Refuting the Free Thought Argument
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
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• The FreeThinking Argum...
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Apologists always ignore the elephant in the room. If an omniscient and omnipotent being exists, then we have no free will.
Greg Letter The Christian contortionists like to argue their way out this, saying that A) God knows all of the infinite consequences which lie after choices that you can do, but doesn't know what you will actually choose, just the consequences to each individual choice. This completely ignores that an omniscient god would automatically know what you're going to do, because he's omniscient. Otherwise they will say something like "God loves you", "I will laugh when you go to Hell" or some other unfounded bullshit.
"we would be forced to do exactly what god already knows we're going to do"
This is actually the other way around : god's knowledge doesn't take away free will, it's free will that makes it impossible for god to know.
Yes, free will with an omniscient deity is a paradox, an irresolvable contradiction. That paradox was a subject for medieval theologians and Protestant reformers to write papers and sermons on. Theists used to own that they believed in "mysteries," meaning paradoxes that go beyond and against ordinary logic. That was a way of signaling that their belief was stronger than reason itself. Every branch of philosophy or ethics or jurisprudence that attempts to use the term "free will" seriously imports that theistic paradoxical baggage.
NicoBoi But that is a stupid argument. I know what will happen when I turn a mug full of coffee upside down. There is no way I can withhold this information from myself and be surprised when the coffee pours out.
The difference between me and God is that there are limits to my predictions/knowledge. I know a dice will fall to the ground when I drop it, but not which side will come up. God does. He knows every single thing that will happen. He knew that from day one.
I like how 'Hitch poked fun at this; "We have free will, HE commanded it". ;-)
>Uploads video defending a position.
>Disables comments so nobody can disagree.
>Video is about *free thinking*
How self-defeating.
lmao 😂
Apologist Logic: 1. State a hypothetical which could reasonably be true. 2. State another hypothetical which isn't impossible. 3. Make an egregious claim supported by unsubstantiated religious claims. 4. Check mate, Athiests!
I'm not a free thinker...but I'll think for 20% off with a coupon.
Holy books are BOGO coupons. Give somebody one of those and they'll doublethink.
DuhIdiot No thanks, thinking once is enough for me.
@@jeffc5974
i thunk once. to this day, i have to wear orthopedic hats.
KEvron
How is he defining “justifiable”? Saying that “If all we are is the product of determined causes, then we don’t have rationality and reason” seems a lot like “If brains are made up of cells and cells can’t have emotions, then we don’t have emotions.” It’s mixing vocabularies at different levels of emergence.
If Harry Potter doesn't exist, then Daleks can't exist either, and that would just be silly. Checkmate atheists!
_"4. rationality and knowledge exist."_
you couldn't tell it by his argument.
KEvron
Faith means a suspension of thinking. Therefore anyone with faith is not free to think beyond their faith; beyond their suspension of thinking.
Ah yes, another apologist wants to appear to be using a logical argument but is afraid to allow anyone to challenge him.
"I'm right because you can't refute my argument...on UA-cam".
When he came up with the 2nd premise, I hope he stretched first, before he made that kind of reach. A man could really hurt themselves like that.
Freethinkers ALWAYS block comments. It's the best way to be open to ideas.
If your next thought is free, that means it's uninfluenced by anything. If it's willed, it's influenced by you. You can't have both; libertarian free will is self-refuting, and other definitions of free will don't give people what they want. Like TMM's example, all of our thoughts follow inescapably from one moment to the next. There's so much voodoo to dispel in these apologetics it's maddening.
Lmoa he actually brings up Question Begging after that "free will = soul" question begging stunt
what is real life
Freethinking Ministries: Where logically invalid syllogisms are delivered by a smug, self-satisfied douch and discussion is discouraged by disabling comments
+Psittacosaurus
Which step in the deduction was logically invalid? Everything excluding 7 to 8 is fine. Even there, it's an enthymeme with the implicit premise _if the soul exists, then its best explanation is the existence of God_ . Disagree with the premises all you'd like, but the argument is logically valid.
Mathoma Well, you've already contradicted yourself, if you find a flaw in any of the premises, which you say you have with p7 and p8, then it naturally follows that the conclusion is also flawed and that the argument cannot be logically valid
But let's go a bit further, neither of the terms "soul" or "god" are defined within the premises and I'm sure you'll agree that it's, at best, difficult to draw logical connections between or from things that aren't defined
My other objection to this argument is that fundamental misunderstanding of what a free thinker is, a free thinker, primarily, is one who does not perscribe to a belief system, ei. a system of thought in which is contained required beliefs and/or prohibited beliefs, and there is no indication that a soul, whatever that is, is required for this or that it cannot be achieved through natural means
+Psittacosaurus
No, the premises could be patently false and the argument still be valid - there is a distinction between soundness and validity that people should be aware of if they are going to start talking about logic (naturally follows), e.g.
