One of your best videos. I say that with almost every new video because they just keep getting better and have fresh content. We never know what to expect.
My primary reason for doubting “intelligent” design is the fact that puberty comes 10+ years before the PFC is fully formed. Or at least, if it is intelligent, it’s really not funny.
Jesus power starting now I have started tribulation antichrist crypto an organizations blood pressure an heart rate have been increased for those that Rebuke Will be hit with karma an curses Don't be one of them.
Depends on if you want to find an algorithm to generate more gardens. And some people don't care if the algorithm is natural or supernatural. Just as long as it's consistent enough to be profitable. They'd milk that algorithm for every dime they could get.
@@FoursWithin That mix of ingredients still counts as an algorithm, although it's a simple one. But I've never grown anything and I know growing some things is much harder than it looks. My wife planted like 3 peach trees in our yard before one finally didn't die. I think the second one just had to endure an extra hot summer and couldn't handle it.
They believe we live in a fallen world. Everything is in a degenerative state and is dying.. Generative(creation)--> Degenerative (the Fall)-->Regeneration (Jesus returns/Heaven) To them, the eye *was* designed perfectly, but because of Adam amd sin, everything is plagued by death and decay. Therefore the eye begins to decline in function as soon as we're born. Just as the rest of the body does. And some are born with handicaps and disabilities. I once knew a mom who's child was born with a heart condition and had several surgeries tell me she sees people born with no defects as a miracle.
When inventing a God the most important thing is to claim it's invisible, inaudible, and imperceptible in every way. Otherwise people will become skeptical when it - Appears to no one - Is silent - And does nothing.
It just seems like more 'God of the Gaps'. They say that because we don't understand a particular thing, it must be an artefact of god. And then we discover answers, often very simple answers, and the goalposts get moved .... again, and again, and again.
The problem I have with some of these people, is they're not in awe and think some nebulous "god" must have created it, they go "therefore Bible true." Which is ridiculous. Yahweh, the Jewish god is no more real than Zeus is. Thinking that something beyond our mind is going on is one thing, going straight to the Bible is ridiculous.
It makes more sense than saying the universe created itself💀 Assuming God is the cause is more logical than your u and your bald head idol's ridiculous take
@@smokerx6291 You're proving my point. All you say is "God," but don't specify which one. I have no idea what the second part is for, trolling I suppose, so whatever - you work out whatever issue you need to.
I agree that perhaps there is some "creator". I don't think there is, but am open to the possibility. However, I cannot believe that there exists a personal God who intervenes in our world and cares what each of us does, and yet only shows themselves in cryptic signs and spooky coincidences.
@@discontinuedmodel232 But you can be sure it's the god who watches you masturbate. I mean, he/she/it wasn't going to hang around with nothing to do for 13 billion years unless there was a reward waiting for them. "Oh...oh... oh god!"
Agree, but doesn't it feel good to kid yourself that there is a special god who loves you so much he has created the best, after death, for you and your loved ones?
Aaah😱. You're that hippy I had a go at on another channel, recently. I can't remember what it was about, but I think I may have been quite rude to you. If I was, then I apologise. Sometimes, Scottish snark overcomes me to an unreasonable level.😏 I still maintain the 'hippy' allegation, though. 👆 J'Accuse...!
I was literally cheering during your "My Awe" segment. I *love* the life sciences, and my career is in a specialized STEM program. However one of my favorite hobbies is mushroom hunting. Not for food, but because I LOVE seeing little networks of fruiting mycelium, photoing, and cataloguing. I loved learning why deforestization, other than losing the oxygen/Co2 capabilities of trees, we also unearth ancient, dead mycorrhizal networks which store a metric ton of carbon. When that carbon is unearthed it's released into the climate, causing the greenhouse effect. Last time I saw the numbers, I think something around the range of 60% of carbon emissions are from these mycorrhizal networks being disturbed. I've also done some transfer of parts of a network behind my house and into my garden, and things are really looking good this year. I've also found some Boletes and before they release their spores, I've put the mushrooms in my decomp pile to encourage break down of plant matter. One of the best things about all this is passing the knowledge down to my 11 year old. He has as much, or even more, passion for the life sciences and conservation efforts. I love taking him out to the conifer forests which surround our home and teaching him about nature and how we live in a world that requires a symbiotic relationship, and right now we are tipping that scale too much in our direction, that'll it'll end up killing us. My deconstruction has actually helped increase my awareness and my own individual conservation efforts. Instead of us being divinely created to rule over this earth, like some Christians think, and harness it's resources, I now see other creatures and being equal to myself in this world. I'm no Jainest, where I sweep the ground everywhere I go to avoid bugs, but I let things be. Squirrels in my bird feeder? Let them get a little chubby, my cats love watching them. A couple mice enjoying the oats that are sprouting in my yard? Hope they can shove as much in their cheeks as they can before the hawks grab them! I even am in the process of eliminating all the crab grass in my yard and replacing them with pollinators, and have set up a roly poly safe zone where I've dug a small hole, filled it with leaf litter, then covered it with teracotta pots so I don't run over them. Every time I lift the pot, there are giant, chunky armadillidiid, chomping and having the time of their lives. Nature is absolutely amazing and fun to watch.
It might be fun to watch, but it is also a realm of torture. For a heterotroph being to live, something has to die. Even if humans lived in "perfect harmony" with nature, millions of animals would be ripped apart every day. This alone disproves a god who is both loving and omnipotent.
One of the earliest thoughts that I can remember having is the thought that if everything in existence has to have a cause then who or what created god, and I remember being told basically don’t question it just have faith and I can’t think of a more lazy way to interpret the universe then to “just have faith”. I think to many people get caught up with Pascal’s wager. They are just erring on the side of caution just in case Christianity happens to be true. My problem with that is if you just use logic and think through it there is no way that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being would have human tendencies such as jealousy, revenge and regret. Such a being would have no need to be worshipped. If there is a deity that created us it would understand our curiosity and would not punish us for seeking out wisdom and truth rather than just accepting things blindly because it was written down in a book a long time ago
It’s been a slow progression but the realization that I don’t have to have the answers, don’t need to make up answers, is freeing. I grew up in a family that needed to be right - “addicted to certainty“. As I matured away from them one of the hard lessons I learned was the ability to say “I don’t know, I’ll look into it”.
Those who point to Design in view of the complexity and beauty of Creation often sing a different tune when it comes to glioblastoma multiforme, leukemia, breast cancers, pediatric cancers, etc Is not Cancer a part of Design????? Oh, no - cancer, fibromyalgia, blindness, cardiac diseases, Ebola, Marburg, rheumatoid arthritis, smallpox, anthrax, Covid, rabies, and so on - these are a result of The Fall, these are humankind’s doing; a Good, Caring, Loving God NEVER intended for such things to occur Cancer, et al, arise out of biology - the same biology that is attributed to Design
I fully agree, and like you said, most will attribute maladies of mind and body to the sins of man and the fall. I like to think of something a tad less refutable by apologetics. Why would a grand and good designer create the appendix- an organ that offers no functionality, but may spontaneously explode and kill you if not treated quickly enough. Imagine if an engineer created something that had no purpose, but would cause complete self destruction if that component failed. I think they would be fired and labeled incompetent, but God doesn’t.
You discover so many flaws about our bodies when you study anatomy and physiology. I don't see how this could have been intentionally designed with our interests in mind.
@@Steven_DunbarSLA god that knows past present and future can be said to be either at fault for all the nastiness or indifferent. Neither paints a flattering picture of Yahweh the god of the vampiric cannibalistic blood cult that worships death.
Also we aren't just spectators of the world around us. We are part of the world. Therefore our very decision which things we categorize as beautiful or disgusting is influenced by the world around us and by our interactions with the world around us. Insects living in dung might lack some of the most complex rationales, but their instincts about beauty/attraction and disgust/repulsion are different from ours.
Wise priest at my university parish once said in a homily, (Paraphrasing) “we may look up at the stars at night and feel awe at “God’s glory.” But if you’re terminally ill, and look up, you may likely feel alone & see cold dark distance.” I never forgot that. He himself died too early in a random car accident… a few years later
I like your comment about science wanting to be wrong. One of my favorite quotes is from Forrest Valkai, "we don't prove anything in science; we fail to disprove it". If science is used to disprove ideas, that's how we learn new things and grow
I don't think scientists want to be wrong. If you have a different paradigm idea, you get ostracized and called an idiot. I feel like it's self regulating to be stagnant in paradigms actually.
Indeed, and this is why the religious critique that "science is wrong all the time" is so bizarre. It literally fails to understand the point. Also, there is a relativity of wrong, as Asimov put it. We are getting less and less wrong, as it were, and the errors are more and more in details of understanding, rather than the big picture.
Totally agree about answering all a kid's questions. Even if they keep asking "why?" you keep answering until you don't have an answer, & then you say "I don't know, it seems to just be how it is."
You need to just answer the question they ask as well when they are young, don't pad it out with extra detail. Give them time to consider the answer then answer the next question they ask. It teaches them critical thinking. Saying it is a god thing answers nothing, it just stops the thinking process at that point. It is like saying don't ask, just believe.
