One of my favorites is, "Atheists must believe that everything came from nothing", the irony being that the first chapter of their holy book says that is exactly what their magical invisible friend did.
Yeah which is why I find that tactic so very aggravating. They know they can't defend that, so they once again claim we are the ones coming up with something ridiculous.
If you need the threat of eternal punishment, to prevent you from killing, stealing, lying or screwing your neighbors partner, you're not a moral person let alone 'morally superior'.
@@jjerg had an IRL conversation with a Christian lady, where I *repeatedly* tried to get her to understand that: I do what is “good” because it’s *good* , and avoid doing what is “bad”, because it’s *bad* . She simply couldn’t grasp that heaven and hell didn’t factor into it.
@@davidmgilbreathThat's because these people never grew up and formed an actual moral compass based on sound reasoning. They're stuck in the toddler realm of "do good thing, daddy give me toy. Do bad thing, daddy punish me."
@@chameleonx9253 yes, agreed, it is a matter of maturity. It’s something I increasingly take into consideration when debating/conversing with theists (or believers in general); somebody has to be the adult in the room. 😅
How about this: if you need traffic laws to be a good driver, you're not! Or what about, if doctors need laws to help them be good, they are rotten doctors. Do not be deceived: people are corrupt and need laws - with consequences - to keep the human race in line! As it is written, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Have you lied, stolen, and otherwise wronged your neighbor? The Bible says that a person is a fool if they think they may do evil things and get away with it. Yet, Christ died on a Cross so that you may know Him - something you somehow missed in your falsely so called 'former Christian' days (there is no such thing as a former Christian, as a Christian is someone who knows God). I hope that you will get to know God. Hell is real. Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
Well, just to be fair, I do worship Satan, but only because he's totally cool and I like that he rebelled against the totalitarian dictator of the universe.
I mean, technically you can be mad at someone fictional if they did something you dislike in the context of the story. Tons of people HATE Jar Jar Binx, or Westley Crusher, or Scrappy Doo.
One I hear often is "atheism leads to ", citing Mao, Lenin, Stalin, etc. Those people didn't do those things because of atheism. They did it because they wanted to be seen as the only authority which has nothing to do with atheism.
Some of my favorites: If you are an atheist then..... `you must worship yourself` - `you must be a devil worshiper!` - `you're life is meaningless!` - and of course the all time winner of false claims regarding atheists `you're lying! You know the god I believe in is real! You just want to sin!` Ya know, as if `knowing it was real,` and pretending like I don't would be a loophole or some such nonsense.
(Edit/disclaimer: I made the mistake of putting clarification at the end, but please do read the last sentence before rushing to respond, cause yes, I absolutely got the point, but I also still severely dislike the terminology, and the fact that it's a result of philosophers and/or just people in general getting up their butts about unnecessary jargon doesn't actually help.) 04:00-ish -- As an atheist myself (and a copy editor, so very much a words person), I *do* always get a little annoyed when people act like "subjective" is just a synonym for "situational" even though the two words definitely mean/imply very different things. You can have *objective* things that are *situational* and *subjective* things that *remain constant.* e.g. When a pair of scissors would or wouldn't be useful is very much *situational,* but is by and large determined *objectively* - you're *objectively* not going to get very far in the *situation* where you're trying to cut down a large oak tree with a pair of regular office or classroom scissors, but you're also *objectively* going to get much more use out of those scissors in the *situation* where you're trying to cut a piece of paper. However, what an individual person *subjectively thinks* is best and/or *personally, subjectively* finds to be easiest might or might not change from situation to situation like that. And yes, I get that you're trying to make a distinction between philosophical jargon here, but I still have a beef with that philosophical jargon-ification where no jargon is actually needed and lends to confusion/misuse of language more than actually helping anything.
@@bestbehave Well, polytheistic religions generally tolerate other pantheons fairly well, since if you already believe in multiple gods, it's easy to square the idea that somebody living in a different place might have gods you haven't heard of. Or, you can go the Roman route of just claiming everyone else's gods are really just your gods wearing a silly hat. Plus, in the majority of religions I'm aware of, everyone who dies goes to the same place, and there's generally no torture. Sure, it sucks being dead, but it's mostly a melancholy thing, not endless pain and suffering. The ones that do have that sort of thing, typically only evil people go to the bad place. Christianity and Islam are the only ones I know of that send otherwise good people to suffer forever just because they didn't root for the right magical man in the sky.
@@chameleonx9253 that only says that they might be tolerant. But they might not be, see the persecution of of Muslims in India But why be theist _at_ _all_ ?
@@bestbehave In general, for emotional comfort and to reduce cognitive load. People fear mortality, so they make up stories about how they can live forever, and/or reunite with the loved ones that they've lost. People fear the unknown, so they make up stories to fill the gaps in their knowledge. People have hyperactive agency detection, so when they see something happen that they can't explain, their natural reaction is to assume someone or something did it intentionally. Thinking takes a lot of energy, and the brain is built with cognitive heuristics to reduce load as much as possible. Hence, most people will accept whatever answer requires the least amount of thought. And so on.
As a former preacher who loved humans and cared for their eternal soul and well-being, the only thing that changed in me when my faith vanished was, I no longer cared for their eternal soul. Why? -- Pretty hard to care for something that doesn't exist. I still have the same love for humans, and even look at them in a little bright way. Also... I was able to shave off a few strokes of my golf score. That was a good change.
The A word - not atheism - was mentioned a few times. That might be outside the scope of what the channel covers, but I’d be interested. Personally (though unaware of it at the time), I think it contributed a great deal to my own process.
The problem with atheist hate towards God is not that is true or not, the problem is theist don't understand God is FICTION to atheist and people feel hate for fictional characters ALL THE TIME. Is weird when an audience doesn't hate at least one character from a movie/series/book etc. The fact someone hate a fictional character doesn't mean they are hypocrites or they believe the character is real, THAT'S STUPID. Only a theist think something is real "cuz my feelings tho".
"If it isn't eternal, it has no value!" This is nonsense in a few ways. First, it's the worst False Dichotomy Fallacy I've seen. Either Infinity or Zero but nothing in between. So the steak you're eating is worthless? Your baby's smile is worth nothing? No, they will violently disagree with that if you tell them their first kiss is meaningless. It's also a huge damned misunderstanding of how people value things. The more of a thing someone has relative to their need/desire for it, the less it is valued whereas the less of it we have compared to our desire for it, the more value it has. The man dying of thirst won't hesitate to spend a fortune on even a small amount of life-saving water. Meanwhile, the man with too much sunlight on him will put a negative value on sunlight, seeking to protect himself from the overabundance. Or ask anyone on a hot day how much they want the heat turned up. An infinite supply would never be valued positively, only zero value or negative value.
Hmmm.... I think this vid'll do well for you Ed, it's sooo fun to just pile on! And that moralty claim does get old, so now I ask them why the morals they claim they get from the bable do allow for the killing of innocent children? With morals like that, they can shove their claims sidewise!
The subjective moral thing has really annoyed me for a long time. If you do not believe in a fixed morality you do not just do what you want. People like Epicurus or Aristotle made up moral systems. Their idea was that for society to work people had to control their impulses have some sense of duty etc. How do apologists think China worked? As they did not know about God was their society one of chaos and immorality? The proposition is based on a complete lack of knowledge of history. It also is racist as it suggests that only white people really have access to morality. It is an indictment on what passes for education in Apologetic circles. Most Apologists are fans of deductive logic you think that they would come across stoicism at least.
Since I’m a retired philosophy lecturer, it annoys me for the total ignorance of meta ethics. 1. If morality depends on God, then it is subjective. (Euthyphro dilemma.) 2. There are plenty of arguments for objective morality which do not require the existence of God.
@@robinharwood5044 The thing about objective morality that's always bugged me, is that we simply do not have access to what it actually is. We do not have access to any kind of oracle, that we may pose any kind of problem in morality/ethics, and get a reliable, consistent, clear response back. Religions are no help at all with this problem either. Tried praying to a god? So have millions of other people and they've all received conflicting responses back... Even the bible does not work as a source of objective morality. There are so very many different interpretations of what the bible says about different aspects of life. Not to mention all the atrocities it seems to have no problem with... Furthermore, the bible is incomplete in regards to morality anyway: What does the bible have to say regarding the ethics/morality of human cloning? Of human genetic manipulation? And so on. There's nothing there at all, so we can't use the bible in these circumstances. (That said, the bible does say "go forth and multiply", so maybe it's in favour of cloning?) In conclusion, even if objective morality is "a thing", we as humans do not have access to it. We therefore need to do the best with what we've got, and what we've got is many different forms of subjective morality, based in all manner of different things.
