The Absurdity of Life Without God (William Lane Craig response)
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- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
- William Lane Craig asks, "Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going?" Modern man has tried to answer those questions without reference to God, but the answers that came back were not exhilarating, but dark and terrible.
But do our wishes determine what is true? Do our fears determine what is true? Or is reality what is true?
The Absurdity of Life Without God | William Lane Craig
• The Absurdity of Life ...
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Mr. Craig outdid himself on this one. The ultimate purpose of this horrendously cringe-worthy video of his was clearly to make his assertions to being a "philosopher" dissipate in a puff of particularly malodorous cranial flatulence. Has Mr. Craig ever considered asking an atheist whether he or she feels that their life has meaning or purpose? Or does he think that just because his emotionally stunted psyche thinks they shouldn't means _de facto_ that they can't or don't. Any Christians that consider this inept bumblefuck to be a champion of their beliefs should seriously consider trading him in for a better model. Though, frankly, finding one could prove to be a bit of a challenge. Excellent critique, as usual, Paul.
@S Gloobal Yes, there can be purpose in the life of an atheist. How can there be purpose for the theist if they think it can only be given by a higher power, making the existence of their god, the highest power, meaningless and without purpose?
@S Gloobal With god, everything PLUS god is meaningless. You don't even get out of eternal meaningless existence.
@@TheLivingDinosaur The images enter his eyeball holes and echo around the black body chamber that is his cranium, never to leave.
@S Gloobal Yes, it is meaningless to live forever. What meaning is there to seeing dead people, even if you are pretending you love them.
@S Gloobal You did not, and you are ignorant.
The church taught me as a child, our purpose is to glorify god. I got older and realized how ridiculous that is. The whole reason I'm alive is to tell someone else how awesome they are? You gotta be shitting me.
It stands to reason that a god that needs praise, is a defective god....
@@chimeraobscura256 : And most likely also one that's suffering from a narciscistic disorder spectrum? ;-)
And you'd better be ecstatically happy about this or you do not get to sing in the celestial choir, @TheOldLadyGamer IsHere... those are the rules... just like in the sandbox behind the preschool, the rules are all that is important ;-)
I assumed God needs more Vespene Gas, and it got translated wrong.
It makes sense if you understand that these religions were born when Kings/Dictators ruled and these men rewarded obedience and loyalty(belief). To a Dictator like Putin loyalty is above all else - disloyal people will cost him his power
Brought before the King/Dictator one was expected to get down on one's knees, beg for his mercy and praise him sky-high - he needs to be pleased or else!
That is where these ideas are coming from - these religions made their Gods using their King/Dictator as the template
For those living in those days a God who acted just like their King made perfect sense
What is amazing & mind-boggling is that it is not those ancients who were stupid it is todays highly educated, intelligent people blindly following these primitive ideas!
Amazing!
"We all face death, but death is not all we face" is an underrated line.
Just because an answer makes you sad, doesn't mean it's the wrong answer.
And, of course he has his comments turned off.
FuzzyZergling has the creator of the universe on his side. Is afraid of words made by mere mortals.
monika hug Mere words are how his sky daddy created everything so...
"infinite punishment for a finite crime"
Wow.. I never really thought about it that way. What a loving, just, rational God, eh?
And what a crowd of morally upstanding people that do not only NOT despair over this tyrannical arbitraryness but cheer it on and call it ultimate goodness!
Religion turns normal people into sociopaths and sociopaths into monsters.
Yes {insert tyrant here} deserves alot of punishment, alot alot, but not infinite. With infinite punishment no matter how bad their finite crimes, 99.9999..% of their punishment, is undeserved.
Makes sense if you understand how & when these religions were born - violent times, Kings/Dictators ruled & these religions used such men as their templates for God
What do these men expect from their subjects? Obedience, loyalty was the highest virtue!
Disloyal people could cost them their crown!
Imagine living in Russia or North Korea - you better speak nice of Putin/Kim Jong un or else!
Abraham rushes to kill his own son! Master MUST be obeyed or else!
No king/Dictator would allow disloyal people to remain in his kingdom - hence Heaven - "God's Kingdom" is for believers(loyal) only
Unbelievers(disloyal) get hell - thrown out of the kingdom
If you lived back in the day under Kings/Tyrants, such Gods would make perfect sense!
What is mind-boggling is that today, in the 21st century, billions enjoy freedom and democracy yet the top religions are Communist/Dictator-style religions!
"Get down on your knees, beg, grovel to the master and hope for a reward(Heaven)" - that is the mentality!
Amazing, just amazing!
It's basicly the equivalent of putting a red line in front of a baby and then if it happens to cross it you shoot it with a sniper rifle from 200 metres away.
Also this basicly means I deserve the same punishment as Hitler because I cannot believe in what dosnt exist.
All I know is that I'm almost 40 y/o and I've been an Atheist my entire life and I've had a wonderful, privileged life full of amazing friends, family, coworkers and lots of hobbies that make me happy and I'm currently in my dream job. I know a lot of Theists that are absolutely miserable, spiteful, toxic and self destructive. God isn't a requisite for happiness or meaning.