I'm disabled b/c of a medical accident. A neurosurgeon at the hospital here in Dallas didn't want to do some nerve switching operation with those in my arm/neck b/c the nerves are SO complex it's very iffy if It WILL turn out the right way. Therefore, unless I absolutely needed it for some other health issue, it was probably better to leave it alone. So, to say that IT'S SO COMPLEX, there must be a creator drives me crazy! More complex means more problems that are harder to correct.
Life exists everywhere in our universe as there are billions or more planets that could sustain life. There could be civilizations that are thousands if not millions of years ahead of us. These superior intelligent beings could have solved the physics to navagate incomprensible distances of travel. Yes there could be a creator but it's not the man made vengeful god of the holy books people believe in today.
@@MrBBaron "These superior intelligent beings could have solved the physics to navagate incomprensible distances of travel." This is science fiction but there is nothing wrong to believing in it though.
It's import not to gloss over the cruelties of life. There is such a huge amount of pain and suffering and its neverending. This world is tormented and deluded. One creature kills the other and lives at the expense of the other. Arthur Schopenhauer called humans once the mold infestation of the Earth. He argued against the idealistic view of Hegel, whom he hated. It was impossible for him to believe that a benevolent God could have created this specific Earth. Good you mentioned it. One Thing is certain. Everyone choses his own personal view on this specific topic (more Schopenhauer/Hobbes or more Hegel/Kant), but whatever you chose, you should show respect to the counterarguments. Thx🎉
this idea of a perfectly designed universe falls apart with one simple truth that even some sincere debaters can fail to consider. Take the question "why do we have oxygen?" being frequently answered by "so things can breathe, it gives and supports life...." when in reality, it's an atmosphere high in oxygen that provided the evolutionary environment for oxygen breathing creatures to evolve. Rear-driven. Some people tend to look at the world as it is now and think oh look! How perfectly it provides! But where we are now is not the final product, it's constantly changing so there is no perfect state. Nor does change occur as forward pulled, working toward a predetermined goal, it is cause and effect - rear-driven. So no "perfect" here since we never reach a permanent state, and rear driven no pull from a perfect plan. Very exciting topic, Brandon (LOL I took a class in molds and fungi years ago, thought I'd be disinterested but wow, truly fascinating)
Yup, the so-called "perfect" state is a temporary equilibrium. And the rising oxygen levels due to the emergence of plant life were toxic to many extant organisms. At the same time the reduced greenhouse effect due to lower CO2 levels probably resulted in an ice age. Probably all part of "the plan" 😂
Without considering that oxygen is the toxic byproduct of the first successful life forms: anaerobic bacteria which from dominant got almost wiped off the planet suffocated by their own waste. Ain’t it poetic? Reminds me of us humans and our carbon emissions. 😕
This goes for the finetuning argument. "How are the universal constants so perfect for life?" First, we don't know that do we? They could be MORE perfect for different types of life. But most importantly... If they didn't allow for life, you wouldn't be here asking that question, would you?
Love this video. Encouragement to think critically about the most complex and timeless questions of all time without thinking you already have the answer.
12:16 - Ooh, I know this one! Wisdom teeth actually tend to grow in just fine for modern hunter-gatherers, and it seems to be because they eat tougher foods which stimulate the jaw to grow larger as the person matures, fitting all 32 teeth rather well. This seems to be a modern problem, very similar to the health problems that arise from a lack of exercise: the body didn't evolve to just lay around all day, it needs certain stimuli to work properly.
One problem with teleological (design) arguments is that they incorrectly assume that “complexity” is a reliable indicator of intelligent design. That assumption ignores that even very simple things can be designed - for example, a piece of wood or rock sharpened to a point, for stabbing into things. And, sometimes complex things just happen naturally, such as the geometric shapes apparent in snowflakes. The only reliable indicator of design is experience - we know certain things are designed (watches, clocks, cars, etc) because we’ve designed them.
Great video as always! I love the realization that if a theist claims a complex thing requires a designer, a god (being the most comllex thing) would also need a designer (if we used their logic).
Autoimmune diseases, which I personally was born with one, namely scleroderma of which Raynaud's Phenomenon is a side effect (where your fingers turn blue and numb when you're cold and then hurt like hell and turn red when you get warm again). And let's not forget scoliosis of the spine, which I have also have always had, that puts constant strain and pressure on your spinal discs each and every day. I mean, how "wondrous" can you ever ask for???
I am amazed at how much we know and how much we do understand. Our brains are tiny and our experience is so limited yet we know a lot about history of the universe and how nature works. It only makes sense that there are things that we will never understand or know.
I was an evangelical for about 35 years.All the things that you mentioned that is wrong with the physical realm of the universe and our bodies, or, the reason the world is not perfect, the evangelicals tend to blame on the "Fall." They blame the Fall for everything from acne to cancer, or, mosquitoes to poisonous snakes. But the Bible does not point out what was caused by the fall except for women having pain in childbirth, and Adam having a hard time working the soil.And, then there's the Paul caveat of "spiritual death." But we know better, and understand, that it's all just nature being nature.
I really enjoyed this video. You share your depth of knowledge with us and as someone who is always seeking and pulling back the layers; I appreciate everything you do. You have a brilliant mind, there's no doubt about that, but you're also humble and ready to shift your views and ideas accordingly. Thanks again!
Hey Brandon, I’m a Christian and I may not agree with everything you say, but I like your honesty and fairness. I’ll definitely check out that evolution vs intelligent design video you mentioned when you release it!
This is a great topic! The rubber meets the road where what seems so good can also seems so very bad. Have had these discussions and the results are very mixed. People can be incredibly stubborn when faced with logic and knowledge
One of the reasons I enjoy your content so much is just in the honest attitudes that you have and present everything with. The ability to listen to someone and find what you agree with and what you disagree with, I HOPE is still normal and very common, but I question this sometimes. It seems like far too many just want to listen to people they 100% agree with then label, denounce and ignore anyone that varies even slightly from their views. I agree with so much of what you say too ... but disagree on things as well. Shocking! lol Same as your view of Huberman, has a lot of good thoughts, then some I think miss the boat. What Huberman and so many see in the amazing design of the brain, and all of nature, I use to share in spades. Christian for 30+ years, I could justify almost all of my faith and belief with both physical& spiritual info and connections. One basic foundation of all our thought and belief is what info we are exposed to and what connections we make between them. Or as many have put, what our observation, then interpretation, then application of data is. I now look at the Bible, history, science and nature and see just how much none of it fits with the God the Bible describes.
It’s interesting that creationist point to what they consider intelligent design. Creating a human being in which the windpipe brings both air and food leading to billions of choking deaths is not intelligent design.
This is why God “gives dominion” over animals to man. To justify killing another being as a means of gaining energy. However, if we’re given dominion over animals so we can eat them, why did God create them with a nervous system capable of feeling pain? The question of animal suffering is seemingly unanswerable by standard apologetics. An intelligent designer should not create animals with the capability of suffering, but incapable of achieving eternity. It’s pointless.
I am a neuroscientist with 47 years experience who has focused exclusively on research and teaching. A populist UA-cam channel with the goal of conveying neuroscience concepts to the public has merit, but it comes with baggage, not the least of which is the loss of focus on one's research program in exchange for subscription numbers and popularity. When it also leads to forays into supernatural causation, scientific credibility suffers. Huberman's comments are a glaring example of how science and religion do not mix -- for a scientist who makes an emotional god of the gaps appeal cannot be regarded as intellectually honest. ------- Kudos on your channel BTW.
right! Some of these people who embrace some aspects of science while still believing in a god may not deliberately be engaging in trickery but really - you can't seriously claim a respect for science if you can discount it when it clashes with your beliefs and if you don't apply rigid scientific principles of evidence to everything. As you say, not honest.
I think my favorite counter to the design argument is Douglas Adams' analogy of the sentient puddle deciding that since it fits so perfectly into its hole, clearly the hole must have been specifically designed just for it.
When fungi make zombie ants, it's good proof of loving god. Not. I do enjoy, for it's entertainment value, how Christians explain parasites as being a result of sin.
It was so refreshing to hear that dude. People so often run from the ugly side of existence or sweep it under the rug. I’ve had lots of people die. It never helped when they said they are in a made up better place. it’s so much more meaningful for them to share their loss and grief and find strength and comfort in the fact that we all go through it and others have made it through and so will we. I would love if everyone could just be open about these things like you man
I don’t have kids yet but hearing Brandon talk about how fun learning with his kids is is definitely something I am looking forward to someday. Glad to hear him enjoying it
I agree 100% that there are countless wondrous things out there. I also agree that to find God in reality, you have to look at all of reality, not just cherry pick your favorite bits. Some theists love going on about context being important. And I agree with that principle. I noticed that while he said God and science are compatible (debatable, but lets put that aside), he didn't say science leads to God. If reality points to God, an impartial examination of reality should show that God, and that doesn't seem to happen. The relevant question shouldn't be whether some cherry picked examples give an impression of a creator, but whether all of reality is that way. And of course I'd like more than vague impressions. It's pretty clear that our intuition can lead us badly astray, in an attempt to grasp stranger phenomena, such as quantum theory. Intuition serves us well in context of our normal environment. Once we get very far outside that, intuition tends to lose utility. Also, saying that we don't know how something impressive came about, is not license to claim a God is in that gap.
There’s a lot of cope from the cult of theism in the comments. By arguing directly, you sometimes just end up supporting their delusion. Best thing to do is exactly what you’re doing, Brandon: pointing to the flaws in general, and asking questions.