🤣 that last commenter. my immediate thought was, "Wow, either someone hit the sauce a little too hard that day, or they are so brainwashed they actually believe something so profoundly dumb." I immediately felt really, really bad for them. I couldn't imagine having such a thought for anyone that wasn't a fascist, and yet they just threw it out there aimed our way for the world to see, alongside their entire ass. If only someone could have shown them any amount of love growing up. May they get the therapy they so desperately need.
The problem with virtue ethics is that it becomes a currency system with plenty of potential for abuse. One can't be inherently virtuous. One is virtuous per a given peer. If according to Bob, Alice is virtuous, then Alice has gained a reputation currency with Bob based upon her prior actions. Alice does this by either fulfilling Bob's obligations on Alice (deontology) and by providing Bob benefit beyond his obligations (virtues). If Alice is malicious or even merely careless, she might use this reputation with Bob, whether actually gained or she just believes she's gained, to at some point deliver a slight to Bob by defying some of Bob's obligations. She can do this because she is a "good" person, per Bob, until she's spent enough of her reputation currency that Bob no longer considers her to be "good." If she descends into reputation debt, she might need to re-accumulate more reputation currency with Bob until she achieves equilibrium --- or she can just walk away from the relationship. Not everyone who strives to be a virtuous person will abuse this system, but it is a highly dangerous moral philosophy. I haven't decided whether virtue ethics or consequentialism carries a higher risk of damaging behavior by people who think they're doing "good." But the potential to do harm while being convinced that one is in fact being "good" is very high. Anyone can do harm, but a beneficial moral system would be one in which one can recognize the damage they're causing. This is why I subscribe to deontology. Being "moral" is simply fulfilling obligations that others have imposed on us. How many times one has fulfilled someone else's obligations and the virtue currency one has accumulated with that person is entirely irrelevant; failing to fulfill the next obligation is "immoral" regardless. It is often necessary to weigh conflicting obligations and choose to perform the least immoral action, but one will be fully aware of this, and can only defend one's actions through a rationale calculus to demonstrate that the choice one made violated the least important obligation one could have in that circumstance, and to freely suffer the consequences of failing that obligation whether one was "justified" or not in failing that obligation. In more relatable terms, the old conundrum of "is it ever okay to steal bread to feed your starving family" has a clear answer in deontology: it is not. That doesn't mean that one would never be in a situation where stealing bread is the least-bad choice, just that if you have been outplayed to the point that this is the only move you have left, you must expect to pay the consequences for your actions. Meanwhile, virtue ethics might (not necessarily, but might) lead one to say "I've been very good so far, so I can steal this bread and still be a good person, because the good I've done outweighs the bad of stealing the bread... plus I'm feeding my family, dangit!" They might expect others to waive the consequences because hey, after all, they're a good person, right? All said and done, nobody's perfect, right? Once someone reaches this point, it's all downhill from there.
Virtue ethics doesn't postulate one is inherently virtuous. One strives to get closer to the ideal of a particular virtue. Virtues by definition are things that lead to positive results, so I disagree that they can be used for abuse. If behavior leads to abuse, there is no virtue in that behavior and you are no longer practicing virtue ethics. Such behavior is dishonorable and shows a lack of fidelity to the other person as far as respecting their humanity. Some virtues have no relationship to others either such a self-reliance, courage, honor, being industrious. These things can be practiced without relating to other people. I would however state that there is nothing inherently wrong with a currency system of ethics, it is all how it is used. that is the issue. The idea of 'if I scratch your back then you scratch mine' is inherent in most moral systems, almost like it is inherent to moral behavior itself. But I would also caution against using one system of ethics in the first place. Morality is a complex subject where one can combine many of the best parts of systems and often in the combining of moral ideas one finds something better.
Deontology makes it easy to get into a mindset of doling out excessive punishments due to a lack of consideration for circumstance. I would disagree that it is any safer from getting in a situation where you think yourself good while doing bad. I think you got a bit to tangled up in your abstract views and lost touch with the underlying reality. Morality and adherence to it is a consensus matter, not something that can be described in discrete "currency" or static rulesets and isn't really sensible to investigate on an individual level. It's something we evolved as a species, not as discrete beings.
It's significant that the "Aristotelian" virtues (which were formulated not just by Aristotle but by several others who preceded him) were intended as a means of living well. There are interesting and contemporaneous parallels with the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, which also expresses a means of living well. There's no supernatural authority to be appeased, no performative duty, and no currency of approval or accounting to others in either system. These are empirically validated systems. Thus there is no "ought" expressed in them. It's sufficient to talk about what "is" likely to happen. No one has to tell us that we "ought" to feel clarity of thought as a result of living honorably. We can find that out by ourselves.
@@Llortnerof Some good responses and valid criticisms on this thread. I'm happy for the discussion. I do want to push back on this point: ---------- Morality and adherence to it is a consensus matter, not something that can be described in discrete "currency" or static rulesets and isn't really sensible to investigate on an individual level. ---------- I absolutely disagree. Rules of morality are imposed by agents. Those agents aren't always individuals, and we can define communities and cultures by some degree of shared ethical rules and stances. But whether a given action is judged moral or immoral is ALWAYS an individual decision. I'm not going to decide that something you did is immoral if I don't personally obligate against that behavior, and I'm not going to find an action moral if I do personally obligate against that behavior. Who's my next-door-neighbor is entirely unrelated to this question, Since societies, cultures, and groups band around some degree of common morality, members within it will largely share the same moral judgement on a given action. But that's an output, not a requirement. It's still a collection of individual judgements and never a consensus. Where there might be some confusion is in the related but separate realms of laws and rights. In western society (NOT universally and not objectively), laws are supposed to apply equally, and derive authority from the governed. A government body can sanction your actions on behalf of its constituents. This is done by groups not individuals, and laws are derived from consensus. But this is not morality, because its constituents still can individually make their own moral judgement on these actions. And finally, rights are an obligation on some group to not impose specific obligations on other groups, especially to not allow them to sanction specific actions. If a powerful body (ie government) declares a right, then it will impose sanctions on those who violate that right. People are still free to have individual _moral_ opinions on these actions; they are simply forbidden to sanction those actions.
Neurodivergent people are far more likely to reject high-control religion (not necessarily “spiritual” beliefs, though). So does the Abrahamic God just love us less to not give us “the gift of faith”?
Not necessarily. Events are commonly said to take place "by accident" if there is no controlling intention behind them. Your definition requires there to always be a controlling intention, just not always a successful one.
My personal position as an atheist is that if other people want to believe in a god, that's their business and no reason for me to get up in their face about it. But - and it's a big but - I expect equal consideration in return. So when believers try to make laws or impose behaviour based on *their* beliefs, I take issue with it.
For me, the biggest problem with the "atheists don't have a purpose in life" claim is, what exactly is the _theists'_ purpose of life? For starters, there isn't really a "theist" purpose of life, because that is going to ultimately depend on the brand of theists. So then let's ask, what is the _Christian's_ purpose of life? You always hear Christians claim how God gives them a purpose of life, but come on, if that purpose is, "To praise God" then I gotta ask, really? The purpose of your life is praise God? At that point, I have to ask, why is that such a good thing? "The purpose of my life is to grovel at God's feet." No thanks, I'd be better off with no purpose than to have something so awful. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Christians really do have a great purpose of life that I'm missing. But I've never heard it. When it is said, it is about praising God. Most of the time, it is left unsaid. And for good reason.
The purpose of life, according to Christianity, if perpetual happiness in heaven. How does that work is intentionally left vague, so everyone can insert what they think they would like.