My parents are both church going, God loving Christians that chose NOT to alienate me when I confessed to them, in my early 20s, that I was never a believer. Instead they chose to treat me the exact same and to this day we're still a loving family. Hell, half of my family are Atheists (mainly my Generation and younger) and the other half are Baptists and we have family reunions with no conflict. We'll even have 80+ people in a local church for the reunion and when a family member says a prayer, if you look around the room half the family is bowing their head and praying while the other half is respectfully sitting quiet. It's not awkward and it's not even an issue. Are they praying for us? Maybe. If so, than that's their prerogative, we don't let a belief, or lack-thereof, tear us apart cause that's silly.
The way it should be - for all of us.
Very refreshing to hear....
You've clearly got much to thank your Creator for. It's in giving we receive. Hubris is not a wise stance, "sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences." Rober Louis Stevenson VIVA CRISTO REY!
Whoa ... WLC literally just went "It would be sooooo bad if God doesn't exist, don't you agree?" And this from a grown man and self-proclaimed philosopher. What a disgrace. He isn't even trying at this point.
It's okay to be deceptive as long as you do it for jesus. Thus the circle of religious moral hypocrisy completes.
He thinks so highly of himself and yet he's arguing that he has to believe in Santa or else he won't get any presents from him at christmas. He's a child, and not a particularly bright one.
He doesn't have to try since he is preaching to the choir.
Disgrace indeed.
He also uses the tired old "Unless my actions matter *TO THE ENTIRETY OF THE COSMOS* then they don't matter at all" trope. People like him also have the gall to claim their religion makes them humble.
"Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much" .
Jorge Luis Borges
That is how fantasies work - "And they lived happily ever after" that's how most Children's fantasy stories end
@@ramaraksha01 Plus, there's always story about "good old times".
@@halthammerzeit The frightening thing for me is how the media & the educated are complicit in promoting this Ponzi-scheme
Every TV show that has these Priests come on their show has but two questions:
1. Will I be Happy? How happy?
2. Will I see my loved ones again?
They ask these questions as if these questions have NEVER been asked before!
And these are the questions that the religious people love to answer: Of course everything will be wonderful! You will be so happy! All your loved ones will be there & there are all so happy thanks to our God!
No one asks: What do we DO in Heaven? Do we just sit about doing nothing? A useless existence for eternity? What work might this All-mighty have for us?
OR
What about my loved ones down on earth? I was the bread-winner - are they now suffering/starving/homeless/jobless/sick etc?
NOT ONE ASKS SUCH QUESTIONS!
They know that religious people do not like such questions - it makes them uncomfortable to say - The All-Mighty would have no work you will be just sitting about sponging off him just like any prostitute/gigolo/leech does down here, sponging off their Sugar Daddies
And as for loved ones down on earth - well I guess Heaven is for the uncaring, interested only in their own pleasures of the flesh
@@ramaraksha01 or what about my loved ones that weren't "worthy" of heaven? Will i be aware of their eternal punishment? And in fact, for either answer, won't that make me unhappy? :-B
@@irrelevant_noob The frightening thing for me is that such questions ARE NEVER ASKED! NOT EVEN BY ATHEISTS!
What about children? What about pregnant women? Babies?
ALL dumped into Hell because they belong to Atheist/unbeliever families?
Of course they will say these people will be allowed into Heaven - so when they grow up or the pregnant woman asks what about my loved ones? They are burning in hell & I am supposed to be happy?
Again SUCH QUESTIONS ARE NEVER ASKED!
IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND! ALL THESE YEARS OF HISTORY AND NOT ONE PERSON HAS ASKED SUCH QUESTIONS!
ALLOWING THESE RELIGION TO HAPPILY PROMOTE THEIR NAZI IDEAS OF HATE & DIVISION
"Why am I here?"
For humans the answer is simple: 2 people had sex.
For Cybertronians the answer is a bit more complicated.
The father Cybertronian had to connect the right processor to the mother board and then reboot, for the baby Cybertronian to start the processing process, all the while making sure the unit is plugged in and the cup holder is retracted.
@@DoctorZisIN no, your suppose to deploy the cup holder and retract the side windows
@@DoctorZisIN It didn't work. Have you tried turning it off, and then back on again?
Instructions unclear.
Got exhaust manifold stuck in window wiper.
Help!
@@cy-one Just use some blinker fluid. That usually helps.
William Lane Craig: "If there is no God, life is meaningless."
Me, an actual nihilist: "Yeah. So?"
I don't really understand why life HAS to have a purpose.
@@lydellb because it's all about ego, they want to feel special, so they made up all kinds of things as justifications for that want
@@lydellb It's rooted in a deep fear of death. The idea of not existing anymore, and reality just going on perfectly fine without you, is too disturbing for most people to accept.
Hubris. “I’m special. Reality doesn’t apply to me.”
@@johnhiggs325 I kinda get it. Chaos is frightening. A life without purpose is kind of akin to being adrift at sea with no lifeboat.
But that's why we make a lifeboat of Science, not just make-believe that we aren't drowning.
That's right. Mother Teresa was a terrible religious fanatic.
She was *far* worse than that.
She didn't believe that god exists, but she was shitting bricks that she might be wrong and would burn in hell. Being Catholic she knew that if god existed she was not permitted to ask god to prove himself to he (the dogma says god would refuse). So she decided she could outsmart god if he existed (despite that god supposedily being far more intelligent than her and knowing what she was thinking).
Set up "hospitals" where patients would get no medical treatment except prayer. Surely god would miraculously cure one or two of them. Thereby proving he exists. Therefore giving her the proof she needed to actually believe.
