"The atheist does not say, "There is no God", but he says, "I know not what you mean by God"; the word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation." - Charles Bradlaugh
R Hopzing That was just a definition of god. But if you want my opinion on why the biblical creation account is better than the others, read the book by Andrew Parker who is not a theist. The Bible got the order of creation right.
Yea science isn’t claiming that there is NO god, it just doesn’t point to anything showing that there IS a god. Science doesn’t claim either proposition but someone making the positive claim should be able to demonstrate that claim. Such an easy concept
I m not making a scientific claim for Existence of god . So I m an agnostic thiest. So u can’t say I have a burden of proof. I believe it takes more faith to believe in non existence of God than believing in his existence. In such a case the burden of proof is on both parties. So if an atheist can’t come up with any logical arguments it shows lack of logic and reason in believing that there is no God.
@@soccerlife5041 That makes it worse if you don't have a scientific claim and still claim god exists you do still need evidence and burden of proof is absolutely on you. You are making a extreme claim and atheism isn't a belief system it's just people who lack belief of god and that's it. I'm not trying to prove anything to you. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have arguments but the idea that burden of proof is on both parties is ridiculous.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
@Frances Snowflake I got that but I don't understand how that would be true. Atheists aren't selling anything, we are at most warning people not to buy the religious nonsense.
@Frances Snowflake Than you didn't understand Atheism. It simply means not being theistic. You can of course try to spread Atheism but that still doesn't make it a religion or something to sell because there isn't anything to sell in the first place.
@Frances Snowflake Read closely, I didn't mix up the two words. Religions are spreading theism, each religion another form of theism. But if you spread atheism you can't call that a religion because there are no ideologies and no crazy ideas behind it, just a rejection of theism and the ideologies coming out of it.
I recently saw a video where a guy (arguing on behalf of Islam) said that "if as a non believer you don't know the answer, then 'I don't know' is good enough, don't pretend to know the answer"... I'm not sure if he is aware just how ironic that statement actually is.
@@think-islam-channel the point is NOBODY knows or has concrete proof of anything (that's why it's called faith).. so every person's answer is "I don't know" no matter what you believe. Don't criticise others for "not knowing" when you don't "know" either.
Cheshire Tiger said “truth is a level of certitude unreachable by limited beings” What kind of strange definition of truth is this? Can you find a dictionary or a philosophical journal that explains it further? I suspect it stems from this “limited being” nonsense. It seems to imply there is such a thing as an “unlimited being”. Anyways, I think one thing needs to be cleared up. Certainty is a psychological brain state, it deals with how strong a conviction you have about a proposition. It tells you absolutely nothing about whether or not the proposition is actually true. As a matter of fact; often times certainty is a good indicator you have not put enough thought into it. Truth is a correspondence relationship between propositions and states of affairs. When a proposition accurately maps on to or ‘corresponds’ with facts and/or what happens to be the case we call that ‘true’. It’s called correspondence theory of truth. It has some flaws but it’s clear some version of it must be true. It’s as simple as that, regardless of omniscience.
Cheshire Tiger, Do you always contradict yourself this much? First you said “truth is a level of certitude”. And the definition of certitude is as follows: “absolute certainty or conviction that something is the case.” But when I explained that ones own internal degree of belief has no bearing on the truth of a proposition you changed to “truth is an absolute. it’s not a metric of conviction”. At least you’re learning.
False truth, believed only by foolish individuals who have been blinded to what is real. You want facts? I'll give you facts. God is real. Discard your denial and see the truth for what it is
There is simply no argument for God that stands on its own in anyway, whatsoever. When we die, we simply cease to exist. This outcome follows the Occam’s Razor principal. It aligns with everything we know of physics, the second law of thermodynamics and so on. Even if we live in a simulation, the programmer is pretty heartless and cruel
What do you mean "stand on its own in anyway"? Is it allowed to be a deductive argument? Have premises? Maybe could it be an inference to the best explanation of something? Could it be a logical argument? What exactly would count as "stands on its own in anyway"? Try not to be sarcastic, im genuinley asking. Then, please give me a couple examples of other arguments for belief systems (perhaps whatever belief system you hold? as everyone holds one) that meet those specific criteria for "standing on its own in anyway". Thank you in advance.
@dimbulb23 Micky Mouse didn't do it, Yaweh did! This was after he got promoted to God of all creation (through an amalgamation with Elohim and Baal) after the role of Yaweh as the God of the mountainside and of the desert storm. Yaweh the Eternal God is approximately three thousand years old, and Micky Mouse is only approximately one century old! A 3000 year old Eternal God does sound like an oxymoron, but with (enough) faith, anything can be said to exist!
If you disobey any of God's commandments, he will send you to hell to burn in agony for all eternity... but he loves you. (Paraphrased from George Carlin).
@ Seth Harvill Depends which religion you are following...example: Catholics you go to hell with a "mortal sin" on your concience when you die...Lutheran's not so much.
Way to generalize and attack an idea without actually doing the research bud. The Catholic teaching on this makes a lot of sense, as follows in a nutshell : Free will was given to us by God - to choose to Love or otherwise. God doesn’t impose on our free will. Without having goodness, how can one enjoy union with an all-good God? Hell is a state of unrepentant separation from God - the absence of God. = We send ourselves to hell, and no matter how much God Loves us, He can’t impose on our free will
As a biologist and chemist the physical world became very dynamic and dramatic via the standing factual elements and history. It also stirs personal inward curiosity regarding my gift of life.
Given that 'Everything That Exists' is a complete mystery and we have little or no access to the data that would allow us to understand everything, why do you assume it's a gift? That major leap comes from a sense of entitlement rather than curiosity. What is your evidence that it's a gift?
@@dimbulb23 My point was on my own personal reality. That inward personal journey concerning my own precious personal existence was the intended focus on MY comment.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
The universe from dense chaos to brimming with life and beauty for one who looks and poler opposite as well. "Incomprehensible spirit of great wisdom"to be more apt
I love Daniel Dennett, but I think that he could have done better here. There are other good arguments for a godless universe. He is right that the burden of proof is on the theist, but I think that any theist that accepts the concept of faith will have a messed up view of the burden of proof, leaving to people either having to provide reasons to accept the godless hypothesis or to convince people of faith to accept skepticism instead.
+Advancements of Science Society If their idea of burden of proof is wrong, then their idea of burden of proof is wrong. If their notion of burden of proof is valid, then ALL non-falsifiable claims automatically become true, including any non-falsifiable claims I make up in the future. Their notion of burden of proof is simply untenable, and another sign of their desperation.
ArenaHopeful - With all due respect, that is false. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve encountered theists making unfalsifiable claims, such as, “Living a moral life would be impossible without god.” Or, what about the claims of life after death? Not to mention, I just had an interaction with a theist earlier today, who claimed that the scientific evidence that refutes the Bible is planted by Satan to deceive us and lead us astray from god. It’s almost certainly bullshit, but how could you legitimately test the veracity of that claim?