About the first point, I disagree. You can be mad at fictional characters. I'm sure people will remember the hate Geoffrey Barratheon got, or how much Dolores Umbridge is still hated. You can be mad at or hate fictional characters. Zeus is deplorable when he r@p3$ yet another young maiden and Yaweh is despicable when he demands g3n0cide and the dashing of innocents against rocks. And my feeling this way about a character has no bearing on my belief or non-belief of the character's existence. It is essentially an accusation of the thoughtcrime of not liking a god or gods and having to bend over backwards to prove that I do not in fact hate their precious imaginary friend and just have some 'concerns' regarding the organisation they're part of makes no sense to me. 'You just hate god(s)' or 'you're just mad to god(s)' is a weird one for sure and I am of the opinion that it isn't something that we should make excuses about ourselves for as our feelings on the character of god(s) is unrelated to the question of whether or not such a being exists. But, that's my opinion on it 🤷♂️
You're not mad at the character, you're mad at their stated actions. The ideas they represent. The character just gives a name and/or face to point at.
Can I ask you a queston that relates to your old job as a theist - pastor? If yes: how you teach a theist kids in to mortality and how you think atheist should teach a kids morality? In the perspective of society base of religion vs secular society there is basically no difference in outcome: like the crimes are on similar levels, the economy is on the same level, like if you compere the secular Czech Republic with theist Polish Republic there is no difference in the statistics. But if you compere the first generation of agnostic in the US with rest of society the difference is enormous. That presents the idea of active morality and intense discussion of the conciseness decisions in your life as the prediction to rise in to higher level of moral society, but we fail to ensure the same outcome in to the second or next's generation of atheists.
Tough one. I would say the statement "Treat people like you want to be treated" is a secular ethic (it appears in nearly every religion and philosophy). I would also think that this and the idea if someone does something genuinely nice for you, you should find a way to reciprocate is a part of human morality regardless as well. I think children can be taught this regardless of faith from generation to generation. At least as a starting point. As time goes by there are going to be enough life situations that parents and children con go over together and discuss. My experience as a teacher taught me that high school kids are very interested in what would be right and wrong actions, so an opportunity there I think.
Aren't "other religions" than yours more wrong than atheists who are honest and say, "I don't know"? I don't know if yours or the others are wrong or correct, but believers of other religions claim they are correct, and you are wrong. (At least I am not putting any other gods before any others - i.e. I'm not breaking the very first Commandment).
The fact that there are other religions probably lends some sense of being at least justified in thinking there is something sensible about having a religion. Therefore those with a different religion are only half wrong but atheists are completely wrong in their eyes. There is also probably some idea that it would be easier to bring an atheist into their belief system than it would be to de-convert and then re-convert another religious person to their own religion.
@@martinconnelly1473 The first religion's Mr. theist says there is "one God", and then other religion's member says, "No there are many gods, and you Mr. theist are wrong and I'm right", and I say "I don't know" - which one in their eyes think I'm more wrong? And, since I see each are equally convinced that each of their conflicting religions/sects is correct and knowing that in fact - AT MOST only one is possible to be correct, which of the 1000's of conflicting religions/sects will find it easier to convince me that their ONE religion/sect is correct?
Believe in god or not believe in god, both acknowledges a god's existence. God(s) are not even possible. so that ends all claims they try to make about anything their "God" does, and changes it into lies. lies because they do not even have evidence a god is even possible, and therefore their belief is make-belief, aka lying to yourself.
Subjectivism about morality means that what makes moral judgments true or false is just a matter of opinion. Objectivism about morality means that what makes moral judgments true or false is something that is independent of our opinions about them. The obvious problem with the claim that in order for morality to be objective God must exist is the fact that many objectivist moral theories do not rely on the claim that God exists. Of course you can claim that these theories are all wrong, but the point is that there can be an objective basis for morality even if God does not exist. The other obvious problem is the Euthyphro dilemma from Plato.
No, you've conflated the terms "subjective" and "arbitrary" and then used that error as the basis of a fallacious Appeal to Consequences. Subjective attributes are those which are set by a subject: an actor or observer. Objective attributes, conversely, attach to the object. If you were to ask a wolf and a deer what is good to eat, you'll get different answers. That makes those answers subjective. But they aren't arbitrary. Wolves and deer don't have much latitude of opinion on the matter. It's the same with humans. We're a social species, which means that some of our instincts tend towards mutual care and cooperation. Other instincts are more selfish. This is how we've evolved. It's somewhat messy and conflicted, and there is some individual variation. All of this makes our morality subjective. But it's also strongly baked in to our species. It's far from arbitrary. The sometimes conflicting instincts mean that we have to resolve the conflicts by assigning priorities and weighing complex concerns and implications. That process can take many different forms, and the formulations can seem arbitrary,. particularly the more elaborate ones. But they're all responses to the same general human condition. That makes them subjective, but again fundamentally not arbitrary.
@@starfishsystems Getting different answers to a question doesn't mean that the answer to the question is subjective. What makes the answer to a question subjective, or in the case of morality what makes a moral judgment subjective, is that its truth depends on or is relative to each individual person, i.e., a person's opinion (whether it be arbitrary or not, where arbitrary would mean there's no real reason for the person's opinion) is what makes the judgment about right and wrong correct. Take a moral claim like "stealing is morally wrong." If that claim is subjective that means that its truth is relative to each person's opinion about it, so that if one person thinks that stealing is morally wrong then stealing is morally wrong for them, and if another person thinks that stealing is not morally wrong then stealing is not morally wrong for them. If the claim "stealing is morally wrong" is objectively true, then its truth is not relative to anyone's opinion or belief about it, and what makes it true is independent of anyone's opinion or belief about it. As metaethical views subjectivism and objectivism make no claims about why we believe a given action is morally right or wrong, just what makes the judgment that it is right or wrong true.
Not matter of opinion, but the matter of point of view and situation. Your understanding of subjectivism is flawed and the same as theists perceive it. Example: Is it moral to kill someone? Both: No Is it moral to kill someone to save whole planet and all people? Objectivism: No Subjectivism: Probably yes (Situation and circumstances can change the morality of an identical action, while in objectivism all actions are under all circumstances everywhere in the universe moral or immoral). Sure, there are various subcategories but this is the point simply put
@@milansvancara "Situation and circumstances can change the morality of an identical action, while in objectivism all actions are under all circumstances everywhere in the universe moral or immoral." What you've described is the difference between objectivism and absolutism. If it's true that stealing is wrong absolutely, then stealing is wrong everywhere at all times under all circumstances. That's not the same thing as objectivism. You can be an objectivist and think that in some circumstances stealing is objectively wrong, and in other circumstances it is objectively permissible. Subjectivism is the view that what makes a moral judgment true is just that someone believes it is true, or has the opinion that it is true. To give an analogy, we normally think that whether a certain food tastes good is subjective, meaning that one person can think it tastes good, and another person can think it doesn't taste good, and they can both be right. They can both be right because whether a food tastes good to someone is subjective. A subjecitivist about morality thinks the same thing about moral claims. So if person A believes that stealing is morally wrong, and person B believes that stealing is not morally wrong, according to subjectivism they are both right.
@@milansvancara By the way, if we know someone is an objectivist about morality, that tells us nothing about what actual moral judgments they believe, it just tells us that they think that the moral claims they do believe are objectively true. So, for example, utilitarianism is an objectivist moral theory, and according to utilitarians it would be morally right to kill someone in order to save the whole planet, even if the person is innocent. For Kant, also an objectivist, killing an innocent person would be wrong, even to save the whole planet. Likewise, if someone thinks that morality is subjective, that tells us nothing about what particular normative moral claims they believe.
I am as mad at god as I am about vampires There is no objective moral value all require thought IF we believe in god WHAT god ? For the theist what is their ultimate meaning other than to die and meet their god ! They can be as vile as they like and just say sorry very very much and according to them all is good. BUT the Dahli Lama is going to hell
How do you view countless testimonies of people who's lives have been radically changed from living "evil" lives (by something that supposedly doesn't exist) and suddenly live a "godly life"? I.e. a hardened criminal. Those who literally worshipped satan and sent curses on people, murdered husband's through their wives etc. P.s. To say they are all simply "delusional" or something is not a logical answer. It is not only real to them, their lives reveal a dramatic change for the better. None say "they suddenly just woke up with more understanding about a logical more moral construct in applying themselves better in co-existence with the normative social constructs around them". Nah, they all base it on an encounter with a divinely good force or visitation of Jesus. So where did this imaginary Jesus that they didn't belive in or hate or whatever come from? How can they suddenly see something (someone) so clearly that changed their life so much if Jesus doesn’t exist?
