god at the concert is also similar to what my partner thinks a god is.
I am ashamed to say my 100% of my experience of Rain Wilson before this video was through his portrayal of Dwight Schrute. I was watching a clip from the Office just yesterday. So imagine my surprise of seeing this incredible and enlightening conversation.
Finally, an Alex video that didn't drive me mad! I even gave you a "like" for the first time ever. What Rainn says about Dawkins v. priest is spot on and also finally Wittgenstein and the limitations of language get a mention! So crucial when discussing this subject in the 21st century. In my view, Wittgenstein is as essential to our understanding of modern religious thinking as Einstein is to our understanding of physics. He trnsforms everything and we ignore him at our peril. I wish the churches would understand this.
I interpret is that person is the concept and that when we look at truth as emptiness, then we can’t communicate - so our existence is conceptual in this way, and that’s where the realization of God as person comes true. I like this snippet
The debate and the exchange of ideas is a way to get to truth, unless you don’t think there is such a thing. So “arguing” or “duking it out” is productive as long as it’s the ideas that are preeminent in the discussion and not rhetoric, straw man argumentation and ad hominem.
Consider this, on the matter of God being purely good, and there being a potential for eternal punishment. Suppose you have a bit of enviousness in you. If you see someone or something that is the utter model of perfect goodness, your envy will make you wish you could be like that to the point you will implode under the weight of your own envy. Yet that model of pure goodness will wish you no harm, even to the point of wanting to take your envy out of you, if only you will allow this. You will suffer for your envy, but the model of perfect goodness will only wish you well, and your suffering would be the result of your own flaw which you refuse to give up. This is something like God being the utter model of perfect goodness, thus sending Jesus to remove our flaws if we're willing, and those who refuse suffering forever.
7:32 if we just came from animals and survived the environment then that would presumably mean that religion is optional, or even a sort of diversion or detour around our base nature, but this seems to fly in the face of what the guest is saying, and the cultural experiences of most of planet earth.
About what rainn said about sin meaning to miss the mark in Greek, that is because of a mistranslation from Hebrew, like what Alex said about the word "karen". In Hebrew the word sin comes from the word clean or pure, as the sin is something that is to be cleaned. The same word also means to miss a target and therefore it was mistranselated in Greek.
*Glorious Qur'an* 41:43 مَّا يُقَالُ لَكَ إِلَّا مَا قَدْ قِيلَ لِلرُّسُلِ مِن قَبْلِكَ ۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَذُو مَغْفِرَةٍۢ وَذُو عِقَابٍ أَلِيمٍۢ ٤٣ Nothing is said to you, [O Muḥammad], except what was already said to the messengers before you. Indeed, your Lord is a possessor of forgiveness and a possessor of painful penalty. *2:136* Say, O believers, “We believe in *Allah* and what has been revealed to us; and what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and his descendants; and what was given to Moses, Jesus, and other prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them. And to *Allah* we all submit.”
Wilson is getting at something really important here. Those mostly unproductive "atheist vs believer" debates over God's existence are ACTUALLY debates over which reality is more "real" and/or should be privileged: metaphysical reality, phenomenological reality, or something else. And for whatever reason, the people on the "believers" side like to dance around the phenomenological question and resort to historical or scriptural arguments from their particular religion (which have zero power to persuade someone who isn't already receptive to them), or from psychoanalysis, or whatever it may be. It's as if we've all tacitly agreed that admitting God exists in (and perhaps only in) a phenomenological sense -- that it is more of a feeling than an entity -- invalidates the whole thing. And I don't quite know why that is.
"Satan is the insistant self." Exactly. And the face of God is what appears when the illusion of self drops. The more self we see, the less God we see, and the more God we see, the less self we see. Amen!
I mean, to give a good addition to Rainn’s point on Satan simply being man’s ego, how did we come up with the shoulder angel and devil? They are within us. If anything “god” would be the concept of what is good, selflessness, empathy, compassion, love. The Bible literally says “god is love”! Satan, in contrast, is selfishness, self interest, self absorption. It actually makes a lot of sense.
Alex - I absolutely applaud your recognition and subsequent focus on the damage our modern translations have done to the original intentions of the Hebrew writers. If you have a chance, and interest, I think that Tim Mackie would be an exceptional guest. He is a Hebrew Scholar and one of the leaders of the Bible Project - an effort to undo a lot of the damaging misconceptions of the text and he brings some incredible illumination to the deep patterns that are woven throughout the narrative in a tremendous way.
If Satan was once an angel then he's not the source of evil. There's more to the story but nobody cares, easier to blame than look in the mirror or forgive.
This is true, says the Lord is behind evil and good he does all these things, he also sends out evil spirits, makes me wonder where Satan fits into that?
Worshiping and following Jesus is a no-brainer to me. And I was an atheist for most of my life. Living in the darkness, finally crawling out of it, reading ALL of Scripture, and truly discovering who God is completely changed my perceptions of the world around me. i choose to have faith and pronounce Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior because I want to. I believe that he was crucified on the Cross, and resurrected. I truly believe that those events occured based on the personal accounts provided in the Gospels, and what my heart tells me from deep within.
Yeah, that's not for everyone. There is a degree of self induced delusion in what you're doing which all of us are doing in some form or another, but that needs to be kept in check by the realzation that certainty is an illusion. The more concretely believe about the existence of God the more you're actually creating a tottem you pray to, not the real God which cannot be comprehended. So sometimes you need to scrape away the manmade image you create and allow for reality of God to take over.
"Language constrains thought": I disagree. Helen Keller had some significant insight into this. I forget her specific words, but before she learned how to communicate she said she felt as though she acted through feral instinct. It wasn't until she had a language that she could escape her more feral nature. Point being, we are a constrained species; languages give us potential to escape the constraints our more feral nature.
@retcon1991 language might get us closer to God, if there were such a thing, but it's much like taking a step towards Pluto. It might be momentarily true, but ultimately inconsequential.
I dont understand, doesnt the fact that Hellen Keller described her thought as feral before learning to communicate support that language constrains thought? Having more language would make it easier to think then, or think more broadly. Its hard to think about ideas we havent even been introduced to. That said, if one defines god as something outside existence, we will forever lack the language to understand it. I'm an atheist so I dont really need to, but it interesting to think about.
Yes...which is why we are also trapped by it. Language liberates us from ignorance but it also limits our freedom to it's borders, just as our place in history and in physical space do. That's what the flies in the bowl metaphor is getting at. Language grants complex thought and allows for the sharing and growth of thoughts. But what those thoughts can be is limited by the tools of the language used. If you speak multiple languages, this idea becomes easier to understand. Certain metaphors, syntax, and expression does shape the way we see the world around us. It encodes our priorities and how our brains take shortcuts. There are concepts that are just easier to understand and talk about in one language that may also struggle with other concepts. What language tools do we not even know we lack because of human limitations? Because of things we haven't discovered yet? Languages are as living as the people who speak them, and just as fallible.