When I was six and attending Baptist Sunday school, my class was given a lecture on heaven and hell, death and the afterlife. When the lecture was over, I asked, *Is there free will in the afterlife?* Apparently no one else had ever asked this question. I was told that, _No, there is no free will in the afterlife because then good deeds could be done in hell, while bad deeds could be done in heaven. But all that is already sorted out before anyone dies, so there is no room for moral agency after one is dead._ So then I asked, *If I don’t take my body with me, and I don’t take my free will with me, why am I supposed to care about having an afterlife at all?* The reaction I got was very surprising at the time, and at 65 it is still surprising. In response, I was told, _Don’t ask such silly questions, and stop being a smartass._ That was the end of the discussion. It was not long before I made myself a prayer, which I have always kept in my heart and in my mind. *_Dear Lord, let it be your will that will direct my life. Not as I would choose, nor as any person would choose, nor as any religious text would choose, but as you, dear Lord, would choose for me. This being done, I am content._*
@@themplar Good questions. I believe it is because before existence exists for us humans,.. our primary awareness is of ourselves,.. in particular our minds, consciousness, and our own willfulness. It's easy to believe, as Sam Harris does, that consciousness itself is a primary, even over existence itself. How is it that mere material, deterministic being can give rise to consciousness at all? Which strains our credibility more,.. a belief in God, or in a Cosmos that has always existed, and always will,.. including laws of physics which seem to both be true and simultaneously incomprehensible. Read *_The Tao of Physics_* at pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bd99/79a7203a618b3d85b251abf6e4af080728b6.pdf for instance. I believe in God primarily because the belief completes me, because I need values by which to live by, while not being a lower animal with a complete and sufficient automatic instinct for survival. How do I know what I should do,.. and how do I know what free and sovereign people must do regardless of individual choice. My need for God comes from the same place that tells me I need a moral conscience. I believe even Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins all would recognize humanity's need to seek out and find transcendent values; the next question is do the existence of such transcendent values require supernaturalism. I don't absolutely think so,.. but I understand how much more satisfying it is to believe so. *_There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion. France, the United States, and some other nations have divorced their governments from all churches, but they have had the help of religion in keeping social order. Only a few Communist states have not merely dissociated themselves from religion but have repudiated its aid; and perhaps the apparent and provisional success of this experiment in Russia owes much to the temporary acceptance of Communism as the religion (or, as skeptics would say, the opium) of the people, replacing the church as the vendor of comfort and hope. If the socialist regime should fail in its efforts to destroy relative poverty among the masses, this new religion may lose its fervor and efficacy, and the state may wink at the restoration of supernatural beliefs as an aid in quieting discontent. “As long as there is poverty there will be gods.”_* ~ Will Durant *_If by God we mean not the creative vitality of nature but a supreme being intelligent and benevolent, the answer must be a reluctant negative. Like other departments of biology, history remains at bottom a natural selection of the fittest individuals and groups in a struggle wherein goodness receives no favors, misfortunes abound, and the final test is the ability to survive. Add to the crimes, wars, and cruelties of man the earthquakes, storms, tornadoes, pestilences, tidal waves, and other “acts of God” that periodically desolate human and animal life, and the total evidence suggests either a blind or an impartial fatality, with incidental and apparently haphazard scenes to which we subjectively ascribe order, splendor, beauty, or sublimity. If history supports any theology this would be a dualism like the Zoroastrian or Manichaean: a good spirit and an evil spirit battling for control of the universe and men’s souls. These faiths and Christianity (which is essentially Manichaean) assured their followers that the good spirit would win in the end; but of this consummation history offers no guarantee. Nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad; they define good as that which survives, and bad as that which goes under; and the universe has no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan._* ~ Will Durant *_To the unhappy, the suffering, the bereaved, the old, it has brought supernatural comforts valued by millions of souls as more precious than any natural aid. It has helped parents and teachers to discipline the young. It has conferred meaning and dignity upon the lowliest existence, and through its sacraments has made for stability by transforming human covenants into solemn relationships with God. It has kept the poor (said Napoleon) from murdering the rich. For since the natural inequality of men dooms many of us to poverty or defeat, some supernatural hope may be the sole alternative to despair. Destroy that hope, and class war is intensified. Heaven and utopia are buckets in a well: when one goes down the other goes up; when religion declines Communism grows._* ~ Will Durant *_While Catholics were murdering Protestants in France, and Protestants, under Elizabeth, were murdering Catholics in England, and the Inquisition was killing and robbing Jews in Spain, and Bruno was being burned at the stake in Italy, Akbar invited the representatives of all the religions in his empire to a conference, pledged them to peace, issued edicts of toleration for every cult and creed, and, as evidence of his own neutrality, married wives from the Brahman, Buddhist, and Mohammedan faiths. His greatest pleasure, after the fires of youth had cooled, was in the free discussion of religious beliefs. … The King took no stock in revelations, and would accept nothing that could not justify itself with science and philosophy. It was not unusual for him to gather friends and prelates of various sects together, and discuss religion with them from Thursday evening to Friday noon. When the Moslem mullahs and the Christian priests quarreled he reproved them both, saying that God should be worshiped through the intellect, and not by a blind adherence to supposed revelations. "Each person," he said, in the spirit - and perhaps through the influence - of the Upanishads and Kabir, "according to his condition gives the Supreme Being a name; but in reality to name the Unknowable is vain."_* ~ Will Durant *_The invention and spread of contraceptives is the proximate cause of our changing morals. The old moral code restricted sexual experience to marriage, because copulation could not be effectively separated from parentage, and parentage could be made responsible only through marriage. But to-day the dissociation of sex from reproduction has created a situation unforeseen by our fathers. All the relations of men and women are being changed by this one factor; and the moral code of the future will have to take account of these new facilities which invention has placed at the service of ancient desires._* ~ Will Durant *_I feel for all faiths the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun._* ~ Will Durant *_Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance._* ~ Will Durant
@@k-3402 The following is from what I hope will be on my gravestone so as to provoke a thoughtful reaction from anyone passing by in happenstance. I offer it now as a thoughtful alternative to an afterlife of merely heaven, hell, purgatory, reincarnation, or the many other imagined possibilities.
*The Lake*
*_It is said by some that there is a place where a bright, clear, mountain lake resides, a place where people of this world never visit. To attempt to describe it is possible, but all such tales are probably just fancy. Be that as it may, here is how it was described to me, in my sleep, by the spring rain, when I was still very small and trusting. I was very certain at the time that the rain had not lied or exaggerated, but as I grew older I came to doubt. This would seem to be our way. How sad._*
*_The rain told me that the air at the lake was fresh and clean and yet so thin that I would faint were I to be there. This lake was in the midst of a forest of giant pine trees that appeared to reach forever to the skies above. In contemplating these trees one would wonder if this lake were not really just a small puddle on the forest floor. But as all bodies of water were the same to my singing spring rain, I imagine these distinctions had simply gone unnoticed._*
*_There was something most remarkable about this lake. For I was told that all the souls of all the men & women & little children like myself washed through this water. There seemed to be some hint that all of life had passed by and was passing by this oasis whose place could not be named. As each new life was made, a handful of water was removed from the lake and placed within a mortal body. Day by day the water would be made purer or filthier as that life spent it’s limited time in the world. When that life was done, the water that had been given to it was returned to the lake as it's body was returned to dust._*
*_And such was how all the hope and travail of life would come to each new generation. Some would succeed more than it would seem they should and so returned to the lake the courage and celebration that they had made of their lives. Others learned the habit of fear and distrust in their lives when they were very young and so took very meanly of every opportunity as only a threat. They only returned water that was foul and putrid for what else did they ever know._*
*_And so I was told, that was how it was with me and everyone who ever had been, or was, or would be. Parts of me had passed through many lives and parts of me were utterly new and untried. Parts of me would live other lives again and others would be forever still when I was done. None of us was ever created entirely alone nor could we ever be, for like the air and water of this world, which we all communally use and of which our bodies are literally made, our souls are unique and yet all made of the same stuff. How many times would you have to draw water from a lake to draw the same handful? Or is it just a silly question? I don’t know. Somehow it just doesn’t seem to be a very important question now._*
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
Yeah... Daniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins, and Michio Kaku are THE calmest atheist out there, haha! I even used to fell asleep with their talks in the background when I was younger :)
Atheism is doing fine without reverence. It only requires 10% of the skepticism that we all use when buying a used car.... and you can see the car and kick the tires.