@grapeshot No, it is not "typical" at all. You just use it to find another dig at Christians. Wicca is theistic. Voodoo is theistic. BHai, Buddhism, Hindu...all theistic. Who are you talking about? When someone touts a "sky wizard" we have every reason to question their mental state.
Thanks for your comments. I too am fascinated by the natural world. Yes, it contains amazingly complex living things that are beautiful in their own way. And, it contains not so wonderful living things that are trying to kill everything else.
One goes from, "I can't explain it," to "Nobody I know can explain it," to "It is intrinsically inexplicable; it is from the realm of unexplained mysteries.' This is the only route one can take if one wishes to accept any unfalsifiable hypothesis as true.
The distinction between using "design" to prove deism vs using "design" to prove (your fave religion here) is EVERYTHING! The devil's in the details, thanks for bringing that point home! Great vid as always!
I'm a former Muslim and in my journey through philosophy and science and purpose of life I came to the same conclusion as you just described well. I do appreciate and stand in awe and wonder about reality we live in but being realistic and consistent leads me every time to the same conclusion, the details and my knowledge change (witch is good) but I don't ground myself in a fixed believe. as for atheism i think we just loose the meanings very quick, if we define atheists who are not theist well then they're just outside of a set and they could be a member of other sets where their beliefs might defer a lot, and I describe myself as an agnostic atheist. liked your explanation a lot. ❤
Hey there, Thanks very much for your ideas concerning this often quoted argument of believers. I'm a German Theology Student who while studying became much more agnostic in many things (I would consider myself just a truthseeker right now) and I'm right now doing an internship at Answers in Genesis in Kentucky to give them the possibility to also present/defend their view to me because I try to be open minded with every view there is, to listen and try to comprehend, to evaluate it and so on and so forth... Here we oftentimes stumble across this kind of argument (which infact is just a variant of the famous Watchmaker Argument). Because of this I'm revisiting it right now and really try to think it through but I am kind of stuck in my thinking process on many sides right now. Thats why I write this message to ask, wether you, Mindshift, or someone else in the comment section has time and interest to get together in a zoom call and enrichen my thinking by his/her ideas/ questions/ thoughts? I know its a little unusual, but I just wanted to give it a try...
I'm so sorry but strangely I haven't recieved a message from UA-cam as normal when someone comments your text. I' m not so sure wether my English is good enough for that. But we can do it like this. We do a call and record it and if at the end we are both happy with it you can post it ok?
I loved LOVED this entry. I have been curious about Everything all of my life. The internet was made for people like me, who want to know Right Now all the information on a topic that has been discovered. The god thing is so complex, and I haven't been satisfied because I feel that the truth of the matter is unknowable. You spoke to that perfectly and I think you provided pieces of the puzzle that I've been missing. It took me years to figure out that people are capable of being much nobler humans than any religious text would allow for. It was only when I started reviewing your videos that I realized that no god yet invented could answer all the questions I have. And today's video!!! The whole universe is MUCH more complex and nuanced than I ever imagined. I'm grateful for your skill in driving me through the landscape and pointing out the stunning intricacies of the scenery that I hadn't noticed. SO MUCH mystery. So many questions that will likely never be answered, but that's ok. Thank you so much!
Hey Brandon, I just want to say that I love the videos and I hope that you make it big someday. I have a video suggestion if you needed any ideas. I loved the song idea from your Christian music video and figured you might enjoy some more content like that to review. I recommend checking out the band Skillet if you haven’t already heard of them. Particularly the song (Victorious) as in my personal opinion it is an extremely heavy hitting song and while I am not a Christian myself, I feel as though you can relate with the lyrics a lot more than I could. Once again I wish you all the best and I thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings with everyone, I’m sure it is not an easy thing to do. Keep up the great work my man.
I agree Brandon, there is natural beauty awe and wonder to this world that points to a potential design. This wonder is why I am agnostic toward any god’s existence while I remain an atheist toward the god of the Bible.
I liked your bit about the microbiome, this has been an uplifting subject for me in recent readings. Understanding more about what makes and keeps us healthy in body and mind was such a low priority as a believer, as i could entrust things to God and I’d need to ensure I didn’t make it an “idol”: both which are terrible old thought patterns I had. Heck even understanding that the stomach evolved before the brain is a constant pointer to taking care of how I eat to help mental health.. an attitude I’d not have entertained before.
I studied biology, and psychology, and indeed grew up in awe of nature. Back when I was a believer, my appreciation of the natural world was the centre of praise. And yet, with knowledge vanished the requirement for a creator, and of course all the glaring points which are best explained by a blind process, not a designed process. I find my awe in nature is only strengthened by knowing there was no designer, because it makes it all the more fascinating to track the routes life took, the failed paths, the adaptations that backfired. Our own species, seemingly the only one of many branches trying this high intellect strategy to survive to make it work... Mostly.
Simplicity is the mark of a truly perfect designer. Not complexity at all. We make incredibly complex bits of technology because we haven’t found ways to make them more simple. A perfect God would be aware of and capable of every possible action, so when faced with the possibility of making something beautiful and simple or beautiful and complex, he’s going to go with the simple option every time. Because that’s more efficient, but also because not doing so seems to me to contradict God’s all-loving nature. Yes, the universe is very complex. But humans hundreds and thousands of years ago really had no idea how complex the universe actually was. If you wanna argue that the complexity is a design choice and that it exists for us to admire, why close the window into this complexity for so many ancient people? Keep the universe incredibly simple so every person, made by God, could recognize and admire it.
The Bible says that the lights in the heavens (the Sun, Moon, planets & stars) were made "to serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years". A human being with the best vision, under the optimal observing conditions, can see only 6,500 stars with their naked eyes. And that is around the whole world. On any night, you can see only about half of them, because the Earth blocks out half of the sky. God made all these stars that we could not see until the invention of the telescope (in 1605) and the camera (in 1816). The Milky Way Galaxy has over 100 billion stars; the Andromeda Galaxy has over a trillion. We didn't even know that the fuzzy light from Andromeda was from stars too far away to distinguish until Hubble proved it in 1923. It is only in the last 100 years that we can actually see Creation as God made it. I find that a very odd thing for God to do.
The argument from desgin is based so much on intuition that I understand why people are convinced by it. What I don't support is a willful ignorance of the knowledge we have about how the world works. Also, I absolutely love that Myth of Sisyphus poster! 🧡
The issue with the teleological, ontological, and cosmological arguments is not their validity. Like you implied, they are very compelling arguments. But they only point to the possibility of A god, not any god in particular. It is illogical to use these arguments to answer the absurdity of existence, then immediately jump to it being concrete evidence of a certain God claim.
The problem with the argument is that it doesn't actually do anything to argue against evolution, because nature being shaped in a way that locally optimizes functionality is exactly what we would expect if nature has been produced by evolution. This whole thing becomes ironic when, after themselves having used this notion of the design of nature being with a purpose that we can recognize just by looking at it, a creationist will deny any such thing ever happened when they're confronted with vestigial organs, where you can still clearly see the purpose of the organ, but you can also see that the organ doesn't fulfill that purpose anymore. For example, look at any creationist trying to explain away whales having vestigial legs. The bone structure just screams that the legs are shaped by the purpose of walking, but the creationist will deny that the legs have anything to do with walking.
Believers want to point to the complexity of DNA as evidence of a creator. Scientists will point to the complexity of DNA and indicate that it is UNNECESSARILY complex. The unnecessary complexity results from the processes of evolution. A well-designed organism would need only a fraction of that DNA information and if the young Earthers were actually right, that simplicity would still be in evidence rather than the opposite.
Whenever I hear the question ‘Which argument for god is the best?’ this is what comes to mind for me. Looking at the mindbending complexity of proteins and protein structures my brain wants to immediately posit a higher intelligence that designed them. Ultimately I decided this is just an argument from incredulity. I recognize that evolution provides a plausible explanation for these things and just because my brain breaks trying to think about how it could work doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a way, or that intelligent design is an actually better explanation.
The existence of scurvy is evidence against the idea of a perfect creator. Most mammals don't need to have vitamin C in their diets because they have a gene that allows them to produce it on their own. Humans, and a handful of closely-related primates, also have this gene, but it's broken and non-functional. Our common ancestor was arboreal, and had a diet that was heavy on fruit, so when the gene broke, there wasn't any selective pressure to cause that mutation to die out, and it just so happened to proliferate. The gene wasn't needed at the time, but it didn't cost anything to have it just in case, so a competent designer would have simply kept it, but evolution is incapable of planning ahead, and so now humans get scurvy if they don't eat enough fruit or supplements.
It's simple. Everything good= God. Everything bad: the result of sin in the world/satan reigns on earth, and also the result of man's doing (bad food, pollution, microwaves and cell phone radiation etc)
I would say I’m currently a highly doubtful Christian not sure I’d say atheist yet maybe I’d say agnostic but I was thinking about this argument the other day a bit and it seems to me that evolution and natural selection explains the origin of species and pretty darn well and I now pretty much fully accept that theory as probably true. Additionally we know that the very basic monomers of life can easily be explained by abiotic phenomenon. Where I think the design argument is most compelling is in the gap between those two because it seems to me at least that there is some very basic set of molecular components needed to even begin to get evolution and I’m not sure how that could have arisen. It seems exceedingly unlikely to have happened without some outside help. I realize that this is a god of the gaps thing and we may figure out just how that may have happened in the future but for now it is one of the great mysteries of life
one thing i like about science is that we are allowed to just say “we don’t know”, scientists do not claim to know everything about the universe, they’re trying to understand and that involves admitting errors when they occur and exploring different possibilities
I'd highly recommend Aron Ra's videos on the origin of life! So informative and if you want a deep dive on this stuff, no one is better than him. He's a little rough around the edges, but he's really incredible!