In essence, no different from Dr Mengele. Experimenting with medical treatments on patients who did not give fully informed consent, for nothing more than personal benefit.
She was an evil cunt.
@@bdf2718 Moreover, she solicited "donations" from some of the world's worst dictators, taking money which had been taken from their very poor citizens, who were left to die - such as Baby Doc in Haiti. The donations were used to grow the convents and do more fund raising. They did not even offer pain relief for those in serious and terminal pain - like cancer patients. They were told that the angels were "tickling" them. Let alone offer any actual care or treatment. The conditions found in many of these hospitals was horrible.
She's right in one way. If there were a god, and saw this being done in his name, he would have done something. Well, maybe. There could be an all powerful God who is evil and likes such pain and suffering.
i see in comments you've got your answer, theresa believed that the afterlife is the important bit, and the more unpleasant this life was, well maybe you get a cocktail bar in your heaven hotel room. but in this life, if your arm is dropping off from gangrene, yay! great!
@@HarryNicNicholas Yes,in that case heaven would be a lot like earth ,some
people would be better off then others.
@Dr Karl Pagan It seriously boggles my mind that someone - anyone - could be that inhumane & callous. I really want to know whether she was always so sociopathic, or if decades of indoctrination eroded away her capacity to feel empathy.
Maybe Mr Craig should enable comments on his videos. We all could set him straight on why we don't need his imaginary friend.
Dr. Craig is more likely to flap his arms and fly to the moon.
I dismissed WLC because he doesn't allow comments. I don't give views to theists who don't allow a discussion on their content. In my opinion by not allowing comments they know they have a weak position.
True. If you don't allow comments, you're not interested in learning or what may actually be factual,....just interested in stroking your ego.
He doesnt like truth tho !
I suspect that the reason his channel doesn't enable comments was all the people who tried to "set him straight on why we don't need his imaginary friend." Having a comments section can become repetative and pointless for some people.
I don't know why WLC is given so much respect. I don't find him particularly intelligent or insightful.
Neither do I. Why does he and other apologists believe that we have a choice in reality and by believing it, it must be true?
If I had to guess, it’s because he’s more intellectually honest than most apologists (which is an incredibly low bar) without “ceding any ground” to atheism or resorting to faith without reason.
I disagree, in that I think he’s smart and informed. The trouble is that he has developed habits of muddling or minimizing evidence in a way which obliterates most of his work’s scholastic value. It may bear mentioning, though it hardly infringes on the case at hand, that these habits have also facilitated a highly lucrative career as a rhetorician. Good job, since he’s bankrupted his epistemology.
My theory is that he was just born with a cartoony professor voice and so people listen to him.
It may also be an affectation, given the completely unnatural way he pronounces most plural words (a la the "processes" hypercorrection)
It's his confidence and adherence to the script that makes him so likeable to his target audience.
What's more absurd?
- believing there is no ultimate transcendent purpose to life
- believing that the transcendent purpose of life is to devote yourself to a God Who created you and life in order to be prayed, venerated and to boast His ego
But it's even weirder than that. What are you praising him for? Giving him thanks for creating you and your life and all its blessings right? It has to be because people only know what they've experienced. When you try to understand God directly it's always a mystery. This means he created an entire universe so that you would praise him for creating a universe.
@@nathanjasper512 Pretty much every miracle and act outlined in the bible could be boiled down to "weird flex, but ok," considering all of them could be handled in a simpler more direct way.
You'd think that an omnipotent, omniscient, etc., god would have a more robust ego.
@@michaelsommers2356 I'm not sure that the concept of ego is even consistent with an omni creator God. What could such a being even be in competition with?
@@nathanjasper512 He certainly acts as though he has a huge and fragile ego. He admits that he is jealous, and he tells you not to put any other gods before him.
Yet another apologist unwittingly confessing to being a sociopath unless god exists.
He is still a socioparh even if God exists, because he is only acting kind to get a reward and not because of empathy
Tar Mairon You’re right of course, my wording was off, fair point.
:DDD
@@tarmairon431 How kind he's actually acting is up for debate.
He's a Paulogist...oh you mean Craig. Damn! I wanted to use that joke so badly. :)
The PURPOSE of life is to pass on our DNA (from Darwin et al)
The MEANING of life is the experience of living (from Frank Herbert)
The VALUE of life is the legacy we leave behind (from observation)
Our immortality is the changes we leave behind.
Right. And like Craig says, ultimately none of that matters. Ultimately the sun will blow up, the heath-death of the universe will render it lifeless, and most likely your DNA and Legacy will be long forgotten. And so what?
In the end, in a fleeting life like this, it's the journey that matters. That's why people watch movies they find interesting instead of just reading the synopsis on Wikipedia. Because it's the experience that matters. There is no ULTIMATE anything. That's why the here and now is important.
Lol you all have no purpose without God, please surrender yourself to Jesus 🙏
@@iemerald7781
Good advice. Thanks.
Let me know when he turns up.
WLC cant except so simple and elegant a response.. how can he make money from it..?.charlatan x 10 .. and boy oh boy, what a grating voice....
My last car was a 94 Honda accord. I bought it used with 200k miles on it and then I proceeded to put another 100k miles on it. It reliably got me where I needed to go for almost 4 years.
Then it broke and I had to get rid of it.
What a useless, meaningless piece of junk.
