Atheist Debates - Review - Is Christianity True? W/Cliffe Knechtle
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- Debate at Modern Day Debates:
• DEBATE Matt Dillahunty...
There's more to the debate than I could cover here and it gets even MORE heated after the first 45 minutes I've reviewed here.
Best line of the debate….
Cliffe: You need to clean up your language Matt
Matt: No you need to clean up your thinking 👏🏽😆
Agreed. Amazing how quick witted Matt is while hitting the nail on the head.
Matt is smart as a whip with language and responses. His rants are epic @@thingsandso
As far as I am concerned this debate was the final nail in Cliffe's coffin. He demonstrated repeatedly that he has absolutely nothing to back up his claims and is completely incapable to reasonable debate or even understanding the arguments presented to him. If anyone tried to point to Cliffe as any sort of authority on reasons to believe in God then I will just point them straight back to this debate. Outstanding job as always Matt.
This was true 30+ years ago when I was a student at Carnegie Mellon and he showed up doing his "street preacher" thing...his schtick has neither changed nor improved since then. He's a one trick pony, and that trick is not particularly good.
@@contrarian23 wow! I’m a retired professor myself (literature not science) and the fact that Cliffe was /is one of those scourges who harasses college students walking to classes just irks me so very much. Ugh.
Its just you didnt understand anything lol
@@4Mr.Crowley2 harasses he says lol, these college students invite cliffe to come to their campus and talk with them, and those who are walking to class can keep walking if they don't want to hear it, he isn't forcing them to do anything💀
Cliffe demonstrated how unreasonable his position is and the special pleading he employs when looking at history and other religions.
I made the comment on the MDD video as well, but Cliffe resorted to personal attacks VERY quickly in this recent debate.
Really makes me wish the MDD moderators were a tad more active in steering away from those sorts of things and chastising them.
Cliffe isn't a debater, he's not even an apologist, he's just a preacher screaming at college kids under the guise of open discussion.
Nice gotcha
Bingo. Cliffe needs to stay in his lane as a preacher
for really and truly. he mischaracterizes atheists at college campuses with triumphant symphonic music playing in the background
"Screams"? Lol. Also it is an open discussion. Have you not watched his material.
not really, they ask questions and he answers unless they're the rude ones. Learn to listen and not hate. Hope this helps
Matt, I envy ur tolerance, I just spoke with a couple Muslim apologists in a comments section for about 4 replies each and I am nearly tearing my hair out at the logical disgrace of the arguments and u manage to (overall) keep ur cool in these lengthy debates and still remain strong to carry on afterwards and have done for longer than I have been alive. Thank u and well done. U are a champion for humanity Mr. Dillahunty
To be fair, comments are more infuriatig and less personable than irl debates. Stay calm and don't try to save them all
Remember, there's also bots, and professional troll farms. Not saying all four were these, but I've had a few "debates" where we agreed about the issue overall, but they were still trying to find things wrong to argue against.
I've learned over the past year that muslim apologists somehow found a way to be even worse than christian apologists. I wonder if it's because they come from an environment with less challenge to their statements or if there is some other reason I haven't found.
Awww, my irrational pets are triggered again 😂😂 👻
I taking sides with a non believer more that man of God what daaaaaa
Dillahunty speaking logically. The best weapon ever against religion. Thank you so much for your work.
Reality testing is, the way that we discern between fact and fiction. We all have thoughts and feelings that are illogical or not based in reality from time to time. We all have thinking errors and cognitive missteps. . Reality testing is the process through which you look at a situation and decide whether your thoughts and feelings about it are realistic and logical. There are two different worlds that each of us is perceiving all the time: the internal world and the external world. There is what's going on in our heads and what is actually happening. Using reality testing to examine the relationship between your internal world and the external one. You are able to examine your thinking, realize that you had a thinking error and correct it. When someone cannot tell the difference between these things - when reality testing fails, in other words - there is dysfunction and delusion.
People who do not seem able to make a distinction between their internal and external experiences. To them, feelings are facts. Feelings are evidence. Therefore, there is no difference between the internal world they experience and the external one. If something is real in the internal world, it is real in the external one and they then interpret all the data in a situation to reflect that. If I love someone it will be demonstrated in my actions and how I treat the person and care for them as a person and their feelings. If I think I love my partner but treat them terribly, abuse them, don't consider or care about their feelings then the reality is my idea of love does not match up with the facts of reality and regardless if me or my partner want to believe I love them, clearly I don't love my partner.
If you get the idea a partner is cheating but have no real reason to think that, you can understand this is just fear, not reality; you may examine the reality and search for facts and evidence, but you do not take your feelings as facts and evidence.
When some people gets this idea, it becomes a fact regardless of what is actually happening. Facts and evidence do not sway them because they are interpreting everything so that it reflects what is happening in their internal landscape. Why would they need to test reality? It feels real, therefore it is real. Without engaging in reality testing there can be no distinction made between what goes on in a person's head and what is actually happening. The person simply accepts that their thoughts and feelings are facts regardless of what is going on in reality. They are either unwilling or unable to follow a new line of thinking, accept new information or create new beliefs. They are unwilling or unable to accept and understand that their feelings are not facts, and they cannot create enough distance between themselves and their feelings or their ego to examine them.
If logic is grounded in your own mind, by that standard, cliff is equally logical
What an incredibly fragile ego Cliff seems to have.
They usually seem to have that issue
And he’s soooo dramatic and animated. Comes off as disingenuous
Challenges to his beliefs are more a threat to his financial well-beimg than anything else. The likes of Cliff, Turek, Craig, and lower towr grifters like Bertuzzi want to make money over anything else. That is the main source for their rage and dishonest tactics when they are effectively challenged. Christianity is fascinatimg in how it has become an obvious groft for individuals, rather than organizations, over the last few centuries.
