I really admire Alex's consistent intellectual honesty. He never tries to score points at the expense of his integrity. He's actually willing to concede on points and accept good criticisms of his arguements, rather than immediately resorting to defensive tactics when challenged just cling on to a certain position. He also always appears to be considering his opponents' arguements in terms of their value and not just their weaknesses. People so often claim to 'care about the truth' but Alex actually acts like he does. Keep up the good work, Alex 👍
@@davethebrahman9870 his does it only partially, like saying "that might work", or concealing internal points of Christianity which don't imply truth or existence, just consistency.
Hearing McLatchie go on his monologue about DNA replication is so infuriating. As a biologist he should know how PCR works and that such a process does not require all of these complex enzymes. These are all only required in modern eukaryotes. Extrapolating this to include the most rudimentary life forms pretty much misses the entire point of evolution by means of natural selection.
I lost my mind when he started rambling about all the specific enzymes that are necessary for dna transcription and translation in the more "complex" organisms and that replication of DNA surely wouldn't work without them specifically. Like, my man, do you not get that polymerase and ligaze an the rest are very rich groups of enzymes that just specialized with time? It's painfully obvious that less specific enzymes that could easily come about in the right environment just got better and better at their job. It's like failing to understand that sharpened rock is essentially the same tool as knife from policarbon steel, just not as good at its job as more advanced tool. It's very basic biology.
The problem I keep having with these debates is that Alex generally asks extremely specific questions and the people hes debating always end up giving these really vague generalized answers that never really address his questions.
Whenever you hear of the watchmaker argument, remember the Runamo Inscription found in Blekinge, Sweden. For hundreds of years no one was able to translate the runic writings until it was discovered that they were no writings at all but natural occuring fissures in the rock instead. Turns out, people aren't really able to recognize design, but sometimes tend to imply it.
2:10:49 - Alex's little smile when McLatchie 'invites him to do that inquiry' regarding the truth of the Gospel, knowing full well that Alex has done a whole-ass theology degree.
McLatchie's closing argument was probably the most pompous, stuck up piece of self-jerking I've ever seen, where he utterly disregarded everything Alex said and blindly claimed that his arguments destroyed all of Alex's.
You atheists cry about everything. You claim to be objective but you just cry whenever your “non belief” gets attacked. Just because you have a theology degree doesn’t make you an expert in all things religion. Especially not something as extensive as the Bible where there are multiple fields of studies within it
Johnathan's first rebuttal, I think, is basically, "if you're truly non-resistant you'll believe in the long run". So you can't know if you were being non-resistant or not until you actually believe Christianity or you're on your deathbed. Sounds neat.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:1-16 NIV ❤️ ~~~ I will say, I don't like that Jonathan failed to mention the need for prayer
@@brophwydcalling people out on fallacies does not do anything constructive in a debate, if you are trying anything else than to win gotcha points. It would have created meaningless animosity
My vote goes to Alex O'connor. He appeared poised, well-informed and sincerely objective, even graciously conceding points when corrected. Jonathan McLatchie, on the other hand, came off as professorial, dodgy and somewhat intellectually dishonest. McLatchie's main strategy appears to have hinged on wowing his audience with the intricacies of DNA replication and, with the audience still wowed and stupefied by the dramatics, suspiciously omitting some critical details that could potentially challenge his thesis . Not fair! McLatchie's central argument seems to be simply this: the remarkable accuracy, precision, and complexity of DNA replication, gene expression and even the Genetic Code could have only come from intelligent design. What McLatchiel suspiciously left out is the following: (1) the so-called Genetic Code in one of McLatchie's slides is an illustration of how it appears NOW . What McLatchie omitted to mention was that, during the roughly 4 billion years of evolution, it was NOT always so.There is persuasive evidence of Biosynthetic expansion of the genetic code -- that the genetic code grew from a simpler earlier code through a process of "biosynthetic expansion", as primordial life "discovered" new amino acids (by-products of metabolism) and later incorporated some of these into the machinery of genetic coding. The other point he failed to mention is this-- the genetic code is NOT as sacrosanct as McLatchie presents it to be. There are significant divergences from the 20-aminacid canonical code that Mclatchie put up on his slide. This diversity appears mostly in 'primitive' prokaryotes, current prokaryotes, and endosymbionts, but less so in eukaryotes (which include animals and humans) which over time appear to have progressively adopted the canonical genetic code that McLatchie showed on that slide. (2) Even the processes of transcription, translation, and replication of genetic information appears to show slow and steady progressive evolution over vast stretches of geological time, differing dramatically between early 'primitive' prokaryotes to modern prokaryotes and eukaryotes. (DNA wasn't even the first repository of genetic information; RNA was, and in some organisms, still is) Mclatchie myopically looks at the 20th or 21st century Genetic code or DNA replication as the 'epitome of perfection' and makes the fantastic leap of logic to assume a designer, while blithely ignoring all the steps (and missteps) that ensued in the over 4 billion years preceding it. To be clear- progressive acquisition of complexity favours natural evolution and is counterintuitive to intelligent design-- the argument being -- if an all knowing God already knew the perfect design why would he resort to some trial-error process and tinker with creation? (3) McLatchie also does not address the question -- if replication is so perfect, how come there are traceable variations within and and between extant and extinct species. The evidence in favour of natural evolution rest on findings that species variation is a consequence of inherited random mutations (both gain-of-function and loss-of function mutations). Even if replication error rate is very low, other random processes such as oxidative stress, free radicals etc exert measurable effects on mutation frequencies in species. Even molecular evolution does not appear to be this simple, clock-like universal, process.; there is considerable variation in the rate of molecular evolution manifest at all levels of biological organization not just in species but also among species. Variation rate can vary considerably with species, body size, population dynamics, lifestyle and geographical location. Mutations do not always guarantee survival of species; they can also result in extinction of a species. Mutations are random and the evidence so far does not seem to support progression towards some predetermined outcome. So pointing to the perfection of the replication process as a shining example of intelligent design is misleading. Mutational basis of species variation and consequence on survival or extinction of species (particularly the randomness of the mutations) runs counterintuitive to the 'intelligent design' of an 'all-knowing' God that by definition knows EXACTLY what he is doing and makes NO mistakes. (4) What McLatchie does not mention is that this so called 'intelligent design' is NO guarantee for survival. There is overwhelming evidence that even this level of sophistication and complexity in processes necessary for life (like replication transcription translation) does NOT guarantee the survival of a species. In the last 4 billion years, it is estimated (yes, it is an educated estimate, not documented fact) that approximately 99.5% of all species that ever existed on Earth are extinct. There is however irrefutable evidence that in the last 500 million years alone there have been 5 mass extinctions, at times killing off nearly 75-96% of all living forms on land sea and air. There is persuasive evidence that we are currently in the midst of a 6h mass extinction event (Holocene extinction) with current extinction rates in the last 500-1000 years being dramatically higher than the background extinction rate. Mass extinctions are counterintuitive to intelligent design The reasoning is that if an all-knowing God already knew he didn't need all those species to begin with, why waste resources on species he knew he was going to destroy anyways? McLatchie's God seems less an 'intelligent' designer and more a capricious tinkerer with wanton disregard for life. Unless, of course, wanton destruction of life IS somehow part of 'God's Plan"-- that tired, lazy, knee-jerk argument, which happens to be a favourite among apologists. (5) McLatchie's whole notion that 'if there is information there has to be an intelligent designer that created if' is a flat out nonsensical interpretation of information theory which states that information is intrinsic to the Universe, not just at the grand cosmic scale or in the DNA and genetic code, but even at the sub-atomic quantum scale where uncertainty prevails. Quantum uncertainty presents a problem for intelligent design, simply because, at least according to theist arguments, God is thought to operate with a 'certain intent', (remember? he has a 'definite Plan') not toying with probabilities and varying outcomes. Theists who use the 'Measurement problem' and "observer requirement" as defense of 'God' being the Observer that collapses the probabilistic wave function into measurable certainty .. are either completely clueless of, or are deliberately obfuscating, the meaning of the terms 'measurement' or 'observation' in quantum physics. Moreover, the concept of information entropy -- that the more certain or deterministic an event is, the less information it will contain; information is actually an increase in uncertainty (disorder, entropy) of a system -- begs the question, how is information (an increase in disorder) evidence of intelligent design (McLatchie's God)? McLachie's arguments also fail in his other subjective interpretations of natural phenomena. (1) his claim that animals do not suffer 'as much' as humans appears ridiculous when one witnesses elephants or cheetahs hovering over their dead offspring for days and weeks in obvious grief. I would argue that the suffering of an elephant over the loss of her dead offspring is greater because the elephant cannot rationalize that grief as we do. (2) his rebuttal to the 'non uniform geographical distribution of God awareness'- -that God has a plan (arrangement) for Buddhists in Thailand appeared silly, dodgy and evasive. This 'God has a Plan' argument appears to be a very common 'fig leaf' that most theists use to evade embrassinging gaps in theistic interpretations of the natural world. I wonder if Mclatchie has an explanation for my question- During the past 5500 years why has the spiritual experience of hundreds of millions of Hindus in India manifested as 33 million OTHER divinities, with the very conspicuous exception of McLatchie's Christian God? Does it not make sense that if the Christian God is universally accessible he should have appeared within the Hindu experience at least once in all this time? Why, oh why, is Mclatchie's God ignoring the poor Hindus for no fault of their own? Why was that God NOT accessible to pre-Christian era civilizations- such as the Chinese or the Indians which at one time together comprised nearly 75% of humanity? Seems very suspicious to me that McLatchies God should reveal himself only to a select band of desert dwellers at only a certain point in recorded history, but remain 'hidden' to the rest of humanity before and, arguably, long after.
The only counter-point I can make to that is if God made humans like itself, well, people LOVE simulator games where you build stuff up then burn it to the ground. Lol. Maybe God just likes seeing the process, like watching an ant colony that it occasionally sets on fire. Though, the latest mass extinctions are our fault. There's more farmed animals in the world now than wild animals.
@@suicune2001 Wrong! Mass extinctions have occurred long before human species came into existence. The latest Holocene extinction began 10,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age of the Milankovitch cycle and a global warming period began. I agree in modern times population with overgrowth, humans have exacerbated environmental pollution. But CO₂ levels global temperature patterns have cycled periodically much to the same extent as we are observing now and are primarily due due to factors beyond human control eccentricity of Earth's orbit around the sun, , axial tilt and precession of the earth as it rotates around its axis. Other factors like volcanic activity methane release meteor strikes are also responsible for mass extinction. The hypothesis is 'Life and its complexity is by "intelligent" design' by an Designer- God' who has a Plan" If God already HAS a plan why the frequent mass extinctions? Why the wanton destruction of 99.9% of nearly 4 billion species that ever existed on Earth? Either the Plan is flawed -- which means God is 'flawed' (and that violates the notion of God who by definition is without Flaw) or there is NO Plan-- and therefore there is no God, and the 'intelligent design' argument collapses. Your statement ' Maybe God just likes seeing the process, (by process I am assuming mass extinctions of billions of species' like watching an ant colony' challenges the notion of an All-Loving All-knowing God. Humans too nearly became extinct around 60,000 years ago. From an estimated population of 100,000-150,0000 individuals we were reduced to roughly 1000 individuals huddled precariously in a cave on the Cape of Good Hope. If God so loved Man how can he capriciously destroy hundreds of thousands of humans and watch the fun? This is different from a Simulator Game.. simulator games do not come with a cost of unimaginable human (and animal) suffering. An argument is often made (and Mclatchie seemed to obliquely allude to it) that such destruction is sometimes warranted because of 'evil that men do'. Even assuming humans were evil 60,000 years ago the very notion raises a whole range of contradictions (1) If God had a Plan, then God's Plan included Man, AND the 'evil that Men do. So God created an instrument of Evil and is responsible for the Evil 'men do' which contradicts the definition of God -- 'God can do no evil'. (2) If 'evil that men do is' because of Man's 'Free will' again that contradicts the definitions of Free will and God's Plan- Free will, cannot be 'free' if the outcome was already decided by God’s Plan. If the outcome is not within God's Plan, then the Plan itself is flawed but this contradicts the definition of a 'God that can make no flaws' ' The point is this whole notion of 'intelligent design' is internally inconsistent. If it is indeed a design, the design is obviously flawed. If it is flawed, then it cannot be termed 'intelligent'. If it is a design, and even nominally intelligent, but with obvious serious flaws, it brings into question the very 'intelligence' and competency of the so-called 'Designer'.
@alisha Roy I love the thoroughness of your reply, I learned some things, although I was aware of some of it. If only the theists would read it , and try to understand it . I’m not holding my breath. I made the point in replying to some other posts that McLatchie was being disingenuous in his argument, but you read broke it down .👍
Alex is becoming my favorite outspoken atheist. You can see the influence of hitchens. But at the same time he does not avoid questions like hitch used to do with his charm. I think Alex is the most promising freethinker at the moment.
His approach with Christian audiences is incredible. He cracks jokes and overall comes off as likable and reasonable which generally puts him optically far ahead of his opponents. I think people often forget how the manner in which we give our opinions matters just as much as the content when it comes to convincing people. I really like that Alex isn't like some of the angry atheists types who engage only for the purpose of shitting on Christianity. It really seems like he wants to be convinced by cant because the arguments arent of the quality he requires
@@zacharybrown5367 exactly. I don't like to compare because he has his own way of debating. But to me, he took the strong points of every outspoken atheist. He has the charm and wit of Hitch, the Bible knowledge of Matt and the philosophy approach of Dennet.
Definitely can see the Hitchens influence. Alex is growing and maturing his debating prowess, his critical analytical skills are excellent. I also admire his honestly and humility. Hitch would be proud.
I’ve never heard of the term “non-resistant non-belief.” I definitely fall into that category, but I simply haven’t found the evidence necessary for me to believe again yet. I’m amazed that the professor has the audacity to say that someone who engages objectively with the evidence will in the end become a Christian. How do you account for someone like me. A current Christian minister who has dedicated his life to the gospel yet no longer believes? I have two degrees in theology and a wealth of Christian experience, if anyone was going to believe, it would be me. Everything within me wants to believe, in fact, my financial well being depends on it at this point. Sadly, I am having to complete a new degree and leave the ministry when I graduate.
I know an ex-Church of Scotland minister with a similar experience. He stopped believing in some of the things he was telling his congregation and so felt he couldn't live a lie. He did a one year course to become a Religious Education and Classics teacher. Even now, in his nineties, he is still struggling to "work it all out". I know of at least two ministers who came out as no longer believing but still managed to keep going with their congregations: Greta Vosper in Canada and Klaas Hendrikse in the Netherlands.
I imagine he is so convinced that he is the one who has engaged objectively, and when someone disagrees it must be them who did the "objective engagement" wrong. Which is so very relatable, but we should hope that most of us have the humility to say that it could also have been ourselves, who were wrong.
He's an evidential apologist by trade. Believing that an objective examination of the evidence is sufficient reason to become a Christian is a fundamental requirement for the job. Otherwise he would have to be a Calvinist or a presuppositionalist and all his work in getting a PhD in evolutionary biology would go to waste.
@@EnglishMike I agree with Jonathon, Do I think there are some non resistant non believers, yes there are some, but they are few and far between especially in the atheist movement. There are many reasons to not want God to exist, but very atheists are willing to admit that, they act as if they are seeking the truth, but its pretty obvious its qutie psychological and emotional for most atheists. Even Alex, almost all of his arguments are emotional resistance to the idea of God, the suffering in the world, I think most atheists reject God because they dont want to submit themselves and humble themselves, they dont want to give up their desires, they want to be autonomous, like most of us do. These are desires which everyone deals with but some of us will seek the truth instead of run from it.
Yeah, I think it's part of his agenda, trying to say "If you engage with the contents objectively and don't believe, something is wrong with you". He has to constantl remind himself that he is something better somehow.
I wonder if anyone has ever wandered into a desert, found a cactus, and wondered why the desert environment was so perfectly fine-tuned for the survival and flourishing of the cactus
it really doesn't matter, they will just take a step back and argue that the existence of matter itself is just the result of a perfectly fine-tuned universe for life. Belief isn't based on epistemology...
@@AI3Dorinte I wasn’t making an epistemological argument, I was drawing an analogy. Considering the desert to be mysteriously tuned for cacti would be a misunderstanding - possibly of the same sort that considering our universe mysteriously tuned for our type of life would be. And tbh, I don’t think this is the best response to the fine tuning problem. I think a better response would be to suggest that the fundamental constants (or, perhaps more importantly, their scale and/or the relationships between them) can’t be altered in such ways as theists might suggest. I think the notion that the magnitude of the strong nuclear force (or any other such constant) could’ve somehow been slightly different with respect to the other constants is somewhere between conjecture and whimsy. There’s simply no reason (that I know of, of course) to believe it’s at all possible outside of defending creationism.
@@Williamwilliam1531 sorry mate I didn't understand why is it whimsy exactly? The anthropic principle has been critiqued to death so I won't do that, but if all these constants are unalterable (which I agree with you), and yet the near perfect conditions or goldilocks zone has been created despite the astronomical improbability of it existing, does that not increase the propensity of it being deliberate? I think it does. This favours the fine tuning argument. You said there's no reason to believe this, outside of believing creationism. Wouldn't that be the point that favours the theistic argument?
@@edwardnygma5549 in retrospect, “whimsy” maybe wasn’t the best word choice. The fine tuning argument assumes that many (or even “any” depending who you ask) values are possible for the fundamental constants we’ve observed in the universe. I find this assumption to be somewhat whimsical, since, well, no one has proposed a mechanism or theory or anything resembling an explanation of how this might be a reasonable assumption to make. People tend to just assert that other values might have existed, and then ask an explanation of science. I guess, on my disagreeable days, I find that a rather whimsical way of thinking. To be clear, I don’t think that these people are purposefully being whimsical, or that they dismiss logic or anything. I just think that they misunderstand the cosmological/mathematical nuance and complexity of their own argument. For instance, what does it mean to talk about the probability of a true “one-of-one” occurrence? We have observed no other universes being created, nor have we observed other constants in other areas of this universe. There is a dataset of exactly one, and the entire fine-tuning argument is predicated on deriving a probability from that dataset, despite the lack of any proposed theory of how or why the existence of alternate values is even an intelligible possibility to discuss. I find this to be bad science, bad philosophy, and bad mathematics.
As a Christian, I have to say I'm thoroughly unimpressed with Jonathan's arguments and positions. Alex's arguments were not only very brilliant but extremely heartfelt, and they deserve better replies.
But your faith is not ultimately grounded in rationality or evidence, so what difference does it make? Christians believe and then find "evidence" for that belief, not the other way around. And likely, there is nothing that would make you disbelieve in your god, so I don't understand your objection. You are watching this debate for the purpose of entertainment, not deliberation.
@@seanmatthewking Whatever they can make up along the way because there will only ever be arguments because there isn't any evidence. When we see scientists arguing that there is or isn't salt in seawater, we will see the parallel of religious nonsense.
As time goes on, I find it more and more difficult to respect theists who confidently trot out the same old debunked arguments that I've been hearing for decades.
@Bronson lol that's a silly strawman.. But to address your comment, morality doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's a social game we play derived from the physical realities of our existence. Your inability to make sense of existence without plugging in a creator character is not the problem of the nonbelievers.
@Bronson u know what is logically nonsensical is believing that something complex enough to design whole universe can come from nothing , but the less complex universe can't . When there actually is No proof of god , but there is proof of universe .
Why must unresisting non-belief be lifelong? Surely it's the other way round, that a vocal God would capitalise on the single instant a resistant non-believer had an open and accepting mind and reveal himself in that moment. It's inconceivable that everyone who dies an atheist had zero moments of an open mind where a God who cares enough to, and has the knowledge and power to reveal himself in a non-pressured free choice way. Who would honestly reject a (demonstrably) loving God looking to do us well and who can fully explain the world to our satisfaction in that moment?
@@FartPanther "Who would honestly reject a (demonstrably) loving God looking to do us well and who can fully explain the world to our satisfaction in that moment?" One reason: fear. If the explanation validates our understanding and fills in the gaps, that would be fine and dandy. But what if the explanation completely invalidates everything? What if it shows us that everything we thought was true is actually false? It would feel as though we're being sucked into irreversible madness. We would sense it as we approached and our gut would wrench in fear. So we reject, resist, turn away and run for our lives back into ignorance. It's not just having an open mind, it's having equanimity, non-reaction to experience. Up until the point of no return, any craving or aversion will stop the process.