So which religion is capable of a life change? Malcolm X credited his life change to Islam. I have had several Buddhists over the years, that credit the religion for their life change. On and On it goes. The point is you can use this as proof for any religion as they all have it. Atheism also has people who at some point change their lives and remain atheists. Your characterization of how atheism sees life change is a nice strawman as emotions and many other mental factors which we know factor into this. Atheists are human beings and experience life the same way you do. I mean nice flex for atheism is all the things they did were purely based on logic but that is not the case and no atheist would describe their life change the way you do. The point is this experience proves nothing about what the true viewpoint is and never has.
Go to the cities of the plain in Israel and gaze upon the ashen remains of the 4 cities and the preserved balls of sulfur that didn’t burn up before you lead others astray.
@@larsfinlay7325 Do you any *proof* that those sulfur balls are due to *anything* supernateral? Or is just more reading everything as if it's bablical?
If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is USELESS and so is your FAITH. YUP! More than that, we are then found to be FALSE WITNESSES about God... YUP!
So Sad, Jesus came to this earth to tell you that He has a life in store for you that you can not even imagine the wonder and beauty of it and you all choose to believe that this Shitty World is all you have! The only thing He asked for that is Faith, Hope and Trust and live your highest self. If your trying to figure out why it is so shitty here? Who the hell knows.
I nowhere say life is shitty in this entire video, where did that idea come from as it seems it is your assumption about what atheists think of life and not what they actually think? I actually find life quite enjoyable now and far more precious. But I have to ask you do realize how condescending each one of your comments sound? How much you come off as someone who as arrived at truth and looks down from their ivory tower at everyone else's views? Just wondering if you know that because that is why I don't respond to the majority of them.
@@dasbus9834lol I’ve seen this one before. The argument - if you can call it that - goes something like this: “We can only conceptualize or talk about things that exist. You talk about god, therefore god exists. Therefore therefore, atheism isn’t real.” Too silly for words! 😂😂😂
@@Antony-bp2yh _Why spend all your life talking about or against something that doesn't exist?_ Christianity exists though, as do other religions. And I doubt he's spending all of his life doing this.
@@davidmgilbreath It's either that (and that's the most hilarious form!), or a weak ad hominem along the lines of "stop talking about my religion or you're bad!" 🙄😂
I think we have to be careful about making generalizations about atheism, because once you reject the Christian theistic worldview, you inevitably come up with an alternative worldview that fails to do justice to reality. In modern Western thought the general tendency has been to come up with two different, diametrically opposed atheist worldviews. One is the one mentioned by Ed in his video, naturalistic determinism, which looks for inspiration in modern science. But where does that leave us as human beings? Mere cogs in the machine? So then we have the opposing worldview, that starts with our own individual consciousness, and thinks that we exist as autonomous beings in an impersonal universe, and are therefore free to define ourselves as we please. This is the thinking behind Existentialism and Post-Modernism. They typically deny that there is such a thing as "truth" in the sense of a comprehensive explanation of reality. And we run into the same problem with ethics. What determines morality? One view is that it is something that is sociologically determined. You live in a given society which has its own values and mores. But that would mean that there is nothing inherently wrong with genocide, slavery or cannibalism, because down through history there have been human societies that that practiced such things. The only reason we today think that slavery is "wrong" is because the South had the misfortune of losing the Civil War. An Existentialist, on the other hand, would argue that each individual has to decide for himself what is right and wrong. It's a woman's "right to choose," because there is nothing inherently wrong about destroying the life of an unborn child. And how does an atheist find meaning and purpose in life? Typically through something temporal. The Left finds it in the class struggle and identity politics. The Right through nationalism. As for Paul on Romans 1:18-23, Paul is essentially drawing an argument from design. He's not necessarily saying that atheists believe that God exists, but that they should be reasonably able to conclude from the order and complexity of the universe that God exists. But instead they "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." An atheist is like the visitor to the Louvre who swears up and down that the Mona Lisa was not created by a painter. Yeah. Really.
Better analogy: The atheist looks at the Mona Lisa and asks who the Painter is and researches the evidence to find out that what can be proven and discovers: Lenardo De Vinci . The Theist is the one who asserts - "My God painted it" and looks no further. Oh, and even if I take your interpretation of Romans as to that is what Paul is arguing - he is still wrong.
@@robertwheeler1158 the painting/watch/house analogy is flawed by what I would call reverse reasoning. Say you pile a bunch of rocks and dirt into a big pile, perhaps big enough to be called a small hill. You stand back, admiring your achievement, and conclude that this is how mountains are made; by a much bigger and more powerful maker of rock and dirt piles. Unfortunately - from your perspective - that doesn’t follow, and we know to a fairly high degree of certainty that’s not how mountains are formed. The painting/painter analogy takes a materially observable phenomenon, and then tries to extrapolate from that a hypothetical. That’s perfectly fine, but lacking any verifiable evidence, hypothesis is what it remains.
Some other Christians disagree with you. This was literally said to me last week. They would argue with you that you don't have true faith because you believe that everyone can love genuinely. They argue that some cannot as they haven't experienced the love of god. But in the greater context, I would say the current rendition of Christianity says this in defiance of the Bible where you are told to love like God loves you, but the way God loves is not universal.
One of my favorites is, "Atheists must believe that everything came from nothing", the irony being that the first chapter of their holy book says that is exactly what their magical invisible friend did.
I have pointed this out multiple times. That’s not what I believe, that’s what YOU believe.
They've convinced themselves that we think that way because it's easier for them to cope with!
@@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n For sure!
Not to mention its a complete misunderstanding of the big bang
Yeah which is why I find that tactic so very aggravating. They know they can't defend that, so they once again claim we are the ones coming up with something ridiculous.
If you need the threat of eternal punishment, to prevent you from killing, stealing, lying or screwing your neighbors partner, you're not a moral person let alone 'morally superior'.
@@jjerg had an IRL conversation with a Christian lady, where I *repeatedly* tried to get her to understand that: I do what is “good” because it’s *good* , and avoid doing what is “bad”, because it’s *bad* .
She simply couldn’t grasp that heaven and hell didn’t factor into it.
@@davidmgilbreathThat's because these people never grew up and formed an actual moral compass based on sound reasoning. They're stuck in the toddler realm of "do good thing, daddy give me toy. Do bad thing, daddy punish me."
@@chameleonx9253 yes, agreed, it is a matter of maturity. It’s something I increasingly take into consideration when debating/conversing with theists (or believers in general); somebody has to be the adult in the room. 😅
How about this: if you need traffic laws to be a good driver, you're not! Or what about, if doctors need laws to help them be good, they are rotten doctors. Do not be deceived: people are corrupt and need laws - with consequences - to keep the human race in line!
As it is written, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Have you lied, stolen, and otherwise wronged your neighbor? The Bible says that a person is a fool if they think they may do evil things and get away with it. Yet, Christ died on a Cross so that you may know Him - something you somehow missed in your falsely so called 'former Christian' days (there is no such thing as a former Christian, as a Christian is someone who knows God). I hope that you will get to know God. Hell is real. Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
One of them being the belief that we WORSHIP SATAN, which is ridiculous, if you really stop to think about it!
Well, just to be fair, I do worship Satan, but only because he's totally cool and I like that he rebelled against the totalitarian dictator of the universe.
Ironically, they are the ones worshipping a Satanic character.
It was that last clause in your sentence that is the thing that trips them up. Belief is what they use instead of thinking about it.
@@michaelsbeverly Who also happened to be his father!
@@michaelsbeverly Talk about the ultimate talk back!
I’ve been a atheist my entire life and very proud of it!
Me too now for 62 years. And with a smile on my face.
The other one is "atheists hate God!". A very common and ridiculous claim in many discussions.
I always ask what god
How can an atheists be mad at God if he/she doesn't believe God exists.?
It's not about arguing in good faith. That's what their sacred books say, so that's what they are going to parrot. No thinking required or allowed.