I'm not sure what you mean by reverence, but theists do take atheists very seriously, they are getting really upset and do a lot of talking about atheism.
And worse it is wrong, Kryponite wasn't inveted by the creators of the comics, but later by a radio show to explain the absense of the actor who played Superman.
It’s not though. Religion is about telling a certain story but what dennet fails to recognize is that no one can escape the telling of their own story. The problem of evil is not a real problem, the real problem is where morality comes from. Without an objective basis for one morality there is no objective basis for an argument against any morality. Hence, religion is a subjective morality wherein the primary subject is god and god’s omnipotence is the argument against any other morality.
As a Superman purist he is DEAD WRONG about kryptonite. The voice over actor for Superman was sick or had to miss a few days of recording. The kryptonite was not inveneted as a counter balance for Superman's kryptonian strength. It was for a mudane reason that someone had a cold or could not come into work.
Saying that you don't BELIEVE that God exists is different that saying God doesn't exist as a fact. If you just say the you don't BELIEVE God exists, you need no evidence for that. If you say, as a fact, that God doesn't exist, then the burden of proof is on you.
jeremy miller Atheism is not "God doesn't exist". It means not theism. It's a word like Asymmetic (not symmetric) or Asymptomatic (not symptomatic). An atheist might make the claim that a god doesn't exist, but that is not what atheism means.
Pul5ar Atheism actually does mean that, because otherwise you would call it agnosticism and not atheism. Atheism means you believe there is no god, theism means you believe in god(s) and agnosticism means you don't/can't know or 50/50.
but there are positive atheistic positions. like: there is no god, there are no good arguments for the existence of god, etc. these are positive claims. you cant say all atheists hold a negative position, most of them dont even know the difference.
"God always is, nor has He been and is not, nor is but has not been, but as He never will not be; so He never was not." - Augustine of Hippo That's easy for him to say!
TheDriza OK,drizzle. you and others like you say, God is an imaginary friend for adults, then why does all of hell, the demons, the devil's,satan himself, why do they believe in God.they believe to the point that at the name of Jesus, they tremble in submission to the name.
jordan w “In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.” - Copi, Introduction to Logic (1953), p. 95
These questions were done in an necessary vacuum. Polls have been taken of atheists. The most dramatic of which involves asking atheists how the universe was created, to which universally the response is "I don't know." The problem for theists and I don't know is that there is no more to discuss.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
@@thereisnonegoodbutgodjohn363 Your god is the ultimate evil and the only moral action with respect to the Biblical God is the total and complete condemnation for being all out evil.
@@MybridWonderful : Loving yes. But don't forget full of justice: You break mans laws you go to jail. You break God's laws you go to hell. But if you humble yourself and acknowledge that you are a sinner you Believe in Jesus and Repent; You will receive forgiveness of sins and when you die will go to Heaven. That is very loving!
@There is none Good but God John 3:16, Rev 3:16 There’s is absolutely nothing “loving” about punishing anyone for eternity based off finite transgressions, especially not if the most egregious of those transgressions is not believing far-fetched suppositions about a Jewish guy from 2000 years ago
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
They're talking about the generic and vague "god" of the philosophers (sloppy). As for _specific_ ones, like Zeus, Enki, or Yahweh, well, they unequivocally do not exist.
Atheism doesnt need to disprove a god. Not a single theist ever has been able to justify the claim that one does. The complete lack of evidence warrants atheism. Also atheism doesnt need arguments.. its just a position of unbelieve due to the consistent failure of theism.
Why would god create a backstory that is impossible to belief unless you you stop thinking about and question it. That is basically what faith is. When you have faith all inquiry stops. Furthermore, when this happens, there seems to be a diminishing of critical thinking in other aspects of inquiry that are only vaguely or not at all related to religion. For instance, nationalism and politics. It seems to me to foster a gullibility in many other areas. This seems dangerous to me.
As an atheist I find Dennett's argument here to be unsatisfying. Certainly, in science the burden of proof is on the new theory, the theory seeking to challenge the established theory. But this has no applicability in metaphysical questions like the existence of God: there is no established theory, there is no Newton or Einstein. So the burden of proof is shared equally. And in order for atheism, rather than agnosticism, to be warranted we need something more than just saying that theism hasn't successfully made its case: we need a positive case for atheism over and against both theism and agnosticism. The good news is, that isn't impossible to do, because theism plausibly DOES make some empirical claims and predictions about how the world is, and so making the case for atheism involves rolling up your sleeve and looking at + compiling the evidence from a bunch of different relevant areas: the evidence for special creation over and against naturalistic cosmology and/or evolution, the efficacy of prayer, whether religious scriptures or mystical experiences ever impart any new/novel information, and so on. And the evidence is pretty much what we'd expect to see, if naturalism and atheism were true, and highly inconsistent with the supposition that theism is true. THAT is what an "argument for atheism" must look like, not merely pointing out that theism hasn't sufficiently established its conclusions.
'There is no established theory... so the burden of proof is shared equally'. Why do you think that? The burden of proof is always on the one/s making the claim, irrespective of any previous claims made. Even in the metaphysical, each claim is assessed on it's merits. If atheism is defined as a lack of belief, then a lack of any evidence to support theism is all that atheism requires. Also, atheism and agnosticism deal with different positions. I'm an agnostic atheist = I don't know if god/s exist and I don't believe in any god/s. You're not one or the other.
I could conjure up thousands of inane ideas based on my imagination. Nobody can prove them all wrong. You're writing all these long paragraphs against a straightforward argumenr.
@@spuriusscapula4829 We're not talking about disproving thousands of inane ideas based on imagination. We're talking having good and sufficient evidence/reasons for supposing theism to be false, since without them atheism is not rationally warranted/justified. So not only does Dennett's argument here not work, it is completely unnecessary: it seeks to absolve atheism of a burden of proof that it can and does meet.
I have not always been a huge fan of him, but Dan D was wonderful here. Our brains, inherited from our ancestors, are wired to believe that natural phenomena have humanlike agency and intent. So, while you can do nothing if a nearby volcano erupts, you can sacrifice virgins to a volcano deity. By attributing natural things (like the universe) with agency, we then have some control. We can petition a deity, make sacrifices, pray. If the sacrifices failed, we should have sacrificed more. God must be very angry this time! In this way, disproof is impossible. Many a former theist has struggled with internal doubts. They are told that the fault is theirs for not having enough faith, but the problem is that they are being fed stories rife with logical inconsistencies.
Dennett asks, "Why do we need God?" Albert Einstein would answer, "To express awe at our deeply awesome world, of which we scientists understand only a minimal fraction."
If there is god which god? Christian god, Muslim God, Hindu God, Buddhist God or spiritual God? Is Christian god only to be followed? What is the notion about other religion god?
