Regarding the origin of the "S Tier", tier lists actually originated from Japan, and can be seen in certain anime such as Naruto where the highest rank mission is S. This is because in Japan the word for exemplary is 秀, or shū.
I love how this is basically what modern philosophy looks like. Two young lads sitting down and engaging in philosophical dialogue. Back a century, it would have been the same, but perhaps in more sophisticated aesthetic. I just love how THIS is what philosophy looks like in practice in our day and age. It's cool to watch :)
That’s because you didn’t expect it from them so you think if they go so far as admitting it. They cannot be lying… Furthermore, since they are smart likely it is true or at least there is very good evidence for it.
that's because you are so biased you discard anything coming from theists... what's hilarious is u trying to act as if this two are the first to ever spout this words, when in reality they actually named William lane craig a few times in their conversation having said such things lol... in other words your comment is full of shit, but you already knew this...
@@2002THEBOY No. For me it's steelmanning their opponents positions and treating each point with respect and dignity. I cannot say the same about christian scholars as a lot of the time they cannot admit that they are wrong in some regards.
@@kaganamemiku831 It's not uncommon for Christians scholars to attack certain arguments for Christianity. Aquinas didn't like Anselm's ontological argument. Kant disliked the ontological argument and cosmological argument. I think it's a bit unfair to assume theists are particularly more undignified than atheists.
This is such a breath of fresh air: Alex and Joe are crazy smart, polite, charitable, and amazing educators. They actually make me want to crack open a textbook or two on - of all things - philosophy of religion. 🙂 Seeing scholars (or scholars in training) like these guys and others has really inspired me to try and distance myself from the rhetoric driven showmanship of the “apologetics vs counter-apologetics” mindset as much as possible. There’s a whole world out there of philosophy, science and theology to explore that opens up beautifully (with a lot of hard work) when one isn’t studying it just to try and convert/deconvert others.
Well, to be fair, the vast majority of the books have been available even before these two guys started on youtube. However I agree that the whole world out there is way more intersting than the boring low fruit "apologetics vs counter-apologetics" debates. It's the discussions that are interesting but those are quite rare.
Frankly I don't see what's so interesting about the field of chiseling away at fallacious arguments with enough linguistic gymnastics to say something somewhat thought provoking but ultimately based on nothing but bias and intuition. I'd argue that steelmanning these arguments without really raising their objections is a bit deceptive, and I'm kinda surprised to see the mostly positive reception.
@@ShadowMark474 I hear your point and I get it. Goodness knows I probably wouldn’t have the patience to study this full time like Alex has. Though perhaps I could explain why I do find this kind of philosophy useful? To start, I can’t escape the notion that I could be absolutely wrong about even the kinds of questions I ask. Even simple questions like “show me evidence for God” have a host of built in assumptions. In the past, I was completely and utterly wrong (imo) about the very foundational ideas I believed, and yet, at the time, I thought what I believed was nothing short of common sense. God existing was as obvious as the sky being blue, potentially more so. I had strings of questions I’d ask those who disagreed with me that I was sure would open their eyes to the “fact” that they weren’t seeing “reality.” And yet, I was wrong. Philosophy helps keep me on my toes; I don’t think I’ll ever be completely comfortable resting on any set of “common sense” presuppositions without at least occasionally unpacking them with the assumption that I could be completely and utterly wrong. Now it’s worth noting that yes, philosophy often just explores the structure of our intuitive-yet-socially-created-concepts rather than external, “real” “things.” But that isn’t necessarily a waste of time. Far more than we are often aware, concepts like “knowledge”, “beauty” or even “causation” frame how we come to experience the external world. _All of our observations are theory-laden._ We can’t help but look at reality through the lens of our past experiences, our mental models and our intuitive categories that structure the world. In fact, the phrase “look at reality” is broadly inaccurate, we don’t touch the face of reality directly so much as experience some output filtered through layers of categorisation and meaning creation. Philosophy helps us become more aware of what those layers are, and as a result can help us become more acquainted both with their limitations and with potentially different ideas that could take their place. Philosophy can also explore the logical consequences of reality being a certain way. “Causation” for example, is both a mental construct and (imo) something external. Any philosophy done in this domain should make use of our best physics, chemistry etc., but I’m not ready to completely write off all ontological and cosmological arguments. Why philosophy of religion though? For me at least, engaging with the idea of a God increasingly appears to be the ultimate sandbox in which to unpack and explore these intuitive concepts we have that structure how we view reality. The God question is a great way to test the limits of our ideas about what it means to even know something, what it means to have a mind, what it means for something to be good or beautiful, etc. These can all be studied separably of course - Epistemology is incredibly interesting - but attempting to, for example, unpack the epistemology of an educated theist I respect is a thought provoking and often very humbling challenge. To echo an earlier point again, I’m motivated to explore philosophy because I could be totally wrong about how I _even begin to think about_ the God question. Goodness knows I was in the past, how do I know I’m not wrong now? I’m just doing my best to not become a confident-yet-uninformed evangelistic person who’s essentially identical to my former self with the only real difference being that my theism/not-theism switch points the other way. I hope this clarifies something about my outlook 🙂
I like that Alex filled out the counter-point to the "best conceivable island" objection- that the argument isn't about the best possible particular thing, but the best possible absolute thing. This reminds me of my own favorite island-style counter, which was the best possible ice cream cone, one property of which is that it appears in my hand when I want it to and tastes always just a little better than I remember. So to then steel-man the Anselm's god-concept, his best conceivable being must also be edible, and taste really good. And I find myself not too surprised that the Catholics have beaten me to this, but in spectacularly bad fashion. Their god is edible, but you have to go and pick him up yourself. And the taste is, well predictably bad. Just like basically every catholic I've known.
@@garyskinner2422 I think you may be conflating shrinkage with blue balls. "Blue balls" is a term for soreness resulting from when visual, physical, or other stimulation leads to arousal and the production of seminal fluid which is not released and "backed up" in the system connecting the testicles, penis, and misc. parts and tubes and such. Shrinkage is the "shyness" resulting from exposure to cold, resulting in the genitals retracting closer to the body for wamth, resulting in shrinking. The classic Seinfeld episode S5E21 popularized the term "shrinkage". Another famous example is Michaelangelo's "David", showing a different kind of shrinkage in the form of a natural response to the "flight of right" response before battle. Michaelangelo was kind of crazy ahead of his time with anatomical kowledge. hope that helps!
@@appledough3843 1) Contingency is not an attribute of objects, but an epistemic stance or a mental heuristic. 2) It's simply the case that you can always ask "why is this" after any explanation, gods or no gods. 3) The abstract notion of a necessary thing causing contingent things is pure bullshit and would make all of those things necessary as well. Really gods just introduce a whole bunch of confusion into an already confusing topic.
@@MrCmon113 1) Correct. Physical objects like rocks and pencils can't be contingent. It isn't an attribute of objects. It is however an attribute of God. How do I know this? Because to even BE God you must be the totality of existence. The supreme being. By definition. 2) Why does 2+2=4? Because that's how logic works. Why does logic work like that? Because that's how it is. Why is this? Because that's how it is. Why is this? Because that's how it is. Why is this? Because that's how it is. There, I found the end for you. Same applies to God. 3) Those things wouldn't be necessary. I think I see the picture now. Its become very clear that you don't actually understand what contingency means. Sure you may have a general concept of it but it's obvious you haven't grasped it yet. *Things created are by definition contingent.* The fact that I have to spell it out shows me you don't understand contingency and non contingency. This is part of the frustration with discussing philosophy with the common folk. They don't even understand the rules yet. Just because it's confusing and you don't understand it doesn't mean it should be discarded. I've noticed that you haven't actually pointed to SPESIFIC points in the argument and addressed how they are fallacious. Seems to be a reoccurring thing to people trying to "debunk" the existence of God. Almost like they can't do it.
I agree with Alex about the Anselmian ontological argument being one of the strongest, or at least interesting. I get "I think therefore I am" vibes with this one lol. Also, the fine tuning one personally is the most mind blowing. The Hitchens clip by the way is one of my favorite clips of him. Great video guys
@NeedToMaryNingNing I think the ontological argument is more brain-dead. At least "I think therefore I am" tries to dig to the bedrock of knowledge. The beef I have with it is that he follows it immediately with a reconstruction of his current beliefs from that axiom, so after the statement it essentially turns into, "I think, therefore Yahweh." On the other hand, Anselm basically starts with defining Yahweh as "necessarily existing" and then... Oh wait, that's literally the entire ontological argument. He doesn't bother to figure out whether the existence of a deity is (or can be) a brute fact - he just assumes a god must exist then assigns his personally preferred deity that quality, so the whole thing from start to finish is "Yahweh must exist, therefore Yahweh must exist."
@NeedToMaryNingNing I think it makes sense I mean if there is no self how could there be the illusion of a self illusions are things that are experienced by somebody
the fine tuning argument falls apart when you realise that due to life not being possible unless those specific conditions are met, you aren't able to make the argument unless they are. The chance is literally 100%.
@@WingMyWayon fine tuning, if we discovered intrinsic stability, we could expect that a universe like this was probable from the start. As it stands, the fact we are here in this form implies either a multiverse or intent. We're here so something weird is up.
It's not much of a philosophical discussion if you don't try to break it down. Even if you agree you should challenge the base points in a discussion like this.
@@justinwhite2725 agreed, that is the purpose of philosophical discussions and debates. I think it is a telling condemnation of our current situation culturally that this comes as a pleasant surprise to people, to be honest.
That's the purpose of a debate no? To push back to create dialogue as well as intirnsic thought about the topic of debate? You can't be too agreeable in debate
This is probably the best and most honest discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of these arguments! love how you kept going back and forth steelmanning different parts of the arguments, and taking turns challenging and defending them. Also Joe's impression of WLC is probably the best impression since that new SNL guy's trump impression.
"Non-theists," you mean atheists, right? Also, no, you don't. Alex's content is monotonous, and all he does is debate imbeciles with a superficial education. I love the other guy, though. I've read a couple of his papers, and they're actually educational-a sharp contrast to Alex's content, where he talks about slavery being immoral for the thousandth time. Like, dude, we know, is there anything new?
Emotional appeal plus they are different views of hell, the eastern orthodox which is the historical Christianity believe it is God's love for who rejected Him you can look into it more @@tianmishu
This was an excellent conversation. I really appreciate the way you guys communicate the arguments. Also, I am a Christian and am subscribed to both of your channels. You guys should do more collaborative events. Thanks!!
His conclusions are a bit stupid though. A smarter person wouldn't object to the claim that a god is possible and then conclude that it's pretty much a toss up whether or not a god does exist - that's the stupidest conclusion you could come to. But hey, if having no predictive power isn't a problem, it's at least clear there is no pragmatism in his thinking, so maybe when he grows up he'll be slightly less stupid.
@@stylis666 When he says it is a toss up he is speaking epistamically. That is not the same as the premise that he said he could reject to. And alex actually made that point in the discussion that god being possible in that argument isn't a matter of an individual's opinion.
I'm just imagining a muslim watching two atheisest talk about reasons why Christianity is true or false, very funny but also fair it is a very interesting vid. edit: one of them is agnostic which is even funnier
@@grahamh.4230yes and no. I watched some of his videos and is clear that he debates inside the abrahamic mindset. For example, he mentions a lot the idea of God and free will, but not reincarnation.
Thoroughly enjoyed this. For more than an hour, I was curious "what was Joe's position?" Which was impressive on his part to not come across as biased. I'm gonna subscribe to his channel.
I went to high school with the man on the left in noblesville, IN… he was in a club called Freedom isn’t Free and totally changed the way I thought about the argument of abortion back when I was catholic. Huge respect to him
@@BatmanArkham8592 Yes because there are other better arguments against the existence of god as well. Such as divine hiddenness, problem of evil, omniscience vs omnipotence and such.
@@StuntpilootStef no disagreeing doesn't mean that thing is true or false many people have accepted and agreed with those but that doesn't mean those are true or false As an agnostic I don't think those arguments are ultimately Successful but we certainly don't remain exactly where we started
Awesome Discussion! I also love how Alex mostly acts as the defender of these arguments and Joe as the attacker, even though Alex is a self-described atheist and Joe is a self-described agnostic.
I am not surprised. In his very early videos Alex was really attacking religion, nowerdays he tries very hard to steelman the christian arguments sometimes to a point in my opinion, when he gives does arguments way more credit, then they deserve. Lets be honest, there is not a single good argument for a god in general and if we talk about a speficied god, like the christian one, the apologists arguments just fall apart and are often completly relying on fallacies and blunt lies.
@a I am not sure, you understand those two. Their rating says nothing about the validity of the argument, only if this argument is worth having an interesting discussion abut it and those two are presenting said arguments in most cases way better then the apoligists do. Still, both could casually debunk every single one of those arguments, including the S-tier ones without putting much effort into it. Every single of those big arguments for god has serious flaws, believe me, if there would be a really good argument for god, we would hear it posted 24/7 by apologist, but they still use stuff like the Kalam or the blind watchmaker, which are basicly useless.
Great work gentlemen! Fantastic overview- I love both of you guys. I do hope that you dig into the resurrection more- I don’t think the surface of resurrection evidences and objections was scratched, but I hope to see more!!! Much love.
It was really funny watching you guys try and place the anselmian ontological argument! It feels like a theological equivalent of either "i know you are but what am I?" Or "stop hitting yourself." And in the latter.case.i can see why alex loves it so much, but its absurdity is just so plainly self evident.
On fine tuning, the non-design stalking horse doesn't need to involve something with dispositions to create life-permitting conditions, it's fine enough simply to have a theory which predicts with some likelihood (say, with the same likelihood as the designer hypothesis under consideration) that there would be life-permitting conditions. Consider an extreme example, where the design hypothesis under consideration is one according to which the designer is disposed to create a universe with the observed physical parameters. Against the Bayesian FTA, we might argue that a hypothesis which merely posits a universe with those same parameters is at least as likely, and this point generalizes. As I've argued, though, a bare-non-design hypothesis will fare just as well (probabilistically) even though it much more weakly predicts the data. Now, FTAs come in different flavors, and you might infer a design hypothesis based on fine-tuning not because of probability considerations, but for abductive reasons: it will include an explanation for some fact (that there are life-permitting conditions) not explained on the alternative. Here, there are two remarks to make: first, the non-design stalking horse that Joe mentioned will be adequate here, and second, the abductive inference involved is questionable. We do not invariably prefer theories simply because they offer explanations for facts not explained on other theories. The designer hypothesis doesn't explain why the designer has the creative powers/dispositions that it has, yet we might be be hesitant to affirm a theory which posits something else to explain those facts. Explanation runs out somewhere, and the proponent of fine-tuning has not shown that it runs out at the level of the designer (or something beyond that) rather than at the level of the cosmos and its basic parameters.
Two notes about the Fine Tuning Argument. The first, you kinda touched on in the video, but we only have a sample size of one for universes, so we have no idea how likely it is that the constants have the value they do Maybe it’s super likely, maybe not (all this is disregarding the multiverse theory because we also have zero evidence for that). Second, I thought I read somewhere (I think in Faith vs Fact by Jerry Coyne) that the fine tuning argument is only true if you are only allowed to adjust one constant at a time. If you change more than one, than it becomes more likely for the universe to allow matter to form.
If you had more than one sample size you would argue that there is a multiverse, you would not argue for fine tuning no matter how dead that other universe or others are. In regards to how likely the chance of the laws of physics coming about by chance and being the only way these laws could have formed, this argument is dead in the water. This is because we would then be saying either the laws existed before the singularity or they came about by chance immediately after the big bang. You can see the major problems in explaining how that would be so without a all Powerful being overseeing such.
@@redx11x an all powerful being doesnt need science to prove its existence.. if an all powerful being created the universe then that entity is able to do whatever it feels like.. so the fine tuning argument is a complete nonstarter.. if god wanted us to breath methane instead of oxygen thats what it would have done. if an all powerful entity must obey the laws of science then its not all powerful
@@davenchop part of your argument falls into the omnipotence paradox, look it up on UA-cam. Logic and reasoning are fundamental to science, and thus, in your example, lungs do not have the ability to breath methane as it is not biologically possible. Ill send you a link which shows the fallacy of the argument.