I mean, technically you can be mad at someone fictional if they did something you dislike in the context of the story.
Tons of people HATE Jar Jar Binx, or Westley Crusher, or Scrappy Doo.
@@chameleonx9253
As I've said in a previous comment, it's not the character themselves that are hated. It's what they represent.
One I hear often is "atheism leads to ", citing Mao, Lenin, Stalin, etc. Those people didn't do those things because of atheism. They did it because they wanted to be seen as the only authority which has nothing to do with atheism.
Stalin is about the closest to the christian god
Heard this so often, especially in response to someone pointing out atrocities committed in the name of religion
Some of my favorites: If you are an atheist then..... `you must worship yourself` - `you must be a devil worshiper!` - `you're life is meaningless!` - and of course the all time winner of false claims regarding atheists `you're lying! You know the god I believe in is real! You just want to sin!` Ya know, as if `knowing it was real,` and pretending like I don't would be a loophole or some such nonsense.
I asked someone about why it always has to come down to worshipping something. Be it, material things, yourself, the State, W/E. They never replied.
(Edit/disclaimer: I made the mistake of putting clarification at the end, but please do read the last sentence before rushing to respond, cause yes, I absolutely got the point, but I also still severely dislike the terminology, and the fact that it's a result of philosophers and/or just people in general getting up their butts about unnecessary jargon doesn't actually help.)
04:00-ish -- As an atheist myself (and a copy editor, so very much a words person), I *do* always get a little annoyed when people act like "subjective" is just a synonym for "situational" even though the two words definitely mean/imply very different things. You can have *objective* things that are *situational* and *subjective* things that *remain constant.*
e.g. When a pair of scissors would or wouldn't be useful is very much *situational,* but is by and large determined *objectively* - you're *objectively* not going to get very far in the *situation* where you're trying to cut down a large oak tree with a pair of regular office or classroom scissors, but you're also *objectively* going to get much more use out of those scissors in the *situation* where you're trying to cut a piece of paper. However, what an individual person *subjectively thinks* is best and/or *personally, subjectively* finds to be easiest might or might not change from situation to situation like that.
And yes, I get that you're trying to make a distinction between philosophical jargon here, but I still have a beef with that philosophical jargon-ification where no jargon is actually needed and lends to confusion/misuse of language more than actually helping anything.
@@OldNewsIsGoodNews what an epic comment! My pedant’s heart was all aflutter!
Doing good work, thanks very much 😅
I guess I love humans too much to be a theist. I couldn't have a moment of joy in a heaven knowing even one average human is suffering eternally.
Just be a polytheist. As far as I know, none of those religions send anyone to eternal torture for not being gullible.
@@chameleonx9253why? 🤷♂️
@@bestbehave Well, polytheistic religions generally tolerate other pantheons fairly well, since if you already believe in multiple gods, it's easy to square the idea that somebody living in a different place might have gods you haven't heard of. Or, you can go the Roman route of just claiming everyone else's gods are really just your gods wearing a silly hat.
Plus, in the majority of religions I'm aware of, everyone who dies goes to the same place, and there's generally no torture. Sure, it sucks being dead, but it's mostly a melancholy thing, not endless pain and suffering. The ones that do have that sort of thing, typically only evil people go to the bad place.
Christianity and Islam are the only ones I know of that send otherwise good people to suffer forever just because they didn't root for the right magical man in the sky.
@@chameleonx9253 that only says that they might be tolerant. But they might not be, see the persecution of of Muslims in India
But why be theist _at_ _all_ ?
@@bestbehave In general, for emotional comfort and to reduce cognitive load.
People fear mortality, so they make up stories about how they can live forever, and/or reunite with the loved ones that they've lost.
People fear the unknown, so they make up stories to fill the gaps in their knowledge.
People have hyperactive agency detection, so when they see something happen that they can't explain, their natural reaction is to assume someone or something did it intentionally.
Thinking takes a lot of energy, and the brain is built with cognitive heuristics to reduce load as much as possible. Hence, most people will accept whatever answer requires the least amount of thought.
And so on.
As a former preacher who loved humans and cared for their eternal soul and well-being, the only thing that changed in me when my faith vanished was, I no longer cared for their eternal soul. Why? -- Pretty hard to care for something that doesn't exist. I still have the same love for humans, and even look at them in a little bright way.
Also... I was able to shave off a few strokes of my golf score. That was a good change.
The A word - not atheism - was mentioned a few times. That might be outside the scope of what the channel covers, but I’d be interested. Personally (though unaware of it at the time), I think it contributed a great deal to my own process.
I'm unsure about which word you are talking. Is it anger? Arrogance? Arbitrary? I don't recall him mentioning anhydrous, but that might be it?
The problem with atheist hate towards God is not that is true or not, the problem is theist don't understand God is FICTION to atheist and people feel hate for fictional characters ALL THE TIME. Is weird when an audience doesn't hate at least one character from a movie/series/book etc.
The fact someone hate a fictional character doesn't mean they are hypocrites or they believe the character is real, THAT'S STUPID.
Only a theist think something is real "cuz my feelings tho".
I sure as hell understand the christian god and as described is about as likeable as Stalin
@@gowdsake7103 That's why a lot of atheist will not be Christians even someone prove God exist, dude is an asshole.
Thank you for this video. I really appreciate it. All the best mate.
No problem 👍 Thanks for the support.
"If it isn't eternal, it has no value!"
This is nonsense in a few ways.
First, it's the worst False Dichotomy Fallacy I've seen. Either Infinity or Zero but nothing in between. So the steak you're eating is worthless? Your baby's smile is worth nothing? No, they will violently disagree with that if you tell them their first kiss is meaningless.
It's also a huge damned misunderstanding of how people value things. The more of a thing someone has relative to their need/desire for it, the less it is valued whereas the less of it we have compared to our desire for it, the more value it has.
The man dying of thirst won't hesitate to spend a fortune on even a small amount of life-saving water.
Meanwhile, the man with too much sunlight on him will put a negative value on sunlight, seeking to protect himself from the overabundance. Or ask anyone on a hot day how much they want the heat turned up.
An infinite supply would never be valued positively, only zero value or negative value.
Hmmm.... I think this vid'll do well for you Ed, it's sooo fun to just pile on! And that moralty claim does get old, so now I ask them why the morals they claim they get from the bable do allow for the killing of innocent children? With morals like that, they can shove their claims sidewise!
The subjective moral thing has really annoyed me for a long time. If you do not believe in a fixed morality you do not just do what you want. People like Epicurus or Aristotle made up moral systems. Their idea was that for society to work people had to control their impulses have some sense of duty etc.
How do apologists think China worked? As they did not know about God was their society one of chaos and immorality?
The proposition is based on a complete lack of knowledge of history. It also is racist as it suggests that only white people really have access to morality. It is an indictment on what passes for education in Apologetic circles.
Most Apologists are fans of deductive logic you think that they would come across stoicism at least.
Since I’m a retired philosophy lecturer, it annoys me for the total ignorance of meta ethics.
1. If morality depends on God, then it is subjective. (Euthyphro dilemma.)
2. There are plenty of arguments for objective morality which do not require the existence of God.
@@robinharwood5044 The thing about objective morality that's always bugged me, is that we simply do not have access to what it actually is.
We do not have access to any kind of oracle, that we may pose any kind of problem in morality/ethics, and get a reliable, consistent, clear response back.
Religions are no help at all with this problem either. Tried praying to a god? So have millions of other people and they've all received conflicting responses back...
Even the bible does not work as a source of objective morality. There are so very many different interpretations of what the bible says about different aspects of life. Not to mention all the atrocities it seems to have no problem with...
Furthermore, the bible is incomplete in regards to morality anyway: What does the bible have to say regarding the ethics/morality of human cloning? Of human genetic manipulation? And so on. There's nothing there at all, so we can't use the bible in these circumstances. (That said, the bible does say "go forth and multiply", so maybe it's in favour of cloning?)
In conclusion, even if objective morality is "a thing", we as humans do not have access to it. We therefore need to do the best with what we've got, and what we've got is many different forms of subjective morality, based in all manner of different things.
@@tan_x_dx My big issue with objective morality is that nobody has ever given me a understandable definition.