@Stefano Portoghesi People worship anywhere. I do it while riding a motorcycle. You on the other hand have nothing but nihilism and only wish everyone was as miserable as yourself. Fat chance and a snowballs chance in hell thats ever gonna happen.
@Stefano Portoghesi A tiny virus didn't close down anything people did. And you still failed to give the evidence and proof that atheism is accurate and correct so cmon and convert us to your religion. We want to believe but just don't have your faith!
@Stefano Portoghesi Are you drunk again? Once more I never asked you for your opinion or philosophy. I simply asked you for the evidence and proof that atheism is accurate and correct. This is the third time now. You not only believe in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything but you also believe that you come from a rock. How's that for atheistic science. Now astonish us by presenting that elusive proof that you claim to have. I don't care about your opinion or philosophy I want the science behind your religion.
Is there a personal or impersonal God? Are there many gods and goddesses? Is there continuity after death? Is reincarnation or resurrection a fact? Are there heaven and hell? In the end all of us-agnostics, atheists, cynics, freethinkers, hedonists, skeptics, theists-have to find out WHY we want to believe or not to believe in those things. What is our motivation in accepting or rejecting those things? What is our intention? :D
+totalfreedom45 What you want to believe is irrelevant. Which beliefs are supported by arguments or evidence is the only relevant consideration regarding what is true.
Adegbenga Ogungbeje It does not have nor require one. Atheism is a simple observation of the world around us & natural law. However the belief that there is an all powerful immortal being that preserves our Consciousness after death is a great claim. And as with all great claims, requires extraordinary evidence.
@@himerosTheGod U said its an observation of the world around us. With what conclusion? Creation is also an observation of the world around us. If Atheism doesn't require explaining neither does creation too. Can't set a double standard. It's because no atheism can explain their 'ism'.
Not on any particular side, but it seems a weak argument against the idea of God when you ask questions like "Why would a 'good' God allow such horrible suffering". That's not God. That's a "Good" God. You're muddying the waters when you change it by adding "good" to God. And that's not nitpicky, word policing, it fundamentally changes what you're talking about. The answer to "why would a a good God allow so much suffering?" would be that he wouldn't, so I would agree, that "good" God doesn't exist. Not "God doesn't exist". Different God. My point is that shallow arguments like this are no more persuasive than the person who argues for God by talking about faith. Hopefully that made sense. Great videos as usual.
You must be one of the rare human beings who hasn't heard "The Good News", Jesus loves me, yes I cause the Bible tells me so". Dennett didn't invent the Omnibenevolent God. You must have been living under a rock.
If one realizes their god is evil or powerless, it brings their whole religion into question on whether any of it is believable or not. A first step towards atheism.
In a couple hundred years or less, no one will believe in a god and people will look back on modern religions just like how we now look back on ancient ones as being ridiculous.
That is what people like Thomas Jefferson thought when he was alive, 1743 to 1826. There was a Universalist movement. The Universalist movement was after the Deists, which was very popular for a time. But Religions and Religious belief comes and goes in waves in human history.
@@ronaldlindeman6136 Sure but back then we didn't have nearly as much of a scientific understanding as we do now and it's only growing at an almost exponential rate.
@@party4keeps28 We are getting much more scientific understanding about the world we live in. But I think we do a bad job of explaining Religions like Christianity and why they are not true. What is Christianity? What category of human experience explains Christianity the most? Is it Philosophy? Is it Science? Is it History? I'll just jump in their and give you my thought. Storytelling. Jesus of Christianity has more to do with Luke Skywalker of Star Wars, James T. Kirk of the Star Ship Enterprise, Wolverine of Xmen, Superman of Superman and Batman of Batman than anything else. I call myself a Christian Critic, not an Atheist. There are 2 types of Atheist, just like to types of Theists, 1) Story Atheist and 2) Nature's God Atheist. To really explain Christianity and why it is not true is best done to understand it as a story. Does Christianity have Philosophy, Science, History and other things like suggestions on personal relationships and a set of political views someone should have, but they are all pushed not by logic, Reason and knowledge, but by storytelling. And people who call themselves Atheists suck at explaining all that stuff. Which is why at the pace we are going I don't think we are making as much of an impact on society as we could make.
I love the "new atheists" but I'm not sure why they call themselves that given that they aren't saying anything new. They're presenting the exact same arguments that other atheistic philosophers throughout history have used.
If you deny God, as opposed to merely lacking belief, some burden of proof falls upon you. Dennett presents us with first the argument from Occam's razor. Then the argument from evil. Then the argument from divine hiddenness. Fine points, but at bottom, the qualities of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and omnibenevolence contradict each other and no being having all these qualities could possibly exist.
"If you deny God, as opposed to merely lacking belief, some burden of proof falls upon you." I do not see God right now. "But you see churches and priests and the bible." I see statues to the spaghetti monster and have similar amount of evidence to assume that Hades or Ra exist, what's your point? "You don't see your friend bob right now." It's true, I don't. But I have before and I can put trust in my belief I'll see them again or have a (presumably heartbreaking) reason on why I wouldn't in the future. Regardless if I see bob again or not, there is more evidence bob exists or existed than any god currently claimed to exist. "So there's equal amount of evidence that Caesar and God existed in the past." Now you're catching on. Let's go back to my 2nd answer.
Daniel Dennett is a very interesting man. I'm surprised he's considered one of the four horseman, because he seems so calm and peaceful about his beliefs. New atheism is quite the opposite
That reminds me of the saying, “It’s only called a class war with the poor fight back”. Religion has always been at war with atheists so the idea that new atheists have started something is ridiculous.
@@franklinbarrett4630 Wish I could give this 100 thumbs up. If you look at any major religion's scriptures, you'll find extreme condemnation and vitriol directed at non-believers.
We all agree evil exists like rape, murders, genocides, Abusing innocent Children etc. If evil exists, then good must exist. For good to exist there must be morals and freewill where one is able to choose right over wrong. For Morals to exist there must be a moral giver. GOD
The argument from preservation of free will is trivially easy to disprove. Q: Is there evil in Heaven? A: No, evil is not allowed in Heaven; that's why the unredeemed are not granted entry to Heaven. Q: Is there free will in Heaven? A: Yes, otherwise the angels would not have been able to revolt against Yahweh. Therefore, free will can exist where evil is not permitted.
+John Smith Still a contradiction. If the angels revolted, and this is seen as evil then evil does exist in heaven. Both cannot be simultaneously true...
I tend to agree with Dennett, but I think his “Gog” thought experiment slightly overstates our position as atheists. Strictly, Ockham’s rasor tells us that we have no reason to posit “Gog”, not that we should assume “Gog” does not exist. That we *do* tend to disbelieve in “Gog”, if we do, is not due to Ockham’s razor, but to (roughly) Bayesian thinking: thermodynamics tells us that order does not tend to arise spontaneously in closed systems, and we cannot imagine agents or natural processes that would create “Gog”, so we assume that it probably does not exist. There is a disanalogy here. What “priors” do we have about God that are (I) supported by experience; (ii) nearly as compelling as those that lead us to reject “Gog” as unlikely to exist? It’s easy enough to argue that belief in God is not justified without having to overstate the case.