What? No Monty python and the holy grail’s “GET ON WITH IT!”
ua-cam.com/video/nMUnbNPCoSw/v-deo.html
Bloody hell... the Pythons were channeling Sartre. Now I feel totally intimidated.
Always look on the bright side of life!
The obsession with "ultimate" is odd, made more so by his overuse of the word and its variants.
forkliftwizard
I think Christians have no conception of eternity. I don’t want to live forever. At some point you will have done everything possible many times over and you are no further into eternity than when you started. Why would you want that? Doesn’t mean I want to die tomorrow, but not forever either.
@@johncouch9062 I've talked with a Christian friend about this before. His idea is that in the presence of God, there are infinitely many things that are infinitely more interesting to do, so you would never get bored... But that still leaves the meta-activity of choosing what to do next. I would get bored of the meta-activity, even if I still enjoyed each individual activity I did. Infinity is a long time that our minds, or souls if you like, are not intended to survive or even comprehend.
I suspect I would experience some type of death of boredom eventually, except as an immortal soul, it would probably look more like I just turned off and stopped working.
Also, I believe that a life well lived exhausts itself. I believe that if you have lived a good life, you will be ready to be done with life by the time death shows up. I might even be disappointed if I die, only to find another life waiting for me. That doesn't mean life isn't worth experiencing, just that it's not something you will want to do more than once. Sort of like high school.
This is a bit further out than I like to go, but here I go... The very concept of transcendence from a finite local timeline to an infinite non local timeline is nonsensical. How does anything even transcend a local timeline without creating a paradox? I don’t think that WLC has honestly considered the vast implications that his line of “reasoning” has.
William Lane Craig is a very "glass half empty" kind of guy
Raymond Luxury-Yacht Or brain half full. Take your pick.
Raymond Luxury-Yacht , more like” half an arsehole full”🇪🇸
It must be so much fun living in his skin--NOT!
I guess that depends who's glass you refer to.
After all his glass runeth over, or so his bible claims.
In all seriousness, he tries very hard to paint a positive and optimistic portrait of Christianity. And then a dire depressing one of atheism.
So far I've been unimpressed with his sophistry and appeals to emotion.
I detest WLC's snake oil sales pitch.
I hate his smug face and smug voice.
What a SMEGHEAD.
@@MortenSjgren : He's almost like Rimmer/Ace Rimmer. ;-)
I don't believe his bottles even are filled anymore... he's just wiggling around a bit of brown glass and people buy it as they EXPECT it to be top grade snakesoil...
but his life AND his arguments have become hollow and without substance. He's just going through the motions, tired and disillusioned with his own achievements.
Me too...
Independent Thinker presumably this nom d’plume is ironic
The prospect of an eternal afterlife where you have no ability to improve anything for anybody makes afterlife meaningless. An eternal meaningless afterlife makes life meaningless.
Yep, such a static eternal afterlife scenario sounds a lot like hell, even if you were - first off - granted access to heaven ..! xD
If I were a god I'd give different services to people like: Spent as much time in paradise as you want/ being reborn (in x years/ right now)/ stopping to exist/ start another life in an alternate univers, etc. Just sitting around and rubbing some god's holy grail for all eternity without a chance to escape is just boring (especially with/without people you hate/love).
I remember feeling like life was pointless when i was a theist. I remember realising when god had popped out of my belief system and thinking, "well life really doesn't matter now.... wait, that's wrong; life is the only thing we have! Omg and I've been wasting it!" And then fell in love with the idea of learning about people and history and everything that the world was and has to offer and how we got here. Atheism gave life meaning for me.
Compared to infinity in an afterlife, THIS life is 100% meaningless, given it is finite, no matter how long.
Eternity is already a meaningless concept. Where would the energy come from? Magic? Then why bother with an intermediary stage of physically coherent existence? God seriously cannot test the loyalty and trustworthyness of his cheersquad DURING the eternal period of afterlife? What is life supposed to serve a purpose for if eternal existence is an option? Yeah THOSE 80 years in permanent stress an suffering will make ALL the difference, god could not find out about in his own special realm during ALL THE BLOODY TIME OF EVER...
"But that a spark fades doesn't mean it didn't glow." Brought me close to tears. If anything is true in this video, it is these words. You glow, all of you.
3:42 "'All you face is death.' And taxes. And my next breath. My next meal. My next laugh. My next hug from a loved one. Even my next challenge, my next pain, my next obstacle. Yes, we all face death, but death is not all we face."
I'd love to pull the reverse UNO card on this bullcrap:
"Religion has the answers, apparently... but they are truly terrible. You are the plaything, the manufactured robot of an infinite intelligence that has constructed you to act helplessly according to Its will. You can never act against this entity, you cannot escape it, you cannot avoid it. When you die, this being will evaluate your life and send you to a place of either infinite torment, or be forever enslaved to sing its praises for all eternity, never allowed to create, to invent, to love anything else more than your Overlord. Mindless, inescapable, permanent praising of your Overlord. Should you obey God, that will be your eternity. Should you disobey, your eternity will be endless torment.'
Sarina, brilliant comment. You deserve many more upvotes.
And yet they call it GOOD! Cause what else could it be if it's what their GOD does?