It's a persona that likely works well at shutting down doubt in the religious echo chamber.
@@sypherthe297th2 I wouldn't discount the possibility that he's sincere. All of his reactions are explainable by having his religious beliefs tied to his core identity beliefs and avoiding confrontation with those like hell's about to freeze over.
The number of times he flat out lied about Matt's positions, beliefs, feelings, and even what he had just fricken said was embarrassing. It's like he didn't understand the debate was being recorded.
Especially the part when he stated that matt interrupted him whe he actually stopped talking
That last sentence told me Cliff's entire voting history.
It’d be real nice if we could actually spend debate/conversation time ya know, debating or conversing about the actual topics. Instead, for some reason or another, we have to spend time correcting our interlocutors about the actual things we say and mean.
I know we sometimes use specific jargon and maybe use some words differently - that’s always a risk with language - but I can’t find many charitable reasons for this trend.
My favorite part of the debate was the discussion about the order of creation.
Matt brought it up to refute Cliffe's first criteria, the one about literary style. It reads like myth, it gets the order wrong. Cliffe later gets pretty upset that Matt would try to refute the bible using the order because, there's no "science" in Genesis.
Thanks for refuting yourself, we'll let that hang, now lets dive deeper and see how much you're willing to defend the order anyway. Brilliant.
Yup! Way to go Cliffe! I'm sure all the other apologists really appreciate you saying that Genesis is not an accurate history of the origins of the Universe!
Cliffe's demeanor from the very beginning of the debate was just gross
He's got the same attitude as every other failed professional athlete I've ever seen. Usually they become PE teachers or youth coaches.
He's gotten more and more atrocious over the years.
@@fentonmulley5895oh wow. He’s Al Bundy. Maybe he should have gone into shoe sales.
Selective outrage, ad hominem, attempts at manipulation, overly dramatic and excessively emotional whining??? I don't have the patience😊. I'd call Matt a saint but, err.... Lol
@@ericreed4535I like the guy and the discussions he initiate -somewhat a bit more intellectual than Ray's -however the Bible has been manipulated for so long that it's essence has been lost,besides it ignores some other ancient writings before it and physical structures still present that would give more clues to our origins -we are too busy killing each other and destroying stuff that the truth really struggles to surface.
That was difficult to get through. Hats off to you on how well you did. I doubt I could have held myself that courteous.
On the Cynic vs. Skeptic point - My reply would be "What does it matter what I am? Peter, Paul, and Thomas were cynics, and the evidence pprovided was enough to convince them. Present your evidence if it is so good. It should be enough to convince any cynic."
I love watching Matt Dillahunty's debates. He has taught me how to think.
Your patience and hard work are laudable. I had a nice exercise session, constantly throwing my arms in the air and rocking back and forth.
Thank you for your role in making this world a better place!
That debate was really hard to watch.🥵 Right from his opening statement Knechtle went off the edge of the cliff, and just sounded like a confused child trying to deny eating all of the chocolate even though it's still all over his face and hands!!😜
During debates, I’m convinced there should be some tracking board or something to keep track of if interlocutors are actually addressing the points being made. It’s very easy to change the subject and distract. And would be useful even during news interviews etc..
Unfortunately it's always up to the debater to point this out. They should not address any other point, until something has been answered
@@mactallica9293 sure it’s up to the debaters, but both debaters or interlocutors want their points addressed.
@@keaco73They have something like that, it's called a moderator, James just isn't very good at it.
He's platformed pretty vile people to debate absurd topics and is more concerned about how his audience behaves.
@@jmjw00 no moderator would follow every point and hold the speaker’s feet to the fire.
@@keaco73 An effective one would make even the modest of attempts to keep points being discussed relevant and at least partially in response to a point made or question asked.
"Is Christianity True?" - Are magical, invisible, immortal wizards an evident thing?
Well Harry Potter tells me they are.
It has London in it, it even have other countries, real places that is in London and other places in the world.
It has Nicolas Flamel, the French (perhaps) Alchemist.
There is a reference to Guy Fawkes Night, the Phoenix in Harry Potter is named Fawkes, after that thing.
Etc. Etc.
Ergo!
The Harry Potter books are historical events, and Wizards are real 🫣
@@ShutUpWesley
Dumbledore is self evident!
Although....Matt pointed out that just cos we have to evidence that something is true, does NOT mean it is false.
I am sure there are many true things we will never get to know about.
Just look at the trees.
Therefore C'thulhu
I have to say, I really liked the moment when they both acknowledged that despite their impassioned arguments with each other that it’s nothing personal. So often, saying you don’t believe a claim that someone else finds credible without evidence is met with an enraged response, and the stubbornness & pride inherent in failing to evaluate your own epistemology honestly is also so frustrating that the debate often devolves into slanderous accusations & fury on both sides. While that can sometimes be entertaining, it does nothing to educate & represent either side. That was my favorite moment in the debate…
Except that Knechtle was continuously insulting and abusive, so I think that's yet another thing he lies about.
Cliffe has no better arguments, than the thousands of apologists that went before him. At the end of the day, it boils down to Faith, which has no substance in reality.
Hitchens razor states … "What can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence."
Matt won this debate hands down, simply by using logic and by being able to articulate his points, concisely. Something Cliffe was unable to do. 😊
In science and in life, it's important that we be able to prove our conclusions on some level. With god believers the type of conclusions they come to and the arguments that they make involve unfalsifiable hypotheses. They are impossible to disprove because there is no way to test or prove them. other examples for example would be you cannot prove you are thinking or not thinking something, you cannot prove you are feeling or not feeling something, you cannot prove you believe or don't believe something, you cannot prove you meant or didn't mean something, you cannot prove you did not do or say something. For religious people, the fact that god can't be proven wrong is proof that they are right. They insist that you need to prove the unprovable. They want you to convince the unconvince-able, using examples they won't accept and facts they deny. It's useless. Religious people believe they have all the evidence stacked up on their side. They seem to think that they have proof of what they believe and will not listen to or even consider anything that does not validate that. You cannot prove them wrong, which automatically validates these things as true and correct.