@@bike4aday I think that argument works more for a Theist rather than and Atheist. An Atheist gains from becoming a Theist. They'd gain a community, the feeling that everything will 'be okay', the love of another individual etc and it's more than possible to be a Theist and believe in modern science to a degree. Modern day Christian views have thankfully evolved to the point where it's just the creationists and such that have massively conflicting anti-science views. However an Theist becoming and Atheist has to contend with, depending on their sect, losing an entire community, friends and family or in some religions being banned or executed. The not to mention to the human mind, if a human loves God like another person, the sudden loss of their 'God' will be similar to that of actually losing a love one.
@patrickkusmajadi4736 eh, I disagree. Irreducible complexity relies on a tremendous reduction of and ignorance of biology. It can be thrown away with an argument as simple as "the human body isn't a mouse trap". And then the hackneyed genetic code argument. Biology isn't a computer. If a computer gave birth to a new computer over billions of years, perhaps it would look something like that? I guess? It's just such a ridiculous argument. Just because something is hard to understand doesn't mean it's supernatural. Scientists for hundreds of years have been fighting against this exact type of thinking.
@@patrickkusmajadi4736 Jonathan's was not bad, but his introduction statements were also pretty easy to shut down, especially the fine-tuning arguments he presented and his proofs were unsubstantial.
@@QuantizedAxiomyeah, heard those cases/arguments for god so many times now and heard them refuted just as many. they’re pretty effective to a layman but nothing substantial/sound otherwise.
As a kid growing up catholic, I once asked my mom “if you believe in something hard enough, can it become true?” She answered yes and I committed myself to be the best catholic believer I could be for the next few years. I was the epitome of a nonresistant nonbeliever. Nothing was ever revealed to me, and all my observations of the world actively drove me away from my belief.
I gave it 12 years (age 6 to 18) as a Catholic then moved on. 50 more years have passed and god still hasn't shown up. It's been great having Sundays open.
@@BillzybobbToo Very true, however, after painful experiences it can be hard to remember this. We want to believe it is part of a plan or things will work out in the end. It is a useful defense mechanism.
The greatest meta-critic of McLatchie's debate is that his presentation and communication style is CLEARLY not intended to be understood, but to overwhelm. He rambles non-stop at high speeds creating circular and hypothetical arguments, then moves on to build his conclusion upon these without any rational evidence. In other words, quantity over quality.
When I was watching the debate I really noticed this. His opening statement was at least understandable (I am not experienced with biology so I can't verify how true what hes saying is), but when he started his rebuttals I was genuinely rewinding because I couldn't get what he was trying to really say or what his actual point is. It felt like he was flipping from point to point, some Alex didn't even make.
After over a decade of being deconverted, I think I'm burned out on these debates. Cosmic skeptic is too calm and collected lol. Much respect for what you have to argue
So agree. Exhausted. And I am yet to find a single Christian apologist who isn’t fundamentally arrogant - an impenetrable wall of hubris. No doubts, no vulnerability. Sad.
I completely understand. At this point I follow several atheists with different styles. Alex is certainly one of the most patient and polite much in the proper Englishman tradition.
I am too. The tediousness and repetition of the same old arguments from the god side are intolerable. I will say that Alex's three arguments for not being convinced of the existence of any gods are compelling and are certainly what my thinking has been gelling to resemble for the last 15+ years, since I started giving serious thought about why I've kept trying to believe since I was about 14 years old.
In alex's opening statement, he listed the many ways he has genuinely tried to seek out god. Jonathan's response to that was to say "evidence for god is not that hard to find." The casual arrogance of christians never ceases to amaze me.
I'm a Christian and I think there is no evidence for God. A famous theologian (I forgot the name) said: "A God that can be proved isn't God." If God could be proven, religion would cease to exist and become science. Faith wouldn't be necessary anymore. A ridiculous idea IMHO.
@@MrSeedi76 : Though I disagree with the conclusion, I appreciate your candor. I think theists, especially proponents of ID, make a mistake using scientific arguments to justify unscientific beliefs. Simply embracing faith, as you do, is far more honest. When guys like James Tour & Micheal Behe berate science and scientists they ask "Where is the data?" and proceed to insist on a supernatural designer which begs the question "Where's the data?" and there is none so they undermine their own credibility.
@Btwixed Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are not "on my side". Atheism is not a monolith. It's a label for a wide range of people who just don't believe in a God. Christianity on the other hand claims to have knowledge it can't have. Christians believe that they were made special and the earth was made for us and that they know there is an afterlife and call anyone fools if they don't belive their bullshit. Pure arrogance. There is no comparison.
As a biochemist, I would have LOVED to have addressed the biological arguments made in this debate. I would have also brought up Kitzmiller v. Dover and Behe's FANTASTIC admission that 58 peer reviewed papers, nine books, and several textbook chapters on the evolution of the immune system were, to him, "not enough" to convince him that the immune system was NOT irreducibly complex... At what points is the bar set too high and one becomes a "resistant deceiver" -- one who lies to themselves to keep believing, in spite of the evidence. ((Edit: Mixed up my double negatives; Behe is still in denial.))
@@m_hut that's a pretty interesting idea. Get a council of varied scientists from fields related to the debate to instantly call out bullshit. That seems like the ideal way to shut down deceptive creationists.
What do you say to Johnathan's point that DNA itself (or whatever he was refering to) (I'm not an expert) is ireducably complex and is immune to natural selection?
I'm starting to understand why UA-cam atheists don't do debates anymore. "Have you heard of this thing called the Watchmaker argument?" Have I heard of it? Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker 36 years ago. Yes, I've heard of it. Why is it that atheists are well versed on all theist arguments but theists have seemingly never heard an atheist rebuttal in their life?
It is possible that some theists, knowing that their arguments have already been refuted, keep mentioning them hoping that people with little or no knowledge on certain subjects will think they are correct.
Most theists' goal when debating an atheist is not to convert the atheist, nor to even give a coherent and consistent argument. Their first and foremost goal is to take advantage of the most ignorant in the audience who may get swept into their sales pitch and fall onto their side of the fence out of sheer mental exhaustion. It's not about truth at all. This is EXCESSIVELY apparent if you watch someone like Jordan Peterson debate religion.
alex will go down as an atheist legend when it’s all said and done, one of the most intellectually honest people i have ever seen. something we can all aspire to be.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say he might even go on to eclipse many of those who we regard as the "great" atheists. Hitchens, Dawkins, Carlin etc.
I only came to the comments to remark on his similarity to Hitchens when he said "And to those of you who have not encountered a non-resistant non-believer? Well then... Nice to meet you." The tone, the sass, I'm probably going crazy but it was so reminiscent of Hitchens quips
Jonathan is the prime example of the poem about the Pierian Spring. Drink deep or taste not. Im a biotech PhD student. His understanding of DNA replication is just surface level and he doesnt address the evolution of DNA replication through a RNA worlds which counters all of his points. Not to mention its just a logical fallacy, an argument from ignorance at best.
28:03 "85% of Atheist Experience viewers wouldn't worship the Christian God even if they believed he existed" seems unrelated to 'resistant nonbelief.' You could very well believe ol' sky daddy existed and still refuse to worship him, on account of also believing he's the most abominable being ever conceived of.
It's actually in direct opposition to resistant nonbelief. Those polled were saying they would absolutely believe despite having good reason to resist.
I think the argument is that in such a case God would have no reason to reveal himself to those people, since they would reject him anyway. He can leave them in the dark with a clear conscience, so to speak. Not so with people like Alex - there his absence really is harmful, and thus contrary to his ‘benevolence’
Alex has been absorbed by PhD specialization and has lost a bit of touch with common-sense argumentation it seems. But his diction and high-rhetoric has grown superb.
Since Atheists don’t believe in God. Then the abominable ones are humans, not God. Humans are the most wicked beings that exist, Evolution is to blame. Homo sapiens murdered and probably ate the other so called ape men , that’s why the other ape men went extinct. The same way many animals have gone extinct. You atheists can’t keep blaming God if you all don’t think He exists. Blame Evolution
I'm sure Alex is just trying to appeal to a Christian audience by lightly digging at their mortal enemy. That being said, I have no idea what would possibly be worthy of my worship, since I view "worship" as synonymous with dogmatic devotion, and I reject all forms of dogma.
as somebody who has next to no understanding of biology, i'd like to say that how dr mclatchie specifically talked about genetics and dna in his opening statement was incredibly unhelpful - he discusses complex biology in waffling detail, not with the intention to contextualise his argument but rather to assume the high ground over those who aren't able to keep up with the jargon he spews.
He's a creationist with a PhD in evolutionary biology (earned while he was a creationist), so this is an area he knows he has the advantage over Alex when debating examples, etc. But, in essence, all he did was regurgitate the Discovery Institute talking points about Intelligent Design which have been thoroughly refuted and since ignored by mainstream science.
@@hyp77 ...? It is our fault that God allows children to starve every few seconds or die from cancer with their parents praying to God in terror and agony for their children to be saved?
JM's entire argument about the replication of DNA being so well designed and self correcting falls flat on its face for someone like me, with a debilitating medical condition caused by a genetic mutation. Sure, they're rare, but if the genetic code is so good at fixing itself, then people like me shouldn't exist at all, even as a rare case. The fact that previously quite rare conditions are becoming more common within the human genome as medical science "overrides" the natural selection of fitness prior to reproductive ability (via such things as vaccines and antibiotics) is a quite expected and predictable result of this progress of scientific medical intervention in this natural process. I cannot see any predictable reason for this resulting reality if there is some almighty being in charge of the process. Why would this being suddenly allow for greater detrimental mutation of this "perfect" DNA replication process in tandem with the progress of human knowledge and ability? If DNA was created so perfectly, even with the argument of the introduction of sin corrupting it, this statistic alone should be linear along the line of history then, not exponential as it is. The only possible argument that I can see is that man is tampering with creation, and now suffering the consequences of that. This argument would then introduce a whole host of additional questions though, such as why should I be born with, and suffer so directly more, for the "sins of interference" of the whole of human progress than others? Why would any Christian support or use any form of modern medicine if this argument is true? And how is the universal suffering of humanity prior to these advances then supportable as preferable to the current circumstance? If there is any other way to rationalize this phenomenon of increasingly greater detrimental genetic mutations reproducing & therefore surviving within the gene pool as consistent with a designed genome, I fail to see it, but would certainly entertain any proposition brought to my attention.
your insight left me breathless. this comment section is such a delight to go through. thanks for your input. also, i hope you're doing well, my best wishes
That’s like saying that the six sigma method for quality control is not evidence of intelligent activity because there is still a small chance of defect. Sorry for your medical condition but we are all sick to an extend, yet, we can derive a meaningful experience from our conditions depending on how we reflect at it.
I'm not well versed in science, and thus cannot determine the sharpness of irreducible complexity arguments. Weirdly enough, it seems like if God meant to be sort-of-hidden, those proofs would essentially be embarrassing for God and/or make it more likely for one to believe based on historical period (I.e. pre-proof and after-proof periods) If God exists, he doesn't have high IQ as a prerequisite for belief, which makes sense. It seems one of the things strongly hinted at is humility. Can't say I'm totally there yet. Hope you find what you're looking for
Those who are reading this and taking away some idea that it's indicative of complaint about my condition or searching for something in life - to each their own, but that is not at all the thesis of my comment, and therefore responses to something I wasn't saying are rather pointless.
Yes, and that is exactly correct, any perfect process has no statistical chance of error, period. If you accept that God has a non zero error rate, that is like saying God isn't a perfect omnipotent and omniscient being.
"Why do you think miracles are so improbable?" The very DEFINITION of a miracle is that it's so improbable that it is impossible. It's so extraordinary that it can't be explained by science. It's like a box of cornflakes appearing in my room by itself without anyone moving it from the kitchen cupboard. THAT would be a miracle. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Jonathan would think this scenario would be HIGHLY IMPROBABLE. So yeah, to restate Jonathans question: "Why do you think stuff thats extraordinarily improbable is so improbable?" Because it is, Jonathan. It is.
_" It's like a box of cornflakes appearing in my room by itself without anyone moving it from the kitchen cupboard. THAT would be a miracle."_ Depends on who you live with. Hang on. NO MOM! I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOUR ALZHEIMER MEDS ARE! HAVE YOU CHECKED THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT? Sorry about that. My mother lives in the car, most of the time anyway. Where was I? Oh, right, I think a better example of a miracle would be the cornflakes in a bowl turning to gold flakes while the whole family is watching and preferably before anyone took a bite. You know, it's fine to eat gold but no one wants to search poop for spare cash and most people probably will if it's enough cash :p Ah, screw it. I would love washing my poop off of gold flakes. Gimme the gold!
@@lifefindsaway7875 that’s inserting something. It’s we don’t know. it’s not therefore I’ll just say a dude did it with no evidence. A green fairy with a meth habit could of done it. I got as much evidence for that as I do for a god.
@@stevero2581 yeah, the term ‘miracle’ does imply the Christian ideas of what the supernatural looks like. From an objective perspective, a ‘miracle’ could be the Christian god, some other god, an alien, or some undiscovered technology. You can only use the argument from ignorance to claim a miracle happened
Dr. McLatchie's entire argument essentially boils down to "because complexity, therefore intelligence." But this is fallacious. Lots of things are complex and weren't intelligently designed, such as traffic jams, geologic strata, etc. Simplicity of design, not complexity, implies intelligence.
Also, sentient design is generally marked by simplicity, not vast complexity. Well in reality, a designer can chose to make as much simplicity or as much complexity as they want, so neither can be an argument "for" design.
i think you misunderstand what johnathan mean, even though im atheist. But i think what he want to say is: thing are extreme complexity need intelligent design. Sure, intelligent being can design simple and stupid thing. But extreme comlex with specific function thing do need intelligent design. so jonathan want to said: 1. Extreme complex thing with specific function need intelligent design. 2. Human body or DNA is extremely complex with specific function 3. therefore, human body or DNA need intelligent design. Sure, you can debunk it by showing 1 example of extreme complex thing with specific function, yet clearly dont have intelligent design.
Dr mclatchie's rebuttal. I trust that non-ressistant nonbelievers will eventually become believers. I also trust that God has sufficient moral justification for all suffering. It's such a flimsy response. "I have faith that these problems aren't problems"
Thats the problem with faith and arguing against it isn't it? Because it's faith and not trust but people keep approaching it as if its trust (because to be fair for a lot of people that might be part of the whole belief), but you cannot argue with true faith.
I am not sure that I am a non resistant non believer. What I do know is that I do not believe but I often act like a believer in my culture to avoid rejection. Thats why I seek out such debates. They make me feel like its okay to be me; someone who does not believe.
So…is McLatchie somehow unaware that all of his main arguments have already been refuted? Or does he just not care? I was honestly shocked that he was still trotting out bs like “irreducible complexity” via mouse traps or the watchmaker argument. Astounding.
@@Jocky8807because it’s an ever repeating moving of the goal post that will keep going and going and going where theists keep moving the goal post wider to the next “impossible” thing. Just waiting until it is explained to find the next.
@@Jocky8807 it's refuted because DNA replication did not happen the way he presented for as long as cellular life forms have existed, there were lesser more archaic forms of DNA replication that occurred with prehistoric species, DNA replication is also a relatively inconsistent process, sometimes it makes things better but sometimes it leads to the extinction of the species. A grand designer or watchmaker would have all the tools to create DNA replication the way it is the first time without causing harm to the species, rather than toy around with less complex and less consistent methods.
I think that awareness of the actual summary of debate contents would have been better served with a title such as "Jonathan McLatchie's theological arguments versus critical agnosticism."
@@anksssssssss I’m speaking on the reason of the religion. Christ was a figure that also had historical account to existence and seems to have had the biggest change in the world
@@Joshcaldwell24 biggest change is a strong word . Same argument can be given for Islam . Or There was a time when non abrhahimic religion were prominent , Hinduism , Buddhism . They had big impact on shaping the world as well .
I have come back to this video time and time again just for his opening statement. It’s a beautiful, intelligent, heartfelt testimony of an atheist. Such a well done opening statement there’s really no following it lol
Listening to Dr. McLatchie's opening statement was like going back in time 25 years. The arguments from intelligent design have been put to bed years ago. The amazing thing about biological evolution is that it shows how complex systems can evolve without any intelligent designer. Claiming that there are exceptions because no one has yet found that specific evolutionary process is just a appeal to ignorance fallacy.
For real, I got flashbacks to Michael Behe and the ole "discovery institute". Crazy that these tired old arguments keep getting recycled by theists, as though they haven't been refuted a thousand times already.
It's not too surprising. McLatchie used to be a creationist who denied common descent - and that was while he was studying for his doctorate. He has since abandoned that line of thinking but he has struck as somebody that has always worked backwards, starting with the position that he believes Christianity is true - what evidence can he find to prove it.
@@TheGolfCommunity1 Sure it does. It tells you that the beginning was simple, and that it evolved complexity over time. Abiogenesis is the science you are after if you want to discuss theories around the origins of life...not evolutionary biology.
Even if they want to argue that it must have been a god, now they had to prove it was their specific god that did it. Which I don't see any way they can do. Also many of the claims in the Bible are demonstratively false therefore it rules out their Abrahamic god.
Brutal is a very kind summation of what I've just heard. I would characterise it as catastrophic thinking. The f**king mousetrap was last straw before I gave up listening to this utter claptrap.
But his main argument regarding non-resistant non-believers is utterly fatuous, being that people who don't believe don't believe despite the fact that they might want to believe. What has wanting to believe in something go to do with actually believing in that thing? I might want to believe that all women find me devastatingly attractive, doesn't mean I actually believe that. Is he talking about having some actual reason to believe that thing? I.e in this case some actual direct spiritual experience that seems to make the existence of God an almost certainty? But how many people who believe in God have ever had that kind of experience? Faith is called faith for a reason, you have to jump into the unlikely, perhaps even irrational, possibility that an almighty creator or ground of being truly exists.
@@zootsoot2006 that's a misdefinition of faith. Faith means trust based on promises/relationship/evidence of character. Not the popular slogan that was circulated years that faith is belief without evidence. People certainly use it that way but from a biblical stand point what the God of Bible asks his believers to have is trust based on thier lived experiences and knowledge of him. e.a. see how much he tells Israel to remember what he has done.
I like him except that I think he should even “debate” Christian’s because it gives the impression that Christian’s arrived at their faith through reason rather than use “arguments” (bad ones) to defend their faith. It essentially legitimizes a belief system that should just be ignored.
@@zootsoot2006 what's the point of debate then? To me that just sounds like some psychological help to get through life and not at all what this all is about?
@@zootsoot2006 Wanting to believe something has quite a lot to do with whether you believe it actually. Imagine that it's a fact that women find you terrifyingly ugly and run from the sight of you, a narcissist might refuse to believe this despite it being irrational and demonstrably untrue. It's a common argument that non-believers of Christianity are like this ugly narcissist; refusing God not because of the evidence but because of some internal stubborness or 'resistance' as they put it. What Alex pointing to is the existence of people, like himself, who really do want to see God in the world, and would jump on any compelling evidence for him. A non-resistant non-believer. The argument is that surely a God who is supposedly everywhere, perfectly loving and impossible to escape, wouldn't allow these people to exist. He'd surely show himself to these people right?
Really enjoyed this debate, always searching for something that might make me a believer again, to think something or someone is looking out for us, but, I think it just reinforced that we should look after ourselves and eachother as theres nothing else that can.
I am 73 years old. I’ve spent a good portion of my life trying to find the elusive God. No matter how eloquently expressed, biblical white noise and speculation is just that. We all have introspection and reflection. Other than self-inflicted hypnosis,I have never seen or understood what this God thing is. Oh, God will have some sort of an arrangement. Like an unsigned contract that you sign after your dead? I respect both of these guys a lot. It takes so much to be on either side of an issue.No matter how many times I look into that crystal ball, there’s nothing there. Cheers! Great debate
McLatchie would say that god knew you wouldn't accept the evidence, so god won't give it to you. Which is a strange, circular, and frankly slightly offensive argument. It clearly wasn't a highly prepared argument and I'd have liked someone to challenge him on it.
@@lmelior You have to believe even if you don’t believe. It’s not your choice it’s gods choice. Can you believe something out of fear alone? I suppose so. I just can’t wrap my mind around that. Very Orwellian.
Hey Daniel. I sincerely advise you to read the translation of the Quran with the intention to be guided by God. Before you read the translation of the Quran, ask God 'God, if you are there, guide me'. Good luck!
Wow. Mclatchie’s intro literally just summarized all of AP Bio instead of introducing unique or interesting arguments. It may look fancy, but from a biologists perspective it’s a massive waste of time as almost everyone agrees with the complexity of life without agreeing that it had to be designed. Makes you wonder why 99% of biologists don’t agree with a Christian design hypothesis even if they all agree with cells being extremely complex. Life is an emergent property!!! This is the most important thing that these apologists always forget. Just like bird flocks, traffic jams, and sand patterns; they all seem designed, but are in fact simply a conglomeration of random motion all coming together to make a interesting pattern or behavior.