I am an atheist that believes that you have worth only through your words and actions.
I am an atheist that believes that you have worth only through how your words and actions facilitate or hinder the goals of thinking beings.
🤣 that last commenter. my immediate thought was, "Wow, either someone hit the sauce a little too hard that day, or they are so brainwashed they actually believe something so profoundly dumb." I immediately felt really, really bad for them. I couldn't imagine having such a thought for anyone that wasn't a fascist, and yet they just threw it out there aimed our way for the world to see, alongside their entire ass. If only someone could have shown them any amount of love growing up. May they get the therapy they so desperately need.
The problem with virtue ethics is that it becomes a currency system with plenty of potential for abuse.
One can't be inherently virtuous. One is virtuous per a given peer. If according to Bob, Alice is virtuous, then Alice has gained a reputation currency with Bob based upon her prior actions. Alice does this by either fulfilling Bob's obligations on Alice (deontology) and by providing Bob benefit beyond his obligations (virtues).
If Alice is malicious or even merely careless, she might use this reputation with Bob, whether actually gained or she just believes she's gained, to at some point deliver a slight to Bob by defying some of Bob's obligations. She can do this because she is a "good" person, per Bob, until she's spent enough of her reputation currency that Bob no longer considers her to be "good." If she descends into reputation debt, she might need to re-accumulate more reputation currency with Bob until she achieves equilibrium --- or she can just walk away from the relationship.
Not everyone who strives to be a virtuous person will abuse this system, but it is a highly dangerous moral philosophy. I haven't decided whether virtue ethics or consequentialism carries a higher risk of damaging behavior by people who think they're doing "good." But the potential to do harm while being convinced that one is in fact being "good" is very high. Anyone can do harm, but a beneficial moral system would be one in which one can recognize the damage they're causing.
This is why I subscribe to deontology. Being "moral" is simply fulfilling obligations that others have imposed on us. How many times one has fulfilled someone else's obligations and the virtue currency one has accumulated with that person is entirely irrelevant; failing to fulfill the next obligation is "immoral" regardless. It is often necessary to weigh conflicting obligations and choose to perform the least immoral action, but one will be fully aware of this, and can only defend one's actions through a rationale calculus to demonstrate that the choice one made violated the least important obligation one could have in that circumstance, and to freely suffer the consequences of failing that obligation whether one was "justified" or not in failing that obligation.
In more relatable terms, the old conundrum of "is it ever okay to steal bread to feed your starving family" has a clear answer in deontology: it is not. That doesn't mean that one would never be in a situation where stealing bread is the least-bad choice, just that if you have been outplayed to the point that this is the only move you have left, you must expect to pay the consequences for your actions. Meanwhile, virtue ethics might (not necessarily, but might) lead one to say "I've been very good so far, so I can steal this bread and still be a good person, because the good I've done outweighs the bad of stealing the bread... plus I'm feeding my family, dangit!" They might expect others to waive the consequences because hey, after all, they're a good person, right? All said and done, nobody's perfect, right? Once someone reaches this point, it's all downhill from there.
Virtue ethics doesn't postulate one is inherently virtuous. One strives to get closer to the ideal of a particular virtue. Virtues by definition are things that lead to positive results, so I disagree that they can be used for abuse. If behavior leads to abuse, there is no virtue in that behavior and you are no longer practicing virtue ethics. Such behavior is dishonorable and shows a lack of fidelity to the other person as far as respecting their humanity.
Some virtues have no relationship to others either such a self-reliance, courage, honor, being industrious. These things can be practiced without relating to other people.
I would however state that there is nothing inherently wrong with a currency system of ethics, it is all how it is used. that is the issue. The idea of 'if I scratch your back then you scratch mine' is inherent in most moral systems, almost like it is inherent to moral behavior itself.
But I would also caution against using one system of ethics in the first place. Morality is a complex subject where one can combine many of the best parts of systems and often in the combining of moral ideas one finds something better.
@@therabydatheist what an interesting exchange already; will follow for more.
Deontology makes it easy to get into a mindset of doling out excessive punishments due to a lack of consideration for circumstance. I would disagree that it is any safer from getting in a situation where you think yourself good while doing bad.
I think you got a bit to tangled up in your abstract views and lost touch with the underlying reality. Morality and adherence to it is a consensus matter, not something that can be described in discrete "currency" or static rulesets and isn't really sensible to investigate on an individual level. It's something we evolved as a species, not as discrete beings.
It's significant that the "Aristotelian" virtues (which were formulated not just by Aristotle but by several others who preceded him) were intended as a means of living well. There are interesting and contemporaneous parallels with the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, which also expresses a means of living well.
There's no supernatural authority to be appeased, no performative duty, and no currency of approval or accounting to others in either system.
These are empirically validated systems. Thus there is no "ought" expressed in them. It's sufficient to talk about what "is" likely to happen. No one has to tell us that we "ought" to feel clarity of thought as a result of living honorably. We can find that out by ourselves.
@@Llortnerof Some good responses and valid criticisms on this thread. I'm happy for the discussion.
I do want to push back on this point:
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Morality and adherence to it is a consensus matter, not something that can be described in discrete "currency" or static rulesets and isn't really sensible to investigate on an individual level.
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I absolutely disagree. Rules of morality are imposed by agents. Those agents aren't always individuals, and we can define communities and cultures by some degree of shared ethical rules and stances. But whether a given action is judged moral or immoral is ALWAYS an individual decision. I'm not going to decide that something you did is immoral if I don't personally obligate against that behavior, and I'm not going to find an action moral if I do personally obligate against that behavior. Who's my next-door-neighbor is entirely unrelated to this question,
Since societies, cultures, and groups band around some degree of common morality, members within it will largely share the same moral judgement on a given action. But that's an output, not a requirement. It's still a collection of individual judgements and never a consensus.
Where there might be some confusion is in the related but separate realms of laws and rights. In western society (NOT universally and not objectively), laws are supposed to apply equally, and derive authority from the governed. A government body can sanction your actions on behalf of its constituents. This is done by groups not individuals, and laws are derived from consensus. But this is not morality, because its constituents still can individually make their own moral judgement on these actions.
And finally, rights are an obligation on some group to not impose specific obligations on other groups, especially to not allow them to sanction specific actions. If a powerful body (ie government) declares a right, then it will impose sanctions on those who violate that right. People are still free to have individual _moral_ opinions on these actions; they are simply forbidden to sanction those actions.
I agree. I believe everyone has the potential to love others. That's a biblical position. God's grace surrounds everyone.
Does it. God certainly kills more than anyone else in the Bible - doesn't seem very gracious to me.
Neurodivergent people are far more likely to reject high-control religion (not necessarily “spiritual” beliefs, though).
So does the Abrahamic God just love us less to not give us “the gift of faith”?
Why is it always "That Atheist" and not "those who don't believe in MY god". Because then it suddenly becomes way too complicated, right?
They don't acknowledge the existence of other gods so an atheist not believing in them doesn't matter.
@@jovenc4508 But then they still can't/don't want to understand that we don't acknowledge THEIR god either.
@@MrCanis4
Because to them the idea that anyone could not believe in their god is inconceivable
@@jovenc4508 And yet, more than 80% of today's population doesn't. And about 95% of humanity has never done that.
@@MrCanis4
Nobody said it was a rational belief.
I(f secular morality is subjective, divine command "morality" is doubly so: it is based on people's opinions on God's opinions.
Accident implies a failed intent.
Not necessarily. Events are commonly said to take place "by accident" if there is no controlling intention behind them.
Your definition requires there to always be a controlling intention, just not always a successful one.
That's one possible meaning, but i don't think that was the intended one here
My personal position as an atheist is that if other people want to believe in a god, that's their business and no reason for me to get up in their face about it. But - and it's a big but - I expect equal consideration in return. So when believers try to make laws or impose behaviour based on *their* beliefs, I take issue with it.
Theists don't half come out with a lot of crap. Still, I suppose when you've got nothing solid to back you up, what else can one do?
I have read and reread the authentic letters of Paul. My conclusion is that he was dishonest, disagreeable, and mentally disturbed.