An argument for the existence of God... If God created everything, where did God come from or who created God? This question is where logic stops being useful, for it attempts to understand infinity and limit and it just bounces between these two concepts as it rejects one and seems to only have the other as the only answer and they both do not seem to make sense. Let's try it: Take any theory that attempts to tackle the where did it all start at, you have our present, you have the past all the way up to but excluding the beginning point and then the beginning point. All the theories that attempt to explain it all start with some basic point who is not a super natural ineligient designer. So, where did that basic point come from? Who made that basic point? How do we account for the obvious intelligent design that is evident everywhere? Let's try God as that beginning point vs all other possible theories that attempt to explain it all: God created everything (the beginning point is a super natural intelligent designer who we do not completely understand ) we can ask who made him, to which the only answer is infinite regression, our mind rejects it, and sends us to limit (God as that limit; that beginning point), our mind bugs us again... but where did God come from? So, with God as the beginning point i have a limit that i do not understand how it came to be, but it answers who the designer is. With every other possible theory that does not have a supernatural intelligent designer as its beginning point we have a basic beginning point and design by chance/accident. Did a building just came to be, no desiner? How about the car you drive, it just happened by chance? No designer?The various systems in the human body, no designer?
I think the argument for evil is the weakest argument against the existence of God.. if one considers any of the events of Nature as "evil".. they are on an infinite regress of judgements against nature that is based on some ideal of what "ought to be" rather than what truly and naturally is.. just like faith..
Pyriold Wether plural or singular.. the same problem applies.. an argument against evil is entirely subjective.. not only because the relativity of what can be considered evil between us humans.. but also because if an all powerful loving and good, yet incomprehensible God truly does exists.. why should we expect to be able to understand what is evil in its eyes? is the workings of humans understood by ants? no.. so why should we expect to understand the Mind of God..if it does exists.. our morality merely approximates to its Nature.. insofar as this God can be objectively understood...
Look, i understand that this argumenting is just like discussing the color of lord voldemorts panties. We do not *know* anything about any god, there are just believes. All we can do is checking those believes for consistencies, from our human point of view. That's what i did. You can not assume the view point of a god. Arguing from that perspective makes every discussion about it totally futile. Btw.: This is just like the standard excuse from theists, "god works in mysterious ways". Well, sure... but then you don't need to pray to him, because you have no idea what his judgement of your praying is. I don't think you are a theist, it just strikes me as the same way of arguing.
Pyriold Very few claim to *know* things about God, like one would know empirical facts.. What theists often do.. is reason concerning the philosophical implications of one's beliefs.. Hence why Atheists are quite out of date when it comes to theistic arguments, just like most Theists are out of date when it comes to arguing theories in Science... Fact of the matter is, Theists form sects based on the philosophical implications of their theologies.. Just because atheists like Daniel Dennet argues as an outsider against their claims, which is often filled with Straw men because they don't understand Theistic Epistemology.. doesn't make the "mystery of God" a mystery to the people who form beliefs about such symbols/objects/entities...
Well, i don't need to study all the intricacies of astrology to know that it is all hogwash. All i need to know is that the basic assumptions are not supported by evidence. Same with religion and theistic epistemology.
I've never understood the "if God is all good and all powerful than evil disproves his existence." argument. this has major assumptions inherent in the argument including the fact that evil and struggle are not part of an all good Gods purpose. all proponents of Christianity for example have a plethora of reasons why evil and struggle are essential parts of the purpose of God. I'm sure the other religions have very well thought out answers as well.
@@lexyasimplename1479 Yes they are all false because they claim to know things no human is capable of knowing. If that's not arrogant then I don't know what is. They have the audacity to pass it off as meek and humble but its the furthest thing from. Claiming to have access to the supernatural is the epitome of delusional-narcissism. Spread the gospel of god? And who's to say what that is? Christians claim it is theirs, and even within its Mormons, Orthodox etc..let alone competing religions which make parallel claims. It's like dealing with a bunch of children who never grew up.
About evil, how can we know what others are feeling when we say that 'evil' is happening to them. Everyone can have different strengths of taking different situations. what you cannot bear, may be bearable to someone else.
Interesting. An emerging view is being added to the theist/atheist/agnostic triad: non-theism, meaning the deity idea is so undefined it is meaningless.
This position is called igtheism. Non-theism would be a blanketing term to refer to both atheists and agnostics --- anybody who does not hold the position that God exists.
@@nullscreen - Thanks. Will add it to my vocabulary, although many will not understand it. I believe non-theism works as an adjective as in non-theistic Christainity or Judaism, both of which have adherents... and then there's Messianic Judaism..
A statistical impossibility is defined as “a probability that is so low as to not be worthy of mentioning. Sometimes it is quoted as 1/10^50 although the cutoff is inherently arbitrary. Although not truly impossible the probability is low enough so as to not bear mention in a Rational, Reasonable argument." (*The probability of finding one particular atom out of all of the atoms in the universe has been estimated to be 1/10^80.) The probability of a functional 150 amino acid protein chain forming by chance is 1/10^164. It has been calculated that the probability of DNA forming by chance is 1/10^119,000. The probability of random chance protein-protein linkages in a cell is 1/10^79,000,000,000. Based on just these three cellular components, it would be far more Rational and Reasonable to conclude that the cell was not formed by undirected random natural processes. Note: Abiogenesis Hypothesis posits that undirected random natural processes, i.e. random chance formation, of molecules led to living organisms. Natural selection has no effect on individual atoms and molecules on the micro scale in a prebiotic environment. (*For reference, peptides/proteins can vary in size from 3 amino acid chains to 34,000 amino acid chains. Some scientists consider 300-400 amino acid protein chains to be the average size. There are 42,000,000 protein molecules in just one (1) simple cell, each protein requiring precise assembly. There are approx. 30,000,000,000,000 cells in the human body.) Of all the physical laws and constants, just the Cosmological Constant alone is tuned to a level of 1/10^120. Therefore, in the fine-tuning argument, it would be more Rational and Reasonable to conclude that the multi-verse is not the correct answer. On the other hand, it has been scientifically proven numerous times that Consciousness does indeed collapse the wave function to cause information waves of probability to become particle/matter with 1/1 probability. A rational and reasonable person could therefore conclude that the answer is consciousness. A "Miracle" is considered to be an event with a probability of occurrence of 1/10^6. Abiogenesis, RNA World Hypothesis, and Multiverse would all far, far, far exceed any "Miracle". Yet, these extremely irrational and unreasonable hypotheses are what many of the world’s top scientists ‘must’ believe in because of a prior commitment to a purely arbitrary, subjective, materialistic ideology. Every idea, number, concept, thought, theory, mathematical equation, abstraction, qualia, etc. existing within and expressed by anyone is "Immaterial" or "Non-material". The very idea or concept of "Materialism" is an immaterial entity and by it's own definition does not exist. Modern science seems to be stuck in archaic subjective ideologies that have inadequately attempted to define the "nature of reality" or the "reality of nature" for millennia. A Paradigm Shift in ‘Science’ is needed for humanity to advance. A major part of this Science Paradigm Shift would be the formal acknowledgment by the scientific community of the existence of "Immaterial" or "Non-material" entities as verified and confirmed by discoveries in Quantum Physics.
Information doesn't create the cosmos. Information waves are the fabric of the cosmos. And, as demonstrated with the famous double slit experiment, a conscious observer converts those information waves of potentiality / probability into "particle", "matter", or "cosmos". The Prime Observer creates the Cosmos. Matter cannot exist without physical laws and constants first existing. Physical laws and constants cannot exist without mind / consciousness / intelligence first existing. Mind / consciousness / intelligence is Prime. Mind Exists Before Matter.
