Yep so often it is the case. And following the reasoning, If either god born / automatically brought into existence or always existed with all knowledge, did he have to 'learn' anything or god just have ability of omniscience from the start? It seems god didn't earn anything, and just inherited his powers and knowledge, the idea that God created evil to teach us lessons seems so narcissistic and privileged of god, just like the idea of the forbidden fruit from tree of knowledge, god created us in a purposeful state of ignorance and then punished us for our own ignorance of seeking knowledge from the tree. And also isn't the bible supposed to be a lesson if so then why can't he also just communicate directly instead of creating evil as a lesson? And if we're made in the image of God why not just be born with the knowledge, or be like jesus instead of some lesson that causes untold amounts of suffering? And what if humans replicated and imitated gods actions in a simulated computer world? How would those beings view us? As immoral monsters, surely. It's playing god perhaps do as I say, not as I do? The idea of evil makes no sense, better a universe not exist then have evil and suffering. I could ask you or them, would you accept having a lifetime of torture and misery imposed upon you, against your will, if it means a billion others will also come / be brought into existence get to experience the best orgasm and pleasures? Or choose not to endure that misery and therefore wouldn't bring that universe into existence? Even 1 victim is a tragedy, that's their whole life, their whole existence, even if everyone else was happy doesn't change that. It's better if everyone was neutral balanced than polar opposite peaks of suffering and wellbeing. Remember no one chose to be here it's imposed on us. I'm under no moral obligation to exist and endure suffering if it would bring into existence countless humans to experience bliss and orgasms or whatever happiness. That state of suffering is my whole reality.
Suggesting people who draw lessons from evil have experienced very little evil in their personal lives could be an assumption my friend. No doubt many people, not just religious people, live in a sheltered middle class and upper-middle class bubble, but many of the world’s religious people including christians live in the third world where suffering, disease, war and extreme crime are a part of daily life.
@@wattlebough I strongly doubt poor people who live in suffering think of evil as a lesson. They just hope for a reward in the afterlife. That’s what makes Christianity so appealing and so difficult to “debunk”. If you’re rich and happy it’s because god approves of you, if you suffer don’t worry, you’ll get compensation in heaven. Perhaps it’s just me but the problem of evil is only talked about by apologists. Never heard average believers worry or even know about it.
@@pansepot1490 Good points. Interestingly there are many verses in the Book of Ecclesiastes that talk about the wicked prospering and having lives of ease while the righteous groan and suffer. There are similar verses in the Book of Psalms including many attributed to King David of the Tribe of Judah. Even Jesus, also of the Tribe of Judah, promises that in this life you will have suffering. He then goes on to say “…but take heart. I have overcome the world…” You’re basically correct regarding hope of reward. I wonder that this existence isn’t comparable to some kind of “matrix” construct where nothing, including human suffering, is actually real but like some kind of program, and reality comes when we die. It’s a mystery only those billions of dead who continue to go before us know the answer to. Every single one of the 8 billion people alive today will be dead 100 years from today and the lucky few who aren’t, around 20 years after that.
"The correct conclusion about the Bible is that it is the only true and accurate history of the Universe, whether you accept it, or not. The necessary component is faith to embrace spiritual matters, which are by divine ordination, beyond human ability to fully fathom… (8) For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. (9) For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 (KJV) " Since the laws of physics are consistent throughout the entire spectrum of the Lord’s created majesty, the Lord Jesus Christ remains in control of every molecule in the approximate two hundred billion galaxies we know of and all other matter outside mankind’s field of discovery. Conversely, while mankind may recall historic events, and have desires for the future, we actually have very limited control over the fulfillment of those plans, and mankind’s solitary creation is the computer virus! The only time you have any measure of control over is this very moment, so what are you doing with it? You must question the sanity of any who would presume to equate the Lord’s Sovereignty with our stunted capabilities!" Ken Axelson "Thought for the Day"
Atheism has led people to a great dead end and emptiness, however, human beings are suitable to believe in God due to their existence, they seek help from a person who has infinite power, and people do not want to perish by nature, there is a desire to exist forever, most of the people believe in God, we will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment after death. And we will be held accountable. Those who do good will receive eternal paradise as a reward for their good deeds. Unbelievers cannot enter paradise. Is it better to receive great blessings in paradise forever or to burn in hell over and over again? The regret of the disbeliever is of no use. The last religion, Islam, tells us that Allah exists and is one. Prayer, fasting and It commands helping the poor and doing good to one's parents and relatives. It prohibits alcohol, gambling, adultery, slander, lying, etc.❤❤
"Sometimes I've seen animals in videos being ripped apart and they look so peaceful" Yea and I've seen cartel videos of drug dealers chain sawing each others legs off and they "look so peaceful", it's called SHOCK. It occurs during trauma and blood loss.
So would you say going into shock is a good or bad aspect of creation? I think that was his point. That suffering is not all as bad as we make it it to be, and perhaps there are systems in place that reduce animal suffering already.
@@Jerome616 "perhaps" no need for a mechanism in the first place would be better. Shock is not necessarily peaceful or neutral either, it's just a consequence of trauma to the body.
I’ve not got all the way through this yet, but I feel compelled to acknowledge 10:27 when Trent had a potential counterpoint to make, but says something like “I don’t want to derail from the point you were making” was a touch of class. Often times these discussions fail to make ground because people talk past each other, and this is a great example of the kind of etiquette that can avoid such a problem.
A Catholic, Protestant, Atheist and Agnostic walk into a bar to discuss the problem of evil. The bartender picks up his shotgun and shoots the the atheist, the agnostic and the catholic. The Protestant (Bertuzzi) replies: 'Thank God things like these happen, now I can show compassion.' Thanks for likes lol. But pls don't hate on Bertuzzi. It was a joke.
@@jazeroliversy673 Oh really, how so, please tell. Make your argument. You can't just make some opiniated claim and expect THAT to prove you right. What have I said that's objectively inaccurate or incorrect??? I believe that I can logically debunk any mainstream atheist's argument here.
I really did try to like Cameron. I’ve listened to him talk on plenty of subjects, but I just can’t ever seem to agree with him on anything, and can’t even see where he’s coming from. I’m 1 minute in and he already has claimed that he thinks the world is better for having slavery and overcoming it than it would be for not having slavery at all, and that animals are sometimes at peace when they are violently being ripped to shreds. And to think this same guy wants to champion his position as the bastion of morality.
The clips at the beginning obviously lack context. Such as Trent’s rebuttal of a non perfect God. At least try and hear him out instead of writing him off with some out of context clips.
I'm seeing a lot of comments on the quality of various arguments, but I just want to make sure we acknowledge how great it is to have 4 people with very different views on the topic discussing it in both a direct and respectful manner. Kudos to all involved on keeping everything friendly, despite how heated this topic can get (even just in the comments on this video).
Atheism has led people to a great dead end and emptiness, however, human beings are suitable to believe in God due to their existence, they seek help from a person who has infinite power, and people do not want to perish by nature, there is a desire to exist forever, most of the people believe in God, we will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment after death. And we will be held accountable. Those who do good will receive eternal paradise as a reward for their good deeds. Unbelievers cannot enter paradise. Is it better to receive great blessings in paradise forever or to burn in hell over and over again? The regret of the disbeliever is of no use. The last religion, Islam, tells us that Allah exists and is one. Prayer, fasting and It commands helping the poor and doing good to one's parents and relatives. It prohibits alcohol, gambling, adultery, slander, lying, etc.❤❤
This is so awesome. Debates have their place, but I think truth is more readily found when people are just discussing like this. I don't think I've seen content like this, or at the very least, I've only seen it rarely. Please do more of these.
In order for you to feel good about having hands, you need to light them on fire every now and again. The pain of flaming hands will remind you how nice it is to not have them burn; therefore, burning hands are necessary- Cameron’s argument against not burning your hands.
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
In a world where bravery and evil doesn't exist, bravery can be seen as a good thing, but it's more of a reaction in spite of evil. When evil terrorizes all of us every day, I can personally say bravery is the least of my concerns. I don't want a brave child with stage 4 bone cancer. I want a child with no bone cancer without the medal of bravery.
That's a great point. I think we generalize these arguments far too much that it makes it incredibly impersonal. When we make these ideas more personal, we realize how implausible some arguments can seem.
@@Tyler-hk4wo we do run the risk of appealing to emotions when we personalise/personify the arguments, but I agree wholeheartedly with the overall point. Saying that a world that has racism/evil in general is "more valuable" so that there can be a concomitant good to conquer it is like saying "it's better to develop alcoholism so you can develop the will to overcome it" rather than never having alcoholism at all.
You can be phobic of bananas and incredibly brave when confroting a banana or even touching it. The phenomenon of bravery doesn't require evil in this instance.
@@brotherben4357 Correct. Humans contributed to natural selection because that's how our universe works. Survival of the fittest. We're finally getting to the point where humans can thrive with less and less suffering caused to other animals, and that's indisputably a good thing... It would have been an even better thing to not create a system where suffering is inherent, though.
It's so refreshing to be able to see a discussion like this be able to take place on the internet. I think that Christians like myself as well as atheists are growing tired of the hostility that has been stirred regarding these topics over the years. Thank you Alex, Cameron, Joe, and Trent for promoting these kinds of conversations and I look forward to more in the future.
I agree. And although sometimes the words and phrases go "over my head," I still try to listen carefully. I'm a Christian believer but I don't have all the answers. In fact, the more I learn, the less I know ! Peace
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
All the questions these gentlemen pose are answered in the Bible & "The Problem of Pain" by C. S. Lewis. However finding the answers wouldn't be as glorious & profitable & would take hard work.
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
A Catholic, Protestant, Atheist and Agnostic walk into a bar. The barman asks, "so what will it be?". The Catholic asks for a glass of red wine, the Protestant asks for a beer, the atheist wants to be rationally minded so sticks to drinking water, and the agnostic cannot make up his mind. So the atheist turns to ask him "so what are you having?", to which the agnostic replies "an existential crisis....."
What a delightful conversation! Love the format too, so hopefully you continue this whole aspect of sitting with the guys over a cup/mug and hashing a topic out. Love it, and big thanks to everyone at that table for their contributions!
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
Love this! I'm an athiest and watch all your videos. I also watch Trent Horn's videos from time to time. I grew up a very strong Catholic (I actually considered becoming a nun as a teenager) so watching his views on God and Catholicism with new eyes is very interesting. This is great!
I also grew up in the Catholic religion and I wanted to be a priest. I don't know why that desire faded away ( I guess for various reasons). I watch different channels about Christianity, Islam. reality, atheism etc. I even like to watch videos about elephants. Some of the most compassionate and caring animals seem to be elephants. Peace to you
"You being oppressed all your life and dying horribly and unfairly is worth it because someone might write a play about it later that makes me cry" is a pretty wild way to justify suffering.
@@Keviamaya All these people are youtube hacks, except Trent Horn. What do you expect from this bunch? They spent an hour talking about animals who lived 100 million years ago and their deep suffering while avoiding the topic of human suffering.
@Donetsk People's Republic What would a god's opinion on our value matter. For instance, if I created artificial intelligence, does it have meaning based on the idea of my opinion that it has value? If I create a matrix like world and am able to give sentience to all the beings in that world, do they get meaning because I say so?
It really is astounding. I think the guy, not trying to demean him as I don't think he'll ever read this, is very low functioning, from a cognitive standpoint. The points he makes are so insultingly dumb that it's quite obvious he has not given serious thought to any of them. Either that, or Dunning Kruger is alive and well with this one. It is perplexing to me though and I do spend a fair amount of brain cycles on how someone as 'accomplished' as he believes himself to be, can hold such horrific opinions. I guess you just chalk it up to cognitive dissonance and prioritizing the culture, ritual, etc. over the actual truth. Still, at the bottom of it all, it's disappointing. The contrast between he and someone like Alex though, is so stark, it's a bit embarassing.
@@TechTab00 As a Christian, I strongly agree sadly. I like his UA-cam channel since it serves as a platform for discussion but my goodness are his points just so terrible. I prefer other Christian apologists against atheism such as Testify and InspiringPhilosophy
41:40 This is because animals don't need complex facial expressions, sounds, and body language as much as humans need these. Being less social and more independent, they experience their pain and pleasure more internally. Humans are different because our young ones HAVE to be dependent on the adults. We can't even walk as soon as we're born. We quickly learn to be loud, frowning, attention-seekers. Wild animals have less utility (and therefore less evolutionary pressure) for these adaptations.
Exactly. An animal’s external signaling in response to pain depends upon almost entirely upon that species social structure. Apes like us are some of the most social species known and have evolved multiple ways of signaling pain.
Alex’s response to the idea that evil exists so that certain goods can exist is great. I’ve often thought the same thing, although haven’t ever articulated it that well. As Benjamin the donkey in Animal Farm puts it: “God gave me a tail to keep away the flies, but I’d sooner have had no tail - and no flies.”
Why is nobody addressing the fact that evil and suffering is all a consequence of our decision to disobey God in the first place. And free will is necessary for us to have a real relationship with him.
@@laureelohnes4231Interesting take, let me see If I understood correctly, any suffering comes as a consequence of doing bad? So every person deserves what they go through Like cancer, genes mutations, abusive parents, babies getting killed, etc
@@BlueCoore The atheist must realize that it may well be the case that God has sufficient reasons to make a world in such a way that it would be suffused with natural and gratuitous evil. In the case of Christianity, such sufferings may be so because only in such a world may people have the courage and strength to draw to Christ and bring about as much people as possible to His kingdom. No atheist can, nor ever will prove that God doesn't have sufficient reasons for allowing the suffering in the world, deserved or undeserved, purposeless or purposeful. This is the intellectual problem of evil. But I think for most people, this is an emotional problem. They just can't accept a god who permits such actions. But if it is true that God has sufficient reasons, then the facts override such emotional inclinations to reject God.
@@necessaryevil6636 I see, then I wonder how free will would work in such case, I mean no wonder, that’s what everyone wants to know haha, unless they are enjoying themselves enough to not question this chronically
11:59 - Cameron's escape from the problem of evil is, as expected, to assert that God does things which are most "valuable" (whatever that even means) rather than things which are most "loving", which most people understand to mean something like, "caring for the wellbeing of others". Cameron is tacitly admitting that God is NOT all-loving, since God often abandons the "loving" option in favor of the "valuable" option. And what does "valuable" even mean here? It sounds like Cameron is saying that God wants some things more strongly than he loves his creation... which is not what the term "all-loving" would otherwise suggest.
I mean, God routinely sends people to a realm of infinite torture. Even if theists could somehow prove God is all loving despite the evil and suffering in this world, they'd still have to explain how an all loving god can create a moral system that condemns the majority of people to infinite torture. It's ludicrous.
@@JD-wu5pf God doesn't send people anywhere. It's those people the ones that stray from God. The Bible says that we must think of God as our father, and your father will love you unconditionally until the end and he will do anything for you, but if you grow up and start doing drugs, stealing money from your father, beating him, calling him names, you never visit him, you tell all your friends that your father is a piece of crap... well, if many years later you go to his house you might find the door is closed, and you can't accuse him of not loving you enough. The good news is the Bible teaches us repentance, so you can go to your father, ask him for forgiveness and he will open the door for you. If you're an Atheist this might not make sense, but that's how a religious person would think and that's why they wouldn't find your argument convincing.
@@hullie7529 God does send people to Hell. He is omnipotent and omniscient. If he didn't want people in Hell, he either didn't have the power to stop them from going or he didn't know they'd be going. If people end up in Hell, it is because God wanted them there. "You must think of God like a father (except in cases where I decide he is mysterious and infinite and not at all like a father)". My father would do everything in his power to stop me from throwing my life away. If I still threw my life away, it would be because my father didn't know what actions to take to prevent it from happening. Is that God's problem? That he doesn't know how to make me believe in him? Or is he simply not powerful enough to take the actions required? Or are there no actions that can be taken for him to make me believe? If there aren't, he created me knowing I'd go to hell. Also, my father is human and so there are limits to his love. God claims to be all loving, so you can see how "abandoning someone to eternal punishment" might conflict with that alleged attribute. Religious people routinely try and justify infinite punishment for billions of people. Respectfully, I don't give a fuck what they find convincing. They aren't thinking rationally at that point.
@@JD-wu5pf I'm not sure I agree with the notion that if you throw your life away it's your father's fault because he didn't take the right actions. Specially if you live away from your father in another country thousands of miles away, which is what Atheists do with God in this analogy. If your issue is that "God could do more to prevent it", then you're just throwing your own expectations to God. But this is also bad logic because I don't think you operate in the same way in your personal life, so that if any of your friends doesn't behave exactly how you expect them to behave you don't consider them your friend.
@@hullie7529 You just aren't thinking rationally. God is all powerful. He's all knowing. He exists "beyond space and time". I don't live "far away" from God, he literally is everywhere, all the time, and has infinite power and knowledge. I'm not "throwing expectations" onto God, these expectations are coming from theists who claim he's all powerful and all knowing and all loving. If I had perfect knowledge that my friends were going to die in a drunk driving accident, and I was omnipotent, I could stop them from dying in said car accident. Further, if I *didn't* stop them from dying in said car accident, I am to blame for their deaths. I had the ability to prevent it, preventing it would have cost me nothing, and I chose not to. Do you think their families, upon learning that I let their loved ones die horrifically, would say that I loved my friends? What if I told them that I really really valued free will? Of course not. An all-loving entity would intervene and prevent all of that needless suffering. God can't be all powerful, all knowing, all loving, AND send people to hell. He either needs to lose one of those attributes or he needs to stop sending people to hell.
Yea. I'm currently halfway through, and the arguments, paraphrased, currently are "maybe God can't make a world without natural selection / predation / disease"
And the Atheist talks about the problem of evil without defining what evil is at any moment. If you don't believe in a moral standard there's no right or wrong.
So black people getting lynched is just a character building exercise for those who didn't get lynched. They were just props in someone else's story. Seems like Main Character syndrome to me.
@@JD-wu5pf as someone who is most likely somewhere on the sociopath spectrum, I find Cam's take on this disturbing. I may be able to do certain things and experience no emotion about it, but that's a dismissal of suffering I could not cope with.
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
A Catholic, Protestant, Atheist and Agnostic walk into a bar to discuss the problem of evil. The bartender picks up his shotgun and shoots the the atheist, the agnostic and the catholic. The Protestant (Bertuzzi) replies: 'Thank God things like these happen, now I can show compassion.'
And the dooziest thing about it is that Cameron believes in moral realism which states that humans have a moral obligation to not do evil which includes not being racist/promoting racism/wanting racism to exist, so he's inadvertently contradicting his own moral framework by claiming to want to live in a world in which racism exists just cause it can lead to a "greater good".
Most entertaining how badly the theists seek affirmation from Joe. Cameron sort of seems like he's in the wrong weight class here. It's so feasible that God could have created a natural system where all animals ate non-sentient food, or a natural system with a lower rate of re-production, so less predation was necessary. He chose not to... To say a world where slavery never existed is worse than a world where slavery was overcome is absolutely absurd. The only reason to opt out of reason here is because of an emotional commitment to theology. Classy not to call them out on this, but to be religious is to have such a commitment. I would not rather see evil defeated, because for an alarming number of people, evil won..dramatically. Alex's strongest point is in the segment following around 50:00.