>all this is disregarding the multiverse theory because we also have zero evidence for that) There is no "the multiverse theory". There being many universes isn't any less plausible than there being one.
It does not appear finely tuned with asteroids smashing into planets, planets colliding into each other, stars exploding, entire galaxies smashing together and black holes ripping things apart ... it's a chaotic mess
I like Cosmic Skeptic because he doesn’t usually attack people for their beliefs incorrectly except for the one time he misunderstood Peterson and his choice in verbiage
@ understandable, without a more varied vocabulary it isn’t the easiest to understand what Peterson is saying, but when it comes to religion i don’t listen to Peterson he is a brilliant psychologist and educator in that regard but I wouldn’t go to him for religious beliefs
@@ImBackItsDad Patronizing, much? My IQ tests around 140, my vocabulary is objectively vast, I have science degrees from a time when that was a hard thing to achieve and some of what Peterson says is, to quote Dawkins, complete bullshit. Enjoy him if you like but don’t condescend to me if I find he talks babbling nonsense
Christian here, and I absolutely love your all's assessments. Fantastic job remaining objective and giving an honest critique. (I, too, have always disliked the ontological argument; never understood the appeal.) I'm very interested to hear/see the new KCA argument that Joe was alluding to! Thanks guys ~
On the point about resurrection arguments Alex was claiming that *given God wants to raise Jesus from the dead*, God has the power to do so, so it has an objective probability of 1 of occurring! The problem is that we ourselves have imperfect access to the relevant facts (whether God exists and whether He is has those desires). As Joe rightly pointed out our prior for this hypothesis is going to take into account our credence about Gods existence in the first place, our credence that God is the kind of being that cares to raise anyone from the dead and perhaps some kind of principle of indifference applied to every single person who ever lived (supposing that we're hypothesising God might have a desire to resurrect one person as a sign). What we then do is look at each piece of evidence from "revealed theology" that purports to establish what Alex was conditionalising on in the statement "[given] God wants to raise Jesus from the dead" . What exactly the evidence is here is going to be contentious -- i.e. what Isaiah 53 says etc., If those LR's are enough to overcome the really low prior when we compare this hypothesis to others then we ought to believe in the resurrection. Im not sure it does do that though but obviously the McGrews think otherwise!
Wow, great stuff! You're so good in explaining and steelmanning arguments that you ultimately may not find convincing! Two things I noted though: 1. When you were talking about the resurrection as an argument for god: aren't you engaging in circular reasoning when you evoke god to raise the intrinsic probability of the resurrection itself?* 2. I never found finetuning to be a very convincing argument. I always thought it just amounts to marveling that low probability events happen - but they happen all the time. But the worse point is this: in almost all of the cases that the finetuning proponent sees finetuning, we don't even know whether the particular instance can be in fact finetuned. E.g. can the gravitational constant be different? We don't know, so it is ridiculous to assign any probability to this - low or high. *To explain this better: the argument from the resurrection can be formulated like this: a.) Jesus could only really die, be really dead for some time and resurrect bodily from the grave if god exists and resurrected him. b.) Jesus really died and resurrected -> Therefore god exists If your argument for premise b.) is, that the intrinsic probability is not very low as god wanted Jesus to resurrect and fulfill his plan, then you baked the existence of god e.g. the very thing you're trying to prove with the argument in the premise. This is circular reasoning, right?
Thank you!!! I was disappointed that neither of them seemed aware of this kind of objection to the fine tuning argument, bc I've heard it mentioned elsewhere and it makes sense to me
I'm late to the party but I'll try to quote from WLC, if you don't find the answers compelling let me know, I have from other authors who have different views on this. (typos exist due to text recognition error) Answering Q2: A Possible Objection and Its Answer Now some of you might be thinking, But if the constants and quantities had bad diferent values, then maybe different forms of life might bave evolved. But that underestimates the truly disastrous consequences of a change in the values of these constants and quantities When scientists say a universe is life-permitting, they're not talking about just present forms of life. By "life" scientists just mean the propery of organisms to take in food, extract energy from it, grow, adapt to their to environment, and reproduce. Anything that can fulfill those functions counts as life, whatever form it might take. And in order for life, so defined, to exist, the constants and quantities of the universe have to be unbelievably fine- tuned. In the absence of fine-tuning, not even matter, not even chemistry would exist, much less planets where life might evolvel! Another Objection and Its Answer Sometimes people will object, *But maybe in a universe governed by different laws of nature, such disastrous consequences might not result." But this objection betrays a misunderstanding of the argument. Were not concerned with universes governed by different laws of nature. We have no idea what such universes might be like! Rather we're concerned solely with universes governed by the same laws of nature but with different values of the constants and arbitrary quantities. Because the laws are the same, we can determine what would happen if the constants and quantities were to be altered. And the results turn out to be disastrous. Among universes governed by our laws of nature, there's almost no chance that a randomly chosen universe would be life-permitting. Answering Q1: Explaining the Evidence We come, then, to the second step in our case: determining which explanation of the evidence is the best. Historians weigh various factors in assessing competing hypotheses. Some of the most important are as follows: 1. The best explanation will have greater explanatory scope than other explanations. That is, it will explain more of the evidence. 2. The best explanation will have greater explanatory power than other explanations. 'That is, it will make the evidence more probable. 3. The best explanation will be more plausible than other explanations. That is, it will fit better with true background beliefs. 4. 'The best explanation will be less contrived than other explanations That is, it won't require adopting as many new beliefs that have no independent evidence. 5. The best explanation will be disconfirmed by fewer accepted belief than other explanations. That is, it won't conflict with as many accepted beliefs. 6. The best explanation will meet conditions 1-5 so much better than the others that there's litle chance that one of the other explanations, after further investigation, will do better in meeting these conditions. He then goes into explaining all other alternative answers in all 6 points to prove they are much weaker than the proposition of the Christian view. Can't paste that it's too long. Finally, concerning the circular reasoning, search "resurrection of jesus to prove god circular reasoning" you'll find a Q&A where he answers that we're moving from Theism to Christianity, not Atheism to Theism. "My studied view, then, is that one first establishes theism on the basis of the arguments of Natural Theology like the cosmological, teleological, axiological, and ontological arguments, so that when one comes to explaining the facts pertinent to Jesus of Nazareth, one may include as part of one’s background information the existence of the God of Natural Theology. You misunderstood the Defenders lectures. There I challenge the assumption that the probability of the resurrection on our background information Pr (R|B) is very low precisely because we can include God’s existence as part of our background information. We’ve already completed our Natural Theology before we come to an examination of Christian evidences. […] Now if one includes the resurrection itself as part of the evidence for theism, as I often do in debates, one cannot include God’s existence as part of the background information (though one could still include evidence like the beginning of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, the reality of objective moral values, etc.). What one will say in this case is just that we’ve got no reason to think that Pr (R|B)
@@skepticfaith Hey, it has indeed been some time - I had to retrace again what has been going on here 😄 So, concerning Q1, it seems WLC and you are agreeing with me. Arguing for a god with the resurrection (as the title of the video "Arguments For God's Existence Tier List" implies) cannot include using the existence of God as background knowledge. If you have a successful argument for theism, then monotheism, then you might use the existence and the will of god as background knowledge. Concerning Q2: I think the answer misses my objection. My objection is not that life could be different under different constants or laws of nature - it was that it might not be possible that the constants have different values. Just as it is for example not possible for a temperature to be colder than absolute zero.
@@gmlr correct. I couldn't add to more than what was said in the video, not sure if you'll remember what was said a year ago :) But yea, the existence of God is only inferred by the "fishiness" of the situation, and if you require explanations, then you'd have to go through all of the naturalistic interpretations which wouldn't pass the points laid down by WLC, which is convincing IMHO but I'm biased as a Christian to give you that even if I'm pushing myself to be neutral or agnostic to be fair. So there is no circular reasoning because it's not like "if Jesus resurrected then God exists - Jesus resurrected - Therefore God exists". It's more like there's a gap, Jesus and all what we have from Christians and what we know of them claim that it's the fulfillment of the prophecies which were laid down much earlier by the Jews of the resurrection. Naturalistic explanation don't fair well in the explanation of the outcome, therefore we are settling with God as a plausible explanation FOR SOMEONE who is already a Christian. Q2 is answered already in the video, it's a big leap to assume that different values can be sustained in different worlds, but scientifically speaking, to answer you, it's definitely impossible, and it's easy for a scientist to demonstrate that. That's actually how scientists got these weird numbers estimating the infinitely small fractions of change that would cause the world to collapse. And it's true this does seem to resonate with some more than others. I just skipped that chapter in every book I was reading that involved fine tuning. I'm amazed how the subjective preference of each person determines how likely are they to weigh the strength of an argument.
@@skepticfaith Heyo, thanks - I don't understand your point concerning Q2, sorry.... But you are right, it is really interesting how different arguments resonate with different people. As a christian as well, I have many problems with the arguments that WLC proclaims with such vigor and (at least from my subjective point of view) sometimes arrogance. I have problems accepting the arguments when I would not feel comfortable using them myself because of the problems I see with them.
An interesting thing to note is that Aristotle dealt with the problem of contingency with his "prime mover theory", though he didn't theorize about it in regards to time. HE thought about it vertically instead of horizontally, if you will. This means that he did not think about it in terms of what was the first cause of the first thing, but what is the cause of each thing.
This is far superior to the cosmic skepticism piece-a well-thought-out, lengthy conversation that highlights the argument's merits. It's not a monologue focused on brief counter-arguments that seem to suggest the main goal of the argument is to hoodwink the participants.
I played this and closed my eyes with the intention to sleep while listening to this. I kid you not, I had the most dramatic-fictional biblical dream while their audio played as a voiceover
I'd say for the contingency argument, stage 1 is S tier. There must be some noncontingent thing, some brute fact of reality. That says nothing of what that something is though. The stage 2 I've heard is D tier though. "Every limited thing is contingent. Therefore a noncontingent thing is not limited." It's at least a proper inversion, so valid structure. But it's also literally the black swan fallacy. Just insert swans. "Every swan is white, therefore a non white thing is not a swan." It's asserting to know the nature of something we don't know, and could conceivably be wrong.
also cause and effect break down in quantum mechanics. there is an idea dubbed "quantum mischief" that states 2 events can happen simultaneously, while also causing each other. so which of the 2 is the preceding contingent state? there is no answer to that question, they both are, so you have now hit an end to the supposedly infinite regress. there's also an even newer hypothesis that proposes causality can go in loops, that not just 2, but a series of events will have as a result the state that caused the loop in the first place.
I honestly don't see how it is S tier. I don't see how a god gets put forward as the non-contingent. It seems to over unnecessarily complicate things to the nth degree. A natural cause like pure energy that is just there vs. a supernatural being with preferences that is just there. Why the extra?
I didn't know of Joe or his views before watching this, and the impression I got was that I couldn't tell whether he was a theist or an atheist, which is about right.
There is a noticeable change to Joe's demeanor when he discusses the fine-tuning argument. In my opinion, I think he would have put that one at "S" if Alex had not been so unmoved by it. I'm curious as to why it seems to be the "one" for Hitchens and many others, but does nothing to Alex. Even without being a scientist, you can understand probability. I see it as the updated version of the watchmaker analogy, only now we know just how intelligent the watchmaker is. I really enjoyed this video, as I do all of your videos. Thank you for sharing.
Love it! GMS's video on this topic was one of the first atheist videos I watched that helped me think more critically regarding my faith. I left the church later that week.
@@KillerOfWhales Presumptive? Maybe. Rude? Not at all. If all it took was for one atheist video to make him leave "later that week", then I think it's a pretty safe assumption. And I care about anyone who leaves the church and puts his eternal destination in jeopardy.
@@clintonwilcox4690 Do you have any proof that your religion is true but the other religions aren't? Because it seems to me that you're in just as much danger as OP is.
@@clintonwilcox4690 Not really. The church had just helped me through a personal matter that I'm still grateful for. At the time, the video showed up on my recommended because I consumed a lot of apologetics content and I guess there was crossover interest in this video. After watching, I figured he made some good points and watched other videos. I watched and read criticisms of his (and other non-theists) positions. And in this time, I read the Bible, prayed, and even fasted. I just couldn't find sufficient reason for the Christian God. And this was an uncomfortable, unwelcome realization at the time. So no, not just one video. And I wasn't looking for reasons to leave. I looked for reasons to stay. Edit: I still consume a lot of Christian apologetics content as an atheist because my interpretation of reality ought to stand to scrutiny.
I really enjoy this video, I learned a lot of new arguments and clarified others. I do feel you are too sympathetic to the arguments given their apparently sound rebuttals, but I am philosophically pessimistic in general. Keep up the good work!
Since your Excellency is not only all wise and all knowing, perhaps you could indulge your servant here present by answering the question: "to what is the fact that the Bible bought in Dorset or encourages slavery, relevant, or in babytalk: so what if the Bible endorses encourages or supports slavery? Is it not perfectly true to say that anyone that can either bully or threaten others into labouring for him for no reward whatsoever, would be a bloody fool if you didn't do that? Even years the all wise all knowing and all seeing have absolutely no idea why a man (human being that is capable of bullying or intimidating beings weaker and more stupid than himself, might not, tell those creatures to labour for him for no reward exactly as they do any other livestock, which, if you bought it down to its bare bones, poses the question what is the difference between slavery and any other sort of farming? - Why *not* bully threaten or intimidate those weaker than you into labouring for you without reward? You have not the faintest idea? - No surprises. there.
@@vhawk1951kl without the enslavement of the livestock, the livestock would probably not be bred in the first place. Humans will be fruitful and multiply either way, so compassion restricts the same being done to humans as it is not a net good. Also people simply care less about animals.
I'm not at all atheistic, complete opposite in fact I believe in countless divine/supernatural beings, but this is some good content. Intellectually honest, the arguments are treated fairly and I really liked how rational and logical your approach was towards everything. Not many people look at theism through a lense of reason or understanding
@@lmho0254 I'm Rosicrusian, so I believe in many gods, though I only worship one. The focus is more on personal enlightenment and connection to the divine
@@TheBitingBat That's a very captivating take on theism, something I don't really hear every day. I really only hear the Holy Trinity (ba dum tiss) of [Abrahamic] theisms, Christianity, Judaism, and, the one I grew up in, Islam. However, I'm really getting into Deism, where you believe in a god that doesn't interact with the universe. People normally think of a deistic god like a "clockmaker god". I think of it as "A knockoff atheist 😂" I love your focus on personal enlightenment and divine connections, it sounds like such a revelating journey. Most people just kinda follow X religion because of getting to heaven or thinking it's the right one and not really looking at the spiritual part of it, aside from praying of course. Sorry that I made such a long comment but I just love looking at other people's perspectives on life and yours was definitely a cool one.
@@lmho0254 Deism is basically agnosticism with extra steps. I personally grew fairly disillusioned with organized religion for the reasons you outlined, too many people were just there because they want to go to heaven or they think you have to be religious or else you go to hell. I wanted something more, which led me to being a pluralist. The only belief that stayed the same for me was gnostic belief and my faith in the Lord Creator. You don't have to apologize, I'm fond of discussing ideology freely, just taking it for what it is rather than arguing who's right
@@TheBitingBat I love the fact that you aren't willing to argue, definitely not something I see in a lot of these religious video comment sections. About organized religion, atheists sometimes point out that some/most theists that follow it have no _real_ morality. People would steal, kill, rape, and other criminal acts if it weren't for the Bible, or any other religious text, which I think is a hot take; my family acknowledges the simple fact that these acts are wrong without even thinking about the religious part of it. I'm sure anyone else would, anyone that's sane... Deism and agnosticism are kinda different, but the same; deism, you _know_ there's a god, but it just doesn't interact with the universe, but agnostic is where you question the very existence of a God. Maybe that's the extra steps you were talking about... I didn't understand that 😅 I'm gonna be honest, I'm not even in high school yet so I'm gonna say some stuff that may be inaccurate on accident
The reason I never found fine tuning very convincing is that's it seems very "god of the gaps" to me. It seems to me that there is no particular reason to imagine that these constants could in fact take on any other values. For instance, take gravity. Not the gravitational constant, but the actual strength of gravity on earth. All object accelerate downwards at 9.81 m/s^2. If that number were much lower, things could accidentally fly away from earth, and if it were much higher, we'd all be crushed against the ground and be unable to evolve into our current tall forms. How marvelously coincidental that this is the strength of gravity, instead of any other number. But this is wrong. The rate of gravitational acceleration isn't a coincidence at all. It's a result of more fundamental properties, like the gravitational constant, the mass of the earth, etc. There is no "well what if it were different", because it couldn't have been different. The laws of physics require it to be that specific number. So when we move to the "fundamental constants of the universe", it does not seem to be a settled matter that they are in fact fundamental. I think it's entirely plausible that there is some more underlying physics that determines why these numbers are the way that they are instead of any other value, which we just haven't found yet. I think it's logical to assume that if we ever "finish" physics, and learn everything there is to learn, there will be significantly fewer fundamental constants, possibly even none whatsoever. Just because we don't know why the values we observe are the way they are, doesn't mean we should jump to "god did it."