His another argument was that life on earth exists on razor's edge, or something. Maybe life on earth adjusted to the conditions rather than the opposite? As a biologist he doesn't seem to be quite smart, plus he doesn't believe in evolution which I guess explains why he doesn't believe in adaptation to the environment.
As a fellow Biologist I have to agree that it seemed like a lengthy explaination that could only confuse non-biologists. 😂 We all agree that life is COMPLEX!
@@samazing8658 I'm into philosophy, not biology. His getting into some details of biology does nothing to convince me of a creator, especially when most experts in biology are evolutionists. You don't have to convince me that life is complex, you have to convince me that if life is complex it must have been designed by a creator. Weird argument.
They also neglect the role of so-called "exaptations" (although maybe this term is not useful, because virtually every "adaptation" was "exapted" somewhere along the way). This is where a structure or mechanism ends up being "used" outside its "original" evolutionary context. It is quite easy for me to imagine, though I am glossing over mountains of complexity, that whatever "irreduceably complex" cellular machinery one can point to, there were various ways early life tweaked and toyed with them to still do useful things without all their modern parts. It is hard to reconstruct every step of that in retrospect, because we only have the relatively smooth and polished (inasfar as evolution makes anything "polished") modern day version, but questions of early life were never easy, and though we are making progress, this is one of the ultimate frontiers of modern biology.
@@madd5 ehh that one's not a terrible argument. I have to say that the fine tuning argument is almost convincing, but imo it's not good enough still. It is true that it would be extremely unlikely or even impossible for life to form in a universe with different physical laws.
Even as a kid, the Bronze Age blood magic rituals seemed bonkers. Fear of hell made me try and believe, but you can only suspend disbelief for so long. As an adult, I just don’t understand how anyone can remain a believer. It’s such a bizarre worldview, once you step out of the cult, and the fear and toxicity wash away, and you see it clearly.
That's just not how I see my belief I find the bliss of what we Christians call spiritual experiences with God to be beyond explanation I'm open to explanations, but right now they're just aren't any good ones for the immaterial. Now we can disagree if you think there are immaterial things, but my point is that I don't, and never had believed in God for the fear of hell. It's a shame that many believers shy away from their belief in God because their supports for the belief were weak.
@@theintelligentmilkjug944 It is generally bad practice to believe anything that is based on weak support. However, humans have always had a tendency to believe things because it makes them feel good. It is small wonder that the scientific method was only developed and perfected once in the history of the world. In case you did not know it, science is based on supporting evidence. That is why it works and that is why there is not even a close second.
@@Andre_XX I would agree it is bad practice to believe in anything that is based on weak evidence, but Christianity is not based on weak evidence instead based on 2000 years of theology, personal experience, and evidential arguments for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, humans typically believe in what is practical, or what they find useful not necessarily what makes them feel good. Now in terms of determining what is true in the realm of the physical the scientific method is the best method to use. However, when it comes to the abstract it is impossible to use scientific reasoning, and we know the abstract world exists because using science we don't understand consciousness and the elements of it.
Having people who still try to fight against evolution for obviously religious reasons is just embarrassing. These people shouldn't be considered serious thinkers.
@@jearn11 when I hear Atheist say evolution I feel they are talking about a longer sequence then what evolution is supposed to mean. I just want to know what one means by evolution specifically. I feel a lot of word games with this one
@@Joshcaldwell24 Are you talking about the difference between macro and micro evolution? In either case, does it matter? Does the acceptance of one and not the other change the evidence that scientific discovery reduces the "gaps" in which God resides?
@@jearn11 no the problems aren’t in evolution necessarily because last I checked that just means changed over time. One group believes there’s no limits and another group believes limitations. So no one is denying evolution. But let’s grant that it happen the way some believe and fish did because philosophers. The likelihood that happened I would say is completely impossible without an intelligence behind it. We can’t even replicate the origins of life in a lab under intelligence. So I can’t believe this just happened spontaneously through nature
Throughout human history, assuming a "higher power" to be the cause of apparently inexplicable events has always been the first and most reasonable hypothesis. It's also turned out to be wrong every single time.
@@MorgurEdits Are you saying for those historical instances the explanation of a 'higher power' is *still* the most reasonable hypothesis though? If not then I'm not sure how your post is a rebuttal to the OP.
The case that “dna is so beautiful/intricately constructed that it must have been created by an intelligent force” falls apart for me because there are genetic defects and mutations that appear in every species on the planet. It’s clearly not as perfect as a theist might like to claim.
I believe that the probability is so low. Those with a belief in religion might justify such impurities as God allowing evil or having justification morally unbeknownst to humans. Although I agree that if we can't use scientific probability or preciseness to undernermine the epochs of Genisis or the probability of multi universes with different constants. It's still a compelling argument because of the lack of sufficient theological arguements other than, it's evil or, there's a reason. It also undermines the fact we have free will, which again I suppose goes to evil if say a newborn baby dies from a mutation in the DNA.
I genuinely can't get my head around how someone like Dr McLatchie can function as a scientist whilst at the same time suspending all critical thinking when it comes to the topic of religion.
It blows my mind how someone with a PhD in biology is anti-evolution. He seems to believe the big bang really occurred, but at the same time holds a creationist viewpoint of the world?
@@martiddy exactly. His reasoning was basically: if we assume that God exists, then the resurrection of Jesus is the most probable outcome. He was literally begging the question.
A few minutes into the debate and I’m genuinely confused… I‘ve watched the debate between McLatchie and Matt Dillahunty on the reliability of the Gospel accounts where McLatchie struck me as a clearly smart guy whose burden of proof was just set way too low. I just assumed that that he wouldn’t partake in a debate where arguments like the watchmaker analogy or the argument from irreducible complexty could be used because McLatchie was reasonable enough to recognize their fallacies. But being a couple of minutes into this debate I‘m pretty shocked to see him go down that rabbit hole.
Is there any other rabbit hole available though? Not really. It's either be outside in the breath of fresh air which is the awareness against logical fallacies, or down the rabbit hole where imagination and ignoring can allow a gap in knowledge to make some people feel better with themselves without seeking proper self-betterment of their knowledge, awareness, and wisdom.
@@NobleVagabond2552There is a difference between an argument that might be weak, and one that is actually fallacious, as in logically incoherent for some reason.
I've a Masters degree in Biology and many of the things that were said by the professor were either false, not the complete picture or pushed into a narrative. He claimed many things that weren't true at all.
Yes, I have the same educational background in biology that you have. I have yet to see a proponent of creationism/intelligent design make an honest argument out of the biology. The position is one desperately looking for gotchas in the face of a very rigorous record of evolutionary biology both explaining and predicting natural phenomena.
'Lying for the lord' is a very old position. I always find it hilarious that those who claim to espouse 'the truth' have to lie about that very subject... the irony completely goes over their heads.
@@edwardnygma5549 I’m not sure what you’re on about. I never said evolutionary biology explains the origin of life. I said that creationists have never used biology in a successful way to bolster their arguments. The rest of your comment is just unsolicited regurgitation of Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria concept, and I’m not sure where that’s relevant here.
@@dingdongism you're right mate I did misinterpret but to be fair it was somewhat ambiguous. You stated creationism lacks explanation/argument from biology , then inferred the evolutionary biology explains natural pehnonema well. Creationism doesn't just cover humans but also origin of life/universe. Origin of life was still within scope of what you said. Be clearer next time when you use broad terms. There was no middle sentence for clarification of your nuanced view. You also said creationism never made an 'honest' argument from biology, hence the NOMA wasn't unsolicited.
I admire your approach Alex. I think taking the time and effort to emphasize that we truly have searched for a God and found none is key. I’ve been focusing on that as well. If a theist cannot accept that we have done this, as you said, in an “unresistant way,” then there’s no purpose in debating further.
Let us say that you have tried to get an audience with the President Of the USA. yes, you have tried everything you can think of, and still, you did not get to get to visit the President. Does that mean the President does not exist? No, I dare say it does not mean that. You see it is up to the President to decide if he wants to grant you an audience. He is the big guy and you are the little guy. What does it mean, to search for God? How does one search for God? This much I do know, that when one seeks God that person is seeking a miracle. that person is asking God, who exists outside of the material universe to enter into the material universe and make himself known to that person. Do you believe in miracles?
@@danielcarroll7576 if a god was even remotely as present as a president of a nation, we would have direct and indirect viewing of that person (audience vs television or radio), we would have agreed upon dictations of what they said, and it would be less an issue of if they existed and whether they wish to see us or have us involved in any direct way. We do not seem to have anything of the sort from any such religion I am aware of. If the deity does not care about our knowledge of their existence save for "when necessary" then it follows they implicitly acknowledge and must accept the 'fault' lies on them. If the deity does care and will judge accordingly, we are well within our rights to ask and be able to find out what it takes to get that 'right answer', not to mention avoiding a 'wrong' answer.
@Bronson Only because of the size of an electron. Are you saying that is how small the creator of the universe is? Comparing something too small to be seen with the human eye with a being powerful enough to create the universe is just plan stupid.
how is this even a debate? On one hand you have someone laying down arguments, on the other someone who just tells the other person how they interpret something or what they believe, somehow assuming that saying "well I believe in the goodness" is enough to dismantle and argument.
for theism to be an issue at all in the 21st century (in the developed world, no less!) is an embarrassing anachronism and a testament of humanity's propensity for irrationality.
Well done, Alex. So glad someone like you carries the torch left by those before you. You have earned it! You are respectful, well spoken, well researched, read, and amazing at debate. Wonderful!
Difference in skill of oration and holding an audience between the two is staggering.. Alex is really becoming a great orator in the mould of Hitch. He may not have the massive breadth of literature and historical knowledge behind him but that’ll come with experience and age. Keep going! It’s a joy to watch.
11 minutes in and he has already made the worst arguments known in these debates. I'm sure he'll get better, right? Right? Oh I know he won't. Just being hopeful
11 minutes in, you didn't even make it to the "evidence" for Christianity. If Jewish people exist, Christianity is true. Jewish people exist. Therefore Christianity is true. Checkmate atheists
I’m glad I saw this comment. I was really hoping for a challenging argument from theism, something new and fresh… if it’s just the old complexity=god stuff then I won’t bother!
@@231rft There's a fine line between emulation and inspiration. Hitch was clearly a big influence on Alex, but I don't think he's intentionally "copying" him. He is his own person with his own ideas and expressions, and (as with all humans) these are a mish-mash of all the people who have influenced and interacted with him.
Alex is the next level. His arguments are much more refined compared to Hitch. Hitch was content calling out stupitidy in theism, with great wit and humor, but he would never sit down with WLC and entertain the Kalam at length like Alex did, I don't think. I love Hitch and he was effective in my own deconversion, but I think we need people like Alex who has the patience to "go deep" into the weeds of theism, and who can also be sympathetic to the idea of theism, and really understands the reasons for it, to take the next step.
I can see why Alex has good terms with Jonathan, honestly i'm impress with McLatchie, not for his arguments but for his civility, i've never seen a debate this well carried with Alex (if you've seen alex videos you know he had it rough with rude and disengenious people). Of course i can see how his arguments have many holes but i can believe that he really believes his own arguments and doesnt degrade himself in order to win the debate, unlike almost ANY other theist debater. i would like to see more debates like this and i really hope to one day see arguments at the heigth of Alex (Althougth i doubt it, given that the premise of the existence of a biblical god is plain ilogical and false). Is out of this kind of debates that the truth about the world shines and enligths people willing to listen.
I undertand that the arguments given by Jonathan are mainly the same ones that we have been seeing for years in a diferent ligth, but you can really expect something far from that given that they are based on an unmovible book from the far past. i have to say the opening argument that certain mutations have to occur in blocks because any mutation that doesnt give an evolutionary advantage wouldnt ocurr was the best one i've heard (althougth it just seeds doubts) UNTIL i scrolled down in the coment secctions and saw informed people that know how to easily dismiss them. but well i'm not a biologist, i thougth he knew what he was talking about.
I prefer this style of debate where each speaker gets a time slot over the type where they shout at each other. It allows each person to get their view point across without being shouted down.
I found myself asking, "how is God testing the baby born with defective organs and only survives a few days?" How is that a test? Testing the parents by inflicting insufferable pain on their child?
@@stevelayton1271 God has a plan that needs this component. The plan is so complex that baby with cancer is basically a cricial point in it. Not like omnipotent being can make other plan without it, right?
He's ok but he pulls his own information from other people, aside from hitchens, dawkins and harris i recommend Denett, AC Grayling, Mackie, Oppy, Maitzen, Sobel, Schellenberg, Nietzsche, or Sartre.
Great debate, but sad that Dr McLatchie kept reverting to a version of the god of the gaps argument when truly pressed on a topic. In particular, his dismissal of non-resistant non-believers with the "god knows what they would do" defense was, I have to say, pathetic. Especially after he had a rather good opening imo.
@@dylan3456 I tend to agree with MrYondaime's reply and Alex's summation of Dr McLatchie's position - it's just the god of the gap argument with the extra step of "hiding" that that's what it is. Alex highlighted this by contrasting how in the past science could not explain something and people would say "that's god", but now that science has explained it, they can no longer do that. I think that's what Dr McLatchie is doing with his arguments examining DNA; something we (currently) cannot fully explain, and saying that that had to be created by god.
right like god can’t show his existence bc god knows some atheist wouldn’t believe? like okay lol there are still atheist who would? so that argument doesn’t even make sense
Not only are there non-resistant non-believers but there are tons of non-resistant believers who go and start to seek God and want desperately to have a relationship with him and find answers about him and end up as atheists. That radio silence Alex described is exactly how I felt. Raised as a believer I sought out God and answers to my questions about God and got nothing. Not only does theism and Christianity have to account for non-resistant non-believers but from those who already believe in God but who similarly cannot find him. My reaction to McLatchie's opening: 7:01 “The genetic code has been shown... to be very highly optimized for error minimization” Something like 1 in 1000 children are born with Down Syndrome, that's having an entire extra chromosome. Why would that make more sense with theism? Why would God do that? I've never heard anyone argue for theism based solely on a bunch of technical jargon. He's trying to sound so impressive but failing miserably. 10:15 Nothing has ever been proven to be irreducibly complex but the main issue with what he is saying here is that there is no mechanism known or discovered that would allow some kind of higher power to push evolution in a set direction. It is par for the course to make this kind of argument from ignorance, “I don't know what mechanism in nature could do this, therefore God” but it is his job to come up with a mechanism by which God is the one leading evolution by the hand toward a set goal. Of course this raises so many many questions about the horrifically cruel things that have evolved on Earth, like parasites and flesh-burrowing maggots and all kinds of natural systems that by their simple operation lead to untold suffering to humans or other animals. 13:34 This visualization should end the debate on whether there is a creator? HOW? So you've zoomed in to a certain resolution of a natural process and boy it looks complex. But if you showed footage of a volcanic eruption and you zoomed in to the way that electrically charged particles create lightning in the pyroclastic clouds those interactions would seem amazingly complex. But that doesn't mean there is a volcano god. It's just a natural process that you've arbitrarily chosen to draw the line at and say it is too complex for you to believe it is just natural. You still have all your work cut out for you showing why we should think a better explanation is a supernatural one, like showing us how, in any way shape or form, a God can be shown to interact with these systems. Some lightning strikes have even been shown to create antimatter, if he gets to say DNA replication is proof for his God I get to claim my lightning strikes creating antimatter as evidence that Thor is real. 17:26 “This one can't really be reduced...” Yeah it can. All you need for natural selection is DNA/RNA replication that is close enough, accurate enough. That's the thing about all of this, nature isn't tending toward perfection which is why it is so messy and so sloppy. Of course it is complicated and you can choose to view it as some well oiled machine if you want but really to me it looks like life just does what it does and stumbles forward molded to the environment around it. He implies you have to make a circular argument for natural selection but that only works if you're not looking at the scientific PHYSICAL EVIDENCE. If we were trying to reason natural selection into existence with only logical syllogisms and no scientific evidence he might almost have a point... almost. 18:46 The survival of Israel against all odds? The hell are you talking about? So if a nation survives they might be God's chosen people? How many more minutes do I have to hear this guy talk for? I think even if I were a Christian I'd be disappointed. Alex absolutely crushed it in this debate, very calm and collected. Definitely comes off as wanting genuine communication instead of just blind debate.
The problem is that whilst everything that you wrote is blindingly obvious to an atheist like me, a theist could simply dismiss it as the "bloviated sophistry of someone who obviously wasn't ever a true Christian and has simply found an excuse to sin".
@@downenout8705 Yeah sure, anyone could dismiss anything for any dumb convoluted reason. The key to getting someone to doubt Christianity is to plant the seeds they think about later after they've gone home. That's how it worked for me anyway. No atheist ever argued me out of my position but they gave me enough food for thought that, even if I walked away smug, those things still lingered. All you can do is represent your positions as best you can and hope to stimulate and provoke thought in the other person.
@@TitenSxull Yep, I agree. This is what I try to do and it's good to know that it can be effective. I was different. I had, what I thought was a profoundly real and life changing personal experience. I wanted to tell all but also wanted to be able to defend my story. It didn't take much open minded research for it to all fall apart.
There’s never an atheist in politics though, always a God loving American. So much for religious freedom when atheists can’t even run for public office in a few states
@@dryfox11 I bet there are probably a few... BUT they have to pretend to be religious or else they'll never be able to get enough support from voters. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump didn't really believe in god. Even if he does, it's very obvious he's hardly even thought about it and he's just taking advantage of the hardcore right wing believers. I forgot who was interviewing him, but when he was asked for his favorite bible verse, he stumbled over his words for a bit and said "uhh.. umm.. that's very personal..." LMAO He got caught!
"always a God-loving American" The entire world is not the USA, but everywhere there are people there is politics, and everywhere the is politics there is shouting in place of reasoned argument.
Quite possibly the best performance I've seen from Alex. Loved the discussion regarding meaningless suffering and the pointlessness of animal suffering...powerful arguments against the all too familiar, undetectable god.
Alex did a good job but this debate format was horrible and the debate question was way too broad. He has other videos where he goes more in-depth on the animals suffering point.
I'm glad to see "non-resistant non-belief" at the forefront of Alex's opening statement. In my view, this is the strongest argument against belief in god - it's the reason I stopped believing after fervent belief and worship for 25 years.
It's a strong argument, but it's too easy for Christians to resort to presuppositionalism (you know God exists, you just reject him because selfish reasons) which typically shuts down all further debate because how can you even begin to prove you're open to having your mind changed? McClatchie is not a presup, he's an evidentialist, but you could tell that he really had to work hard not to resort to the presup argument because, well, because a plain reading of the relevant verses of the Bible supports it. That's why I prefer the geographical distribution argument he uses after that -- or salvation's birthplace lottery as I call it. Yes, it still falls to presup arguments -- everyone in the world knows, but most deny -- but at the very least the presup has to explain why people born in non-Christian countries appear to be far more resistant to accepting the reality of the salvation message, and you can also use it to question how a just, all-loving God would have created such an iniquitous system where the vast majority of humanity are hell-bound from the moment they are born.
I resonate with your comment. I came to disbelief after nearly 40 years of belief and it had nothing to do with positive or negative experiences. I've always had a skeptical disposition even from those believers who claimed miraculous interventions. My doubt about a god's existence arose from a rather innocent, benign thought on the patio. "Why do I believe?" I knew I wanted to believe (non-resistant) but realized I had no good reason. Mama's knee simply wasn't good enough anymore in the face of contradictory experiences. I had a thought, "what if I evaluate my belief from an outsider perspective and not allowing special pleading or other common fallacies". The result was obvious and simple, belief was not justified. A few short months later and I had to admit my atheism. Belief and disbelief are passive notions. It is the evidence that convinces or compels. I like the idea of a loving god, life after death, etc. but the evidence simply doesn't support. The moment that it does...I will be happy to change my mind. Any god that does not respect or value that approach is not worthy of worship. [Afterthought] Why would an omni god need/require worship? No person I hold in high regard expects this. Why is the proposed god of the universe more petty/needy than some humans?
@@spectreskeptic3493 I'm sure you're well aware that there is plenty of evidence in tangible reality by science and that it is clear that God does not need/require anything to be who He is. Don't let your pride blind you. If you understood how much more holy, how much more knowledgeable, how much more powerful God was, you wouldn't be so confident about your patio epiphany and subsequent evaluation of belief.