@@areyoujelton Ha! This is why it's so important to manage those energy/manna resources when playing mmos. Alex didn't even bring up the disparity between what Abrahamic religions usually claim, and what Trent is saying. Respect his will to stay on topic. Trent seems to (I could be wrong) claim that God is responsible for the natural world we're in, but doesn't intervene in it actively. It would be a very odd church that would teach that..
According to Jewish/Christian theology, God did create that perfect world and we know it as the Garden of Eden, and the suffering in this current world is because of the original sin, not because it was part of God's original design.
@@hullie7529 why is eating from a tree a sin ? And why is such sin bad ? And why do we humans who have nothing to do with eve's and adame's choice suffer the consequences of their actions ?
What a charitable and open minded discussion! I hope exchanges like these may raise the level of discourse between believers and non believers overall.
Pain, Suffering, & Death: "Abortion in America has contributed to the greatest decline in black population since the first black slaves arrived in the Americas in the 1600s. According to U.S. census data, there were 18,871,831 black American citizens in 1960. Since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, abortion has killed an estimated 20 million black babies - more than the entire black population of 1960." by Catherine Davis and Bradley Mattes | February 28, 2020 01:18 PM Washington Examiner
I've always wondered how religious people actually make sense of the world. Difficult indeed, trying to imagine agency behind everything, and not only that, trying to interpret that agency. Great talk.
Former xtian, that part was easy enough, since we have these big brains capable of a lot of imagination. The hardest part was actually questioning my own beliefs. Being raised in religion, taking those baby-steps to even surmise the possibility there is no God felt like a huge sin.
@@joe19912 As a committed christian myself, I find it very easy to imagine a world without God. I struggle to fathom how many christian minds are so limited in this regard. It’s very easy to see this from an atheistic and evolutionary point of view. This makes the conversation around evil all the more interesting to me. When we talk about the coexistence of God and evil the atheist line takes the shortest route of blaming God for evil, but remember lads and lasses, god doesn’t exist. Therefore all we have left is evil and nobody to blame for it. It just is. (Correction: if a god or gods do not exist we have nobody to blame for the existence of evil human behaviour - except **ourselves** .) If anything it can only represent a flaw in the evolution of life on earth. Why waste your time surmising on a fictitious god’s weakness or inherent evil if that god is a figment of somebody else’s imagination? You’re losing time developing your own understanding of the existence of evil and the human condition minus a deity.
@@joe19912 I'm there right now. Whenever something bad happens to one of my loved ones or me, I wonder if I'm being punished for questioning whether God exists.
There really is a difference in evil and suffering. Evil requires intent. Suffering requires only existence. I know this doesn't eliminate the idea of a god that would create suffering, but I feel that the lack of distinction is problematic.
This is the problem. Evil is an invention to describe actions that are bad but we know things are not that simple. People do bad things because they are mentally ill, cannot control their anger, kill to survive and so on. Suffering is just a brute fact of nature which is perhaps and probably most likely, predetermined.
Yes, exactly. And evil requires intent, but even intentions are caused by natural conditions same as suffering. This really begs the question; what are good and evil? This question will lead to a greater understanding rather than accepting what we already think they are and trying to make a worldview prematurely.
@@nathanwood5977 I think there is more nuance than that. To the mind of the person we might describe as 'mentally ill', their actions have a benefit to them whether it be achieving a particular goal that is of entirely subjective benefit or that they enjoy a particular hormonal rush from actions. It could along the lines of indulging the requests of the 'voices in their heads' to either receive praise from or to silence them which would make that individual feel the outcome was a positive one. EDIT: Rewording as I've essentially repeated a point!! It is only the victim or the observers of the actions that may describe the act as having been 'evil' as they do not receive any of the perpetrators perceived benefit and are aware of the negative effect that the action may have on another person or group of people.
Perhaps it’s better to think about this discussion in terms of pleasure and suffering. I think making that distinction doesn’t change the discussion but it does feel more precise.
@@Cassim125 I mean having a black wife doesn't necessarily mean you personally suffer from racism or don't harbor implicit or even explicit racist beliefs yourself. Lol
@@myjciskate4 Lol well i was giving him the benefit of the doubt having black wife and all she must have shared some racist incidents to him but regardless thats just one case brought up. You can use any example cancer vs cancer research, broken leg vs surgery, pain vs painkiller, crime vs brave police etc
“He also loved me so much that he created me knowing I’d be imperfect and then self-sacrificed himself, as his son mind you, to learn how to forgive the creation he made.”
I get the sentiment of your comment from an unbeliever’s perspective. A more charitable analogy would be a parent allowing their children to make their own choices, learn from the consequences, and then grow as an individual.
@@MapleBoarder78 To me that falls apart a little as someone with a child in my house there’s still things you stop them from doing. Don’t drink bleach, don’t go outside at night alone, and I will stop you if you try so you wont get hurt.
That isn’t what he said lol, just re listen to the video. He’s saying that he agrees MLK and racism is a necessary component in the human experience. More broadly, without the “evil” there wouldn’t be the pleasures of experiencing the good. He bit that bullet on the slavery example to remain consistent, and I see no issue
If you didn't want to experience all of the facets of evil or witness it or read about it in the annels of history, you could time travel back to the time of the garden of eden and convince eve not to eat the fruit. Then we wouldn't be having this disscussion.
@@tecategpt1959if you have to “bite the bullet” to “remain consistent” that means someone found a hole I your position and you were unwilling to admit and accept tht
Alex I notice a few recording things that I am happy to help you with if ever needed as a mixing/mastering engineer. 1. The floor noise is pretty loud and can get a bit distracting 2. volume in general is pretty low ( hard to hear during my workout at the gym with music in the background) 3. Joe is hard to hear and could be boosted when he speaks. Once again, happy to go through it as a volunteer. Love the vids take care!
I did not hear any floor noises and I can hear everybody's voice very clearly. It could be your headphones or your blue Bluetooth. everybody's voice was very clear And I was able to hear them very clearly. without headphones or bluetooth. maybe try listening to it again but without extra equipment just your phone.
I'm still theistic, but I've been followed to CosmicSkeptic for a very long time because he makes a good argument about a lot (if not all) of things... Keep making videos, brother. :)
I have found that most theists have to avoid this topic like the plague to feel good about God. If you are honest and not sociopathic there's no way you can tackle this issue and not feel disgusted and disturbed at this deity. Its also so easy to sit in ivory tower and talk about theoretical suffering but dive into real life sufferings and see how difficult it is
@@Cassim125 I do feel "disgusted and disturbed" by this issue of evil and suffering but so far I can't blame God. I've had cancer during the past 15 years and sometimes the side-effects from treatments make me ask "why?" and "What is the good that comes from this?" I know that many people have much worse suffering and I often wonder how they survive. What keeps them going? I like your honesty and I don't have the answers. I wish I did. Peace to you
@@Cassim125 I was born in a 3rd world country... I know exactly how difficult it is... I wouldn't be enjoying what I have right now, had I not thought of God and my family when I got really close to committing suicide.. Also, deity, by the first definition I looked up, was pertaining to those polytheistic beliefs.. which is a lot different than what I believe... feeling "disgusted" at this diety, makes you an anti-theist theist. If you actually believe they don't exist, why get disgusted?
@@SkaiHero you are obviously very new to the subject of apologetics seeing how literal you define deity only in a pagan way. I will tell you to read my original comment properly. The problem of evil isn't about God's existence. From an internal POV you have to be sociopathic to not be disturbed at such a God given the tons of sufferings.
@@johnbrzykcy3076 did god think of what would happen before creating the world. Did it know all the suffering that would occur ? Why couldn't it create ppl in heaven from the start ? Why couldn't it create nothing instead of suffering? Ask these and you realise if there's a god it is to blame. Many also say god compensates sufferers with heaven. Compensation implies an offence, a crime, a mistake ie god is not morally perfect
If there were a god, and he were omnipotent, he could make a world with no evil and populate it with people who appreciated the fact that there was no evil in the world. Any other theoretical world with a god posits a really sadistic god.
Lol with your tiny mind we have been given freedom the free world only exists thanks to the bible that's a fact and free thinking advanced science. But look at the new religons veganisum or infinite gender theory where gender is a feeling outside of biology like a spirit or socialism all are oppressive and the damage yet the atheists believe they are morally superior and are willing to use force for there beliefs on everyone else. Telling you what you can do eat and even think denying science as bigoted. Look at China committing genocide north Korea a slave nation both atheist USSR before they went back to Christianity mass genocide. Free will means people will do evil thing's and without the bible it's oppression and suffering. Look at a bacteria to us huge gap in intelligence to God we are almost the same to say the difference is trillions of times more intelligent than us from bacteria is still nowhere near infinitely more intelligent so it might look bad to you but that's not the same as bad. In the Americas cannibalism was normal same in Africa it wasn't morally wrong to them
It basically implies that people SHOULD try to commit murder because it gives opportunities for heroism, bravery, courage, etc and that makes it totally worth committing murder. That logic is insane.
Something of which most atheists hate to do. They love to make claims without evidence and expect everyone to take their word for it. Theists do the same thing too, but mainstream atheists are another side of the same coin.
I lack in much intellectual ability ( due to cancer? ) but I also respect this type of conversation. I think strong arguments against those with different opinions/worldviews is the wrong approach. Respect to you
Today "the problem of evil" in god's existence perspective is very relevant. Today we have a war in Europe. And people praying for victory to a god ... Praying for help to demolish the enemies... And Russian Orthodox church says that "God is on our side"... It's terrible 😔. Especially for people who have relatives on both sides. I'm atheist from Russia - aggressor country...
Atheism itself implies no morality, NOR does science. So what's to replace morals since god doesn't exist? Logic and reason? What logic/reason dictate that humans NEED to exist or OUGHT to be respected objectively? That's the philosophical problem that atheists don't care to solve. In fact, you all irrationally think it isn't even a problem, because you're fine with popular thought as long as its whatever YOU want.
@@notsponsored103 ,invading in to neighboring countrie is a fact of aggression. USA do not invade in Ukraine nor Russia. So in this case I don't understand what do you mean. Statements must be based on facts. But you use empty slogans.
@@Uskov_OlegRussia is defending itself against NATO aggression. Pro war U.S military and energy industry stake holders have used Ukraine by proxy to bring another endless war into foreign territory and enrich themselves at the cost of human lives on both sides. This bogus and unnecessary war is completely the product of American billionaires seeking control of European assets. Zelensky is a puppet of the western ruling class.
@@notsponsored103 , sorry, but you repeat exactly what our Russian propaganda conveys to us every day. The conspiracy theories of the "West" against my country do not have reliable facts and are based on conjectures that do not withstand critical analysis.
I think the most key point to push back against people who argue something like, for example, racism is necessary is to ask what of all the people who have no choice in being brave or great to overcome such a thing? All the people who spend their entire lives trapped and locked down by such things- and no matter how great they may have been in another context- never have the chance to prove themselves because of this oppressive situation? If the plan of God was to produce bravery and heroics- he is doing a shit job of it since he requires so many people to never have a chance to show these virtues he supposedly values more than keeping people happy.
@@jonathanstensberg This is under the assumption that a God is attempting to bring out these traits in humans. I, personally, don't think any life is worthless or that anyone needs to have a purpose or "goal" in life- so long as they enjoy it and don't make things worse for others on purpose. Granted that's more of a moral view on things. Take for example a slave born into early America, never taught to read, sold at a young age and killed for a perceived slight against their "masters" in their teenage years. There are many stories like this or worse that actually happened, after all. In the view that God is doing this to bring out people like Martin Luther King Jr., those people *never* had the opportunity to *become* like MLK jr. Their lives were not their own, and they could not be brave, they could not be heroic, their flames were simply extinguished. Even I, a flawed human, can come up with better ways to bring out bravery in humanity than the sacrifice of hundreds of *millions* of people who simply didn't have the chance.
@@KodyackCasual I still think this is a pretty demeaning notion of what makes someone a great person, or whatever terminology you want to use. MLK obviously did great things and exhibited excellent virtue (though obviously not without his own faults), but limiting greatness to the archtype of an MLK-esque figure is a pretty dim view of what it means to have a fulfilling or noble or worthwhile life. A no-name slave forgotten to history who suffered a short life of cruel oppression who managed to live a charitable life of self-sacrifice and generous service to others lived a far greater life than most of the great figures of history. It's pretty demeaning to tell oppressed peoples that they are ipso facto incapable of living good lives unless they manage to become world-historical figures.
@@jonathanstensberg .... So you just assumed the no-name slave had a charitable or self-sacrifical life? How? How would they have the chance to even begin to do that? Look, as I said, every person's life has value and worth. You are conflating the ideas of a so-called God with me, which is frankly hilarious. Did I say anyone needed to be like MLK jr. to be a great person? No. No I did not. Take a second and actually think about what i'm saying here will you? If a God wishes to bring out this "greatness" through suffering, it requires many people never get a chance to be great in the current model. They never have a choice, they never could be. Let's go to disease researchers for instance. The people who find cures to life threatening child-diseases. They are great people. But those babies, children, or teens that died bed-ridden their whole lives? The unfortunately couldn't *be* great in this worldview. I argue that such a God is at best ambivalent towards us, at worst an absolute moron. All lives have meaning, and had I the ability, I would make sure they all got to prove their character. But I am no God.
The novelist Lawrence Sanders wrote a story about a detective suffering excruciating stomach pains. Everyone in his office thinks it's cancer, and they all keep telling him to go see a doctor. Finally, he goes to a doctor, who diagnoses an ulcer. Everybody in his office tells him, "Bet you're glad it's not cancer." "Easy for you to say, " says the detective. "It's not your fucking ulcer."
The people in the office are still morally in the right even if for the wrong reasons… living a life of pain is better than choosing not to live at all because life is intrinsically valuable
If the swat team created robbers knowing beforehabd that they will rob a bank, then the swat team is responsible for the robbery. They in fact created a robbery and then locked them up 😆 Which is a perfect analogy for god If A creates B knowing it will create C, then A created C Logic 101 Where is the confusion? From the robbers perspective it may SEEM like they have free will but from the objective 3rd person perspective, the swat team knows what they did 😈 Free will is an illusion
If the swat team created robbers knowing beforehabd that they will rob a bank, then the swat team is responsible for the robbery. They in fact created a robbery and then locked them up 😆 Which is a perfect analogy for god If A creates B knowing it will create C, then A created C Logic 101 Where is the confusion? From the robbers perspective it may SEEM like they have free will but from the objective 3rd person perspective, the swat team knows what they did 😈 Free will is an illusion
4:23 - He's talking about Rabbi Harold Kushner (author of Why Bad Things Happen to Good People) and his son who died from progeria (a "rapid aging" disease). He was the rabbi at the reform synagogue my parents attended for a while. I saw his son fairly regularly at a summer camp I attended.
This conversation would have been helped by a formal definition of evil. And also by explaining how evil can exist if transcendental categories don't exist (the atheist/agnostic never elaborate on this). No offense to the Protestant guy, but he seemed like a wikipedia scholar. More people like the Catholic and the agnostic would be appreciated
In my opinion, the problem of evil is not the strongest argument against god, since not all gods are infinitely good. The god of the Old Testament, for example, doesn't care about being good
I wish they did define evil but they all knew how inconvenient that would be for everyone because each person has a different idea or view of what evil is because no one has a perfect definition
@@tennicksalvarez9079 there's actually a lot of concepts that have this problem. Usually there's a general common core with fuzzy edges. If the discussion is kept to the general common core maybe definitions aren't necessary. Consider the problem of a heap. Is a tablespoon of salt a heap? If you're putting it in your mouth, certainly. If you're taking it out of a mine, definitely not. It's context dependant. Evil is dependent on context as well, the world view provides the frame around which evil is defined. In Cam's case, his world view is such that many types of agregious harm are justified, and therefore not really evil. I think that reveals a fault in the world view, rather than just a problem of definition for evil.
If you do not face the biggest truest evil how would you know how brave you are? If you are always around nice and kind people why would you have to be brave or proof your bravery? It is easy to fight against a target that does not possess serious harm but if you are able to come face to face to evil and persever then there is something to say about it. Medidate on it for a second.
@@noorzanayasmin7806is bravery so necessary that we need evil. I think the argument is that a world without evil (and therefore no need for bravery) is better than a world with evil and bravery
@@richardoffiong9932 So what you basically want is heaven on earth? I think we can do better than that. I think we as human have the ability to come face to face with pure evil and take it head on. From what I understand this life is a test. If you pass the test then you move onto the next phase of good life. It is like we are a simulation, we all are playing a role in it. I mean if you never have evil then how would you even know what good is? Then good will just become normal and not good anymore. In order to compare good against something else you need evil. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Why do you think girls do not like nice guys? You would think since the person is nice the girl would like him. But no. What the girl/woman want/need is enough tension/conflict to be able to stressed and grow. I mean there are bad people and good people in this world. We know that people like Mao and Stallin existed so we definitely need bravary in order to stand up against those pure evil reincarnate.
@@noorzanayasmin7806 you’re justifying evil for the sake of showcasing bravery, entirely undermining morality. only someone who has experienced little evil in their life would argue that atrocious acts should exist for the sake of a saviour. i don’t see the value of being in a fictitious tale of duality in which a supercilious few can look upon the agonising existence of man from afar to entertain themselves with philosophical speculation and metaphysical discussion.
39:54 One question that would like to ask during this discussion is: Why do people work toward curing cancer? Or any disease for that matter? It seems Trent's main point is: Any attempt at a potential reduction of suffering during the evolutionary process may have unforeseen consequences that make things worse. Couldn't we make the exact same argument about any present suffering? Sure, we could try to cure cancer, but then people would still die some other way and there would be some new "cancer" and ultimately nothing would change, so we shouldn't even try. His defense seems to hinge on the fundamental irreducibility of suffering, and yet we have example after example of reductions of suffering compared to the early days of humanity which, if they were already in place then, or any amount of time earlier, would have prevented immeasurable suffering. Edit: 47:40 Trent somewhat touches upon this issue about why we should save a drowning child: "God could have a greater good for allowing certain evils, what if that greater good is me saving this child and ameliorating suffering?" You would know that that is not the greater good by choosing not to save that child. If the greater good is guaranteed, then you served no purpose whatsoever whether you save that child or not. If you saved the child, your action contributed to the greater good, if you do not save that child, its death contributed to the greater good at least equally if not more than if that child were to survive.
Every discussion about the problem of evil leaves me with this disgusting feeling of supremacy. I just always feel like the theists refuses to really think about it.
@@ClassicPhilosophyFTW what isn't? From infant suffering over animal suffering to undeserved good. There is not one even remotely satisfying answer to any of these.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God??” This Epicurus quote sums it up for me… In regards to the video, if god isn’t all powerful, why worship him?!?? Things that make you go 🤔🤔
Look at a bacteria to us we are more intelligent the difference between us and God is infinite trillions of times more intelligent still makes no sense so maybe you don't see the bigger picture if you make it to paradise there's no more suffering we are here for a brief moment in time no amount of suffering on earth is to much in eternity
@@chrism6315 I don't even know what you're saying as a Christian it's not my place to judge I can't comprehend why Hitler could have been good but if free will exists then he wasn't a product of his DNA and environment he chose to be evil but i don't believe more people in jails are evil they are mostly a product of there environment so in paradise would be forgiven .