Nice guest choice Alex! I was just thinking 2 days ago it'd be nice if you interviewed different types of people like Theo Von does. Religion, philosophy, ethics and all are things everyone can speak on. Would love to see more unexpected fruitful interactions between you and someone new.
Throwing my two cents making a pseudo objective definition: The archetype resulting from anthrophizing the universe as experienced psychologically. This is short enough to be coherent. Evidence of that would be research papers showing how the god-image tends to be similar to the experience of early parenting. Also, seeing the evolution of individuals and cultures ' beliefs about the nature of God and its reflection on their life.
Very true that our language is so limited to try to understand God. This is why he condescended in love through revelation - both natural (creation) and special (scripture) revelation - that we might know who God is, not equivocally but analogically
I'm retired at 47. went from Grass to Grace. This video here reminds me of my transformation from a nobody to good home, honest wife, $75K biweekly and a good daughter full of love God bless United Kingdom 🇬🇧❤️
Hello, how do you achieve such biweekly returns? As a single parent i haven't been able to get my own house due to financial struggles, but my faith in God remains strong.
I raised 75k and Ms Teresa Alice Brenda is to be thanked. I got my self my dream car & just last weekend, My journey with her started after my best friend came back from New York and saw me suffering in dept then told me about her and how to change my life through her.Ms Teresa Alice Brenda is the kind of person one needs in his or her life! I got a home, a good wife, and a beautiful daughter. *Note* this is not a promotion but me trying to make a point that no matter what happens, always have faith and keep living!
May God shine in our lives, so that every step we take will be filled with hope, love, and righteousness. May His light shine through us, making every action and word a source of inspiration and comfort to those who need His wisdom.
The best description of God I've heard is that He's like 3 blind men describing an elephant. The one that is holding the trunk, says an elephant is like a large vine. The one holding a leg says that an elephant is like a tree trunk. The one feeling the side says an elephy is like a barn. Are they wrong? Well yes, but they have an aspect of it right. If God does exist He would be beyond our comprehension and we would only be able to describe aspects dimly perceived through our senses.
Whoever uses this description assumes that they possess the full reality of God, while dismissing other religions as simplistic or misguided attempts to grasp only fragments of the truth. This perspective implies a kind of intellectual or spiritual superiority, as if the person making the claim has transcended the limitations that they attribute to everyone else. Far from being a humble acknowledgment of human limitations, it’s actually a profoundly arrogant position to take. It presumes a unique ability to see the “whole elephant,” while relegating others to blindly fumbling with isolated parts.
Whoever uses this description assumes that they possess the full reality of God, while dismissing other religions as simplistic or misguided attempts to grasp only fragments of the truth. This perspective implies a kind of intellectual or spiritual superiority, as if the person making the claim has transcended the limitations that they attribute to everyone else. Far from being a humble acknowledgment of human limitations, it’s actually a profoundly arrogant position to take. It presumes a unique ability to see the “whole elephant,” while relegating others to blindly fumbling with isolated parts.
In this analogy who are the blind people (incapable of seeing the elephant) and who are the persons capable of seeing the elephant? Unless this is taken literally, in that case obviously someone with sight would be much more capable of describing an elephant.
@@UnluckyFatGuy That’s where I would question the usefulness of this God. In this analogy, how could they be sure they were touching an elephant? How can they separate themselves from a fourth person touching a zebra when they don’t even know what an elephant is.
The title of video is about how we are thinking about God all wrong, yet in video it seems to be about how we can't understand God using language while also offering a personal interpretation of God.
When they talked about language it made me think about Orwell’s 1984 newspeech concept. The way that language evolve to make us speak ideas that are only possible within the grammar that we know
"The most religious experience I had was at a Radiohead concert" - thereby once again proving that music can create ecstasy, and that ecstasy is a human experience. No religion or god required.
I'm a new subscriber to Alex. I'm a Christian and I believe that as a Christian you should question everything. My questioning is what brought me closer to Christ. Rainn seems like a pleasant person but God is not some bizarre collection of religions or poets. There is ONE God. Jesus Christ is the LORD.
@ your last three sentences. You are dismissing everyone else’s belief as bizarre while proclaiming your own to be the one true belief system. It’s more than condescending it’s downright arrogant.
Great conversation. Made me think about the questions we ask about life. If it's a question that will still be relevant in the next 100 years, we might have to make a faith based decision considering the evidence available to us. So probably, what separates a theist from an atheist would be the amount of evidence perceived on a daily basis and the willingness to trust. Evidence to do with experiences seems to triumph intellectually derived evidence.
Huh, I had heard of sin being defined as missing the mark. But I never knew that the words were derived from the practice of the sport of archery. That was enlightening. Thank you, Alex!
Haha you obviously don't know what classical theist christians normally believe. God is not simply a kind of Zeus or superhuman. He is not physical and an encounter with Him, is an encounter with all truth. This causes for unbelievers the temporal experience of hell. It not like He is some dude in the sky with a cool voice or something.
The full episode with Rainn Wilson is available now for Substack subscribers: www.alexoconnor.com/p/rainn-wilson-on-god-consciousness
You are doing it again you are talking about the new testament God infact this new testament God you are talking about originates from the persian faith.
The old testament God ie the sumarian and hebrew God even in the book of enoch, God is not represented in the same non physical way there is no God that is in essence moral soul spirit devil ect.
Satan is a character that emerged in the ancient world during the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which began around 550 BCE. The name Satan comes from the Hebrew words ha-Satan, where ha means "the" and Satan means "opposer" or "adversary".
This is when this new testament God started influencing the old testament hebrew texts. so you must be able to see your idea of God is not the same old testament God the God from the bible.
you probably won't read this or pay any attention to what i have stated probably because it does not fit your view, and all your talk about your question's into faith and your focus around new testament idea of God while dissmissing any evidence of a different interpritation especialy a older and more original text. and i am starting to lose intrest as you have nothing to say of any particule inportance.
try talking about enlil and enki from the sumarian text about how different they are to the new testament idea of God.
I am not really concerned about what any particular person BELIEVES. You may believe that there is an old man with a white beard perched in the clouds, that the Ultimate Reality is a young blackish-blue Indian guy, that the universe is eternal, that Mother Mary was a certifiable virgin, or that gross physical matter is the foundation of existence.
The ONLY thing that really matters is your meta-ethics, not your meta-physics.
Do you consider any form of non-monarchical government (such as democracy or socialism) to be beneficial?
Do you unnecessarily destroy the lives of poor, innocent animals and gorge on their bloody carcasses?