@@spectreskeptic3493 I like your point of view and do not look to disprove what you have come across in your life especially after 40 years of belief. I can say I am a young believer for starters and your years of faith alone have out lived me. As much as I know and understand from the Biblical text I’ve realized that it’s the same Bible was merely an acronym for “basic instructions before leaving earth”. Clever or whatever but I do see the stories and narrative of the text as a way to create moral and values. As “God” is a trinity in the Bible he created man/humankind in his image. Therefore as there is the father, son, and the holy spirit they are there to help shape and direct our lives/health which also exist in a trinity. Mental, physical and spiritual health. Father=mental, unseen and unfathomable. Son=physical, seen and tangible. Holy spirit=spiritual, unseen but rather fathomable(guidance and counseling. Nonetheless I am always testing every spirit and every occasion to see who, when where and why for in the Bible itself it directs to test the spirit and not to be the sheep lead astray. In other words being “faithful” is far from being foolish enough to follow a false doctrine. As many times as atheists and agnostics are despised by Bible thumping religious pharisees… how many of they have a clue in what they believe?
I rather dislike the argument of “Well I believe that god is all loving so by definition ANY action he may or may not take, regardless of its consequences, is a loving act”.
While I don’t believe in the supernatural I can’t help but consider the possibility that Alex is in fact Christopher Hitchens reincarnated every time I see him debate. The cadence, the knowledge, the skill, and mastery of language are all there. A fantastic performance as ever Alex.
Hitchens with much more robust philosophical argumentation and positions. I truly believe that Alex will be entered as one of the most serious philosophical thinkers of our time. He has so much potential.
50:30 "We intuite that things have been made for a purpose even if we couldn't explicitly express why that is the case" I encourage Jonathan McLatchie to familiarize himself with the work of christian evolutionary psychologist Justin Barrett, or with the work of Deborah Kelemen. We do indeed know why there is a "teleological bias" in humans, why we see purpose in everything, it is a cognitive bias that was selected by nature, and from which we need to emancipate ourselves.
There's another reason modern people tend to adopt teleology: we have many examples of designed things. Difference being that we actually have evidence of those things being designed while we have no evidence that DNA, evolution or the universe was designed.
After watching the whole thing, I’m struck be the civility and respect between Alex and Jonathan. 👏🏼 We need MUCH more of this in our world as we debate the reality of God and creation.
McLatchie sounds like if a Canadian moved to California and then tried to do an Australian accent. So when I found out he was Scottish my head exploded.
I discovered Alex O'Connor today and find him superior in logic and authenticity to one of the leading atheists of today, whose name I shall not mention. Almost a Hitchens allure to him. A young Hitch driven by logic, intellectualism and genuine journey for the truth. I will follow this young man's progress and hope him all the best. The world needs logic more than ever as we watch the US sink into theocracy rule.
@@gps9715Overturning Roe vs Wade was almost entirely a religiously fueled change. All across the country we're starting to see book bans, and while that's not entirely Christian, there's overlap. 10 years ago, the fringes of politics was overturning Roe, and today many Christians are talking about how "America is a Christian nation" as justification for religious political policies, something very explicitly against the founding fathers intentions. So far the amount of policy actually passed is low, but the overall rhetoric has shifted immensely, and there's no reason to think we've seen the end of it. The only reason policy hasn't gone further is because it's explicitly unconstitutional to have the state favor one religion over the other in any way.
@@kneesnap1041 Overturning R vs W was a to keep law within constitutional bounds. All SCOTUS did with that decision was turn it to the states. Which is exactly what our Founding Fathers intended. You have no clue what you're talking about and I suggest you educate yourself, or maybe go to an Islamic nation and see what an actual Theocracy is. Be careful though, becuase you'll be killed for saying what you just said here. The USA is so far from a theocracy you're allowed to say whatever you want with no consequences. I would suggest being happy with what you have instead of whining about nonsense because if we actually were a theocracy you'd be dead.
I've always felt the phrase, "If God revealed himself to you, you would lose your free will to choose, because it would be become undeniable," was a cop out. It's very similar to them saying, "You will bow!" because all it implies to me is that I will either be forced, against my will, or I will have lost my mind. Maybe your mind is something you only get on earth, and some have already gave it away...
Even if God did reveal himself would you believe? Or would it be an alien? Or a demon? Or would you conclude you were dreaming and or hallucinating? Perhaps it's not God but a more advanced being pretending to be God? The point is even if God did reveal himself people would still doubt his existence this is the real answer to that question it's not that if God revealed himself you would already believe it's the exact opposite even if he did reveal himself you would not believe and even if you did that does defeat the whole purpose of free will so I guess this question really has two answers.
It makes no sense because that has already happened when Jesus walked and performed all the miracles. So, why was it okay then and not now? Why would Jesus not come into the dream of everyone in existence right now simultaneously, so that every human on earth would talk about having the same dream? The argument being, 'Yeah, but some people would still not believe, so what's the point?' I would say THERE is a point because even though many still would not believe after such a dream (even though everyone on earth had it at the same time, but 1 or 2 days apart), that would still rescue many millions more humans who did believe but not 100%-because that would be the final nail in the coffin to make them 100% believers, just as he did when he walked the earth. It makes no sense why he would not do such a thing today
If anything that should go against the whole "you need to be a reluctant nonbeliever" schmuck because if someone is sure that they would NEVER be convinced of God no matter what, then there shouldn't be a reason for God not to reveal himself. It's very convenient that there's a reason for God not to reveal himself to anybody no matter if you're against believing and don't believe, for believing but don't believe or if you believe.
The argument that Christianity is more likely to be true because the disciples were willing to leave their regular lives and stick to their beliefs despite persecution, seems to be easily refuted by the numerous accounts of modern day cults with believers that do the same, for leaders that are clearly not divine. So why wouldn't we assume the same of Christianity, when all our examples of such movements are proven to work without the requirement of supernatural forces, but merely the powerful dynamics of human psychology?
14:40 We accept that DNA replication is complex. Listing every little piece, when you're not debating another biologist, makes your case seem weaker. Just feels like James Tour's whole approach
The moment Dr McLatchie reduces chemistry to “codes” I can’t take him seriously. If that’s the opening, how can you make progress? So grossly misrepresenting the actual reality of the issue shows we’re not dealing with an honest/informed interlocutor. Life is no more miraculous that a campfire - it’s chemistry. The existence of suffering/evil is a Genesis 1:0 problem, not a Genesis 3 issue (where Christian’s desperately want to rush forward to). God chose this, exact world to create. IF god is Omni, they “perfectly” chose this exact world. Not a world with one less child rape/cancer. The issue is not man’s choice, but exclusively god’s choice.
Alex, you are beyond impressive and watching you grow and learn and develop your thoughts and arguments has been wonderful and educational for me and many others. Cheers 🍻
To clarify what he said at 2:05:35, "People who have epileptic seizures forget what happens during those seizures" - you only forget the part where you're convulsing. I've had them and the hallucinations when you regain consciousness are quite memorable.
My first thought too. If I’d paid to go to university to study biology, and the lecturer opened with that, I’d walk out and insist they give me my money back.
While if you keep your professional life and personal life apart, I certainly hope that his lectures aren't as directed towards Christianity as his opening was
So much this. 20 minute uninterrupted talking is just not helpful for a debate. It leaves it talking about too many different things at once instead of just taking one topic at a time
I hate the fine tuning argument because it's just so incorrect in its approach. There's no reason to assume the constants of the universe are capable of being any other way. This is the only universe we know about, the constants are the only constants and they dont change. Any speculation that things could have happened differently exists exclusively in our minds. Just because we can imagine a world of different constants doesn't mean its possible in reality. In the same vein, regardless of how incalculably small we think the odds of us existing are, the reality is we do exist. Theoretical probability does not equal experimental probability. The experimental probability of our universe existing exactly the way it does is 100%. It's essentially, reach into this bag filled with an uncountable number of unique marbles and remove one. Now tell me the probability of you removing the exact marble you removed. Well, I grabbed this one, and we're only doing the experiment once, so 100%, any different outcome is entirely hypothetical.
It's actually worse than that, and it's captured by the following question; what kind of arrangement of the constants of the universe would God be *unable* to create life in?
Any and all versions of the fine tuning argument are an admission to not care about whats true. Its just an assertion sold as an argument that somehow trumps any scientific research in cosmology and physics. Which is exactly the kind of talking point creationists use because they dont care whats true, only what they can sell to gullible people.
One can also say we can only exist in a universe that permit life, so nothing tell use that there are not other universe out there. Being amaze that everything is set up so that we exist is….well stupid. Because if it wasn’t we wouldn’t be discussing it (we are getting back at your marble exemple which is pretty good)
The argument that says that god does not give people evidence because they would not belive anyway can be counterd by asking why god created them in the first place if he knew they would not accept.
In order to have a relationship with anybody you have to first believe they exist. It's so outrageously obtuse to say that god hides because he doesn't want to overwhelm us and he wants to let us get on with our life and make moral decisions..... then in another breath claim that he wants to have a relationship with us. If I was totally absent in my child's life and gave them no direct personal guidance, no one at all would believe I actually wanted a relationship with that child. And I think they would significantly doubt whether or not I was a good parent or even loving at all. Would it make it better if somebody say to the child "your father really does exist, plenty of other people have a good relationship with him" I wonder how that would make the child feel. God's the worst absentee father in history
When you guys talked about someone who lived a full life without experiencing god, he said God would judge them based on their life. Isn't that what God supposedly does anyway? So to him is it possible a good non-believer judged by God can actually make it into heaven?
The way he kept hedging everything, I would expect: "It is possible but not likely given what a great historian of Christianity (and all religion enough to largely ignore the rest?) that I have become by specializing my academic years on biology" like the Roman pagan Gallan who thought kidneys were magical proof of the Olympians existing and would never be explained by natural/non-magical/non-supernatural means. Too complex, these kidneys, well until they are not thanks to microscopes, staining techniques, and improved understanding of fluid dynamics and osmosis.
Ive heard this argument before from some hardcore Christian website but I really think it's just grasping at straws to try to make Christianity not sound as needlessly brutal/just flatout dumb/unrealistic as it truly is. Why would a loving god program skepticism so heavily into us just to then banish us to eternal damnation for utilizing it?
Example of disciples following Jesus at great risk to them does not convince me. We have plenty similar behaviors in modern cults, where followers drank poisoned koolaid etc. that did not make their religions true.
And since this debate has many scientific topics, the bible is immediately invalid. It has no credibility in this area. Among its many scientific (...and its predictive and historical) failures, the bible implies a flat earth, impossible cosmogony, and describes a geocentric solar system.
It hurts my soul that this even needs to be pointed out to people. Imagine that - the fact that something has been written down or printed in a book doesn’t mean it’s true. Some people apparently have a very hard time grasping this….very elementary concept.
same. Going with irreducible complexity AND giving the long refuted examples of mousetraps and bacterial flagellum was very surprising to me. I assumed that creationists would at least pick different examples at this point. Guess the field just doesn't expose itself to debate often enough to have to adapt.
@@bob3ironfist the problem is the Christians have alot of debates amongst themselves about the meaning of scripture. scientists agree on pretty much everything id say a good 99% of all things. But Christians have so many disagreements amongst one another that its kind of sad
@@SevenPr1me I agree. But to be clear, diversity of thought is important too, even on the fringes. We ought to challenge consensus wherever we can. That's why it becomes consensus. It's good to have a few people whose beliefs have an extremely low probability of being true. Because that way we know it's covered in the off chance it turns out to be right. Problems only arise when those views get a disproportionate amount of representation. It's a waste of intelligence if 5% of the population believes something that only has a 0.01% chance of being true for instance.
Only about a 3rd through the video, but I wonder what McLatchie would answer to the question "Is your non-belief in everything outside of your faith non-resistant?" Meaning if there was sudden, conclusive evidence for a *different* deity or religion to be true than what they currently believe, how willing they would be to simply convert their faith from one religion to another. I really wonder what a devoutly religious person's response to that would be
The challenger is clearly an intelligent fella. Certainly has some warped views, but he obviously has a decent head on his shoulders. That being said, the fact that someone with such apparent intellect honestly believes that a man was resurrected, or "rose from the dead," or was brought back to life... simply because a few ancient scribes wrote about it thousands of years ago... is genuinely quite mind-boggling.
How (& where) did Dr. Jonathan McLatchie "earn" his PhD in Evolutionary Biology? He seems to grasp the underlying mechanisms, but the concept itself goes over his head. _"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."_ [Michael Shermer]
Newcastle University, in the UK. He was a born again Christian (and presumably a creationist) when he earned it, so it seems obvious he did it for some combination of wanting to be better equipped to refute evolution and to burnish his scientific credentials to make him sound more credible in his apologetics mission.
@@EnglishMike Thanks for the info. It looks like Jonathan McLatchie (*1989?!) got his PhD in 2020 for his 262 page long thesis *_"An Investigation of the Origins of Mitotic Regulators"_* . There seems to be just *ONE* availabe, _"not loanable"_ copy of his thesis in the Newcastle University Library & *NO* publication of his on PubMed.
I cringe when I hear "finely-tuned constants". It is oxymoronic. If a "constant" can be tuned/modified/adjusted, then it is not a constant but a *variable* !!!
27:40 Answering "if there was a god, would you worship it" with "no" does not indicate that you're resistant to a belief in god. Those people didn't say they wouldn't believe that god exists, they said they wouldn't worship it, which is a totally different thing.
I bet he knows the scientific method and uses it in his professional life, but, like Nelson putting the telescope to his blind eye, doesn't apply it in his religious life.
I would love to debate the parent who thought bringing their infant to a theist vs atheist debate was a good idea.
Lol. There's always one isn't there, everyone had to listen to their screaming child.
Yup. It's annoying.
Ignorance
@@stevero2581 or maybe they don't have a babysitter?
@@paulsmith7579 then why not tune in online?
I really admire Alex's consistent intellectual honesty. He never tries to score points at the expense of his integrity. He's actually willing to concede on points and accept good criticisms of his arguements, rather than immediately resorting to defensive tactics when challenged just cling on to a certain position. He also always appears to be considering his opponents' arguements in terms of their value and not just their weaknesses. People so often claim to 'care about the truth' but Alex actually acts like he does. Keep up the good work, Alex 👍
That`s what a real philosopher does.
I agree. I don't recall McLatchie ever conceding an argument. He portrays his arguments as untouchable.
I think he concedes too readily and too much.
@@davethebrahman9870 his does it only partially, like saying "that might work", or concealing internal points of Christianity which don't imply truth or existence, just consistency.
@@caballeroGarvey I agree. It's specific and punctual.
Hearing McLatchie go on his monologue about DNA replication is so infuriating.
As a biologist he should know how PCR works and that such a process does not require all of these complex enzymes.
These are all only required in modern eukaryotes. Extrapolating this to include the most rudimentary life forms pretty much misses the entire point of evolution by means of natural selection.
It’s also infuriating because he just goes on and on about something that’s not relevant to the question…
I lost my mind when he started rambling about all the specific enzymes that are necessary for dna transcription and translation in the more "complex" organisms and that replication of DNA surely wouldn't work without them specifically. Like, my man, do you not get that polymerase and ligaze an the rest are very rich groups of enzymes that just specialized with time? It's painfully obvious that less specific enzymes that could easily come about in the right environment just got better and better at their job. It's like failing to understand that sharpened rock is essentially the same tool as knife from policarbon steel, just not as good at its job as more advanced tool.
It's very basic biology.
The same point can be made in respect of the initial chemical ‘selection’ (better termed ‘environmental filtration’).
No wonder he is a believer!
You can imagine if this man is the best the theist side can offer to debate Alex, there is no contest anymore ....
The problem I keep having with these debates is that Alex generally asks extremely specific questions and the people hes debating always end up giving these really vague generalized answers that never really address his questions.
Well, that's obviously because God acts in mysterious ways.. 😂
@@JoeBob79569 which is not at all 💀
Whenever you hear of the watchmaker argument, remember the Runamo Inscription found in Blekinge, Sweden. For hundreds of years no one was able to translate the runic writings until it was discovered that they were no writings at all but natural occuring fissures in the rock instead. Turns out, people aren't really able to recognize design, but sometimes tend to imply it.
Very interesting. Thanks.
All those canals on Mars - and a big human face too I hear🙌
@MJ Because we evolved.
@MJ Depends how far back you want to go.
from primate ancestors. Our species emerged in Africa around 200,000 years ago.
@MJ at the moment around 3.8 billion years. There is tentative evidence of life 4bn years ago from zircon crystals in Australia.....not agreed upon.
2:10:49 - Alex's little smile when McLatchie 'invites him to do that inquiry' regarding the truth of the Gospel, knowing full well that Alex has done a whole-ass theology degree.
That showed McLatchie clearly was not engaging or listening with Alex on the same level that Alex was to him.
McLatchie's closing argument was probably the most pompous, stuck up piece of self-jerking I've ever seen, where he utterly disregarded everything Alex said and blindly claimed that his arguments destroyed all of Alex's.
You atheists cry about everything. You claim to be objective but you just cry whenever your “non belief” gets attacked. Just because you have a theology degree doesn’t make you an expert in all things religion. Especially not something as extensive as the Bible where there are multiple fields of studies within it
@@AnoopVargheeseuhhh what else would you expect? Lol
To be fair, there's a _lot_ to cover in theology, and you likely specialize in a few things.
Johnathan's first rebuttal, I think, is basically, "if you're truly non-resistant you'll believe in the long run". So you can't know if you were being non-resistant or not until you actually believe Christianity or you're on your deathbed. Sounds neat.
Sounds like witch testing.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.
He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.
He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’
So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.
About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.
So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.
When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner.
‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?
Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.
Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Matthew 20:1-16 NIV ❤️
~~~
I will say, I don't like that Jonathan failed to mention the need for prayer
It's literally fallacious logic and I'm kind of upset he wasn't called out on it.
how convenient 🙄
@@brophwydcalling people out on fallacies does not do anything constructive in a debate, if you are trying anything else than to win gotcha points. It would have created meaningless animosity
I am a 93 years old lapsed Catholic and this is this the best lecture I have attended on the subject! so thank you so much Alex and Jonathan!
Hey Tony! Nice comment!
May God Bless you Tony!
You must be very much into exploring if you are 93 and on UA-cam, that is very cool!
I pray God reveals himself to you!
@@chrissummey4234if god has to reveal themselves then how is it a choice at all?
My vote goes to Alex O'connor. He appeared poised, well-informed and sincerely objective, even graciously conceding points when corrected. Jonathan McLatchie, on the other hand, came off as professorial, dodgy and somewhat intellectually dishonest. McLatchie's main strategy appears to have hinged on wowing his audience with the intricacies of DNA replication and, with the audience still wowed and stupefied by the dramatics, suspiciously omitting some critical details that could potentially challenge his thesis . Not fair!
McLatchie's central argument seems to be simply this: the remarkable accuracy, precision, and complexity of DNA replication, gene expression and even the Genetic Code could have only come from intelligent design. What McLatchiel suspiciously left out is the following:
(1) the so-called Genetic Code in one of McLatchie's slides is an illustration of how it appears NOW . What McLatchie omitted to mention was that, during the roughly 4 billion years of evolution, it was NOT always so.There is persuasive evidence of Biosynthetic expansion of the genetic code -- that the genetic code grew from a simpler earlier code through a process of "biosynthetic expansion", as primordial life "discovered" new amino acids (by-products of metabolism) and later incorporated some of these into the machinery of genetic coding. The other point he failed to mention is this-- the genetic code is NOT as sacrosanct as McLatchie presents it to be. There are significant divergences from the 20-aminacid canonical code that Mclatchie put up on his slide. This diversity appears mostly in 'primitive' prokaryotes, current prokaryotes, and endosymbionts, but less so in eukaryotes (which include animals and humans) which over time appear to have progressively adopted the canonical genetic code that McLatchie showed on that slide.
(2) Even the processes of transcription, translation, and replication of genetic information appears to show slow and steady progressive evolution over vast stretches of geological time, differing dramatically between early 'primitive' prokaryotes to modern prokaryotes and eukaryotes. (DNA wasn't even the first repository of genetic information; RNA was, and in some organisms, still is) Mclatchie myopically looks at the 20th or 21st century Genetic code or DNA replication as the 'epitome of perfection' and makes the fantastic leap of logic to assume a designer, while blithely ignoring all the steps (and missteps) that ensued in the over 4 billion years preceding it. To be clear- progressive acquisition of complexity favours natural evolution and is counterintuitive to intelligent design-- the argument being -- if an all knowing God already knew the perfect design why would he resort to some trial-error process and tinker with creation?