You're missing the point we discovered the law's of the universe we have no idea why they have them values and if they can't be any other way then why you can't say because that's not science
@@rebelresource I don't think you understand the "God of the gaps". Historically, we have had a large number of gaps in our knowledge of the world. "How did species get here?" " What causes disease?" And a million others. Every single time we've found the explanation for these gaps, it's always been science. Every single time. That's why it's absurd to say "this time, surely, it'll be God", but perfect reasonable to say "it'll probably be science this time". Our past experience with these gaps is that it's always been science, and never been God.
Cosmic sceptic btw gives the best defenses of arguments for God I have ever heared. So believing something to be true and the capacity to defend the truth value of the belief don't seem to be necessarilly related. Thats quite something.
Alex it would be awesome if you make a series with Joe on this channel like Rationality rule's Kalam series with Joe Both atheists and theists communities will appreciate this
If you want to get in depth on the Resurrection Argument, you should collab with Paulogia! He has an incredible amount of background knowledge on the Bible and its historicity or lack thereof.
You’re right that Paulogia is knowledgeable, but he’s the exact same as apologists, except the reverse. Alex is very nuanced and objective whereas Paulogia has an axe to grind and consistently engages in counter-apologetics. Alex is miles above Paulogia in maturity and quality of content.
There was almost a genuine shock when they we’re actually putting the Resurrection higher than they thought.. enjoyable vid agree with their tiers mostly.
Great conversation, guys! Makes one want to join and add a few points to be considered every now and then. Also, it could easily have been a few hours longer in my opinion haha. Interesting how we do have different intuitions and are more prone to being convinced by different arguments. Greetings from a Brazilian christian, keep the good content coming! PS: funny how the agnostic seems to be more skeptical than the atheist here.
Christian here. Absolutely loved this dialogue. Absolutely loved the fact that with some of the arguments, it was difficult to predetermine where you'd rank them on the tier list. I'm absolutely glad for the inclusion of the resurrection argument in the conversation, and was genuinely shocked by how highly it was placed. Overall good conversation, I do have a few questions about distinguishing between some of the arguments eg cosmological v contingency (or even traditional v new kalam); and I wish I was in the room to pose certain questions and see how you navigate those, especially in regards to the moral argument. Overall, was glad to hear that some of the reasoning that I've internally used to go over these arguments wasn't dismissed as intellectually lacking, and inasmuch as I'd have to mull over some of the more weighty counterarguments to the more weighty arguments, it was, as stated by multiple parties on here, a breath of fresh air. Kudos.
Speaking of breaths of fresh air, kudos to the Christian in the comments section of an atheist podcast not trying to drop the mic by attacking everybody in the comments.
@@CookiesRiotanother Christian here. It seems I know the right kind of Christian to not have been around these combatative people. At the end of the day, think about how Jesus would have acted. Surely not like said commenters, starting arguments and attacking
@@hfdcjiirjmcfi I mean, Jesus was said to have thrown people's tables full of merchandise, but I suppose if you're literally the divine creator of everything there is justification for angrily kicking people out of your temple. 🤣 And of course, there are hot-headed atheists who could probably stand to take a chill pill now and then when they discuss these topics. Dave Farina and Aron Ra come to mind. The comments sections are often harsh and sarcastic to the theists rather than merely academic like this discussion. It would be cool to be able to have more conversations along the lines of, "I get where you're coming from, from I don't agree with this specific premise." I think that the Kalam and Anselm arguments are completely nonsensical at nearly every turn, but _I try_ (and probably sometimes fail) _not to beat people over the head and call them idiots_ just because I don't find the arguments convincing.
The Kalam Cosmological argument is about cause, whereas the Contingency argument is about dependancy, its a small change but it makes a big difference As a muslim, the contingency argument is easily the most powerful argument for Gods existence ever
3:07 “SUper!” 😂 1:24:00 I would have thought he was an atheist from listening so far. Also, I would put fine tuning above the kalam. But I’m a scientist
@@coltoncatalli8148 such god wouldn't need nor want worship, I'm imagining a crazy/giddy scientist that makes his experiments and leaves the aftermath to clean up after he gets dinner or smth and finally ends up cleaning the used equipment only when he runs out of clean one. A total trainwreck
i really like the argument about the island, i fell asleep and was dreaming about being on holidays. i then woke up and shat myself i have an assignment due today and haven't started.
It seems to me that the necessary thing(s) are quantum fields, or at least that is what physics seems to be pointing towards presently. Roger Penrose's CCC, and Lee Smolin's CNS are excellent possible answers to the fine tuning argument, as both show compelling ways for "eons" to have existed before the big bang (the point at which most of the fundamental constants were locked into their current values).
Locked into place is a belief it can be any other way we have no evidence it's possible to be anything but what we see the numbers like gravity being precise to 19 decimal points added with the other values means the logical none creator argument is infinite number of universes all with different values so one has to be right for ours but it's a belief it's not fact it's not testable. Universe did mean everything until the fine turning law's of the universe were discovered.
@@fluffysheap the post was long enough without that lol! Penrose's is called Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, Smolins is Cosmological Natural Selection. The former deals with scale invariance in the remote future, which actually looks just like the remote past. The latter is easier to understand, and posits that every black hole formed creates a separate space-time with slightly different constants. If this were the case we would expect to find ourselves in a universe fine tuned for sustaining large numbers of black holes, which we do
@@davidevans3223 Penrose's CCC can be falsified through more precise images of the cosmic microwave background, smolins would be more difficult to falsify, but it has made at least one confirmed prediction. And as far as the constants being locked into place, it is known that several constants couldn't have been what they are now at the time of the Big bang, gravity couldn't have acted then as it does now or the universe would have collapsed into a black hole, the EM and weak forces were certainly combined into a single, electroweak force, and I believe it's been confirmed that at high enough energies the strong force combines as well. The hubble constant was much different if it was even sensible to think about at that time, just to name a few
Great video. As a believer I really appreciate that you steel man these arguments. I think the moral argument is far stronger than you ranked it. Also the origin of life argument is a powerful one you didn’t address.
As a non believer I've come out of this video feeling more confident in my non belief, it's interesting that we both saw the same video and drew such different conclusions
The moral argument is very weak. People claim everything God does is moral no matter how nasty or horrific we think it is ... which shows we don't get our morals there or the Bible which condones things like slavery
Just some food for thought, (this may be biased because I’m Christian, and I love seeing you guys debate about the resurrection) but I would argue that Thomas not believing, and in the Book of Matthew there’s reports that people still doubted, it would show that this book was not manmade. If this book copied from mythological books from the past, I think everyone around Jesus would be in awe. Secondly, the small phrase in the book of John where he said “blood and water” come out of Jesus, many scientists came out and said that the “water” was indeed an actual description of a fluid that would have come out from someone who endured such injuries! I enjoyed this video ❤️
I'd find it useful to split a single tier rating into, maybe, 2 categories: 1. How philosophically interesting an argument is 2. How well it actually argues for some conception of god. For example, IMO contingency and fine-tuning are both quite interesting but the former is so absurdly general and abstract that there's no hint of a god as some kind of "being" that has any kind of properties anywhere in there. Although it also relies on the specific theology to do much of the heavy lifting, the fine-tuning argument at least seems more grounded and has some connection to god as an agent with certain properties. I know the tier thing is a fun meme, but I'd legitimately be interested in a tiny bit more granularity in the ratings.
Find this interesting. My take is the Contingency is interesting as well as (for me) the most convincing argument for a god. It at very least narrows down to a necessary thing which would exist in all possible universes. Thus we have one characteristic of at least one type of god. To conclude that things are contingent or necessary doesn't seem to be far off from intuition/common sense. The fine tuning doesn't sit well with me. (1) Of all the possible worlds that could exist, each one would be just as unique (life or not) mathematically. (2) We are also, due to our ignorance, don't know the total of "all possible worlds" or all possible factors. That is there could be for whatever reason only one possible world/universe or an infinite amount. (3) We suppose that this particular outcome despite how probable (see #1 however) that it was somehow planned or crafted by an intelligent being. That, to me takes a big leap as you have to add qualifiers to your conclusion (intelligent designer) in order for the rest to fit which in return requires more reasoning and discussion on why this character has these particular qualities. I do think that the fine tuning argument is more well known and accepted by the general population but something seems off about it, where on the contingency concept you only need to make one assumption about a god which is he/she/it is necessary. It's more humble too.
@@jaram6049 fair enough, i think there's a variety of reasonable but subjective stances on this. Specifically on contingency though... The basic conclusion is that there is a necessary uncaused cause. What can we honestly say about this uncaused cause without bringing in a truckload of theology and biased intuition? Does it continue to have influence after the initial "event"? I don't see how you can know that. Does it have agency? Preferences etc? Is it causally related to any part of our physical universe? It seems presumptuous to make any such conclusions from the contingency argument alone. In fact, it being metaphysically necessary only makes things worse - if it couldn't fail to exist the more properties you assign to it the higher the ontological cost grows. So just as i was saying with a dual tier system, the contingency argument is kind of interesting but even if was found to be true it would do very little to support any particular theistic claim. It is a hopelessly abstract notion. Fine-tuning, on the other hand feels so relevant and grounded to reality (albeit a bit less fundamental that contingency). Why are the mechanisms underlying our every living second what they are? Why are the constants of nature balanced so seemingly precisely as to allow us to exist? We can even try to imagine the alternatives and compare them to our universe. There's at least something to work with here, an agent of some kind could prefer one scenario over another. I think fine-tuning falls under the teleological umbrella, which was actually quite compelling before sciences (such as biology, genetics) shed more light on the apparent design of things.
@@jaram6049 I am honestly suprised that theists don't push the fine-tuning argument more than they do. I think it's complicated but I agree with anzov1n that it seems to really get at more specific properties of a being that fit into the description of God. Fine-tuning in cosmology is taken seriously even if its implications are philosophically controversial. I think because it is a complex argument that relies on many assumptions to be true and is generally presented as an inductive or probabilistic argument that the argument isn't as popular as cosmological type arguments. On a side note I was suprised to see Joe as critical of it in this general discussion as I think he agrees with Draper that the fine-tuning argument is an evidential chip in favor of theism. I know he doesn't find the multiverse response particular convincing from his conversation with Deliberation Under Ideal Conditions.
@@blamtasticful I do believe fine tuning is pushed a lot by theist (least Abrahamic). It's def an argument I think even those who don't dive into philosophy at least know. The issue I have with the fine tuning, I think you stated well, too many assumptions before the argument is made. Where as the contingency one has way less assumptions baked in. It doesn't seem to attempt to prove a god exist, merely that a nessacry thing exist which is a possible trait of a god. It's more humble, assumes less, claims less and thus more likely to be more true. Again, just my take on these arguments. Be curious about the conversation you are refrenceing about the ideal conditons thing. (Spelling bad, early in morning, sorry)
@@jaram6049 Hey no problem. Deliberation Under Ideal Conditions is a small chanel by an atheist moral realist who generally likes to defend utilitarianism. He has interviewed heavyweights like Michael Huemer. I don't at all agree with him on everything but he is a calm and respectful interlocuter and when he inteviewed Joe Schmid I wanted to watch the interaction. Yeah maybe my experience is too skewed by interacting with Christians who very much are engaged in philosophy of religion circles. I would agree that at the popular level fine-tuning is more popular. However, I do find many philosophy of religion types to not find it too convincing for the reasons we agreed about. However, even take someone like TJump who had been pushing a layperson version of the stalking horse objection before Alex Malpass formalized the argument, at the very least it would show what the naturalist would be comitted to if they wanted to defend a complex stalking horse if they found that it was important in order to explain fine-tuning. Then the relative plausibility of the stalking horse and the God hypotheses could be compared. Heck if they are fairly close to each other in plausibility I think that would be a significant result. I also think layppeople are more likely to point to the beauty of nature or the complexity of life as more intuitive design inferences rather than mostly just focusing on the constants. Maybe one last point then I will take a break from rambling. I think the idea that out of all contingent things that exist that not one of them is unexplained is actually at least fairly unintuitive. I also think that something as radically different as the starting point of the universe is intuitively is much more likely to be one of those things. Even if say this point had a 25% chance of being true I think that possibility would be something that could completely undermine the contingency argument that the fine-tuning argument becomes stronger as an argument as a result. Anyways just a couple of thoughts; could be wrong.
This is a perfect example of what Plato would probably call "good sophistry on dionoia level". Intelligent people in the having mode playing with propositions.
Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord. 1 Cor 1:26-31
@@joannware6228 "and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses." Ezekiel 23:20 (esv)
Also, in reference to this idea of “Principle of Sufficient Reason” - is there (and/or *must* there be) a Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem of “Sufficient Reason?” Remember, at the *very* most fundamental level of observable reality - Casimir and Unruh Effects, quantum fluctuations of EM, Color, Higgs fields - things happen all the time for no reason at all, and things happening briefly for no reason vastly outnumber causally explained, classical phenomena.
Credit where it's due I think they are intuitive, but personally that's as far as I think they go. Most of them simply amount to Aquinas failing to conceptualize infinite regress, and the teleological argument is stronger but has become increasingly harder to defend in light of modern science and our understanding of evolution.
@@tristanneal9552 I don't think infinite regress is possible, at least not in the way necessary to explain away the contingency-problem. You don't get this problem of course if you choose some of non-materialistic interprations of atheism or even pantheism. The teleological argument isn't that weak, but it isn't that strong either. Especially in light of a vast empty cosmos it has definetely some issues.
I'd be interested in a discussion about how poorly the second stages of the contingency argument and kalam cosmological argument would rate, because it always seems to me that that stage two is a much larger stretch. You may have undermined their higher rating later on in the modal ontological argument by saying it doesn't establish god's existence. Well, neither did the contingency argument, which only proposes that you need a necessary existence to explain contingent existences. Getting from there to a god (let alone a specific god) is a stretch. It occurs to me that the contingency argument is almost a parody of the composition fallacy: the idea that our experiences are based on observations made in the universe, so you can't apply those to the universe itself. Another interesting point that occurs to me is that a lot of theists make the mistake that the Big Bang Theory is claiming "everything coming from nothing" which of course is not true. It only traces the universe back to an incredibly dense state and makes no predictions or explanations about how it got there. We have untestable hypotheses like the Big Bounce or the idea that we are inside of a black hole, and the Big Bang was triggered by reaching a certain mass and/or by material falling into it, and given that they are natural explanations they are (to use a term Joe uses later) more intrinsically probably than just claiming that God did it. I like Joe's discussion of the fine-tuning argument. We really have no idea how likely these constants are to be in the ranges they are in. We only have the one universe to base our observations on, AND these "constants" (which may not be constants, actually) may actually just be artifacts of how we model the physical properties. The easy analogy here is that our "laws" of gravitation lose the ability to accurately predict reality in certain circumstances, and that's because they are models/approximations of curved spacetime...which itself may just be a higher fidelity model of the universe, to be superseded in the future by some Theory of Everything. I actually agree with Alex though that it doesn't really move me either. The Weak Anthropic Principle always resonated with me, and I guess you could even say it's a shorthand for the above. That said I don't know how you got through the fine-tuning argument without bringing up the puddle analogy! The resurrection argument is definitely not strong to nonbelievers. Alex himself discussed how the earliest gospel didn't even have the resurrection, then subsequent ones increased the number of witnesses. Joe's point that all it takes is one charismatic person that hallucinated or lied to convince others is right on target. Consider the 2020 US presidential election. All it took was one person misrepresenting evidence to convince millions of others that, as you put it, "something weird happened."