Pull the reverse uno card on their idea of love. The bible's form of love is straight up abuse. Every red flag for a relationship is in the bible but somehow suddenly okay. If you hurt someone to let them know you love them, you're in the wrong. If you tell them that any ills that befall them are due to them not loving you, you are in the wrong. If you demand to be so ingrained in their life that you are in essence always present and know everything about them, you are in the wrong. If, in a fit of anger, you lash out knowing full well that you can permanently hurt or even kill them, then afterwards say it's their fault you got angry, *you* are the problem. If you leave things around reminding them to behave or suffer more pain (ie a rainbow), *you are the problem*
No if's, and's, or but's. People think that this is okay, and that is so not okay!
Yes these religions were born in times when Kings/Dictators ruled and these religion made God using such men as their templates. Think Putin, Saddam - such men naturally rewarded their loyal supporters - many of Putin's friends are rich now enjoying the good life thanks to him
Their rich life was not earned - Heaven cannot be Earned! The only way in is to make sure you kiss the right butt, polish the right shoes - you know just like things get done in Corrupt & Communist Countries
And of course speak out against Putin and you might get poisoned, jailed, tortured or killed - Hell!
That's where all these ideas are coming from
Sad, really
I'm so glad I have no _ultimate significance_ to worry about
Every time I watch one of your videos I think "Thank god for Paulogia."
😂
He's scared of having to find his own meaning in life. There is no ready-made answer to cling to, which makes life more exciting, not less.
There is a deep seated fear inside him.
He's not scared, he recognizes that pretending something is valid, in the context of secularism, is absurd and thus ought not to be done. That's a valid thing to do. Secularism validates criminals like adam lanza because there isn't any moral standard in pure secularism, even though you mainstream atheists pretend that your human egos ought to be respected. If you mainstream atheists were as moral as you claim to be, you'd feel empathy for christians like craig and desire to make them better people, but instead you insult and shun them.
@@garyedwards5345 Its a valid fear. Not only fear its an agony over absurdity, and its a valid thing.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal
"all you face is death"
"And taxes"
Thanks I died
somewhere a very upbeat Elder waiting to be unevitable on your doorstep just became very very sad for being left out :-p
Well... Upshot? No more taxes for you then!
My favorite saying counteracts a good chunk of Dr Craig's thought that we should feel its horrible that "things end". After all "don''t be said it ended, smile because it happened."
A wise man once said: nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody’s gonna die.... come watch tv 😜😂
What? Sorry I can’t read your comment, ants in my eyes...
That wise man was you, wasn't it? ;-)
@@WilbertLek Wasn't it the great ancient philosopher, Morray Shmidt?
I like your profile pic.
- Morty Smith
I always ask what it the ultimate meaning of god? Why do gods provide any ultimate significance for anything?
Because that is how they are defined in these types of arguments.
Because if there's a god, Billy can keep his job.
God is there to make you feel safe but insignificant. Like, the good things that happen in life are all attributed to him, but he can also just decide you deserve to die of cancer right now and you'd have no say. It's a kind of comfort to think at someone's deathbed that the person is not just gone but is now in a different form elsewhere. There's a sense of justice that the person who hurt you in some way is burning for eternity. That seems to be the pain meaning behind that type of god.
As for a person's individual meaning, there's only two things i can think of. 1) bring people into the religion so they don't suffer in their afterlife. 2) be part of god's plan (negating free will but whatever) so your actions are necessary
As Carl Sagan put it, we humans have a “fear of being tiny”
And yet we make up beings infinitely greater than us, who do with us as they please. The christian god is basically playing Sims with us. How much tinier can we get? What good can gods plan be and how significant can a human life be to god if gods plan includes infants dieing of cancer?
Sure when i was a kid i thought it was funny to let my Sims get into the pool and delete the stairs out to have them die of exhaustion, but i'dexpect better of a being with ultimate morality and ultimate meaning.
This lifelong atheist has no despair. Only excitement for tomorrow. Come at me, Billy LC
Exactly. The atheist knows how to draw excitement and purpose from the here and now. I don't despair over that this life will end, I embrace it, knowing that my time is limited and that I must make the most of what time I do have while I still can.
well at the end of road you will stand before Jesus
Matthew 20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
@@raysalmon6566 And I'll happily stand before Jesus on that day, knowing in my heart that I have been a good person who has upheld his teachings far better than a lot of christians have, and that a good person should have nothing to fear because only an evil God not worthy of worship will condemn a good person to eternal torment for the crime of holding true to one's own beliefs. And Jesus is a god of Love, right? So I do not fear judgement.
@@Fimbulvinter19
heresjohnno replied: "ray salmon And I'll happily stand before Jesus on that day, knowing in my heart that I have been a good person who has upheld his teachings far better than a lot of christians have, and that a goo..."
Jesys is not impressed with self righteousness
Excellent again Paulogia! The absurd is wishing for existence that you have no proof for to the detriment of the existence that you know and experience now. I think the two mindsets (afterlife vs not convinced) are a universe a part and irreconcilable. WLC's view slapped on the emotional make-up with a shovel.
Without despair, thank you for all that you do.
Craig attacks a subject -- badly -- I want to get into in my PhD dissertation: how we create meaning in our lives as the social institutions shaping our identities change over time. I think I have a good deal of evidence that individual meaning is created through the social constructions we hold about what a "good life" is. That, of course, takes the creation of meaning out of the supernatural realm and plants it firmly in the realm of material reality in which we live.
John Demeritt The funny thing is that many of these morals he rants on about predate both his religion and the one it’s based on. He’s not a young earth creationist, either. It is so obviously true that our morals are emergent properties of our evolution as social creatures. All of them advance that social nature.