The problem here is that you are arguing facts and they are arguing feelings.. you are actually talking about 2 different things.
For the many of them it seems like everything depends on them being able to keep that position, and they will fight like crazy to do it, even when it makes no sense at all .
Simply trying to present objective facts is often very difficult, because many wont see things objectively. They cannot take their feelings, conclusions, and interpretations out of the equation. They cannot view things through any other lens.So what you are left with is a person who cannot see things as they really are. You cannot prove their conclusions or interpretations wrong, which means you cannot prove them wrong, and therefore there is nowhere to go with any of this. They will simply keep repeating the same wrong thing over and over again, completely convincing themselves that it is the truth and bolstered even more so by your inability to prove them wrong.
Some of these people would likely fall on the pathological narcissism spectrum its so bad and affects much of their thinking in life not just about religion. For example for narcissists their opinions are facts. In their opinion these things are quantifiable and provable because narcissists are pathologically egocentric. They legitimately have no understanding of other people's perspective. There's no understanding that there could be other interpretations of things or that there are different ways of looking at something. Even when someone is reasonable they can still have opinions that are ill-informed or not based on facts. However most reasonable people try to at least look at and consider facts and consider evidence, even if it contradicts their opinion. When someone is a narcissist this is generally not the case at all. They cannot see anything outside of their own interpretations or conclusions and anything else is considered extraneous at best and at worst it's considered manipulative as an attempt to trick or convince them of something false.
Due to their mental gymnastics narcissists are able to consider their own opinions as facts but actual facts as just other people's opinions. This appears to happen because they genuinely don't understand the difference between these two things because they're egocentric. Facts don't exist for them as things which are true in and of themselves and remain true even independent of anybody's agreement with them. It appears to be much more simple than that something is a fact if the narcissist believes it or agrees with it and not a fact if they don't. Stating and believing that a fact is just someone else's opinion is a way of denying that it is in fact a fact .
Narcissistic personalities often have extreme difficulty with many aspects of processing information. This means they very frequently come to erroneous or incorrect conclusions, particularly regarding emotionally charged events. Their rigid thinking in serious difficulty integrating new information makes it very hard for them to alter a conclusion once it's been established in their minds. For narcissists their conclusions, judgments, appraisals and Views are much more than just opinions, they are more even than facts. They become concretized into part of a narrative that supports whatever pseudo identity they're trying to live out. These personalities don't have a stable Identity or self-image they have to try to create one with whatever they have available in the absence of anything more substantial. Narcissistic personalities attempt to create an identity out of even superficial things like their opinions about entertainment, media or sports teams they attach their identity to these things which makes the things very important.
Narcissists will fight like tigers to defend their opinions because they're much more than just opinions. This is why they react so poorly to being corrected, challenged or disagreed with. This is taken not as a simple disagreement or a difference in actual opinion, meaning having differing preferences or subjective Impressions but as a challenge to their deepest beliefs about themselves. As a threat to the narrative they need to believe in order to survive. They take this very very personally. The subject of the disagreement challenge or correction doesn't really matter, it could be which waffles are best or how many stuffed animals is too many or whether it's 99 degrees outside or 100. It always somehow ends up that you are attacking them on the deepest most personal level and must be punished for that. It always somehow ends up that they're the victim even when dealing with narcissists who don't use that exact verbiage or who don't blatantly accuse others of anything, if you listen to what they're actually saying you will realize that the bottom line is always the same, they are the victim
somehow.
This isn't just about protecting a very fragile unstable identity either. There is also a large amount of toxic shame embedded in the narcissistic personality structure and a huge amount of it is being triggered by not being right. In the narcissist black and white perception not being right is shameful and therefore destabilizing on a level that people who are not narcissists probably cannot even begin to understand. The basic gist of this particular situation is that if someone disagrees with you or if there's another way to see something then you're not right because of the toxic shame that is intolerable to narcissistic personalities. Not only does not being right trigger shame and destabilizes them because they don't have stable identities and because they have such difficulty processing and integrating information among other very serious and fundamental problems the idea that they might be wrong about something undermines any confidence or stability they might be experiencing in that moment which is how they exist Moment by moment.
Due in part to their very severe black and white thinking, catastrophizing and other cognitive distortions as well as their complete lack of trust in their own information vetting skills narcissists often conclude that if they are wrong about one thing they could be wrong about everything. There's no ability to just be wrong about something and that be all it is or all it means, it's much bigger and much more higher Stakes than that. It simply cannot be allowed because the implications surrounding it are too big so to defend against it they refuse to even entertain it... it's just not true and that's it. This this can result in some pretty bizarre situations and in behavior that comes across as even delusional or crazy things like denying obvious facts making weird and paranoid accusations attempting to Gaslight people in very obvious or absurd ways and much more. The things they're saying in these situations May or not be things they actually believed but the point of saying them has nothing to do with whether they're true or not. The point is to deny the things that the narcissist needs to believe are false and however they have to get to that doesn't matter. If they have to say things that make no sense or throw people under the bus or come across as completely delusional then that's what they'll do. It doesn't matter because they can live with that because they won't live with it, they'll just create a narrative where that's not how it is. What they can't live with is allowing things that contradict their main narrative to exist on. Challenge that simply cannot be tolerated and it will not be allowed.