Why can there only be two options? Maybe intelligent design as we think of it and evolution are both wrong? I just don't understand how evolution managed to create an incubator better than one we can make to incubate a fertilized egg for 20 weeks longer than we can even do it, create a placenta so the baby doesn't die, create an umbilical cord so the baby doesn't die, create the birthing process so the baby can come out which of course triggers it to start breathing, give the baby the instinct to suck, also make sure the mother creates milk so the baby doesn't die. That's a lot, and I don't understand how evolution would even have a chance if you need all that simultaneously or the baby will die immediately and then evolution needs to start back over at spontaneously occurring protein strands or whatever.
@@Volleyball_Chess_and_Geoguessr I'm no scientist, but it doesn't happen all at once. It's baby steps. You can even look up how the birth process evolved and get a breakdown of each step if you wanted to and could understand it.
@@BearMas I’ve seen some of his stuff he’s pretty good I studied biology in university so I kinda know some of the stuff though my particular interests weren’t so much on the evolutionary side and origins of life but more on ecology so yeah I’ll probably check it out maybe he knows about something I never learned back then
I just saw something about this on Tumblr the other week. OP comments about something about the human body that is wild and amazing. Commentator 2 says something about how amazing God's creation is. Commentator 3 counters that humanity's physical pleasure center is located next to the septic release system. To paraphrase, they then say, "God is a civil engineer that should be fired." The natural world is absolutely amazing, but as Brandon pointed out so well, it's also kinda messed up when you think about it. And is it ever fragile. Part of me hopes that reincarnation exists simply because it's so easy for animals and humans to die. We are squishy bags of meat and water where, if the slightest thing goes wrong internally, it can screw up how we think and function in a big way. Destruction and creation are two sides of the same coin. In regards to intelligent design: if there is a divine source making everything run, maybe it's not done creating. Maybe evolution is the divine's way of working on a grand piece of art, like a sculpture made from clay. It's a work in progress. Who knows. It doesn't fit into the narrative of some religions, but who cares. And one day I may change my mind. That's the point of growth. (Which religion hates.)
I think there is something awe inspiring about an infinitely complex universe without a creator, with no intelligence involved. How amazing is it that so many processes in nature emerges from completely random, unintelligent and simple interactions of individuals in a group that ends up forming this infinitely beautiful universe. To think that a universe this complex and beautiful can spontaneously arise from dead physics is so incredible to me. What other kinds of beauty can arise from other universes from a different set of beginning conditions? And how much more infinitely complex and beautiful can an intelligently designed universe be?
I have come to care and fear other's beliefs and do not see them as necessarily solely their own. Thoughts have consequences, Sam Harris. Policies come from people, saying keep it to yourself has not worked.
Have you ever done a video about speaking in tongues? When I was a devout Christian (also Assemblies of God) I prayed earnestly to be filled with the holy spirt and pray in tongues. Needless to say, neither ever happened, and I felt so worthless and flawed. Long story short I am so glad I escaped the lunacy that is religion.
Maybe there's a "creator", whatever form that may take. But that still doesn't answer anything for me. I would need to know where that "creator" came from. The cosmological argument doesn't work for me, because I don't have an issue with the concept of infinity.
Complexity, therefore designer, would be a decent argument, if the evidence pointed to a recent universe - say 10k years. But we can so clearly see the evolution of organisms through fossils and millions of years. It keeps complexity awe inspiring, but makes a designer redundant or inept.
When a scientist says they believe in god, I wince. I, personally, cannot believe in a god after everything we have learned through both the ” hard” and “soft” sciences. Faith confessions from scientists tell me more about their upbringing and acculturation than their probing intellect. It tells me they are excellent at compartmentalizing their personal lives and their professional work. It is as if an Ancient Greek marine biologist said they believed in Poseidon due to observations of the currents or the beauty of coral reefs.
Another very interesting video, thanks! I’m really looking forward to seeing the video contrasting Darwinism and creationism. Darwin greatly boosted my own deconstruction.
O.K.... gonna answer this title cold: I don't think it is a particularly powerful argument. Rather its a seductive argument, that appeals to human ego. Basically: "Oh look... Humans make stuff... So everything must have been manufactured." Seems pretty clearly an example of humanity giving its own traits divine origin...
Your awe should be reserved for the power of bottom-up emergence, in stead of top-down design. Any omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent entity is itself necessarily made up of lots of tiny bits.
Just yesterday I was talking to someone and we agreed: as advanced and knowledgeable as we think we are now compared to people hundreds of years ago is the same as people will think of themselves compared to us hundreds of years from now. I appreciate how far we have come but I know - there is still so much more to learn! If we ever stop being open to new information we will be doomed to destruction. At 71 I have a greater appreciation of how much I do not know now than I thought I knew when I was 20! Oh foolish, immature me!! 🙄
Lee Cronin's Assembly Theory addresses the argument of the watchmaker, (if you found a watch on a beach you would assume that it was made not evolved). To oversimplify, simplicity implies design, not complexity. If the human knee or the legs or horses were designed, they would not have fatal flaws, but instead use resources more efficiently and effectively. It is the very complexity of the universe, (and animal kingdom) that more strongly implies a process like evolution over intelligent design.
Brandon, this was gold. I love it. Agree, nature begs to conclude an all knowing creator and that feels good. But your pointing out the problems with nature, say animals being eaten alive by other animals, my friends just ignore that. Yes, to stay in church, to hold hands in mutual myth requires ignoring the inconvenient facts of children with brain cancer and your good examples of how nature goes off the rails. The bottom line is religion is necessary, it comforts, it scares, it is tribal and it can be good and bad. But it does require belief that ignores what does not fit.
Thanks everyone!
One of your best videos. I say that with almost every new video because they just keep getting better and have fresh content. We never know what to expect.
My primary reason for doubting “intelligent” design is the fact that puberty comes 10+ years before the PFC is fully formed. Or at least, if it is intelligent, it’s really not funny.
Jesus power starting now
I have started tribulation antichrist crypto an organizations blood pressure an heart rate have been increased for those that Rebuke
Will be hit with karma an curses
Don't be one of them.
@@CMA418
True.
Also, so many people are embarrassed of or even hate their bodies. The Bible even says we should be ashamed of them.
I Agee with Jon45678! After each video I think “That was the best one yet.” Truth is they are all great! Thanks Brandon!
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - Douglas Adams.
I love that quote!
Depends on if you want to find an algorithm to generate more gardens. And some people don't care if the algorithm is natural or supernatural. Just as long as it's consistent enough to be profitable. They'd milk that algorithm for every dime they could get.
@@theboombody
An algorithm??
All one needs is seed, soil, sun, and water.
@@FoursWithin That mix of ingredients still counts as an algorithm, although it's a simple one. But I've never grown anything and I know growing some things is much harder than it looks. My wife planted like 3 peach trees in our yard before one finally didn't die. I think the second one just had to endure an extra hot summer and couldn't handle it.
@@theboombody
Tell your wife more water and when the heat is extreme to put a white sheet over young and fragile plants.
Love it when christians wearing glasses talk about how well-designed the human eye is: talk about myopic.
Pardon? Could you say that again, please. I'm a bit deaf in this ear, eh.
😏
They believe we live in a fallen world. Everything is in a degenerative state and is dying..
Generative(creation)--> Degenerative (the Fall)-->Regeneration (Jesus returns/Heaven)
To them, the eye *was* designed perfectly, but because of Adam amd sin, everything is plagued by death and decay. Therefore the eye begins to decline in function as soon as we're born. Just as the rest of the body does. And some are born with handicaps and disabilities. I once knew a mom who's child was born with a heart condition and had several surgeries tell me she sees people born with no defects as a miracle.
Well done! 🎉
Ha! That's good.
Haha, right? In a biology class, the teacher was saying that mice eat their own feces. A classmate said: "and people believe god exists".
Einstein did not believe in god, he believed in Spinoza's God which is synonymous with nature. I am tired of people saying that.
If I could get a dime for every time people say that Einstein believed in "God"...
So pantheism
That is a fact that Einstein did not believe in the god of the bible.
My God. Thank you for this. I genuinely believed this man
@@ariellalima7229I'd have two dimes. Which is not a lot, but it's funny that it's happened twice
When inventing a God the most important thing is to claim it's invisible, inaudible, and imperceptible in every way.
Otherwise people will become skeptical when it
- Appears to no one
- Is silent
- And does nothing.
Lol. Perfect
"God works in mysterious ways!"
Sounds darn inefficient. But what do I know. 😛
It just seems like more 'God of the Gaps'. They say that because we don't understand a particular thing, it must be an artefact of god. And then we discover answers, often very simple answers, and the goalposts get moved .... again, and again, and again.