Ahaa! So you admit it. If what you say is true, that life has NO uLtiMaTE meaning! got you
Just kidding :P
Good luck with the dissertation John. A little bit of me wants to think that perhaps originally religious dogma and the edifice that followed may have helped people who were in a situation of unending suffering, where science or learning could give no relief, and at least someone was selling hope to keep going. These days it seems to be just a sequence of snake oil pedlars who have self serving books to push, or private jets to fuel.
@@johncouch9062, thanks for the comment! And I love the Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame, of course) icon!
@@johndemeritt3460 I miss Calvin and Hobbes very much. But I respect Watterson letting it go before it ran out of good ideas.
When mother T appeared, I was just waiting for the Hitch :)
If I don't keep eating pie, the first slice was pointless.
WLC: life has no meaning unless it is infinite
ALSO WLC: the Universe couldn't have been here forever because if it began infinitely far in the past we could never have arrived at today
So by his own criteria life can never become meaningful because even if you get to heaven you can never get to the point infinitely
far in the future which magically confers meaning on your existence.
You'd think at some point a conscious entity that will exist forever would eventually forget that it exists and end up just sitting there doing nothing. I grew up a JW and we thought we were so much smarter because our idea of everlasting life on a paradise earth made so much more sense than going to heaven when you die. Now, such an outcome would scare the shit out of me if it were at all possibly true.
I've been an atheist all my life, 50+ years, and have never asked why am I here!
This is one of your best videos yet. I would love to see more about the optimism of atheism and the bleak hopelessness of an eternal afterlife. Hope for eternal life is maybe the primary draw of Christianity, but it’s appeal always makes no sense to me. Heaven would rapidly become a version of hell.
Yes a rock exists - some trees live for thousands of years, the water bear can live millions of years. Starfish do not die? There are Benjamin Button jellyfish that move from young to old and back to young again
But do anyone of us want to live such a life?
I keep asking what does one DO in Heaven and Christians keep running away from the question
Amazingly such a question has been asked by the very few
The media, the philosophers, the educated and even Atheists it seems are complicit with religion running this ponzi-scheme of Heaven
@@ramaraksha01 Right? After the first billion years of paradise, when I had long ago experienced and mastered every instrument, skill, game, social interaction, or path of knowledge that I had even the remotest interest in, I would just be getting started on eternity. I would continue to sit motionless, bored out of my mind, forever.
@@weirdwilliam8500 The problem I have which fool is giving away millions? Sure I would love to have a few millions in the bank so that I can enjoy the easy good life - play games, read, gain knowledge whatever but the funny thing is that there is no Sugar Daddy ready to dump a few millions into my bank account
There is no fool who is happily giving away millions so that people like myself can enjoy the easy good life
If I want all that I will have to EARN it!
And I see that time and again - esp in sports - guys saying we won this cup or that ring and proudly saying we EARNED IT! No one gave us anything
Heaven contradicts ALL the above!
And yet the very same people nod blindly when religion says you can't Earn Heaven - the only way in is the Corrupt & Communist way - polish the right shoes and you are in
They talk so much about perfection and all that but all I am seeing are lazy shameless moochers sponging off God!
Plenty of people do that down here as well - plenty of Putin's supporters are living the good life thanks to him
Prostitutes, leeches find Sugar Daddies and Mommies who keep them in cozy comfort
We call such people pure scum
And yet religion says that is PERFECTION!
Amazing that even highly educated people buy it!
Amazing!
I have never felt much except contempt for William Lane Craig. I loathe his misrepresentation of atheists and atheism. In debates, he often begins with "if atheism is true," a weird and meaningless conception of a position on the concept of god. He says absurd and ridiculous things about atheist's lives, asserting that they can have no meaning and purpose, when I am sure he knows this is not true. I think he is a liar and a charlatan. His "debating" arguments often degenerate into mere preaching. He sets up Dorothy Dix questioners in the audience, to give him time to evangelise his religious stance. Great expose of Craig's faults here, Paul.
I agree that Craig is dishonest. It's hard to tell from any single talk or appearance of his, but if you watch his stuff enough you start noticing that he even contradicts himself and knowingly repeats ideas that he himself conceded were not true. He's just another apologist and doesn't deserve the title of "scholar" or "philosopher."
This video made me cry. It’s so amazing. Thank you Paulogia.
"Ultimately" is an adverb. Because that's the most important part of this video.
That was brilliant, Paul, and I dearly hope you are now or soon will be back to good health. The world needs you!
Massive kudos for the use of Highlander!
Craig’s false dichotomy is easily handled by the example of currency. Given that there is no absolute value of a dollar, for example, then by Craig’s interpretation, wealth is merely a matter of personal preference; therefore, the poor and destitute are so by preference alone.
Does that seem reasonable, or is it more likely that the social expression of value, represented by that dollar, is evolving due to a number of factors, agreed upon by those participating in the economy? I fail to see the validity of this line of argument without unfounded assumptions.
Excellent analogy. Thanks for sharing.
But isn't that the whole point? If the value of the dolar is agreed upon, then at the end of the day it's value is arbitrary and based on the personal preference of those who agreed. In other words, the participants are assigning an arbitrary value unto a piece of paper.