1. If the moon is made of cheese then unicorns exist.
2. The moon is made of cheese.
Therefore, unicorns exist.
This argument is perfectly valid. The premises are both false, but it is valid. The soul exists and naturalism is false for other reasons, but that's a separate issue.
Mathoma I see your point, I suppose I should have used the word unsound instead of invalid, my mistake
Anytime an apologist says we _lack any knowledge,_ I just think of all the inventions humanity has created as well as all the concepts and principles we've formulated (Idk if I'm using he right words here lol) and I say to myself, _I think we'll be fine._
I'm no expert, but at this point in time, I can't see any reason to credit any phenomenon to the supernatural.
Man... i love your videos! Keep it up!
Clear thinking as ever TMM! Good job.
Numbering nonsensical statements does not make a valid argument.
Alex Rosenberg's book _The Atheist's Guide to Reality_ is one of the best refutations of metaphysical naturalism I've ever seen - no need for all this free will stuff. That wasn't Rosenberg's intention, but so be it. It's not too often that a book concludes that the sentences within the book are meaningless.
The moron equates soul with mind. Of course, if his theology is correct, then soul is responsible for mind. The rational view is that mind is an emergent property of brain.
Anyone who defends soul theory should explain why damage to specific parts of the brain affects mind, where by soul theory this should not happen. Prosopagnosia is a good one to start with, but there are many more.
Of course the video you're responding to has blocked comments. LOL :)
+Greg Letter TAE is a live call in show with live chat and a open forum on their website for anyone to use.
Cry me a river.
Greg Letter Well, they use freethoughtblogs as their comments forum. This way they get free censorship for any comments that violates their feels. So if you don't conform to Atheist Plus values, you can expect your comment to disappear from the forums, while on UA-cam they would have to police their own forum to eliminate any voice they didn't agree with. But hey, it's how they want to handle it, so if they ultimately undermine their credibility as being open minded, it is what it is.
OK, so you'd like to do that and they don't let you. Sure, whatever.
The point is that's not equivalent. They are holding discussions with those who disagree with their points as part of the show itself, and allow online discussions in another medium. If you can show that, for example, their forums unfairly censor those with dissenting opinions, then their might be some equivalence. Otherwise, they're just directing the discussion to another place, not running away from it.
+Greg Letter
That's why I stopped watching, it's frustrating to hear something and want to comment, then seeing that fucking "comments have been disabled" shit. I'm not making another account on a different site
Correct m if i am wrong but the bald guy is appealing to false dichotomies, strawmen and Affirming the Consequent just to name a few.
+James Teranov
Obviously he's _denying_ the consequent, which is a valid argument form (modus tollens).
The definition he used for knowledge is the canon definition/standard definition used by the western philosophical tradition. Not just some definition used by apologists.
Masterful rebuttal as usual.
Thoughts and actions can only be either determined or random. If LFW means some thoughts and actions are not determined, then it means those thoughts and actions are random.
Now,
(1) LFW can therefore only _reduce_ the reliability and justification of conclusions.
(2) Why the hell would I ever want LFW? My experiences as a person and a lump of matter determine my thoughts and actions by determining what my character and beliefs are (among other things). LFW can only mean that I will sometimes randomly deviate from the behavior that my character and beliefs would dictate. *That's a bad thing* . It's mental illness. It's a possibility that I should recoil from, not desire.
I've heard a Theist (I'm not sure which one) say that Free Will is neither determined or random, and insist that there's a third option that they can't explain because it's a mystery.
True dichotomy. Triple dog dare you to come up with a third option.
It's ironic: some of the same people who would label my dichotomy false when there is no third option to determined or random push their own dichotomy that the origin of species is either via randomness or intelligent design, ignoring the third option of mindless yet non-random natural selection. Woo is an irony engine.
Do more videos on "woo". I am interested in your views on non religious "woo".
37 I agree. Incidentally, there's an argument going on in Steve McRae's Great Debate Community (on G+) about whether knowledge is a subset of belief. I'm too ignorant of philosophy to weigh in on the topic, though I do have an opinion, but if you want to know more I'll link to one of the first posts.
I did not have the free will to respond to his video as comments are disabled.
How does our thoughts coming from a soul get around the problems with "free will" as these people attempt to define it get around the problems inherent in thoughts coming from a physical brain? Or any other physical cause?
I'm noticing that more and more of the channels I'm subbed to are setting up shop on Vidme.
Dude. You’re awesome.
Beliefs are not chosen. We are compelled to believe by evidence, whether the evidence is factual or not.