@@davidevans3223 my point builds on your own, if you don't understand it that means you didn't understand your own and whilst I may be wasting away an evening on a youtube comment section, but there's a limit to what I'll put up with. Explaining someone's argument back to them is part of that.
Trent's description of a pain-necessary world belies the concept of heaven, in which there's no suffering, so clearly evil and pain is not a necessary component of existence.
Would Cameron and Trent prefer this discussion to be interrupted buy a person with a hummer breaking into the room, and crushing their legs so they would experience the good of compassion, courage and relief?
@@joannware6228 Often a simple question can be more effective than an entire day full of thinking deeply about this conversation as I have (been driving home from Christmas break with family). Got home not too long ago, safely. Grateful for that. I got super into thinking about all the what ifs and good points that the video participants made. Had some exciting philosophical ideas come knocking on the windows at the furthest reaches of my mind's residence. Then started reading the conversations in the comments. Great point you had here in asking this question as an answer to the scoffing question posed. This stuff...these conversations are the most important thing humans can think about. If it is true that God exists and that God is good, it is the most important truth available to humans. I think deep down people know this, otherwise they wouldn't resist the idea so hard.
@@davidjewell9796 Thanks. That question is truly one of the most important questions a person can ask himself. It's one the atheists avoid at all costs.
@@davidjewell9796 "In Him, then, and through Him, we know God. Apart from Him, and without the Scripture, without original sin, without a necessary mediator promised and come, we cannot absolutely prove God, nor teach right doctrine and right morality. But through Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ, we prove God, and teach morality and doctrine. Jesus Christ is, then, the true God of men." Blaise Pascal "Pensees"
@@davidjewell9796 "There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners, who believe themselves righteous." Blaise Pascal "Pensees"
Trent discussing the idea of animals getting cognitive boosts in the afterlife reminds me of the science fiction writings of Cordwainer Smith, a classic, although less known SF writer -comparably to someone like Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Philip K Dick. In his story, The Dead Lady of Clown Town, there is a sort of messiah figure, part animal and part human who leads animals in a peaceful revolution against their suffering. That is a major abridgement of the plot, but the story is wonderful and very poignant.
I have been an atheist for 34 years, but a skeptic for only 4 years. The first thing I tackled as a skeptic was the problem of evil. It quickly became apparent that the problem of evil is not an argument against the existence of god. But it does say a lot about the possible nature of a god. I've been kicking around the idea of consequentialism in the problem of evil lately. Alex brought it up around 1:04:24, but the conversation moved into a discussion of deontology and teleology. I can address those too, but first let's view the part I find troubling regarding consequentialism . Let's set up an implication: 1. Let there be a being we will refer to as "god" that is defined as both absolutely morally justified in its actions and inactions, and is sufficiently capable of eliminating suffering. 2. Suffering exists. 3. If god exists, then god is absolutely morally justified in allowing suffering to exist. The set of conclusions that could be draw from this: 1 god, as defined, does not exist. (This does not preclude a god with a different definition from existing.) 2. Allowing suffering is not itself immoral. 3. Allowing suffering is immoral, but the consequences of allowing suffering will lead to a greater good. I've learned to fear any hint of consequentialism. This is "the end justifies the means." This means that it's okay to do absolutely horrible things in order to bring about a greater good. The first problem is that it is based in results, not intentions, and there would therefore be no moral acts unless they result in good, and no immoral acts unless they result in bad things. The second is, good for whom? If it kills the victim, certainly not for them. Slavery brought about many wonderful benefits in American history, presuming you were white. This "perfect morality" becomes something people could not emulate without not only perfect knowledge, but perfect foresight and perfect assessment of the costs and benefits. Perhaps an omniscient god could do this (the definition of god in my syllogism does NOT require either omniscience or omnipotence), but this would not be a morality that humans could emulate. It would be impossible for people to "get their morality from god" except by divine command; do as I say, not as I do. It utterly destroys any concept of "objective morality" that many apologists assert exists and even try to use to argue that a god must exist. The teleological response that Trent raises fails to address this problem. It presents what would be the greater good brought about by the otherwise immoral act. It does not address the question of whether the consequentialist approach used to arrive at that conclusion is itself moral. Alex introduced the topic along with a deontological response, which could be a non-consequentialist reason to commit otherwise immoral acts: god would have a moral dilemma of multiple obligations, and satisfied the larger obligation. I take a very deontic approach to morality, so this idea appeals to me. However, I don't think it's going to work. Alan R. Anderson defines an obligation as this, in deontic logic: Oa ≡ ◻(¬a → s) Where 's' is a sanction. "Obligatorily 'a' is equivalent to it necessarily being the case that not-'a' implies a sanction." In other words, there will be some sort of consequence for failing an obligation. To whom is god going to pay some consequence? There is either no obligation, the obligation is to god itself and is therefore indistinguishable from consequentialism, or there is an even higher power to whom god must answer. I can't see any of these being acceptable to any theist who assumes a moral god. My personal conclusion of the problem of evil: it is unfounded to assume that if a god exists, that it is in any way moral. It needn't be evil; it would just not need to have an agenda that in any way lines up with anything we would consider to be "good" or "omni-benevolent." The whole concept of the "perfect" tri-omni god was imported from the ancient Greeks anyhow, and not biblical, at least not as a solid, singular, and non-poetic assertion.
"The whole concept of the "perfect" tri-omni god was imported from the ancient Greeks anyhow" do you have sources for this? I would like to read more about the sources where you get this idea from
@@shikyokira3065 You've likely seen this quote before, attributed to Epicurus: ---------- Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? ---------- Now, he probably didn't say it himself. It doesn't match his philosophy; he believed the gods were perfect, but that included being too perfect to get their hands dirty with mortal affairs. But the idea did likely come from one of his peers. Ancient Greeks also believe in the eternal soul that was detachable from the body, which grew out of the concept of Platonic Dualism, the idea that things in this world are shadows or cheap copies of the REAL items in the REAL world. Neither were Jewish concepts, but they did become early Christian concepts. The book of Hebrews is heavily steeped on Platonic Dualism. Another Greek concept was Logos, which PBS defines as such: ---------- A principle originating in classical Greek thought which refers to a universal divine reason, immanent in nature, yet transcending all oppositions and imperfections in the cosmos and humanity. An eternal and unchanging truth present from the time of creation, available to every individual who seeks it. A unifying and liberating revelatory force which reconciles the human with the divine; manifested in the world as an act of God's love in the form of the Christ. ---------- The first chapter of the gospel of John appears to be based on Logos philosophy. Philo of Alexandria was instrumental in importing these Greek concepts into Jewish philosophy at the beginning of the 1st century CE, but had been developed by the ancient Greeks around the 6th century BCE. Paul's church was composed of mostly Roman citizens, and was a merger with their beliefs, not a takeover. We see by the early 12th century from Anselm of Canterbury's ontological arguments for god that the "perfect" god concept (I'm not sure if it was explicitly ti-omni, but certainly a general "perfection") was deeply ingrained into the Catholic church. But there's no explicit scriptural basis for a tri-omni god. There are plenty of hints, but they're along the lines of people in North Korea praising Kim Jon Un; do you really think that THEY think the man gets a hole-in-one every hole of golf? Some probably do, but it's a form of praise, not literalism.
@@grumpylibrarian Allow me to play some devil's advocates here Since I'm not here to argue about the problem of evil, I'll skip that one until perhaps later when I bring it up if you don't mind What's the issue with Christianity sharing some of the principles with other pagan religions or non-Jewish culture/philosophy? For example, there is this pagan religion that against getting high on drugs as it will taint your soul. A christian could see the bad effect getting high on drugs and then telling other Christians that as Christians, we shouldn't get high on drugs. Does this mean Christianity merges its beliefs with this pagan religion's or they are simply stating a fact based on their observation to not indulge in bodily desires? The same can be said if the Christians use superposition to explain the trinity of one God. It doesn't mean Christianity merges with science, nor does it mean the superposition concept predates Christianity. The simple reasoning for using the word superposition to explain it is because there was no better word to represent in until the word superposition was coined So, can't the gospel of John simply use the Logos principle because it can be easily understood by the readers who has already understood the Logos principle?
@@shikyokira3065 I know this isn't strictly your point, but I'm not hinging my case on John. My exact quote and entire reference to John was "The first chapter of the gospel of John appears to be based on Logos philosophy." I'm not actually personally convinced it was, but I was relaying a common interpretation of John, which was even included in the PBS defintion of "Logos philosophy" that I pasted. I'd heard a very plausible explanation for John chapter 1 that had nothing to do with this, and instead was a reference to a Jewish practice of not actually saying "YHWH" combined with the fact that YHWH is a pile of Hebrew letters and isn't going to translate into Greek at all. The theory went that people would say "the word" instead, and as the people in the region spoke Aramaic at the time, they used the Aramaic word for "word" in the same way. And therefore the author of John, writing in Greek to a Roman audience, was attempting to establish what pattern he was going to use in his book, and use the Greek "Logos" as a placeholder for YHWH. It sounds very plausible, but it has a few problems. First, it's far less sourced than the idea of John's "word" being an expression of Logos theory. Second, it's not actually incompatible. If anybody was using the Hebrew or Aramaic words for "word" as a placeholder for YHWH, they could very well have been using it in a Logos sense. More directly to your point. Two religions can share themes that can be independently derived. More than one group can see the negative (or positive) impact of certain narcotics and express a rule against (or for) its use. This is perfectly fair, and if that is what had happened, I would probably already hold the view you're suggesting. When we can trace when one religion directly influences another, however, it's a completely different game. Ancient Greek philosophy and ancient Hebrew philosophy were developed in similar time periods around the 7th-5th centuries BCE, but we see the overlap after they became part of the Roman empire. We see similar influxes of Zoroastrianism slightly sooner than 1st century, introducing concepts such as monotheism (early Judaism was henotheistic), angels, heaven, and hell. (Judaism had a place called "Sheol" that is translated as "hell" in modern English bibles, but was not a place of eternal torment, merely a final resting place for all of the dead. The christian view of hell was derived from Gehenna, which started as a literal place of torment, a valley outside of Jerusalem where child sacrifices were once held.) Some of these imported beliefs went to Judaism, some to christianity, and some to both. Greek culture infiltrated Israel through the Romans' influence, but Paul exported christianity to Romans on their home turf. The intermingling of ideas is a lot more pronounced at this point, and didn't stop after Paul was executed, or the much later very Roman-centric gospels were written. (The author of Matthew was definitely Jewish-centered, but still included some Roman ideas, including a direct reference to Hades. Mark and Luke were explicitly Roman-centric, and John was writing to a Roman audience.) These imported beliefs are not necessarily untrue. They are, however, not fundamental. And the conception of god as "perfect" is not only not fundamental, but not part of the bible. It was developed later.
It would have been interesting to hear the opinions of people outside of the context of Christianity. I know the host is an atheist, but he was raised Christian and still has that as a foundation for some of his thinking.
It would have been a very different discussion if Jesus or Buddha were there. No amount of arm-chair studying can equate to their wisdom, only life-long devotion to practice can come close. But then again, it's no guarantee their answers would be understood.
I’m a westerner so I am not completely without Christian influences but I have lived for 54 years not knowing anyone, almost not meeting anyone, religious. I find the problem of evil quite dull as it only applies to one specific version of one specific god. If it disproves that god then there are a thousand . others.
I have never heard a Christian reply to the animal suffering problem which hasn't made me want to scream. It shows the deep cynism or total indifference embedded in their godly worldview.
What kind of a response to animal suffering would make you not scream? I like your honesty so I'm just trying to better understand how you see "total indifference embedded in their godly worldview." Thanks. Peace
@@johnbrzykcy3076 I have NEVER heard a Christian even mention the problem with animal suffering and how to handle that problem from a Christian point of view. NEVER. That I interpret as indifference. Christianity is an anthropocentric worldview, animals don't seem to count. If I'm wrong the proponents of that worldview are doing a shitty job.
Once again, even though I’m Protestant with strong Catholic sympathies, I tend to relate more the Alex’s views on most things here. Like the issue on MLK vs. Racism. The fact that we agree that, if heaven exists, there’d be no racism there, proves that we think that the absence of evil is better than the overcoming of evil. I’m also ok with the idea of God “needing” to do certain things. Since God is a necessary Being, we already know that He “needs” His existence. Given Divine Simplicity, it’s easy to make a case for His needing many if not all the other aspects of what is. This needn’t at all detract from His omnipotence since He does in fact have the power to fulfil those needs. So in God’s case, needs are not weaknesses, they’re just His nature.
@@EnglishMike perhaps so. But I’m not presupposing that Heaven exists. Nor am I saying there’s no racism there. I’m saying that the fact that we suppose there would be no racism in a Heaven, shows that we value the absence of evil above the virtues of overcoming evil. Or perhaps we’d say that God’s virtue is so great that it perpetually overcomes evil, & that would be the greatest good.
Great discussion, this has given me quite a bit to think of… I do also think that something not spoken about in these conversations is where do we draw the line of evil? Is there no room for some sort of chaotic neutral? Because I don’t think the world is black and white, what also constitutes evil would be context, as what is evil for one person would not be for another. When I was a christian this is something that I found difficult to converse with any of my peers are the were of the belief that if it’s from god it’s good everything else is evil, which to me gave of the impression that they either didn’t think of the scope of good and evil or they did not want to give it much thought and were okay with someone else giving them the final answer I think this is definitely something that needs to be expanded upon before tackling the subject, as I believe once we can define evil we can further debate its plausibility or weather it actually has a purpose. Not sure if I made it make sense 😂
I liked that honest realization in the end that many religious ideas appear to be responses to problems humans have encountered in life. That shouldn't take away from whether or not those realizations are true though. I, for one, don't think they are, but I don't think so purely on this basis.
I'm always puzzeled when theists use the "God works in mysterious ways" line. Especially when they are also try to defend some fine tuning argument and they affirm that the probability of having our universe being created by chance is so low that it is unlikely. And they often dismiss the fact that we don't know if the constants could have been different. Great talk, thanks for sharint
To be honest, I'm a Christian and I do often seem to agree with the phrase "God works in mysterious ways." Yet the phrase does puzzle me too and I have doubts and questions. I appreciate your comments. Peace
@@BringJoyNow maybe. Maybe not. It's funny that this priest quoted this passage of Vilenkin's book but failed to mention Vilenkin's model for the begining of the cosmos. Worse, the BGV theorem is a theorem. Violate one of its hypothesis and it falls. I did not find a convincing answer. Not to me. Because we don't even know if the expression "before the Big Bang" is even sound.
"How can you possibly find joy in your partner's company if your neighbor isn't going through a divorce? How can you possibly enjoy the taste of food unless there are starving kids in Africa? How can you possibly enjoy not being enslaved unless..." People who need suffering to exist in order to feel joy are sick individuals.
They'll probably say yes, and they probably believe it too. To them suffering is like karma, if you endure it long enough then you will be rewarded for it. (in life or in heaven) It's sad that people would resort to fetishizing suffering to preserve their world view.
Yeah, We don't need egregious scales of suffering to have and value well-being, a life worth living, ignorance is bliss when it comes to not knowing how bad things can get, better those bad things never existed. In order to enjoy a meal, Do you need to know what rotten food smells and tastes like? No. Experience blindness to enjoy eyesight, deafness to value hearing? No. Knowing that we have modern technology that prevents food spoilage, and I'm free of blindness and deafness unlike more unfortunates, I may value and appreciate and not take for granted such things sure, but an ideal world is still where people all retain their eyesight and hearing which is what we are striving towards. The need to know bad to know good is a very poor argument and deeply flawed, we can point to many examples where all some know is bad their entire existence, there's no reason some could experience only overwhelming good. Also what about being born blind? I would say this is a bad without knowing the good of sight. There are those that enjoy the feeling of sunlight without knowing the sun rays can age you and skin cancer exists. A world where the sun doesn't cause skin cancer is a better world.
@@dawnguinto yeah, the belief...if you are rewarded, or compensated for suffering, for example let's say children who die at birth go to heaven, suffering animal and humans all compensated and made up for in the afterlife. If you had a whole life of only misery then in the afterlife it will be outweighed by an equal good. Well if someone subscribes to this idea that all bad evil suffering will be made up for with an equal good, then what's the point of stopping or preventing it? It doesn't matter apparently for the victim it will all be made right in the afterlife?
@@JD-wu5pf Holy fucking strawman, batman. I bet you think that Christians say atheists can't be moral without believing in God, too. The point is Joy wouldn't even exist at all without suffering. Idiot.
would you create a creature who gets stung by a bug once and suffers for 3 seconds but after that it only feels pleasure for eternity... intuitively i'd say yes but i feel like your view commits you to say you wouldn't... although saying yes isn't without problems because if its better to create that creature than not to, then its better to create as many of those creatures as you can, which in gods case infinitely. so if it was better for god to create us than not to, then you are gonna have to assume there are infinite numbers of human beings
@@smdb5874I wouldn't create that creature. Although I can't ground that choice in any objective way, it's just a personal revulsion to suffering in any amount
Im a christian and think alex is very very smart, and like his debates and i think meetings like this is really cool! At ya house maybe few drinks and just chat with multiple views.
Really appreciate the conversation. It would be interesting to see a group like this push to find areas of common ground in the future. How different are their goals for the human community? A few thoughts: 1. First, the theist position displayed here on compassion and bravery is so confusing. It just feels like a desire for spectacle. I really don't know how else to characterize it. It borders on Neitzche's rejection of an emasculating Christianity. 2. The notion that animal suffering isn't morally significant is strange to me as well. The only major difference between my experience of a severe burn and a koala's is that I can talk about it, language. I doubt theists want to make language use the measure by which to assess the moral relevance of a given organism's suffering. 3. I don't see why God can't intervene in a natural system. Trent just seems to assume that God can't be wildly proactive, as though it were totally incompatible with a regular universe to have a more activist creator. 4. Trent's defense against moral paralysis seems iffy to me. Can a free creature, with its limited knowledge, prevent an evil God was using to secure some much greater good? Would God prevent the prevention of the evil? If He would not, does that mean that there is gratuitous suffering?
To be fair, you could argue that there is a major difference between human and non-human animal suffering given by the fact non-human animals are not necessarily conscious about their own suffering like humans are. If I burn my hand I can say that I suffer more than a Koala because I can reflect about what I’ve lost, like the good things I could’ve had if I wasn’t burn. Yet I think the difference is insignificant to argue that animal suffering is not a concern. Yeah non human animals mostly only suffer only from physical pain (or perhaps some kinds of anxiety) yet the sheer amount of that supposedly “lesser pain” we see in the world should be enough to make it a concern, let alone the fact the humans also experience physical pain and intuitive know is not insignificant. I just don’t understand what how the theists think that’s a good answer.
@@juanibarravazquez4075 I think you're right in the sense that humans can introduce a unique kind of pain through rumination and the stimulus functions of language. But even that leverages the same nervous system. Cheers sir.