These people are an illusion. They are in many ways completely phony. Not perhaps in a conscious purposeful way for many of them, it's actually worse than that. These personalities spend all of their time and focus constructing, Shoring up and constantly preparing against challenges a reality they can do with and generally speaking it often has no resemblance to actuality at all. In the absence of a stable identity and no ability to self-regulate emotions, self-image, self-worth or anything else the only way narcissists have to self-regulate and stabilize is that they have a narrative identity that they can perform to induce others to see them the way they want to be seen so that they themselves can then see themselves the same way. Without a stable Identity or self-image this is how they attempt to stabilize and regulate themselves. Because their reality is not congruent with real life it's constantly in Jeopardy and constantly being damaged by facts, by actuality. this is extremely stressful for narcissistic personalities and a large amount of their time and focus is spent repairing this damage, mostly in the form of denial but also in other ways as well. It's easy to see then why their opinions are more than just opinions for them.
They are part of the patchwork used to shore up a very fragile completely unrealistic existence. It is perhaps not understood very well by many people how extremely fragile these personalities really are. A large majority of narcissists appear to be unable to deal with almost anything in life as adult human beings. They seem unable to make sense out of the world or the people in it in any real way. They often have enormous difficulty making even small decisions. They don't seem to really understand the majority of their Communications and interactions with anybody. They have a very hard time trying to understand or communicate their emotions, thoughts or needs. They can't deal with things not going the way they thought things would go. They can't deal with being corrected, challenged or criticized even gently. They can't deal with being told no, being told to wait and they can't deal with their own constant negative emotional experiences. Even those who don't appear to have these difficulties very often do demonstrate them if you pay attention. Narcissists are of course not the only people who have difficulties with these things but their difficulties with all of these things and many more are often pretty extreme and they are among the only only people who deal with it by attacking, blaming, abusing and punishing others for it.
They have a huge problem with admitting and accepting that they are wrong or mistaken and they will often go as far as possible to deny facts, proof or anything that contradicts what they are claiming - even if this means they have to venture into arguments that sound delusional or make total fools of themselves. Conversations with pathologically narcissistic people can resemble high-stakes debates, or prosecutions in a court of law where people are grilled relentlessly over minor details or become lost in semantics and word salad. What was said, explaining what was said, what was meant by what was said, tone, inflection, word choice, motive and more become the focal point of the interaction instead of whatever the actual point was. The point itself is of course hopelessly lost, buried under the two tons of crap the narcissist has heaped on it in the hope of never having to face, acknowledge or resolve anything. They don't want resolution. They want conflict. Every conversation, every argument, every interaction becomes a contest they must win at all costs. Even if you are not fighting with the narcissist and just trying to hold a conversation, they are often contradicting, one-upping, condescending, bluffing, preaching, sermonizing, correcting, complaining and confabulating. The strategy of the narcissist is often not to outsmart or outmaneuver you but to simply exhaust u.
They struggle terribly with disproportionate toxic shame it is a core feature of this personality structure. Avoiding that shame is one of the biggest driving forces behind almost everything they think feel and do.They are unaware of the intense shame that narcissistic personalities operate under and don't realize that even the tiniest hint of a thought of criticism sends these personalities into a shame induced tailspin. This can be disastrous for them if they can't get out of it so they do whatever they can do to stop the conversation from happening. If they believe you're going to say something that's going to cause them a narcissistic injury they do anything to avoid that and to keep themselves in a power position in the situation. That can look like repeatedly interrupting and talking over you, refusing to listen or to respond to what was actually said. Trying to tell you what you're "really" saying or what you "really" mean. Responding to arguments that you haven't made or things that you haven't even said. Assigning motives to you or your actions. Attempting to "interpret" your body language tone or choice of words. Continuously trying to change the subject or move the goal post. Using variations of "I know you are but what am I", using variations of "what about ism" which is where you say they did something or you call their attention and they say "oh yeah well what about you you did this" Becoming violent or hysterical, refusing to speak or walking away. Stonewalling. Accusing you of starting a fight or picking on them. Accusing you of being abusive of being cruel or of never being satisfied with them. That they're never good enough. Shaming you for your feelings, needs, concerns. Saying you are confusing them or that they don't understand and of course gaslighting, projection, blame shifting, shame dumping.
Narcissists live in a fantasy world because they are legitimately and deeply traumatized by truth and reality you are speaking truth and reality that's like handing a tarantula to a person with arachnophobia.
@@aliross2720 It is and always has been, the person with the positive claim, that has the burden of proof. It is impossible to prove a negative, for the simple fact, there is nothing to prove. i.e. The absence of a God.
All apologists have, are claims from anonymous, dubious sources. They could not be considered hard facts, by any stretch of the imagination. On top of that, you have the fact that they make, extra ordinary supernatural claims, that have never been recorded in reality. I think we can all agree. Real magic only exists within the pages of fairy stories and is a product of an active imagination.
I don’t think either of the interlocutors, were or are narcissists. So I’m not sure why you brought that up. Being passionate about a subject, does not make you a narcissist, in general. However, I am sure there are narcissists on both sides of the argument, when it comes to the God claim. I can certainly think of a few. 🙂
I'm a Christian Matt, but I sincerely appreciate your composure and consistency in presenting your argumentation and evidence in this particular debate.
It was really surprising how angry and dishonest Cliffe was in that debate. He seemed more effective in past debates with Matt.
He's old and struggling towards retirement
At some level, I think he recognizes how thoroughly outclassed he has been in past encounters and has decided to go on the attack with the hope that passion (which generally comes off as unhinged fury) will compensate for flawed and inadequate content.