The problem I have with some of these people, is they're not in awe and think some nebulous "god" must have created it, they go "therefore Bible true." Which is ridiculous. Yahweh, the Jewish god is no more real than Zeus is. Thinking that something beyond our mind is going on is one thing, going straight to the Bible is ridiculous.
It makes more sense than saying the universe created itself💀 Assuming God is the cause is more logical than your u and your bald head idol's ridiculous take
God exists buddy. Cry about it
@@smokerx6291buuuuut I which ONE!?!? Why go for the xtian religion it came SO MUCH LATER then sooo many other beliefs etc?? So.
@@6Haunted-Days Oh you beat me to it. 🤗
@@smokerx6291 You're proving my point. All you say is "God," but don't specify which one. I have no idea what the second part is for, trolling I suppose, so whatever - you work out whatever issue you need to.
I agree that perhaps there is some "creator". I don't think there is, but am open to the possibility. However, I cannot believe that there exists a personal God who intervenes in our world and cares what each of us does, and yet only shows themselves in cryptic signs and spooky coincidences.
And if there WAS such a god who intervenes there could only be ONE GOD - not countless different gods all over the planet.
@@discontinuedmodel232 But you can be sure it's the god who watches you masturbate. I mean, he/she/it wasn't going to hang around with nothing to do for 13 billion years unless there was a reward waiting for them. "Oh...oh... oh god!"
Agree, but doesn't it feel good to kid yourself that there is a special god who loves you so much he has created the best, after death, for you and your loved ones?
"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be."
Keep learning!
Aaah😱. You're that hippy I had a go at on another channel, recently. I can't remember what it was about, but I think I may have been quite rude to you. If I was, then I apologise. Sometimes, Scottish snark overcomes me to an unreasonable level.😏 I still maintain the 'hippy' allegation, though.
👆
J'Accuse...!
@@anarchords1905 LOL it's possible. a number of people have a go at me .. for what, idk.
I didn't even realize it but you reached a milestone, congrats on 50k subs brandon.
Yeah congrats to him. He fooled 50k clueless people
The new hitler 😂
@@smokerx6291 someone sounds jealous. ;-)
I was literally cheering during your "My Awe" segment. I *love* the life sciences, and my career is in a specialized STEM program. However one of my favorite hobbies is mushroom hunting. Not for food, but because I LOVE seeing little networks of fruiting mycelium, photoing, and cataloguing. I loved learning why deforestization, other than losing the oxygen/Co2 capabilities of trees, we also unearth ancient, dead mycorrhizal networks which store a metric ton of carbon. When that carbon is unearthed it's released into the climate, causing the greenhouse effect. Last time I saw the numbers, I think something around the range of 60% of carbon emissions are from these mycorrhizal networks being disturbed. I've also done some transfer of parts of a network behind my house and into my garden, and things are really looking good this year. I've also found some Boletes and before they release their spores, I've put the mushrooms in my decomp pile to encourage break down of plant matter.
One of the best things about all this is passing the knowledge down to my 11 year old. He has as much, or even more, passion for the life sciences and conservation efforts. I love taking him out to the conifer forests which surround our home and teaching him about nature and how we live in a world that requires a symbiotic relationship, and right now we are tipping that scale too much in our direction, that'll it'll end up killing us. My deconstruction has actually helped increase my awareness and my own individual conservation efforts. Instead of us being divinely created to rule over this earth, like some Christians think, and harness it's resources, I now see other creatures and being equal to myself in this world. I'm no Jainest, where I sweep the ground everywhere I go to avoid bugs, but I let things be. Squirrels in my bird feeder? Let them get a little chubby, my cats love watching them. A couple mice enjoying the oats that are sprouting in my yard? Hope they can shove as much in their cheeks as they can before the hawks grab them! I even am in the process of eliminating all the crab grass in my yard and replacing them with pollinators, and have set up a roly poly safe zone where I've dug a small hole, filled it with leaf litter, then covered it with teracotta pots so I don't run over them. Every time I lift the pot, there are giant, chunky armadillidiid, chomping and having the time of their lives.
Nature is absolutely amazing and fun to watch.
This is so beautiful! Thanks for sharing! ❤️
It might be fun to watch, but it is also a realm of torture. For a heterotroph being to live, something has to die. Even if humans lived in "perfect harmony" with nature, millions of animals would be ripped apart every day. This alone disproves a god who is both loving and omnipotent.
Interesting. Do you have any shareable links about this? 🙂
One of the earliest thoughts that I can remember having is the thought that if everything in existence has to have a cause then who or what created god, and I remember being told basically don’t question it just have faith and I can’t think of a more lazy way to interpret the universe then to “just have faith”. I think to many people get caught up with Pascal’s wager. They are just erring on the side of caution just in case Christianity happens to be true. My problem with that is if you just use logic and think through it there is no way that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being would have human tendencies such as jealousy, revenge and regret. Such a being would have no need to be worshipped. If there is a deity that created us it would understand our curiosity and would not punish us for seeking out wisdom and truth rather than just accepting things blindly because it was written down in a book a long time ago
The sun is vitality important to humans, yet we can go blind staring at it. Interesting...
Water and food can get into our windpipe when we eat.
If only I could be so grossly incandescent ☀️
@@EmissaryOfStuffwindpipe next to the food pipe! Perfect!
+ skin cancer, skin ageing
It’s been a slow progression but the realization that I don’t have to have the answers, don’t need to make up answers, is freeing. I grew up in a family that needed to be right - “addicted to certainty“. As I matured away from them one of the hard lessons I learned was the ability to say “I don’t know, I’ll look into it”.
Those who point to Design in view of the complexity and beauty of Creation often sing a different tune when it comes to glioblastoma multiforme, leukemia, breast cancers, pediatric cancers, etc
Is not Cancer a part of Design????? Oh, no - cancer, fibromyalgia, blindness, cardiac diseases, Ebola, Marburg, rheumatoid arthritis, smallpox, anthrax, Covid, rabies, and so on - these are a result of The Fall, these are humankind’s doing; a Good, Caring, Loving God NEVER intended for such things to occur
Cancer, et al, arise out of biology - the same biology that is attributed to Design
I fully agree, and like you said, most will attribute maladies of mind and body to the sins of man and the fall.
I like to think of something a tad less refutable by apologetics. Why would a grand and good designer create the appendix- an organ that offers no functionality, but may spontaneously explode and kill you if not treated quickly enough. Imagine if an engineer created something that had no purpose, but would cause complete self destruction if that component failed. I think they would be fired and labeled incompetent, but God doesn’t.
You discover so many flaws about our bodies when you study anatomy and physiology. I don't see how this could have been intentionally designed with our interests in mind.
I am going to tell my devout jew god worshipping friend that his god-given seizures and anal cancer are beautiful creations.
@@Steven_DunbarSLA god that knows past present and future can be said to be either at fault for all the nastiness or indifferent. Neither paints a flattering picture of Yahweh the god of the vampiric cannibalistic blood cult that worships death.
Also we aren't just spectators of the world around us. We are part of the world. Therefore our very decision which things we categorize as beautiful or disgusting is influenced by the world around us and by our interactions with the world around us.
Insects living in dung might lack some of the most complex rationales, but their instincts about beauty/attraction and disgust/repulsion are different from ours.
Wise priest at my university parish once said in a homily, (Paraphrasing) “we may look up at the stars at night and feel awe at “God’s glory.” But if you’re terminally ill, and look up, you may likely feel alone & see cold dark distance.” I never forgot that.
He himself died too early in a random car accident… a few years later
I like your comment about science wanting to be wrong. One of my favorite quotes is from Forrest Valkai, "we don't prove anything in science; we fail to disprove it". If science is used to disprove ideas, that's how we learn new things and grow
I don't think scientists want to be wrong. If you have a different paradigm idea, you get ostracized and called an idiot. I feel like it's self regulating to be stagnant in paradigms actually.
SCIENCE = questions which may never be answered
RELIGION = answers which can never be questioned
@@Volleyball_Chess_and_Geoguessr I think legit/dedicated scientists are well aware of what they signed up for.
@@discontinuedmodel232 Great point. I like that.
Indeed, and this is why the religious critique that "science is wrong all the time" is so bizarre. It literally fails to understand the point. Also, there is a relativity of wrong, as Asimov put it. We are getting less and less wrong, as it were, and the errors are more and more in details of understanding, rather than the big picture.
Totally agree about answering all a kid's questions. Even if they keep asking "why?" you keep answering until you don't have an answer, & then you say "I don't know, it seems to just be how it is."
A lot of times, when I'd say I don't know or I'm not sure, I'd also say, "Let's go look it up!" because my own curiosity was piqued at that point.
@@IntrovertAncom a most excellent practice.
You mean like why God allows evil? Anyone allowed to respond by saying they don't know, it just seems to be how it is?
@@theboombody
Nah , probably more like
"Why do some sneetches not have stars upon their bellies?"
You need to just answer the question they ask as well when they are young, don't pad it out with extra detail. Give them time to consider the answer then answer the next question they ask. It teaches them critical thinking. Saying it is a god thing answers nothing, it just stops the thinking process at that point. It is like saying don't ask, just believe.
I'm disabled b/c of a medical accident. A neurosurgeon at the hospital here in Dallas didn't want to do some nerve switching operation with those in my arm/neck b/c the nerves are SO complex it's very iffy if It WILL turn out the right way. Therefore, unless I absolutely needed it for some other health issue, it was probably better to leave it alone. So, to say that IT'S SO COMPLEX, there must be a creator drives me crazy! More complex means more problems that are harder to correct.