Brilliant even on TMM scale!
One thing I've never understood is how they say that if the mind is made of matter it has no freewill because matter is subject to the laws of determinism, but then think a solution is to say that the mind is made of spirit, and assume that spirit is not subject to the same laws of determinism. Why assume that? They didn't make their spirits, they didn't set the parameters or properties of their spirit. Their spirit interacts with deterministic matter, effects deterministic matter and is affected by it. In what way is this different? In what way does this solve anything?
It's kind of like seeing someone throw a blue ball at other blue balls and coming to the conclusion of causality, but saying if I changed all the balls yellow, or half the balls yellow, and then throw them, that the conclusion wouldn't also be causality.
Theists have the same problem of freewill and determinism that an atheist does, regardless of what we say our minds are made of.
Circles. I see dead circles everwhere.
What a terrible argument. lol
„…and that kids, is how you make shit up!“
The same old tired argument, without god no thought or anything else is possible. How many times should I face palm for this?
So I like Brand X washing detergent. I've always used it and it's always done an OK job washing my clothes. Apparently Brand Y does a slightly better job at washing clothes and is slightly cheaper. Do I have free will if I choose the "best" washing detergent, or if I ignore this and freely choose to keep using my preferred brand?
If your nature (meaning your innate inclinations) causes you to choose the "cheapest and best" detergent, or your nature causes you to ignore good advice (perhaps you are paralyzed by fear or facing another conflicting and overwhelming influence in your life), then your choices are NOT free, but you are a "prisoner" of your nature
Also:
If temptation exists (that can influence your choices), then you are not free
Also:
Instincts and reason do battle in our minds. We sometimes reason that a conclusion is best, but our instincts push us in a different direction. EVEN IF we in the end do "what's right", we still were not FREELY choosing the right thing (our choices were "under constraints")
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand here we go again with a guy who makes Olympian long-jumps of logic ... which don't work. Why should a soul be necessary for free thought? Reminds me too much of that S. Harris cartoon with the two scientists and equations on the blackboard and "Then A Miracle Happens." I think this guy has a LOT more explaining to do.
So do I choose to believe/conclude I will horribly mangle myself if I step off the roof of a 10 story building?
JTB is f**king awful as a basis to epistemology.
Rhetorical question about JTB: How do you know a thing is true? So you believe it to be true? So it's a belief that you believe that is justified... What does justified mean in that context anyways? You mean it's what you feel is justified? So JTB boils down to a belief that you believe to be true that you feel has been justified to your standards... Well thank you for that "basis" to knowledge. I'll be sure to use it sometime.
I love modus ponens
Premise 1 : Living beings are always alive
Premise 2 : Julius Caesar was a living being
Conclusion : Julius Caesar is alive
Would you have accepted premise 1 before reading the conclusion? Sounds as true as a definition at first, doesn't it? Modus ponens is good at hiding assumptions in premises that would otherwise clash with common sense...
Thulyblu
B-theory of time, maybe?
I know what you mean though. As much as I love logic, I can't learn much of anything about the nature of whatever it is I'm experiencing without empiricism.
hey did you guys hear about the new bible museum opening in dc???
Calculators have no free will but their outputs are reliable.
no I would argue that it would be wrong for someone that powerful To expect you to follow morals when you can make People feel good All of the time
Knowledge is based on evidence. Theists thus have NEITHER evidence, nor knowledge. As Hitch used to say, I don't know and you don't either! Or better still, Aron Ra: "If you can't show it, then you don't know it".
Again the guy in the reference video blocked comments. He gave the commentors to choose to click the dislike buttom.
Any religious believer that opposes naturalism because it supposedly can't lead to logic or sound reasoning is ignoring the fact that logic is mathematics and the fact that computers are based on the principle of logic. These computers couldn't function without logic and thus disprove the idea that being able to perform logic needs an "immaterial soul" (whatever that is supposed to be).
+gilgameshismist
A religious person should reject metaphysical naturalism because it's simply preposterous that the mind, which the naturalist tells us is reducible to brain, itself itself a chunk of matter, can have things like _intentional states_ , where thoughts are actually _about_ things. A chunk of matter cannot be _about_ another chunk of matter under the naturalist's conception of matter. Even Alex Rosenberg agrees with this in his book _The Atheist's Guide to Reality_ , which is one of the best refutations of naturalism out there.
+Mathoma
Attention: Like the hogan twins: www.cbc.ca/doczone/blog/update-the-hogan-twins Share body and intrinsic states (dreams, views, tastes) it is normal to fuse minds via neuronal bridges to have a hive mind like in fictional species of the Borg in Star Trek.