(3) McLatchie also does not address the question -- if replication is so perfect, how come there are traceable variations within and and between extant and extinct species. The evidence in favour of natural evolution rest on findings that species variation is a consequence of inherited random mutations (both gain-of-function and loss-of function mutations). Even if replication error rate is very low, other random processes such as oxidative stress, free radicals etc exert measurable effects on mutation frequencies in species. Even molecular evolution does not appear to be this simple, clock-like universal, process.; there is considerable variation in the rate of molecular evolution manifest at all levels of biological organization not just in species but also among species. Variation rate can vary considerably with species, body size, population dynamics, lifestyle and geographical location. Mutations do not always guarantee survival of species; they can also result in extinction of a species. Mutations are random and the evidence so far does not seem to support progression towards some predetermined outcome. So pointing to the perfection of the replication process as a shining example of intelligent design is misleading. Mutational basis of species variation and consequence on survival or extinction of species (particularly the randomness of the mutations) runs counterintuitive to the 'intelligent design' of an 'all-knowing' God that by definition knows EXACTLY what he is doing and makes NO mistakes.
(4) What McLatchie does not mention is that this so called 'intelligent design' is NO guarantee for survival. There is overwhelming evidence that even this level of sophistication and complexity in processes necessary for life (like replication transcription translation) does NOT guarantee the survival of a species. In the last 4 billion years, it is estimated (yes, it is an educated estimate, not documented fact) that approximately 99.5% of all species that ever existed on Earth are extinct. There is however irrefutable evidence that in the last 500 million years alone there have been 5 mass extinctions, at times killing off nearly 75-96% of all living forms on land sea and air. There is persuasive evidence that we are currently in the midst of a 6h mass extinction event (Holocene extinction) with current extinction rates in the last 500-1000 years being dramatically higher than the background extinction rate. Mass extinctions are counterintuitive to intelligent design The reasoning is that if an all-knowing God already knew he didn't need all those species to begin with, why waste resources on species he knew he was going to destroy anyways? McLatchie's God seems less an 'intelligent' designer and more a capricious tinkerer with wanton disregard for life. Unless, of course, wanton destruction of life IS somehow part of 'God's Plan"-- that tired, lazy, knee-jerk argument, which happens to be a favourite among apologists.
(5) McLatchie's whole notion that 'if there is information there has to be an intelligent designer that created if' is a flat out nonsensical interpretation of information theory which states that information is intrinsic to the Universe, not just at the grand cosmic scale or in the DNA and genetic code, but even at the sub-atomic quantum scale where uncertainty prevails. Quantum uncertainty presents a problem for intelligent design, simply because, at least according to theist arguments, God is thought to operate with a 'certain intent', (remember? he has a 'definite Plan') not toying with probabilities and varying outcomes. Theists who use the 'Measurement problem' and "observer requirement" as defense of 'God' being the Observer that collapses the probabilistic wave function into measurable certainty .. are either completely clueless of, or are deliberately obfuscating, the meaning of the terms 'measurement' or 'observation' in quantum physics. Moreover, the concept of information entropy -- that the more certain or deterministic an event is, the less information it will contain; information is actually an increase in uncertainty (disorder, entropy) of a system -- begs the question, how is information (an increase in disorder) evidence of intelligent design (McLatchie's God)?
McLachie's arguments also fail in his other subjective interpretations of natural phenomena.
(1) his claim that animals do not suffer 'as much' as humans appears ridiculous when one witnesses elephants or cheetahs hovering over their dead offspring for days and weeks in obvious grief. I would argue that the suffering of an elephant over the loss of her dead offspring is greater because the elephant cannot rationalize that grief as we do.
(2) his rebuttal to the 'non uniform geographical distribution of God awareness'- -that God has a plan (arrangement) for Buddhists in Thailand appeared silly, dodgy and evasive. This 'God has a Plan' argument appears to be a very common 'fig leaf' that most theists use to evade embrassinging gaps in theistic interpretations of the natural world.
I wonder if Mclatchie has an explanation for my question- During the past 5500 years why has the spiritual experience of hundreds of millions of Hindus in India manifested as 33 million OTHER divinities, with the very conspicuous exception of McLatchie's Christian God? Does it not make sense that if the Christian God is universally accessible he should have appeared within the Hindu experience at least once in all this time? Why, oh why, is Mclatchie's God ignoring the poor Hindus for no fault of their own? Why was that God NOT accessible to pre-Christian era civilizations- such as the Chinese or the Indians which at one time together comprised nearly 75% of humanity? Seems very suspicious to me that McLatchies God should reveal himself only to a select band of desert dwellers at only a certain point in recorded history, but remain 'hidden' to the rest of humanity before and, arguably, long after.
The only counter-point I can make to that is if God made humans like itself, well, people LOVE simulator games where you build stuff up then burn it to the ground. Lol. Maybe God just likes seeing the process, like watching an ant colony that it occasionally sets on fire.
Though, the latest mass extinctions are our fault. There's more farmed animals in the world now than wild animals.
@@suicune2001 Wrong! Mass extinctions have occurred long before human species came into existence. The latest Holocene extinction began 10,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age of the Milankovitch cycle and a global warming period began. I agree in modern times population with overgrowth, humans have exacerbated environmental pollution. But CO₂ levels global temperature patterns have cycled periodically much to the same extent as we are observing now and are primarily due due to factors beyond human control eccentricity of Earth's orbit around the sun, , axial tilt and precession of the earth as it rotates around its axis. Other factors like volcanic activity methane release meteor strikes are also responsible for mass extinction.
The hypothesis is 'Life and its complexity is by "intelligent" design' by an Designer- God' who has a Plan" If God already HAS a plan why the frequent mass extinctions? Why the wanton destruction of 99.9% of nearly 4 billion species that ever existed on Earth? Either the Plan is flawed -- which means God is 'flawed' (and that violates the notion of God who by definition is without Flaw) or there is NO Plan-- and therefore there is no God, and the 'intelligent design' argument collapses.
Your statement ' Maybe God just likes seeing the process, (by process I am assuming mass extinctions of billions of species' like watching an ant colony' challenges the notion of an All-Loving All-knowing God. Humans too nearly became extinct around 60,000 years ago. From an estimated population of 100,000-150,0000 individuals we were reduced to roughly 1000 individuals huddled precariously in a cave on the Cape of Good Hope. If God so loved Man how can he capriciously destroy hundreds of thousands of humans and watch the fun? This is different from a Simulator Game.. simulator games do not come with a cost of unimaginable human (and animal) suffering.
An argument is often made (and Mclatchie seemed to obliquely allude to it) that such destruction is sometimes warranted because of 'evil that men do'. Even assuming humans were evil 60,000 years ago the very notion raises a whole range of contradictions (1) If God had a Plan, then God's Plan included Man, AND the 'evil that Men do. So God created an instrument of Evil and is responsible for the Evil 'men do' which contradicts the definition of God -- 'God can do no evil'. (2) If 'evil that men do is' because of Man's 'Free will' again that contradicts the definitions of Free will and God's Plan- Free will, cannot be 'free' if the outcome was already decided by God’s Plan. If the outcome is not within God's Plan, then the Plan itself is flawed but this contradicts the definition of a 'God that can make no flaws' '
The point is this whole notion of 'intelligent design' is internally inconsistent. If it is indeed a design, the design is obviously flawed. If it is flawed, then it cannot be termed 'intelligent'. If it is a design, and even nominally intelligent, but with obvious serious flaws, it brings into question the very 'intelligence' and competency of the so-called 'Designer'.
McLatchie has not yet realized that Brahman of Hinduism, Emptiness of Buddhism, and God of Abraham are all the same phenomena.
Big ups
@alisha Roy I love the thoroughness of your reply, I learned some things, although I was aware of some of it. If only the theists would read it , and try to understand it . I’m not holding my breath. I made the point in replying to some other posts that McLatchie was being disingenuous in his argument, but you read broke it down .👍
Alex is becoming my favorite outspoken atheist. You can see the influence of hitchens. But at the same time he does not avoid questions like hitch used to do with his charm. I think Alex is the most promising freethinker at the moment.
His approach with Christian audiences is incredible. He cracks jokes and overall comes off as likable and reasonable which generally puts him optically far ahead of his opponents. I think people often forget how the manner in which we give our opinions matters just as much as the content when it comes to convincing people. I really like that Alex isn't like some of the angry atheists types who engage only for the purpose of shitting on Christianity. It really seems like he wants to be convinced by cant because the arguments arent of the quality he requires
THIS.
@@zacharybrown5367 exactly. I don't like to compare because he has his own way of debating. But to me, he took the strong points of every outspoken atheist. He has the charm and wit of Hitch, the Bible knowledge of Matt and the philosophy approach of Dennet.
Definitely can see the Hitchens influence. Alex is growing and maturing his debating prowess, his critical analytical skills are excellent. I also admire his honestly and humility. Hitch would be proud.
Alex is more respectful than Hitch, and Alex wants to believe - Hitch was a happy atheist.
I’ve never heard of the term “non-resistant non-belief.” I definitely fall into that category, but I simply haven’t found the evidence necessary for me to believe again yet.
I’m amazed that the professor has the audacity to say that someone who engages objectively with the evidence will in the end become a Christian.
How do you account for someone like me. A current Christian minister who has dedicated his life to the gospel yet no longer believes? I have two degrees in theology and a wealth of Christian experience, if anyone was going to believe, it would be me. Everything within me wants to believe, in fact, my financial well being depends on it at this point. Sadly, I am having to complete a new degree and leave the ministry when I graduate.
I know an ex-Church of Scotland minister with a similar experience. He stopped believing in some of the things he was telling his congregation and so felt he couldn't live a lie. He did a one year course to become a Religious Education and Classics teacher. Even now, in his nineties, he is still struggling to "work it all out". I know of at least two ministers who came out as no longer believing but still managed to keep going with their congregations: Greta Vosper in Canada and Klaas Hendrikse in the Netherlands.
I imagine he is so convinced that he is the one who has engaged objectively, and when someone disagrees it must be them who did the "objective engagement" wrong. Which is so very relatable, but we should hope that most of us have the humility to say that it could also have been ourselves, who were wrong.
He's an evidential apologist by trade. Believing that an objective examination of the evidence is sufficient reason to become a Christian is a fundamental requirement for the job. Otherwise he would have to be a Calvinist or a presuppositionalist and all his work in getting a PhD in evolutionary biology would go to waste.
@@EnglishMike I agree with Jonathon, Do I think there are some non resistant non believers, yes there are some, but they are few and far between especially in the atheist movement. There are many reasons to not want God to exist, but very atheists are willing to admit that, they act as if they are seeking the truth, but its pretty obvious its qutie psychological and emotional for most atheists. Even Alex, almost all of his arguments are emotional resistance to the idea of God, the suffering in the world, I think most atheists reject God because they dont want to submit themselves and humble themselves, they dont want to give up their desires, they want to be autonomous, like most of us do. These are desires which everyone deals with but some of us will seek the truth instead of run from it.
Yeah, I think it's part of his agenda, trying to say "If you engage with the contents objectively and don't believe, something is wrong with you". He has to constantl remind himself that he is something better somehow.
I wonder if anyone has ever wandered into a desert, found a cactus, and wondered why the desert environment was so perfectly fine-tuned for the survival and flourishing of the cactus
it really doesn't matter, they will just take a step back and argue that the existence of matter itself is just the result of a perfectly fine-tuned universe for life. Belief isn't based on epistemology...
@@AI3Dorinte I wasn’t making an epistemological argument, I was drawing an analogy. Considering the desert to be mysteriously tuned for cacti would be a misunderstanding - possibly of the same sort that considering our universe mysteriously tuned for our type of life would be.
And tbh, I don’t think this is the best response to the fine tuning problem. I think a better response would be to suggest that the fundamental constants (or, perhaps more importantly, their scale and/or the relationships between them) can’t be altered in such ways as theists might suggest. I think the notion that the magnitude of the strong nuclear force (or any other such constant) could’ve somehow been slightly different with respect to the other constants is somewhere between conjecture and whimsy. There’s simply no reason (that I know of, of course) to believe it’s at all possible outside of defending creationism.
Good analogy
@@Williamwilliam1531 sorry mate I didn't understand why is it whimsy exactly?
The anthropic principle has been critiqued to death so I won't do that, but if all these constants are unalterable (which I agree with you), and yet the near perfect conditions or goldilocks zone has been created despite the astronomical improbability of it existing, does that not increase the propensity of it being deliberate? I think it does. This favours the fine tuning argument.
You said there's no reason to believe this, outside of believing creationism. Wouldn't that be the point that favours the theistic argument?
@@edwardnygma5549 in retrospect, “whimsy” maybe wasn’t the best word choice. The fine tuning argument assumes that many (or even “any” depending who you ask) values are possible for the fundamental constants we’ve observed in the universe. I find this assumption to be somewhat whimsical, since, well, no one has proposed a mechanism or theory or anything resembling an explanation of how this might be a reasonable assumption to make. People tend to just assert that other values might have existed, and then ask an explanation of science. I guess, on my disagreeable days, I find that a rather whimsical way of thinking.
To be clear, I don’t think that these people are purposefully being whimsical, or that they dismiss logic or anything. I just think that they misunderstand the cosmological/mathematical nuance and complexity of their own argument. For instance, what does it mean to talk about the probability of a true “one-of-one” occurrence? We have observed no other universes being created, nor have we observed other constants in other areas of this universe. There is a dataset of exactly one, and the entire fine-tuning argument is predicated on deriving a probability from that dataset, despite the lack of any proposed theory of how or why the existence of alternate values is even an intelligible possibility to discuss. I find this to be bad science, bad philosophy, and bad mathematics.
As a Christian, I have to say I'm thoroughly unimpressed with Jonathan's arguments and positions. Alex's arguments were not only very brilliant but extremely heartfelt, and they deserve better replies.
Very generous comment, Joel.
As a non christian, I am thoroughly impressed with your comment 👍
What are the impressive Christian arguments?
But your faith is not ultimately grounded in rationality or evidence, so what difference does it make? Christians believe and then find "evidence" for that belief, not the other way around. And likely, there is nothing that would make you disbelieve in your god, so I don't understand your objection. You are watching this debate for the purpose of entertainment, not deliberation.
@@seanmatthewking
Whatever they can make up along the way because there will only ever be arguments because there isn't any evidence. When we see scientists arguing that there is or isn't salt in seawater, we will see the parallel of religious nonsense.
As time goes on, I find it more and more difficult to respect theists who confidently trot out the same old debunked arguments that I've been hearing for decades.
@Bronson can you give an example of a debunked argument that Alex used here?
@Bronson lol that's a silly strawman..
But to address your comment, morality doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's a social game we play derived from the physical realities of our existence.
Your inability to make sense of existence without plugging in a creator character is not the problem of the nonbelievers.
@Bronson Morality has nothing to do with Atheism in the first place.......next?
Look up Ed Feser debating Graham Oppy. You’ll change your mind.
@Bronson u know what is logically nonsensical is believing that something complex enough to design whole universe can come from nothing , but the less complex universe can't .
When there actually is No proof of god , but there is proof of universe .
Never have I been so infuriated by what McLatchie calls "clear" and "obvious" arguments. That was painful...
Yep, if you just knew what he does, you'd see how smart he really is.
If only he could read his notes a bit faster
Why must unresisting non-belief be lifelong? Surely it's the other way round, that a vocal God would capitalise on the single instant a resistant non-believer had an open and accepting mind and reveal himself in that moment.
It's inconceivable that everyone who dies an atheist had zero moments of an open mind where a God who cares enough to, and has the knowledge and power to reveal himself in a non-pressured free choice way.
Who would honestly reject a (demonstrably) loving God looking to do us well and who can fully explain the world to our satisfaction in that moment?
@@FartPanther "Who would honestly reject a (demonstrably) loving God looking to do us well and who can fully explain the world to our satisfaction in that moment?"
One reason: fear.
If the explanation validates our understanding and fills in the gaps, that would be fine and dandy. But what if the explanation completely invalidates everything? What if it shows us that everything we thought was true is actually false? It would feel as though we're being sucked into irreversible madness. We would sense it as we approached and our gut would wrench in fear. So we reject, resist, turn away and run for our lives back into ignorance.
It's not just having an open mind, it's having equanimity, non-reaction to experience. Up until the point of no return, any craving or aversion will stop the process.
@@bike4aday I think that argument works more for a Theist rather than and Atheist. An Atheist gains from becoming a Theist. They'd gain a community, the feeling that everything will 'be okay', the love of another individual etc and it's more than possible to be a Theist and believe in modern science to a degree. Modern day Christian views have thankfully evolved to the point where it's just the creationists and such that have massively conflicting anti-science views.
However an Theist becoming and Atheist has to contend with, depending on their sect, losing an entire community, friends and family or in some religions being banned or executed. The not to mention to the human mind, if a human loves God like another person, the sudden loss of their 'God' will be similar to that of actually losing a love one.
Alex's opening statement was really good!
jonathans was good too at the introduction but also for the first part of the rebutal (BTW im not religeos)
@patrickkusmajadi4736 eh, I disagree. Irreducible complexity relies on a tremendous reduction of and ignorance of biology. It can be thrown away with an argument as simple as "the human body isn't a mouse trap". And then the hackneyed genetic code argument. Biology isn't a computer. If a computer gave birth to a new computer over billions of years, perhaps it would look something like that? I guess? It's just such a ridiculous argument. Just because something is hard to understand doesn't mean it's supernatural. Scientists for hundreds of years have been fighting against this exact type of thinking.
@@patrickkusmajadi4736 Jonathan's was not bad, but his introduction statements were also pretty easy to shut down, especially the fine-tuning arguments he presented and his proofs were unsubstantial.
@@QuantizedAxiomyeah, heard those cases/arguments for god so many times now and heard them refuted just as many. they’re pretty effective to a layman but nothing substantial/sound otherwise.
@@patrickkusmajadi4736jonathons opening statement was just a biology class, he could’ve done better imo
As a kid growing up catholic, I once asked my mom “if you believe in something hard enough, can it become true?” She answered yes and I committed myself to be the best catholic believer I could be for the next few years. I was the epitome of a nonresistant nonbeliever. Nothing was ever revealed to me, and all my observations of the world actively drove me away from my belief.
I gave it 12 years (age 6 to 18) as a Catholic then moved on. 50 more years have passed and god still hasn't shown up. It's been great having Sundays open.
You can't argue with reality. Or in other words-make up stuff to appease your sensibilities.
@@BillzybobbToo Very true, however, after painful experiences it can be hard to remember this. We want to believe it is part of a plan or things will work out in the end. It is a useful defense mechanism.
The epistemology that holds that something can become true if one believes in it enough is, among other things, a sad and tragic epistemology.
Travis, apart from the catholic Church, did you have a desire to meet and know God?
The greatest meta-critic of McLatchie's debate is that his presentation and communication style is CLEARLY not intended to be understood, but to overwhelm. He rambles non-stop at high speeds creating circular and hypothetical arguments, then moves on to build his conclusion upon these without any rational evidence. In other words, quantity over quality.
One might even call it a Gish gallop.
@@scottwmackey or perhaps a Turek trot.
@@chrissessions6108 haha I love you guys! Rationality Rules is the man👌😂
McLatchie March?
When I was watching the debate I really noticed this. His opening statement was at least understandable (I am not experienced with biology so I can't verify how true what hes saying is), but when he started his rebuttals I was genuinely rewinding because I couldn't get what he was trying to really say or what his actual point is. It felt like he was flipping from point to point, some Alex didn't even make.
After over a decade of being deconverted, I think I'm burned out on these debates. Cosmic skeptic is too calm and collected lol. Much respect for what you have to argue
How can you take atheists seriously when they talk like whiny litte arrogant babies?
So agree. Exhausted. And I am yet to find a single Christian apologist who isn’t fundamentally arrogant - an impenetrable wall of hubris. No doubts, no vulnerability. Sad.
I completely understand. At this point I follow several atheists with different styles. Alex is certainly one of the most patient and polite much in the proper Englishman tradition.
I am too. The tediousness and repetition of the same old arguments from the god side are intolerable. I will say that Alex's three arguments for not being convinced of the existence of any gods are compelling and are certainly what my thinking has been gelling to resemble for the last 15+ years, since I started giving serious thought about why I've kept trying to believe since I was about 14 years old.
@@bobbabai sadly “it is easier to fool people than convince them they have been fooled” - Mark Twain
In alex's opening statement, he listed the many ways he has genuinely tried to seek out god. Jonathan's response to that was to say "evidence for god is not that hard to find."
The casual arrogance of christians never ceases to amaze me.
I'm a Christian and I think there is no evidence for God. A famous theologian (I forgot the name) said: "A God that can be proved isn't God." If God could be proven, religion would cease to exist and become science. Faith wouldn't be necessary anymore. A ridiculous idea IMHO.
@@MrSeedi76 : Though I disagree with the conclusion, I appreciate your candor. I think theists, especially proponents of ID, make a mistake using scientific arguments to justify unscientific beliefs. Simply embracing faith, as you do, is far more honest.
When guys like James Tour & Micheal Behe berate science and scientists they ask "Where is the data?" and proceed to insist on a supernatural designer which begs the question "Where's the data?" and there is none so they undermine their own credibility.