Do you believe homosexuality and transvestism are moral?
Do you consider feminist ideology to be righteous?
If so, then you are objectively immoral, and your so-called "enlightened/awakened" state is immaterial, since it does not benefit society in any way.
Why does it need to the letter combination GOD? Come up with a new word for a new meaning, otherwise big danger of equation fallacy. Delusion that eg. person in ancient times is talking about the same thing
Let's not forget that Rainn's religion, the Baha'i Faith, excommunicates believers who are openly gay. Just another fake religion full of bigotry and hate. There are so many contradictions in the Baha'i writings.
Alex please cut this at 11:31 after he says “physics” the last minute discredits and looses us
Alex and Rain Wilson is something I never expected 😅
what a time to be alive 😂❤
Right! I was like okay let me go watch LOL😂
this isn't Rainn Wilson. It's Dwight Schrute.
@@orphia6479FALSE, it’s actually someone merely dressed up as Dwight Schrute. Don’t fall for this pretender!
It was on my 2024 bingo card
We loved having you in studio, Alex! So great having you pick our brains. Excited to have you back in studio and on OUR show very soon!! 🦄
As to a devil there is no doubt, but it is he trying to get in or trying to get out? Nice discussion. I'd have loved to be there and shared this conversation with you both.
Hey rain huge fan and former Bahai. I just wanted to say that I’m a Christian now and one thing I wanted to ask you is how can you believe the Bahai principle of evil not existing when we see evil in our day to day and the old and New Testament speak to a physical and spiritual embodiment of evil
@@koushakoshkbaghi3159 Former Baha'i here too :)
Evil does not objectively exist. Good does not objectively exist. It is just our collective subjective experiences of what we like and don't like that that we give the labels evil and good.
As a massive fan of the US Office, it's so surreal to see Rainn praising a UA-camr I've watched for years from humble beginnings.
You're a brilliant man Alex. You have a long, great future ahead!
My thoughts exactly
Hearing Dwight's voice here is wild
hearing him speak without being insane is wild haha
False. It is tame.
Omg I didn’t even realize it was Dwight
Let's hear what Jah Rule thinks
LOL! It's a Dave Chapelle reference right? Too funny!
Where is Ja?!
Save us Ja 😩
PLEASE!! SOMEBODY GET A HOLD OF JAH!!!
WHERE IS JA!? This is actually perfect
Some of the best conversations between two people can be about the idea of a God, but only if both people willing to learn from the other person, instead of trying to bend the other to their position or opinion.
Yes.
Exactly
I guess. I have a saying: theology is ontology *ON BLACK ICE* ( and, relatedly, teleology is metaphysics *ON BLACK ICE* ). I think that speculating about an entity said to be utterly beyond/transcendent to us is largely a waste of time. I think we should stick to studying and speculating upon being (ontology) and how reality is on a general level (metaphysics).
Obviously that would be the case when the meaning of “God” can be adjusted to whatever the participants feel is worth discussing.
That term means nothing, it's whatever the person wants it to be. The traditional definition of it doesn't exist, it's all a fairytale.
It would be nice if the word "God" had any real-world reference...
My man is on the come up. I remember being a subscriber of Alex when he was showing his 1000th subscriber and now he's at 1 million and has Rainn Wilson on his show. Love it. Atta boy Alex ur early subs are so proud of you.
I think the notion of God is entirely dependent upon the lived experiences of the individual.
I have snowboarded for years now, but i only get to go abroad a couple of times per year. I remember on this one trip to Austria, on the last day of the holiday, we were on the chair lift heading back towards our chalet. The chair lift was very high up and was taking us over the resort horizontally towards another run down the mountain. The sun was low with a smattering of silver and orange / red cloud, I was with 3 of my best friends and we'd had an amazing day. The view was spectacular. I felt this surge of elation that I had never experienced before or since other than when my daughter was born. Even recalling this memory gives me a small taste of the feeling again. It was pure joy.
If I was a theist, I might have been tempted to say that it was religious transcendence. And i can even see how the feeling I had could be felt by somebody who loves choir, or prayer. I just think that mainstream religions, specifically the Abrahamic faiths, have tried to claim these emotions as their own.
I don’t think they do try to claim those things, but perhaps they do attribute something like a sunset, which seems self evidently so, to what created or allowed that sunset to be. I’m talking about God of course. Like when you receive a gift (or see a sunset) you don’t thank the gift or the sun, you thank who gave it to you.
Nature inspires me and brings an intense sense joy from time to time. Nothing religious. Just pure elation and awe over trees, sunsets, water, wildlife
@@forplaylistsetc I'm not denying your feelings. I'm denying your interpretation of them. A mother of four is told by god to kill her kids. I guess her feelings are just as good as yours.
Seems like an unsubstantiated leap to say abrahamic faiths attempt to claim that feeling as their own. Most theists acknowledge people can have that sort of experience without it having to be a religious transcendent event
Thats the thing I always tell religious believers. These sense of wonder and emotional attachment is not inherent to them and is found in ANY belief system and is more a measure of tribalism and your belonging to a group of people who interpret things the way you do and foster common view about things. Irrespective of its actual TRUTH about how everything truly works and the true nature of reality.
Richard Carrier on his book 'Sense and Goodness without God' on section 10 on emotion imo explained the rational framework for exaplaining how emotions work and why they can be flawed.
Essentially, Carrier spouts that for many religious believers, Capital 'T' truth is secondary to the emotional and existential benefits their beliefs provide. The value of religious beliefs for many lies in their ability to satisfy emotional needs, not in whether its actually rooted in the actual underlying fact of how nature and reality actually works.
Derek Lambert of Mythvision for example, Told the story of oddyseus to her religious Aunt. His Aunt literally cried in tears hearing the story.
The faith of many socialists in Marxism has indeed transformed some into more loving people, as they come to love the common man and care for his needs and welfare. Does that make Marxism true?
The faith of many adherents of Dianetics has transformed them into loving people. Does that make Scientology true?
The faith of Jim Jones’ followers made all of them, by all accounts, into much more loving people than they had been, even up to the moment they drank the poisoned punch. Was Jim Jones, then, right after all?
Hardly. Thus, the transformative power of religion is no indication of its truth, but rather of a universal human longing for a loving society where we can experience happiness and purpose. But we do not need any supernatural dogma to have that. Secular Humanists can fall in love with an ideal, too-with nature and humanity-and their lives are likewise transformed by this just as much as for any religious devotee.
One of the many nice things about Christianity (I'm not a committed Christian at this point but thinking everything through) is the idea that God demystified himself for us. God is by nature hidden outside of time and space, and we can't really know anything about him, so God became a human being and came to meet us. If it's true it makes the universe a very cozy place.
edit: What a lively comments section
"God is by nature hidden outside of time and space" so he doesn't exist, then.