Wholehartedly agree. Especially on the ressurection argument - we could do the same with fictional characters today, just indoctrinate children that Harry Potter is _literally_ the savior of humanity because he slayed the Dark Lord, and you'll get similar results to christianity, allbeit that these beliefs will be far more easily challenged due to Information density and availability, making it far harder to spread such mythos today than 2000 years ago - and as you rightly put it, it _still_ works somewhat.
Wow. As a Christian, this is an amazing video, and it really shows how theological and philosophical debates should happen. Not the typical "god isn't real you can't prove it" or "god is real because the bible is" mindless arguments that lead no where and doesn't convince anyone. Just 2 non thesis looking at both sides of the photo and trying to be unbiased and fair to both sides while sharing and bouncing ideas off and actually helping each other build there claim when they sense the other people has a claim and helps them rather than staying quiet and not saying anything to help in order to win the topic. Amazing gentlemen
A pair of scholars and gentlemen, thanks for the insightful conversation, guys! on The Kalam i was wondering in regard to Joe's Mirror Kalam argument why not concede the point but appeal to Aristotle's Formal Cause as a design in the mind of God?
I watched up to 1:24:20 without knowing Joe was an agnostic and at times I did wonder if he was christian or religious in some way. But every time I would think “no he’s just showing how someone could defend those arguments but he’s atheist”
this has been a really good watch and most of these arguments remind me of Exodus 3:14 -> when God says "I am that I am" Its kinda like that quote "I am thinking, therefore i am" Similar how to in Cogito, Ergo Sum, after denying everything to find the “objective” truth, Descartes found out that he could only be certain that he exist because while he doubted there had to exist someone outside the “vat”/stimulation that could even make up those thoughts. So my argument is this: Premise 1: If I think, then my existence is self-evident (based on Descartes' "Cogito, ergo sum"). Premise 2: God, defined as an infinite thinking being who keeps the universe together, would have his existence self-evident through his thinking of keeping the universe together. Premise 3: The universe and its laws can be seen as the product of God's infinite thought because he thinks of keeping it together while he is actually doing it unconsciously or consciously Conclusion: Therefore, the existence of the universe and its laws are self-evident evidence of God's existence, similar to how our thoughts are evidence of our own existence. When Cogito, Ergo Sum is applied to anything outside of human life the conclusion makes perfect sense but at the level at the divine your faced with an unsettling dilemma once rejected, if God doesn’t exist despite him being able to think, then wouldn’t that mean that your not real? My same reasoning applies to fictional characters, mythology, and other religions, the only difference is that the christian God is the only one who first said “I am that I am”...
My favorite part was the debate on the fine tuning argument. A rare treat to watch Alex push back to defend things that aren't necessarily his world view.
I was surprised that the Anthropic Principal wasn't brought up at all with the Fine-Tuning argument. That alone completely turns fine-tuning on its head for me.
I personally like Russels response to contingency with matter and energy as the necessary entities which cause contingent things. I believe he refers to it as a "Brute fact"
"It could be said, for the mind’s sake, that the proof that God is real is the proof that humanity can love, that humanity can unite, that humanity has a moral foundation, that humanity is capable of compassion, that humanity can love others when others do not love back in return, that humanity cares about the future, that individuals can act in a selfless manner, that Knowledge can emerge within an individual and guide them to live a greater life of purpose and service, engendering greater happiness and satisfaction. God is realized through this evidence: that humanity has a higher spiritual nature called Knowledge and born of Knowledge, and it is this higher spiritual nature that enables individuals to act in a selfless manner, to experience love, to share a love, to contribute to others, to address the problems of the world, to serve the world. This is the proof of God." This quote comes from *The New Message from God* - a set of teachings that I consider the greatest proof of God for the intellect. And this is simply because these teachings present such information and in such a way, that if one explores them deeply and apply them in their life, it is obvious that it comes from a greater source. It speaks about the future, about the universe and about the deeper part of every sentient being, our spiritual nature. Check out these teachings, they are in the hundreds and all are free online.
Two things, 1. Not only humans show those behaviours and have such experiences. 2. All of that can be explained by evolution by natural selection, no god is necessary
I’m shocked how high the resurrection argument placed. There are so many personality cults that have existed over time, and myths can evolve so easily around a cult leader a century after he dies.. it requires no “conspiracy” among followers to fabricate a story. History shows that humans confabulate and entertaining myths form organically and are successful memes. There really seems to be no reason to privilege one religious myth or lend it any more credibility than the myriad others humans have woven into their belief systems at various times.
The reason why has more to do with the details surrounding the story than the story itself. The entire Bible points to the resurrection, combined with the historic reality of the life and crucifixion of Jesus, and the effect afterwards on the world leading up to this point. For example, Mormonism is just a cult, but the entire Book of Mormon is not supported by any factual evidence or geographical data. The Bible, however, through and through describes the life and death and resurrection of Jesus in the major prophets 1000 years previous to it. It also describes the type of sacrifice necessary, and builds off of a system. This is what makes the resurrection convincing, because of the symmetry of the entire Bible. It is almost a circle, in which every book depicts the gospel to the same measure of the books about the gospel taking place and becoming reality.
@@jadehart2257 Jewish scholars always had and continue to have a different take on the Old Testament prophecies Christians subsequently reinterpreted as predicting Christ’s birth and resurrection. Other gospels that didn’t make it into the New Testament but were accepted by early Christians out a different spin on much of what is currently accepted as Christian doctrine. While Jesus’ existence seems likely, we don’t know much about the details and events of his life with any certainty, if we apply the same standard as we do to other, much written about historical figures.
@@RadicOmega some cults go extinct others persevere and others yet persevere for a time then go extinct. Historians don’t really consider the popularity of a myth hundreds of years after the events that gave rise to it as evidence relating to the historical accuracy of the myth. The popularity of a model aren’t direct evidence of its validity or explanatory power. For this reason an “argument from popularity” is largely dismissed as a logical fallacy.
When it comes to the resurrection argument, I don't think it matters so much how it compares to the rest of history with manuscript counts and so on ("an embarrassment of riches" one scholar said) because it just seems like ALL of ancient history (and probably all of history in general) has an element of uncertainty about it. For me, history is just an attempt at constructing the most accurate account of the past as possible.
Yeah, a lot of support for the resurrection argument tries to prop up our knowledge of history to a level it really doesn't warrant. The resurrection claim is often likened to other historical claims for which only one written account exists. This doesn't elevate the resurrection claim; this firmly cements it among other claims we confidently reject. Merely pointing out that people accept a random historical event that could've been totally mythical, like Hannibal marching elephants over the alps, does not mean that those people should accept the resurrection as much as they accept the elephants. On the contrary, it shows how little we can accept about the story of the elephants because we have so little to go on. Historians generally conclude that the Trojan War was probably based on a real event, but don't believe that Aphrodite helped Paris take Helen to Troy or that Thetis dunked Achilles in the Styx. Why should we conclude that everything in the Bible is true just because somebody wrote it down and some of the places are real?
Skeptics are genuine thinkers. Unafraid to discard the fear & need that is the true basis of belief. Despite all the endless wars, millions of deaths & continual suffering of mankind the need trumps the truth!
I've heard far worse arguments than the banana arguement. "Why isn't earth falling?" "How come two brothers from the same parents are different?" Z tier At least the "look at the trees!" Kind of arguments will be hard to explain for people who are generally convinced by it.
"Why isn't earth falling" ? I've never heard this one, but it looks fun,since orbit is fall. knowing this,I would probably set them up with "if earth was falling would you say it would be argument against god's existence"? if no,then the question is uselsess. if yes, great! earth is falling. but of course rule #2 in defending undefensible is to never answer questions,so there would be probably some misdirection to some other topic there,to forget they made a mistake instead of admitting they made it.
I think the "look at the trees" argument is really the same as a watchmaker analogy. So it's really an argument from complexity, just less generalized.
@@merbst : Clearly arguments necessary or everyone would be in agreement already. People have been slaughtering each other over it for millennia. In fact, no two people agree about religion or even what passages in the bible mean... which makes it a pretty poor manual. (Are we still supposed to stone rape victims to death?)
Imagine two supremely intelligent rivals, finaly come to a conclusive undeniable answer to this long lasting debate, I magine their reaction would be something like this 43:30 😍
At least you can be sure that God does feel proud of how thoughtful some of his creations are. Theist or atheist, intellectual exchange is something he always loved. BTW, in 1:49:46, this is basically an application of ockham's razor. We presuppose that there must be a simpler explanation, thus there'd be no need to believe the unlikely. I'd say that's a meh counterargument, considering that this is not about a coin flip, but an event that literally changed history. You can't make yourself believe that such a long-lasting event would be the product of a mere hallucination or "social expectations" (which doesn't even make sense, for Jews would NOT have desired their Messiah to be a craftsman from Nazareth)
@@JwalinBhatt Yes and Alex brought some of them up. But most objections of Kalam leads down on a path that uncovers the "intellectual price tag" of the refutations like they discussed. That's probably why Alex is fond of the argument.
@@JopingusBloggStudios "intellectual price tag" is very subjective. To me, there is no bigger intellectual price tag than god. Anyway what would you be referring to? Is it Mereological Nihilism?
Responding to the argument from objective morality: If "good" means fulfilling the task you were designed for, why would god design us so badly? We're obviously struggling to be good, in many situations we don't even know what actions we might take would be good, in others it's easy to see what's good but we still don't act accordingly. If that's what good means, then wouldn't the creation of morally imperfect beings be an act of evil? One might bring up the usual "but free will" rebuttal, but if free will is part of our design, if we're designed to have free will, then acting morally as defined above can't be part of our design and being "good" means "act according to your free will", making objective morality equivalent to an absence of morality... wouldn't it?
@@dylzp what the f is wrong with you? Making someone think it is required to kill YOUR OWN SON is psychotic at best. The same sort of d*mb bs from people who try to say that killing almost ALL PEOPLE AND ALL ANIMALS IN THE WORLD by drowning them was good. Genocidal maniacs.
1:50:41 it was very weird that the guy in the emirates jersey couldnt understand how a resurrection of a man claiming to be God couldnt be evidence for him being God. Several times he mentioned "why didnt God resurrect other people?" Alex tried to tell him that if there were many resurrections then there would be no significance in another resurrection, but that point was lost on his counterpart. The resurrection is a great ppoint of evidence for God.
When it comes to the fine tuning argument it strikes me as such a god of the gaps argument, I don't know why anyone takes it seriously. We don't know why the universe is such and such therefore god
Its like the shoe-maker argument, we dont know what made the universe but I make shoes here so maybe it is all a shoe and there is a big Shoe-Maker-Me doing all the stuff
Regarding the origin of the "S Tier", tier lists actually originated from Japan, and can be seen in certain anime such as Naruto where the highest rank mission is S. This is because in Japan the word for exemplary is 秀, or shū.
I first started seeing S rank in racing games like Gran Turismo
I first started hearing about it as a kid in the 90s in video games.
@@SimberLayek saaaame
Yes. In Japan, 'S' actually originated in the school grade system, where it is the same as American 'A+'.
I first saw it in Forza Motorsport
"The thing that exists is greater than the thing that does not." - thing that exists
"You can always think of something better" - thing that does not exist
...... -thing that does not exist
“The brain is the most important organ in the body.” - The Brain
@@bupperdupper8873 "...... -thing that does not exist" - person that is speaking for a thing that does not exist
I love how this is basically what modern philosophy looks like.
Two young lads sitting down and engaging in philosophical dialogue.
Back a century, it would have been the same, but perhaps in more sophisticated aesthetic. I just love how THIS is what philosophy looks like in practice in our day and age. It's cool to watch :)
Everyone loves a bit a philosophical banter among the fellas.
Its a breath of fresh air compared to those “debates” of people screaming at each other
I suppose" two young lads sitting down and engaging in philosophical dialogue" is one way of describing mutual cinque contra uno.
Do they not then reflect on the Quran? Had it been from anyone other than Allah, they would have certainly found in it many inconsistencies. 4: 82
Bro the Quran has so many inconsistencies and mistakes that I can't even count 😂@@mylordtakemeaway
I find it hilarious that two non theists convince me more of existence of god than people who are actually supposed to do it as their job.
That’s because you didn’t expect it from them so you think if they go so far as admitting it. They cannot be lying… Furthermore, since they are smart likely it is true or at least there is very good evidence for it.
that's because you are so biased you discard anything coming from theists... what's hilarious is u trying to act as if this two are the first to ever spout this words, when in reality they actually named William lane craig a few times in their conversation having said such things lol... in other words your comment is full of shit, but you already knew this...
@@2002THEBOY No. For me it's steelmanning their opponents positions and treating each point with respect and dignity. I cannot say the same about christian scholars as a lot of the time they cannot admit that they are wrong in some regards.
@@kaganamemiku831 LOL 😆
@@kaganamemiku831 It's not uncommon for Christians scholars to attack certain arguments for Christianity. Aquinas didn't like Anselm's ontological argument. Kant disliked the ontological argument and cosmological argument. I think it's a bit unfair to assume theists are particularly more undignified than atheists.
This is such a breath of fresh air: Alex and Joe are crazy smart, polite, charitable, and amazing educators. They actually make me want to crack open a textbook or two on - of all things - philosophy of religion. 🙂
Seeing scholars (or scholars in training) like these guys and others has really inspired me to try and distance myself from the rhetoric driven showmanship of the “apologetics vs counter-apologetics” mindset as much as possible. There’s a whole world out there of philosophy, science and theology to explore that opens up beautifully (with a lot of hard work) when one isn’t studying it just to try and convert/deconvert others.
Well, to be fair, the vast majority of the books have been available even before these two guys started on youtube. However I agree that the whole world out there is way more intersting than the boring low fruit "apologetics vs counter-apologetics" debates. It's the discussions that are interesting but those are quite rare.
Frankly I don't see what's so interesting about the field of chiseling away at fallacious arguments with enough linguistic gymnastics to say something somewhat thought provoking but ultimately based on nothing but bias and intuition. I'd argue that steelmanning these arguments without really raising their objections is a bit deceptive, and I'm kinda surprised to see the mostly positive reception.
@@ShadowMark474 I hear your point and I get it. Goodness knows I probably wouldn’t have the patience to study this full time like Alex has.
Though perhaps I could explain why I do find this kind of philosophy useful?
To start, I can’t escape the notion that I could be absolutely wrong about even the kinds of questions I ask. Even simple questions like “show me evidence for God” have a host of built in assumptions. In the past, I was completely and utterly wrong (imo) about the very foundational ideas I believed, and yet, at the time, I thought what I believed was nothing short of common sense. God existing was as obvious as the sky being blue, potentially more so. I had strings of questions I’d ask those who disagreed with me that I was sure would open their eyes to the “fact” that they weren’t seeing “reality.” And yet, I was wrong. Philosophy helps keep me on my toes; I don’t think I’ll ever be completely comfortable resting on any set of “common sense” presuppositions without at least occasionally unpacking them with the assumption that I could be completely and utterly wrong.
Now it’s worth noting that yes, philosophy often just explores the structure of our intuitive-yet-socially-created-concepts rather than external, “real” “things.” But that isn’t necessarily a waste of time. Far more than we are often aware, concepts like “knowledge”, “beauty” or even “causation” frame how we come to experience the external world. _All of our observations are theory-laden._ We can’t help but look at reality through the lens of our past experiences, our mental models and our intuitive categories that structure the world. In fact, the phrase “look at reality” is broadly inaccurate, we don’t touch the face of reality directly so much as experience some output filtered through layers of categorisation and meaning creation. Philosophy helps us become more aware of what those layers are, and as a result can help us become more acquainted both with their limitations and with potentially different ideas that could take their place.
Philosophy can also explore the logical consequences of reality being a certain way. “Causation” for example, is both a mental construct and (imo) something external. Any philosophy done in this domain should make use of our best physics, chemistry etc., but I’m not ready to completely write off all ontological and cosmological arguments.