@Btwixed Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are not "on my side". Atheism is not a monolith. It's a label for a wide range of people who just don't believe in a God. Christianity on the other hand claims to have knowledge it can't have. Christians believe that they were made special and the earth was made for us and that they know there is an afterlife and call anyone fools if they don't belive their bullshit. Pure arrogance. There is no comparison.
Totally agree with your last sentence! Pure ego!
@Btwixed Says the guy arrogantly assuming that this person subscribes to anything Dawkins or Harris says.
As a biochemist, I would have LOVED to have addressed the biological arguments made in this debate. I would have also brought up Kitzmiller v. Dover and Behe's FANTASTIC admission that 58 peer reviewed papers, nine books, and several textbook chapters on the evolution of the immune system were, to him, "not enough" to convince him that the immune system was NOT irreducibly complex... At what points is the bar set too high and one becomes a "resistant deceiver" -- one who lies to themselves to keep believing, in spite of the evidence. ((Edit: Mixed up my double negatives; Behe is still in denial.))
Thanks for sharing this. His argument did seem pretty sketchy.
@@m_hut that's a pretty interesting idea. Get a council of varied scientists from fields related to the debate to instantly call out bullshit. That seems like the ideal way to shut down deceptive creationists.
I'd say this is the only area I wish Alex would have addressed more, but he himself claims to be no expert so I can't fault him too much for that.
What do you say to Johnathan's point that DNA itself (or whatever he was refering to) (I'm not an expert) is ireducably complex and is immune to natural selection?
@@whyme3917 I'd say, rubbish. Nothing living, or any part of a living organism, is immune to natural selection.
I'm starting to understand why UA-cam atheists don't do debates anymore. "Have you heard of this thing called the Watchmaker argument?" Have I heard of it? Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker 36 years ago. Yes, I've heard of it. Why is it that atheists are well versed on all theist arguments but theists have seemingly never heard an atheist rebuttal in their life?
It is possible that some theists, knowing that their arguments have already been refuted, keep mentioning them hoping that people with little or no knowledge on certain subjects will think they are correct.
@@diegocenteno745 so like how scam emails are intentionally obvious?
Most theists' goal when debating an atheist is not to convert the atheist, nor to even give a coherent and consistent argument. Their first and foremost goal is to take advantage of the most ignorant in the audience who may get swept into their sales pitch and fall onto their side of the fence out of sheer mental exhaustion. It's not about truth at all. This is EXCESSIVELY apparent if you watch someone like Jordan Peterson debate religion.
Yes Jesus, you do sit well in my heart. ☺
@@kaylak8478 stool or lounge chair?
alex will go down as an atheist legend when it’s all said and done, one of the most intellectually honest people i have ever seen. something we can all aspire to be.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say he might even go on to eclipse many of those who we regard as the "great" atheists. Hitchens, Dawkins, Carlin etc.
I only came to the comments to remark on his similarity to Hitchens when he said "And to those of you who have not encountered a non-resistant non-believer? Well then... Nice to meet you." The tone, the sass, I'm probably going crazy but it was so reminiscent of Hitchens quips
i pray the opposite happens, Alex becomes a true born again christian and a burning light to those that sit in darkness.
@@noone-zq7mygood luck with that….
@@noone-zq7myadmittedly so does he
Jonathan is the prime example of the poem about the Pierian Spring. Drink deep or taste not.
Im a biotech PhD student. His understanding of DNA replication is just surface level and he doesnt address the evolution of DNA replication through a RNA worlds which counters all of his points.
Not to mention its just a logical fallacy, an argument from ignorance at best.
Thank you for this post. Very interesting. I was hoping someone knowledgeable would comment!
28:03 "85% of Atheist Experience viewers wouldn't worship the Christian God even if they believed he existed" seems unrelated to 'resistant nonbelief.' You could very well believe ol' sky daddy existed and still refuse to worship him, on account of also believing he's the most abominable being ever conceived of.
It's actually in direct opposition to resistant nonbelief. Those polled were saying they would absolutely believe despite having good reason to resist.
I think the argument is that in such a case God would have no reason to reveal himself to those people, since they would reject him anyway. He can leave them in the dark with a clear conscience, so to speak. Not so with people like Alex - there his absence really is harmful, and thus contrary to his ‘benevolence’
Alex has been absorbed by PhD specialization and has lost a bit of touch with common-sense argumentation it seems. But his diction and high-rhetoric has grown superb.
Since Atheists don’t believe in God. Then the abominable ones are humans, not God. Humans are the most wicked beings that exist, Evolution is to blame.
Homo sapiens murdered and probably ate the other so called ape men , that’s why the other ape men went extinct. The same way many animals have gone extinct. You atheists can’t keep blaming God if you all don’t think He exists. Blame Evolution
I'm sure Alex is just trying to appeal to a Christian audience by lightly digging at their mortal enemy. That being said, I have no idea what would possibly be worthy of my worship, since I view "worship" as synonymous with dogmatic devotion, and I reject all forms of dogma.
as somebody who has next to no understanding of biology, i'd like to say that how dr mclatchie specifically talked about genetics and dna in his opening statement was incredibly unhelpful - he discusses complex biology in waffling detail, not with the intention to contextualise his argument but rather to assume the high ground over those who aren't able to keep up with the jargon he spews.
he's no Carl Sagan, that's for sure
He's a creationist with a PhD in evolutionary biology (earned while he was a creationist), so this is an area he knows he has the advantage over Alex when debating examples, etc. But, in essence, all he did was regurgitate the Discovery Institute talking points about Intelligent Design which have been thoroughly refuted and since ignored by mainstream science.
I'm in the same boat. Understood very little of his intro. Ironically, I was christian school educated with no biology at all 🙄
@@nckanime3994 same - i'm 19 now and only learned last year that evolution isn't just urban myth 💀
That's exactly what I got out of that little stunt.
Also,
Alex: 'I've tried everything to find God for years'
Theist: 'Don't blame God.'
Me: Who else is there to blame?
It is always our fault, God never is at fault.
@@hyp77 correct
@@hyp77Then explain all the arguments that Alex just made then.
@@hyp77 ...? It is our fault that God allows children to starve every few seconds or die from cancer with their parents praying to God in terror and agony for their children to be saved?
@@martiddy Why would I do that?
JM's entire argument about the replication of DNA being so well designed and self correcting falls flat on its face for someone like me, with a debilitating medical condition caused by a genetic mutation. Sure, they're rare, but if the genetic code is so good at fixing itself, then people like me shouldn't exist at all, even as a rare case.
The fact that previously quite rare conditions are becoming more common within the human genome as medical science "overrides" the natural selection of fitness prior to reproductive ability (via such things as vaccines and antibiotics) is a quite expected and predictable result of this progress of scientific medical intervention in this natural process. I cannot see any predictable reason for this resulting reality if there is some almighty being in charge of the process. Why would this being suddenly allow for greater detrimental mutation of this "perfect" DNA replication process in tandem with the progress of human knowledge and ability? If DNA was created so perfectly, even with the argument of the introduction of sin corrupting it, this statistic alone should be linear along the line of history then, not exponential as it is.
The only possible argument that I can see is that man is tampering with creation, and now suffering the consequences of that. This argument would then introduce a whole host of additional questions though, such as why should I be born with, and suffer so directly more, for the "sins of interference" of the whole of human progress than others? Why would any Christian support or use any form of modern medicine if this argument is true? And how is the universal suffering of humanity prior to these advances then supportable as preferable to the current circumstance?
If there is any other way to rationalize this phenomenon of increasingly greater detrimental genetic mutations reproducing & therefore surviving within the gene pool as consistent with a designed genome, I fail to see it, but would certainly entertain any proposition brought to my attention.
your insight left me breathless. this comment section is such a delight to go through. thanks for your input. also, i hope you're doing well, my best wishes
That’s like saying that the six sigma method for quality control is not evidence of intelligent activity because there is still a small chance of defect. Sorry for your medical condition but we are all sick to an extend, yet, we can derive a meaningful experience from our conditions depending on how we reflect at it.
I'm not well versed in science, and thus cannot determine the sharpness of irreducible complexity arguments.
Weirdly enough, it seems like if God meant to be sort-of-hidden, those proofs would essentially be embarrassing for God and/or make it more likely for one to believe based on historical period (I.e. pre-proof and after-proof periods)
If God exists, he doesn't have high IQ as a prerequisite for belief, which makes sense.
It seems one of the things strongly hinted at is humility.
Can't say I'm totally there yet. Hope you find what you're looking for
Those who are reading this and taking away some idea that it's indicative of complaint about my condition or searching for something in life - to each their own, but that is not at all the thesis of my comment, and therefore responses to something I wasn't saying are rather pointless.
Yes, and that is exactly correct, any perfect process has no statistical chance of error, period. If you accept that God has a non zero error rate, that is like saying God isn't a perfect omnipotent and omniscient being.
"Why do you think miracles are so improbable?"
The very DEFINITION of a miracle is that it's so improbable that it is impossible. It's so extraordinary that it can't be explained by science. It's like a box of cornflakes appearing in my room by itself without anyone moving it from the kitchen cupboard. THAT would be a miracle. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Jonathan would think this scenario would be HIGHLY IMPROBABLE.
So yeah, to restate Jonathans question: "Why do you think stuff thats extraordinarily improbable is so improbable?"
Because it is, Jonathan. It is.
_" It's like a box of cornflakes appearing in my room by itself without anyone moving it from the kitchen cupboard. THAT would be a miracle."_
Depends on who you live with. Hang on.
NO MOM! I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOUR ALZHEIMER MEDS ARE! HAVE YOU CHECKED THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT?
Sorry about that. My mother lives in the car, most of the time anyway. Where was I? Oh, right, I think a better example of a miracle would be the cornflakes in a bowl turning to gold flakes while the whole family is watching and preferably before anyone took a bite. You know, it's fine to eat gold but no one wants to search poop for spare cash and most people probably will if it's enough cash :p Ah, screw it. I would love washing my poop off of gold flakes. Gimme the gold!
Exactly. The whole point of a miracle is that it can’t be explained by anything other than Divine Intervention.
@@lifefindsaway7875 that’s inserting something. It’s we don’t know. it’s not therefore I’ll just say a dude did it with no evidence. A green fairy with a meth habit could of done it. I got as much evidence for that as I do for a god.
I'm sorry I moved your Cornflakes and lied about it, can you please let it go now.
@@stevero2581 yeah, the term ‘miracle’ does imply the Christian ideas of what the supernatural looks like. From an objective perspective, a ‘miracle’ could be the Christian god, some other god, an alien, or some undiscovered technology.
You can only use the argument from ignorance to claim a miracle happened
Dr. McLatchie's entire argument essentially boils down to "because complexity, therefore intelligence." But this is fallacious. Lots of things are complex and weren't intelligently designed, such as traffic jams, geologic strata, etc. Simplicity of design, not complexity, implies intelligence.
Also, sentient design is generally marked by simplicity, not vast complexity. Well in reality, a designer can chose to make as much simplicity or as much complexity as they want, so neither can be an argument "for" design.
Actually, most creationists would still state that geologic strata was intelligently designed. Somehow 🤷🏻
design with apparent intent may sound more convincing.
funnily enough, god's intent always limited to human needs 🤷
Dude you're not smart.
i think you misunderstand what johnathan mean, even though im atheist. But i think what he want to say is: thing are extreme complexity need intelligent design. Sure, intelligent being can design simple and stupid thing. But extreme comlex with specific function thing do need intelligent design. so jonathan want to said:
1. Extreme complex thing with specific function need intelligent design.
2. Human body or DNA is extremely complex with specific function
3. therefore, human body or DNA need intelligent design.
Sure, you can debunk it by showing 1 example of extreme complex thing with specific function, yet clearly dont have intelligent design.
Dr mclatchie's rebuttal.
I trust that non-ressistant nonbelievers will eventually become believers. I also trust that God has sufficient moral justification for all suffering.
It's such a flimsy response. "I have faith that these problems aren't problems"
Good point and it makes it basically unverifiable as well.
Thats the problem with faith and arguing against it isn't it? Because it's faith and not trust but people keep approaching it as if its trust (because to be fair for a lot of people that might be part of the whole belief), but you cannot argue with true faith.
@@radiocorrective Difference between trust and faith?
@@DatHombre faith. What you use when you don't have a good reason to believe...if you had a good reason you would give that....M Dillahunty
Yes Jesus, you do sit well in my heart. 🤗🤗🤗
I am not sure that I am a non resistant non believer. What I do know is that I do not believe but I often act like a believer in my culture to avoid rejection. Thats why I seek out such debates. They make me feel like its okay to be me; someone who does not believe.
Yes! I completely resonate with this
This is me- thank you
So…is McLatchie somehow unaware that all of his main arguments have already been refuted? Or does he just not care? I was honestly shocked that he was still trotting out bs like “irreducible complexity” via mouse traps or the watchmaker argument. Astounding.
He literally did a "Look at the trees" early on in his rebuttal.
Indeed, all of it literally came from the 1970s, 80s and 90s…old and tired “scientific” arguments.
How is it refuted?
My understanding is the new science findings about cells and DNA revives this argument.
@@Jocky8807because it’s an ever repeating moving of the goal post that will keep going and going and going where theists keep moving the goal post wider to the next “impossible” thing. Just waiting until it is explained to find the next.
@@Jocky8807 it's refuted because DNA replication did not happen the way he presented for as long as cellular life forms have existed, there were lesser more archaic forms of DNA replication that occurred with prehistoric species, DNA replication is also a relatively inconsistent process, sometimes it makes things better but sometimes it leads to the extinction of the species. A grand designer or watchmaker would have all the tools to create DNA replication the way it is the first time without causing harm to the species, rather than toy around with less complex and less consistent methods.
My understanding of the Dr’s opening: biology is so dank there must be a God.
Aight.
LOL yup!
The argument from dankness lol
@@kanna-chan6680 would be way more based than usa theists
It's "look at the trees", but with more scientific lingo...
Pretty darn good argument, I’m sold
For a debate titled "Theism vs. Atheism" What better supports reality", I didn't expect so much discussion over Christianity.
I think because for the majority of theism is true that one looks the most probable being the historical account
@@Joshcaldwell24 all religions are equally historically accurate , all are just cult
I think that awareness of the actual summary of debate contents would have been better served with a title such as "Jonathan McLatchie's theological arguments versus critical agnosticism."
@@anksssssssss I’m speaking on the reason of the religion. Christ was a figure that also had historical account to existence and seems to have had the biggest change in the world
@@Joshcaldwell24 biggest change is a strong word . Same argument can be given for Islam .
Or There was a time when non abrhahimic religion were prominent , Hinduism , Buddhism . They had big impact on shaping the world as well .
The opening statement Alex made was so well thought out.
I have come back to this video time and time again just for his opening statement. It’s a beautiful, intelligent, heartfelt testimony of an atheist.
Such a well done opening statement there’s really no following it lol
Listening to Dr. McLatchie's opening statement was like going back in time 25 years. The arguments from intelligent design have been put to bed years ago. The amazing thing about biological evolution is that it shows how complex systems can evolve without any intelligent designer. Claiming that there are exceptions because no one has yet found that specific evolutionary process is just a appeal to ignorance fallacy.
For real, I got flashbacks to Michael Behe and the ole "discovery institute". Crazy that these tired old arguments keep getting recycled by theists, as though they haven't been refuted a thousand times already.
It's not too surprising. McLatchie used to be a creationist who denied common descent - and that was while he was studying for his doctorate. He has since abandoned that line of thinking but he has struck as somebody that has always worked backwards, starting with the position that he believes Christianity is true - what evidence can he find to prove it.
@@aceofspades25 Interesting. Would it be interesting to hear Dr McLatchie explain what changes he has made to his faith as a result of his studies.
Evolving doesn’t tell us how it began
@@TheGolfCommunity1 Sure it does. It tells you that the beginning was simple, and that it evolved complexity over time. Abiogenesis is the science you are after if you want to discuss theories around the origins of life...not evolutionary biology.
This was brutal to listen to!😢 His entire argument is basically “dude what are the chances this all happened! There has to be a god”!
Even if they want to argue that it must have been a god, now they had to prove it was their specific god that did it. Which I don't see any way they can do. Also many of the claims in the Bible are demonstratively false therefore it rules out their Abrahamic god.
Yeh, I feel bad for him cause he seems like a really nice guy
It's actually quite embarassing.....
That's not just *his* entire argument, it's *their* entire argument.
Brutal is a very kind summation of what I've just heard. I would characterise it as catastrophic thinking.
The f**king mousetrap was last straw before I gave up listening to this utter claptrap.
Alex, out of all the outspoken atheists I have heard, I respect you the most. Your intellectual honesty and argumentation style is really commendable.
But his main argument regarding non-resistant non-believers is utterly fatuous, being that people who don't believe don't believe despite the fact that they might want to believe. What has wanting to believe in something go to do with actually believing in that thing? I might want to believe that all women find me devastatingly attractive, doesn't mean I actually believe that. Is he talking about having some actual reason to believe that thing? I.e in this case some actual direct spiritual experience that seems to make the existence of God an almost certainty? But how many people who believe in God have ever had that kind of experience? Faith is called faith for a reason, you have to jump into the unlikely, perhaps even irrational, possibility that an almighty creator or ground of being truly exists.
@@zootsoot2006 that's a misdefinition of faith. Faith means trust based on promises/relationship/evidence of character. Not the popular slogan that was circulated years that faith is belief without evidence. People certainly use it that way but from a biblical stand point what the God of Bible asks his believers to have is trust based on thier lived experiences and knowledge of him. e.a. see how much he tells Israel to remember what he has done.
I like him except that I think he should even “debate” Christian’s because it gives the impression that Christian’s arrived at their faith through reason rather than use “arguments” (bad ones) to defend their faith. It essentially legitimizes a belief system that should just be ignored.
@@zootsoot2006 what's the point of debate then? To me that just sounds like some psychological help to get through life and not at all what this all is about?
@@zootsoot2006 Wanting to believe something has quite a lot to do with whether you believe it actually. Imagine that it's a fact that women find you terrifyingly ugly and run from the sight of you, a narcissist might refuse to believe this despite it being irrational and demonstrably untrue. It's a common argument that non-believers of Christianity are like this ugly narcissist; refusing God not because of the evidence but because of some internal stubborness or 'resistance' as they put it. What Alex pointing to is the existence of people, like himself, who really do want to see God in the world, and would jump on any compelling evidence for him. A non-resistant non-believer. The argument is that surely a God who is supposedly everywhere, perfectly loving and impossible to escape, wouldn't allow these people to exist. He'd surely show himself to these people right?
Really enjoyed this debate, always searching for something that might make me a believer again, to think something or someone is looking out for us, but, I think it just reinforced that we should look after ourselves and eachother as theres nothing else that can.
I really can’t find a reason to want Christianity to be true. Other than fear of death being the end. It really is morally abhorrent
out of pure curiosity what do you find morally abhorrent about Christianity?@@ryangolden3243
Yes, I agree it is attractive to believe in the doctrine of christianity but it feels like an insincere illusion.
So, you would say that evolution provides a more realistic and down to earth approach to a "world view"?@@dylanvanleeuwen3191
God is real. I've felt the presence of God. are you atheist?
As nice as Alex is, he wiped the floor with this guy
👴🧹
I am 73 years old. I’ve spent a good portion of my life trying to find the elusive God. No matter how eloquently expressed, biblical white noise and speculation is just that. We all have introspection and reflection. Other than self-inflicted hypnosis,I have never seen or understood what this God thing is. Oh, God will have some sort of an arrangement. Like an unsigned contract that you sign after your dead? I respect both of these guys a lot. It takes so much to be on either side of an issue.No matter how many times I look into that crystal ball, there’s nothing there. Cheers! Great debate
See the latest video on my channel. It explains the evidence for God from Ibn Taymiyya’s perspective. I pray you will find it beneficial.
McLatchie would say that god knew you wouldn't accept the evidence, so god won't give it to you. Which is a strange, circular, and frankly slightly offensive argument. It clearly wasn't a highly prepared argument and I'd have liked someone to challenge him on it.
@@lmelior You have to believe even if you don’t believe. It’s not your choice it’s gods choice. Can you believe something out of fear alone? I suppose so. I just can’t wrap my mind around that. Very Orwellian.
Hey Daniel. I sincerely advise you to read the translation of the Quran with the intention to be guided by God. Before you read the translation of the Quran, ask God 'God, if you are there, guide me'. Good luck!