"God is by nature hidden outside of time and space". I think that this is a very Newtonian, classical and deist perspective. I think this is a non-trinity view of Christianity. A Spinoza-Einstein synthesis view would be something along the lines of "god is space-time". In a Thomas Hobbes view of the world, this would mean that god is some kind of leviathan creature and we are all 1 part of it.
If God was Jesus and God was the burning bush; then God has been of the world. God is also the holly spirit that remains in the world. I think that this is more along the lines of a trinity belief.
I think there are many interpretations and meanings of Christianity. It is a very adaptable religion and it is why it has survived as long as it has.
@jackkrell4238 i think what he meant in saying is god is outside of space and time he's beyond it, and supposedly created it. God is spiritual non material being, an eternal being. Which then it's plausible than he can't be something that we can comprehend but in christianity by sending himself down so than we can understand him. It comes from the new testament that "the word became flesh" the logos came before us so that we may understand it according to christianity. It's definitely thought provoking if anything. I could be wrong in understanding 🫠
Did you ever learn about the Islamic view of God?
@@jackkrell4238oh that means the unlimited number of universes that scientists made up to explain away the clear design of this one also don’t exist:)
crazy crossover hell yeah
Finally a non-Christian religious person! Bahais are fascinating. Cant wait for this!
Oh, Baha’i? I haven’t watched yet. Cool
What's wrong with a Christian?
@@starsar2084 I think they're saying it's just so common.
@@jsmall10671 Oh okay
@@starsar2084 “what’s wrong with a Christian?” By definition, _everything!_ (Born in sin, needing redemption, etc) 😂
Rainn Wilson is truly blessed to have such a famous interviewer
Dwight giving life advice to Ryan for the second time..
👏🏻
Ryan started the fire!
@@joshuapena6757 Damn right he did.
As an atheist, I really enjoy the idea that God is just a concept like music, rather than an embodied "person".
I think it’s just consciousness itself, the fact that there’s something rather than nothing, but even that is just another thought.
Especially if it is Radiohead
All it sounds like nonsense to me
Music actually exists
Thats what it is but unfortunately religions have taken advatnage of this idea of a ideal-perfect-person.
If you want to look more into it, non dualism (swami vivekananda texts are good start)
I have met one Baha'i person in my entire life. I was a truck driver, and i was passing through Portland, oregon when i had to stop for the night. I met a homeless man outside of a Macdonalds who was asking for some spare cash. At this moment, I can't remember if i had any cash on me or not, but i invited him to come inside and eat dinner with me. We ate together inside the McDonald's and talked for about 3 hours about EVERYTHING. this included religion, in which he explained his religious faith of Baha'ism. Our conversation was very fruitful and I'll never forget it.
As a Christian I can listen to Alex so much more because, even though we disagree in the end, he makes the best attempt that any atheist I see in modern day to better understand the theology of Christianity to better communicate with Christians. He still get's his jabs in, but they mean more because he seems to better understand what he's talking about. I hope all atheist can learn from him. The reverse can't be done for Christians seeing as Atheists don't have a generic decree, but I am more enganged also when Christians listen and engage Atheists on their valid points. I see that there is less talking past each other when Alex talks to Christians or others.
He should try to understand Islam because Christians don’t even understand their own religion. Also, Islam is more clear and logical. There’s only one God, not three.
IMO, as a Christian, Alex is a positive example of one debating and dialoguing in good faith. A model for an Atheist or Theist. He got on Dinesh's case in public debate quite a bit, a little too obnoxiously at some points, but aren't we all human. To his credit, Alex also steelman's Christianity when speaking with Atheists who are being simplistic, reductionist, or downright prideful and lazy. Alex is cool. And he plays a decent guitar. 🤘😎👍
@machtnichtsseimann Dinesh earned his ridicule
@@adamgates1142I would say Dinesh was obnoxious most of the time I’ve seen him.
IMO it feels like Alex is trying to get you to let go of that bubble you were forced into.
He raises a great point about debates over God not changing the atmosphere. A debate is so stringent in what it wants to achieve whereas having an "interesting conversation" about God evokes a high degree of openness to what you could talk about and how the conversation can make you feel or present yourself and your thoughts
If we're thinking about God all wrong, the likelihood that we'll require a new word, non-synonymous to 'God', to describe what it is we should be thinking, will likely be exceptionally high granting the definition of "God" is already next to meaningless.
Precisely. I mean, if we're going to accept redefining that word, why not a whole bunch of other words that have been shown to be empty or bad. Ghost, demon, alchemy, vitalism, etc. Do a thorough job of confusing everyone.
The problem is that we're thinking about God, you can't get to what the word God refers to by thought. That's why thousands of years of talking over relegion has not got us one step closer.
It really is the most pompous position because what you're really saying is I'm the only one who understands.
It is simply It
@adamgates1142 no one understands. It's pompous to think we could ever come close to understanding
Everyone saying they're enjoying hearing Rainn Wilson talk to Alex about religion and philosophy, I'm hyped that he's a Radiohead fan.
How surprising to learn that Rainn Wilson can actually hold his own in a discussion with Alex O'Connor!! I did not know that he had such depth.
I thought he floundered quite a lot actually. He heard a question and then went ahead and answered a different one.
You should look into him. He is quite interesting.
"Don't think - feel! It is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory." - Bruce Lee, student of philosophy (and fighting) with a quote consistent with Taoism, which is consistent with Wittgenstein.
I thought that sounded familiar. Bruce Lee has so many amazing quotes 😊
@@Skye_7_7 Bruce was a philosophy student
@@jsmall10671
Yeah, and his quotes are “consistently” the ones I seek out & some of my favourites
"Running water doesnt go stale," is another one of my favorites by him.
The "finger pointing to the moon" is from a Zen saying and has nothing to do with directing one to a belief in God or "heavenly glory." It has to do with revealing that the self is illusory as a fixed form. All existence is impermanent. Focusing on the "finger" rather than what it indicates is confusing the method with the direct experience: direct experience of one's own mind, consciousness and its contents. Feeling can also be misleading as well if one regards it as revelatory. Meaning that, one has "insight" derived from "feeling" and then holds on to that. Sensations and emotions are impermanent just as thoughts are. Holding to "heavenly glory" is meeting the Buddha on the road. As another famous saying puts it, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." That experience is as impermanent as all others, so don't hold on to it as it too is subject to the flow of change. That is also confusing the finger for the moon.
Wittgenstein also doesn't direct one to a belief in God, necessarily. He was an agnostic. He points out the limits of rational thought just as Buddhism does. Wittgenstein’s “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” in Tractatus does resonate with Buddhism and Taoism, and I get where you see the connection here with religious thinking in context of mysticism, but I think you are over reaching. I can see how I might be wrong here, and you might be correct. I don't think I'm wrong about what I stated about the finger pointing to the moon quote.