Allergies are proof to me that if a designer god exists, he/she/it is a sadist.
Aren't allergies needed for free will, somehow? Also earthquakes 😏
We live in a fallen world.
@@michaelsbeverly I feel this. Literally 😅 hay fever sucks
Life exists everywhere in our universe as there are billions or more planets that could sustain life. There could be civilizations that are thousands if not millions of years ahead of us. These superior intelligent beings could have solved the physics to navagate incomprensible distances of travel. Yes there could be a creator but it's not the man made vengeful god of the holy books people believe in today.
@@MrBBaron
"These superior intelligent beings could have solved the physics to navagate incomprensible distances of travel."
This is science fiction but there is nothing wrong to believing in it though.
It's import not to gloss over the cruelties of life. There is such a huge amount of pain and suffering and its neverending. This world is tormented and deluded. One creature kills the other and lives at the expense of the other. Arthur Schopenhauer called humans once the mold infestation of the Earth. He argued against the idealistic view of Hegel, whom he hated. It was impossible for him to believe that a benevolent God could have created this specific Earth. Good you mentioned it. One Thing is certain. Everyone choses his own personal view on this specific topic (more Schopenhauer/Hobbes or more Hegel/Kant), but whatever you chose, you should show respect to the counterarguments. Thx🎉
Thanks!
this idea of a perfectly designed universe falls apart with one simple truth that even some sincere debaters can fail to consider. Take the question "why do we have oxygen?" being frequently answered by "so things can breathe, it gives and supports life...." when in reality, it's an atmosphere high in oxygen that provided the evolutionary environment for oxygen breathing creatures to evolve. Rear-driven. Some people tend to look at the world as it is now and think oh look! How perfectly it provides! But where we are now is not the final product, it's constantly changing so there is no perfect state. Nor does change occur as forward pulled, working toward a predetermined goal, it is cause and effect - rear-driven. So no "perfect" here since we never reach a permanent state, and rear driven no pull from a perfect plan. Very exciting topic, Brandon (LOL I took a class in molds and fungi years ago, thought I'd be disinterested but wow, truly fascinating)
Yup, the so-called "perfect" state is a temporary equilibrium. And the rising oxygen levels due to the emergence of plant life were toxic to many extant organisms. At the same time the reduced greenhouse effect due to lower CO2 levels probably resulted in an ice age.
Probably all part of "the plan" 😂
Without considering that oxygen is the toxic byproduct of the first successful life forms: anaerobic bacteria which from dominant got almost wiped off the planet suffocated by their own waste. Ain’t it poetic? Reminds me of us humans and our carbon emissions. 😕
This goes for the finetuning argument. "How are the universal constants so perfect for life?"
First, we don't know that do we? They could be MORE perfect for different types of life.
But most importantly... If they didn't allow for life, you wouldn't be here asking that question, would you?
Love this video. Encouragement to think critically about the most complex and timeless questions of all time without thinking you already have the answer.
12:16 - Ooh, I know this one! Wisdom teeth actually tend to grow in just fine for modern hunter-gatherers, and it seems to be because they eat tougher foods which stimulate the jaw to grow larger as the person matures, fitting all 32 teeth rather well. This seems to be a modern problem, very similar to the health problems that arise from a lack of exercise: the body didn't evolve to just lay around all day, it needs certain stimuli to work properly.
One problem with teleological (design) arguments is that they incorrectly assume that “complexity” is a reliable indicator of intelligent design. That assumption ignores that even very simple things can be designed - for example, a piece of wood or rock sharpened to a point, for stabbing into things. And, sometimes complex things just happen naturally, such as the geometric shapes apparent in snowflakes. The only reliable indicator of design is experience - we know certain things are designed (watches, clocks, cars, etc) because we’ve designed them.
Great video as always!
I love the realization that if a theist claims a complex thing requires a designer, a god (being the most comllex thing) would also need a designer (if we used their logic).
Autoimmune diseases, which I personally was born with one, namely scleroderma of which Raynaud's Phenomenon is a side effect (where your fingers turn blue and numb when you're cold and then hurt like hell and turn red when you get warm again). And let's not forget scoliosis of the spine, which I have also have always had, that puts constant strain and pressure on your spinal discs each and every day. I mean, how "wondrous" can you ever ask for???
I am amazed at how much we know and how much we do understand. Our brains are tiny and our experience is so limited yet we know a lot about history of the universe and how nature works. It only makes sense that there are things that we will never understand or know.
Yay! You finally hit over 50k! I’ve been here since 5k. Glad to see you booming!
I was an evangelical for about 35 years.All the things that you mentioned that is wrong with the physical realm of the universe and our bodies, or, the reason the world is not perfect, the evangelicals tend to blame on the "Fall." They blame the Fall for everything from acne to cancer, or, mosquitoes to poisonous snakes. But the Bible does not point out what was caused by the fall except for women having pain in childbirth, and Adam having a hard time working the soil.And, then there's the Paul caveat of "spiritual death." But we know better, and understand, that it's all just nature being nature.
I really enjoyed this video. You share your depth of knowledge with us and as someone who is always seeking and pulling back the layers; I appreciate everything you do.
You have a brilliant mind, there's no doubt about that, but you're also humble and ready to shift your views and ideas accordingly.
Thanks again!
Hey Brandon, I’m a Christian and I may not agree with everything you say, but I like your honesty and fairness. I’ll definitely check out that evolution vs intelligent design video you mentioned when you release it!
This is a great topic! The rubber meets the road where what seems so good can also seems so very bad. Have had these discussions and the results are very mixed. People can be incredibly stubborn when faced with logic and knowledge
One of the reasons I enjoy your content so much is just in the honest attitudes that you have and present everything with.
The ability to listen to someone and find what you agree with and what you disagree with, I HOPE is still normal and very common, but I question this sometimes.
It seems like far too many just want to listen to people they 100% agree with then label, denounce and ignore anyone that varies even slightly from their views.
I agree with so much of what you say too ... but disagree on things as well. Shocking! lol Same as your view of Huberman, has a lot of good thoughts, then some I think miss the boat.
What Huberman and so many see in the amazing design of the brain, and all of nature, I use to share in spades. Christian for 30+ years, I could justify almost all of my faith and belief with both physical& spiritual info and connections. One basic foundation of all our thought and belief is what info we are exposed to and what connections we make between them. Or as many have put, what our observation, then interpretation, then application of data is. I now look at the Bible, history, science and nature and see just how much none of it fits with the God the Bible describes.
Appreciate that and the feedback. Thank you.
It’s interesting that creationist point to what they consider intelligent design. Creating a human being in which the windpipe brings both air and food leading to billions of choking deaths is not intelligent design.
This is why God “gives dominion” over animals to man. To justify killing another being as a means of gaining energy.
However, if we’re given dominion over animals so we can eat them, why did God create them with a nervous system capable of feeling pain? The question of animal suffering is seemingly unanswerable by standard apologetics. An intelligent designer should not create animals with the capability of suffering, but incapable of achieving eternity. It’s pointless.
Tbf, without that we wouldn't be able to speak.
@@adriani9432 still poor designing and that’s the tip of the iceberg
The very design being the cause of death is incredible
But there is not God, this is a random process. How do you explain this then?
I am a neuroscientist with 47 years experience who has focused exclusively on research and teaching. A populist UA-cam channel with the goal of conveying neuroscience concepts to the public has merit, but it comes with baggage, not the least of which is the loss of focus on one's research program in exchange for subscription numbers and popularity. When it also leads to forays into supernatural causation, scientific credibility suffers. Huberman's comments are a glaring example of how science and religion do not mix -- for a scientist who makes an emotional god of the gaps appeal cannot be regarded as intellectually honest. ------- Kudos on your channel BTW.
right! Some of these people who embrace some aspects of science while still believing in a god may not deliberately be engaging in trickery but really - you can't seriously claim a respect for science if you can discount it when it clashes with your beliefs and if you don't apply rigid scientific principles of evidence to everything. As you say, not honest.
I think my favorite counter to the design argument is Douglas Adams' analogy of the sentient puddle deciding that since it fits so perfectly into its hole, clearly the hole must have been specifically designed just for it.
When fungi make zombie ants, it's good proof of loving god. Not.
I do enjoy, for it's entertainment value, how Christians explain parasites as being a result of sin.
It was so refreshing to hear that dude. People so often run from the ugly side of existence or sweep it under the rug. I’ve had lots of people die. It never helped when they said they are in a made up better place. it’s so much more meaningful for them to share their loss and grief and find strength and comfort in the fact that we all go through it and others have made it through and so will we. I would love if everyone could just be open about these things like you man
I don’t have kids yet but hearing Brandon talk about how fun learning with his kids is is definitely something I am looking forward to someday. Glad to hear him enjoying it
Nothing better!
Learning, the narration here is top drawer. Well researched and delivered
Thank you!
I really have no problem with a designer. But I do have a big problem with “my god is the true god.”
Everyone’s god caters to them specifically strangely enough.
It’s so cool to see you get 50k subs
I joined at about 20k i think
I agree 100% that there are countless wondrous things out there.