@The Real Cat of 2020 Atheists Believe in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything. nothing can’t create something (the universe had an initial cause- Its unscientific otherwise) When we see a building how we know there was a builder? Well a building can’t build itself in the same way a book can’t write itself and scientists call DNA the book of life which has instructions on how to make an eye, legs, ears, senses etc. Also, we all have a conscience knowing good from evil it is universal that lying, stealing, killing is wrong this conscience is God given since we are made in his image and likeness (animals do not have a conscience). Also, Just because you can’t see God doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. Can you see Love (no but you can feel it) Can you see gravity (no but you can feel it)
@@hmgrraarrpffrzz9763 We all agree evil exists like rape, murders, genocides, Abusing innocent Children etc. If evil exists, then good must exist. For good to exist there must be morals and freewill where one is able to choose right over wrong. For Morals to exist there must be a moral giver. GOD
David Bentley Hart was correct on this program when he highlighted the reality that 99% of arguments for atheism are ridiculously bad, and that the list of somewhat competent atheist philosophers is an exceedingly small one.
Don’t understand why the interview format is this way, professor Dennett twisting his neck through the whole affair? Richard Dawkins conducted one in similar fashion. Does anyone know why it is done this way? and in church?
It's pride and sin in general that keeps people from God. Not logic, intellect and Science. The Bible literally says that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble .
@@godbeIess it’s impossible for me to believe that there is a person up in the sky who keeps track of everyone and loves us all but let’s children die in pain. He lets people be tortured and murdered. Cannot believe that. He’s supposed to be omnipotent and omnipresent. Why does he let this happen? Because there is NO GOD!
@@kathyorourke9273 so you have a valid reason. I also have a valid reason, insufficient evidence a god exists. We play on the same team. Occasionally I ask atheists why they don't believe and they say it just does not make sense. To me, that falls short of the mark.
1) There's something very dissatisfying about "burden of proof" arguments. "What reason do we have to believe?" is enough reason to be skeptical-- agnostic-- but not enough reason to deny. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 2) Arguments against a benevolent god are not the same things as arguments for atheism. God does not have to be benevolent. They are separate issues.
The concept of god or monotheism is predicated in an all-loving being. Refute that and you basically refute god because the concept of god is not just an ordinary creator.
@@spuriusscapula4829 No u: You accuse me of motivated reasoning because of your own motivated reasoning. Now, I very well may be wrong about that. After all, I have no evidence to support the claim. You are just some person on UA-cam that I've never met. But people are vulnerable to motivated reasoning, and maybe I got lucky even without justification for the claim. Yet even if I got it right, what purpose does it serve for me to say that, other than to maybe make me feel better about myself? So I apologize for my leading sentence: I take back what I said. I had no justification to say it. Maybe I was having a bad day, we all do. I am an atheist. I believe in most of Dennett's *conclusions* even if I don't believe in his reasoning. I'm not usually going to offer that in conversations like tihs, because my conclusions are irrelevant to my reasoning: when I do it right, my conclusions follow from my reasoning, not vice versa. Yet, humans have various cognitive flaws, like tribalism, like confirmation bias-- I believe we're all vulnerable to those-- and I don't want to do anything to support those flaws. I want people to accept or reject my reasoning on the basis of the reasoning, not on the basis of the conclusions that I reach, not on the basis of any shared cultural identity. Burden of proof is one of those things that seems to change whenever we travel in time or space. If we travel 1000 years in the past, we'll find philosophers telling us that the burden of proof lies on atheists, because God is so obvious. We could even stay in our own time and travel around the world and hear the same thing. Concepts like burden of proof imagine their own God, the God of Method, where burden of proof is something objectively true, rather than something that exists only in our minds. We can argue all day about where the burden of proof lies and never get anywhere; we can never find a trustworthy authority to tell us exactly where it lies. Somehow, consistently, when we raise the issue, we each find that it lies on the person that disagrees with us. That is what I find dissatisfying.
@@MsNathanv @bandages my bad I made that assumption. And I will try to distance myself from my motivated reasoning. I understand your point of view. The arguments for me always have to start with what even "God" means. And it always boils down to the sheer lack of necessity for any such belief. Absence of evidence might not be evidence of absence, but I could conjure up an infinite amount of imaginary concepts with zero basis in reality, and of we go by that reasoning for all of those concepts, we will remain stuck in a loop of disproving all of them. We could also say, "let those beliefs be", and remain stuck in a pseudo-philosophical limbo. But in that case what would be the point? If we don't allow ideas to clash then there is no progress.
@@spuriusscapula4829 I can understand that. But we're either lost or not lost, and no rules we invent will move us from the first category to the second; if we're stuck in limbo, isn't it better to acknowledge that than to deny it? When we can posit a million imaginary possibilities and cannot decide between them except in a dissatisfyingly arbitrary fashion, then so be it, because there's no rule that we have to know everything or even anything. If Socrates was wiser than most men, after all, it was because he did not imagine that he knew what he did not know.
Why did Dan stay so quiet during that whole four horseman thing (at least with respect to the other three)? He was the only one consistently worth listening to.
The only thing that gives Daniel Dennett name recognition is that he is the author of popular books. Otherwise, there is nothing to distinguish him from any other philosophy professor. And, we would hope for a better "argument for atheism" coming from a "world-class" expert. Instead, Dennett gives us the same explanation that any college freshman might give us in a dormitory bull session, after a few beers.
Yeah ,he only give good reason to be a non believer ,rather than destroyed or severely diminished the notion of the possibility that God existing and sustaining all things and beings.
The "physical world/universe" exists, in large part, due to duality and the interaction and balance of these opposing forces. Light v Dark; North v South, Positive v Negative; Right v Wrong, Yin v Yang, Good v Evil, Up v Down, True v False, Male v Female, Hot v Cold, Wave v Particle, etc. is observed to be interwoven within the fabric of the "physical world/universe". This scientifically confirmed property of the physical world/universe does not preclude the existence of a Prime Observer/Cause.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
@@zhess4096 Ok. In Islam you pay for your own sins in Christianity Jesus does but you must repent. In Mark 10:45, Jesus declares: "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." His disciple John later said that "he appeared so that he might take away our sins" (1 John 3:5). Qur’an 35:18-And no bearer of burdens shall bear another's burden, and if one heavily laden calls another to (bear) his load, nothing of it will be lifted even though he be near of kin. Qur’an 29:12-13-And those who disbelieve say to those who believe: “Follow our way and we will verily bear your sins,” never will they bear anything of their sins. Surely, they are liars. And verily, they shall bear their own loads, and other loads besides their own, and verily, they shall be questioned on the Day of Resurrection about that which they used to fabricate. One verse says we shall not bear others burdens but another says we shall bear other loads on top of ours so which one is it? What about Christians and Jews burning in hell for the sins of Muslims Sahih Muslim 6668-Abu Burda reported Allah’s Messenger as saying: There would come people amongst the Muslims on the Day of Resurrection with as heavy sins as a mountain, and Allah would forgive them and He would place in their stead the Jews and the Christians.
Evil means no God?I never understood why if God existed why couldn't evil still exist,just cause we dont understand why evil exists doest mean God still couldn't exist.