I couldn't even get a third of the way through watching that debate. When Cliffe was challenged, he went straight into name calling, false accusations, and exaggerated claims. At some point, he just became the "old man yells at cloud" meme from the Simpsons.
Cliffe Knechtle is a prime example of why I am an anti-theist. He's an otherwise very intelligent person who can not see he has been indoctrinated.
I can't help but think what more he might have accomplished if he hadn't been saddled with the idea of needing to justify an unfalsifiable proposition.
I'm not sure he's all that intelligent. What is your evidence?
@@highroller-jq3ix that’s what I was going to say. 😂
@@junepearl7993 I'm not even being snarky. I sincerely don't see any evidence that he is at all a nuanced, disciplined, or analytical thinker. His rhetoric reminds me of Trump's, and he lurches from one logical train wreck to the next.
He is *NOT* intelligent. As someone said below, he's just like Trump. Screaming at people trying to prove the existence of a false god with "proof" from 2000 years ago created by misogynistic men.
Doesn’t saying someone who can’t see they’ve been indoctrinated mean that you could be indoctrinated and not know it?
It is literally the religion of "because I say so".
whoa.........he used the "...and you know it!" thing on you??? Unhinged from reality. And another example of "because I say so" argumentation.
Matt, quite frankly,...there is no reason to debate him again. He accused you of "being closed minded"...when he appears to be the hallmark of closed minded thought. Waste of your time.
@@DRayL_considering the 1st 4 commandments of his religion are " be closed minded or burn forever".. off to a flying start. 😂
Matt said exactly what I was thinking at the end, Cliffe just preaches.
I haven't seen this one yet, but the other ones I've seen went exactly as you said. Matt addressing the topic, and Cliffe holding church.
I'm a trained historian to masters level. We use a range of methods, including interdisciplinary ones. For my MA dissertation I used historical, literary, archaeological and anthropological methods. For a research project I even had to use archaeobiology to help make my case.
There's also some of us using Baye's Therom: a mathematical method.
Whenever Cliffe mentioned Christianity having the "ring of truth", I wanted to be there and say "ring of truth, eh? well, I got the 'one ring' which has control over all other rings, including the ring of truth! so hah! Middle Earth 1, Christianity 0!"
Hahaha I thought that was hysterical. I guess it’s always best to just assert the conclusion. It makes winning a debate such a breeze.
I just binged all the Hobbit and LOTR movies so every time he said ring of truth I thought the one ring to truth them all 🤣
If you're trying to prove Christianity is true through history, historicity and historiography, you're on a fool's quest right off the bat. None of those things are considered exact disciplines by any standard. They're fine for trying to get a basic understanding of history in general, but to prove a religious worldview? No.
I keep waiting for you to stream again on Twitch. I subbed to that channel the day after your last stream
Whenever Cliffe gets indingnant I have to wonder if he's actually upset or just using it as a shield to avoid an awkward topic. He does it at the drop of a hat.
At a certain point, I wonder whether it is even possible to distinguish the two. Christians have to be able to talk themselves into untenable positions and particular mental or emotional states just to maintain the ideology.
I knew Cliffe was FOS when he didn't know about the gospel authors. Any "expert", on either side, would know that. I could not take him seriously after that. Heck, even I knew that. Cliffe's value is in entertainment.
I have a very hard time believing you ever under any circumstances "lost" any debate sir 😂 you could be on deaths doorstep and still win any debate on religion even if barely audible over a whisper
So true. Your comment needs more likes.
Nobody “loses” modern debates. There is no score keeping, and the audience is already on one side or the other. As much as you believe Matt won debates, Christians believe he lost them all. And there were points early in his career when he would get hot-headed and refuse to continue debates when he thought the opponent was being unreasonably stubborn 😂 He’s come a long way in tolerating fallacies and calling them out instead of having hissy fits.
I watched that debate! It was cool! Matt , great job!
I have to say it was painful to watch, Cliffe was almost raging in points losing his shit, it was embarrassing.
Cliff flying off the rails over the genesis was hilarious and confirmed a slam drunk smack down by Matt
This debate highlighted one of Matt’s longest held frustrations. From when he began the Dallas call-in show. Sometimes talking to believers the “whataboutisms” are endless. Absolutely bottomless amounts of goal post shifting and dodging. Sometimes talking past each other isn’t helpful but you can’t help but to do so when someone is constantly shifting the topic & refusing to acknowledge their previous points were bunk and not supporting their current topic or conclusion. Definitely need to work on a quick, concise to the point shutdown of that type of conversation. That way the audience can actually take a Birds Eye view on their opinions and beliefs.
Wanna see Cliffe be really dishonest? Have him and Matt debate on whether or not the bible permits slavery 😮
Here's one where he and Cliffe & son went at it over whether slavery is moral. ua-cam.com/video/gcszn0DvFlM/v-deo.html
I'd suggest the question should be Is "Christianity worth even pursuing?"
That would just be glossed over by believers. They'd just point to the success of first-world countries being mostly Christian and see that as proof there's something to it. You have to attack the argument with the understanding that the average Christian's worldview is centered around confirmation bias.
Agree.
I say to Christians, even if you can proove YHWH exists, you then need to proove he's worth worshipping.
@@jaegrant6441Yep. The whole God thing has 2 heads for me. One being the existence thereof, then the 2nd being his love for me.
Have you ever considered debating Jeff Durbin? I'd be very interested in watching that debate.
Thanks for this review!
Actually, Matt, I WASN'T born!
I was spawned when an Ancient Vampire Lord found himself to be smitten with a "local" Rusalka and they... errr... "got busy wi' it!"
Both my parents were Undead, so neither of them considered that conception was even realistic!! Regardless, by late spring in 1463 my parent's sexual compatibility (now THERE'S a sentence I hoped never to say. Or hear. Or ever think about again) had climaxed and their next union resulted in me spawning between their bodies, both created and fed by the dark energies released in their coupling, drawn out by their paroxysms.