I also agree that to find God in reality, you have to look at all of reality, not just cherry pick your favorite bits.
Some theists love going on about context being important. And I agree with that principle.
I noticed that while he said God and science are compatible (debatable, but lets put that aside), he didn't say science leads to God. If reality points to God, an impartial examination of reality should show that God, and that doesn't seem to happen.
The relevant question shouldn't be whether some cherry picked examples give an impression of a creator, but whether all of reality is that way. And of course I'd like more than vague impressions. It's pretty clear that our intuition can lead us badly astray, in an attempt to grasp stranger phenomena, such as quantum theory. Intuition serves us well in context of our normal environment. Once we get very far outside that, intuition tends to lose utility.
Also, saying that we don't know how something impressive came about, is not license to claim a God is in that gap.
There’s a lot of cope from the cult of theism in the comments.
By arguing directly, you sometimes just end up supporting their delusion.
Best thing to do is exactly what you’re doing, Brandon: pointing to the flaws in general, and asking questions.
The invisible sky wizard, as a designer, I would say it should get an F.
Yep. We clearly got the class clown.
God just sounds like a really inept DM
No such thing as a "sky wizard".
YOU ALL made him up and believe in him.
@@theol64 of course you think you know somebody better than they know themselves typical of the theist
@grapeshot
No, it is not "typical" at all. You just use it to find another dig at Christians. Wicca is theistic. Voodoo is theistic. BHai, Buddhism, Hindu...all theistic. Who are you talking about?
When someone touts a "sky wizard" we have every reason to question their mental state.
Thanks for your comments. I too am fascinated by the natural world. Yes, it contains amazingly complex living things that are beautiful in their own way. And, it contains not so wonderful living things that are trying to kill everything else.
How perfectly designed are we? Visit a hospital.
😂
One goes from, "I can't explain it," to "Nobody I know can explain it," to "It is intrinsically inexplicable; it is from the realm of unexplained mysteries.' This is the only route one can take if one wishes to accept any unfalsifiable hypothesis as true.
So happy to be a continued monthly Patreon supporter of this channel and Brandon. Keep doing the good work sir!
The distinction between using "design" to prove deism vs using "design" to prove (your fave religion here) is EVERYTHING! The devil's in the details, thanks for bringing that point home!
Great vid as always!
Many thanks!
Looking forward to that future episode you mentioned. 🙂
I'm a former Muslim and in my journey through philosophy and science and purpose of life I came to the same conclusion as you just described well. I do appreciate and stand in awe and wonder about reality we live in but being realistic and consistent leads me every time to the same conclusion, the details and my knowledge change (witch is good) but I don't ground myself in a fixed believe. as for atheism i think we just loose the meanings very quick, if we define atheists who are not theist well then they're just outside of a set and they could be a member of other sets where their beliefs might defer a lot, and I describe myself as an agnostic atheist. liked your explanation a lot. ❤
Hey there,
Thanks very much for your ideas concerning this often quoted argument of believers.
I'm a German Theology Student who while studying became much more agnostic in many things (I would consider myself just a truthseeker right now) and I'm right now doing an internship at Answers in Genesis in Kentucky to give them the possibility to also present/defend their view to me because I try to be open minded with every view there is, to listen and try to comprehend, to evaluate it and so on and so forth...
Here we oftentimes stumble across this kind of argument (which infact is just a variant of the famous Watchmaker Argument). Because of this I'm revisiting it right now and really try to think it through but I am kind of stuck in my thinking process on many sides right now. Thats why I write this message to ask, wether you, Mindshift, or someone else in the comment section has time and interest to get together in a zoom call and enrichen my thinking by his/her ideas/ questions/ thoughts? I know its a little unusual, but I just wanted to give it a try...
Would you be open to doing this for an episode?
I'm so sorry but strangely I haven't recieved a message from UA-cam as normal when someone comments your text. I' m not so sure wether my English is good enough for that. But we can do it like this. We do a call and record it and if at the end we are both happy with it you can post it ok?
I loved LOVED this entry. I have been curious about Everything all of my life. The internet was made for people like me, who want to know Right Now all the information on a topic that has been discovered. The god thing is so complex, and I haven't been satisfied because I feel that the truth of the matter is unknowable. You spoke to that perfectly and I think you provided pieces of the puzzle that I've been missing. It took me years to figure out that people are capable of being much nobler humans than any religious text would allow for. It was only when I started reviewing your videos that I realized that no god yet invented could answer all the questions I have. And today's video!!! The whole universe is MUCH more complex and nuanced than I ever imagined. I'm grateful for your skill in driving me through the landscape and pointing out the stunning intricacies of the scenery that I hadn't noticed. SO MUCH mystery. So many questions that will likely never be answered, but that's ok. Thank you so much!
Hey Brandon, I just want to say that I love the videos and I hope that you make it big someday. I have a video suggestion if you needed any ideas. I loved the song idea from your Christian music video and figured you might enjoy some more content like that to review.
I recommend checking out the band Skillet if you haven’t already heard of them. Particularly the song (Victorious) as in my personal opinion it is an extremely heavy hitting song and while I am not a Christian myself, I feel as though you can relate with the lyrics a lot more than I could. Once again I wish you all the best and I thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings with everyone, I’m sure it is not an easy thing to do. Keep up the great work my man.
I agree Brandon, there is natural beauty awe and wonder to this world that points to a potential design. This wonder is why I am agnostic toward any god’s existence while I remain an atheist toward the god of the Bible.
I liked your bit about the microbiome, this has been an uplifting subject for me in recent readings. Understanding more about what makes and keeps us healthy in body and mind was such a low priority as a believer, as i could entrust things to God and I’d need to ensure I didn’t make it an “idol”: both which are terrible old thought patterns I had. Heck even understanding that the stomach evolved before the brain is a constant pointer to taking care of how I eat to help mental health.. an attitude I’d not have entertained before.
David Hume nailed this question in his Dialogues on Natural Religion.
I just want to thank you and many others like Hitchens, Connor, Harris....
you are the reason I am now free from this.
Who is Connor? What is his profession, and his forename?
@@BenjaminEaster-b8b Alex O Connor AKA Cosmic Sceptic. He is youtuber just like Mindshift sceptic.
@@BenjaminEaster-b8b
Alex O’Connor
I studied biology, and psychology, and indeed grew up in awe of nature. Back when I was a believer, my appreciation of the natural world was the centre of praise. And yet, with knowledge vanished the requirement for a creator, and of course all the glaring points which are best explained by a blind process, not a designed process. I find my awe in nature is only strengthened by knowing there was no designer, because it makes it all the more fascinating to track the routes life took, the failed paths, the adaptations that backfired. Our own species, seemingly the only one of many branches trying this high intellect strategy to survive to make it work... Mostly.
Simplicity is the mark of a truly perfect designer. Not complexity at all. We make incredibly complex bits of technology because we haven’t found ways to make them more simple. A perfect God would be aware of and capable of every possible action, so when faced with the possibility of making something beautiful and simple or beautiful and complex, he’s going to go with the simple option every time. Because that’s more efficient, but also because not doing so seems to me to contradict God’s all-loving nature. Yes, the universe is very complex. But humans hundreds and thousands of years ago really had no idea how complex the universe actually was. If you wanna argue that the complexity is a design choice and that it exists for us to admire, why close the window into this complexity for so many ancient people? Keep the universe incredibly simple so every person, made by God, could recognize and admire it.
The Bible says that the lights in the heavens (the Sun, Moon, planets & stars) were made "to serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years".
A human being with the best vision, under the optimal observing conditions, can see only 6,500 stars with their naked eyes. And that is around the whole world. On any night, you can see only about half of them, because the Earth blocks out half of the sky.
God made all these stars that we could not see until the invention of the telescope (in 1605) and the camera (in 1816). The Milky Way Galaxy has over 100 billion stars; the Andromeda Galaxy has over a trillion. We didn't even know that the fuzzy light from Andromeda was from stars too far away to distinguish until Hubble proved it in 1923.
It is only in the last 100 years that we can actually see Creation as God made it. I find that a very odd thing for God to do.
Thanks for the word of knowledge. I enjoy your videos and look forward to viewing them the minute they come out.
You are very much appreciated.
❤❤❤
The argument from desgin is based so much on intuition that I understand why people are convinced by it. What I don't support is a willful ignorance of the knowledge we have about how the world works.
Also, I absolutely love that Myth of Sisyphus poster! 🧡
The issue with the teleological, ontological, and cosmological arguments is not their validity. Like you implied, they are very compelling arguments. But they only point to the possibility of A god, not any god in particular.
It is illogical to use these arguments to answer the absurdity of existence, then immediately jump to it being concrete evidence of a certain God claim.
The problem with the argument is that it doesn't actually do anything to argue against evolution, because nature being shaped in a way that locally optimizes functionality is exactly what we would expect if nature has been produced by evolution.
This whole thing becomes ironic when, after themselves having used this notion of the design of nature being with a purpose that we can recognize just by looking at it, a creationist will deny any such thing ever happened when they're confronted with vestigial organs, where you can still clearly see the purpose of the organ, but you can also see that the organ doesn't fulfill that purpose anymore.
For example, look at any creationist trying to explain away whales having vestigial legs. The bone structure just screams that the legs are shaped by the purpose of walking, but the creationist will deny that the legs have anything to do with walking.