Why philosophy of religion though? For me at least, engaging with the idea of a God increasingly appears to be the ultimate sandbox in which to unpack and explore these intuitive concepts we have that structure how we view reality. The God question is a great way to test the limits of our ideas about what it means to even know something, what it means to have a mind, what it means for something to be good or beautiful, etc. These can all be studied separably of course - Epistemology is incredibly interesting - but attempting to, for example, unpack the epistemology of an educated theist I respect is a thought provoking and often very humbling challenge.
To echo an earlier point again, I’m motivated to explore philosophy because I could be totally wrong about how I _even begin to think about_ the God question. Goodness knows I was in the past, how do I know I’m not wrong now? I’m just doing my best to not become a confident-yet-uninformed evangelistic person who’s essentially identical to my former self with the only real difference being that my theism/not-theism switch points the other way.
I hope this clarifies something about my outlook 🙂
I like that Alex filled out the counter-point to the "best conceivable island" objection- that the argument isn't about the best possible particular thing, but the best possible absolute thing. This reminds me of my own favorite island-style counter, which was the best possible ice cream cone, one property of which is that it appears in my hand when I want it to and tastes always just a little better than I remember.
So to then steel-man the Anselm's god-concept, his best conceivable being must also be edible, and taste really good. And I find myself not too surprised that the Catholics have beaten me to this, but in spectacularly bad fashion. Their god is edible, but you have to go and pick him up yourself. And the taste is, well predictably bad. Just like basically every catholic I've known.
@@ahgflyguy
How many catholics have you actually eaten? If you merely met them, how do you know what they taste like?
"Why are there any blue balls in reality at all?" a great question posed by many denizens of youtube
The reason is simply people tend to swim (for health reasons) in freezing cold water.
I feel that 😔
@@garyskinner2422 I think you may be conflating shrinkage with blue balls. "Blue balls" is a term for soreness resulting from when visual, physical, or other stimulation leads to arousal and the production of seminal fluid which is not released and "backed up" in the system connecting the testicles, penis, and misc. parts and tubes and such. Shrinkage is the "shyness" resulting from exposure to cold, resulting in the genitals retracting closer to the body for wamth, resulting in shrinking. The classic Seinfeld episode S5E21 popularized the term "shrinkage". Another famous example is Michaelangelo's "David", showing a different kind of shrinkage in the form of a natural response to the "flight of right" response before battle. Michaelangelo was kind of crazy ahead of his time with anatomical kowledge. hope that helps!
@@hatchsyoutube It was a joke lol
😂
I admire anyone willing and capable to do 5 minutes of steelmanning from time to time. You did two hours straight, that deserves praise!
That the sun will come up tomorrow is a scientific prediction. It is not a certainty.
@@joannware6228 not if you're a linguist
Not hard to steelman if the argument is already strong to begin with. The contingency argument has always been really good for example.
@@appledough3843
1) Contingency is not an attribute of objects, but an epistemic stance or a mental heuristic.
2) It's simply the case that you can always ask "why is this" after any explanation, gods or no gods.
3) The abstract notion of a necessary thing causing contingent things is pure bullshit and would make all of those things necessary as well.
Really gods just introduce a whole bunch of confusion into an already confusing topic.
@@MrCmon113
1) Correct. Physical objects like rocks and pencils can't be contingent. It isn't an attribute of objects. It is however an attribute of God. How do I know this? Because to even BE God you must be the totality of existence. The supreme being. By definition.
2) Why does 2+2=4? Because that's how logic works. Why does logic work like that? Because that's how it is. Why is this? Because that's how it is. Why is this? Because that's how it is. Why is this? Because that's how it is. There, I found the end for you. Same applies to God.
3) Those things wouldn't be necessary. I think I see the picture now. Its become very clear that you don't actually understand what contingency means. Sure you may have a general concept of it but it's obvious you haven't grasped it yet. *Things created are by definition contingent.* The fact that I have to spell it out shows me you don't understand contingency and non contingency.
This is part of the frustration with discussing philosophy with the common folk. They don't even understand the rules yet. Just because it's confusing and you don't understand it doesn't mean it should be discarded.
I've noticed that you haven't actually pointed to SPESIFIC points in the argument and addressed how they are fallacious. Seems to be a reoccurring thing to people trying to "debunk" the existence of God. Almost like they can't do it.
Beautiful stuff, my dudes
yo why did you stop uploading :(
Hahaha good one Steve.
I would love to watch your tier list on famous arguments as well !
@@pancakeho0e he has a second channel that just posted today
@@pancakeho0e he has a couple other channels that upload pretty regularly! LowFruit and Casually Debunked
Or do a tier list for naturalism. Or a tier list for veganism ;)
I agree with Alex about the Anselmian ontological argument being one of the strongest, or at least interesting. I get "I think therefore I am" vibes with this one lol. Also, the fine tuning one personally is the most mind blowing. The Hitchens clip by the way is one of my favorite clips of him. Great video guys
They do bring up that exact point about Descartes at 1:01:55 when discussing the modal argument (which they also compared to Anselm's).
@NeedToMaryNingNing I think the ontological argument is more brain-dead.
At least "I think therefore I am" tries to dig to the bedrock of knowledge. The beef I have with it is that he follows it immediately with a reconstruction of his current beliefs from that axiom, so after the statement it essentially turns into, "I think, therefore Yahweh."
On the other hand, Anselm basically starts with defining Yahweh as "necessarily existing" and then... Oh wait, that's literally the entire ontological argument. He doesn't bother to figure out whether the existence of a deity is (or can be) a brute fact - he just assumes a god must exist then assigns his personally preferred deity that quality, so the whole thing from start to finish is "Yahweh must exist, therefore Yahweh must exist."
@NeedToMaryNingNing I think it makes sense I mean if there is no self how could there be the illusion of a self illusions are things that are experienced by somebody
the fine tuning argument falls apart when you realise that due to life not being possible unless those specific conditions are met, you aren't able to make the argument unless they are. The chance is literally 100%.
@@WingMyWayon fine tuning, if we discovered intrinsic stability, we could expect that a universe like this was probable from the start. As it stands, the fact we are here in this form implies either a multiverse or intent. We're here so something weird is up.
I like that Alex pushes back on Joe, instead of just agreeing with him.
It's not much of a philosophical discussion if you don't try to break it down. Even if you agree you should challenge the base points in a discussion like this.
@@justinwhite2725 agreed, that is the purpose of philosophical discussions and debates. I think it is a telling condemnation of our current situation culturally that this comes as a pleasant surprise to people, to be honest.
That's the purpose of a debate no? To push back to create dialogue as well as intirnsic thought about the topic of debate? You can't be too agreeable in debate
@@innitbruv-lascocomics9910 yes, but this isn't a debate
They're each pushing back at different points
This is probably the best and most honest discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of these arguments! love how you kept going back and forth steelmanning different parts of the arguments, and taking turns challenging and defending them.
Also Joe's impression of WLC is probably the best impression since that new SNL guy's trump impression.
As a Christian I think I speak for a vast majority of us when I say these are the two most beloved nontheists on UA-cam by Christians
Bible, if true, would mean they will be in hell
"Non-theists," you mean atheists, right?
Also, no, you don't. Alex's content is monotonous, and all he does is debate imbeciles with a superficial education. I love the other guy, though. I've read a couple of his papers, and they're actually educational-a sharp contrast to Alex's content, where he talks about slavery being immoral for the thousandth time. Like, dude, we know, is there anything new?
@BhanuKaartiKolla well good thing it isn't true
@@BhanuKaartiKollaThat’s exactly why I don’t believe in the Bible
Emotional appeal plus they are different views of hell, the eastern orthodox which is the historical Christianity believe it is God's love for who rejected Him you can look into it more @@tianmishu
This was an excellent conversation. I really appreciate the way you guys communicate the arguments. Also, I am a Christian and am subscribed to both of your channels. You guys should do more collaborative events. Thanks!!
Careful! They’ll lead you to hell. ;)
@@pansepot1490 eternal hell :```)
Joe(Majesty of Reason channel) and Alex should make a series on this channel like Rationality rule's Kalam series with Joe
Joe is brilliant and I think he might be the first guest on the podcast who is actually younger than Alex lol
How old is he
@@batman-sr2px 21
@@batman-sr2px yes a 21 year old is smarter than you will ever be
His conclusions are a bit stupid though. A smarter person wouldn't object to the claim that a god is possible and then conclude that it's pretty much a toss up whether or not a god does exist - that's the stupidest conclusion you could come to.
But hey, if having no predictive power isn't a problem, it's at least clear there is no pragmatism in his thinking, so maybe when he grows up he'll be slightly less stupid.
@@stylis666
When he says it is a toss up he is speaking epistamically.
That is not the same as the premise that he said he could reject to.
And alex actually made that point in the discussion that god being possible in that argument isn't a matter of an individual's opinion.
honestly such a respectful discussion. I’m Muslim, but I loved every minute of this
I'm just imagining a muslim watching two atheisest talk about reasons why Christianity is true or false, very funny but also fair it is a very interesting vid.
edit: one of them is agnostic which is even funnier
@@dutchthenightmonkey3457But they’re not talking about Christianity at all.
@@grahamh.4230majorly Christians theologies
@@grahamh.4230yes and no. I watched some of his videos and is clear that he debates inside the abrahamic mindset. For example, he mentions a lot the idea of God and free will, but not reincarnation.
you're a troll lol
Thoroughly enjoyed this. For more than an hour, I was curious "what was Joe's position?" Which was impressive on his part to not come across as biased. I'm gonna subscribe to his channel.
Yeah that's was great about these two, is acknowledge off the bat that these are "bad" arguments, and they fairly examine them.
Everyone is biased....
Very little surprises me in a good way but Alex is continuing to surprise me in the best possible way.
No education eh?
I went to high school with the man on the left in noblesville, IN… he was in a club called Freedom isn’t Free and totally changed the way I thought about the argument of abortion back when I was catholic. Huge respect to him
Aye indiana let's go
Best argument for God is that no matter how many times I hear these guys talk about him it never gets less interesting.
Best argument against God is, no matter how entertaining the arguments, we remain exactly where we started lol
@@SimberLayekactually no
@@BatmanArkham8592 Yes because there are other better arguments against the existence of god as well. Such as divine hiddenness, problem of evil, omniscience vs omnipotence and such.
@@BatmanArkham8592 You just kind of proved the guy correct by disagreeing.
@@StuntpilootStef no disagreeing doesn't mean that thing is true or false many people have accepted and agreed with those but that doesn't mean those are true or false
As an agnostic I don't think those arguments are ultimately Successful but we certainly don't remain exactly where we started
Awesome Discussion! I also love how Alex mostly acts as the defender of these arguments and Joe as the attacker, even though Alex is a self-described atheist and Joe is a self-described agnostic.
I am not surprised. In his very early videos Alex was really attacking religion, nowerdays he tries very hard to steelman the christian arguments sometimes to a point in my opinion, when he gives does arguments way more credit, then they deserve. Lets be honest, there is not a single good argument for a god in general and if we talk about a speficied god, like the christian one, the apologists arguments just fall apart and are often completly relying on fallacies and blunt lies.
@a there are good arguments for a god?
@a I am not sure, you understand those two. Their rating says nothing about the validity of the argument, only if this argument is worth having an interesting discussion abut it and those two are presenting said arguments in most cases way better then the apoligists do. Still, both could casually debunk every single one of those arguments, including the S-tier ones without putting much effort into it. Every single of those big arguments for god has serious flaws, believe me, if there would be a really good argument for god, we would hear it posted 24/7 by apologist, but they still use stuff like the Kalam or the blind watchmaker, which are basicly useless.
@a as long as Hitchens Razor is enough to dismiss nearly all of them, there is not much telling needed...
@a do you know, what Hitchens Razor is?
28:35 "Whatever begins to exist is made from preexisting stuff......" I love it. Thanks!
Great work gentlemen! Fantastic overview- I love both of you guys. I do hope that you dig into the resurrection more- I don’t think the surface of resurrection evidences and objections was scratched, but I hope to see more!!! Much love.
As a Christian, this was very enjoyable. God bless you. Thank you for representing the arguments extremely farily.
Great topic. I like putting philosophical notions in a tier list. Please make more videos in which you put things in a tier list.
This was fantastic, great job starting the podcasts. Hope to see more steel-manning of arguments for God's existence.
might be interesting to do a tier list of arguments against god.
It would be interesting if they knew what they are talking about.
@@TBOTSS lol you are ignorant
@@TBOTSS you think they don't?
@@TBOTSS u seem rattled
@@TBOTSS Joe certainly knows what he’s talking about, more than most people. Alex is also much more articulated
both these guys are brilliant! Great capacity of discussing and reasoning. Congratulations!!!
Just started video and impression of Craig already floored me lmao. SpaceLESS, timeLESS 😂
I thought it was Frank Turek, but after watching it again it is Lame Craig
@@colinjava8447 Turek is lamer than Craig
@@namelesssmokemonster Yes, but that's his name, William Lame Craig.
@@colinjava8447 Can’t tell if you’re joking. Also wanted to add it’s been like six hours and I can’t stop saying TimeLESS and SpaceLESS lmao 🤣
@@colinjava8447 gotem
It was really funny watching you guys try and place the anselmian ontological argument! It feels like a theological equivalent of either "i know you are but what am I?" Or "stop hitting yourself." And in the latter.case.i can see why alex loves it so much, but its absurdity is just so plainly self evident.
This is my first video from this bloke. I really do appreciate how they approach these arguments. Very different from other very arrogant atheists.
I'd love to see more scholars on here. Such a treat.
On fine tuning, the non-design stalking horse doesn't need to involve something with dispositions to create life-permitting conditions, it's fine enough simply to have a theory which predicts with some likelihood (say, with the same likelihood as the designer hypothesis under consideration) that there would be life-permitting conditions. Consider an extreme example, where the design hypothesis under consideration is one according to which the designer is disposed to create a universe with the observed physical parameters. Against the Bayesian FTA, we might argue that a hypothesis which merely posits a universe with those same parameters is at least as likely, and this point generalizes. As I've argued, though, a bare-non-design hypothesis will fare just as well (probabilistically) even though it much more weakly predicts the data.
Now, FTAs come in different flavors, and you might infer a design hypothesis based on fine-tuning not because of probability considerations, but for abductive reasons: it will include an explanation for some fact (that there are life-permitting conditions) not explained on the alternative. Here, there are two remarks to make: first, the non-design stalking horse that Joe mentioned will be adequate here, and second, the abductive inference involved is questionable. We do not invariably prefer theories simply because they offer explanations for facts not explained on other theories. The designer hypothesis doesn't explain why the designer has the creative powers/dispositions that it has, yet we might be be hesitant to affirm a theory which posits something else to explain those facts. Explanation runs out somewhere, and the proponent of fine-tuning has not shown that it runs out at the level of the designer (or something beyond that) rather than at the level of the cosmos and its basic parameters.
Hey you should invite Alex for an episode in your channel.
As a Christian student at a Classical high school I very much appreciated this video. Thanks guys
I love Joe because he loves philosophy so much and I just enjoy watching him talk
Two notes about the Fine Tuning Argument. The first, you kinda touched on in the video, but we only have a sample size of one for universes, so we have no idea how likely it is that the constants have the value they do Maybe it’s super likely, maybe not (all this is disregarding the multiverse theory because we also have zero evidence for that). Second, I thought I read somewhere (I think in Faith vs Fact by Jerry Coyne) that the fine tuning argument is only true if you are only allowed to adjust one constant at a time. If you change more than one, than it becomes more likely for the universe to allow matter to form.
If you had more than one sample size you would argue that there is a multiverse, you would not argue for fine tuning no matter how dead that other universe or others are.
In regards to how likely the chance of the laws of physics coming about by chance and being the only way these laws could have formed, this argument is dead in the water. This is because we would then be saying either the laws existed before the singularity or they came about by chance immediately after the big bang. You can see the major problems in explaining how that would be so without a all Powerful being overseeing such.
@@redx11x an all powerful being doesnt need science to prove its existence.. if an all powerful being
created the universe then that entity is able to do whatever it feels like.. so the fine tuning argument is
a complete nonstarter.. if god wanted us to breath methane instead of oxygen thats what it would have done.
if an all powerful entity must obey the laws of science then its not all powerful
@@davenchop part of your argument falls into the omnipotence paradox, look it up on UA-cam. Logic and reasoning are fundamental to science, and thus, in your example, lungs do not have the ability to breath methane as it is not biologically possible. Ill send you a link which shows the fallacy of the argument.