We do not really have an idea of combinations possible yet, like to _feel_ "robot arm extensions" or Wi-Fi communication via neuron to neuron bridges to other brains, yet. Because it is only at the beginning.
What seems to confuse people is that intrinsic states is just a fancy word for active brains/active brain regions regardless how people use oldfashioned terminology like "I" and "You" when "we" communicate with eachother.
For example: I (active Brain) don't see your mind from over here, I (active brain) only "sees" (receives eye data) of another active brain - (not a decaying one without activity).
But the other active brain is just a material term for "you". You is... more like a shortcut for another active brain chemistry.
"Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority." ~The Second Doctor, Doctor Who.
Why should the soul exist?! I am always surprised how people start with an assumption "soul has to exist therefore god" (or vice versa). Our brain does the thinking and is responsible for who we are and physical injuries to brain or some toxic substances alter the way it works and it is well documented. We do not have free will (independent of the physical body and especially the brain). And even if we had soul, how does that prove free will in any sense?
Excellent, and crushing, rebuttal.
It's funny watching theists try to logic".
The best explanation for a thing that doesn't exist is a being who doesn"t exist?
This guy is unintentionally hilarious.
Given that all religion is made up nonsense, whenever an apologist comes up with one of these mind games to try and logic their god into existence, it just shows a lack of imagination on their part that their all-powerful, all-knowing deity couldn't do something.
False premise. Not all naturalists are Atheistic...
Some theists define god in such a way that it doesn't adhere to the supernatural. Uncanny, but true nonetheless.
What kind of god is purely natural? Are they imagining some sort of alien like one that might be encountered on Star Trek? For example, Apollo from the episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?"
You, know. I've never thought to ask. These particular types of theists might be labeling something as a god that we call something else. Like
Maybe even a natural process or event. Some of them might say god isn't natural purely by mistake.
well, here's an example. jungian polytheists like myself feel that deities are figments of mankind's collective imagination... the more a group believes in them, the more it could be said they have power (like an ideology or a conspiracy might have power)... thus why the seemingly almighty monotheistic Aten had his ass curbstomped by Ra and the rest of the Egyptian pantheon with the attempted coup from Akenaten... and why the seemingly almighty Egyptian, Greek, Roman, etc. pantheons was curbstomped with the rise of christianity and the early catholic church.
deities are "things" in the same manner a dream is a thing. dream long enough, and put it into motion, and the will of the deity will become a reality, even if the deity itself is not real. mob rule is very much a natural effect, regardless if the origin of the mob rule is natural or not.
...to the atheist, i sound like a theist... to the theist, i sound like an atheist. truth is, is i'm neither- i recognize the will of the gods, without recognizing the gods themselves. ...do i believe Zeus is real? no. but i certainly do believe it was expected of people to honor him in order for them to live prosperous lives amongst their fellows... otherwise, there's blasphemy and impropriety charges, maybe some jail time, slavery, that sort of stuff... thus, why Zeus' will is not presently known amongst Pagans, but you can ask any christian on the street, and they are 100% certain "God wants this, done this way", and there's a ton of people who'll back him up.
beyond that, there is the personification of earth as Goddess and sun as God amongst some Wiccans. both are wholly natural entities. the personification is meant to allow more interpersonal feelings with the natural order of life, and as a story to relate to creation, change, preservation, and destruction, but few believe the sun and the earth are literal supernatural figures.
This guy looks evil somehow. Maybe it's the pointy little Devil goatee.
How do I know I haven't watched a particular TMM video? It doesn't have a like from me yet.
I lost count of the number of non sequitur leaps in that guys syllogism.
+BigRalphSmith
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens
The argument is logically valid to statement 7. You may disagree on the truth of the premises, but you don't have to claim it's a _non sequitur_ to disagree with it.
Don't have to but I did because they are.
Not only do I find most of the premises to be untrue (because they ignore other possibilities that don't favor his preconceptions) but the logic between them as well. Most of the conclusions reached throughout the syllogism do not necessarily follow. That is the very definition of non sequitur.
+BigRalphSmith
Did you look at the link?
The god -> soul argument is actually fairly straight forward. The soul is most often talked about in relation to god, and the bible (yes a bit of a jump but keep with me) if accurate would be the best evidence for the existence of a soul.
No God, no accurate bible, no soul. It makes sense if you see the premises he is sneaking in.
wswordsmen I wouldn't say so. There are many religions that discuss and define souls very differently and some with plenty more detail than the Bible. Buddhism, Hinduism. More.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Even if it were true that the bible is the only evidence of a soul, taking that away would have no effect upon the actual existence or non-existence of actual souls.
Ansatz66 I would agree with this person. Further, the argument in use limits itself to the point of view of assuming either is true, so it may appear convincing to the Christian but doesn't actually address the reasoning to reach the assumption before building conclusions.