Excellent video
Interesting discussion, i've never heard this take on the argument on design, specially from an atheist
Believers want to point to the complexity of DNA as evidence of a creator. Scientists will point to the complexity of DNA and indicate that it is UNNECESSARILY complex. The unnecessary complexity results from the processes of evolution. A well-designed organism would need only a fraction of that DNA information and if the young Earthers were actually right, that simplicity would still be in evidence rather than the opposite.
Whenever I hear the question ‘Which argument for god is the best?’ this is what comes to mind for me. Looking at the mindbending complexity of proteins and protein structures my brain wants to immediately posit a higher intelligence that designed them. Ultimately I decided this is just an argument from incredulity. I recognize that evolution provides a plausible explanation for these things and just because my brain breaks trying to think about how it could work doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a way, or that intelligent design is an actually better explanation.
The existence of scurvy is evidence against the idea of a perfect creator. Most mammals don't need to have vitamin C in their diets because they have a gene that allows them to produce it on their own. Humans, and a handful of closely-related primates, also have this gene, but it's broken and non-functional.
Our common ancestor was arboreal, and had a diet that was heavy on fruit, so when the gene broke, there wasn't any selective pressure to cause that mutation to die out, and it just so happened to proliferate. The gene wasn't needed at the time, but it didn't cost anything to have it just in case, so a competent designer would have simply kept it, but evolution is incapable of planning ahead, and so now humans get scurvy if they don't eat enough fruit or supplements.
It's simple. Everything good= God.
Everything bad: the result of sin in the world/satan reigns on earth, and also the result of man's doing (bad food, pollution, microwaves and cell phone radiation etc)
I would say I’m currently a highly doubtful Christian not sure I’d say atheist yet maybe I’d say agnostic but I was thinking about this argument the other day a bit and it seems to me that evolution and natural selection explains the origin of species and pretty darn well and I now pretty much fully accept that theory as probably true. Additionally we know that the very basic monomers of life can easily be explained by abiotic phenomenon. Where I think the design argument is most compelling is in the gap between those two because it seems to me at least that there is some very basic set of molecular components needed to even begin to get evolution and I’m not sure how that could have arisen. It seems exceedingly unlikely to have happened without some outside help. I realize that this is a god of the gaps thing and we may figure out just how that may have happened in the future but for now it is one of the great mysteries of life
one thing i like about science is that we are allowed to just say “we don’t know”, scientists do not claim to know everything about the universe, they’re trying to understand and that involves admitting errors when they occur and exploring different possibilities
I'd highly recommend Aron Ra's videos on the origin of life! So informative and if you want a deep dive on this stuff, no one is better than him. He's a little rough around the edges, but he's really incredible!
Why can there only be two options? Maybe intelligent design as we think of it and evolution are both wrong? I just don't understand how evolution managed to create an incubator better than one we can make to incubate a fertilized egg for 20 weeks longer than we can even do it, create a placenta so the baby doesn't die, create an umbilical cord so the baby doesn't die, create the birthing process so the baby can come out which of course triggers it to start breathing, give the baby the instinct to suck, also make sure the mother creates milk so the baby doesn't die. That's a lot, and I don't understand how evolution would even have a chance if you need all that simultaneously or the baby will die immediately and then evolution needs to start back over at spontaneously occurring protein strands or whatever.
@@Volleyball_Chess_and_Geoguessr I'm no scientist, but it doesn't happen all at once. It's baby steps. You can even look up how the birth process evolved and get a breakdown of each step if you wanted to and could understand it.
@@BearMas I’ve seen some of his stuff he’s pretty good I studied biology in university so I kinda know some of the stuff though my particular interests weren’t so much on the evolutionary side and origins of life but more on ecology so yeah I’ll probably check it out maybe he knows about something I never learned back then
I just saw something about this on Tumblr the other week. OP comments about something about the human body that is wild and amazing. Commentator 2 says something about how amazing God's creation is. Commentator 3 counters that humanity's physical pleasure center is located next to the septic release system. To paraphrase, they then say, "God is a civil engineer that should be fired."
The natural world is absolutely amazing, but as Brandon pointed out so well, it's also kinda messed up when you think about it. And is it ever fragile. Part of me hopes that reincarnation exists simply because it's so easy for animals and humans to die. We are squishy bags of meat and water where, if the slightest thing goes wrong internally, it can screw up how we think and function in a big way. Destruction and creation are two sides of the same coin.
In regards to intelligent design: if there is a divine source making everything run, maybe it's not done creating. Maybe evolution is the divine's way of working on a grand piece of art, like a sculpture made from clay. It's a work in progress. Who knows. It doesn't fit into the narrative of some religions, but who cares. And one day I may change my mind. That's the point of growth. (Which religion hates.)
I think there is something awe inspiring about an infinitely complex universe without a creator, with no intelligence involved. How amazing is it that so many processes in nature emerges from completely random, unintelligent and simple interactions of individuals in a group that ends up forming this infinitely beautiful universe. To think that a universe this complex and beautiful can spontaneously arise from dead physics is so incredible to me. What other kinds of beauty can arise from other universes from a different set of beginning conditions? And how much more infinitely complex and beautiful can an intelligently designed universe be?
I don't care if you believe in God. Just don't force it upon others. Thomas Jefferson and our founding fathers knew that it was against democracy.
I have come to care and fear other's beliefs and do not see them as necessarily solely their own. Thoughts have consequences, Sam Harris. Policies come from people, saying keep it to yourself has not worked.
Great job as always, sir.
Have you ever done a video about speaking in tongues? When I was a devout Christian (also Assemblies of God) I prayed earnestly to be filled with the holy spirt and pray in tongues. Needless to say, neither ever happened, and I felt so worthless and flawed. Long story short I am so glad I escaped the lunacy that is religion.
If something designed because it’s complex
God must be designed
A mouse trap can’t be designed
Complex is subjective
if god didn't need to be designed then neither did we
Maybe there's a "creator", whatever form that may take. But that still doesn't answer anything for me. I would need to know where that "creator" came from. The cosmological argument doesn't work for me, because I don't have an issue with the concept of infinity.
Complexity, therefore designer, would be a decent argument, if the evidence pointed to a recent universe - say 10k years. But we can so clearly see the evolution of organisms through fossils and millions of years. It keeps complexity awe inspiring, but makes a designer redundant or inept.
You should debate Frank Turek!
I luv this thank you!
My pleasure. Thanks so much!
Oh yeah, and congrats on hitting 50k.
Coffee time with Brandon ☕😌
☕️ was ready 3:59pm here... and yes! On time, very reliably, as usual 4pm, a neeeew video!
For me, it's Tea Time 🍵
I'm obsessed with fungi! I forage and eat some. Mostly, I photograph them. They are amazing!
Mushrooms are some of my favourite food. I love it on pizza and in pasta.
Brilliant as always
When a scientist says they believe in god, I wince. I, personally, cannot believe in a god after everything we have learned through both the ” hard” and “soft” sciences.
Faith confessions from scientists tell me more about their upbringing and acculturation than their probing intellect. It tells me they are excellent at compartmentalizing their personal lives and their professional work.
It is as if an Ancient Greek marine biologist said they believed in Poseidon due to observations of the currents or the beauty of coral reefs.
Excellent- thank you so much!
Another very interesting video, thanks! I’m really looking forward to seeing the video contrasting Darwinism and creationism. Darwin greatly boosted my own deconstruction.
Thanks man
that video on evolution and the difference between good design and bad Brandon mentioned having coming up, sounds like it's going to be good
Thank you for this wonderful video. How old are your kids Brandon ?❤
Thanks so much. They are all under 10
Excellent!
O.K.... gonna answer this title cold: I don't think it is a particularly powerful argument. Rather its a seductive argument, that appeals to human ego. Basically: "Oh look... Humans make stuff... So everything must have been manufactured." Seems pretty clearly an example of humanity giving its own traits divine origin...
Your awe should be reserved for the power of bottom-up emergence, in stead of top-down design.
Any omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent entity is itself necessarily made up of lots of tiny bits.
Just yesterday I was talking to someone and we agreed: as advanced and knowledgeable as we think we are now compared to people hundreds of years ago is the same as people will think of themselves compared to us hundreds of years from now. I appreciate how far we have come but I know - there is still so much more to learn! If we ever stop being open to new information we will be doomed to destruction. At 71 I have a greater appreciation of how much I do not know now than I thought I knew when I was 20! Oh foolish, immature me!! 🙄
Lee Cronin's Assembly Theory addresses the argument of the watchmaker, (if you found a watch on a beach you would assume that it was made not evolved). To oversimplify, simplicity implies design, not complexity. If the human knee or the legs or horses were designed, they would not have fatal flaws, but instead use resources more efficiently and effectively. It is the very complexity of the universe, (and animal kingdom) that more strongly implies a process like evolution over intelligent design.
Brandon, this was gold. I love it. Agree, nature begs to conclude an all knowing creator and that feels good. But your pointing out the problems with nature, say animals being eaten alive by other animals, my friends just ignore that. Yes, to stay in church, to hold hands in mutual myth requires ignoring the inconvenient facts of children with brain cancer and your good examples of how nature goes off the rails. The bottom line is religion is necessary, it comforts, it scares, it is tribal and it can be good and bad. But it does require belief that ignores what does not fit.