@@onelvisdelarosa4116 And, once agreed, the value is established without divine agency. And yes, that is the point. The value is absolute in that a dime will not purchase a Lamborghini. It is not the preference of a single person (wholly arbitrary), it is absolute within the accepted bounds of all participants.
Like morality.
This video is awesome and inspiring! Let's get on with it, Paul! 🙂 Thanks for your channel and taking the time to do it.
The best video on this topic, hands down. Interesting, well-said, and inspiring. Fantastic as usual, Paul.
“Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable." -Carl Sagan
If not having a god above you makes life meaningless, then doesn't that mean God's life is meaningless?
Thanks for this video. I needed it.
I love your closing statement, Paul.. it made me cry❤ I love you. you're surely one of my favorite tubers.
For someone who is terminally ill and has been reflecting on my life i.e do I have any regrets? I can honestly say "No" I'm not anyone remarkable to be remembered by although personally I've achieved some personal goals like being 4 times World/Euro champ in my sport, it didn't make me rich or famous (maybe I should have played Golf lol) but it did make me very happy, I got respect from family and friends. My wife who I met through my sport has made me the happiest I've ever been, given me two wonderful boys (11 and 10 years). I don't need a Gods threat of damnation or a promise of eternal afterlife if I submit to his words. It never bothered me the 4.8 billions of years previously where I never existed, so why would the next X billion of future years be an issue. I'm happy to accept that fate and that I had a good life on Earth and my atoms will be recycled back into the Universe.
I hope you are still a bundle of atoms on this earth....
Paulogia, you have some of the best content ❤️
thank you for the kind words.
Paul, you have such clarity of thought,as well as a well-developed ability to communicate your ideas. Always a pleasure to watch. 🇨🇦
Great video as usual Paul. Keep up the fantastic work!
I've been saying for years that Billy Craig's entire career is nothing more than an argument from incredulity fallacy and this video is a prime example of my assertion.
Beautifully said. Your ability to get your point across amazes me. I am studying you (as well as others) so that maybe i can do good on UA-cam also. Thank you
I am a fan of your channel & have enjoyed/seen value in every video that I have seen of yours (which is the majority of them). But this was the most beautiful by far. For me, the most meaningful. Thank you, Paul. People like you truly make the world brighter.
Excellent vid! Good work Paulogia.
im scared of death therefore god must exist
But they will claim they are not afraid of death
No christian makes that argument. Strawman fallacy.
@@ForLogicandReason-Mark1 I summarized the argument made in the video
@@Elyzeon. No you didn't. You strawmanned craig, not summarized or steelmanned. What axioms or premises did craig have that proves his argument for god was based upon "i'm scared to die"?
@@ForLogicandReason-Mark1 I don't know I commented over a year ago please go away.
"Beauty fades. That is why it is beautiful."
I think this is my new favorite episode, Paul. Life is rarely what we want it to be and never what we wish it to be. But it’s the only one we know with certainty that we get. Bravo on a very well produced episode.
This was so well done. Thank you for your thoughtful insight.
I’m going to stop playing the piano, because every time I start playing a song, it ends. So annoying 🤦♂️.
Why did Craig turn off comments? It's absurd!
If he can't see counterarguments, they don't exist.
Because he is considered one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all times and also that the average middle school student these days can see how absurd his arguments are. It does tell you something.
You still have a lot to learn, giraffe person. Turning off comments is an olden tradition in the apologetics community.
This was exactly what I needed Paul. Thx!
well said Paul. Rational and well thought-out as always.
Man, i love you, Paul. In particular, starting at about 19:45 - the most perfect summary i’ve heard of my objection to theistic “purpose”. 👍
Wow, thank you
@@Paulogia I can’t believe i professed my love for you and then you went and set up house with Shannon Q. This is… every high school love all over again.
(One problem with the internet is that it forces me to explicitly say that i’m kidding, of course. All the best for you two crazy kids.)
Without "god" I return to the state that I was in prior to my birth, nothingness. With "god" I either face an eternity of torture or an eternity of slavery.
I'll take nothingness, thank you.
A slave has a purpose: work for one's owner until death. A soul in a perfect eternal afterlife can never do anything of any value, forever. That's _absolute_ purposeless.
Love how the ad at the beginning of the video was for "anointed oils". lol.
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones." The true import of this statement only hit me the day my nephew died. He never had an easy life, but he added joy to all the lives around him. He taught me that, though our spark may be short, it can be used to brighten those we love. I still love him, and I still miss him, and I still think he went out far too soon. I live every day as I wish, loving, encouraging, supporting and being supported by those around me. This is my meaning, and that's enough for me.
William Lane Craig considers absurdity.
In the real world, claims without evidence are the heights of absurdity.
He can quote and bleat and quote and bleat and that is STILL NOT anything that brings "God" into the spotlight.
9:21 "Some people achieve more in 20 years than others do in 80. It's not the time that matters, it's the person." -Doctor Who
@Reuben Manzo
Which episode was that?
@@DemonicRemption The Lazarus Experiment.
Absolutely loved it! Thank you sir!
Thank you. Welcome.
After I watched Craig´s conversation with Comic Skeptic I was surprised to realize it was the first time I heard WLC talk without facepalming,well now Im back to normal again
It's as if WLC has never seriously considered 'the other side' and has never interacted with someone on that side
He has, he just doesn't listen to them and is too deep into theology to think straight. He did a discussion with Alex from Cosmic Skeptic where he was totally unable to comprehend the idea that things don't begin to exist, which is a fairly trivial competing ontology that he should be more familiar with since it's... the dominant one outside of theology.