They think we don't believe in the existence of a being could create us what wrong with those religious ppl they think we are dumb
For me, the biggest problem with the "atheists don't have a purpose in life" claim is, what exactly is the _theists'_ purpose of life? For starters, there isn't really a "theist" purpose of life, because that is going to ultimately depend on the brand of theists.
So then let's ask, what is the _Christian's_ purpose of life? You always hear Christians claim how God gives them a purpose of life, but come on, if that purpose is, "To praise God" then I gotta ask, really? The purpose of your life is praise God?
At that point, I have to ask, why is that such a good thing? "The purpose of my life is to grovel at God's feet." No thanks, I'd be better off with no purpose than to have something so awful.
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Christians really do have a great purpose of life that I'm missing. But I've never heard it. When it is said, it is about praising God. Most of the time, it is left unsaid. And for good reason.
The purpose of life, according to Christianity, if perpetual happiness in heaven. How does that work is intentionally left vague, so everyone can insert what they think they would like.
About the first point, I disagree. You can be mad at fictional characters. I'm sure people will remember the hate Geoffrey Barratheon got, or how much Dolores Umbridge is still hated.
You can be mad at or hate fictional characters. Zeus is deplorable when he r@p3$ yet another young maiden and Yaweh is despicable when he demands g3n0cide and the dashing of innocents against rocks.
And my feeling this way about a character has no bearing on my belief or non-belief of the character's existence.
It is essentially an accusation of the thoughtcrime of not liking a god or gods and having to bend over backwards to prove that I do not in fact hate their precious imaginary friend and just have some 'concerns' regarding the organisation they're part of makes no sense to me.
'You just hate god(s)' or 'you're just mad to god(s)' is a weird one for sure and I am of the opinion that it isn't something that we should make excuses about ourselves for as our feelings on the character of god(s) is unrelated to the question of whether or not such a being exists.
But, that's my opinion on it 🤷♂️
You're not mad at the character, you're mad at their stated actions. The ideas they represent. The character just gives a name and/or face to point at.
But I'm not mad at Geoffrey per se, it's his actions.
👀
Ummm no
Can I ask you a queston that relates to your old job as a theist - pastor?
If yes: how you teach a theist kids in to mortality and how you think atheist should teach a kids morality?
In the perspective of society base of religion vs secular society there is basically no difference in outcome: like the crimes are on similar levels, the economy is on the same level, like if you compere the secular Czech Republic with theist Polish Republic there is no difference in the statistics.
But if you compere the first generation of agnostic in the US with rest of society the difference is enormous. That presents the idea of active morality and intense discussion of the conciseness decisions in your life as the prediction to rise in to higher level of moral society, but we fail to ensure the same outcome in to the second or next's generation of atheists.
Tough one. I would say the statement "Treat people like you want to be treated" is a secular ethic (it appears in nearly every religion and philosophy). I would also think that this and the idea if someone does something genuinely nice for you, you should find a way to reciprocate is a part of human morality regardless as well. I think children can be taught this regardless of faith from generation to generation. At least as a starting point. As time goes by there are going to be enough life situations that parents and children con go over together and discuss. My experience as a teacher taught me that high school kids are very interested in what would be right and wrong actions, so an opportunity there I think.
Also get an outro even a short one ,,,get rid of that awkward pause shutting down
Working on intros and outros hopefully this weekend. There are other reasons for this, but you are correct.
Aren't "other religions" than yours more wrong than atheists who are honest and say, "I don't know"?
I don't know if yours or the others are wrong or correct, but believers of other religions claim they are correct, and you are wrong.
(At least I am not putting any other gods before any others - i.e. I'm not breaking the very first Commandment).
The fact that there are other religions probably lends some sense of being at least justified in thinking there is something sensible about having a religion. Therefore those with a different religion are only half wrong but atheists are completely wrong in their eyes. There is also probably some idea that it would be easier to bring an atheist into their belief system than it would be to de-convert and then re-convert another religious person to their own religion.
@@martinconnelly1473 The first religion's Mr. theist says there is "one God", and then other religion's member says, "No there are many gods, and you Mr. theist are wrong and I'm right", and I say "I don't know" - which one in their eyes think I'm more wrong?
And, since I see each are equally convinced that each of their conflicting religions/sects is correct and knowing that in fact - AT MOST only one is possible to be correct, which of the 1000's of conflicting religions/sects will find it easier to convince me that their ONE religion/sect is correct?
@@Specialeffecks They can't all be correct, but they can all be incorrect. That's what I think is the reality of it all.
Believe in god or not believe in god, both acknowledges a god's existence.
God(s) are not even possible. so that ends all claims they try to make about anything their "God" does, and changes it into lies.
lies because they do not even have evidence a god is even possible, and therefore their belief is make-belief, aka lying to yourself.
Subjectivism about morality means that what makes moral judgments true or false is just a matter of opinion. Objectivism about morality means that what makes moral judgments true or false is something that is independent of our opinions about them. The obvious problem with the claim that in order for morality to be objective God must exist is the fact that many objectivist moral theories do not rely on the claim that God exists. Of course you can claim that these theories are all wrong, but the point is that there can be an objective basis for morality even if God does not exist. The other obvious problem is the Euthyphro dilemma from Plato.
No, you've conflated the terms "subjective" and "arbitrary" and then used that error as the basis of a fallacious Appeal to Consequences.
Subjective attributes are those which are set by a subject: an actor or observer. Objective attributes, conversely, attach to the object.
If you were to ask a wolf and a deer what is good to eat, you'll get different answers. That makes those answers subjective. But they aren't arbitrary. Wolves and deer don't have much latitude of opinion on the matter.
It's the same with humans. We're a social species, which means that some of our instincts tend towards mutual care and cooperation. Other instincts are more selfish. This is how we've evolved. It's somewhat messy and conflicted, and there is some individual variation. All of this makes our morality subjective. But it's also strongly baked in to our species. It's far from arbitrary.
The sometimes conflicting instincts mean that we have to resolve the conflicts by assigning priorities and weighing complex concerns and implications. That process can take many different forms, and the formulations can seem arbitrary,. particularly the more elaborate ones. But they're all responses to the same general human condition. That makes them subjective, but again fundamentally not arbitrary.
@@starfishsystems Getting different answers to a question doesn't mean that the answer to the question is subjective. What makes the answer to a question subjective, or in the case of morality what makes a moral judgment subjective, is that its truth depends on or is relative to each individual person, i.e., a person's opinion (whether it be arbitrary or not, where arbitrary would mean there's no real reason for the person's opinion) is what makes the judgment about right and wrong correct.
Take a moral claim like "stealing is morally wrong." If that claim is subjective that means that its truth is relative to each person's opinion about it, so that if one person thinks that stealing is morally wrong then stealing is morally wrong for them, and if another person thinks that stealing is not morally wrong then stealing is not morally wrong for them. If the claim "stealing is morally wrong" is objectively true, then its truth is not relative to anyone's opinion or belief about it, and what makes it true is independent of anyone's opinion or belief about it.
As metaethical views subjectivism and objectivism make no claims about why we believe a given action is morally right or wrong, just what makes the judgment that it is right or wrong true.
Not matter of opinion, but the matter of point of view and situation. Your understanding of subjectivism is flawed and the same as theists perceive it.
Example:
Is it moral to kill someone?
Both: No
Is it moral to kill someone to save whole planet and all people?
Objectivism: No
Subjectivism: Probably yes
(Situation and circumstances can change the morality of an identical action, while in objectivism all actions are under all circumstances everywhere in the universe moral or immoral).
Sure, there are various subcategories but this is the point simply put
@@milansvancara "Situation and circumstances can change the morality of an identical action, while in objectivism all actions are under all circumstances everywhere in the universe moral or immoral."
What you've described is the difference between objectivism and absolutism. If it's true that stealing is wrong absolutely, then stealing is wrong everywhere at all times under all circumstances. That's not the same thing as objectivism. You can be an objectivist and think that in some circumstances stealing is objectively wrong, and in other circumstances it is objectively permissible.
Subjectivism is the view that what makes a moral judgment true is just that someone believes it is true, or has the opinion that it is true. To give an analogy, we normally think that whether a certain food tastes good is subjective, meaning that one person can think it tastes good, and another person can think it doesn't taste good, and they can both be right. They can both be right because whether a food tastes good to someone is subjective.