The only problem I have with TMM is that I don't think it is possible for events to be *random and uncaused*.
Greg Letter
What I understand random to mean is that we are unaware or perhaps in principle unable to know all the variables (due to quantum effects) to predict an outcome.
Although the outcome is still deterministic and in principle calculable had we access to all the information / variables.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
Has no "cause" and is "random".
John Thimakis agreed. Randomness, like free will, is an illusion.
Well, we don't know if true randomness exists or not... right now we have things like quantum fluctuations that we currently see no way of finding out why they look random. In case it's truly, fundamentally random, we will never be sure whether some hidden cause is behind it, simply because there is always the possibility of unknown unknowns.
So again, 2 logical possibilities in case we find out everything we can ever know:
1)no randomness remains -> we know true randomness doesn't exist
2)some randomness remains -> either true randomness exists OR there are unknown unknowns that explain the randomness away which we simply can't know
Thulyblu You are absolutely right that I cannot prove my statement and the only proof is to be able to have knowledge of absolutely everything, a situation that I doubt we can ever reach because there is always, indeed, the possibility of unknown unknowns. However, apparent random events such as a dice roll will not be random with the exact same starting positions, should we be in a position to recreate them. Computer generated so called random numbers rely on algorithms, albeit complex ones. Apparent randomness at quantum level maybe due to our lack of knowledge in this area. Having said that, quantum is quite a sound theory as it produces predicable results, suggesting a lack of randomness (NB I don't pretend to understand quantum mechanics myself).
What I learned today: my shaved head pointy beard looks lame af. Time to find my razor
Wait, conclusions are justified because they are freely chosen? But that would mean any conclusion would be "justified," since the believer freely chose to believe it. That which justifies every possible conclusion justifies none of them.
So because IBM's supercomputer Watson has better knowledge then any human it logically follows it has bigger soul than any human and is more free thinking?
"I define knowledge as a belief that is consistently and most parsimoniously effective at predicting experience."
It would be awfully convenient if knowledge were that simple, but we can't just redefine words to eliminate life's problems. As the word is commonly defined in everyday language, knowledge entails truth. If our private definition of knowledge doesn't require our knowledge to be true, then we're disconnecting ourselves from the rest of the English speaking world and creating confusion whenever we try to talk to them about knowledge.
What if something false happens the be the most parsimonious way to consistently predict experience? Imagine an excellent myth that happens to always predict the right answer even though it bears no resemblance to the real causes of those answers. Should we really say that we know that even though it is false?
"Should we really say that we know that even though it is false?"
Are we aware that it's false? People have claimed to know things that turned out to be false throughout history. I'll bet that there is at least one thing that you "know" that is not actually true.
Theists like to use the "justified true belief" definition because they claim that certain truths are "written on their heart" or the like by their god. They can't show that they are true or justified, yet the call them knowledge.
How exactly do you go about showing that something is true? How many things have been shown to be true in the past and then shown to be false later on when more information became available? Given that we can't even be 100% sure that our perception of reality is correct, a requirement for absolute truth in knowledge is pretty much useless, as we can never actually know what we know and don't know. It basically comes down to something being true as much as we are capable of determining, and we determine such things by testing, either physically or logically, whether something consistently and parsimoniously predicts experience.
"People have claimed to know things that turned out to be false throughout history."
Because those things were false, those people were wrong to make those claims. In retrospect we can now say that they didn't actually know the things they thought they knew. If we were to change the definition of knowledge to accept false knowledge, then we might be forced to say they did actually know things that weren't true.
"I'll bet that there is at least one thing that you 'know' that is not actually true."
As a skeptic, I avoid claiming to know things for exactly that reason.
"How exactly do you go about showing that something is true?"
There is no way to show that something is true, at least when it involves the outside world. Matters of logic can of course be proven.
"A requirement for absolute truth in knowledge is pretty much useless, as we can never actually know what we know and don't know."
We shouldn't change what knowledge means just to make it more useful. That would be like redefining the word _unicorn_ to remove its horn and make it a breed of horse just because the word was useless when it referred to something which doesn't exist. Skeptics have recognized for thousands of years that knowledge is impossible, but that's no reason to redefine the word.
@Ansatz66, how can you possibly say that something is false and therefore does not qualify as knowledge if you can't know that it is false because you can't know anything? I think that the issue here is that, as are many words, "knowledge" can be used in two different ways. I would agree that "absolute knowledge" is impossible and I would say that that is the case whether or not a god exists. I would also say that most people tend to use "knowledge" not in absolute terms but rather within the context of our agreed-upon shared perception of reality. For instance, I don't think that it's unreasonable to say that I know that I am currently sitting at my desk typing this reply on my computer and I don't think that many people would be such sticklers as to say that it was. If we consider "knowledge" in that context, which is how most people generally use it, then noone is suggesting that we accept "false knowledge" because if we have grounds to say that it's false then it would not meet TMM's definition.