It says so right here on my Spawn Certificate...
Apologists and flat earthers have basically become indistinguishable in their methodology. They tend to make baseless assertions, dodge questions, lie, and when all else fails accuse.
Imo, that's because flat earth methodology was written from the apologists' manual, particularly YEC.
Sounds a lot like right wingers😂
I use the phrase "used god salesman" a lot when talking about religious apologists, and few meet that description better than Cliff. He's not there to debate, he's there to preach and flex for his flock, hammering home his revival tent scripts, pretending to be intellectually rigorous, scolding and misrepresenting his opponent. Were I in your shoes I simply wouldn't engage with him anymore. He's like Amanuel - just there to preach, not to listen, not to provide evidence or even argument, just to carnival-bark for Christ.
Cliff is old-school in that he doesn't even pretend to be interested in the evidential or philosophical arguments, as a Turek might. He learned his craft bellowing on uni campuses and street corners, annoying the shit out of people and picking on the unprepared, relying on his volume and rhetorical momentum, bullying and bulldozing with endless biblical bollocks.
Cliff is basically Ray Comfort, but louder and possibly dumber. He's a pigeon playing chess.
Ray is much more likeable then Cliff, both are impressively bad at debate
I appreciate your debating skills Matt. You represent atheism and rational reasoning very well.
And while you are handily winning these debates, the Supreme Court is winning the cultural war.
And you're doing....?
@@Crashawsome Letting us know where the corrupted and corrupting power directly lies (in putting all State-Accepted false religions on a pedestal of tax and filing and law and social-services breaks)
Cliff knew the 5 generals was a softball, but he also correctly identified it sounds so ridiculous he could use it against you to his base. Tactically, I think he had the better end of that exchange because his followers don't really pick up on the nuance.
These are helpful bc the debates go so quickly it's hard to follow sometimes
Thank you Matt for doing what you do.
Matt, I love what you do, but it’s getting really hard to watch these debates.
My opinion is Cliffe is scared of the person he would be without believing in Jesus
he did talk about polygamy a lot for no reason, and talked up islam a lot which is cool with that kinda thing
Thank you so much Matt for this video summarising your debate with Cliffe Knechtle.
I honestly cannot watch and listen to the garbage of theist apologists anymore, so this was a great overview.
No surprises, it sounds like Cliffe ticked all the predictable, usual boxes of theistic argumentation.
Over and over again, I hear theists asking what would count as evidence for things.
Seriously??
The word ‘evidence’ is self explanatory.
It beggars my belief that they seem completely unable to understand something so blatantly obvious.
It beggars my belief even more that they consistently make such a litany of grand assertions, and yet ALL of them ALWAYS utterly fail at being able to provide actual evidence for the very things that they are asserting.
It’s even more astounding that they also don’t seem to realise something so glaringly noticeable.
How on earth are they not utterly embarrassed at their persistent failure to demonstrate actual evidence for what they are claiming, when any person with even half a brain cell would notice that??
I just don’t get it… 🤷♂️
Hi Matt, hope you’re doing well! Would you by any chance be interested in doing a review on destiny’s most recent pro-life/ pro-choice debate from a week ago? Trent horn recently did a review on it himself and I’m curious what your thoughts would be on it.
Just a bit of a disclaimer, it’s rough to listen to (if you were to watch any of it, you’ll immediately understand what I mean) and it’s also 4+ hours long.
Any response would be greatly appreciated, and keep up the great work!
If you lower the level of debate to his, you end up with " yes it is", "no it's not" ,which small children do endlessly and the looser is the one who stops first. What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Not sure if you take requests but could you do an atheist debates - review on Alex O'Connor's "Theism vs Naturalism" debate?
I think we all know that Alex is just a grifter who now needs to monetise his audience to meet various contractual obligations.
@@Crashawsome
"We all know" sounds like propaganda rhetoric of the kind apologists use.
@@Crashawsome huh?
I was trying to remember this debate but I think the reason I forgot about it so fast was when he said “you need to watch your language”, I do remember thinking that this guy just showed that he has nothing to go on if he has to bring up his opponent’s language.
It’s like that old episode of AXP when the drunk woman calls in when Matt and (I think) Jeff D. were on and goes off when Matt swears. She (just like Chris) just wanted to preach and not converse and going off on the cussing was their “way out”.
I mean if you can’t handle a swear word, but are okay with the brutality described in the Bible, you don’t care about the swear words or you just give them special powers or something. I’m not saying that as a true dichotomy, these are just the two most common ways people react to them.
Thank you for this Matt.
I thought cliff did as well as could be expected considering defending an argument that no one has ever been able to demonstrate
I watched this "debate", and I use that term very loosely as Matt's debate partner was playing Tiddlywinks while Matt was deftly playing 5th Dimensional Chess. 👏 Keep standing up for the Truth, good sir.
I made it about 2/3's of the way through the debate/super chats and couldn't take anymore of Cliffe's disgusting behavior, he complained about Matt cussing yet his general attitude is far more vulgar than any cuss word
I’m always surprised when people(generally of a similar crowd) take so much more offense over the uttering of a cuss word than the actual content of what someone is saying. One use of “fuck” as an exclamation or for emphasis somehow rises to be worse than direct and blatant insults.
Personally i liked how cliffe just dropped genesis like a hot turd, and didnt even try to defend its reliability nor truthfulness.
I gave you a like solely for you comparing genesis to a hot turd
Ever notice how Christians don’t tell you to read the whole Bible. Or don’t tell you to read it start to finish. They seem to always want to guide what you read, in what order, and what you don’t.