@@juanibarravazquez4075 There's 0 reason to believe the koala mourns it's loss and pain kess than you. And there's plenty of reason to believe it suffers more intensely and is less able to cope.
When you get rid of the concept of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-caring god who has scripted the universe from beginning to end, you've gotten rid of the problem of evil. In an emergent, unplanned, unscripted universe, evil from the human viewpoint is to be expected.
Yes. I've always wondered why so few people raise the possibility of god being at least partially malevolent, for whatever reason. The Catholic talks about animal suffering which is a good example, but his attempt to justify it just doesn't work imo. Is it absolutely essential that god is all-loving, all-powerful, etc.? Does the Christian god necessarily have to fit into what our definition of perfect is? The gods of many other civilisations certainly do not. I say this as an ex-Catholic athiest.
@@tonyd3433 I’m not sure about Christianity but in Islam it’s necessary because the Qur’an says it. Does the Bible not ‘allocate’ these attributes to God?
Exactly. The problem wouldn't even exist if no one was religious, nothing would even seem that out of sorts. Of course a bunch of social apes who evolved on a cruel world would be capable of acts across whatever moral spectrum they devised.
I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Just earned a new subscriber. I'm a theist, but I really enjoyed the dialogue. Alex and Trent did an amazing job contributing to the dialog, and I greatly admire Cameron's ability to listen. He didn't say much, but when he did speak, I think it was fruitful. A life skill many of us could learn from.
@@k7450 I specifically think his observation about their axiological presuppositions bringing them to a stop in the conversation because they would simply disagree based on their intuitions was helpful to bring the talk forward.
@@natebozeman4510 Yes, for the wrong reasons. It is good to put axioms on the table to see whether it makes sense to have the conversation in the first place. For example, if you think Faith is enough, there's no point in debating the existence of God. But in this case, he brought it up because his axiom was basically "the suffering and humiliation of millions due to slavery and racism was worth it because we got to see MLK!". How out of touch you have to be to say such a thing. Alex and Trent were the best contributors. The agnostic guy was mostly quiet but helped to move forward the conversation. And Cameron was just awful. The funniest part was his "oh so many thoughts I don't know where to start..." 29:00 as if he was ready to share a myriad of counter-arguments and he mumbled his way out while desperately hoping for Trent to take over. He had no answer. "Well I don't know... maybe we need to create some ad-hoc explanation like dogs can talk in Heaven... we need more resources, probably, Trent save the day please".
All of the theistic arguments I heard in this video seem to boil down to their god is so confined in how it can use it’s powers it is indistinguishable from a universe with laws (created naturally, dreamed up by a dragon or set on it’s path by a deistic god) and no theistic god.
I don't imagine that I'm the first to posit this question and if it isn't addressed in this or any of your other videos, I'd love to get your thoughts on it. If we accept that the problem of evil exists because we have free will, then the problem of evil becomes the problem of heaven. In a religion such as Christianity (which I grew up in) the faithful are said to be brought to heaven upon the end of their natural life, where there is no suffering, evil, etc. Evil, suffering, etc are the direct result of free will. This inherently means that to ascend to heaven is synonymous with no longer having free will. How do we reconcile that? That is the one big question that always plagued me about my faith growing up that I could never get an answer to. Does the choice simply become, believe and give up your free will upon death or spend eternity burning? I'd love to get your take on it.
So, what I know in Catolic Church, it is not that you lose free will once you go to heaven, but rather that once you get to heaven and start living with God and in His presence, you wouldnt want to do any evil anymore. Like heaven is not place with preconditions that there is no evil, but rather place with immense God presence and love. So when you got to heaven, that means you are aware that God decided that you were good enough for heaven, you can obsereve your Earthly life and all goods and evils in it and you are now talking and living with visible God that is present. I am not sure about next thing, but as I know you can still do evil if you want, like angels did once, but you woudnt want to because you can see your Earthly life and all the evil there and how much you suffered there and now you are finally over it, you now have God and love and happiness etc, so why would you choose to do evil and go to suffer in hell again. Cheers
@@petarivancic6482Even If ur point was condeded, like u said, how could the angels (including satan) and supposedly Adam and Eve (If real) be able to do evil, as they were deemed worthy of God's presence and infact were in God's presence. None of this makes any sense, not even with special pleading u can make this argument be logically consistent.
I believe that we still have free will in Heaven. Like, in Heaven, we still have the ability to do evil and to do good. But we won't do evil in Heaven because we won't have a sinful nature anymore.
This is the point that caused me to deconstruct basically if god created heaven earth and hell and gods ultimate goal the ultimate good is people in heaven then why create the capacity of hell and evil to begin with and if the Christian answers free will then they are placing free will above heaven in terms of importance to god or it my question is what value is there in a temporary mixed bag of a life on earth if there is a life in heaven that is unfathomably good why go through the motions of everything else
Wow you're dumb. No it isn't. The point is, we're not living in heaven, so of course there is gonna be evil. If there weren't any sort of evil at all, THIS would pretty much be heaven already. And in Abrahamic religions, God PURPOSEFULLY didn't have us start out in heaven, because we saw how it worked for Adam and Eve. They sinned in heaven, which is supposed to be a sin-free place. They desecrated it and every other human would have done the same. That's why humans aren't suitable to start off in heaven or in an evil-free world. They commit evil themselves
And what kind of heaven would heaven be if it was full of people doing evil things and desecrating it? Completely inappropriate and nonsensical. You're not allowed to sin in heaven and you only get into heaven in the first place if you're sin-free, forgiven by God. He forgives only the repentant, but he does so with ease and quicker than anyone else. So if God is so nice, why didn't he just bind the hands of evil doers here on earth? Well precisely because God is so nice. And evil doers don't do evil "by mistake or accident", they do it purposefully. He's not an evil North Korean dictator, the way atheists like to pretend that he is. That's just atheistic brainwashing. He doesn't throw you in hell the minute you step a toe out of line. You can curse his name, hurt other people and animals, do whatever you want, he's not gonna punish you in any sort of direct way. At least not in this life. He gives you an entire free life of respite with the freedom and free will for you to choose to live how you will, even if it's gonna be an evil life. You're supposed to be his representative on earth as a human with a higher intellect and authority than the animals. He put humans in charge of an imperfect world. Humans have the power to create something similar to a heaven on earth... or to a hell. He wills there to be a heaven on earth, so what kind of representative of God's will, will you be? He's hidden from you so that you'll show him for real what sort of person you are. There would be no atheists or any sort of evil doers if he wasn't hidden, and if he was an obvious dictator. In fact, if he was an active dictator, he would have to let pretty much every evil doer into heaven, because they would have never commited any actual crimes precisely because he was a dictator and was controlling their actions. More than that, we would already have heaven on earth because there'd be no diseases or natural disasters either. And no death and decay. Perhaps that's what atheists want here on earth, but it would be wrong because all the evil people would be in this heaven too.
It would be a fake heaven with God controlling everyone and noone being able to do anything they actually wanted to do. If he then also started controlling thoughts, we would no longer be human, but robots instead. The Angels are sort of like that because God commands them to do good, but not entirely because they have no desire for evil in the first place. But then... They're not human and have no creativity or authority over the world either. So they're not such a high creation as humans anyway. The way the world is, evil doers have no excuses on the day of judgment to say they wouldn't have done it, because they clearly did and they see the consequences of their actions for which they'll get punished... He doesn't let evil doers get away without any justice. Hence, hellfire. But nor would he ever WANT TO be an evil dictator... because he's not a fallible human. In the next life he's still not gonna be an evil dictator. In fact, the next life will be pretty similar to this. He won't always be there watching over you and correcting you, the way you imagine him to be like a dictator. It's not true. It won't be like that at all It will be a life like this, except free of work and adversity.
The difference will just be that hell will be apparent to you even if you're a person of heaven. And you can go visit it and see the people in hell who'll ask you to throw water and things from paradise down to them to ease their suffering. That's the difference. A life without death and without any evil, except for the fire that burns the wicked for whom there is no rest. Now you see why God allows evil. ...It's because it's human nature, a part of being human, without which we wouldn't be actual humans. And it's to justify why certain people should eventually be burning in hell. In order for that to take place justly, they need to have commited those deeds freely. He has given humans authority over an entire world. To show God what kind of person you really are, and to test the good people who should be fighting all adversity in the world, whether it's natural or man made, in order to create a better world, one which will be more like a heaven. That's Abrahamic religions. You clearly haven't understood them at all. Instead of asking the question of why there is evil, you might as well ask, why did God create humans in the first place. And the answer is to show his qualities of being the most forgiving and merciful of all (I. E. Heaven for sinners), as well as the most just (I. E. Hell for the unrepentant wicked). Without humans and with just angels who never do anything wrong, without the existence of human evil, he could never have shown those qualities in himself. That's of course in addition to creating humans to show that he is not the only one capable of creating a good world. Even a people without any special powers and with just hands and feet can create a better world out of an imperfect one, if they choose to be his vice regents on earth. In that way he created humans to show that only people who follow his will, will create a better world. Anybody who does the opposite is either misguided or wicked
@@marioluigi9599 When people bring a child into the world, it is most likely that he will end up being condemned to hell, which is established in the bible in Matthew 7: 13-14. “13 You can only enter the kingdom of God through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to hell; That is why many people prefer them. 14 But small is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and very few people find it." There is no way that as mere humans we can guarantee that if we have children they will go to heaven, so we will be responsible for allowing them to come into the world and then their future eternal torture in hell and damnation. Even those who try to search cannot because Satan, other evil religions, the world and the flesh itself are doing everything possible to condemn them to hell for eternity from the moment they are born. James 1:14-15 1 "14 But each one is tempted, when he is drawn away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then lust, after it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, being finished, gives birth to to light death. John 2:16: “men alienated from God governed by their passions, by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and by the pride of life” Luke 13:23-24. 23 Someone asked him, "Lord, are there few who are saved?" And he replied, 24 “Do your best to enter through the narrow gate, because I tell you that many will try to enter and will not be able to do so. Now if we as humans deal with this truth here on earth, and we are aware that except for terrible cases of abuse, every other conception and life that comes into the world is consensual in the intimate act, we cannot say that nobody forced us to bring children into the world, it was we ourselves who brought them into the world and if they end up being condemned, we would be part of that process since we could choose not to become intimate in the flesh, either in sin or within marriage. Being an omniscient God, that is to say, he has perfect wisdom and knowledge of what is going to happen and even despite knowing that most of the population was going to be condemned to hell, he allowed existence to continue even when he could have avoided all the pain and suffering of hell for the majority of his creation. First with Adam and Eve knowing that they were going to eat the forbidden fruit and then with Noah exterminating the world through the flood and saving his life and his family. Genesis 2:16-17 “16 Then the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat from any tree in the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you do, you will surely die.” Genesis 6:7 “7 Then the LORD said, “I will wipe the human being whom I have created from the face of the earth. I will destroy human beings, domestic animals, those that crawl on the ground and the birds of the sky because I am sorry I made them.” are you forced to bring children to the world? if you know 100% true fact that your child will end in the eternal torture of hell do you still have carnal desire with your partner knowing he will suffer on hell just for being born?
I know this isn't a strict logical argument, but the arguments against the problem of evil all feel incredibly post hoc. If the people who make them had the exact same morals as their god commands but weren't religious, then were given absolute power, there's no way any of them would be like "Yeah, I'm just going to let shit happen most of the time"
As a Christian, I think you're probably correct that super powerful but benevolent humans may have different approaches than God does, but adding omniscience and omnibenevolence complicates things, especially if God is largely interested in us growing and learning without frequent intervention
@@Sugarycaaaaaandygoodness I feel like you missed my point. My point is that I think people generally come up with theodicies because they want to justify their prior belief in a good god, and if they had to come up with how a good god would act from scratch if they didn't already believe in god. I'm commenting on the psychology of the believers, so I don't think your point about god being interested in us growing is relevant. That's an argument against the problem of evil, but I was making a statement more about how people engage with the problem than about the problem itself. My ultimate stance on the problem of evil is that I don't believe in objective morality, so no behavior from god would make god good or bad, even if the actions feel good or bad.
@@debrachambers1304 Fair enough! I think the project of us coming up with how a good God would act is limited in it's rhetorical and philosophical value though, for the reasons I mentioned
This is why minimizing suffering must be a fundamental value in the world. We all know that suffering is undesirable and therefore should not impose it onto other living beings.
"What would you do if you were God? What kind of world would you have if you are said God?" Same question as what do you want? Hypothetically good questions wrt to this context to clarify imo.
People who think evil is there to teach us lessons have been incredibly lucky to experience so little evil that they think its a game.
This.
Yep so often it is the case.
And following the reasoning, If either god born / automatically brought into existence or always existed with all knowledge, did he have to 'learn' anything or god just have ability of omniscience from the start?
It seems god didn't earn anything, and just inherited his powers and knowledge, the idea that God created evil to teach us lessons seems so narcissistic and privileged of god, just like the idea of the forbidden fruit from tree of knowledge, god created us in a purposeful state of ignorance and then punished us for our own ignorance of seeking knowledge from the tree.
And also isn't the bible supposed to be a lesson if so then why can't he also just communicate directly instead of creating evil as a lesson?
And if we're made in the image of God why not just be born with the knowledge, or be like jesus instead of some lesson that causes untold amounts of suffering?
And what if humans replicated and imitated gods actions in a simulated computer world? How would those beings view us? As immoral monsters, surely.
It's playing god perhaps do as I say, not as I do?
The idea of evil makes no sense, better a universe not exist then have evil and suffering.
I could ask you or them, would you accept having a lifetime of torture and misery imposed upon you, against your will, if it means a billion others will also come / be brought into existence get to experience the best orgasm and pleasures? Or choose not to endure that misery and therefore wouldn't bring that universe into existence?
Even 1 victim is a tragedy, that's their whole life, their whole existence, even if everyone else was happy doesn't change that. It's better if everyone was neutral balanced than polar opposite peaks of suffering and wellbeing.
Remember no one chose to be here it's imposed on us.
I'm under no moral obligation to exist and endure suffering if it would bring into existence countless humans to experience bliss and orgasms or whatever happiness. That state of suffering is my whole reality.
Suggesting people who draw lessons from evil have experienced very little evil in their personal lives could be an assumption my friend. No doubt many people, not just religious people, live in a sheltered middle class and upper-middle class bubble, but many of the world’s religious people including christians live in the third world where suffering, disease, war and extreme crime are a part of daily life.
@@wattlebough I strongly doubt poor people who live in suffering think of evil as a lesson. They just hope for a reward in the afterlife. That’s what makes Christianity so appealing and so difficult to “debunk”. If you’re rich and happy it’s because god approves of you, if you suffer don’t worry, you’ll get compensation in heaven.
Perhaps it’s just me but the problem of evil is only talked about by apologists. Never heard average believers worry or even know about it.
@@pansepot1490 Good points. Interestingly there are many verses in the Book of Ecclesiastes that talk about the wicked prospering and having lives of ease while the righteous groan and suffer. There are similar verses in the Book of Psalms including many attributed to King David of the Tribe of Judah. Even Jesus, also of the Tribe of Judah, promises that in this life you will have suffering. He then goes on to say “…but take heart. I have overcome the world…”
You’re basically correct regarding hope of reward. I wonder that this existence isn’t comparable to some kind of “matrix” construct where nothing, including human suffering, is actually real but like some kind of program, and reality comes when we die. It’s a mystery only those billions of dead who continue to go before us know the answer to. Every single one of the 8 billion people alive today will be dead 100 years from today and the lucky few who aren’t, around 20 years after that.
I rather have discussions like this than debates. This is so good.
👍
True.
This was disgusting, and speaks to how depraved the atheist community still is.
"The correct conclusion about the Bible is that it is the only true and accurate history of the Universe, whether you accept it, or not. The necessary component is faith to embrace spiritual matters, which are by divine ordination, beyond human ability to fully fathom…
(8) For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. (9) For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9 (KJV)
" Since the laws of physics are consistent throughout the entire spectrum of the Lord’s created majesty, the Lord Jesus Christ remains in control of every molecule in the approximate two hundred billion galaxies we know of and all other matter outside mankind’s field of discovery. Conversely, while mankind may recall historic events, and have desires for the future, we actually have very limited control over the fulfillment of those plans, and mankind’s solitary creation is the computer virus! The only time you have any measure of control over is this very moment, so what are you doing with it? You must question the sanity of any who would presume to equate the Lord’s Sovereignty with our stunted capabilities!" Ken Axelson "Thought for the Day"
Atheism has led people to a great dead end and emptiness, however, human beings are suitable to believe in God due to their existence, they seek help from a person who has infinite power, and people do not want to perish by nature, there is a desire to exist forever, most of the people believe in God, we will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment after death. And we will be held accountable. Those who do good will receive eternal paradise as a reward for their good deeds. Unbelievers cannot enter paradise. Is it better to receive great blessings in paradise forever or to burn in hell over and over again? The regret of the disbeliever is of no use. The last religion, Islam, tells us that Allah exists and is one. Prayer, fasting and It commands helping the poor and doing good to one's parents and relatives. It prohibits alcohol, gambling, adultery, slander, lying, etc.❤❤
"Sometimes I've seen animals in videos being ripped apart and they look so peaceful" Yea and I've seen cartel videos of drug dealers chain sawing each others legs off and they "look so peaceful", it's called SHOCK. It occurs during trauma and blood loss.
You make a valid point. Thanks.
Was gonna say the same thing.
Thank you! lol I was shocked he thought that was a good take.
So would you say going into shock is a good or bad aspect of creation? I think that was his point. That suffering is not all as bad as we make it it to be, and perhaps there are systems in place that reduce animal suffering already.
@@Jerome616 "perhaps" no need for a mechanism in the first place would be better. Shock is not necessarily peaceful or neutral either, it's just a consequence of trauma to the body.
I’ve not got all the way through this yet, but I feel compelled to acknowledge 10:27 when Trent had a potential counterpoint to make, but says something like “I don’t want to derail from the point you were making” was a touch of class. Often times these discussions fail to make ground because people talk past each other, and this is a great example of the kind of etiquette that can avoid such a problem.
real
Not a single coaster used. 4 different views, none of them respect wood.
maybe it's to say that no one respects someone else's wood as much as his own
HAHA
Even the ones that worship a carpenter.
A Catholic, Protestant, Atheist and Agnostic walk into a bar to discuss the problem of evil. The bartender picks up his shotgun and shoots the the atheist, the agnostic and the catholic. The Protestant (Bertuzzi) replies: 'Thank God things like these happen, now I can show compassion.'
Thanks for likes lol. But pls don't hate on Bertuzzi. It was a joke.
Best comment ive seen hahahahha
Lmfao
Atheists would claim "durrr doing thats wrong becuz i don't likez it, durrrr"! "Humans need to live and thrive becuz we want too, durrrr"!!!
@@ForLogicandReason-Mark1 for someone named logic and reason, you seem to be lacking these same qualities
@@jazeroliversy673 Oh really, how so, please tell. Make your argument. You can't just make some opiniated claim and expect THAT to prove you right. What have I said that's objectively inaccurate or incorrect??? I believe that I can logically debunk any mainstream atheist's argument here.