>all this is disregarding the multiverse theory because we also have zero evidence for that)
There is no "the multiverse theory". There being many universes isn't any less plausible than there being one.
It does not appear finely tuned with asteroids smashing into planets, planets colliding into each other, stars exploding, entire galaxies smashing together and black holes ripping things apart ... it's a chaotic mess
I like Cosmic Skeptic because he doesn’t usually attack people for their beliefs incorrectly except for the one time he misunderstood Peterson and his choice in verbiage
Peterson is incoherent, I don’t know how anyone takes him seriously
@@T.Ty7 people who have the ability to understand him get it.
@@ImBackItsDad Oh, you must be special. To small-brained idiots like me, it’s word salad
@ understandable, without a more varied vocabulary it isn’t the easiest to understand what Peterson is saying, but when it comes to religion i don’t listen to Peterson he is a brilliant psychologist and educator in that regard but I wouldn’t go to him for religious beliefs
@@ImBackItsDad Patronizing, much? My IQ tests around 140, my vocabulary is objectively vast, I have science degrees from a time when that was a hard thing to achieve and some of what Peterson says is, to quote Dawkins, complete bullshit. Enjoy him if you like but don’t condescend to me if I find he talks babbling nonsense
Christian here, and I absolutely love your all's assessments. Fantastic job remaining objective and giving an honest critique. (I, too, have always disliked the ontological argument; never understood the appeal.) I'm very interested to hear/see the new KCA argument that Joe was alluding to! Thanks guys ~
On the point about resurrection arguments Alex was claiming that *given God wants to raise Jesus from the dead*, God has the power to do so, so it has an objective probability of 1 of occurring! The problem is that we ourselves have imperfect access to the relevant facts (whether God exists and whether He is has those desires). As Joe rightly pointed out our prior for this hypothesis is going to take into account our credence about Gods existence in the first place, our credence that God is the kind of being that cares to raise anyone from the dead and perhaps some kind of principle of indifference applied to every single person who ever lived (supposing that we're hypothesising God might have a desire to resurrect one person as a sign). What we then do is look at each piece of evidence from "revealed theology" that purports to establish what Alex was conditionalising on in the statement "[given] God wants to raise Jesus from the dead" . What exactly the evidence is here is going to be contentious -- i.e. what Isaiah 53 says etc., If those LR's are enough to overcome the really low prior when we compare this hypothesis to others then we ought to believe in the resurrection. Im not sure it does do that though but obviously the McGrews think otherwise!
Could you invite Alex on your channel for an interview
This guy is doing so well at looking at these in an unbiased way that I didn't even realize he was atheist until half way through the video
This 2-hour video was a tantalizing appetizer. Bring on the 12-hour video!
Wow, great stuff! You're so good in explaining and steelmanning arguments that you ultimately may not find convincing! Two things I noted though:
1. When you were talking about the resurrection as an argument for god: aren't you engaging in circular reasoning when you evoke god to raise the intrinsic probability of the resurrection itself?*
2. I never found finetuning to be a very convincing argument. I always thought it just amounts to marveling that low probability events happen - but they happen all the time. But the worse point is this: in almost all of the cases that the finetuning proponent sees finetuning, we don't even know whether the particular instance can be in fact finetuned. E.g. can the gravitational constant be different? We don't know, so it is ridiculous to assign any probability to this - low or high.
*To explain this better: the argument from the resurrection can be formulated like this:
a.) Jesus could only really die, be really dead for some time and resurrect bodily from the grave if god exists and resurrected him.
b.) Jesus really died and resurrected
-> Therefore god exists
If your argument for premise b.) is, that the intrinsic probability is not very low as god wanted Jesus to resurrect and fulfill his plan, then you baked the existence of god e.g. the very thing you're trying to prove with the argument in the premise. This is circular reasoning, right?
Thank you!!! I was disappointed that neither of them seemed aware of this kind of objection to the fine tuning argument, bc I've heard it mentioned elsewhere and it makes sense to me
I'm late to the party but I'll try to quote from WLC, if you don't find the answers compelling let me know, I have from other authors who have different views on this. (typos exist due to text recognition error)
Answering Q2:
A Possible Objection and Its Answer
Now some of you might be thinking, But if the constants and quantities had
bad diferent values, then maybe different forms of life might bave evolved. But
that underestimates the truly disastrous consequences of a change in the
values of these constants and quantities
When scientists say a universe is life-permitting, they're not talking
about just present forms of life. By "life" scientists just mean the propery
of organisms to take in food, extract energy from it, grow, adapt to their
to
environment, and reproduce. Anything that can fulfill those functions counts
as life, whatever form it might take. And in order for life, so defined, to exist,
the constants and quantities of the universe have to be unbelievably fine-
tuned. In the absence of fine-tuning, not even matter, not even chemistry
would exist, much less planets where life might evolvel!
Another Objection and Its Answer
Sometimes people will object, *But maybe in a universe governed by different
laws of nature, such disastrous consequences might not result." But this
objection betrays a misunderstanding of the argument.
Were not concerned with universes governed by different laws of nature.
We have no idea what such universes might be like! Rather we're concerned
solely with universes governed by the same laws of nature but with different
values of the constants and arbitrary quantities. Because the laws are the
same, we can determine what would happen if the constants and quantities
were to be altered. And the results turn out to be disastrous. Among universes
governed by our laws of nature, there's almost no chance that a randomly
chosen universe would be life-permitting.
Answering Q1:
Explaining the Evidence
We come, then, to the second step in our case: determining which explanation
of the evidence is the best. Historians weigh various factors in assessing
competing hypotheses. Some of the most important are as follows:
1. The best explanation will have greater explanatory scope than other
explanations. That is, it will explain more of the evidence.
2. The best explanation will have greater explanatory power than other
explanations. 'That is, it will make the evidence more probable.
3. The best explanation will be more plausible than other explanations.
That is, it will fit better with true background beliefs.
4. 'The best explanation will be less contrived than other explanations
That is, it won't require adopting as many new beliefs that have no
independent evidence.
5. The best explanation will be disconfirmed by fewer accepted belief
than other explanations. That is, it won't conflict with as many
accepted beliefs.
6. The best explanation will meet conditions 1-5 so much better than
the others that there's litle chance that one of the other explanations,
after further investigation, will do better in meeting these conditions.
He then goes into explaining all other alternative answers in all 6 points to prove they are much weaker than the proposition of the Christian view. Can't paste that it's too long.
Finally, concerning the circular reasoning, search "resurrection of jesus to prove god circular reasoning" you'll find a Q&A where he answers that we're moving from Theism to Christianity, not Atheism to Theism.
"My studied view, then, is that one first establishes theism on the basis of the arguments of Natural Theology like the cosmological, teleological, axiological, and ontological arguments, so that when one comes to explaining the facts pertinent to Jesus of Nazareth, one may include as part of one’s background information the existence of the God of Natural Theology. You misunderstood the Defenders lectures. There I challenge the assumption that the probability of the resurrection on our background information Pr (R|B) is very low precisely because we can include God’s existence as part of our background information. We’ve already completed our Natural Theology before we come to an examination of Christian evidences.
[…]
Now if one includes the resurrection itself as part of the evidence for theism, as I often do in debates, one cannot include God’s existence as part of the background information (though one could still include evidence like the beginning of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, the reality of objective moral values, etc.). What one will say in this case is just that we’ve got no reason to think that Pr (R|B)
@@skepticfaith Hey, it has indeed been some time - I had to retrace again what has been going on here 😄
So, concerning Q1, it seems WLC and you are agreeing with me. Arguing for a god with the resurrection (as the title of the video "Arguments For God's Existence Tier List" implies) cannot include using the existence of God as background knowledge. If you have a successful argument for theism, then monotheism, then you might use the existence and the will of god as background knowledge.
Concerning Q2: I think the answer misses my objection. My objection is not that life could be different under different constants or laws of nature - it was that it might not be possible that the constants have different values. Just as it is for example not possible for a temperature to be colder than absolute zero.
@@gmlr correct. I couldn't add to more than what was said in the video, not sure if you'll remember what was said a year ago :) But yea, the existence of God is only inferred by the "fishiness" of the situation, and if you require explanations, then you'd have to go through all of the naturalistic interpretations which wouldn't pass the points laid down by WLC, which is convincing IMHO but I'm biased as a Christian to give you that even if I'm pushing myself to be neutral or agnostic to be fair. So there is no circular reasoning because it's not like "if Jesus resurrected then God exists - Jesus resurrected - Therefore God exists". It's more like there's a gap, Jesus and all what we have from Christians and what we know of them claim that it's the fulfillment of the prophecies which were laid down much earlier by the Jews of the resurrection. Naturalistic explanation don't fair well in the explanation of the outcome, therefore we are settling with God as a plausible explanation FOR SOMEONE who is already a Christian.
Q2 is answered already in the video, it's a big leap to assume that different values can be sustained in different worlds, but scientifically speaking, to answer you, it's definitely impossible, and it's easy for a scientist to demonstrate that. That's actually how scientists got these weird numbers estimating the infinitely small fractions of change that would cause the world to collapse. And it's true this does seem to resonate with some more than others. I just skipped that chapter in every book I was reading that involved fine tuning. I'm amazed how the subjective preference of each person determines how likely are they to weigh the strength of an argument.
@@skepticfaith Heyo, thanks - I don't understand your point concerning Q2, sorry....
But you are right, it is really interesting how different arguments resonate with different people.
As a christian as well, I have many problems with the arguments that WLC proclaims with such vigor and (at least from my subjective point of view) sometimes arrogance. I have problems accepting the arguments when I would not feel comfortable using them myself because of the problems I see with them.
An interesting thing to note is that Aristotle dealt with the problem of contingency with his "prime mover theory", though he didn't theorize about it in regards to time. HE thought about it vertically instead of horizontally, if you will. This means that he did not think about it in terms of what was the first cause of the first thing, but what is the cause of each thing.
Joe is honestly just not as open-minded and non resistant as Alex
This just made me respect Alex more
Alternatively, the arguments just aren't very good and Alex is just more diplomatic.
The seemingly infinite amount of examples of the contingency problem was pretty fucking meta.
This is far superior to the cosmic skepticism piece-a well-thought-out, lengthy conversation that highlights the argument's merits. It's not a monologue focused on brief counter-arguments that seem to suggest the main goal of the argument is to hoodwink the participants.
this conversation has brought me inexplicable joy
I was waiting for one of these videos from you after you mentioned GMS’s tier list in your podcast with him
I played this and closed my eyes with the intention to sleep while listening to this. I kid you not, I had the most dramatic-fictional biblical dream while their audio played as a voiceover
I'd say for the contingency argument, stage 1 is S tier. There must be some noncontingent thing, some brute fact of reality. That says nothing of what that something is though.
The stage 2 I've heard is D tier though. "Every limited thing is contingent. Therefore a noncontingent thing is not limited." It's at least a proper inversion, so valid structure. But it's also literally the black swan fallacy. Just insert swans. "Every swan is white, therefore a non white thing is not a swan." It's asserting to know the nature of something we don't know, and could conceivably be wrong.
also cause and effect break down in quantum mechanics. there is an idea dubbed "quantum mischief" that states 2 events can happen simultaneously, while also causing each other. so which of the 2 is the preceding contingent state? there is no answer to that question, they both are, so you have now hit an end to the supposedly infinite regress. there's also an even newer hypothesis that proposes causality can go in loops, that not just 2, but a series of events will have as a result the state that caused the loop in the first place.
@@thunderbuns6811 It like as God of the Gaps argument. A lack of understanding about how things work allowing for speculation that it could be a God.
contingent/necessary is meaningless concepts when trying to apply them to reality.
Things being contingent or not is a matter of epistemology or mental heuristics. It's not an attribute of things in themselves.
I honestly don't see how it is S tier. I don't see how a god gets put forward as the non-contingent. It seems to over unnecessarily complicate things to the nth degree. A natural cause like pure energy that is just there vs. a supernatural being with preferences that is just there. Why the extra?
I didn't know of Joe or his views before watching this, and the impression I got was that I couldn't tell whether he was a theist or an atheist, which is about right.
There is a noticeable change to Joe's demeanor when he discusses the fine-tuning argument. In my opinion, I think he would have put that one at "S" if Alex had not been so unmoved by it. I'm curious as to why it seems to be the "one" for Hitchens and many others, but does nothing to Alex. Even without being a scientist, you can understand probability. I see it as the updated version of the watchmaker analogy, only now we know just how intelligent the watchmaker is.
I really enjoyed this video, as I do all of your videos. Thank you for sharing.
"fine tuning" is one of the worst arguments since it's not fine tuned
Love it!
GMS's video on this topic was one of the first atheist videos I watched that helped me think more critically regarding my faith. I left the church later that week.
Respectfully, it sounds like you were looking for an excuse to leave.
@@clintonwilcox4690 That’s incredibly rude and presumptive. And even if it were true, why do you care?
@@KillerOfWhales Presumptive? Maybe. Rude? Not at all. If all it took was for one atheist video to make him leave "later that week", then I think it's a pretty safe assumption. And I care about anyone who leaves the church and puts his eternal destination in jeopardy.
@@clintonwilcox4690 Do you have any proof that your religion is true but the other religions aren't? Because it seems to me that you're in just as much danger as OP is.
@@clintonwilcox4690 Not really. The church had just helped me through a personal matter that I'm still grateful for. At the time, the video showed up on my recommended because I consumed a lot of apologetics content and I guess there was crossover interest in this video. After watching, I figured he made some good points and watched other videos. I watched and read criticisms of his (and other non-theists) positions. And in this time, I read the Bible, prayed, and even fasted. I just couldn't find sufficient reason for the Christian God. And this was an uncomfortable, unwelcome realization at the time.
So no, not just one video. And I wasn't looking for reasons to leave. I looked for reasons to stay.
Edit: I still consume a lot of Christian apologetics content as an atheist because my interpretation of reality ought to stand to scrutiny.
I really enjoy this video, I learned a lot of new arguments and clarified others. I do feel you are too sympathetic to the arguments given their apparently sound rebuttals, but I am philosophically pessimistic in general. Keep up the good work!
Since your Excellency is not only all wise and all knowing, perhaps you could indulge your servant here present by answering the question: "to what is the fact that the Bible bought in Dorset or encourages slavery, relevant, or in babytalk: so what if the Bible endorses encourages or supports slavery?
Is it not perfectly true to say that anyone that can either bully or threaten others into labouring for him for no reward whatsoever, would be a bloody fool if you didn't do that?
Even years the all wise all knowing and all seeing have absolutely no idea why a man (human being that is capable of bullying or intimidating beings weaker and more stupid than himself, might not, tell those creatures to labour for him for no reward exactly as they do any other livestock, which, if you bought it down to its bare bones, poses the question what is the difference between slavery and any other sort of farming? - Why *not* bully threaten or intimidate those weaker than you into labouring for you without reward?
You have not the faintest idea? - No surprises.
there.
@@vhawk1951kl without the enslavement of the livestock, the livestock would probably not be bred in the first place. Humans will be fruitful and multiply either way, so compassion restricts the same being done to humans as it is not a net good. Also people simply care less about animals.
I enjoyed this very much. As a theist, I appreciate the steps and refutability rhetoric here.
I'm not at all atheistic, complete opposite in fact I believe in countless divine/supernatural beings, but this is some good content. Intellectually honest, the arguments are treated fairly and I really liked how rational and logical your approach was towards everything. Not many people look at theism through a lense of reason or understanding
Oooh, are you a pantheist? Someone who believes in many gods?
@@lmho0254 I'm Rosicrusian, so I believe in many gods, though I only worship one. The focus is more on personal enlightenment and connection to the divine
@@TheBitingBat That's a very captivating take on theism, something I don't really hear every day. I really only hear the Holy Trinity (ba dum tiss) of [Abrahamic] theisms, Christianity, Judaism, and, the one I grew up in, Islam. However, I'm really getting into Deism, where you believe in a god that doesn't interact with the universe. People normally think of a deistic god like a "clockmaker god". I think of it as "A knockoff atheist 😂"
I love your focus on personal enlightenment and divine connections, it sounds like such a revelating journey. Most people just kinda follow X religion because of getting to heaven or thinking it's the right one and not really looking at the spiritual part of it, aside from praying of course.