Spot on, Matt. Cliffe doesn't just want to preach. He wants to argue about you, not the debate point. He is clearly so convinced he is right that a street preacher approach is all he has, but it doesn't work in a conversation. So he just shouts and demeans. If I were you, I wouldn't touch him again with a 10 foot pole.
I agree with Matt: It seemed to me Cliffe was using the debate as outreach/recruitment.
Based off watching some of Cliff's older debates I figured this one wasn't worth watching. After watching this review it sounds like the debate went exactly how I thought it would.
Unimportant remark that has probably already been made, but FYI the left channel is missing from the stereo.
Winning a debate, losing a debate. What even is that? It's basically a combative sort of thing where two opposing forces are trying their best to prove their point of view and disprove their opponents, so it's only natural for us to think in terms of winning or losing. And sure. You as the debater might have your own personal standard like, "Was my performance as good as I might have liked in comparison to past events?" But if we take a step back which I find is always good, and think about our goals as activists in broader terms, we talked about atheism, in public, in front of an audience for some time. Not too long ago at all, public mentions of disbelief were so rare, one might be able mention every mention of atheism on TV for example, before say, 1990, with their fingers. I don't know that's true. But I watched quite a lot of TV back then and I never heard the word atheist much less anyone describing it accurately and arguing for it. So, small battles. One battle at a time. Tip the needle, if only very slightly, and that puts us in a better position when the winds of change begin to blow and we can finally crank that sucker over.
Every atheist debate is some kind of win. Religionists have little, and not so little, auditoriums all over the world and they get up and talk about their perspective several times a week in each of those millions of buildings forever. They have their own TV channel. Many radio stations. They produce videos, streaming, every form of mass media since the invention of the quill pen to social media. But that doesn't mean I think you should rest on your laurels.
Well into my adulthood the way that I would determine what is true was to be absolutely convinced of anything that sounded plausible to me until someone or something proved it false. This seems very much like what Cliffe does and it annoys the crap out of me for several reasons. I'll name a few.
With this method, if you can even call it that, there is no way to distinguish between a scam and truth.
So, like faith, this method sets people up to be scammed and lied to and to be abused, just as long as the liar/abuser/scammer sounds convincing enough and the lies sound plausible. Lies like constant implied and explicit gaslighting that is inherent but not exclusive to all faith based religions.
There are many more reasons but I think these should be enough to demand a higher standard for evidence before accepting anything as true and to advocate for and promote a higher standard for evidence, even if all it does is help protect one person you care even just a little bit about against the possibility of abuse or a scam. If you're like Cliffe, you're a harmful individual, either because you don't know better and you just live in a society where dangerously low standards for evidence are normalized and glorified, or out of laziness or choice.
However Cliffe and all theists became promoters of intrinsically harmful concepts like faith, if Jesus was both loving and as smart or smarter than me and he and/or his daddy was as powerful as christians say, it would be impossible for faith to be a requirement. Requiring or even continuously encouraging it is abusive, not loving. So christianity can't possibly be true and if its god does exist it's an abusive narcissist and nothing else and all theists are enablers and/or abusers as well as victims. And if you believe _in_ a narcissist, you need a lot more help than any god can give you - you need someone smart instead, like a secular therapist.
"You can't prove that someone loves you" I disagree, and I'll tell you why if you can show me how you're not straying from the debate topic to a non-sequitur, Cliff.
Have no evidence? Change the subject, attack the people and the process. Obvious dishonest tactic.
SOP for so many theist interlocutors.
@@USS_Sentinel It's repetitive after a while. Debate the definitions and interpretations is another tactic they use a lot.
@@USS_Sentinel "Any good evidence for god?"
"What is reality?"
When they bring up confidence in science as being somehow faulty or insufficient, I just ask questions like "Do you like air conditioning, modern medicine, motor vehicles, ELECTRICITY, etc., etc.?" The usual response is the face people make when trying to reconcile opposite concepts... then dissonance takes hold.
Science is, and has been, manipulated to further, or halt, powerful peoples' agendas.
There's a whole branch of social science that has formed from it called agnotology.
Question is: are those studying in it researching how to stop it, or researching how to help those who wish to manipulate science to do it better?
@jaegrant6441 Remember your bullsh1t every time you get in your air conditioned car, home, and workplace, all powered by electricity and fuels, including nuclear power. Remember it every time you get your food from a supermarket with refrigeration and get prescribed a drug from a doctor. If you still hold the same position, then you are either a moron or a liar... both of which have become the standard of our disgusting, pathetic species.
Honestly between Cliffe’s pathetic and condescending conduct in this debate and the exceptionally insane performance of (tenured professor 🤮) James Tour vs Prof. Dave (UA-cam), which consisted of Tour literally screaming at Dave, I think the apologists are really starting to lose it. Tour especially disappoints me as I can’t imagine that Rice University appreciates Tour acting dangerously insane in a debate he requested. Cliffe also seems to have gone over the edge - in the older debates he didn’t seem quite as angry and petty he was in this debate…
It was great watching Cliffe go full on Rumpelstilskin
"All magic comes with a price"
The price for Christian magic, is that you lose the ability of thinking critically and that you get a huge bias towards your Christian faith.🫣
Now are you ready for that magic?
"All you have to do is sign on the dotted line."
I think Cliffe was trying to buffer back over what you were saying about you acknowledging and accepting "different pathways to truth" challenging it directly, that way the listeners that don't use the tools they have to be skeptical can continue to not to use them and not trust you, and instead trust Cliffe's way or still trust the theistic way of modelling beliefs.
Cliffe did say "you" yet the listeners are going think about themselves in the same situation, "How am i supposed to use and trust scientific facts" and they're listening to your response and taking it seriously.