I really did try to like Cameron. I’ve listened to him talk on plenty of subjects, but I just can’t ever seem to agree with him on anything, and can’t even see where he’s coming from. I’m 1 minute in and he already has claimed that he thinks the world is better for having slavery and overcoming it than it would be for not having slavery at all, and that animals are sometimes at peace when they are violently being ripped to shreds. And to think this same guy wants to champion his position as the bastion of morality.
I totally agree. The guy made no sense at all to me or seem that moral.
Soooooo with you here.
Yeah after 40 seconds in and I stopped watching, why are they humouring such absolute fucking nonsnse
"How do you continue the conversation?"
You DON'T because his position makes no sense
The clips at the beginning obviously lack context. Such as Trent’s rebuttal of a non perfect God. At least try and hear him out instead of writing him off with some out of context clips.
I'm seeing a lot of comments on the quality of various arguments, but I just want to make sure we acknowledge how great it is to have 4 people with very different views on the topic discussing it in both a direct and respectful manner. Kudos to all involved on keeping everything friendly, despite how heated this topic can get (even just in the comments on this video).
Yo based af, always appreciate the sharing of diverse viewpoints, which is where the real strength of diversity lies.
Pluralism FTW!!!
@@easyaccessjeansWhat means “FTW”?
@@MMG-q1v for the win
Atheism has led people to a great dead end and emptiness, however, human beings are suitable to believe in God due to their existence, they seek help from a person who has infinite power, and people do not want to perish by nature, there is a desire to exist forever, most of the people believe in God, we will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment after death. And we will be held accountable. Those who do good will receive eternal paradise as a reward for their good deeds. Unbelievers cannot enter paradise. Is it better to receive great blessings in paradise forever or to burn in hell over and over again? The regret of the disbeliever is of no use. The last religion, Islam, tells us that Allah exists and is one. Prayer, fasting and It commands helping the poor and doing good to one's parents and relatives. It prohibits alcohol, gambling, adultery, slander, lying, etc.❤❤
This is so awesome. Debates have their place, but I think truth is more readily found when people are just discussing like this. I don't think I've seen content like this, or at the very least, I've only seen it rarely.
Please do more of these.
In order for you to feel good about having hands, you need to light them on fire every now and again. The pain of flaming hands will remind you how nice it is to not have them burn; therefore, burning hands are necessary- Cameron’s argument against not burning your hands.
That is great for showing the flaws in this argument
Really love this format, just sitting round a table with clip mics having a coffee and a thought provoking conversation.
@LM yes, have you?
@LM 3, didn't want to put myself or the people around me at risk.
@LM 😂😂 You mean the lord jesus christ that gave everyone covid in the first place?
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
@@joannware6228 Didn't God create man in his own image? 🤔
In a world where bravery and evil doesn't exist, bravery can be seen as a good thing, but it's more of a reaction in spite of evil. When evil terrorizes all of us every day, I can personally say bravery is the least of my concerns. I don't want a brave child with stage 4 bone cancer. I want a child with no bone cancer without the medal of bravery.
That's a great point. I think we generalize these arguments far too much that it makes it incredibly impersonal. When we make these ideas more personal, we realize how implausible some arguments can seem.
@@Tyler-hk4wo we do run the risk of appealing to emotions when we personalise/personify the arguments, but I agree wholeheartedly with the overall point. Saying that a world that has racism/evil in general is "more valuable" so that there can be a concomitant good to conquer it is like saying "it's better to develop alcoholism so you can develop the will to overcome it" rather than never having alcoholism at all.
You can be phobic of bananas and incredibly brave when confroting a banana or even touching it. The phenomenon of bravery doesn't require evil in this instance.
@@darylhiggs9100but would still require fear/suffering.
@@UNTrumpet yeah I was thinking this last night actually that the evil "act" would be the fear bestowed onto the banana fear-er
There’s nothing more evil than the idea that someone else should suffer without meaning to make my like feel more meaningful.
And this is fundamentally where the abrahamic perpspective of god falls apart when in regards to the justification for evil
Take a step further and look at the animal kingdom. So many animals suffer so we can keep warm, eat, stay healthy, stay clean, commute to work, etc.
@@brotherben4357 Correct. Humans contributed to natural selection because that's how our universe works. Survival of the fittest.
We're finally getting to the point where humans can thrive with less and less suffering caused to other animals, and that's indisputably a good thing...
It would have been an even better thing to not create a system where suffering is inherent, though.
Yes 100% this. Even if I get meaning out of other peoples suffering, it still makes the disproportionate suffering completely and utterly unfair.
@@JD-wu5pf What is that system, mate?
It's so refreshing to be able to see a discussion like this be able to take place on the internet. I think that Christians like myself as well as atheists are growing tired of the hostility that has been stirred regarding these topics over the years. Thank you Alex, Cameron, Joe, and Trent for promoting these kinds of conversations and I look forward to more in the future.
I agree. And although sometimes the words and phrases go "over my head," I still try to listen carefully. I'm a Christian believer but I don't have all the answers. In fact, the more I learn, the less I know ! Peace
Agnostic here. And I fully agree. Nice to see civil discourse about such matters.
Do Bitter People Become Atheists Or Does Atheism Cause Bitterness?
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
That the sun will come up tomorrow is a scientific prediction. It is not a certainty. If God decides to stop it, it will stop.
Seriously this conversation felt like 10 minutes. Keep doing this!
I personally prefer this format.
All the questions these gentlemen pose are answered in the Bible & "The Problem of Pain" by C. S. Lewis. However finding the answers wouldn't be as glorious & profitable & would take hard work.
Honestly in my opinion Alex and Trent Horn have put forward 90% of solid ideas in this conversation.
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
This was a great conversation. I like how open you all are to the other's thoughts. I would love more of this.
A Catholic, Protestant, Atheist and Agnostic walk into a bar. The barman asks, "so what will it be?". The Catholic asks for a glass of red wine, the Protestant asks for a beer, the atheist wants to be rationally minded so sticks to drinking water, and the agnostic cannot make up his mind. So the atheist turns to ask him "so what are you having?", to which the agnostic replies "an existential crisis....."
Does that have Vodka in it?
Lol good one
😂 thanks for sharing. Pretty good!
Then a Muslim walks in and says, "Sorry, I thought the sign said PBUH"
Protestant asks for grape juice would be funnier
What a delightful conversation! Love the format too, so hopefully you continue this whole aspect of sitting with the guys over a cup/mug and hashing a topic out. Love it, and big thanks to everyone at that table for their contributions!
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
Love this! I'm an athiest and watch all your videos. I also watch Trent Horn's videos from time to time. I grew up a very strong Catholic (I actually considered becoming a nun as a teenager) so watching his views on God and Catholicism with new eyes is very interesting. This is great!
I also grew up in the Catholic religion and I wanted to be a priest. I don't know why that desire faded away ( I guess for various reasons). I watch different channels about Christianity, Islam. reality, atheism etc. I even like to watch videos about elephants. Some of the most compassionate and caring animals seem to be elephants. Peace to you
Extra Ecclesiam Nulla salus
One of the most edifying discussions on this topic that I’ve heard. Please do more with these guys!
"You being oppressed all your life and dying horribly and unfairly is worth it because someone might write a play about it later that makes me cry" is a pretty wild way to justify suffering.
Yeah that's a wild argument, kinda like the guy that said racism is fine cause it's more interesting and gave us MLK.
@@Keviamaya All these people are youtube hacks, except Trent Horn. What do you expect from this bunch? They spent an hour talking about animals who lived 100 million years ago and their deep suffering while avoiding the topic of human suffering.
You just described Jesus Christ. The very purpose of religion is to answer the problem of suffering.
@@dvforever This is a terribly ignorant take.
@Donetsk People's Republic What would a god's opinion on our value matter. For instance, if I created artificial intelligence, does it have meaning based on the idea of my opinion that it has value?
If I create a matrix like world and am able to give sentience to all the beings in that world, do they get meaning because I say so?
How this Cameron guy can espouse these sort of positions with so much confidence is astounding!
Cameron thinks of himself as a classic philosopher....and is on the verge of crossing the Tiber.
@@cheechak481 No better home than Rome baby.
It really is astounding. I think the guy, not trying to demean him as I don't think he'll ever read this, is very low functioning, from a cognitive standpoint. The points he makes are so insultingly dumb that it's quite obvious he has not given serious thought to any of them. Either that, or Dunning Kruger is alive and well with this one.
It is perplexing to me though and I do spend a fair amount of brain cycles on how someone as 'accomplished' as he believes himself to be, can hold such horrific opinions. I guess you just chalk it up to cognitive dissonance and prioritizing the culture, ritual, etc. over the actual truth. Still, at the bottom of it all, it's disappointing.
The contrast between he and someone like Alex though, is so stark, it's a bit embarassing.
@@TechTab00 As a Christian, I strongly agree sadly. I like his UA-cam channel since it serves as a platform for discussion but
my goodness are his points just so terrible. I prefer other Christian apologists against atheism such as Testify and InspiringPhilosophy
Welcome to Protestantism
41:40 This is because animals don't need complex facial expressions, sounds, and body language as much as humans need these.
Being less social and more independent, they experience their pain and pleasure more internally.
Humans are different because our young ones HAVE to be dependent on the adults. We can't even walk as soon as we're born. We quickly learn to be loud, frowning, attention-seekers.
Wild animals have less utility (and therefore less evolutionary pressure) for these adaptations.
Exactly. An animal’s external signaling in response to pain depends upon almost entirely upon that species social structure. Apes like us are some of the most social species known and have evolved multiple ways of signaling pain.
@@mrmaat - that plus the animals are pinned down, exhausted and in shock.
even with this being said, animals absolutely do not seem peaceful when they're being torn apart. IDK what's up with Cameron.
Humans are definitely not the only social and altricial animal..
Alex’s response to the idea that evil exists so that certain goods can exist is great. I’ve often thought the same thing, although haven’t ever articulated it that well.
As Benjamin the donkey in Animal Farm puts it: “God gave me a tail to keep away the flies, but I’d sooner have had no tail - and no flies.”
You'd sooner have nothing at all at that rate.
Why is nobody addressing the fact that evil and suffering is all a consequence of our decision to disobey God in the first place. And free will is necessary for us to have a real relationship with him.
@@laureelohnes4231Interesting take, let me see If I understood correctly, any suffering comes as a consequence of doing bad? So every person deserves what they go through
Like cancer, genes mutations, abusive parents, babies getting killed, etc
@@BlueCoore The atheist must realize that it may well be the case that God has sufficient reasons to make a world in such a way that it would be suffused with natural and gratuitous evil. In the case of Christianity, such sufferings may be so because only in such a world may people have the courage and strength to draw to Christ and bring about as much people as possible to His kingdom.
No atheist can, nor ever will prove that God doesn't have sufficient reasons for allowing the suffering in the world, deserved or undeserved, purposeless or purposeful. This is the intellectual problem of evil.
But I think for most people, this is an emotional problem. They just can't accept a god who permits such actions. But if it is true that God has sufficient reasons, then the facts override such emotional inclinations to reject God.
@@necessaryevil6636 I see, then I wonder how free will would work in such case, I mean no wonder, that’s what everyone wants to know haha, unless they are enjoying themselves enough to not question this chronically
11:59 - Cameron's escape from the problem of evil is, as expected, to assert that God does things which are most "valuable" (whatever that even means) rather than things which are most "loving", which most people understand to mean something like, "caring for the wellbeing of others". Cameron is tacitly admitting that God is NOT all-loving, since God often abandons the "loving" option in favor of the "valuable" option. And what does "valuable" even mean here? It sounds like Cameron is saying that God wants some things more strongly than he loves his creation... which is not what the term "all-loving" would otherwise suggest.
I mean, God routinely sends people to a realm of infinite torture. Even if theists could somehow prove God is all loving despite the evil and suffering in this world, they'd still have to explain how an all loving god can create a moral system that condemns the majority of people to infinite torture. It's ludicrous.
@@JD-wu5pf God doesn't send people anywhere. It's those people the ones that stray from God. The Bible says that we must think of God as our father, and your father will love you unconditionally until the end and he will do anything for you, but if you grow up and start doing drugs, stealing money from your father, beating him, calling him names, you never visit him, you tell all your friends that your father is a piece of crap... well, if many years later you go to his house you might find the door is closed, and you can't accuse him of not loving you enough. The good news is the Bible teaches us repentance, so you can go to your father, ask him for forgiveness and he will open the door for you. If you're an Atheist this might not make sense, but that's how a religious person would think and that's why they wouldn't find your argument convincing.
@@hullie7529 God does send people to Hell. He is omnipotent and omniscient. If he didn't want people in Hell, he either didn't have the power to stop them from going or he didn't know they'd be going. If people end up in Hell, it is because God wanted them there.
"You must think of God like a father (except in cases where I decide he is mysterious and infinite and not at all like a father)". My father would do everything in his power to stop me from throwing my life away. If I still threw my life away, it would be because my father didn't know what actions to take to prevent it from happening. Is that God's problem? That he doesn't know how to make me believe in him? Or is he simply not powerful enough to take the actions required? Or are there no actions that can be taken for him to make me believe? If there aren't, he created me knowing I'd go to hell. Also, my father is human and so there are limits to his love. God claims to be all loving, so you can see how "abandoning someone to eternal punishment" might conflict with that alleged attribute.
Religious people routinely try and justify infinite punishment for billions of people. Respectfully, I don't give a fuck what they find convincing. They aren't thinking rationally at that point.
@@JD-wu5pf I'm not sure I agree with the notion that if you throw your life away it's your father's fault because he didn't take the right actions. Specially if you live away from your father in another country thousands of miles away, which is what Atheists do with God in this analogy. If your issue is that "God could do more to prevent it", then you're just throwing your own expectations to God. But this is also bad logic because I don't think you operate in the same way in your personal life, so that if any of your friends doesn't behave exactly how you expect them to behave you don't consider them your friend.
@@hullie7529 You just aren't thinking rationally. God is all powerful. He's all knowing. He exists "beyond space and time". I don't live "far away" from God, he literally is everywhere, all the time, and has infinite power and knowledge.
I'm not "throwing expectations" onto God, these expectations are coming from theists who claim he's all powerful and all knowing and all loving.
If I had perfect knowledge that my friends were going to die in a drunk driving accident, and I was omnipotent, I could stop them from dying in said car accident. Further, if I *didn't* stop them from dying in said car accident, I am to blame for their deaths. I had the ability to prevent it, preventing it would have cost me nothing, and I chose not to. Do you think their families, upon learning that I let their loved ones die horrifically, would say that I loved my friends? What if I told them that I really really valued free will? Of course not. An all-loving entity would intervene and prevent all of that needless suffering.
God can't be all powerful, all knowing, all loving, AND send people to hell. He either needs to lose one of those attributes or he needs to stop sending people to hell.
For those who don’t want to watch the whole thing. As problems are raised, the apologists further limit Gods abilities so as to justify all suffering.
Lol, just here to read the comments. Thanks for the synopsis.
Yea. I'm currently halfway through, and the arguments, paraphrased, currently are "maybe God can't make a world without natural selection / predation / disease"
@@DanDan-eh7ul yeah dude or it’s Calvinism (we don’t know if it’s gods plan that we intervene or not, so we might as well intervene)….so dumb
God gets weaker and weaker.
And the Atheist talks about the problem of evil without defining what evil is at any moment. If you don't believe in a moral standard there's no right or wrong.
So black people getting lynched is just a character building exercise for those who didn't get lynched. They were just props in someone else's story.
Seems like Main Character syndrome to me.
"Trust me, a rich, straight, white man. Everyone else suffering is vital to me being able to process what happiness is."
What a sociopath, honestly.
You understand that the etymology of person is someone that puts on a mask to play a part?
@@christopherlin4706 Is that a reference to something?
@@xensonar9652 no literally. But the as you like it monologue is referenced as well
@@JD-wu5pf as someone who is most likely somewhere on the sociopath spectrum, I find Cam's take on this disturbing. I may be able to do certain things and experience no emotion about it, but that's a dismissal of suffering I could not cope with.
Thank you, for this rich format of discussion on A Catholic, Protestant, Atheist and Agnostic Discuss the Problem of Evil
This is wonderful! Hope more of this happens.
Planned Parenthood only has one plan kill the baby.
t's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, who they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
I'm 40 seconds in and I'm already suprised by Cameron's argument. This is gonna be a doozy.
Glad to see I’m not the only one.
A Catholic, Protestant, Atheist and Agnostic walk into a bar to discuss the problem of evil. The bartender picks up his shotgun and shoots the the atheist, the agnostic and the catholic. The Protestant (Bertuzzi) replies: 'Thank God things like these happen, now I can show compassion.'
And the dooziest thing about it is that Cameron believes in moral realism which states that humans have a moral obligation to not do evil which includes not being racist/promoting racism/wanting racism to exist, so he's inadvertently contradicting his own moral framework by claiming to want to live in a world in which racism exists just cause it can lead to a "greater good".
yup
@@Lukaaas146 And all he needs to do is ask the ol holy trinity blokes for forgiveness and voi la, ticket to heaven still valid. It's sadistic poison.
Most entertaining how badly the theists seek affirmation from Joe.
Cameron sort of seems like he's in the wrong weight class here.
It's so feasible that God could have created a natural system where all animals ate non-sentient food, or a natural system with a lower rate of re-production, so less predation was necessary. He chose not to...
To say a world where slavery never existed is worse than a world where slavery was overcome is absolutely absurd. The only reason to opt out of reason here is because of an emotional commitment to theology. Classy not to call them out on this, but to be religious is to have such a commitment. I would not rather see evil defeated, because for an alarming number of people, evil won..dramatically.
Alex's strongest point is in the segment following around 50:00.
Yeah what happened to all that magical “manna” god rained down on the Israelites? Couldn’t he have given every being that free magic food?
@@areyoujelton Ha! This is why it's so important to manage those energy/manna resources when playing mmos.
Alex didn't even bring up the disparity between what Abrahamic religions usually claim, and what Trent is saying. Respect his will to stay on topic. Trent seems to (I could be wrong) claim that God is responsible for the natural world we're in, but doesn't intervene in it actively. It would be a very odd church that would teach that..
According to Jewish/Christian theology, God did create that perfect world and we know it as the Garden of Eden, and the suffering in this current world is because of the original sin, not because it was part of God's original design.
Agreed. I’m surprised Alex or Joe didn’t hint at the emotional attachment part.
@@hullie7529 why is eating from a tree a sin ? And why is such sin bad ? And why do we humans who have nothing to do with eve's and adame's choice suffer the consequences of their actions ?
What a charitable and open minded discussion! I hope exchanges like these may raise the level of discourse between believers and non believers overall.
Pain, Suffering, & Death:
"Abortion in America has contributed to the greatest decline in black population since the first black slaves arrived in the Americas in the 1600s. According to U.S. census data, there were 18,871,831 black American citizens in 1960. Since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, abortion has killed an estimated 20 million black babies - more than the entire black population of 1960."
by Catherine Davis and Bradley Mattes | February 28, 2020 01:18 PM Washington Examiner
How long do we need to discuss the obviously unjustifiable? How long do we need to discuss the obviously absurd before condemning evil?
christianity will lose it’s political influence
More of this please, I thoroughly enjoyed this discussion. The absence of ego was very zen
Could watch something like this for hours! Really great conversion with great participants.