Sorry that I made such a long comment but I just love looking at other people's perspectives on life and yours was definitely a cool one.
@@lmho0254 Deism is basically agnosticism with extra steps. I personally grew fairly disillusioned with organized religion for the reasons you outlined, too many people were just there because they want to go to heaven or they think you have to be religious or else you go to hell. I wanted something more, which led me to being a pluralist. The only belief that stayed the same for me was gnostic belief and my faith in the Lord Creator.
You don't have to apologize, I'm fond of discussing ideology freely, just taking it for what it is rather than arguing who's right
@@TheBitingBat I love the fact that you aren't willing to argue, definitely not something I see in a lot of these religious video comment sections.
About organized religion, atheists sometimes point out that some/most theists that follow it have no _real_ morality. People would steal, kill, rape, and other criminal acts if it weren't for the Bible, or any other religious text, which I think is a hot take; my family acknowledges the simple fact that these acts are wrong without even thinking about the religious part of it. I'm sure anyone else would, anyone that's sane...
Deism and agnosticism are kinda different, but the same; deism, you _know_ there's a god, but it just doesn't interact with the universe, but agnostic is where you question the very existence of a God. Maybe that's the extra steps you were talking about... I didn't understand that 😅
I'm gonna be honest, I'm not even in high school yet so I'm gonna say some stuff that may be inaccurate on accident
The reason I never found fine tuning very convincing is that's it seems very "god of the gaps" to me. It seems to me that there is no particular reason to imagine that these constants could in fact take on any other values.
For instance, take gravity. Not the gravitational constant, but the actual strength of gravity on earth. All object accelerate downwards at 9.81 m/s^2. If that number were much lower, things could accidentally fly away from earth, and if it were much higher, we'd all be crushed against the ground and be unable to evolve into our current tall forms. How marvelously coincidental that this is the strength of gravity, instead of any other number.
But this is wrong. The rate of gravitational acceleration isn't a coincidence at all. It's a result of more fundamental properties, like the gravitational constant, the mass of the earth, etc. There is no "well what if it were different", because it couldn't have been different. The laws of physics require it to be that specific number.
So when we move to the "fundamental constants of the universe", it does not seem to be a settled matter that they are in fact fundamental. I think it's entirely plausible that there is some more underlying physics that determines why these numbers are the way that they are instead of any other value, which we just haven't found yet. I think it's logical to assume that if we ever "finish" physics, and learn everything there is to learn, there will be significantly fewer fundamental constants, possibly even none whatsoever. Just because we don't know why the values we observe are the way they are, doesn't mean we should jump to "god did it."
You literally just did a naturalism of the gaps argument
Yeah you might be sciencing of the gaps here. Same issue as god of the gaps
You're missing the point we discovered the law's of the universe we have no idea why they have them values and if they can't be any other way then why you can't say because that's not science
@@rebelresource It cant be god therefore science! haha
@@rebelresource I don't think you understand the "God of the gaps". Historically, we have had a large number of gaps in our knowledge of the world. "How did species get here?" " What causes disease?" And a million others. Every single time we've found the explanation for these gaps, it's always been science. Every single time. That's why it's absurd to say "this time, surely, it'll be God", but perfect reasonable to say "it'll probably be science this time". Our past experience with these gaps is that it's always been science, and never been God.
Cosmic sceptic btw gives the best defenses of arguments for God I have ever heared. So believing something to be true and the capacity to defend the truth value of the belief don't seem to be necessarilly related. Thats quite something.
Why did you expect them to be inseparable?
Alex it would be awesome if you make a series with Joe on this channel like Rationality rule's Kalam series with Joe
Both atheists and theists communities will appreciate this
If you want to get in depth on the Resurrection Argument, you should collab with Paulogia! He has an incredible amount of background knowledge on the Bible and its historicity or lack thereof.
You’re right that Paulogia is knowledgeable, but he’s the exact same as apologists, except the reverse. Alex is very nuanced and objective whereas Paulogia has an axe to grind and consistently engages in counter-apologetics. Alex is miles above Paulogia in maturity and quality of content.
There was almost a genuine shock when they we’re actually putting the Resurrection higher than they thought.. enjoyable vid agree with their tiers mostly.
Two sharp dudes, thank you guys
Great conversation, guys! Makes one want to join and add a few points to be considered every now and then. Also, it could easily have been a few hours longer in my opinion haha. Interesting how we do have different intuitions and are more prone to being convinced by different arguments. Greetings from a Brazilian christian, keep the good content coming!
PS: funny how the agnostic seems to be more skeptical than the atheist here.
@@qluucass dae cara, tá fazendo o que nessa parte estranha do UA-cam?
Mais um BR aqui ;)
Christian here. Absolutely loved this dialogue. Absolutely loved the fact that with some of the arguments, it was difficult to predetermine where you'd rank them on the tier list. I'm absolutely glad for the inclusion of the resurrection argument in the conversation, and was genuinely shocked by how highly it was placed. Overall good conversation, I do have a few questions about distinguishing between some of the arguments eg cosmological v contingency (or even traditional v new kalam); and I wish I was in the room to pose certain questions and see how you navigate those, especially in regards to the moral argument. Overall, was glad to hear that some of the reasoning that I've internally used to go over these arguments wasn't dismissed as intellectually lacking, and inasmuch as I'd have to mull over some of the more weighty counterarguments to the more weighty arguments, it was, as stated by multiple parties on here, a breath of fresh air. Kudos.
Speaking of breaths of fresh air, kudos to the Christian in the comments section of an atheist podcast not trying to drop the mic by attacking everybody in the comments.
@@CookiesRiotanother Christian here. It seems I know the right kind of Christian to not have been around these combatative people.
At the end of the day, think about how Jesus would have acted. Surely not like said commenters, starting arguments and attacking
@@hfdcjiirjmcfi I mean, Jesus was said to have thrown people's tables full of merchandise, but I suppose if you're literally the divine creator of everything there is justification for angrily kicking people out of your temple. 🤣
And of course, there are hot-headed atheists who could probably stand to take a chill pill now and then when they discuss these topics. Dave Farina and Aron Ra come to mind.
The comments sections are often harsh and sarcastic to the theists rather than merely academic like this discussion.
It would be cool to be able to have more conversations along the lines of, "I get where you're coming from, from I don't agree with this specific premise." I think that the Kalam and Anselm arguments are completely nonsensical at nearly every turn, but _I try_ (and probably sometimes fail) _not to beat people over the head and call them idiots_ just because I don't find the arguments convincing.
The Kalam Cosmological argument is about cause, whereas the Contingency argument is about dependancy, its a small change but it makes a big difference
As a muslim, the contingency argument is easily the most powerful argument for Gods existence ever
@@CookiesRiotare there any theists who actually believe Anselms ontological argument? It is nonsense
Very nice, interesting conversation, watched right through! Would love to hear which arguements were missed!
3:07 “SUper!” 😂
1:24:00 I would have thought he was an atheist from listening so far. Also, I would put fine tuning above the kalam. But I’m a scientist
I’m sure the kind of God he’s thinks might exist is not mirrored in any religion
@@coltoncatalli8148 such god wouldn't need nor want worship, I'm imagining a crazy/giddy scientist that makes his experiments and leaves the aftermath to clean up after he gets dinner or smth and finally ends up cleaning the used equipment only when he runs out of clean one. A total trainwreck
i really like the argument about the island, i fell asleep and was dreaming about being on holidays. i then woke up and shat myself i have an assignment due today and haven't started.
It seems to me that the necessary thing(s) are quantum fields, or at least that is what physics seems to be pointing towards presently.
Roger Penrose's CCC, and Lee Smolin's CNS are excellent possible answers to the fine tuning argument, as both show compelling ways for "eons" to have existed before the big bang (the point at which most of the fundamental constants were locked into their current values).
You should really define those acronyms
Locked into place is a belief it can be any other way we have no evidence it's possible to be anything but what we see the numbers like gravity being precise to 19 decimal points added with the other values means the logical none creator argument is infinite number of universes all with different values so one has to be right for ours but it's a belief it's not fact it's not testable.
Universe did mean everything until the fine turning law's of the universe were discovered.
@@fluffysheap the post was long enough without that lol! Penrose's is called Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, Smolins is Cosmological Natural Selection. The former deals with scale invariance in the remote future, which actually looks just like the remote past. The latter is easier to understand, and posits that every black hole formed creates a separate space-time with slightly different constants. If this were the case we would expect to find ourselves in a universe fine tuned for sustaining large numbers of black holes, which we do
@@davidevans3223 Penrose's CCC can be falsified through more precise images of the cosmic microwave background, smolins would be more difficult to falsify, but it has made at least one confirmed prediction.
And as far as the constants being locked into place, it is known that several constants couldn't have been what they are now at the time of the Big bang, gravity couldn't have acted then as it does now or the universe would have collapsed into a black hole, the EM and weak forces were certainly combined into a single, electroweak force, and I believe it's been confirmed that at high enough energies the strong force combines as well. The hubble constant was much different if it was even sensible to think about at that time, just to name a few
Great video. As a believer I really appreciate that you steel man these arguments. I think the moral argument is far stronger than you ranked it. Also the origin of life argument is a powerful one you didn’t address.
As a non believer I've come out of this video feeling more confident in my non belief, it's interesting that we both saw the same video and drew such different conclusions
The moral argument is very weak. People claim everything God does is moral no matter how nasty or horrific we think it is ... which shows we don't get our morals there or the Bible which condones things like slavery
Just some food for thought, (this may be biased because I’m Christian, and I love seeing you guys debate about the resurrection) but I would argue that Thomas not believing, and in the Book of Matthew there’s reports that people still doubted, it would show that this book was not manmade. If this book copied from mythological books from the past, I think everyone around Jesus would be in awe. Secondly, the small phrase in the book of John where he said “blood and water” come out of Jesus, many scientists came out and said that the “water” was indeed an actual description of a fluid that would have come out from someone who endured such injuries! I enjoyed this video ❤️
Great video! I’d love to see a video tier list for the arguments for naturalism. An example would be Paul Draper’s case for naturalism
It will bound to be a rebuttal of ridiculous claims made by religions. Richard Dawkins too had done the same in 'The God Delusion'.
Joe's imitation of WLC in the first 15 seconds of the video already cracked me up lol
As a christian i absolutely loved this video
I love exploring agnostic worldviews and seeing steelmans!
I'd find it useful to split a single tier rating into, maybe, 2 categories: 1. How philosophically interesting an argument is 2. How well it actually argues for some conception of god. For example, IMO contingency and fine-tuning are both quite interesting but the former is so absurdly general and abstract that there's no hint of a god as some kind of "being" that has any kind of properties anywhere in there. Although it also relies on the specific theology to do much of the heavy lifting, the fine-tuning argument at least seems more grounded and has some connection to god as an agent with certain properties. I know the tier thing is a fun meme, but I'd legitimately be interested in a tiny bit more granularity in the ratings.
Find this interesting. My take is the Contingency is interesting as well as (for me) the most convincing argument for a god. It at very least narrows down to a necessary thing which would exist in all possible universes. Thus we have one characteristic of at least one type of god. To conclude that things are contingent or necessary doesn't seem to be far off from intuition/common sense.
The fine tuning doesn't sit well with me. (1) Of all the possible worlds that could exist, each one would be just as unique (life or not) mathematically. (2) We are also, due to our ignorance, don't know the total of "all possible worlds" or all possible factors. That is there could be for whatever reason only one possible world/universe or an infinite amount. (3) We suppose that this particular outcome despite how probable (see #1 however) that it was somehow planned or crafted by an intelligent being. That, to me takes a big leap as you have to add qualifiers to your conclusion (intelligent designer) in order for the rest to fit which in return requires more reasoning and discussion on why this character has these particular qualities.
I do think that the fine tuning argument is more well known and accepted by the general population but something seems off about it, where on the contingency concept you only need to make one assumption about a god which is he/she/it is necessary. It's more humble too.
@@jaram6049 fair enough, i think there's a variety of reasonable but subjective stances on this.
Specifically on contingency though... The basic conclusion is that there is a necessary uncaused cause. What can we honestly say about this uncaused cause without bringing in a truckload of theology and biased intuition? Does it continue to have influence after the initial "event"? I don't see how you can know that. Does it have agency? Preferences etc? Is it causally related to any part of our physical universe? It seems presumptuous to make any such conclusions from the contingency argument alone. In fact, it being metaphysically necessary only makes things worse - if it couldn't fail to exist the more properties you assign to it the higher the ontological cost grows.
So just as i was saying with a dual tier system, the contingency argument is kind of interesting but even if was found to be true it would do very little to support any particular theistic claim. It is a hopelessly abstract notion.
Fine-tuning, on the other hand feels so relevant and grounded to reality (albeit a bit less fundamental that contingency). Why are the mechanisms underlying our every living second what they are? Why are the constants of nature balanced so seemingly precisely as to allow us to exist? We can even try to imagine the alternatives and compare them to our universe. There's at least something to work with here, an agent of some kind could prefer one scenario over another. I think fine-tuning falls under the teleological umbrella, which was actually quite compelling before sciences (such as biology, genetics) shed more light on the apparent design of things.
@@jaram6049 I am honestly suprised that theists don't push the fine-tuning argument more than they do. I think it's complicated but I agree with anzov1n that it seems to really get at more specific properties of a being that fit into the description of God. Fine-tuning in cosmology is taken seriously even if its implications are philosophically controversial. I think because it is a complex argument that relies on many assumptions to be true and is generally presented as an inductive or probabilistic argument that the argument isn't as popular as cosmological type arguments.
On a side note I was suprised to see Joe as critical of it in this general discussion as I think he agrees with Draper that the fine-tuning argument is an evidential chip in favor of theism. I know he doesn't find the multiverse response particular convincing from his conversation with Deliberation Under Ideal Conditions.
@@blamtasticful I do believe fine tuning is pushed a lot by theist (least Abrahamic). It's def an argument I think even those who don't dive into philosophy at least know.
The issue I have with the fine tuning, I think you stated well, too many assumptions before the argument is made.
Where as the contingency one has way less assumptions baked in. It doesn't seem to attempt to prove a god exist, merely that a nessacry thing exist which is a possible trait of a god. It's more humble, assumes less, claims less and thus more likely to be more true.
Again, just my take on these arguments.
Be curious about the conversation you are refrenceing about the ideal conditons thing.
(Spelling bad, early in morning, sorry)
@@jaram6049 Hey no problem.
Deliberation Under Ideal Conditions is a small chanel by an atheist moral realist who generally likes to defend utilitarianism. He has interviewed heavyweights like Michael Huemer. I don't at all agree with him on everything but he is a calm and respectful interlocuter and when he inteviewed Joe Schmid I wanted to watch the interaction.
Yeah maybe my experience is too skewed by interacting with Christians who very much are engaged in philosophy of religion circles. I would agree that at the popular level fine-tuning is more popular. However, I do find many philosophy of religion types to not find it too convincing for the reasons we agreed about. However, even take someone like TJump who had been pushing a layperson version of the stalking horse objection before Alex Malpass formalized the argument, at the very least it would show what the naturalist would be comitted to if they wanted to defend a complex stalking horse if they found that it was important in order to explain fine-tuning. Then the relative plausibility of the stalking horse and the God hypotheses could be compared. Heck if they are fairly close to each other in plausibility I think that would be a significant result.
I also think layppeople are more likely to point to the beauty of nature or the complexity of life as more intuitive design inferences rather than mostly just focusing on the constants.
Maybe one last point then I will take a break from rambling. I think the idea that out of all contingent things that exist that not one of them is unexplained is actually at least fairly unintuitive. I also think that something as radically different as the starting point of the universe is intuitively is much more likely to be one of those things. Even if say this point had a 25% chance of being true I think that possibility would be something that could completely undermine the contingency argument that the fine-tuning argument becomes stronger as an argument as a result. Anyways just a couple of thoughts; could be wrong.
This is a perfect example of what Plato would probably call "good sophistry on dionoia level". Intelligent people in the having mode playing with propositions.
Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise by human standards,
not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth.
Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,
who became for us wisdom from God,
as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
so that, as it is written,
Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.