Yes. I learned a little Tibetan, and there it makes a grammatical difference whether you have seen something personally or just heard about it. Totally alien to European languages.
Never knew how much I needed this
Both of your podcasts have been my favorite things to watch for some months now.
God is whatever you hold in the highest regard. Whatever you place as most important in life, that's your God.
Thanks Jordan, now off you trot and scream into the void about metaphors and myths.
No its just what I like the most. I don't need to label it with a goofy term that most ppl attribute to a deity.
Then "God" seems like a totally meaningless term and I am personally happy never to use this silly word.
I appreciate even Job's confession, upon finally meeting God. "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes." - he had a concept of who he thought God was. But when God finally revealed Himself, Job realized his concepts were wrong. This is when Job's real relationship with God began.
There’s a great BibleProject podcast episode somewhere where they discuss the Moses and horn issue. I believe Dr. Mackie made the point that the word resembling horns is likely intentional as part of the theme of the sacrificial lamb up on the mountain offered to God. If you recall, Moses stood in the gap between God and Israel as a kind of mediator willing to die for the people. Really cool stuff.
Yes, Moses is what Theologians call a 'type' of Jesus.
Bro he literally throws the first pair down and orders everyone killed
Awesome !
I said a VERRRRRRRRY similar thing at my first *rave* that Rainn said at Radiohead. In 2016, still hanging onto the thought of faith and Christian belief but underneath it was under a lot of turmoil. I had an incredible time at that *rave*, also first experience with MDMA. That experience put me in this really interesting head space that I can only describe as "ego death", which is sort of rare on MDMA. I processed a lot of depression and self-worth issues right on the dance floor. And then that God like feeling came in and it was warm and comfortable. But as I "sat" with it in my mind I started to realize it didn't feel like the Christian God I heard about in the bible. Over the next few years, I wrestled with this until I realized I no longer believed in YHWH in 2018. That feeling I felt was the UNIVERSE and all consciousness all life. Plants, animals, and humans; I could feel it breathing and pulsing with life and love. We are all connected. I don't think we need a "being" at all. The laws of physics, chemistry, and the natural universe are GOD enough to me.
Always the Padawan, never the Jedi.
😂😂😂😂🎉
What are you yapping about 😂
always sounding smart, never being...
@@360.Tapestry...stupid? Yes!That's probably what you meant, right?! That has to be it! 🤷🏻♂️👀
4:16 - 100% agree that translation is a massive factor in our understanding of ancient texts. There are huge discrepancies from what is written in the ancient Hebrew and Greek as to what it says in English in numerous passages. And a lot of the reason behind it being ignored is tradition and doctrine. What has been taught and old views of a passage are given precedent over new scholarship and archeological finds that further expand our understanding of ancient Greek and Hebrew. So, most of the push back is from the religious establishment, same as was the case in Jesus' day.
Woah, wait what?? Never expected this crossover
Fascinating that the discussion started with a critique of people imagining what God is and then worshiping that construct but then turned to Raine describing how he thinks of God. Same process, different construct. God - made by people, for people. :)
Yep
Im Christian but love learning and questioning. and i agree, that is a really interesting observation. Do you think then that maybe throughout the ages, culture would have dictated what people wanted God to be? I'd actually be interested to see that. Like with the Norse cultures, there was always like powerful war gods and stuff, but in Israel, it was a good and all knowing God, i wonder if this indicates differences in culture, like maybe the norse were more barbaric or something. Its cool to think about
You beat me to it.
How can you critique people on the meaning of a word. It would be as if I critiqued everyone’s conception of what a “fork” is and then provided an alternative that me and my friends prefer.
@@timere2407 YHWH is hardly good or all-knowing. What if Russell Gmirkin is right that the pentateuch was constructed in about 270 BCE by a bunch of scholars inspired by Plato, especially his Laws?
My big issue with his concept of "God" is that it almost abstracts the concept so far that it becomes a different thing entirely... Where it ceases to have the properties that we previously defined it by. When does it stop being the God that we were originally talking about? Is it even a Pantheistic representation at that point? Does it then become just a functional part of the universe as we know it? In which case we are DEFINED by it's existence. If "God is Physics" then what are we actually discussing any more?
His point about the Radiohead gig (I have a similar experience of the brilliance of one of their shows- it's also strikingly similar to a moment of 'Kill Your Friends' by John Niven) is talked about widely in The God Delusion itself- how transcendent experiences don't have to be synonymous with religiosity or the supernatural. I was actually considering writing part of my dissertation on the effect of Music on effectively luring people into an environment and then an ideology. Before recorded music the only place to see it was likely to be the Church. People could easily misappropriate their love and feelings for the music as that of the "God" figure. Similar to the NSDAP's use of Wagner and other music at rallies. To induce feelings that then make people more likely to seek out that experience again. This is, fundamentally, just a beautiful moment that is subjectively framed as representative of whatever he defines this "God" to be. I thought we were seeking to ESCAPE subjective framing in this discussion?
Agreed if God is everything and all that transcends nature as well (panentheism) the word loses its meaning and anything can be justified as “Gods will”
I do wish it could retain its actual meaning of 'make-believe cuz scared'
Yeah, his idea of ‘God’ is so abstract and numinous that it essentially loses all meaning. I don’t think anyone really has the authority to say what ‘God’ should or shouldn’t mean. I like Rainn, but he’s essentially just talking in meaningless aphorisms here.
Do you have more information on the connection between music and ideology? I always found it odd how in some religions, prayer is only recited in song as opposed to just being read aloud.
Regarding Radiohead, I'm also a big fan. Regarding Dawkins on transcendent experiences with great works of art and music. I was in Florence recently and had the opportunity to see Michelangelo's statue of David and was moved to tears by it. I'm an atheist, so there's that, but the work itself was so exceptional that I was emotionally affected by it without any regard for the religious overtones of the piece. Something similar happened to me at the Louvre when viewing the Venus de Milo.
Rainn Wilson's intuitions about God are deep and remind me of some of the greatest Christians theologians, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas in particular. The "insistent-self" sounds extremely similar to St. Augustine's notion of sin being the "falling in on yourself" and the comment about God not existing in the same way as that pen is on par with some of Aquinas' ideas about God. Very fascinating.
This is going to be my most favorite yet no doubt.
Maybe it’s me personally. But religious debates on UA-cam absolutely made a difference to my life
As much as I appreciate that Alex wants to focus more on investigating religious belief, I have to admit, I miss the old Alex who would call people out on their bullshit.
He only really did that with dinesh desouza.