I've always wondered how religious people actually make sense of the world. Difficult indeed, trying to imagine agency behind everything, and not only that, trying to interpret that agency. Great talk.
And then imagine perfect benevolence and infinite wisdom behind it all.
This makes me think that maybe the creator of this reality is a tortured artist hahahahahahahaha
Former xtian, that part was easy enough, since we have these big brains capable of a lot of imagination. The hardest part was actually questioning my own beliefs. Being raised in religion, taking those baby-steps to even surmise the possibility there is no God felt like a huge sin.
@@joe19912 As a committed christian myself, I find it very easy to imagine a world without God. I struggle to fathom how many christian minds are so limited in this regard. It’s very easy to see this from an atheistic and evolutionary point of view.
This makes the conversation around evil all the more interesting to me. When we talk about the coexistence of God and evil the atheist line takes the shortest route of blaming God for evil, but remember lads and lasses, god doesn’t exist. Therefore all we have left is evil and nobody to blame for it. It just is. (Correction: if a god or gods do not exist we have nobody to blame for the existence of evil human behaviour - except **ourselves** .) If anything it can only represent a flaw in the evolution of life on earth. Why waste your time surmising on a fictitious god’s weakness or inherent evil if that god is a figment of somebody else’s imagination? You’re losing time developing your own understanding of the existence of evil and the human condition minus a deity.
@@joe19912 I'm there right now. Whenever something bad happens to one of my loved ones or me, I wonder if I'm being punished for questioning whether God exists.
I need more of this. PLEASE PLEASE do a second one! So many great insights!
There really is a difference in evil and suffering. Evil requires intent. Suffering requires only existence. I know this doesn't eliminate the idea of a god that would create suffering, but I feel that the lack of distinction is problematic.
This is the problem. Evil is an invention to describe actions that are bad but we know things are not that simple. People do bad things because they are mentally ill, cannot control their anger, kill to survive and so on. Suffering is just a brute fact of nature which is perhaps and probably most likely, predetermined.
Yes, exactly. And evil requires intent, but even intentions are caused by natural conditions same as suffering. This really begs the question; what are good and evil? This question will lead to a greater understanding rather than accepting what we already think they are and trying to make a worldview prematurely.
@@nathanwood5977 I think there is more nuance than that.
To the mind of the person we might describe as 'mentally ill', their actions have a benefit to them whether it be achieving a particular goal that is of entirely subjective benefit or that they enjoy a particular hormonal rush from actions. It could along the lines of indulging the requests of the 'voices in their heads' to either receive praise from or to silence them which would make that individual feel the outcome was a positive one.
EDIT: Rewording as I've essentially repeated a point!!
It is only the victim or the observers of the actions that may describe the act as having been 'evil' as they do not receive any of the perpetrators perceived benefit and are aware of the negative effect that the action may have on another person or group of people.
@@LittleMAC78 Yes, absolutely.
Perhaps it’s better to think about this discussion in terms of pleasure and suffering. I think making that distinction doesn’t change the discussion but it does feel more precise.
“I’d rather have racism so we can have MLK” is CLEARLY the take of someone who doesn’t personally suffer from racism.
Well to Cameron's credit he does have a black wife but still he sounds stupid saying that
@@Cassim125 I mean having a black wife doesn't necessarily mean you personally suffer from racism or don't harbor implicit or even explicit racist beliefs yourself. Lol
@@myjciskate4 Every night i stay awake thinking how i could have been a better ally for my black queen ✊🥺
@@myjciskate4 Lol well i was giving him the benefit of the doubt having black wife and all she must have shared some racist incidents to him but regardless thats just one case brought up. You can use any example cancer vs cancer research, broken leg vs surgery, pain vs painkiller, crime vs brave police etc
That’s not what he said. He’s arguing that a meaningless existence is far worse than one where evil exists.
These believers always sound to me like battered wives: “He really does it for my own good. So I’ll learn.”
Yes
So on point! “He loves me so much, but if I don’t do what he says he gets real angry and sends me to the burning place forever...”
“He also loved me so much that he created me knowing I’d be imperfect and then self-sacrificed himself, as his son mind you, to learn how to forgive the creation he made.”
I get the sentiment of your comment from an unbeliever’s perspective. A more charitable analogy would be a parent allowing their children to make their own choices, learn from the consequences, and then grow as an individual.
@@MapleBoarder78 To me that falls apart a little as someone with a child in my house there’s still things you stop them from doing. Don’t drink bleach, don’t go outside at night alone, and I will stop you if you try so you wont get hurt.
3:23 If you think the problem of evil is not a big hurdle then you have not suffered enough
It’s not a logical problem for the existence of God
@@-Ahmed8592 It's a logical problem for existence of God that is all-powerful and all-good.
Cameron saying hundreds of years of slavery and racism is worth it so one dude can be brave enough to stop it just shows how out of touch he is
ya, myopic af
yeah that's an insane take
That isn’t what he said lol, just re listen to the video. He’s saying that he agrees MLK and racism is a necessary component in the human experience.
More broadly, without the “evil” there wouldn’t be the pleasures of experiencing the good.
He bit that bullet on the slavery example to remain consistent, and I see no issue
If you didn't want to experience all of the facets of evil or witness it or read about it in the annels of history, you could time travel back to the time of the garden of eden and convince eve not to eat the fruit. Then we wouldn't be having this disscussion.
@@tecategpt1959if you have to “bite the bullet” to “remain consistent” that means someone found a hole I your position and you were unwilling to admit and accept tht
Alex I notice a few recording things that I am happy to help you with if ever needed as a mixing/mastering engineer.
1. The floor noise is pretty loud and can get a bit distracting
2. volume in general is pretty low ( hard to hear during my workout at the gym with music in the background)
3. Joe is hard to hear and could be boosted when he speaks.
Once again, happy to go through it as a volunteer. Love the vids take care!
Cool job! Hope he sees it!
I did not hear any floor noises and I can hear everybody's voice very clearly. It could be your headphones or your blue Bluetooth.
everybody's voice was very clear And I was able to hear them very clearly. without headphones or bluetooth. maybe try listening to it again but without extra equipment just your phone.
@@lissam8988 I had trouble hearing as well and I've been on UA-cam, via my phone most the day.
What a kind offer you made. Obviously a believer ...in the FS Monster.
Almost a textbook example of an offering someone watching healthygamer would make :D Was I right?
I'm still theistic, but I've been followed to CosmicSkeptic for a very long time because he makes a good argument about a lot (if not all) of things... Keep making videos, brother. :)
I have found that most theists have to avoid this topic like the plague to feel good about God. If you are honest and not sociopathic there's no way you can tackle this issue and not feel disgusted and disturbed at this deity. Its also so easy to sit in ivory tower and talk about theoretical suffering but dive into real life sufferings and see how difficult it is
@@Cassim125 I do feel "disgusted and disturbed" by this issue of evil and suffering but so far I can't blame God. I've had cancer during the past 15 years and sometimes the side-effects from treatments make me ask "why?" and "What is the good that comes from this?"
I know that many people have much worse suffering and I often wonder how they survive. What keeps them going?
I like your honesty and I don't have the answers. I wish I did. Peace to you
@@Cassim125 I was born in a 3rd world country... I know exactly how difficult it is... I wouldn't be enjoying what I have right now, had I not thought of God and my family when I got really close to committing suicide.. Also, deity, by the first definition I looked up, was pertaining to those polytheistic beliefs.. which is a lot different than what I believe... feeling "disgusted" at this diety, makes you an anti-theist theist. If you actually believe they don't exist, why get disgusted?
@@SkaiHero you are obviously very new to the subject of apologetics seeing how literal you define deity only in a pagan way. I will tell you to read my original comment properly. The problem of evil isn't about God's existence.
From an internal POV you have to be sociopathic to not be disturbed at such a God given the tons of sufferings.
@@johnbrzykcy3076 did god think of what would happen before creating the world. Did it know all the suffering that would occur ? Why couldn't it create ppl in heaven from the start ? Why couldn't it create nothing instead of suffering?
Ask these and you realise if there's a god it is to blame. Many also say god compensates sufferers with heaven. Compensation implies an offence, a crime, a mistake ie god is not morally perfect
I love to see you entering into dialogue (dialogos?) With people from other worldviews. This is the way forward for better understanding
Fantastic conversation, thanks to the four of you, greatly appreciated 👍
this was so well edited to make me feel like i was at the table
If there were a god, and he were omnipotent, he could make a world with no evil and populate it with people who appreciated the fact that there was no evil in the world. Any other theoretical world with a god posits a really sadistic god.
or a god who does have perfect intent but lacks full control - but you knew that already
Lol with your tiny mind we have been given freedom the free world only exists thanks to the bible that's a fact and free thinking advanced science.
But look at the new religons veganisum or infinite gender theory where gender is a feeling outside of biology like a spirit or socialism all are oppressive and the damage yet the atheists believe they are morally superior and are willing to use force for there beliefs on everyone else.
Telling you what you can do eat and even think denying science as bigoted.
Look at China committing genocide north Korea a slave nation both atheist USSR before they went back to Christianity mass genocide.
Free will means people will do evil thing's and without the bible it's oppression and suffering.
Look at a bacteria to us huge gap in intelligence to God we are almost the same to say the difference is trillions of times more intelligent than us from bacteria is still nowhere near infinitely more intelligent so it might look bad to you but that's not the same as bad.
In the Americas cannibalism was normal same in Africa it wasn't morally wrong to them
@@LordXalad the god you describe is not omnipotent.
@@TomJudson Yep, exactly my point
@@LordXalad Gotcha.
As a "coloured" South African human being (not animal) who grew up during Apartheid, I was so taken aback by that Martin Luther response 🤣 Like wow.
It basically implies that people SHOULD try to commit murder because it gives opportunities for heroism, bravery, courage, etc and that makes it totally worth committing murder. That logic is insane.
@xuvial1391 haha god really wants the world to not to be boring.lol
We're all animals
All my respect to anyone who will sit down and constructively converse with those of different opinions. Thanks so much for this.
Something of which most atheists hate to do. They love to make claims without evidence and expect everyone to take their word for it. Theists do the same thing too, but mainstream atheists are another side of the same coin.
I lack in much intellectual ability ( due to cancer? ) but I also respect this type of conversation. I think strong arguments against those with different opinions/worldviews is the wrong approach. Respect to you
Today "the problem of evil" in god's existence perspective is very relevant. Today we have a war in Europe. And people praying for victory to a god ... Praying for help to demolish the enemies... And Russian Orthodox church says that "God is on our side"...
It's terrible 😔. Especially for people who have relatives on both sides.
I'm atheist from Russia - aggressor country...
Atheism itself implies no morality, NOR does science. So what's to replace morals since god doesn't exist? Logic and reason? What logic/reason dictate that humans NEED to exist or OUGHT to be respected objectively? That's the philosophical problem that atheists don't care to solve. In fact, you all irrationally think it isn't even a problem, because you're fine with popular thought as long as its whatever YOU want.
Russia is not the agressor, America is.
@@notsponsored103 ,invading in to neighboring countrie is a fact of aggression. USA do not invade in Ukraine nor Russia. So in this case I don't understand what do you mean. Statements must be based on facts. But you use empty slogans.
@@Uskov_OlegRussia is defending itself against NATO aggression.
Pro war U.S military and energy industry stake holders have used Ukraine by proxy to bring another endless war into foreign territory and enrich themselves at the cost of human lives on both sides.
This bogus and unnecessary war is completely the product of American billionaires seeking control of European assets.
Zelensky is a puppet of the western ruling class.
@@notsponsored103 , sorry, but you repeat exactly what our Russian propaganda conveys to us every day. The conspiracy theories of the "West" against my country do not have reliable facts and are based on conjectures that do not withstand critical analysis.
More of this kind of convos please 🙂 Also, talk to Jonathan Pageau one to one.
Did I miss them state and agree on the definition of evil? That's a pretty important distinction.
This was a good conversation with a fantastic wrap up. Well done, and like many have already said, I hope to see more of this! 🍻
I think the most key point to push back against people who argue something like, for example, racism is necessary is to ask what of all the people who have no choice in being brave or great to overcome such a thing? All the people who spend their entire lives trapped and locked down by such things- and no matter how great they may have been in another context- never have the chance to prove themselves because of this oppressive situation?
If the plan of God was to produce bravery and heroics- he is doing a shit job of it since he requires so many people to never have a chance to show these virtues he supposedly values more than keeping people happy.
+
Well that's an extremely demeaning idea of what it means to "prove" oneself.
@@jonathanstensberg This is under the assumption that a God is attempting to bring out these traits in humans.
I, personally, don't think any life is worthless or that anyone needs to have a purpose or "goal" in life- so long as they enjoy it and don't make things worse for others on purpose. Granted that's more of a moral view on things.
Take for example a slave born into early America, never taught to read, sold at a young age and killed for a perceived slight against their "masters" in their teenage years. There are many stories like this or worse that actually happened, after all.
In the view that God is doing this to bring out people like Martin Luther King Jr., those people *never* had the opportunity to *become* like MLK jr. Their lives were not their own, and they could not be brave, they could not be heroic, their flames were simply extinguished.
Even I, a flawed human, can come up with better ways to bring out bravery in humanity than the sacrifice of hundreds of *millions* of people who simply didn't have the chance.
@@KodyackCasual I still think this is a pretty demeaning notion of what makes someone a great person, or whatever terminology you want to use. MLK obviously did great things and exhibited excellent virtue (though obviously not without his own faults), but limiting greatness to the archtype of an MLK-esque figure is a pretty dim view of what it means to have a fulfilling or noble or worthwhile life.
A no-name slave forgotten to history who suffered a short life of cruel oppression who managed to live a charitable life of self-sacrifice and generous service to others lived a far greater life than most of the great figures of history. It's pretty demeaning to tell oppressed peoples that they are ipso facto incapable of living good lives unless they manage to become world-historical figures.
@@jonathanstensberg ....
So you just assumed the no-name slave had a charitable or self-sacrifical life?
How? How would they have the chance to even begin to do that?
Look, as I said, every person's life has value and worth. You are conflating the ideas of a so-called God with me, which is frankly hilarious.
Did I say anyone needed to be like MLK jr. to be a great person? No. No I did not.
Take a second and actually think about what i'm saying here will you? If a God wishes to bring out this "greatness" through suffering, it requires many people never get a chance to be great in the current model. They never have a choice, they never could be. Let's go to disease researchers for instance.
The people who find cures to life threatening child-diseases. They are great people. But those babies, children, or teens that died bed-ridden their whole lives? The unfortunately couldn't *be* great in this worldview.
I argue that such a God is at best ambivalent towards us, at worst an absolute moron. All lives have meaning, and had I the ability, I would make sure they all got to prove their character. But I am no God.
The novelist Lawrence Sanders wrote a story about a detective suffering excruciating stomach pains. Everyone in his office thinks it's cancer, and they all keep telling him to go see a doctor.
Finally, he goes to a doctor, who diagnoses an ulcer. Everybody in his office tells him, "Bet you're glad it's not cancer."
"Easy for you to say, " says the detective. "It's not your fucking ulcer."
What's the name of the story? Or short story collection if that's what it's from?
The people in the office are still morally in the right even if for the wrong reasons… living a life of pain is better than choosing not to live at all because life is intrinsically valuable
That must be an old story. Stomach ulcer has been curable by a 5-day course of antibiotics since the 1990s.
@@JarodTheThunker Intrinsically good by what measure?
The Cancer analogy is pure gold, i called it early in the debate but Alex remembered it and brought it up later. I was quite satisfied 😁
If the swat team created robbers knowing beforehabd that they will rob a bank, then the swat team is responsible for the robbery. They in fact created a robbery and then locked them up 😆
Which is a perfect analogy for god
If A creates B knowing it will create C, then A created C
Logic 101
Where is the confusion?
From the robbers perspective it may SEEM like they have free will but from the objective 3rd person perspective, the swat team knows what they did 😈
Free will is an illusion
If the swat team created robbers knowing beforehabd that they will rob a bank, then the swat team is responsible for the robbery. They in fact created a robbery and then locked them up 😆
Which is a perfect analogy for god
If A creates B knowing it will create C, then A created C
Logic 101
Where is the confusion?
From the robbers perspective it may SEEM like they have free will but from the objective 3rd person perspective, the swat team knows what they did 😈
Free will is an illusion
After their debate on the Matt Fradd show, I am thrilled to see Trent Horn with Alex again. 😊
That building is structured exactly like my old house... it's very surreal to see you four sitting in what appears to be my living room! 🤣
😂
Cameron has perhaps one of the worst takes on the problem of evil ever.
pre-darwinian moment
I agree, it was honestly revolting.
Omnibelevilence is not the author of everything.
Morality doesn't justify natural suffering and it's inequality.
It’s serial-killer logic.
What was it again, specifically?
4:23 - He's talking about Rabbi Harold Kushner (author of Why Bad Things Happen to Good People) and his son who died from progeria (a "rapid aging" disease). He was the rabbi at the reform synagogue my parents attended for a while. I saw his son fairly regularly at a summer camp I attended.
Thanks for this, guys! How I wish I could be with you at the table, or at least a fly on the wall.
This conversation would have been helped by a formal definition of evil. And also by explaining how evil can exist if transcendental categories don't exist (the atheist/agnostic never elaborate on this). No offense to the Protestant guy, but he seemed like a wikipedia scholar. More people like the Catholic and the agnostic would be appreciated
Lol. The protestant guy runs one of the larger christian youtube channels. That just goes to show how often, chrome > substance.
In my opinion, the problem of evil is not the strongest argument against god, since not all gods are infinitely good.
The god of the Old Testament, for example, doesn't care about being good
Yes, there are a lot of assumptions made about good and evil in this discussion and no one questions it.
I wish they did define evil but they all knew how inconvenient that would be for everyone because each person has a different idea or view of what evil is because no one has a perfect definition
@@tennicksalvarez9079 there's actually a lot of concepts that have this problem. Usually there's a general common core with fuzzy edges. If the discussion is kept to the general common core maybe definitions aren't necessary.
Consider the problem of a heap. Is a tablespoon of salt a heap? If you're putting it in your mouth, certainly. If you're taking it out of a mine, definitely not. It's context dependant.
Evil is dependent on context as well, the world view provides the frame around which evil is defined. In Cam's case, his world view is such that many types of agregious harm are justified, and therefore not really evil. I think that reveals a fault in the world view, rather than just a problem of definition for evil.
There’s a Jewish proverb that says “the fence of wisdom is silence” (Avot) and I feel like it applies to Joe.
I can’t tell if that’s a knock against him or are you complimenting him??
@@YourHeartIsTheKey it’s a complement.
I have no idea how a man can argue in favour of evil just so we can have bravery, and keep a straight face.
When you buy the whole story, this kind of thing is normal
If you do not face the biggest truest evil how would you know how brave you are? If you are always around nice and kind people why would you have to be brave or proof your bravery? It is easy to fight against a target that does not possess serious harm but if you are able to come face to face to evil and persever then there is something to say about it. Medidate on it for a second.