A subjecitivist about morality thinks the same thing about moral claims. So if person A believes that stealing is morally wrong, and person B believes that stealing is not morally wrong, according to subjectivism they are both right.
@@milansvancara By the way, if we know someone is an objectivist about morality, that tells us nothing about what actual moral judgments they believe, it just tells us that they think that the moral claims they do believe are objectively true. So, for example, utilitarianism is an objectivist moral theory, and according to utilitarians it would be morally right to kill someone in order to save the whole planet, even if the person is innocent. For Kant, also an objectivist, killing an innocent person would be wrong, even to save the whole planet. Likewise, if someone thinks that morality is subjective, that tells us nothing about what particular normative moral claims they believe.
Content is great but delivery is a bit of a monotone so sorry, but found it boring.
I don't do all my videos to entertain. I would classify this as more aimed at those who deconvert from faith than a general audience.
I am as mad at god as I am about vampires
There is no objective moral value all require thought
IF we believe in god WHAT god ?
For the theist what is their ultimate meaning other than to die and meet their god ! They can be as vile as they like and just say sorry very very much and according to them all is good. BUT the Dahli Lama is going to hell
My go-to comparison is a Dolores Umbridge :D
@@gowdsake7103 But don't blame Ed too much! He's the nice kind of vampire! 😉
How do you view countless testimonies of people who's lives have been radically changed from living "evil" lives (by something that supposedly doesn't exist) and suddenly live a "godly life"?
I.e. a hardened criminal.
Those who literally worshipped satan and sent curses on people, murdered husband's through their wives etc.
P.s. To say they are all simply "delusional" or something is not a logical answer. It is not only real to them, their lives reveal a dramatic change for the better.
None say "they suddenly just woke up with more understanding about a logical more moral construct in applying themselves better in co-existence with the normative social constructs around them".
Nah, they all base it on an encounter with a divinely good force or visitation of Jesus.
So where did this imaginary Jesus that they didn't belive in or hate or whatever come from? How can they suddenly see something (someone) so clearly that changed their life so much if Jesus doesn’t exist?
So which religion is capable of a life change? Malcolm X credited his life change to Islam. I have had several Buddhists over the years, that credit the religion for their life change. On and On it goes. The point is you can use this as proof for any religion as they all have it. Atheism also has people who at some point change their lives and remain atheists.
Your characterization of how atheism sees life change is a nice strawman as emotions and many other mental factors which we know factor into this. Atheists are human beings and experience life the same way you do. I mean nice flex for atheism is all the things they did were purely based on logic but that is not the case and no atheist would describe their life change the way you do.
The point is this experience proves nothing about what the true viewpoint is and never has.
Go to the cities of the plain in Israel and gaze upon the ashen remains of the 4 cities and the preserved balls of sulfur that didn’t burn up before you lead others astray.
🤣🤣😂😂😜😜😁😁 OMG really ?
@@larsfinlay7325 Do you any *proof* that those sulfur balls are due to *anything* supernateral? Or is just more reading everything as if it's bablical?
If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is USELESS and so is your FAITH. YUP! More than that, we are then found to be FALSE WITNESSES about God... YUP!
So Sad, Jesus came to this earth to tell you that He has a life in store for you that you can not even imagine the wonder and beauty of it and you all choose to believe that this Shitty World is all you have! The only thing He asked for that is Faith, Hope and Trust and live your highest self. If your trying to figure out why it is so shitty here? Who the hell knows.
I nowhere say life is shitty in this entire video, where did that idea come from as it seems it is your assumption about what atheists think of life and not what they actually think? I actually find life quite enjoyable now and far more precious.
But I have to ask you do realize how condescending each one of your comments sound? How much you come off as someone who as arrived at truth and looks down from their ivory tower at everyone else's views? Just wondering if you know that because that is why I don't respond to the majority of them.
@@christiandpaul2022 If Jebus existed why is there more evidence for Julius Ceasar's existence than for Jebus' ?
If that wonderful life is there, why did God waste our time by putting us into this one?
@@robinharwood5044 To piss you off
@@christiandpaul2022 At last! An answer that actually makes sense!
If you don't believe in God then why do you have this channel?
What of this channel's content requires belief in God?
@@dasbus9834 Why spend all your life talking about or against something that doesn't exist?
@@dasbus9834lol I’ve seen this one before. The argument - if you can call it that - goes something like this:
“We can only conceptualize or talk about things that exist. You talk about god, therefore god exists. Therefore therefore, atheism isn’t real.”
Too silly for words! 😂😂😂
@@Antony-bp2yh _Why spend all your life talking about or against something that doesn't exist?_
Christianity exists though, as do other religions. And I doubt he's spending all of his life doing this.
@@davidmgilbreath It's either that (and that's the most hilarious form!), or a weak ad hominem along the lines of "stop talking about my religion or you're bad!" 🙄😂
I think we have to be careful about making generalizations about atheism, because once you reject the Christian theistic worldview, you inevitably come up with an alternative worldview that fails to do justice to reality.
In modern Western thought the general tendency has been to come up with two different, diametrically opposed atheist worldviews. One is the one mentioned by Ed in his video, naturalistic determinism, which looks for inspiration in modern science. But where does that leave us as human beings? Mere cogs in the machine? So then we have the opposing worldview, that starts with our own individual consciousness, and thinks that we exist as autonomous beings in an impersonal universe, and are therefore free to define ourselves as we please. This is the thinking behind Existentialism and Post-Modernism. They typically deny that there is such a thing as "truth" in the sense of a comprehensive explanation of reality.
And we run into the same problem with ethics. What determines morality? One view is that it is something that is sociologically determined. You live in a given society which has its own values and mores. But that would mean that there is nothing inherently wrong with genocide, slavery or cannibalism, because down through history there have been human societies that that practiced such things. The only reason we today think that slavery is "wrong" is because the South had the misfortune of losing the Civil War.
An Existentialist, on the other hand, would argue that each individual has to decide for himself what is right and wrong. It's a woman's "right to choose," because there is nothing inherently wrong about destroying the life of an unborn child.
And how does an atheist find meaning and purpose in life? Typically through something temporal. The Left finds it in the class struggle and identity politics. The Right through nationalism.
As for Paul on Romans 1:18-23, Paul is essentially drawing an argument from design. He's not necessarily saying that atheists believe that God exists, but that they should be reasonably able to conclude from the order and complexity of the universe that God exists. But instead they "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." An atheist is like the visitor to the Louvre who swears up and down that the Mona Lisa was not created by a painter. Yeah. Really.
Better analogy: The atheist looks at the Mona Lisa and asks who the Painter is and researches the evidence to find out that what can be proven and discovers: Lenardo De Vinci . The Theist is the one who asserts - "My God painted it" and looks no further.
Oh, and even if I take your interpretation of Romans as to that is what Paul is arguing - he is still wrong.
@@therabydatheist But the painting had to have had a painter, whoever it was. I would argue the same for the universe as a whole.
@@robertwheeler1158 the painting/watch/house analogy is flawed by what I would call reverse reasoning.
Say you pile a bunch of rocks and dirt into a big pile, perhaps big enough to be called a small hill. You stand back, admiring your achievement, and conclude that this is how mountains are made; by a much bigger and more powerful maker of rock and dirt piles.
Unfortunately - from your perspective - that doesn’t follow, and we know to a fairly high degree of certainty that’s not how mountains are formed.
The painting/painter analogy takes a materially observable phenomenon, and then tries to extrapolate from that a hypothetical. That’s perfectly fine, but lacking any verifiable evidence, hypothesis is what it remains.
@robertwheeler1158 so basically, you are saying it could be other gods too then oh ok
@@robertwheeler1158 So you claim to know how universes are created? Interesting.
I agree. I believe everyone has the potential to love others. That's a biblical position. God's grace surrounds everyone.
Some other Christians disagree with you. This was literally said to me last week. They would argue with you that you don't have true faith because you believe that everyone can love genuinely. They argue that some cannot as they haven't experienced the love of god.
But in the greater context, I would say the current rendition of Christianity says this in defiance of the Bible where you are told to love like God loves you, but the way God loves is not universal.