It does change everything this shattered my reality
So glad you had Rain on, this is a way more interesting conversation. So glad that rational spiritual people are being represented.
Yeah way more rational than those silly Christians. If you think Christians are irrational, then you don’t understand Christianity.
About the horns on Moses: one explanation of why Jerome translated the rays for horns is that the Classical world had a tradition of horns implying divine power, like how Alexander showed himself with horns in his coinage. It could be that he not only translated the word, but also the cultural context.
10:10 - This section made me think of the when Richard Dawkins rebuffal of Karen Armstrong that Daniel Dennett quoted in his AAI 2009 talk:
"If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They’ll be right."
This is just fucking sophistry, man. You have to call it out.
You are never going to get the masses to admit defeat in a public repentance from religion in a way that erases bigoted fundamentalism from existence. The best you can hope for are the underlying definitions to change while the label remains the same.
Those "sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists" that are trying to weasel their idol out of the fires of truth are cowards and deserve to be called out, even if they probably won't. However, many of those "postmodern" thinkers are not just proposing a reactionary pivot; they've been trying to advocate for both a substantial pluralism and a more internally consistent theology from day 1 and have been mercilessly vilified because of it. I think some smug satisfaction out to be derived from the fact that these so called heretics, the even bigger targets of Evangelical cancel-culture than the atheists, are now finding a public voice and following.
And what must the atheist worry about? The vague spiritualist make no such absurd moral and epistemological demands to the nonbelievers as the church does. If you're worried about fake news and ill-informed quackery, note that religion has yet to succeed from a siege on the ivory towers of science; sensationalism has yet to overwhelm a tradition of thinkers dedicated to cautious and precise thinking.
This is precisely why I'm an ignostic and not an atheist now. I can't hold a negative position to something that doesn't have a coherent, non-trivial, and non-contradictory basis.
@@jackkrell4238 agnostic*?
I respectfully disagree, but before I write about why I disagree I should first say, as this is probably relevant to the discussion, that I am an agnostic. I should also disclose that I am not a big fan of Richard Dawkins and therefore biased.
I disagree because it is not clear to me how saying God does not exist in the same way a pen exists is sofistry. It is also not clear to me why a congregation of believers should be considered the Golden Standard for Theism.
I mean, I can imagine how this argument could be considered a valid viewpoint, but my critique is that it is not the only, and might not even be the most relevant Theist viewpoint. It seems to me, but this might be my bias kicking in, mostly a strawman argument.
@@marcelfabus5850 How is it a strawman? For something to exist, it must exist somewhere, somewhen, and have actual properties( you know, like a pen.) Also, why exactly are you an agnostic? Give me a coherent, non-trivial, and non-contradictory definition of god and then we can start talking evidence and argumentation.
An interesting interview and Alex does well not just correcting some of Rain's layman philosophy ideas and keeping the conversation flowing - he is getting very good at this. Either way, its always interesting to see how all human beings wrestle with our notion of existence, its inescapable to wonder how we got here, why does anything exist at all
I think people don’t like idea of a God that judges, hence the profound God who is only about love
One more indicator of how its all in our heads and we just mold it into what tickles our feels the most.
Wonderful discussion!
As someone that does not really think in words most of the time, this point hits very close. I often need to translate my thoughts to language when I'm talking/ writing and it's really often that a concept I'm thinking about does not really fit into language.
The feeling of Wilson's god at the concert is also similar to what my partner thinks a god is.
4:19 Why is it so funny that three times in rapid succession Alex can't say "Horns" without miming little horns on his head?
I have replayed it several times. The word "horns" now means nothing to me unless accompanied by fingers.
Lol😅
I am ashamed to say my 100% of my experience of Rain Wilson before this video was through his portrayal of Dwight Schrute. I was watching a clip from the Office just yesterday. So imagine my surprise of seeing this incredible and enlightening conversation.
Rainn Wilson sounded like he was about to start a Cthulhu cult for a second there
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Where do I sign up?
Finally, an Alex video that didn't drive me mad! I even gave you a "like" for the first time ever. What Rainn says about Dawkins v. priest is spot on and also finally Wittgenstein and the limitations of language get a mention! So crucial when discussing this subject in the 21st century. In my view, Wittgenstein is as essential to our understanding of modern religious thinking as Einstein is to our understanding of physics. He trnsforms everything and we ignore him at our peril. I wish the churches would understand this.
Gord is Good
Dr. Dringus
Praise Gord! Holy Djengus 🙏Holy Vajonus 🙏
Who's Gord?
@@GordonGarveyevidently you are!
@wayneandrews1022 🥰
I interpret is that person is the concept and that when we look at truth as emptiness, then we can’t communicate - so our existence is conceptual in this way, and that’s where the realization of God as person comes true.
I like this snippet
I wonder if Rainn realizes how close he came to converting himself to Spinozan near the end…
How is he not already?
Really excited for this, never expected to see him on this channel
I never remember this episode of the office!
The debate and the exchange of ideas is a way to get to truth, unless you don’t think there is such a thing. So “arguing” or “duking it out” is productive as long as it’s the ideas that are preeminent in the discussion and not rhetoric, straw man argumentation and ad hominem.
Consider this, on the matter of God being purely good, and there being a potential for eternal punishment. Suppose you have a bit of enviousness in you. If you see someone or something that is the utter model of perfect goodness, your envy will make you wish you could be like that to the point you will implode under the weight of your own envy. Yet that model of pure goodness will wish you no harm, even to the point of wanting to take your envy out of you, if only you will allow this. You will suffer for your envy, but the model of perfect goodness will only wish you well, and your suffering would be the result of your own flaw which you refuse to give up. This is something like God being the utter model of perfect goodness, thus sending Jesus to remove our flaws if we're willing, and those who refuse suffering forever.
7:32 if we just came from animals and survived the environment then that would presumably mean that religion is optional, or even a sort of diversion or detour around our base nature, but this seems to fly in the face of what the guest is saying, and the cultural experiences of most of planet earth.
About what rainn said about sin meaning to
miss the mark in Greek, that is because of a mistranslation from Hebrew, like what Alex said about the word "karen". In Hebrew the word sin comes from the word clean or pure, as the sin is something that is to be cleaned. The same word also means to miss a target and therefore it was mistranselated in Greek.
*Glorious Qur'an*
41:43
مَّا يُقَالُ لَكَ إِلَّا مَا قَدْ قِيلَ لِلرُّسُلِ مِن قَبْلِكَ ۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَذُو مَغْفِرَةٍۢ وَذُو عِقَابٍ أَلِيمٍۢ ٤٣
Nothing is said to you, [O Muḥammad], except what was already said to the messengers before you. Indeed, your Lord is a possessor of forgiveness and a possessor of painful penalty.