"How can you possibly say that something is false and therefore does not qualify as knowledge if you can't know that it is false because you can't know anything?"
I can't do that. The reason I say that knowledge is impossible is not because all beliefs are false; it's because they are unjustified. In a world where we cannot tell if something is true or false, it is impossible to justify any belief, therefore knowledge is impossible.
"For instance, I don't think that it's unreasonable to say that I know that I am currently sitting at my desk typing this reply on my computer and I don't think that many people would be such sticklers as to say that it was."
Even so, people would commonly agree that if it turned out that you were in The Matrix and living in a tank hooked up to a computer, then you are actually wrong about knowing you're at your desk. It only counts as knowledge if it's actually true. When all evidence suggests that something is true, people may use the word _knowledge_ casually, but that doesn't change the fact that they expect the word knowledge to apply only to true things.
"No one is suggesting that we accept 'false knowledge' because if we have grounds to say that it's false then it would not meet TMM's definition."
A thing can be false even if we don't have grounds to say that it's false. TMM's definition could force us to accept false knowledge in that situation.
He really needs to join a debating society to learn what all these "technical terms" exist. His If, so, therefore list was a pile of twaddle!
Free will, to me, is purely the ability to think/believe what *I* want to/consider to be right, and not be _told_ to by someone else. I can freely believe in a god, should I wish. I don't, but I could. It's *my* choice and neither he, nor any other person, not even my husband, has any right to interfere with my decision making. By the same token, I am not allowed to interfere with anyone else's beliefs (in whatever). What is so difficult about understanding and accepting that definition?
His so called Free Thought argument can be reduced to two words, Non Sequitur.
@tmm I don't believe that any random uncaused event can be demonstrated within the universe. In a naturalistic universe, all events have causes even though to us humans those causes are so complex as to be indistinguishable from randomness. Within a realm that appears to us as functionally random we make decisions and hold beliefs that are functionally indistinguishable from libertarian free will, and that said, in principle all those decisions and beliefs could be calculated if we had knowledge of every variable and an almost infinitely powerful computer.
From a practical standpoint, why would you need to? When you roll the dice (fair dice), the result is absolutely determined, mainly by Newtonian physics, but at a fine enough level of detail that the result is random enough for our purposes. "Actual randomness" is an abstract concept. I don't know the exact textbook definition, but it seems to imply a hypothetical uncaused event for which the probability of any result is always exactly the same as every other result. I'm not aware that such a thing could exist in reality, except perhaps in some arcane corner of quantum mechanics or a thought experiment.
I notice that he disabled comments typical.
The problem with "knowledge is justified true belief" is what is "true belief"???
Aren't both steps 5 and 6 of his argument non sequiturs?
+dave28lax
No, they follow from the above premises: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens
+Mathoma Thanks - you are right. And thanks for the link, very helpful. Are you sure this is proper decorum for a UA-cam comment?
Also, I guess I'm illogical Captain.
+dave28lax
Well, no, it's not a matter of _being_ illogical, it's just being unfamiliar with the argument form.
another quote from frank turek: if atheism is true then my brain was not designed to think then how do i know that the conclusion i've made is true
never seen a wiser man
This argument about Free Will is ridiculous in itself. If there is a God then there is no free will because God has already made his decision whatever or not we will go to heaven or hell long before we are even conceived. There's so many rabbit holes you can go through about free will or God.
where is knowledge defined that way?
Why can't you believe a proposition that you don't understand? For instance, why couldn't you believe that the sun will come up tomorrow morning, even if you don't know why it will do so?
Not understanding why the sun will come up is quite different from not understanding what it means for the sun to come up. Imagine a person who has lived her entire life in a cave and never seen the sun, nor ever had it clearly explained to her. Wouldn't it be fair to say that she cannot believe that the sun will come up tomorrow since she has no understanding of what that means?
This guy is ignoring the fact that causality does not exist at the quantum level, which underlies all macro experiences and has a direct influence on the detailed operations of the brain, which generates our minds and what he calls the "soul". His argument breaks down at this point.
If it is possible know with absolute certainty the decision someone will make, as God supposedly does, even if only in principle, then there is no room for free will.
Another fundamental error made: if god exists he is just as "natural" as a tree or a rock. The supernatural/natural distinction is purely linguistic, it's not metaphysical.