Yes Jesus, you do sit well in my heart. 😊
Wow. Mclatchie’s intro literally just summarized all of AP Bio instead of introducing unique or interesting arguments. It may look fancy, but from a biologists perspective it’s a massive waste of time as almost everyone agrees with the complexity of life without agreeing that it had to be designed. Makes you wonder why 99% of biologists don’t agree with a Christian design hypothesis even if they all agree with cells being extremely complex. Life is an emergent property!!! This is the most important thing that these apologists always forget. Just like bird flocks, traffic jams, and sand patterns; they all seem designed, but are in fact simply a conglomeration of random motion all coming together to make a interesting pattern or behavior.
His another argument was that life on earth exists on razor's edge, or something.
Maybe life on earth adjusted to the conditions rather than the opposite?
As a biologist he doesn't seem to be quite smart, plus he doesn't believe in evolution which I guess explains why he doesn't believe in adaptation to the environment.
As a fellow Biologist I have to agree that it seemed like a lengthy explaination that could only confuse non-biologists. 😂 We all agree that life is COMPLEX!
@@samazing8658 I'm into philosophy, not biology. His getting into some details of biology does nothing to convince me of a creator, especially when most experts in biology are evolutionists. You don't have to convince me that life is complex, you have to convince me that if life is complex it must have been designed by a creator. Weird argument.
They also neglect the role of so-called "exaptations" (although maybe this term is not useful, because virtually every "adaptation" was "exapted" somewhere along the way). This is where a structure or mechanism ends up being "used" outside its "original" evolutionary context. It is quite easy for me to imagine, though I am glossing over mountains of complexity, that whatever "irreduceably complex" cellular machinery one can point to, there were various ways early life tweaked and toyed with them to still do useful things without all their modern parts. It is hard to reconstruct every step of that in retrospect, because we only have the relatively smooth and polished (inasfar as evolution makes anything "polished") modern day version, but questions of early life were never easy, and though we are making progress, this is one of the ultimate frontiers of modern biology.
@@madd5 ehh that one's not a terrible argument. I have to say that the fine tuning argument is almost convincing, but imo it's not good enough still. It is true that it would be extremely unlikely or even impossible for life to form in a universe with different physical laws.
Even as a kid, the Bronze Age blood magic rituals seemed bonkers. Fear of hell made me try and believe, but you can only suspend disbelief for so long. As an adult, I just don’t understand how anyone can remain a believer. It’s such a bizarre worldview, once you step out of the cult, and the fear and toxicity wash away, and you see it clearly.
You are right. ALL "mainstream" religions are merely ancient cults.
Amen to that!
That's just not how I see my belief I find the bliss of what we Christians call spiritual experiences with God to be beyond explanation I'm open to explanations, but right now they're just aren't any good ones for the immaterial. Now we can disagree if you think there are immaterial things, but my point is that I don't, and never had believed in God for the fear of hell. It's a shame that many believers shy away from their belief in God because their supports for the belief were weak.
@@theintelligentmilkjug944 It is generally bad practice to believe anything that is based on weak support. However, humans have always had a tendency to believe things because it makes them feel good. It is small wonder that the scientific method was only developed and perfected once in the history of the world. In case you did not know it, science is based on supporting evidence. That is why it works and that is why there is not even a close second.
@@Andre_XX I would agree it is bad practice to believe in anything that is based on weak evidence, but Christianity is not based on weak evidence instead based on 2000 years of theology, personal experience, and evidential arguments for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, humans typically believe in what is practical, or what they find useful not necessarily what makes them feel good. Now in terms of determining what is true in the realm of the physical the scientific method is the best method to use. However, when it comes to the abstract it is impossible to use scientific reasoning, and we know the abstract world exists because using science we don't understand consciousness and the elements of it.
This was a great debate. It's been awesome to see you mature as a thinker, Alex.
But are you still a meat-eater?
Oh wow, Hi Testify! Love your channel! It would be awesome to see you and Alex have a discussion one day.
Yes Jesus, you do sit well in my heart. 😎
@@brotherben4357are you still a theist?
Having people who still try to fight against evolution for obviously religious reasons is just embarrassing. These people shouldn't be considered serious thinkers.
What do you mean by evolution?
@@Joshcaldwell24 is there any generally accepted definition of evolution that you could possibly have contention with?
@@jearn11 when I hear Atheist say evolution I feel they are talking about a longer sequence then what evolution is supposed to mean. I just want to know what one means by evolution specifically. I feel a lot of word games with this one
@@Joshcaldwell24 Are you talking about the difference between macro and micro evolution?
In either case, does it matter? Does the acceptance of one and not the other change the evidence that scientific discovery reduces the "gaps" in which God resides?
@@jearn11 no the problems aren’t in evolution necessarily because last I checked that just means changed over time. One group believes there’s no limits and another group believes limitations. So no one is denying evolution. But let’s grant that it happen the way some believe and fish did because philosophers. The likelihood that happened I would say is completely impossible without an intelligence behind it. We can’t even replicate the origins of life in a lab under intelligence. So I can’t believe this just happened spontaneously through nature
Throughout human history, assuming a "higher power" to be the cause of apparently inexplicable events has always been the first and most reasonable hypothesis.
It's also turned out to be wrong every single time.
yep
To paraphrase Tim Minchin “Every mystery ever solved has turned out to be not magic.”
Well not always, sometimes something happens and it is not investigated. Left in history long ago to never be proven right or wrong.
@@MorgurEdits Are you saying for those historical instances the explanation of a 'higher power' is *still* the most reasonable hypothesis though? If not then I'm not sure how your post is a rebuttal to the OP.
I would suggest that it's not the most reasonable hypothesis, just the most intuitive one to our agency-seeking brains.
The case that “dna is so beautiful/intricately constructed that it must have been created by an intelligent force” falls apart for me because there are genetic defects and mutations that appear in every species on the planet. It’s clearly not as perfect as a theist might like to claim.
Those only make it imperfect If we choose to assume that those things are not supposed to be a part of the process.
I believe that the probability is so low. Those with a belief in religion might justify such impurities as God allowing evil or having justification morally unbeknownst to humans. Although I agree that if we can't use scientific probability or preciseness to undernermine the epochs of Genisis or the probability of multi universes with different constants. It's still a compelling argument because of the lack of sufficient theological arguements other than, it's evil or, there's a reason. It also undermines the fact we have free will, which again I suppose goes to evil if say a newborn baby dies from a mutation in the DNA.
I genuinely can't get my head around how someone like Dr McLatchie can function as a scientist whilst at the same time suspending all critical thinking when it comes to the topic of religion.
His opening statement was fascinating. Having a passion for insuring theists just seems like a weird, sticky manifestation of fear of God.
@@arogueburrito I got the exact same vibe, I kept thinking that it seemed motivated by fear
It blows my mind how someone with a PhD in biology is anti-evolution. He seems to believe the big bang really occurred, but at the same time holds a creationist viewpoint of the world?
His argument about the resurrection of Jesus being real was so dumb, I cannot believe he was being serious about it.
@@martiddy exactly. His reasoning was basically: if we assume that God exists, then the resurrection of Jesus is the most probable outcome. He was literally begging the question.
A few minutes into the debate and I’m genuinely confused… I‘ve watched the debate between McLatchie and Matt Dillahunty on the reliability of the Gospel accounts where McLatchie struck me as a clearly smart guy whose burden of proof was just set way too low. I just assumed that that he wouldn’t partake in a debate where arguments like the watchmaker analogy or the argument from irreducible complexty could be used because McLatchie was reasonable enough to recognize their fallacies. But being a couple of minutes into this debate I‘m pretty shocked to see him go down that rabbit hole.
Is there any other rabbit hole available though? Not really. It's either be outside in the breath of fresh air which is the awareness against logical fallacies, or down the rabbit hole where imagination and ignoring can allow a gap in knowledge to make some people feel better with themselves without seeking proper self-betterment of their knowledge, awareness, and wisdom.
Where are the fallacies?
@@Joshcaldwell24 the whole damn thing
@@NobleVagabond2552 do you not understand the watchmaker argument ?
@@NobleVagabond2552There is a difference between an argument that might be weak, and one that is actually fallacious, as in logically incoherent for some reason.
I've a Masters degree in Biology and many of the things that were said by the professor were either false, not the complete picture or pushed into a narrative.
He claimed many things that weren't true at all.
Yes, I have the same educational background in biology that you have. I have yet to see a proponent of creationism/intelligent design make an honest argument out of the biology. The position is one desperately looking for gotchas in the face of a very rigorous record of evolutionary biology both explaining and predicting natural phenomena.
'Lying for the lord' is a very old position. I always find it hilarious that those who claim to espouse 'the truth' have to lie about that very subject... the irony completely goes over their heads.
@@edwardnygma5549 I’m not sure what you’re on about. I never said evolutionary biology explains the origin of life. I said that creationists have never used biology in a successful way to bolster their arguments. The rest of your comment is just unsolicited regurgitation of Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria concept, and I’m not sure where that’s relevant here.
@@dingdongism you're right mate I did misinterpret but to be fair it was somewhat ambiguous. You stated creationism lacks explanation/argument from biology , then inferred the evolutionary biology explains natural pehnonema well. Creationism doesn't just cover humans but also origin of life/universe. Origin of life was still within scope of what you said.
Be clearer next time when you use broad terms. There was no middle sentence for clarification of your nuanced view. You also said creationism never made an 'honest' argument from biology, hence the NOMA wasn't unsolicited.
It’s amazing how much stronger Alex’s points are.
That's because they are based on demonstrble reality and not delusional fantasies and / or feelings.
I admire your approach Alex. I think taking the time and effort to emphasize that we truly have searched for a God and found none is key. I’ve been focusing on that as well. If a theist cannot accept that we have done this, as you said, in an “unresistant way,” then there’s no purpose in debating further.
Let us say that you have tried to get an audience with the President Of the USA. yes, you have tried everything you can think of, and still, you did not get to get to visit the President. Does that mean the President does not exist? No, I dare say it does not mean that. You see it is up to the President to decide if he wants to grant you an audience. He is the big guy and you are the little guy. What does it mean, to search for God? How does one search for God? This much I do know, that when one seeks God that person is seeking a miracle.
that person is asking God, who exists outside of the material universe to enter into the material universe and make himself known to that person. Do you believe in miracles?
@@danielcarroll7576 if a god was even remotely as present as a president of a nation, we would have direct and indirect viewing of that person (audience vs television or radio), we would have agreed upon dictations of what they said, and it would be less an issue of if they existed and whether they wish to see us or have us involved in any direct way. We do not seem to have anything of the sort from any such religion I am aware of. If the deity does not care about our knowledge of their existence save for "when necessary" then it follows they implicitly acknowledge and must accept the 'fault' lies on them. If the deity does care and will judge accordingly, we are well within our rights to ask and be able to find out what it takes to get that 'right answer', not to mention avoiding a 'wrong' answer.
If god is everywhere in the universe then searching for him shouldn't be necessary. He should be the most obvious thing there is.
@Bronson Only because of the size of an electron. Are you saying that is how small the creator of the universe is? Comparing something too small to be seen with the human eye with a being powerful enough to create the universe is just plan stupid.
@Bronson Interesting thoughts but your last paragraph is demonstrably wrong but id rather not ruin your bliss.
how is this even a debate? On one hand you have someone laying down arguments, on the other someone who just tells the other person how they interpret something or what they believe, somehow assuming that saying "well I believe in the goodness" is enough to dismantle and argument.
for theism to be an issue at all in the 21st century (in the developed world, no less!) is an embarrassing anachronism and a testament of humanity's propensity for irrationality.
@@peterp-a-n4743 can you define woman?
@@crystalgiddens7276 Gross.
@@Fletchronome Why she keeps asking that? Where does she want to go with that question?
@@crystalgiddens7276
A female human being
Well done, Alex. So glad someone like you carries the torch left by those before you. You have earned it! You are respectful, well spoken, well researched, read, and amazing at debate. Wonderful!
Difference in skill of oration and holding an audience between the two is staggering.. Alex is really becoming a great orator in the mould of Hitch. He may not have the massive breadth of literature and historical knowledge behind him but that’ll come with experience and age. Keep going! It’s a joy to watch.
11 minutes in and he has already made the worst arguments known in these debates. I'm sure he'll get better, right? Right? Oh I know he won't. Just being hopeful
*Exactly* what I was thinking. What I heard from DrMcLatcie was a biology lesson on DNA and things are to complex to occur naturally therefore god.
11 minutes in, you didn't even make it to the "evidence" for Christianity.
If Jewish people exist, Christianity is true.
Jewish people exist.
Therefore Christianity is true.
Checkmate atheists
He tried the historical route last time.
Maybe using the biology route is the better way to go, right?
We don't know yet = god. Complexity = god. 🥱 Yea, I'm also waiting for his actual arguments if he has any.
I’m glad I saw this comment. I was really hoping for a challenging argument from theism, something new and fresh… if it’s just the old complexity=god stuff then I won’t bother!
Listening to Alex doesn't make me miss Hitch less - It does make me appreciate the bright wit and authentic candour that Alex embodies.
Yea but he tries to sound like him too much lately. He copies the way hitch talks and there’s no need to.
@@231rft Let's agree to disagree. Hitch is dead. Somebody pulling us up by our Hitchstraps seems like a lovely, entertaining concept to me.
@@231rft There's a fine line between emulation and inspiration. Hitch was clearly a big influence on Alex, but I don't think he's intentionally "copying" him. He is his own person with his own ideas and expressions, and (as with all humans) these are a mish-mash of all the people who have influenced and interacted with him.
@@FakingANerve No one will ever replace Hitch. But i do love Alex and his approach.
Alex is the next level. His arguments are much more refined compared to Hitch. Hitch was content calling out stupitidy in theism, with great wit and humor, but he would never sit down with WLC and entertain the Kalam at length like Alex did, I don't think.
I love Hitch and he was effective in my own deconversion, but I think we need people like Alex who has the patience to "go deep" into the weeds of theism, and who can also be sympathetic to the idea of theism, and really understands the reasons for it, to take the next step.
I can see why Alex has good terms with Jonathan, honestly i'm impress with McLatchie, not for his arguments but for his civility, i've never seen a debate this well carried with Alex (if you've seen alex videos you know he had it rough with rude and disengenious people). Of course i can see how his arguments have many holes but i can believe that he really believes his own arguments and doesnt degrade himself in order to win the debate, unlike almost ANY other theist debater. i would like to see more debates like this and i really hope to one day see arguments at the heigth of Alex (Althougth i doubt it, given that the premise of the existence of a biblical god is plain ilogical and false). Is out of this kind of debates that the truth about the world shines and enligths people willing to listen.
I undertand that the arguments given by Jonathan are mainly the same ones that we have been seeing for years in a diferent ligth, but you can really expect something far from that given that they are based on an unmovible book from the far past. i have to say the opening argument that certain mutations have to occur in blocks because any mutation that doesnt give an evolutionary advantage wouldnt ocurr was the best one i've heard (althougth it just seeds doubts) UNTIL i scrolled down in the coment secctions and saw informed people that know how to easily dismiss them. but well i'm not a biologist, i thougth he knew what he was talking about.
I prefer this style of debate where each speaker gets a time slot over the type where they shout at each other. It allows each person to get their view point across without being shouted down.
It's so incredibly arrogant to suppose that reality exists to test you as a human being
I found myself asking, "how is God testing the baby born with defective organs and only survives a few days?" How is that a test? Testing the parents by inflicting insufferable pain on their child?
@@stevelayton1271 God has a plan that needs this component. The plan is so complex that baby with cancer is basically a cricial point in it. Not like omnipotent being can make other plan without it, right?
it's even more arrogant to think that life evolves around humans.
@@stevelayton1271 That's the only "logical" explanation.
@@madd5 revolves* but yes basically what I said
Alex is at his best when he debates. My favorite atheistic thinker.
He's ok but he pulls his own information from other people, aside from hitchens, dawkins and harris i recommend Denett, AC Grayling, Mackie, Oppy, Maitzen, Sobel, Schellenberg, Nietzsche, or Sartre.
let's be honest, it's really easy to debate against a religious person LOL
@@madd5 that's not necessarily true. Lawrence Krauss lost all 3 debates to William Lane Craig.
@@madd5 no its not. you probably debated one that allowed himself to lose.
@@spridle I will crush any religious person in debates LOL
Because you have zero arguments.
Great debate, but sad that Dr McLatchie kept reverting to a version of the god of the gaps argument when truly pressed on a topic. In particular, his dismissal of non-resistant non-believers with the "god knows what they would do" defense was, I have to say, pathetic. Especially after he had a rather good opening imo.
Nice picture of mario
I thought his clarification in the second rebuttal was decent enough (where he explained how it wasn’t a god of the gaps model).
@@dylan3456 Though Alex responded well to his clarification, saying that it just seems to "hide" the god of the gaps argument.
@@dylan3456 I tend to agree with MrYondaime's reply and Alex's summation of Dr McLatchie's position - it's just the god of the gap argument with the extra step of "hiding" that that's what it is. Alex highlighted this by contrasting how in the past science could not explain something and people would say "that's god", but now that science has explained it, they can no longer do that. I think that's what Dr McLatchie is doing with his arguments examining DNA; something we (currently) cannot fully explain, and saying that that had to be created by god.
right like god can’t show his existence bc god knows some atheist wouldn’t believe? like okay lol there are still atheist who would? so that argument doesn’t even make sense
Not only are there non-resistant non-believers but there are tons of non-resistant believers who go and start to seek God and want desperately to have a relationship with him and find answers about him and end up as atheists. That radio silence Alex described is exactly how I felt.
Raised as a believer I sought out God and answers to my questions about God and got nothing. Not only does theism and Christianity have to account for non-resistant non-believers but from those who already believe in God but who similarly cannot find him.
My reaction to McLatchie's opening:
7:01
“The genetic code has been shown... to be very highly optimized for error minimization”
Something like 1 in 1000 children are born with Down Syndrome, that's having an entire extra chromosome. Why would that make more sense with theism? Why would God do that?
I've never heard anyone argue for theism based solely on a bunch of technical jargon. He's trying to sound so impressive but failing miserably.
10:15
Nothing has ever been proven to be irreducibly complex but the main issue with what he is saying here is that there is no mechanism known or discovered that would allow some kind of higher power to push evolution in a set direction. It is par for the course to make this kind of argument from ignorance, “I don't know what mechanism in nature could do this, therefore God” but it is his job to come up with a mechanism by which God is the one leading evolution by the hand toward a set goal.
Of course this raises so many many questions about the horrifically cruel things that have evolved on Earth, like parasites and flesh-burrowing maggots and all kinds of natural systems that by their simple operation lead to untold suffering to humans or other animals.
13:34
This visualization should end the debate on whether there is a creator?
HOW? So you've zoomed in to a certain resolution of a natural process and boy it looks complex. But if you showed footage of a volcanic eruption and you zoomed in to the way that electrically charged particles create lightning in the pyroclastic clouds those interactions would seem amazingly complex. But that doesn't mean there is a volcano god.
It's just a natural process that you've arbitrarily chosen to draw the line at and say it is too complex for you to believe it is just natural. You still have all your work cut out for you showing why we should think a better explanation is a supernatural one, like showing us how, in any way shape or form, a God can be shown to interact with these systems.
Some lightning strikes have even been shown to create antimatter, if he gets to say DNA replication is proof for his God I get to claim my lightning strikes creating antimatter as evidence that Thor is real.
17:26
“This one can't really be reduced...”
Yeah it can. All you need for natural selection is DNA/RNA replication that is close enough, accurate enough. That's the thing about all of this, nature isn't tending toward perfection which is why it is so messy and so sloppy. Of course it is complicated and you can choose to view it as some well oiled machine if you want but really to me it looks like life just does what it does and stumbles forward molded to the environment around it.
He implies you have to make a circular argument for natural selection but that only works if you're not looking at the scientific PHYSICAL EVIDENCE. If we were trying to reason natural selection into existence with only logical syllogisms and no scientific evidence he might almost have a point... almost.
18:46
The survival of Israel against all odds? The hell are you talking about? So if a nation survives they might be God's chosen people?
How many more minutes do I have to hear this guy talk for?
I think even if I were a Christian I'd be disappointed. Alex absolutely crushed it in this debate, very calm and collected. Definitely comes off as wanting genuine communication instead of just blind debate.
The problem is that whilst everything that you wrote is blindingly obvious to an atheist like me, a theist could simply dismiss it as the "bloviated sophistry of someone who obviously wasn't ever a true Christian and has simply found an excuse to sin".
@@downenout8705 Yeah sure, anyone could dismiss anything for any dumb convoluted reason.
The key to getting someone to doubt Christianity is to plant the seeds they think about later after they've gone home. That's how it worked for me anyway. No atheist ever argued me out of my position but they gave me enough food for thought that, even if I walked away smug, those things still lingered.
All you can do is represent your positions as best you can and hope to stimulate and provoke thought in the other person.