Kids dying of cancer, world hunger etc This is because we live in a fallen world full of sin. Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
@@jeil5676 God through the Holy Spirit has shown me several things relating to the afterlife with the purpose of convincing people like yourself. Stuff like Heaven and Hell, Angels, ,evil Spirits, the Lord Jesus (not worthy at all), a miracle happened to me that saved my life (thank you God) & so much more. I am more than happy to give further details.
Even if you could actually PROVE the existence of a Creator-god it wouldn't make any difference as we'd still be left with this same rotten world. Anyway does anyone know if Dennett is still around and if so how's he doing?
The opposite is true. The atheist jumps to the conclusion that there is no God without proof and in the face of the evidence. The theist can listen to science and reason to the conclude that there must be an immensely intelligent and powerful agent outside of the universe.
I don't think Denett ever debated a Thomas or read any serious metaphysics... Go check "the reality of God and the problem of evil" by B Davies for instance.
The problem of evil is an interesting topic but not the topic. The topic is does God exist, not is he good in what we define today as good. Technically you can say if God find suffering good that suffering is good then.Or that he is in a spinozist way neutral, there is no evil and good. This is all a second debate, not about atheism or theism.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
"God" does not exist as a belief because of it's explanatory value regarding the universe. People simply believe it exists because that was what they were taught since they were little. Nobody ever believed in it who wasn't told that it was so by someone else first, even if it required some form of "transcendent experience" to finally convince them. Atheism comes about exactly because of the lack of coherent explanatory value of "God" and the mystical.
You cannot prove something doesn't exist, you can only argue that things may exist in science. If enough credible people decide it may exist, we say it does, tentatively.
Thank you Mr. Dennet for bringing some realism to this argument and to this host who has had a number of religious proponents on that ge has let skate with dubious and fallacious arguments against new atheism!!
Is it like something to be Dan Dennett? The more I hear about his theory of consciousness, the more I think he has no actual experiences. His brain just processes information and spits out behavior, but it all happens in the dark. Or he has some sort of qualia blindness--i.e. He sees, hears, feels, etc. things, and he responds to those sensations just like anyone else...but he somehow fails to notice the qualitative aspects of those things, kind of like the phenomenon of "blindsight". Or he's just so dogmatic with his materialism that he's managed to talk himself into the silliest delusion in human history--he's convinced himself that he doesn't REALLY have any experiences. I mean...I'm an atheist too, but how can anyone say that experiences don't REALLY exist? Why can't we just accept that there's something a bit "supernatural" (i.e. non-physical) about subjective, first-person experiences, not to mention the purely qualitative contents of those experiences? How do you get purely qualitative experiences like the redness of red, or the pain of stubbing your toe from purely quantitative physical science? If it's possible to get those things quantitatively, then what's the mathematical description of the redness of red? C'mon, dude...
That's not a very fair assessment of his views. In some sense, you are begging the question against him when you say things like "How do you get purely qualitative experiences like the redness of red, or the pain of stubbing your toe from purely quantitative physical science?" The whole idea is that this is an incorrect way of framing the issue. He isn't saying experiences don't "really" exist. He is saying they don't exist as qualia, as distinct properties, that there are no "facts about red" on the one hand and "the pure experience of redness" on the other. It's kind of analogous to the relationship between philosophy and motion. The ancient Greeks and later Medievals just simply lacked the conceptual and linguistic tools to understand and describe how things move and change. Our current understanding of consciousness could very well be so primitive. Indeed, it would be expected if one appreciates the full history of ideas. The lesson to be learned here is that we need to keep an open mind. Dennett is a serious philosopher and represents a perspective on consciousness that's taken seriously by plenty of other people in philosophy and the cognitive sciences. It's not a fringe view. This very well could be a dissolvable issue. And it's not dogmatic to hold-out for materialistic explanations of things. There are good epistemological and practical reasons to look keep looking in that direction.
Today I heard this comment - the illusion or appearance of design in our existence. What does that mean ? When we can see intelligent design in creation ( and we do ) then where is the argument ? You're running from truth to say it's just an illusion ! Man up ! 🙈🙊🙉
I can never understand the position that evil has to be explained. It's entirely obvious to me that evil is just a concept made up by humans. Evil, love, hate, good are just human inventions.
The moment you posit "the good" then by that very act, you also have to also posit its opposite, "evil," just as when you posit something as warm, you need to contrast it with something known to be not warm. So the fact of evil in no way discounts the existence of the "good" or even of a good God. It merely has to be explained in another way. As for human suffering -- the Judeo-Christian belief is that it is "redemptive" in nature, in which case, it is actually a "good," given the context of eternal life.
The vaguest thing ever..we're left at square one. Theology is an absolute joke. Philosophy on the other hand is interesting - it's all about open-minded questions. Religion on the other hand is all about dogma and presupposition. Philosophy: questions that may never be answered. Religion: answers that may never be questioned.
I still don't understand the "problem" of evil. It's just a word like red or tall or big. What is this evil? Flooding, famines, disease? These are just natural occurrences. I would guess evil is just a humans description of an undesired circumstance or outcome but that's only from the human point of view. Evil, good, loce, hate have no more tangible existence than a god.
Before a person answers the question about the probability of the existence of "God", the term "God" must be defined.
We don't usually have to do that with things that *do* exist so I think that's a big hint that gods to not exist.
The word "God" is a sound some people make when they mean "I don't know..." or "I wish..."
"The atheist does not say, "There is no God", but he says, "I know not what you mean by God"; the word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation." - Charles Bradlaugh
The creator who created with a purpose.
R Hopzing
That was just a definition of god. But if you want my opinion on why the biblical creation account is better than the others, read the book by Andrew Parker who is not a theist. The Bible got the order of creation right.
Yea science isn’t claiming that there is NO god, it just doesn’t point to anything showing that there IS a god. Science doesn’t claim either proposition but someone making the positive claim should be able to demonstrate that claim. Such an easy concept
bdizz77 I would be happy to shut up about the nonexistence of gods. So would Hovend and Ham and WLC and the Pope shut up as well?
I m not making a scientific claim for Existence of god . So I m an agnostic thiest. So u can’t say I have a burden of proof. I believe it takes more faith to believe in non existence of God than believing in his existence. In such a case the burden of proof is on both parties. So if an atheist can’t come up with any logical arguments it shows lack of logic and reason in believing that there is no God.
cringe
@@soccerlife5041 That makes it worse if you don't have a scientific claim and still claim god exists you do still need evidence and burden of proof is absolutely on you. You are making a extreme claim and atheism isn't a belief system it's just people who lack belief of god and that's it. I'm not trying to prove anything to you. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have arguments but the idea that burden of proof is on both parties is ridiculous.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
As succinctly as I can put it: "I ain't buyin' what the theists are sellin'."
That's atheism. No more, no less.
Visa versa can be said for religious people
@@prathamkumar5224 Could you explain that?
@Frances Snowflake I got that but I don't understand how that would be true. Atheists aren't selling anything, we are at most warning people not to buy the religious nonsense.
@Frances Snowflake Than you didn't understand Atheism. It simply means not being theistic. You can of course try to spread Atheism but that still doesn't make it a religion or something to sell because there isn't anything to sell in the first place.
@Frances Snowflake Read closely, I didn't mix up the two words. Religions are spreading theism, each religion another form of theism. But if you spread atheism you can't call that a religion because there are no ideologies and no crazy ideas behind it, just a rejection of theism and the ideologies coming out of it.