For instance, if ghosts were somehow demonstrated tomorrow, is that evidence that the supernatural exists? Or is it something extra that our understanding of the "natural" world will now expand to accommodate? What is the difference?
This nonsense is undeserving of your thoughtful attention. Aim higher.
That goes for literally all religious arguments. There really is no debate, and the best arguments religious people have are implausible anecdotes and ad hoc rescues. By your logic, no one should address religious arguments due to their inherent risibility. I find fault with that.
Are you assuming that atheists usually believe in free will? Because there certainly are a rising number who don't. For example, I certainly think the concept is incompatible with modern science, and also has no explanatory power. Or if you want a more prominent example, look at Sam Harris.
If you aimed any higher, you would simply be talking to someone who doesn't believe in a god.
That's Calvinist thinking, Dinko.
Science doesn't "prove" anything, it just tries to find the best explanation for how things work, using testable and observable data. A theory can only be disproven, not proven. Evolution and the big bang are good enough ideas to be considered "facts" because both theories have been unbelievably thoroughly scrutinized and no one has yet been able to disprove them.
God cannot be in anyway scientific because the hypothesis is not testable or observable. I am an atheist because I've been given no good reason to believe that a god exists.
Do not think I am an ideologue or a dittohead just because I've rejected your assertion that a god exists. I can believe in a great many number of stupid things that are different from what other atheists believe in, yet still be an atheist. The definition of "atheism" doesn't care whether you are a skeptic, a conspiracy theorist, a liberal, or a libertarian. It doesn't even care whether you are agnostic in your disbelief or that you are thoroughly convinced that you know no gods exist. All that matters is that you are not theistic.
Shouldn't the argument be
A dog is a mammal.
My pet is a dog
Therefore
My pet is a mammal.
Is it just me or did the theist for the day lump all types of free will under "Libertarian free will"?
You must of forgot about Calvinists. Calvinists don’t believe in free will at least not the libertarian sort either. Everything is subject to God‘s divine will. Got hardens the heart of a stiffnecked people and hardened the heart of pharaoh and blinds them to things so that they cannot see. On the other side for them he collects he causes them to see the evidence. In his natural state man is literally incapable of seeking God. They would say it is only when the Holy Spirit gives you a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone to wear one can even understand the things of God and cannot though articulated to wear a blinded unbeliever can see. Gus an unbeliever becoming a believer is an act of Grace
It looks more like a "NO Thought Argument" to achieve a belief in a god!
lmao I cringed through his whole argument, it is painful to see such irrationality can be paraded as a real argument.
Is it really free thought if a all knowing God exists, it seems like it would be an illusion if a all knowing God exists so anything and everything is on him or her.
This make absolutely zero sense. I wonder if this guy has enough self-awareness to be embarrassed by this argument.
I'm sorry, but what exactly is free will again? How does God's existence have any logical relevance to this concept?
AntiCitizenX Well, their god existing means we don't have free will.
exiledfrommyself - I wouldn't say that. A god existing and free will existing are not necessarily incompatible. One of the properties the theists claim their god might have can be, though.
Free will and omniscience are incompatible. They require fundamentally different kinds of universe.
Omniscience requires a deterministic universe. You can't know everything about a system unless it's deterministic. If it's not, it can always do something other than what you predict, denying you perfect knowledge of it.
Whatever free will might be, it involves being able to be to some degree unpredictable, and that requires a universe with at least some degree of non-determinism.
You can have a god and free will, the god just can't be omniscient.
As for me, I'm with AntiCitizenX in saying "What is free will, really?" and that omniscience is not possible because things like the Halting Problem exist.
The worst fucking part I hate about most of Christianity is we are not free to conciously cease to exist.
If I was truly the antichrist, I'd be happy about it though. Lol.
Andrew Sykes I was thinking the exact same thing. This joker's argument is nothing but pure word salad.
AntiCitizenX I think the idea is since God is supposed to be all knowing, including our future, our choices are all predestined.
If our choices are all predestined, there is no conflict of separating good and evil.
Essentially they'd have to be from the same God. If they weren't, Calvinism would be true, and most of us would be predestined to the modern concept of hell.
God would be the only actualizer, and only true choice would be God's.
If we really do have free will, then an intervening type God could not really exist.
yeah, lets just make definitions from random nice sounding words so our god makes sense
Soul cannot exist, so that's impossible
Ted Archer why can't the soul exist?
philopateer atef because we have two minds
philopateer atef one must define "soul" before you can claim possibilities of existence.
It's a popular genre of music that originated in the US in the early 1960s.
A "soul" can be defined in a rational way from usage as a person with a unique identity and moral value and importance of being alive that are connoted more than by calling an individual a "person" or an "individual." For instance, in the airline industry, standard terminology in English counts the number of living human individuals who board an airplane as "souls" which are said to be "lost" if those individuals die in a crash.