@@noorzanayasmin7806is bravery so necessary that we need evil. I think the argument is that a world without evil (and therefore no need for bravery) is better than a world with evil and bravery
@@richardoffiong9932 So what you basically want is heaven on earth? I think we can do better than that. I think we as human have the ability to come face to face with pure evil and take it head on. From what I understand this life is a test. If you pass the test then you move onto the next phase of good life. It is like we are a simulation, we all are playing a role in it. I mean if you never have evil then how would you even know what good is? Then good will just become normal and not good anymore. In order to compare good against something else you need evil. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Why do you think girls do not like nice guys? You would think since the person is nice the girl would like him. But no. What the girl/woman want/need is enough tension/conflict to be able to stressed and grow. I mean there are bad people and good people in this world. We know that people like Mao and Stallin existed so we definitely need bravary in order to stand up against those pure evil reincarnate.
@@noorzanayasmin7806 you’re justifying evil for the sake of showcasing bravery, entirely undermining morality. only someone who has experienced little evil in their life would argue that atrocious acts should exist for the sake of a saviour. i don’t see the value of being in a fictitious tale of duality in which a supercilious few can look upon the agonising existence of man from afar to entertain themselves with philosophical speculation and metaphysical discussion.
39:54 One question that would like to ask during this discussion is: Why do people work toward curing cancer? Or any disease for that matter? It seems Trent's main point is: Any attempt at a potential reduction of suffering during the evolutionary process may have unforeseen consequences that make things worse. Couldn't we make the exact same argument about any present suffering? Sure, we could try to cure cancer, but then people would still die some other way and there would be some new "cancer" and ultimately nothing would change, so we shouldn't even try. His defense seems to hinge on the fundamental irreducibility of suffering, and yet we have example after example of reductions of suffering compared to the early days of humanity which, if they were already in place then, or any amount of time earlier, would have prevented immeasurable suffering.
Edit: 47:40 Trent somewhat touches upon this issue about why we should save a drowning child: "God could have a greater good for allowing certain evils, what if that greater good is me saving this child and ameliorating suffering?" You would know that that is not the greater good by choosing not to save that child. If the greater good is guaranteed, then you served no purpose whatsoever whether you save that child or not. If you saved the child, your action contributed to the greater good, if you do not save that child, its death contributed to the greater good at least equally if not more than if that child were to survive.
That's basically 'behaving as if God does not exist', in a Universe that behaves as if there is no God.
An Atheist Is A Person Who Can Only See Evil In God & Others. He Dares Not To Look Too Closely At Himself.
Hello from Serbia. Orthodox Christian and a Theoretical Physicist here. "GG" in advance. :)
@Anon Anon Going great :)
10Q 4 asking.
Every discussion about the problem of evil leaves me with this disgusting feeling of supremacy.
I just always feel like the theists refuses to really think about it.
The same way you feel disgustingly superior after telling a kid that Santa isn't real?
@@Reignor99 yeah that fits
@@Smitywerban What do you think is being missed by we theists in such conversations?
@@ClassicPhilosophyFTW what isn't?
From infant suffering over animal suffering to undeserved good.
There is not one even remotely satisfying answer to any of these.
Agree. theists can justify hate, suffering and evil as gods will, instead of doing something to stop it. They are the evil.
My third time watching this. A part 2 would be much appreciated. Keep up the great content, Alex!
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God??”
This Epicurus quote sums it up for me…
In regards to the video, if god isn’t all powerful, why worship him?!??
Things that make you go 🤔🤔
Worship in and of itself is problematic, but your point and quote stands otherwise.
Look at a bacteria to us we are more intelligent the difference between us and God is infinite trillions of times more intelligent still makes no sense so maybe you don't see the bigger picture if you make it to paradise there's no more suffering we are here for a brief moment in time no amount of suffering on earth is to much in eternity
@@davidevans3223 exactly, no finite crime merits infinite punishment.
To refute that, you have to prove your own argument wrong.
@@chrism6315 I don't even know what you're saying as a Christian it's not my place to judge I can't comprehend why Hitler could have been good but if free will exists then he wasn't a product of his DNA and environment he chose to be evil but i don't believe more people in jails are evil they are mostly a product of there environment so in paradise would be forgiven .
@@davidevans3223 my point builds on your own, if you don't understand it that means you didn't understand your own and whilst I may be wasting away an evening on a youtube comment section, but there's a limit to what I'll put up with. Explaining someone's argument back to them is part of that.
Trent's description of a pain-necessary world belies the concept of heaven, in which there's no suffering, so clearly evil and pain is not a necessary component of existence.
If there is no evil and pain, there will be no good and peace.
But Heaven still exists in tandem with hell and the world of suffering on earth. So it’s not independent from evil at all
@@didnotmatter1991 God can create a world without suffering but chooses not to 🫡
@@DefenestrateYourself Suffering is not inherently bad
Honestly in my opinion Alex and Trent Horn have put forward 90% of solid ideas in this conversation, two of them are really worth listening.
Yeah as a Christian listening to Cameron was painful as fuck. I could listen to Alex and Trent talk to each other all day
@@inedanap6253nah after the desting debate Trent just comes across as an idealogue
Great discussion! I really enjoy when people of different stances can sit together and just work through complex philosophical questions.
Would Cameron and Trent prefer this discussion to be interrupted buy a person with a hummer breaking into the room, and crushing their legs so they would experience the good of compassion, courage and relief?
Have you ever thought about all the suffering you have caused? I know you've never caused any. Right.
@@joannware6228 Often a simple question can be more effective than an entire day full of thinking deeply about this conversation as I have (been driving home from Christmas break with family).
Got home not too long ago, safely. Grateful for that.
I got super into thinking about all the what ifs and good points that the video participants made. Had some exciting philosophical ideas come knocking on the windows at the furthest reaches of my mind's residence. Then started reading the conversations in the comments. Great point you had here in asking this question as an answer to the scoffing question posed. This stuff...these conversations are the most important thing humans can think about. If it is true that God exists and that God is good, it is the most important truth available to humans. I think deep down people know this, otherwise they wouldn't resist the idea so hard.
@@davidjewell9796 Thanks. That question is truly one of the most important questions a person can ask himself. It's one the atheists avoid at all costs.
@@davidjewell9796 "In Him, then, and through Him, we know God. Apart from Him, and without the Scripture, without original sin, without a necessary mediator promised and come, we cannot absolutely prove God, nor teach right doctrine and right morality. But through Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ, we prove God, and teach morality and doctrine. Jesus Christ is, then, the true God of men."
Blaise Pascal "Pensees"
@@davidjewell9796 "There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners; the rest,
sinners, who believe themselves righteous." Blaise Pascal "Pensees"
Trent discussing the idea of animals getting cognitive boosts in the afterlife reminds me of the science fiction writings of Cordwainer Smith, a classic, although less known SF writer -comparably to someone like Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Philip K Dick. In his story, The Dead Lady of Clown Town, there is a sort of messiah figure, part animal and part human who leads animals in a peaceful revolution against their suffering. That is a major abridgement of the plot, but the story is wonderful and very poignant.
I have been an atheist for 34 years, but a skeptic for only 4 years. The first thing I tackled as a skeptic was the problem of evil. It quickly became apparent that the problem of evil is not an argument against the existence of god. But it does say a lot about the possible nature of a god.
I've been kicking around the idea of consequentialism in the problem of evil lately. Alex brought it up around 1:04:24, but the conversation moved into a discussion of deontology and teleology. I can address those too, but first let's view the part I find troubling regarding consequentialism . Let's set up an implication:
1. Let there be a being we will refer to as "god" that is defined as both absolutely morally justified in its actions and inactions, and is sufficiently capable of eliminating suffering.
2. Suffering exists.
3. If god exists, then god is absolutely morally justified in allowing suffering to exist.
The set of conclusions that could be draw from this: 1 god, as defined, does not exist. (This does not preclude a god with a different definition from existing.) 2. Allowing suffering is not itself immoral. 3. Allowing suffering is immoral, but the consequences of allowing suffering will lead to a greater good.
I've learned to fear any hint of consequentialism. This is "the end justifies the means." This means that it's okay to do absolutely horrible things in order to bring about a greater good. The first problem is that it is based in results, not intentions, and there would therefore be no moral acts unless they result in good, and no immoral acts unless they result in bad things. The second is, good for whom? If it kills the victim, certainly not for them. Slavery brought about many wonderful benefits in American history, presuming you were white. This "perfect morality" becomes something people could not emulate without not only perfect knowledge, but perfect foresight and perfect assessment of the costs and benefits. Perhaps an omniscient god could do this (the definition of god in my syllogism does NOT require either omniscience or omnipotence), but this would not be a morality that humans could emulate. It would be impossible for people to "get their morality from god" except by divine command; do as I say, not as I do. It utterly destroys any concept of "objective morality" that many apologists assert exists and even try to use to argue that a god must exist.
The teleological response that Trent raises fails to address this problem. It presents what would be the greater good brought about by the otherwise immoral act. It does not address the question of whether the consequentialist approach used to arrive at that conclusion is itself moral.
Alex introduced the topic along with a deontological response, which could be a non-consequentialist reason to commit otherwise immoral acts: god would have a moral dilemma of multiple obligations, and satisfied the larger obligation. I take a very deontic approach to morality, so this idea appeals to me. However, I don't think it's going to work. Alan R. Anderson defines an obligation as this, in deontic logic:
Oa ≡ ◻(¬a → s)
Where 's' is a sanction. "Obligatorily 'a' is equivalent to it necessarily being the case that not-'a' implies a sanction." In other words, there will be some sort of consequence for failing an obligation. To whom is god going to pay some consequence? There is either no obligation, the obligation is to god itself and is therefore indistinguishable from consequentialism, or there is an even higher power to whom god must answer. I can't see any of these being acceptable to any theist who assumes a moral god.
My personal conclusion of the problem of evil: it is unfounded to assume that if a god exists, that it is in any way moral. It needn't be evil; it would just not need to have an agenda that in any way lines up with anything we would consider to be "good" or "omni-benevolent." The whole concept of the "perfect" tri-omni god was imported from the ancient Greeks anyhow, and not biblical, at least not as a solid, singular, and non-poetic assertion.
Problem of evil addresses existence of an all good all loving omniscient god i think.
"The whole concept of the "perfect" tri-omni god was imported from the ancient Greeks anyhow"
do you have sources for this? I would like to read more about the sources where you get this idea from
@@shikyokira3065 You've likely seen this quote before, attributed to Epicurus:
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Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
----------
Now, he probably didn't say it himself. It doesn't match his philosophy; he believed the gods were perfect, but that included being too perfect to get their hands dirty with mortal affairs. But the idea did likely come from one of his peers.
Ancient Greeks also believe in the eternal soul that was detachable from the body, which grew out of the concept of Platonic Dualism, the idea that things in this world are shadows or cheap copies of the REAL items in the REAL world. Neither were Jewish concepts, but they did become early Christian concepts. The book of Hebrews is heavily steeped on Platonic Dualism.
Another Greek concept was Logos, which PBS defines as such:
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A principle originating in classical Greek thought which refers to a universal divine reason, immanent in nature, yet transcending all oppositions and imperfections in the cosmos and humanity. An eternal and unchanging truth present from the time of creation, available to every individual who seeks it. A unifying and liberating revelatory force which reconciles the human with the divine; manifested in the world as an act of God's love in the form of the Christ.
----------
The first chapter of the gospel of John appears to be based on Logos philosophy.
Philo of Alexandria was instrumental in importing these Greek concepts into Jewish philosophy at the beginning of the 1st century CE, but had been developed by the ancient Greeks around the 6th century BCE. Paul's church was composed of mostly Roman citizens, and was a merger with their beliefs, not a takeover.
We see by the early 12th century from Anselm of Canterbury's ontological arguments for god that the "perfect" god concept (I'm not sure if it was explicitly ti-omni, but certainly a general "perfection") was deeply ingrained into the Catholic church. But there's no explicit scriptural basis for a tri-omni god. There are plenty of hints, but they're along the lines of people in North Korea praising Kim Jon Un; do you really think that THEY think the man gets a hole-in-one every hole of golf? Some probably do, but it's a form of praise, not literalism.
@@grumpylibrarian Allow me to play some devil's advocates here
Since I'm not here to argue about the problem of evil, I'll skip that one until perhaps later when I bring it up if you don't mind
What's the issue with Christianity sharing some of the principles with other pagan religions or non-Jewish culture/philosophy?
For example, there is this pagan religion that against getting high on drugs as it will taint your soul. A christian could see the bad effect getting high on drugs and then telling other Christians that as Christians, we shouldn't get high on drugs. Does this mean Christianity merges its beliefs with this pagan religion's or they are simply stating a fact based on their observation to not indulge in bodily desires?
The same can be said if the Christians use superposition to explain the trinity of one God. It doesn't mean Christianity merges with science, nor does it mean the superposition concept predates Christianity. The simple reasoning for using the word superposition to explain it is because there was no better word to represent in until the word superposition was coined
So, can't the gospel of John simply use the Logos principle because it can be easily understood by the readers who has already understood the Logos principle?
@@shikyokira3065 I know this isn't strictly your point, but I'm not hinging my case on John. My exact quote and entire reference to John was "The first chapter of the gospel of John appears to be based on Logos philosophy." I'm not actually personally convinced it was, but I was relaying a common interpretation of John, which was even included in the PBS defintion of "Logos philosophy" that I pasted. I'd heard a very plausible explanation for John chapter 1 that had nothing to do with this, and instead was a reference to a Jewish practice of not actually saying "YHWH" combined with the fact that YHWH is a pile of Hebrew letters and isn't going to translate into Greek at all. The theory went that people would say "the word" instead, and as the people in the region spoke Aramaic at the time, they used the Aramaic word for "word" in the same way. And therefore the author of John, writing in Greek to a Roman audience, was attempting to establish what pattern he was going to use in his book, and use the Greek "Logos" as a placeholder for YHWH.
It sounds very plausible, but it has a few problems. First, it's far less sourced than the idea of John's "word" being an expression of Logos theory. Second, it's not actually incompatible. If anybody was using the Hebrew or Aramaic words for "word" as a placeholder for YHWH, they could very well have been using it in a Logos sense.
More directly to your point. Two religions can share themes that can be independently derived. More than one group can see the negative (or positive) impact of certain narcotics and express a rule against (or for) its use. This is perfectly fair, and if that is what had happened, I would probably already hold the view you're suggesting. When we can trace when one religion directly influences another, however, it's a completely different game. Ancient Greek philosophy and ancient Hebrew philosophy were developed in similar time periods around the 7th-5th centuries BCE, but we see the overlap after they became part of the Roman empire. We see similar influxes of Zoroastrianism slightly sooner than 1st century, introducing concepts such as monotheism (early Judaism was henotheistic), angels, heaven, and hell. (Judaism had a place called "Sheol" that is translated as "hell" in modern English bibles, but was not a place of eternal torment, merely a final resting place for all of the dead. The christian view of hell was derived from Gehenna, which started as a literal place of torment, a valley outside of Jerusalem where child sacrifices were once held.)
Some of these imported beliefs went to Judaism, some to christianity, and some to both. Greek culture infiltrated Israel through the Romans' influence, but Paul exported christianity to Romans on their home turf. The intermingling of ideas is a lot more pronounced at this point, and didn't stop after Paul was executed, or the much later very Roman-centric gospels were written. (The author of Matthew was definitely Jewish-centered, but still included some Roman ideas, including a direct reference to Hades. Mark and Luke were explicitly Roman-centric, and John was writing to a Roman audience.)
These imported beliefs are not necessarily untrue. They are, however, not fundamental. And the conception of god as "perfect" is not only not fundamental, but not part of the bible. It was developed later.
I love hearing conversations like this, thanks!
It would have been interesting to hear the opinions of people outside of the context of Christianity. I know the host is an atheist, but he was raised Christian and still has that as a foundation for some of his thinking.
It would have been a very different discussion if Jesus or Buddha were there. No amount of arm-chair studying can equate to their wisdom, only life-long devotion to practice can come close. But then again, it's no guarantee their answers would be understood.
I’m a westerner so I am not completely without Christian influences but I have lived for 54 years not knowing anyone, almost not meeting anyone, religious.
I find the problem of evil quite dull as it only applies to one specific version of one specific god. If it disproves that god then there are a thousand . others.
I have never heard a Christian reply to the animal suffering problem which hasn't made me want to scream. It shows the deep cynism or total indifference embedded in their godly worldview.
What kind of a response to animal suffering would make you not scream? I like your honesty so I'm just trying to better understand how you see "total indifference embedded in their godly worldview." Thanks. Peace
@@johnbrzykcy3076
I have NEVER heard a Christian even mention the problem with animal suffering and how to handle that problem from a Christian point of view. NEVER. That I interpret as indifference. Christianity is an anthropocentric worldview, animals don't seem to count. If I'm wrong the proponents of that worldview are doing a shitty job.
@SubArc Adventures
What's the point?
@SubArc Adventures
And what's the relevance to my initial comment (about animal suffering)?
@SubArc Adventures
You have a good Christian argument for animal suffering?
Once again, even though I’m Protestant with strong Catholic sympathies, I tend to relate more the Alex’s views on most things here. Like the issue on MLK vs. Racism. The fact that we agree that, if heaven exists, there’d be no racism there, proves that we think that the absence of evil is better than the overcoming of evil. I’m also ok with the idea of God “needing” to do certain things. Since God is a necessary Being, we already know that He “needs” His existence. Given Divine Simplicity, it’s easy to make a case for His needing many if not all the other aspects of what is. This needn’t at all detract from His omnipotence since He does in fact have the power to fulfil those needs. So in God’s case, needs are not weaknesses, they’re just His nature.
Agreed, the existence of an infinite Heaven makes a mockery of any debate over the existence or purpose of evil in this life.
@@EnglishMike perhaps so. But I’m not presupposing that Heaven exists. Nor am I saying there’s no racism there. I’m saying that the fact that we suppose there would be no racism in a Heaven, shows that we value the absence of evil above the virtues of overcoming evil. Or perhaps we’d say that God’s virtue is so great that it perpetually overcomes evil, & that would be the greatest good.
This might be my favorite intro and title to any of your videos
Great discussion, this has given me quite a bit to think of…
I do also think that something not spoken about in these conversations is where do we draw the line of evil? Is there no room for some sort of chaotic neutral? Because I don’t think the world is black and white, what also constitutes evil would be context, as what is evil for one person would not be for another.
When I was a christian this is something that I found difficult to converse with any of my peers are the were of the belief that if it’s from god it’s good everything else is evil, which to me gave of the impression that they either didn’t think of the scope of good and evil or they did not want to give it much thought and were okay with someone else giving them the final answer
I think this is definitely something that needs to be expanded upon before tackling the subject, as I believe once we can define evil we can further debate its plausibility or weather it actually has a purpose.
Not sure if I made it make sense 😂
One has to marvel at Alex's ability to discuss these issues with a straight face.
what’s funny about it otherwise
I think it’s a serious conversation. It would be a sign of immaturity to just laugh it away.
I want to see Alex and Mike Winger have a chat, possibly on devine hiddeness or simply just see where the conversation leads.
I liked that honest realization in the end that many religious ideas appear to be responses to problems humans have encountered in life. That shouldn't take away from whether or not those realizations are true though. I, for one, don't think they are, but I don't think so purely on this basis.