*2:136*
Say, O believers, “We believe in *Allah* and what has been revealed to us; and what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and his descendants; and what was given to Moses, Jesus, and other prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them. And to *Allah* we all submit.”
Michelangelo was correct, it is true that "karen" is evil and horny. And she wants to talk with the manager.
Wilson is getting at something really important here. Those mostly unproductive "atheist vs believer" debates over God's existence are ACTUALLY debates over which reality is more "real" and/or should be privileged: metaphysical reality, phenomenological reality, or something else. And for whatever reason, the people on the "believers" side like to dance around the phenomenological question and resort to historical or scriptural arguments from their particular religion (which have zero power to persuade someone who isn't already receptive to them), or from psychoanalysis, or whatever it may be. It's as if we've all tacitly agreed that admitting God exists in (and perhaps only in) a phenomenological sense -- that it is more of a feeling than an entity -- invalidates the whole thing. And I don't quite know why that is.
"Satan is the insistant self." Exactly. And the face of God is what appears when the illusion of self drops. The more self we see, the less God we see, and the more God we see, the less self we see. Amen!
I mean, to give a good addition to Rainn’s point on Satan simply being man’s ego, how did we come up with the shoulder angel and devil? They are within us. If anything “god” would be the concept of what is good, selflessness, empathy, compassion, love. The Bible literally says “god is love”! Satan, in contrast, is selfishness, self interest, self absorption. It actually makes a lot of sense.
God’s existence is not the ultimate question it’s the first one. You can’t answer anything else without it
Cannot wait for this full episode!
What Rainn has shared about his journey through his life and his perspectives on things really makes me wish more people would hear from him
Thanks for the conversation, guys.
As a christian i have never understood sin as anything else then the absence of connection and to and with God and therefore with the good.
And you shouldn’t. Don’t be misled by this nonsense.
That's not the Christian concept of sin, so you're not a Christian.
Alex - I absolutely applaud your recognition and subsequent focus on the damage our modern translations have done to the original intentions of the Hebrew writers. If you have a chance, and interest, I think that Tim Mackie would be an exceptional guest. He is a Hebrew Scholar and one of the leaders of the Bible Project - an effort to undo a lot of the damaging misconceptions of the text and he brings some incredible illumination to the deep patterns that are woven throughout the narrative in a tremendous way.
Rain? Taling to Alex? About God? While referencing Radiohead? Hell yeah, count me in
Thank you for this! I LOVEE Rainn Wilson!!
If Satan was once an angel then he's not the source of evil. There's more to the story but nobody cares, easier to blame than look in the mirror or forgive.
This is true, says the Lord is behind evil and good he does all these things, he also sends out evil spirits, makes me wonder where Satan fits into that?
Yes I love the discussion guys. The pieces really are all here when we let ourselves see them
this is crazy, Alex has gone to a whole new level with this one!!! Dwight!!!!
I love the idea of thinking about god more like music or physics. Can’t wait to watch the entire interview.
Worshiping and following Jesus is a no-brainer to me. And I was an atheist for most of my life. Living in the darkness, finally crawling out of it, reading ALL of Scripture, and truly discovering who God is completely changed my perceptions of the world around me. i choose to have faith and pronounce Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior because I want to. I believe that he was crucified on the Cross, and resurrected. I truly believe that those events occured based on the personal accounts provided in the Gospels, and what my heart tells me from deep within.
The human heart is deceiving - Bible
Reading the bible thoroughly convinced me that it is completely fiction. There are no personal accounts of Christ in it.
Yeah, that's not for everyone. There is a degree of self induced delusion in what you're doing which all of us are doing in some form or another, but that needs to be kept in check by the realzation that certainty is an illusion. The more concretely believe about the existence of God the more you're actually creating a tottem you pray to, not the real God which cannot be comprehended. So sometimes you need to scrape away the manmade image you create and allow for reality of God to take over.
Sure...
You were never an atheist.
Rainn Wilson - found out how deep he was first time this year listening to him talk on the Dax Shepard's podcast, Armchair Expert. So good.
"Language constrains thought": I disagree. Helen Keller had some significant insight into this. I forget her specific words, but before she learned how to communicate she said she felt as though she acted through feral instinct. It wasn't until she had a language that she could escape her more feral nature. Point being, we are a constrained species; languages give us potential to escape the constraints our more feral nature.
Right, but just because language allows us to transcend our feral nature, it doesn't therefore follow that we can use it to understand the divine.
@retcon1991 language might get us closer to God, if there were such a thing, but it's much like taking a step towards Pluto. It might be momentarily true, but ultimately inconsequential.
@@unonymous So, our thought is still constrained.
I dont understand, doesnt the fact that Hellen Keller described her thought as feral before learning to communicate support that language constrains thought?
Having more language would make it easier to think then, or think more broadly. Its hard to think about ideas we havent even been introduced to. That said, if one defines god as something outside existence, we will forever lack the language to understand it. I'm an atheist so I dont really need to, but it interesting to think about.
Yes...which is why we are also trapped by it. Language liberates us from ignorance but it also limits our freedom to it's borders, just as our place in history and in physical space do. That's what the flies in the bowl metaphor is getting at. Language grants complex thought and allows for the sharing and growth of thoughts. But what those thoughts can be is limited by the tools of the language used. If you speak multiple languages, this idea becomes easier to understand. Certain metaphors, syntax, and expression does shape the way we see the world around us. It encodes our priorities and how our brains take shortcuts. There are concepts that are just easier to understand and talk about in one language that may also struggle with other concepts. What language tools do we not even know we lack because of human limitations? Because of things we haven't discovered yet? Languages are as living as the people who speak them, and just as fallible.
Having never taken drugs myself, I do find it intriguing how so many people who do/have become firm believers in a God
Alex, please please please interview David Bentley Hart
I’d like to see it as well. Alex’s weaknesses are really defended and answered by DBH’s strengths.
Nice guest choice Alex!
I was just thinking 2 days ago it'd be nice if you interviewed different types of people like Theo Von does.
Religion, philosophy, ethics and all are things everyone can speak on.
Would love to see more unexpected fruitful interactions between you and someone new.
Is there any concept of God thats coherent, evidence based, and useful?
No
Jesus
Throwing my two cents making a pseudo objective definition:
The archetype resulting from anthrophizing the universe as experienced psychologically.
This is short enough to be coherent.
Evidence of that would be research papers showing how the god-image tends to be similar to the experience of early parenting.
Also, seeing the evolution of individuals and cultures ' beliefs about the nature of God and its reflection on their life.