Life is precious and meaningful to me because this life may be all we have.
That's an appeal to rarity, rarity doesn't equal importance. Just because life is rare it doesn't mean it deserves respect and should continue. Logic and reason dictates that.
@@ForLogicandReason-Mark1 That's an appeal to non-rarity.
But seriously, when are we going to stop making everything a fallacy?
@@jeannedarc7533 Where is the appeal to non-rarity? Atheists claim life is valuable because its RARE, so in other words, they say rareness = ought to be preserved.
The fact is that rarity doesn't equal importance. Life has to be doing something of objective merit to warrant importance. Your question is non-sensical, nobody here is making everything a fallacy. So you can let that go.
@@ForLogicandReason-Mark1 First of all, you're assuming that something has to have objective value to justify it's importance?
That's not necessarily true, we find many things in life (Experiences, moments, good memories, etc.) that are subjective to be of great importance to us, importance is a subjective term, what's important to someone may not be important to the other.
@@jeannedarc7533 Note how you didn't answer my question" where is the appeal to non-rarity? Don't you mainstream atheists believe in having constructive and respectful dialogue with your "fellow man"? I find it disrespect you dodged/neglected that question. Are you mainstream atheists REALLY for respectable and constructive dialogue with others that disagree with you or not? Are you mainstream atheists really FOR spreading logic and reason through debate/education or not?
Quote: *"First of all, you're assuming that something has to have objective value to justify it's importance? That's not necessarily true, we find many things in life (Experiences, moments, good memories, etc.)"*
Response: So what? Theists value god, does that mean god has objective value? Humans value existing, does that logically mean it would be bad if human's didn't exist, NO! Let me ask you this also: how can any mainstream atheist claim that the actions of hitler, stalin, adam lanza, james holmes, jared fogle, etc. are wrong? Is it because a majority says its wrong, or what?
Quote: *"importance is a subjective term"*
Response: No, not necessarily. If you had critical thinking skills, as somebody who I would guess prides themselves as being a skeptic who follows science and reason, you'd ask yourself "what's the real nature of something of objective value?", and "is there anything of real objective merit"? Philosophically, importance is something of which stands out among everything else in the universe. I would argue that sentient consciousness stands out because it's a different type of thing from all other matter. I would also argue that the only objective value in the universe is harm, that is, preventing it. Experiencing harm is subjective, in that subjects experience it in different ways, BUT harm in itself is objectively bad because its a state of matter and energy (a body) in a "lesser" state.
That last blink was beautifully timed. Cheers.
Great video. Thank you so much.
I hate that Craig says, "Modern men decided to kill God," like there were no atheists before modernity. He is appealing to tradition here if you listen carefully
I want everyone to see this. The appeal to emotion is a powerful tool, but it is manipulation, and if it brings people to a false, harmful belief, then it is harmful manipulation. There is more to life than the afterlife. Thank you Paul, as always!
Which is more precious - a beautiful flower which slowly blooms, flowers spectacularly and dies, or a silk plant that is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow ?
Extremely well said, Paul! I wholeheartedly agree with you!
To me, despair would be living my life as a Christian. Brilliant video Paul, thanks.
What is the meaning, purpose or value of god?
When an apologist says "ultimate" he means "the kind of answer I'm willing to accept". Anyone doing that can be dismissed.
Colson Center ad just played on your video. Love how you get this stuff on your vids.
What irritates me is that Craig not only insists that you must believe in an afterlife, it has to be HIS version of an afterlife. Never mind the thousands of other options out there. The arrogance is breathtaking. Frankly, I’d rather go to Valhalla or the Summerlands.
Wow, it's extremely sad, that WLC sees no meaning in life, if no god exists. And it is extremely alarming, that he seemingly has no reason "to behave" if nobody watches.
Well, how can you call someone evil without objective morality, a.k.a. God? Without God, what is good and what is evil is just opinion.
@@gabriel6504
That's easy..: I refrain from doing so. Good and Evil are diametrically opposed abstract concepts, without any representation in reality, but for an educational purpose, for example to teach children socially acceptable behaviour.
Objective morality is abstract as well and does not exist in reality. Morality as well as moral is always a matter of consensus.
@@AnyDrug So you are saying Good and Evil are an abstract concept that have no true meaning? Have you never seen something that you knew was truly Good or truly Evil?
@@gabriel6504
Everything that can be defined has a true meaning. I said, I'm not calling someone good or evil because they are opposed, simplyfied concepts, with no representation in reality.
And although you changed the subject from someone to something now, I can say no. Nothing inherently good or evil.
@@AnyDrug If that is the case, I can give you some examples to see if we can get you on the right track.
Do you think that torturing babies for fun is neither truly good or evil?
Awesome video, Paul👍
Great work!
Craig's dishonesty is almost overwhelming. Thank you for taking him to task.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “Get on with it!
This is one of your best ones ever
Tks Paul I fn needed this today tks
If it is lmpossible to live without God? Why am I not dead?
Did man "Kill Leprechauns" too? I was not aware.
Oh, the tragedy, the bloodbath, the chaos .... !
Wait .... it seems to have happened very quietly indeed.
OK- Finished watching.
As a fan of your work/channel from Day 1, and as friends by Day 2, I must say this is your best work ever.
"Thank you."
Thank you, my friend.