1 Cor 1:26-31
@@joannware6228 hey what r u doing ive seen u post this comments in other places u just sound emotional
@@joannware6228 "and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses." Ezekiel 23:20 (esv)
Also, in reference to this idea of “Principle of Sufficient Reason” - is there (and/or *must* there be) a Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem of “Sufficient Reason?” Remember, at the *very* most fundamental level of observable reality - Casimir and Unruh Effects, quantum fluctuations of EM, Color, Higgs fields - things happen all the time for no reason at all, and things happening briefly for no reason vastly outnumber causally explained, classical phenomena.
Great job at portraying the other side fairly.
In my opinion the strongest argument is the argument from contingency. The five ways of Aquinas in general are very well thought out.
Credit where it's due I think they are intuitive, but personally that's as far as I think they go. Most of them simply amount to Aquinas failing to conceptualize infinite regress, and the teleological argument is stronger but has become increasingly harder to defend in light of modern science and our understanding of evolution.
@@tristanneal9552 I don't think infinite regress is possible, at least not in the way necessary to explain away the contingency-problem. You don't get this problem of course if you choose some of non-materialistic interprations of atheism or even pantheism.
The teleological argument isn't that weak, but it isn't that strong either. Especially in light of a vast empty cosmos it has definetely some issues.
I'd be interested in a discussion about how poorly the second stages of the contingency argument and kalam cosmological argument would rate, because it always seems to me that that stage two is a much larger stretch. You may have undermined their higher rating later on in the modal ontological argument by saying it doesn't establish god's existence. Well, neither did the contingency argument, which only proposes that you need a necessary existence to explain contingent existences. Getting from there to a god (let alone a specific god) is a stretch.
It occurs to me that the contingency argument is almost a parody of the composition fallacy: the idea that our experiences are based on observations made in the universe, so you can't apply those to the universe itself.
Another interesting point that occurs to me is that a lot of theists make the mistake that the Big Bang Theory is claiming "everything coming from nothing" which of course is not true. It only traces the universe back to an incredibly dense state and makes no predictions or explanations about how it got there. We have untestable hypotheses like the Big Bounce or the idea that we are inside of a black hole, and the Big Bang was triggered by reaching a certain mass and/or by material falling into it, and given that they are natural explanations they are (to use a term Joe uses later) more intrinsically probably than just claiming that God did it.
I like Joe's discussion of the fine-tuning argument. We really have no idea how likely these constants are to be in the ranges they are in. We only have the one universe to base our observations on, AND these "constants" (which may not be constants, actually) may actually just be artifacts of how we model the physical properties. The easy analogy here is that our "laws" of gravitation lose the ability to accurately predict reality in certain circumstances, and that's because they are models/approximations of curved spacetime...which itself may just be a higher fidelity model of the universe, to be superseded in the future by some Theory of Everything.
I actually agree with Alex though that it doesn't really move me either. The Weak Anthropic Principle always resonated with me, and I guess you could even say it's a shorthand for the above. That said I don't know how you got through the fine-tuning argument without bringing up the puddle analogy!
The resurrection argument is definitely not strong to nonbelievers. Alex himself discussed how the earliest gospel didn't even have the resurrection, then subsequent ones increased the number of witnesses. Joe's point that all it takes is one charismatic person that hallucinated or lied to convince others is right on target. Consider the 2020 US presidential election. All it took was one person misrepresenting evidence to convince millions of others that, as you put it, "something weird happened."
Wholehartedly agree. Especially on the ressurection argument - we could do the same with fictional characters today, just indoctrinate children that Harry Potter is _literally_ the savior of humanity because he slayed the Dark Lord, and you'll get similar results to christianity, allbeit that these beliefs will be far more easily challenged due to Information density and availability, making it far harder to spread such mythos today than 2000 years ago - and as you rightly put it, it _still_ works somewhat.
Wow. As a Christian, this is an amazing video, and it really shows how theological and philosophical debates should happen. Not the typical "god isn't real you can't prove it" or "god is real because the bible is" mindless arguments that lead no where and doesn't convince anyone. Just 2 non thesis looking at both sides of the photo and trying to be unbiased and fair to both sides while sharing and bouncing ideas off and actually helping each other build there claim when they sense the other people has a claim and helps them rather than staying quiet and not saying anything to help in order to win the topic.
Amazing gentlemen
A pair of scholars and gentlemen, thanks for the insightful conversation, guys! on The Kalam i was wondering in regard to Joe's Mirror Kalam argument why not concede the point but appeal to Aristotle's Formal Cause as a design in the mind of God?
I watched up to 1:24:20 without knowing Joe was an agnostic and at times I did wonder if he was christian or religious in some way. But every time I would think “no he’s just showing how someone could defend those arguments but he’s atheist”
U should watch Joe's other videos and subscribe to his channel *Majesty of Reason*
Joe is a brilliant person
he doesn’t believe in a god which makes him an atheist 💀 gnosticism deals only with knowledge
@@nathan-ih2vi watch his video *why I'm an agnostic*
He like most philosophers define atheism as a belief that no god exists or God doesn't exist
@@BatmanArkham8592 that’s an appeal to authority g, what him and “philosophers” define atheism as doesn’t mean anything to the actual definition lmao
this has been a really good watch and most of these arguments remind me of
Exodus 3:14 -> when God says "I am that I am"
Its kinda like that quote "I am thinking, therefore i am"
Similar how to in Cogito, Ergo Sum, after denying everything to find the “objective” truth, Descartes found out that he could only be certain that he exist because while he doubted there had to exist someone outside the “vat”/stimulation that could even make up those thoughts. So my argument is this:
Premise 1: If I think, then my existence is self-evident (based on Descartes' "Cogito, ergo sum").
Premise 2: God, defined as an infinite thinking being who keeps the universe together, would have his existence self-evident through his thinking of keeping the universe together.
Premise 3: The universe and its laws can be seen as the product of God's infinite thought because he thinks of keeping it together while he is actually doing it unconsciously or consciously
Conclusion: Therefore, the existence of the universe and its laws are self-evident evidence of God's existence, similar to how our thoughts are evidence of our own existence.
When Cogito, Ergo Sum is applied to anything outside of human life the conclusion makes perfect sense but at the level at the divine your faced with an unsettling dilemma once rejected, if God doesn’t exist despite him being able to think, then wouldn’t that mean that your not real? My same reasoning applies to fictional characters, mythology, and other religions, the only difference is that the christian God is the only one who first said “I am that I am”...
I'm having a logical stroke right now😭Is this like, the ontological argument? I don't get it.
@@GoatOfAllTrades Its epistemological... I think
I just realized i need to learn a lot more about philosophy to understand this conversation
Joe is really smart and talks fast you gotta watch some cosmic skeptic first😂
My favorite part was the debate on the fine tuning argument. A rare treat to watch Alex push back to defend things that aren't necessarily his world view.
I liked Dr. Michael Huemer's blog post about the fine tuning argument. It's on his substack (Fake Nous) if anyone is interested.
I was surprised that the Anthropic Principal wasn't brought up at all with the Fine-Tuning argument. That alone completely turns fine-tuning on its head for me.
@@dylanboczar999 elaborate
I personally like Russels response to contingency with matter and energy as the necessary entities which cause contingent things. I believe he refers to it as a "Brute fact"
"Who except God can give you peace? Has the world ever been able to satisfy the heart?"
-St. Gerard
Dogs, Oreo’s and boobs. If that can’t fill a man’s heart, is he a man at all? 😂
Buddha?
@@the_luggage No.
"It could be said, for the mind’s sake, that the proof that God is real is the proof that humanity can love, that humanity can unite, that humanity has a moral foundation, that humanity is capable of compassion, that humanity can love others when others do not love back in return, that humanity cares about the future, that individuals can act in a selfless manner, that Knowledge can emerge within an individual and guide them to live a greater life of purpose and service, engendering greater happiness and satisfaction. God is realized through this evidence: that humanity has a higher spiritual nature called Knowledge and born of Knowledge, and it is this higher spiritual nature that enables individuals to act in a selfless manner, to experience love, to share a love, to contribute to others, to address the problems of the world, to serve the world. This is the proof of God."
This quote comes from *The New Message from God* - a set of teachings that I consider the greatest proof of God for the intellect. And this is simply because these teachings present such information and in such a way, that if one explores them deeply and apply them in their life, it is obvious that it comes from a greater source. It speaks about the future, about the universe and about the deeper part of every sentient being, our spiritual nature. Check out these teachings, they are in the hundreds and all are free online.
Negation: These things can be done without a god.
Two things, 1. Not only humans show those behaviours and have such experiences. 2. All of that can be explained by evolution by natural selection, no god is necessary
Thank you, Ivan.
I have watched this video 6 times all the way thro on number 7 right now. This video is gold.
I’m shocked how high the resurrection argument placed. There are so many personality cults that have existed over time, and myths can evolve so easily around a cult leader a century after he dies.. it requires no “conspiracy” among followers to fabricate a story. History shows that humans confabulate and entertaining myths form organically and are successful memes. There really seems to be no reason to privilege one religious myth or lend it any more credibility than the myriad others humans have woven into their belief systems at various times.
ua-cam.com/video/am47zmjtwsE/v-deo.html
The reason why has more to do with the details surrounding the story than the story itself. The entire Bible points to the resurrection, combined with the historic reality of the life and crucifixion of Jesus, and the effect afterwards on the world leading up to this point. For example, Mormonism is just a cult, but the entire Book of Mormon is not supported by any factual evidence or geographical data. The Bible, however, through and through describes the life and death and resurrection of Jesus in the major prophets 1000 years previous to it. It also describes the type of sacrifice necessary, and builds off of a system. This is what makes the resurrection convincing, because of the symmetry of the entire Bible. It is almost a circle, in which every book depicts the gospel to the same measure of the books about the gospel taking place and becoming reality.
@@jadehart2257 Jewish scholars always had and continue to have a different take on the Old Testament prophecies Christians subsequently reinterpreted as predicting Christ’s birth and resurrection. Other gospels that didn’t make it into the New Testament but were accepted by early Christians out a different spin on much of what is currently accepted as Christian doctrine. While Jesus’ existence seems likely, we don’t know much about the details and events of his life with any certainty, if we apply the same standard as we do to other, much written about historical figures.
what’s interesting about the personality cults is that they haven’t persevered. that isn’t evidence against the resurrection, but for it
@@RadicOmega some cults go extinct others persevere and others yet persevere for a time then go extinct. Historians don’t really consider the popularity of a myth hundreds of years after the events that gave rise to it as evidence relating to the historical accuracy of the myth. The popularity of a model aren’t direct evidence of its validity or explanatory power. For this reason an “argument from popularity” is largely dismissed as a logical fallacy.
Contingency and Moral arguments are my faves.
Defending something that you do not agree with is a great way to hone your debate skills.
When it comes to the resurrection argument, I don't think it matters so much how it compares to the rest of history with manuscript counts and so on ("an embarrassment of riches" one scholar said) because it just seems like ALL of ancient history (and probably all of history in general) has an element of uncertainty about it. For me, history is just an attempt at constructing the most accurate account of the past as possible.
The further we go back, the less reliable our assesments of the past become.
In my mind every writing is biased and lying in some respects. History is the extrapolation of truth from many unreliable sources.
Yeah, a lot of support for the resurrection argument tries to prop up our knowledge of history to a level it really doesn't warrant.
The resurrection claim is often likened to other historical claims for which only one written account exists. This doesn't elevate the resurrection claim; this firmly cements it among other claims we confidently reject.
Merely pointing out that people accept a random historical event that could've been totally mythical, like Hannibal marching elephants over the alps, does not mean that those people should accept the resurrection as much as they accept the elephants. On the contrary, it shows how little we can accept about the story of the elephants because we have so little to go on.
Historians generally conclude that the Trojan War was probably based on a real event, but don't believe that Aphrodite helped Paris take Helen to Troy or that Thetis dunked Achilles in the Styx. Why should we conclude that everything in the Bible is true just because somebody wrote it down and some of the places are real?
Can we get a religious figure tier list next?
Yess
Joe already made a theist tier list in his Majesty of Reason UA-cam channel
agreed, need one from Alex
Skeptics are genuine thinkers. Unafraid to discard the fear & need that is the true basis of belief. Despite all the endless wars, millions of deaths & continual suffering of mankind the need trumps the truth!
I've heard far worse arguments than the banana arguement.
"Why isn't earth falling?"
"How come two brothers from the same parents are different?"
Z tier
At least the "look at the trees!" Kind of arguments will be hard to explain for people who are generally convinced by it.
I'm sure there are arguments worse than the banana but it's really a dreadfully stupid argument
My favorite z-tier argument is "no argument is necessary"!
"Why isn't earth falling" ?
I've never heard this one, but it looks fun,since orbit is fall.
knowing this,I would probably set them up with "if earth was falling would you say it would be argument against god's existence"?
if no,then the question is uselsess.
if yes, great! earth is falling.
but of course rule #2 in defending undefensible is to never answer questions,so there would be probably some misdirection to some other topic there,to forget they made a mistake instead of admitting they made it.
I think the "look at the trees" argument is really the same as a watchmaker analogy. So it's really an argument from complexity, just less generalized.
@@merbst : Clearly arguments necessary or everyone would be in agreement already. People have been slaughtering each other over it for millennia. In fact, no two people agree about religion or even what passages in the bible mean... which makes it a pretty poor manual. (Are we still supposed to stone rape victims to death?)
Imagine two supremely intelligent rivals, finaly come to a conclusive undeniable answer to this long lasting debate, I magine their reaction would be something like this 43:30 😍
At least you can be sure that God does feel proud of how thoughtful some of his creations are. Theist or atheist, intellectual exchange is something he always loved.
BTW, in 1:49:46, this is basically an application of ockham's razor. We presuppose that there must be a simpler explanation, thus there'd be no need to believe the unlikely. I'd say that's a meh counterargument, considering that this is not about a coin flip, but an event that literally changed history. You can't make yourself believe that such a long-lasting event would be the product of a mere hallucination or "social expectations" (which doesn't even make sense, for Jews would NOT have desired their Messiah to be a craftsman from Nazareth)
Anyone else wish Alex pressed William Lane Craig more when he talked to him?
Yupp, totally with you. Felt like he was a bit more submissive and acceptive during that discussion.
Alex tried to press him but Craig are very familiar with the argument and objections so he refuted them quite well.
@@JopingusBloggStudios Alex could have done a lot better, there are soo many holes in the Kalam arg I dont even know where to begin :D
@@JwalinBhatt Yes and Alex brought some of them up. But most objections of Kalam leads down on a path that uncovers the "intellectual price tag" of the refutations like they discussed. That's probably why Alex is fond of the argument.
@@JopingusBloggStudios "intellectual price tag" is very subjective. To me, there is no bigger intellectual price tag than god.
Anyway what would you be referring to? Is it Mereological Nihilism?
Responding to the argument from objective morality:
If "good" means fulfilling the task you were designed for, why would god design us so badly? We're obviously struggling to be good, in many situations we don't even know what actions we might take would be good, in others it's easy to see what's good but we still don't act accordingly.
If that's what good means, then wouldn't the creation of morally imperfect beings be an act of evil?
One might bring up the usual "but free will" rebuttal, but if free will is part of our design, if we're designed to have free will, then acting morally as defined above can't be part of our design and being "good" means "act according to your free will", making objective morality equivalent to an absence of morality... wouldn't it?
@@dylzp what the f is wrong with you? Making someone think it is required to kill YOUR OWN SON is psychotic at best. The same sort of d*mb bs from people who try to say that killing almost ALL PEOPLE AND ALL ANIMALS IN THE WORLD by drowning them was good. Genocidal maniacs.
1:50:41 it was very weird that the guy in the emirates jersey couldnt understand how a resurrection of a man claiming to be God couldnt be evidence for him being God. Several times he mentioned "why didnt God resurrect other people?" Alex tried to tell him that if there were many resurrections then there would be no significance in another resurrection, but that point was lost on his counterpart. The resurrection is a great ppoint of evidence for God.
When it comes to the fine tuning argument it strikes me as such a god of the gaps argument, I don't know why anyone takes it seriously.
We don't know why the universe is such and such therefore god
Its like the shoe-maker argument, we dont know what made the universe but I make shoes here so maybe it is all a shoe and there is a big Shoe-Maker-Me doing all the stuff