I'm always puzzeled when theists use the "God works in mysterious ways" line. Especially when they are also try to defend some fine tuning argument and they affirm that the probability of having our universe being created by chance is so low that it is unlikely. And they often dismiss the fact that we don't know if the constants could have been different.
Great talk, thanks for sharint
To be honest, I'm a Christian and I do often seem to agree with the phrase "God works in mysterious ways." Yet the phrase does puzzle me too and I have doubts and questions. I appreciate your comments. Peace
You may find your answer here, this goes very down to "what if constants were different?" and physics
m.ua-cam.com/video/SjIIel2sJ6o/v-deo.html
@@BringJoyNow maybe. Maybe not. It's funny that this priest quoted this passage of Vilenkin's book but failed to mention Vilenkin's model for the begining of the cosmos. Worse, the BGV theorem is a theorem. Violate one of its hypothesis and it falls.
I did not find a convincing answer. Not to me. Because we don't even know if the expression "before the Big Bang" is even sound.
Just ask, "what if it was you"
Would you rather experience all the net suffering and wellbeing or have "evil" and suffering not exist?
"How can you possibly find joy in your partner's company if your neighbor isn't going through a divorce? How can you possibly enjoy the taste of food unless there are starving kids in Africa? How can you possibly enjoy not being enslaved unless..."
People who need suffering to exist in order to feel joy are sick individuals.
They'll probably say yes, and they probably believe it too. To them suffering is like karma, if you endure it long enough then you will be rewarded for it. (in life or in heaven)
It's sad that people would resort to fetishizing suffering to preserve their world view.
Yeah, We don't need egregious scales of suffering to have and value well-being, a life worth living, ignorance is bliss when it comes to not knowing how bad things can get, better those bad things never existed.
In order to enjoy a meal, Do you need to know what rotten food smells and tastes like? No.
Experience blindness to enjoy eyesight, deafness to value hearing? No.
Knowing that we have modern technology that prevents food spoilage, and I'm free of blindness and deafness unlike more unfortunates, I may value and appreciate and not take for granted such things sure, but an ideal world is still where people all retain their eyesight and hearing which is what we are striving towards.
The need to know bad to know good is a very poor argument and deeply flawed, we can point to many examples where all some know is bad their entire existence, there's no reason some could experience only overwhelming good.
Also what about being born blind? I would say this is a bad without knowing the good of sight.
There are those that enjoy the feeling of sunlight without knowing the sun rays can age you and skin cancer exists.
A world where the sun doesn't cause skin cancer is a better world.
@@dawnguinto yeah, the belief...if you are rewarded, or compensated for suffering, for example let's say children who die at birth go to heaven, suffering animal and humans all compensated and made up for in the afterlife. If you had a whole life of only misery then in the afterlife it will be outweighed by an equal good.
Well if someone subscribes to this idea that all bad evil suffering will be made up for with an equal good, then what's the point of stopping or preventing it? It doesn't matter apparently for the victim it will all be made right in the afterlife?
@@JD-wu5pf Holy fucking strawman, batman. I bet you think that Christians say atheists can't be moral without believing in God, too.
The point is Joy wouldn't even exist at all without suffering. Idiot.
In my view, there can be no justification for suffering. No universe at all trumps a universe with any amount of suffering.
would you create a creature who gets stung by a bug once and suffers for 3 seconds but after that it only feels pleasure for eternity... intuitively i'd say yes but i feel like your view commits you to say you wouldn't... although saying yes isn't without problems because if its better to create that creature than not to, then its better to create as many of those creatures as you can, which in gods case infinitely. so if it was better for god to create us than not to, then you are gonna have to assume there are infinite numbers of human beings
@@smdb5874I wouldn't create that creature. Although I can't ground that choice in any objective way, it's just a personal revulsion to suffering in any amount
It's nice to see Miles Teller showing his acting as well as intellectual chops. I enjoyed it.
Im a christian and think alex is very very smart, and like his debates and i think meetings like this is really cool! At ya house maybe few drinks and just chat with multiple views.
Really appreciate the conversation. It would be interesting to see a group like this push to find areas of common ground in the future. How different are their goals for the human community?
A few thoughts:
1. First, the theist position displayed here on compassion and bravery is so confusing. It just feels like a desire for spectacle. I really don't know how else to characterize it. It borders on Neitzche's rejection of an emasculating Christianity.
2. The notion that animal suffering isn't morally significant is strange to me as well. The only major difference between my experience of a severe burn and a koala's is that I can talk about it, language. I doubt theists want to make language use the measure by which to assess the moral relevance of a given organism's suffering.
3. I don't see why God can't intervene in a natural system. Trent just seems to assume that God can't be wildly proactive, as though it were totally incompatible with a regular universe to have a more activist creator.
4. Trent's defense against moral paralysis seems iffy to me. Can a free creature, with its limited knowledge, prevent an evil God was using to secure some much greater good? Would God prevent the prevention of the evil? If He would not, does that mean that there is gratuitous suffering?
To be fair, you could argue that there is a major difference between human and non-human animal suffering given by the fact non-human animals are not necessarily conscious about their own suffering like humans are. If I burn my hand I can say that I suffer more than a Koala because I can reflect about what I’ve lost, like the good things I could’ve had if I wasn’t burn. Yet I think the difference is insignificant to argue that animal suffering is not a concern. Yeah non human animals mostly only suffer only from physical pain (or perhaps some kinds of anxiety) yet the sheer amount of that supposedly “lesser pain” we see in the world should be enough to make it a concern, let alone the fact the humans also experience physical pain and intuitive know is not insignificant. I just don’t understand what how the theists think that’s a good answer.
@@juanibarravazquez4075 I think you're right in the sense that humans can introduce a unique kind of pain through rumination and the stimulus functions of language. But even that leverages the same nervous system. Cheers sir.
@@juanibarravazquez4075
There's 0 reason to believe the koala mourns it's loss and pain kess than you.
And there's plenty of reason to believe it suffers more intensely and is less able to cope.
When you get rid of the concept of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-caring god who has scripted the universe from beginning to end, you've gotten rid of the problem of evil. In an emergent, unplanned, unscripted universe, evil from the human viewpoint is to be expected.
Yes. I've always wondered why so few people raise the possibility of god being at least partially malevolent, for whatever reason. The Catholic talks about animal suffering which is a good example, but his attempt to justify it just doesn't work imo. Is it absolutely essential that god is all-loving, all-powerful, etc.? Does the Christian god necessarily have to fit into what our definition of perfect is? The gods of many other civilisations certainly do not.
I say this as an ex-Catholic athiest.
@@tonyd3433 I’m not sure about Christianity but in Islam it’s necessary because the Qur’an says it.
Does the Bible not ‘allocate’ these attributes to God?
Exactly. The problem wouldn't even exist if no one was religious, nothing would even seem that out of sorts. Of course a bunch of social apes who evolved on a cruel world would be capable of acts across whatever moral spectrum they devised.
@@brotherben4357 Yeah it does, but it was Aquinas who famously argued philosophically why God can only be all loving and all good.
@@hullie7529 Name dropping is all I saw from Cameron and Trent. I wonder why the religious do that so often.
Loved this, I'd be interested in more discussion type videos
I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Just earned a new subscriber.
I'm a theist, but I really enjoyed the dialogue. Alex and Trent did an amazing job contributing to the dialog, and I greatly admire Cameron's ability to listen. He didn't say much, but when he did speak, I think it was fruitful. A life skill many of us could learn from.
When Cameron spoke it was fruitful? Haha what? Didn't you understand anything he said?
@@k7450 I specifically think his observation about their axiological presuppositions bringing them to a stop in the conversation because they would simply disagree based on their intuitions was helpful to bring the talk forward.
@@natebozeman4510 Yes, for the wrong reasons. It is good to put axioms on the table to see whether it makes sense to have the conversation in the first place. For example, if you think Faith is enough, there's no point in debating the existence of God. But in this case, he brought it up because his axiom was basically "the suffering and humiliation of millions due to slavery and racism was worth it because we got to see MLK!". How out of touch you have to be to say such a thing.
Alex and Trent were the best contributors. The agnostic guy was mostly quiet but helped to move forward the conversation. And Cameron was just awful. The funniest part was his "oh so many thoughts I don't know where to start..." 29:00 as if he was ready to share a myriad of counter-arguments and he mumbled his way out while desperately hoping for Trent to take over. He had no answer. "Well I don't know... maybe we need to create some ad-hoc explanation like dogs can talk in Heaven... we need more resources, probably, Trent save the day please".
@@natebozeman4510 oh and I almost forgot the "an animal being ripped apart actually looks peaceful" WTF
All of the theistic arguments I heard in this video seem to boil down to their god is so confined in how it can use it’s powers it is indistinguishable from a universe with laws (created naturally, dreamed up by a dragon or set on it’s path by a deistic god) and no theistic god.
I don't imagine that I'm the first to posit this question and if it isn't addressed in this or any of your other videos, I'd love to get your thoughts on it.
If we accept that the problem of evil exists because we have free will, then the problem of evil becomes the problem of heaven. In a religion such as Christianity (which I grew up in) the faithful are said to be brought to heaven upon the end of their natural life, where there is no suffering, evil, etc. Evil, suffering, etc are the direct result of free will. This inherently means that to ascend to heaven is synonymous with no longer having free will.
How do we reconcile that? That is the one big question that always plagued me about my faith growing up that I could never get an answer to. Does the choice simply become, believe and give up your free will upon death or spend eternity burning?
I'd love to get your take on it.
So, what I know in Catolic Church, it is not that you lose free will once you go to heaven, but rather that once you get to heaven and start living with God and in His presence, you wouldnt want to do any evil anymore. Like heaven is not place with preconditions that there is no evil, but rather place with immense God presence and love. So when you got to heaven, that means you are aware that God decided that you were good enough for heaven, you can obsereve your Earthly life and all goods and evils in it and you are now talking and living with visible God that is present. I am not sure about next thing, but as I know you can still do evil if you want, like angels did once, but you woudnt want to because you can see your Earthly life and all the evil there and how much you suffered there and now you are finally over it, you now have God and love and happiness etc, so why would you choose to do evil and go to suffer in hell again. Cheers
@@petarivancic6482Even If ur point was condeded, like u said, how could the angels (including satan) and supposedly Adam and Eve (If real) be able to do evil, as they were deemed worthy of God's presence and infact were in God's presence.
None of this makes any sense, not even with special pleading u can make this argument be logically consistent.
I believe that we still have free will in Heaven. Like, in Heaven, we still have the ability to do evil and to do good. But we won't do evil in Heaven because we won't have a sinful nature anymore.
This is the point that caused me to deconstruct basically if god created heaven earth and hell and gods ultimate goal the ultimate good is people in heaven then why create the capacity of hell and evil to begin with and if the Christian answers free will then they are placing free will above heaven in terms of importance to god or it my question is what value is there in a temporary mixed bag of a life on earth if there is a life in heaven that is unfathomably good why go through the motions of everything else
@@gnhman1878 why do we have a sinful nature in the first place?
Thanks guys for the thoughtful discussion.
The problem of evil is devastating to the belief in an Abrahamic god. There has yet to be described a sound way around it beyond "It's a mystery."
Wow you're dumb. No it isn't. The point is, we're not living in heaven, so of course there is gonna be evil. If there weren't any sort of evil at all, THIS would pretty much be heaven already.
And in Abrahamic religions, God PURPOSEFULLY didn't have us start out in heaven, because we saw how it worked for Adam and Eve. They sinned in heaven, which is supposed to be a sin-free place. They desecrated it and every other human would have done the same.
That's why humans aren't suitable to start off in heaven or in an evil-free world. They commit evil themselves
And what kind of heaven would heaven be if it was full of people doing evil things and desecrating it? Completely inappropriate and nonsensical. You're not allowed to sin in heaven and you only get into heaven in the first place if you're sin-free, forgiven by God. He forgives only the repentant, but he does so with ease and quicker than anyone else.
So if God is so nice, why didn't he just bind the hands of evil doers here on earth? Well precisely because God is so nice. And evil doers don't do evil "by mistake or accident", they do it purposefully. He's not an evil North Korean dictator, the way atheists like to pretend that he is. That's just atheistic brainwashing. He doesn't throw you in hell the minute you step a toe out of line. You can curse his name, hurt other people and animals, do whatever you want, he's not gonna punish you in any sort of direct way. At least not in this life.
He gives you an entire free life of respite with the freedom and free will for you to choose to live how you will, even if it's gonna be an evil life. You're supposed to be his representative on earth as a human with a higher intellect and authority than the animals. He put humans in charge of an imperfect world. Humans have the power to create something similar to a heaven on earth... or to a hell. He wills there to be a heaven on earth, so what kind of representative of God's will, will you be?
He's hidden from you so that you'll show him for real what sort of person you are. There would be no atheists or any sort of evil doers if he wasn't hidden, and if he was an obvious dictator.
In fact, if he was an active dictator, he would have to let pretty much every evil doer into heaven, because they would have never commited any actual crimes precisely because he was a dictator and was controlling their actions.
More than that, we would already have heaven on earth because there'd be no diseases or natural disasters either. And no death and decay. Perhaps that's what atheists want here on earth, but it would be wrong because all the evil people would be in this heaven too.
It would be a fake heaven with God controlling everyone and noone being able to do anything they actually wanted to do. If he then also started controlling thoughts, we would no longer be human, but robots instead. The Angels are sort of like that because God commands them to do good, but not entirely because they have no desire for evil in the first place. But then... They're not human and have no creativity or authority over the world either. So they're not such a high creation as humans anyway.
The way the world is, evil doers have no excuses on the day of judgment to say they wouldn't have done it, because they clearly did and they see the consequences of their actions for which they'll get punished... He doesn't let evil doers get away without any justice. Hence, hellfire.
But nor would he ever WANT TO be an evil dictator... because he's not a fallible human. In the next life he's still not gonna be an evil dictator.
In fact, the next life will be pretty similar to this. He won't always be there watching over you and correcting you, the way you imagine him to be like a dictator. It's not true. It won't be like that at all
It will be a life like this, except free of work and adversity.
The difference will just be that hell will be apparent to you even if you're a person of heaven. And you can go visit it and see the people in hell who'll ask you to throw water and things from paradise down to them to ease their suffering. That's the difference. A life without death and without any evil, except for the fire that burns the wicked for whom there is no rest. Now you see why God allows evil.
...It's because it's human nature, a part of being human, without which we wouldn't be actual humans. And it's to justify why certain people should eventually be burning in hell. In order for that to take place justly, they need to have commited those deeds freely.
He has given humans authority over an entire world. To show God what kind of person you really are, and to test the good people who should be fighting all adversity in the world, whether it's natural or man made, in order to create a better world, one which will be more like a heaven. That's Abrahamic religions. You clearly haven't understood them at all.
Instead of asking the question of why there is evil, you might as well ask, why did God create humans in the first place. And the answer is to show his qualities of being the most forgiving and merciful of all (I. E. Heaven for sinners), as well as the most just (I. E. Hell for the unrepentant wicked). Without humans and with just angels who never do anything wrong, without the existence of human evil, he could never have shown those qualities in himself.
That's of course in addition to creating humans to show that he is not the only one capable of creating a good world. Even a people without any special powers and with just hands and feet can create a better world out of an imperfect one, if they choose to be his vice regents on earth. In that way he created humans to show that only people who follow his will, will create a better world. Anybody who does the opposite is either misguided or wicked
@@marioluigi9599 When people bring a child into the world, it is most likely that he will end up being condemned to hell, which is established in the bible in
Matthew 7: 13-14.
“13 You can only enter the kingdom of God through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to hell; That is why many people prefer them. 14 But small is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and very few people find it."
There is no way that as mere humans we can guarantee that if we have children they will go to heaven, so we will be responsible for allowing them to come into the world and then their future eternal torture in hell and damnation.
Even those who try to search cannot because Satan, other evil religions, the world and the flesh itself are doing everything possible to condemn them to hell for eternity from the moment they are born.
James 1:14-15 1 "14 But each one is tempted, when he is drawn away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then lust, after it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, being finished, gives birth to to light death.
John 2:16: “men alienated from God governed by their passions, by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and by the pride of life”
Luke 13:23-24. 23 Someone asked him, "Lord, are there few who are saved?" And he replied, 24 “Do your best to enter through the narrow gate, because I tell you that many will try to enter and will not be able to do so.
Now if we as humans deal with this truth here on earth, and we are aware that except for terrible cases of abuse, every other conception and life that comes into the world is consensual in the intimate act, we cannot say that nobody forced us to bring children into the world, it was we ourselves who brought them into the world and if they end up being condemned, we would be part of that process since we could choose not to become intimate in the flesh, either in sin or within marriage.
Being an omniscient God, that is to say, he has perfect wisdom and knowledge of what is going to happen and even despite knowing that most of the population was going to be condemned to hell, he allowed existence to continue even when he could have avoided all the pain and suffering of hell for the majority of his creation. First with Adam and Eve knowing that they were going to eat the forbidden fruit and then with Noah exterminating the world through the flood and saving his life and his family.
Genesis 2:16-17
“16 Then the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat from any tree in the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you do, you will surely die.”
Genesis 6:7
“7 Then the LORD said, “I will wipe the human being whom I have created from the face of the earth. I will destroy human beings, domestic animals, those that crawl on the ground and the birds of the sky because I am sorry I made them.”
are you forced to bring children to the world?
if you know 100% true fact that your child will end in the eternal torture of hell do you still have carnal desire with your partner knowing he will suffer on hell just for being born?
I know this isn't a strict logical argument, but the arguments against the problem of evil all feel incredibly post hoc. If the people who make them had the exact same morals as their god commands but weren't religious, then were given absolute power, there's no way any of them would be like "Yeah, I'm just going to let shit happen most of the time"
As a Christian, I think you're probably correct that super powerful but benevolent humans may have different approaches than God does, but adding omniscience and omnibenevolence complicates things, especially if God is largely interested in us growing and learning without frequent intervention
@@Sugarycaaaaaandygoodness I feel like you missed my point. My point is that I think people generally come up with theodicies because they want to justify their prior belief in a good god, and if they had to come up with how a good god would act from scratch if they didn't already believe in god.
I'm commenting on the psychology of the believers, so I don't think your point about god being interested in us growing is relevant. That's an argument against the problem of evil, but I was making a statement more about how people engage with the problem than about the problem itself.
My ultimate stance on the problem of evil is that I don't believe in objective morality, so no behavior from god would make god good or bad, even if the actions feel good or bad.
@@debrachambers1304 i believe in a bad god.
@@debrachambers1304 Fair enough! I think the project of us coming up with how a good God would act is limited in it's rhetorical and philosophical value though, for the reasons I mentioned
This is why minimizing suffering must be a fundamental value in the world. We all know that suffering is undesirable and therefore should not impose it onto other living beings.
"What would you do if you were God? What kind of world would you have if you are said God?" Same question as what do you want? Hypothetically good questions wrt to this context to clarify imo.
How refreshing to listen to an atheist who doesn’t sneer like 13:36 Dawkins and Hitchens used to do. An intelligent thoughtful guy.