@@TitenSxull Yep, I agree. This is what I try to do and it's good to know that it can be effective. I was different. I had, what I thought was a profoundly real and life changing personal experience. I wanted to tell all but also wanted to be able to defend my story. It didn't take much open minded research for it to all fall apart.
Curious if you study volcano lightning? I find it fascinating
@@glennthompson1971 I don't study it but I also find it super interesting, it just seemed like a good example here.
Love it. When adults can engage in intellectual discourse and stay civil. I wish our politics could function this way.
There’s never an atheist in politics though, always a God loving American.
So much for religious freedom when atheists can’t even run for public office in a few states
@@dryfox11 I bet there are probably a few... BUT they have to pretend to be religious or else they'll never be able to get enough support from voters. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump didn't really believe in god. Even if he does, it's very obvious he's hardly even thought about it and he's just taking advantage of the hardcore right wing believers. I forgot who was interviewing him, but when he was asked for his favorite bible verse, he stumbled over his words for a bit and said "uhh.. umm.. that's very personal..." LMAO He got caught!
"always a God-loving American"
The entire world is not the USA, but everywhere there are people there is politics, and everywhere the is politics there is shouting in place of reasoned argument.
Quite possibly the best performance I've seen from Alex. Loved the discussion regarding meaningless suffering and the pointlessness of animal suffering...powerful arguments against the all too familiar, undetectable god.
Alex did a good job but this debate format was horrible and the debate question was way too broad. He has other videos where he goes more in-depth on the animals suffering point.
Yes he’s learnt rhetoric rather than an intellectual Oxford tutorial approach. He’s getting ready for his career.
His best performance was his talk on veganism, it was absolutely devastating
I'm glad to see "non-resistant non-belief" at the forefront of Alex's opening statement. In my view, this is the strongest argument against belief in god - it's the reason I stopped believing after fervent belief and worship for 25 years.
It's a strong argument, but it's too easy for Christians to resort to presuppositionalism (you know God exists, you just reject him because selfish reasons) which typically shuts down all further debate because how can you even begin to prove you're open to having your mind changed? McClatchie is not a presup, he's an evidentialist, but you could tell that he really had to work hard not to resort to the presup argument because, well, because a plain reading of the relevant verses of the Bible supports it.
That's why I prefer the geographical distribution argument he uses after that -- or salvation's birthplace lottery as I call it. Yes, it still falls to presup arguments -- everyone in the world knows, but most deny -- but at the very least the presup has to explain why people born in non-Christian countries appear to be far more resistant to accepting the reality of the salvation message, and you can also use it to question how a just, all-loving God would have created such an iniquitous system where the vast majority of humanity are hell-bound from the moment they are born.
I resonate with your comment. I came to disbelief after nearly 40 years of belief and it had nothing to do with positive or negative experiences. I've always had a skeptical disposition even from those believers who claimed miraculous interventions. My doubt about a god's existence arose from a rather innocent, benign thought on the patio. "Why do I believe?" I knew I wanted to believe (non-resistant) but realized I had no good reason. Mama's knee simply wasn't good enough anymore in the face of contradictory experiences. I had a thought, "what if I evaluate my belief from an outsider perspective and not allowing special pleading or other common fallacies". The result was obvious and simple, belief was not justified. A few short months later and I had to admit my atheism. Belief and disbelief are passive notions. It is the evidence that convinces or compels. I like the idea of a loving god, life after death, etc. but the evidence simply doesn't support. The moment that it does...I will be happy to change my mind. Any god that does not respect or value that approach is not worthy of worship. [Afterthought] Why would an omni god need/require worship? No person I hold in high regard expects this. Why is the proposed god of the universe more petty/needy than some humans?
@@spectreskeptic3493 I'm sure you're well aware that there is plenty of evidence in tangible reality by science and that it is clear that God does not need/require anything to be who He is. Don't let your pride blind you. If you understood how much more holy, how much more knowledgeable, how much more powerful God was, you wouldn't be so confident about your patio epiphany and subsequent evaluation of belief.
@@spectreskeptic3493 I like your point of view and do not look to disprove what you have come across in your life especially after 40 years of belief. I can say I am a young believer for starters and your years of faith alone have out lived me. As much as I know and understand from the Biblical text I’ve realized that it’s the same Bible was merely an acronym for “basic instructions before leaving earth”. Clever or whatever but I do see the stories and narrative of the text as a way to create moral and values. As “God” is a trinity in the Bible he created man/humankind in his image. Therefore as there is the father, son, and the holy spirit they are there to help shape and direct our lives/health which also exist in a trinity. Mental, physical and spiritual health. Father=mental, unseen and unfathomable. Son=physical, seen and tangible. Holy spirit=spiritual, unseen but rather fathomable(guidance and counseling. Nonetheless I am always testing every spirit and every occasion to see who, when where and why for in the Bible itself it directs to test the spirit and not to be the sheep lead astray. In other words being “faithful” is far from being foolish enough to follow a false doctrine. As many times as atheists and agnostics are despised by Bible thumping religious pharisees… how many of they have a clue in what they believe?
@@Devlunshof Nonsense. What god, and how do you know of it?
I rather dislike the argument of “Well I believe that god is all loving so by definition ANY action he may or may not take, regardless of its consequences, is a loving act”.
McLatchie may be very smart but he should not be allowed to debate one as brilliant as O'Conner. He is completely outclassed.
We all listened to the same discussion and I completely disagree with you!
@@johnsserwanga1541 You have the right to be ignorant
While I don’t believe in the supernatural I can’t help but consider the possibility that Alex is in fact Christopher Hitchens reincarnated every time I see him debate. The cadence, the knowledge, the skill, and mastery of language are all there. A fantastic performance as ever Alex.
Hitch without the booze?
Hitchens with much more robust philosophical argumentation and positions. I truly believe that Alex will be entered as one of the most serious philosophical thinkers of our time. He has so much potential.
Alex is much less of an asshole lol
Hitchens was better read and was a far more sophisticated debater and sophist. But he was in his 40s and 50s when he did that and Alex is early 20s.
@@MarlboroughBlenheim1 Alex is definitely not a sophist.
50:30 "We intuite that things have been made for a purpose even if we couldn't explicitly express why that is the case"
I encourage Jonathan McLatchie to familiarize himself with the work of christian evolutionary psychologist Justin Barrett, or with the work of Deborah Kelemen.
We do indeed know why there is a "teleological bias" in humans, why we see purpose in everything, it is a cognitive bias that was selected by nature, and from which we need to emancipate ourselves.
I would really like to know what McLatchie thinks god's purpose was for the dinosaur's.
There's another reason modern people tend to adopt teleology: we have many examples of designed things. Difference being that we actually have evidence of those things being designed while we have no evidence that DNA, evolution or the universe was designed.
Yes Jesus, you do sit well in my heart. 🤗🤗🤗😃😃😃😃
After watching the whole thing, I’m struck be the civility and respect between Alex and Jonathan. 👏🏼 We need MUCH more of this in our world as we debate the reality of God and creation.
McLatchie sounds like if a Canadian moved to California and then tried to do an Australian accent. So when I found out he was Scottish my head exploded.
He's scottish??? Wtf? How? He has THE MOST northern/canadian accent ive ever heard, 🤯
@@facelessdrone How? I'm from the north and know many people with Northern/Canadian accents and McLatchie sounded pretty clearly Scottish to me lol
I thought he sounded Irish 🙃
Glad to hear I wasn't the only one that thought his accent was a bit odd.
I discovered Alex O'Connor today and find him superior in logic and authenticity to one of the leading atheists of today, whose name I shall not mention. Almost a Hitchens allure to him. A young Hitch driven by logic, intellectualism and genuine journey for the truth. I will follow this young man's progress and hope him all the best. The world needs logic more than ever as we watch the US sink into theocracy rule.
How has the US sunk into theocracy rule?
@@gps9715Overturning Roe vs Wade was almost entirely a religiously fueled change.
All across the country we're starting to see book bans, and while that's not entirely Christian, there's overlap.
10 years ago, the fringes of politics was overturning Roe, and today many Christians are talking about how "America is a Christian nation" as justification for religious political policies, something very explicitly against the founding fathers intentions. So far the amount of policy actually passed is low, but the overall rhetoric has shifted immensely, and there's no reason to think we've seen the end of it. The only reason policy hasn't gone further is because it's explicitly unconstitutional to have the state favor one religion over the other in any way.
@@kneesnap1041 Overturning R vs W was a to keep law within constitutional bounds. All SCOTUS did with that decision was turn it to the states. Which is exactly what our Founding Fathers intended. You have no clue what you're talking about and I suggest you educate yourself, or maybe go to an Islamic nation and see what an actual Theocracy is. Be careful though, becuase you'll be killed for saying what you just said here. The USA is so far from a theocracy you're allowed to say whatever you want with no consequences. I would suggest being happy with what you have instead of whining about nonsense because if we actually were a theocracy you'd be dead.
I've always felt the phrase, "If God revealed himself to you, you would lose your free will to choose, because it would be become undeniable," was a cop out. It's very similar to them saying, "You will bow!" because all it implies to me is that I will either be forced, against my will, or I will have lost my mind. Maybe your mind is something you only get on earth, and some have already gave it away...
Even if God did reveal himself would you believe? Or would it be an alien? Or a demon? Or would you conclude you were dreaming and or hallucinating? Perhaps it's not God but a more advanced being pretending to be God? The point is even if God did reveal himself people would still doubt his existence this is the real answer to that question it's not that if God revealed himself you would already believe it's the exact opposite even if he did reveal himself you would not believe and even if you did that does defeat the whole purpose of free will so I guess this question really has two answers.
It makes no sense because that has already happened when Jesus walked and performed all the miracles. So, why was it okay then and not now? Why would Jesus not come into the dream of everyone in existence right now simultaneously, so that every human on earth would talk about having the same dream? The argument being, 'Yeah, but some people would still not believe, so what's the point?' I would say THERE is a point because even though many still would not believe after such a dream (even though everyone on earth had it at the same time, but 1 or 2 days apart), that would still rescue many millions more humans who did believe but not 100%-because that would be the final nail in the coffin to make them 100% believers, just as he did when he walked the earth. It makes no sense why he would not do such a thing today
If anything that should go against the whole "you need to be a reluctant nonbeliever" schmuck because if someone is sure that they would NEVER be convinced of God no matter what, then there shouldn't be a reason for God not to reveal himself. It's very convenient that there's a reason for God not to reveal himself to anybody no matter if you're against believing and don't believe, for believing but don't believe or if you believe.
The argument that Christianity is more likely to be true because the disciples were willing to leave their regular lives and stick to their beliefs despite persecution, seems to be easily refuted by the numerous accounts of modern day cults with believers that do the same, for leaders that are clearly not divine. So why wouldn't we assume the same of Christianity, when all our examples of such movements are proven to work without the requirement of supernatural forces, but merely the powerful dynamics of human psychology?
Yep!
14:40 We accept that DNA replication is complex. Listing every little piece, when you're not debating another biologist, makes your case seem weaker. Just feels like James Tour's whole approach
The moment Dr McLatchie reduces chemistry to “codes” I can’t take him seriously. If that’s the opening, how can you make progress? So grossly misrepresenting the actual reality of the issue shows we’re not dealing with an honest/informed interlocutor. Life is no more miraculous that a campfire - it’s chemistry.
The existence of suffering/evil is a Genesis 1:0 problem, not a Genesis 3 issue (where Christian’s desperately want to rush forward to). God chose this, exact world to create. IF god is Omni, they “perfectly” chose this exact world. Not a world with one less child rape/cancer. The issue is not man’s choice, but exclusively god’s choice.
Yes Jesus, you do sit well in my heart. 🙂
Alex, you are beyond impressive and watching you grow and learn and develop your thoughts and arguments has been wonderful and educational for me and many others. Cheers 🍻
To clarify what he said at 2:05:35, "People who have epileptic seizures forget what happens during those seizures" - you only forget the part where you're convulsing. I've had them and the hallucinations when you regain consciousness are quite memorable.
"I'm on the biology faculty, my passion in life is to teach people about the "evidences" for the truth of christianity". 🤦♂️
My first thought too. If I’d paid to go to university to study biology, and the lecturer opened with that, I’d walk out and insist they give me my money back.
Amen.
Yes Jesus, you do sit well in my heart. 😍
While if you keep your professional life and personal life apart, I certainly hope that his lectures aren't as directed towards Christianity as his opening was
I really liked the segment where they just asked each other questions. The entire debate should have been like that.
yup, this is almost always the case, I think.
^Exactly. Far more progress is almost always made in the "back and forth".
So much this. 20 minute uninterrupted talking is just not helpful for a debate. It leaves it talking about too many different things at once instead of just taking one topic at a time
I hate the fine tuning argument because it's just so incorrect in its approach. There's no reason to assume the constants of the universe are capable of being any other way. This is the only universe we know about, the constants are the only constants and they dont change. Any speculation that things could have happened differently exists exclusively in our minds. Just because we can imagine a world of different constants doesn't mean its possible in reality. In the same vein, regardless of how incalculably small we think the odds of us existing are, the reality is we do exist. Theoretical probability does not equal experimental probability. The experimental probability of our universe existing exactly the way it does is 100%. It's essentially, reach into this bag filled with an uncountable number of unique marbles and remove one. Now tell me the probability of you removing the exact marble you removed. Well, I grabbed this one, and we're only doing the experiment once, so 100%, any different outcome is entirely hypothetical.
It's actually worse than that, and it's captured by the following question; what kind of arrangement of the constants of the universe would God be *unable* to create life in?
Any and all versions of the fine tuning argument are an admission to not care about whats true. Its just an assertion sold as an argument that somehow trumps any scientific research in cosmology and physics. Which is exactly the kind of talking point creationists use because they dont care whats true, only what they can sell to gullible people.
One can also say we can only exist in a universe that permit life, so nothing tell use that there are not other universe out there. Being amaze that everything is set up so that we exist is….well stupid. Because if it wasn’t we wouldn’t be discussing it (we are getting back at your marble exemple which is pretty good)
I also am puzzling over why God would make a Universe with any allegedly fine tuned constants? Is there some esoteric message in the numbers?
The argument that says that god does not give people evidence because they would not belive anyway can be counterd by asking why god created them in the first place if he knew they would not accept.
The very idea of God and Free Will co-existing is ridiculous. But we usually ignore it for the sake of the argument
In order to have a relationship with anybody you have to first believe they exist.
It's so outrageously obtuse to say that god hides because he doesn't want to overwhelm us and he wants to let us get on with our life and make moral decisions..... then in another breath claim that he wants to have a relationship with us.
If I was totally absent in my child's life and gave them no direct personal guidance, no one at all would believe I actually wanted a relationship with that child. And I think they would significantly doubt whether or not I was a good parent or even loving at all.
Would it make it better if somebody say to the child "your father really does exist, plenty of other people have a good relationship with him" I wonder how that would make the child feel.
God's the worst absentee father in history
Or you could say he's the best troll in history. He's proper trolling the people born in Thailand
Logical contradictions are staples for theism.
Or for people in parts of the world to never be told that they have a father, while others are told to believe that they do?
When you guys talked about someone who lived a full life without experiencing god, he said God would judge them based on their life. Isn't that what God supposedly does anyway? So to him is it possible a good non-believer judged by God can actually make it into heaven?
The way he kept hedging everything, I would expect: "It is possible but not likely given what a great historian of Christianity (and all religion enough to largely ignore the rest?) that I have become by specializing my academic years on biology" like the Roman pagan Gallan who thought kidneys were magical proof of the Olympians existing and would never be explained by natural/non-magical/non-supernatural means. Too complex, these kidneys, well until they are not thanks to microscopes, staining techniques, and improved understanding of fluid dynamics and osmosis.
Ive heard this argument before from some hardcore Christian website but I really think it's just grasping at straws to try to make Christianity not sound as needlessly brutal/just flatout dumb/unrealistic as it truly is. Why would a loving god program skepticism so heavily into us just to then banish us to eternal damnation for utilizing it?
It beggars belief that JM is still using such ancient apologetics
Example of disciples following Jesus at great risk to them does not convince me. We have plenty similar behaviors in modern cults, where followers drank poisoned koolaid etc. that did not make their religions true.
I have to go with Alex on this, because scripture cannot be used as evidence. There have been many religions with many different scriptures.
The Bagavad gita. Older than the Torah and the Bible.
@@SevenPr1me older != truth
@@7pinky791 what
And since this debate has many scientific topics, the bible is immediately invalid. It has no credibility in this area.
Among its many scientific (...and its predictive and historical) failures, the bible implies a flat earth, impossible cosmogony, and describes a geocentric solar system.
It hurts my soul that this even needs to be pointed out to people. Imagine that - the fact that something has been written down or printed in a book doesn’t mean it’s true. Some people apparently have a very hard time grasping this….very elementary concept.
Wow. I did not expect McLatchie to rely on so many outdated arguments.
same. Going with irreducible complexity AND giving the long refuted examples of mousetraps and bacterial flagellum was very surprising to me. I assumed that creationists would at least pick different examples at this point. Guess the field just doesn't expose itself to debate often enough to have to adapt.
@@bob3ironfist the problem is the Christians have alot of debates amongst themselves about the meaning of scripture. scientists agree on pretty much everything id say a good 99% of all things. But Christians have so many disagreements amongst one another that its kind of sad
@@SevenPr1me I don't think that scientists agree of 99% of things. I also don't think that a lack of consensus is a bad thing in science or theology.
@@bob3ironfist consensus is important. Especially amongst intellectuals and academics.
@@SevenPr1me I agree. But to be clear, diversity of thought is important too, even on the fringes. We ought to challenge consensus wherever we can. That's why it becomes consensus. It's good to have a few people whose beliefs have an extremely low probability of being true. Because that way we know it's covered in the off chance it turns out to be right. Problems only arise when those views get a disproportionate amount of representation. It's a waste of intelligence if 5% of the population believes something that only has a 0.01% chance of being true for instance.
Only about a 3rd through the video, but I wonder what McLatchie would answer to the question "Is your non-belief in everything outside of your faith non-resistant?" Meaning if there was sudden, conclusive evidence for a *different* deity or religion to be true than what they currently believe, how willing they would be to simply convert their faith from one religion to another. I really wonder what a devoutly religious person's response to that would be
The challenger is clearly an intelligent fella. Certainly has some warped views, but he obviously has a decent head on his shoulders. That being said, the fact that someone with such apparent intellect honestly believes that a man was resurrected, or "rose from the dead," or was brought back to life... simply because a few ancient scribes wrote about it thousands of years ago... is genuinely quite mind-boggling.
@macdonald2k But why does he want it to be true?
@@jasons8479he need for meaning behind his existence and how he acts and lives his life. Also a likely fear of his own mortality.
How (& where) did Dr. Jonathan McLatchie "earn" his PhD in Evolutionary Biology?
He seems to grasp the underlying mechanisms, but the concept itself goes over his head.
_"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."_ [Michael Shermer]
Newcastle University, in the UK. He was a born again Christian (and presumably a creationist) when he earned it, so it seems obvious he did it for some combination of wanting to be better equipped to refute evolution and to burnish his scientific credentials to make him sound more credible in his apologetics mission.
@@EnglishMike Thanks for the info.
It looks like Jonathan McLatchie (*1989?!) got his PhD in 2020 for his 262 page long thesis *_"An Investigation of the Origins of Mitotic Regulators"_* .
There seems to be just *ONE* availabe, _"not loanable"_ copy of his thesis in the Newcastle University Library & *NO* publication of his on PubMed.
@@Egooist. just email him or contact him on social media. Many PhDs are waiting for that email to give out their PhDs for free.
Yes. Shermer himself is a classic example of such people.
Like Nelson, he puts his blind eye to his microscope.
Excellent job Alex! Calm, composed, focused, rational!
For a debate on theism vs atheism this sure does spend a lot of time discussing christianity
Might it be because the representative for theism here is a Christian apologist?
On his evidence for ressurection: "Well they probably didnt lie so it was probably magic"
I cringe when I hear "finely-tuned constants".
It is oxymoronic.
If a "constant" can be tuned/modified/adjusted, then it is not a constant but a *variable* !!!
27:40 Answering "if there was a god, would you worship it" with "no" does not indicate that you're resistant to a belief in god. Those people didn't say they wouldn't believe that god exists, they said they wouldn't worship it, which is a totally different thing.
Yes. It ignores the question of whether that God is worthy or worship.
I was suprised to discover that Jonathan actually has a PHD in evolutionary biology, his grasp on the scientific method seems to be very flimsy.
I bet he knows the scientific method and uses it in his professional life, but, like Nelson putting the telescope to his blind eye, doesn't apply it in his religious life.
The question is, where did he get that PHD from?
Was it a Christian "college" ?
THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS!!! I’ve been looking for a debate like this for such a long time, glad I finally found your video!!