I may not know anything about debating but it looks very difficult to be on point all the time, while the opponent can be sneaky all the time to derail you, and appealing to emotions so much more then you can do. It's not like as an atheist you can't appeal to emotions to form beliefs right? i think he tried to destroy the middle ground in the mind of the listener.
Atleast Cliffe no longer uses the ridiculous stuttering Billy story anymore.
Cliffe is so frustrating because he's a reasonable person but has so much cognitive dissonance he can't see where he's being hypocritical
What do you mean by a reasonable person? I honestly don't find him to be reasonable in the least.
Your next debate should be. IS THE CHRISTIAN GOD TRYING TO CONVINCE EVERYONE THAT RESURRECTION IS TRUE?
OR TRYING TO SAVE EVERYONE ?
If we for the first time find this book lost for thousands of years and people read the literature. Will anyone say this is something more than mythology or will they laugh the absurdity in it? I think it will be treated the same as Greek mythology. People accept the narrative because they are lie from birth that it’s true. But if you are not imposed this belief, a rational person will be hard to convince.
Lol Cliffe was big mad really early on.
I haven't seen one of Matt's debates in a while, but after watching the video at around 28:00 I'm reminded of Sam Harris in some of his more memorable appearances. He'd say things (to the audience) like "I want you to notice that..." Anyway, since I didn't see this debate of Matt's I wondered if he had said to his audience "I want you to notice that..." and then explain them all the things he's explaining to us (@ 28:00) but perhaps more briefly. Something like "I want you to notice that I keep asking Cliffe to provide some methodology, some criteria for 'x' and instead of doing this, he repeatedly attacks me and what he thinks I believe. I don't mind at all, but you should notice that he's failed to provide any convincing reason to believe any of the assertions he's made and that the point of this debate is to examine whether Christianity is true..."
The reason I ask this is- again- I haven't seen one of Matt's debates in a few years and though I haven't seen one of Sam Harris' debates in even longer, I really enjoyed these moments in his debates, where he'd pause and speak to the audience, to clarify these things. Not just for the benefit of the audience, but also in an attempt to shame the opposing debater into staying on track, rather than wasting time on personal attacks or other irrelevancies. Harris had a wonderful ability to condense over an hour worth of rambling, into a few brief sentences that wonderfully defined and encapsulated the position of the opposition. I remember that Tracie Harris used to also be very good at doing this on TAE, but for the life of me, I can't remember if Matt ever did this, too.
Matt can you please explain your last statement? “If your reason for believing …. You have failed.” 36:47
What would you consider a better/ best argument for why someone would believe Christianity?
That statement was a claim, not a demonstration. So, presumably a demonstration of that claim would be better.
Great job Matt! 👍👍
The existence of Mars is an evidence that I was born there, finally they'll believe that I'm Martian Manhunter
Better luck next time Cliffe. Maybe if he prays hard enough, his god will tell him how to make a valid argument
The debate was not. Cliffe may have blown more steam through his whistle, but the engine was going nowhere.
He expressed total double standards in his logic. The point at which I think his brain crashed into dissonance was when he stuck his tongue out in nipple rejection just at the part where his Mars agument clearly showed flaws in his own position.
Thanks so much
How does Cliff debate Matt FOUR TIMES and not come up with better arguments?
Cause there aren't better arguments
Matt, you said on the HangUp Wednesday that you were doing a debate Thursday on Pints with Aquinas but i couldn't find anything about it on their channel. Did it not happen or get delayed?
I was wondering this too
I think the other party pulled out of the debate at the last minute.
This was such a frustrating debate to watch
So, do the Christians who accept "historical evidence" for the Resurrection also accept the historical evidence for the Oracles of Delphi?
Matt: Most scholars think the gospels are written by anonymous authors not eyewitnesses
Cliff: DONT CALL CHRISTIANS SIMPLETONS ! READ MY OXFORD MATHEMATICIAN!
Havent gotten through the MDD compleyely yet. Might skip the Q&A. Cliffe is incredible....not in a good way. 🤦
I personally think Cliffe is a nice guy that means well. This doesn't correlate to any sort of good argument or evidence but still as a person he seems like a nice Christian.
it is pretty crazy that so many holy books read exactly like fairy tales. and not the disney versions. but the old school german kind😅
Ain't that the truth! 🤣
Is it equally likely that someone existed on one hand, or rose from the dead after several days on the other? In the first instance we have tens of billions of people existing, on the other it is practically unheard of and never seem to happen these days.
Iv noticed one of his sons Stuart is evolving similar triates to his dad in debates , Stuarts earlier debates wher more pleasant and open to listening to opposing views but in recent times he's displayed more certainty and fallacious reasoning
the problem with christianity is that Jesus never wrote anything down and everything claimed that he said was written 30-60 years after his death with some known forgeries added hundreds of years later to the text.
There are also story style word for word conversations of jesus when he was alone or speaking to someone in private conversations when no one was around to hear and write the conversation down.
Exactly!!!!!👍🏽
The 'meaningfully address the challenges of life' thing from Cliffte right off the bat really stood out to me too, totally subjective, undefined, and irrelevant... Right from the get go he showed he wasn't interested in the topic.
I find the way Cliffe debates overly aggressive and ugly, he insist that it’s ‘clear’ and then rambles on incoherently with analogies like George Washington that don’t fit, he’s frustrating to listen to, and I appreciate Matts voracity in defending his stance, and not holding his hand too much, hate it when debaters are too cordial and just want to get along, no argue the hell out of it
The debate topic question is too loaded with abstractions: so without laying out an agreed upon valid epistemological framework for contextualisation, then both debaters are just going to talk past each other. Waste of time these shallow debates.
The ring of truth, i thinkvmy d&d character has one of those.