@@haydenbueckert3056 no
Very true that our language is so limited to try to understand God. This is why he condescended in love through revelation - both natural (creation) and special (scripture) revelation - that we might know who God is, not equivocally but analogically
I'm retired at 47. went from Grass to Grace. This video here reminds me of my transformation from a nobody to good home, honest wife, $75K biweekly and a good daughter full of love God bless United Kingdom 🇬🇧❤️
Hello, how do you achieve such biweekly returns? As a single parent i haven't been able to get my own house due to financial struggles, but my faith in God remains strong.
I'm inspired.
Please spill some sugar about the biweekly stuff you mentioned
I raised 75k and Ms Teresa Alice Brenda is to be thanked. I got my self my dream car & just last weekend, My journey with her started after my best friend came back from New York and saw me suffering in dept then told me about her and how to change my life through her.Ms Teresa Alice Brenda is the kind of person one needs in his or her life! I got a home, a good wife, and a beautiful daughter.
*Note* this is not a promotion but me trying to make a point that no matter what happens, always have faith and keep living!
@@DaisyHart-j2u I heard he gives great helmet. 5 stars, no doubt.
May God shine in our lives, so that every step we take will be filled with hope, love, and righteousness. May His light shine through us, making every action and word a source of inspiration and comfort to those who need His wisdom.
SO happy to see them talk about David Bentley Hart, and I wish Alex would have a conversation with him
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
Intrigued, but don't understand what you're trying to say. Explain please.
@stevesmith4901 it's very subtle. You wouldn't understand.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
@@amirguri1335 Curses! You know my weakness--Subtlety.
A pleasant surprise to see Rainn Wilson on one of the channels I watch.
6:45 the Devil's greatest trick is convincing the world he didn't exist.
Funny how easily you are tricked by a made up amalgamation of random pagan deities artificially applied to vague characters of Hebraic mythology.
Hilarious how much power this completely man made concept has over you.
Your irrational fear has unbeknownst to you become your actual master.
Satan, the only good character in the Bibble
Gorbleschlorp’s greatest scheme was tricking you into thinking he doesn’t exist
Replace Satan with Bigfoot, martians or other fictions and you’ll see how ridiculous this sounds.
The irony of the Seeker is that they are blessed with a passion to understand what the Believer accepts without question.
The best description of God I've heard is that He's like 3 blind men describing an elephant. The one that is holding the trunk, says an elephant is like a large vine. The one holding a leg says that an elephant is like a tree trunk. The one feeling the side says an elephy is like a barn. Are they wrong? Well yes, but they have an aspect of it right. If God does exist He would be beyond our comprehension and we would only be able to describe aspects dimly perceived through our senses.
Whoever uses this description assumes that they possess the full reality of God, while dismissing other religions as simplistic or misguided attempts to grasp only fragments of the truth. This perspective implies a kind of intellectual or spiritual superiority, as if the person making the claim has transcended the limitations that they attribute to everyone else. Far from being a humble acknowledgment of human limitations, it’s actually a profoundly arrogant position to take. It presumes a unique ability to see the “whole elephant,” while relegating others to blindly fumbling with isolated parts.
Whoever uses this description assumes that they possess the full reality of God, while dismissing other religions as simplistic or misguided attempts to grasp only fragments of the truth. This perspective implies a kind of intellectual or spiritual superiority, as if the person making the claim has transcended the limitations that they attribute to everyone else. Far from being a humble acknowledgment of human limitations, it’s actually a profoundly arrogant position to take. It presumes a unique ability to see the “whole elephant,” while relegating others to blindly fumbling with isolated parts.
In this analogy who are the blind people (incapable of seeing the elephant) and who are the persons capable of seeing the elephant? Unless this is taken literally, in that case obviously someone with sight would be much more capable of describing an elephant.
@@UnluckyFatGuy That’s where I would question the usefulness of this God. In this analogy, how could they be sure they were touching an elephant? How can they separate themselves from a fourth person touching a zebra when they don’t even know what an elephant is.
Interesting that you've put your UA-cam plaque above all the deities in the room, very telling
Thinking about God is not a joke, Alex! Billions of people do it every year!
Amazing reference lmai
Identity theft is not a joke Jim! 😂
That and people have killed other people in the name of their god and "his" rules.
Which god would that be? There have been thousands of different gods believed in and worshipped around the world, after all.
Everything is a joke, in some way
The title of video is about how we are thinking about God all wrong, yet in video it seems to be about how we can't understand God using language while also offering a personal interpretation of God.
3:55 but are you aiming for the mark is the question.
When they talked about language it made me think about Orwell’s 1984 newspeech concept. The way that language evolve to make us speak ideas that are only possible within the grammar that we know
"The most religious experience I had was at a Radiohead concert" - thereby once again proving that music can create ecstasy, and that ecstasy is a human experience. No religion or god required.
lmao hahahahahahahahahahaha how vast
@@360.Tapestrythe only thing that’s vast is the number of “ha’s” you used
I'm a new subscriber to Alex. I'm a Christian and I believe that as a Christian you should question everything. My questioning is what brought me closer to Christ. Rainn seems like a pleasant person but God is not some bizarre collection of religions or poets. There is ONE God. Jesus Christ is the LORD.
I'm not sure you understand enough religions or poets to criticize Rainn.
Wow. A condescending Christian. Who’d have thought?
@@pepperjack8440 what have I said thats condescending?
I don't think you've done enough questioning.
@ your last three sentences. You are dismissing everyone else’s belief as bizarre while proclaiming your own to be the one true belief system. It’s more than condescending it’s downright arrogant.
Great conversation. Made me think about the questions we ask about life. If it's a question that will still be relevant in the next 100 years, we might have to make a faith based decision considering the evidence available to us. So probably, what separates a theist from an atheist would be the amount of evidence perceived on a daily basis and the willingness to trust. Evidence to do with experiences seems to triumph intellectually derived evidence.
from Rainn Wilson I learned: "whenever I'm about to do something, I think, “Would an idiot do that?” And if they would, I do not do that thing."
I still might. Evidently I have not yet achieved EnDwightenment.
Huh, I had heard of sin being defined as missing the mark. But I never knew that the words were derived from the practice of the sport of archery. That was enlightening. Thank you, Alex!
I'm tired of being told what God is or wants by other people.... if he/she/them existed I'm sure they'd let me know themselves.
Read 2 Timothy 3:16
Sometimes your absence of seeing something is due to your own blindness.
@@Michael-eg6xzsometimes, other times it's just people making stuff up
@Michael. And sometimes what you see is just a hallucination.
Haha you obviously don't know what classical theist christians normally believe. God is not simply a kind of Zeus or superhuman. He is not physical and an encounter with Him, is an encounter with all truth. This causes for unbelievers the temporal experience of hell. It not like He is some dude in the sky with a cool voice or something.
Love that Hart came up in this conversation. First time I’ve heard Alex reference him.