(The word "person" derives from a Latin word for a mask, and can be used for artificial persons such as corporations or used as a euphemism for an individual's body, so the word "person" connotes more about legal identity and body than the word "soul." A "soul" connotes more about being a unique individual with experiences and memories that are lost to this world if the individual dies. Individuals or persons might arrive at their destination if the airplane crashes at the destination airport, but if the persons aboard die in the process, the souls were lost.)
Premises should be pronounced 'prem-iss-izz not 'prem-iss-eez, because it's not the plural of "premisis" (on the model of Greek words such as ellipsis/ellipses.) The pronunciation 'prem-iss-eez was popularized by crime dramas in which some actors playing police officers made themselves sound laughably ignorant by pronouncing "premises" as if it were a difficult Greek-derived word, for comic entertainment value.
Agaperion Rex, what's your disagreement specifically, or are you just expressing shock at reading something you didn't know yet?
(Premises is the regular English plural of premise (or premiss in older and more accurate spelling) which is a word from Latin. It's not a Greek plural that should have a different pronunciation in English, such as the word "axes" ('aks-eez) plural of axis, distinct by pronunciation from "axes" ('aks-izz) plural of ax/axe. The word *"premisis" does not exist in English, except as a hypothetical mistake for the sake of discussion. That's the sort of word or expression that linguists mark with a star to indicate that they made it up, rather than observed it.)
So I have the free will to believe in God? What else? The Easter Bunny? Unicorns?
In reality it doesn't work that way. I can pretend I believe in God. That's not belief, but pretend. Everything that follows "pretend" is pretend and not real. It's simply not possible for me to believe in God, Unicorns, etc. Only God can make me believe those things, and God is not real.
Why do the original author always disable any comment...nice TMM
EVEN IF his dumb arguments were right, they wouldn't demonstrate it's impossible for a naturalist atheist to be a free thinker. We would just be wrong free thinkers, but free thinkers nevertheless.
Because he DOES believe in libertarian free will.
Btw. Calvin and Calvinists were christian (fundamentalists) and determists. They didn't believe in free choice.
This guy is very annoying. So many assumptions and leaps. I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to try to have a conversation with him.
✨👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻✨u rock ❤
Ugh. Can't these people do *any* research?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought
*_"Freethought (or "free thought")[1] is a philosophical viewpoint which holds that positions regarding truth should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, revelation, or other dogma."_*
This isn't a word we just made up to try and make theists feel dumb. It's been in use by academics since the late 1800s.
Hey man, I really dig your videos, I’d really really want you to read about the argument of the linguistic inmitiability of the Quran and refute it comprehensively. Thanks. Read well about it though mate, instead of forming strawmen.
What is "inmitiability" supposed to be?
Language is invented in some cases to describe discoveries. So... Perhaps you've discovered that randomly inventing nonsense syllables therefore Alla?
There's not much of an argument there. The Quran is full of antisemitism and other bigotry, contains utter nonsense and things which are factually untrue, it has repeated verses, self-contradictions, stuff copied incorrectly from the Bible, and was originally written without diacritical marks which make it impossible to distinguish between some consonants, thus some words are guesses from the original manuscripts. The Quran is a jumbled mess of various styles, and there is no clear criteria for what qualifies as imitating its style, so they can just move the goalposts over and over the moment any particular arbitrary criteria is met.
That said, the burden of proof is on them to show that I'jaz (the inimitability of the Quran) is true, not on everyone else to disprove it.
My ass some times invents new sounds. Have you considered worshipping my ass?
Why is that he hasn’t demonstrated that there is god or that a physical brain isn’t capable of free thought all I hear is baseless assertions
Reason is a reaction to the evidence.
"An argument I crafted....." So I guess you think you deserve a gold star or something.
P1: There is no evidence for an immaterial soul regardless of the state of naturalism.
P2: This premise requires that you first provide evidence of an immaterial soul (see P1) and second you must then show that this soul would necessarily drive your decision making processes.
P3: This just builds on the failures of premises 1 & 2 and is therefore also a failure.
P4: Well at least he got one right.
P5: Is a restatement of premise 3 which is already false.
P6: He is just working his way back up the list of falsehoods.
P7: Circling back to square 1
P8: Textbook presupposition.
This guy also doesn't seem to understand the basic form of an argument with his 5th, 6th and 7th premises coming in the form of circular conclusions. No gold star for you Skippy.
"Knowledge: Justified true belief" Another apologist definition that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual definition.
HTF does this guy assume that we can't see through his b/s? I gettit - he's accustomed to addressing unquestioning brainwashed young theists