I recently saw a video where a guy (arguing on behalf of Islam) said that "if as a non believer you don't know the answer, then 'I don't know' is good enough, don't pretend to know the answer"... I'm not sure if he is aware just how ironic that statement actually is.
Islam = the most ironic, contradictory and infantile religion ever.
Cuz it aint...
@@James-ll3jbGreat point !!
As a muslim, I don't understand your point.
Please clarify so that I can take up the argument for my brother/sister.
@@think-islam-channel the point is NOBODY knows or has concrete proof of anything (that's why it's called faith).. so every person's answer is "I don't know" no matter what you believe. Don't criticise others for "not knowing" when you don't "know" either.
Argument for atheism: It appears to be the case. Truth matters.
Yep. It really is that simple. Brilliant comment.
Many things appear to to be the case that turn out to be false.
Cheshire Tiger said “truth is a level of certitude unreachable by limited beings”
What kind of strange definition of truth is this? Can you find a dictionary or a philosophical journal that explains it further?
I suspect it stems from this “limited being” nonsense. It seems to imply there is such a thing as an “unlimited being”.
Anyways, I think one thing needs to be cleared up. Certainty is a psychological brain state, it deals with how strong a conviction you have about a proposition. It tells you absolutely nothing about whether or not the proposition is actually true. As a matter of fact; often times certainty is a good indicator you have not put enough thought into it.
Truth is a correspondence relationship between propositions and states of affairs. When a proposition accurately maps on to or ‘corresponds’ with facts and/or what happens to be the case we call that ‘true’.
It’s called correspondence theory of truth. It has some flaws but it’s clear some version of it must be true.
It’s as simple as that, regardless of omniscience.
Cheshire Tiger,
Do you always contradict yourself this much?
First you said “truth is a level of certitude”.
And the definition of certitude is as follows: “absolute certainty or conviction that something is the case.”
But when I explained that ones own internal degree of belief has no bearing on the truth of a proposition you changed to “truth is an absolute. it’s not a metric of conviction”.
At least you’re learning.
False truth, believed only by foolish individuals who have been blinded to what is real. You want facts? I'll give you facts.
God is real.
Discard your denial and see the truth for what it is
There is simply no argument for God that stands on its own in anyway, whatsoever. When we die, we simply cease to exist. This outcome follows the Occam’s Razor principal. It aligns with everything we know of physics, the second law of thermodynamics and so on. Even if we live in a simulation, the programmer is pretty heartless and cruel
Until some demonstrates a god is real, this creature isn't a candidate answer to any question. Mighty Mouse Did It ! doesn't work either.
What do you mean "stand on its own in anyway"? Is it allowed to be a deductive argument? Have premises? Maybe could it be an inference to the best explanation of something? Could it be a logical argument? What exactly would count as "stands on its own in anyway"? Try not to be sarcastic, im genuinley asking. Then, please give me a couple examples of other arguments for belief systems (perhaps whatever belief system you hold? as everyone holds one) that meet those specific criteria for "standing on its own in anyway". Thank you in advance.
@dimbulb23 Micky Mouse didn't do it, Yaweh did! This was after he got promoted to God of all creation (through an amalgamation with Elohim and Baal) after the role of Yaweh as the God of the mountainside and of the desert storm. Yaweh the Eternal God is approximately three thousand years old, and Micky Mouse is only approximately one century old!
A 3000 year old Eternal God does sound like an oxymoron, but with (enough) faith, anything can be said to exist!
If you disobey any of God's commandments, he will send you to hell to burn in agony for all eternity... but he loves you. (Paraphrased from George Carlin).
Except that that is Christianity in a nutshell. Eternal fire for those on the left, eternal singing for those on the right.
@ Seth Harvill Depends which religion you are following...example: Catholics you go to hell with a "mortal sin" on your concience when you die...Lutheran's not so much.
Terry Peterson OMG Carlin's bit on the big bad god goes down as one of the funniest comedy skits I've ever heard.
Way to generalize and attack an idea without actually doing the research bud. The Catholic teaching on this makes a lot of sense, as follows in a nutshell :
Free will was given to us by God - to choose to Love or otherwise.
God doesn’t impose on our free will.
Without having goodness, how can one enjoy union with an all-good God?
Hell is a state of unrepentant separation from God - the absence of God.
= We send ourselves to hell, and no matter how much God Loves us, He can’t impose on our free will
He loves you.... and he needs money.
You left out the best part
As a biologist and chemist the physical world became very dynamic and dramatic via the standing factual elements and history. It also stirs personal inward curiosity regarding my gift of life.
ua-cam.com/video/BGta5-aMl6A/v-deo.html
Given that 'Everything That Exists' is a complete mystery and we have little or no access to the data that would allow us to understand everything, why do you assume it's a gift? That major leap comes from a sense of entitlement rather than curiosity. What is your evidence that it's a gift?
@@dimbulb23 My point was on my own personal reality. That inward personal journey concerning my own precious personal existence was the intended focus on MY comment.
Am I the only person who thinks Daniel Dennett is really Santa Claus?
What a great way for Santa to remain incognito for the rest of the year!
If you think Dennett is really Santa, I would hope you're the only one. Grow up.
@@dimbulb23 Please, get a sense of humor.
Life is too short.
@@dimbulb23 It's more likely he is really Santa than an existence of this god.
I love the 'incomprehensible spirit of goodness' idea.
Best line ever!
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
You shouldn't believe in something incomprehensible lol.
@James Henry Smith ua-cam.com/video/K6Flx8LNj9c/v-deo.html - I’d love to know your thoughts on this
The universe from dense chaos to brimming with life and beauty for one who looks and poler opposite as well.
"Incomprehensible spirit of great wisdom"to be more apt
I love Daniel Dennett, but I think that he could have done better here.
There are other good arguments for a godless universe.
He is right that the burden of proof is on the theist, but I think that any theist that accepts the concept of faith will have a messed up view of the burden of proof, leaving to people either having to provide reasons to accept the godless hypothesis or to convince people of faith to accept skepticism instead.
+Advancements of Science Society
If their idea of burden of proof is wrong, then their idea of burden of proof is wrong.
If their notion of burden of proof is valid, then ALL non-falsifiable claims automatically become true, including any non-falsifiable claims I make up in the future. Their notion of burden of proof is simply untenable, and another sign of their desperation.
To be fair theists don’t really make non-falsifiable claims.
ArenaHopeful - With all due respect, that is false. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve encountered theists making unfalsifiable claims, such as, “Living a moral life would be impossible without god.” Or, what about the claims of life after death?
Not to mention, I just had an interaction with a theist earlier today, who claimed that the scientific evidence that refutes the Bible is planted by Satan to deceive us and lead us astray from god. It’s almost certainly bullshit, but how could you legitimately test the veracity of that claim?
Neil Mcintosh - LOL touché. My rebuttal was brief. Not much you can really say to that without being a dick lol.
I think the burden of proof should be on the theist for why you should believe in god but not why the theist believes in god.
This is the best Closer-to-Truth video.
When I was six and attending Baptist Sunday school, my class was given a lecture on heaven and hell, death and the afterlife. When the lecture was over, I asked, *Is there free will in the afterlife?* Apparently no one else had ever asked this question. I was told that, _No, there is no free will in the afterlife because then good deeds could be done in hell, while bad deeds could be done in heaven. But all that is already sorted out before anyone dies, so there is no room for moral agency after one is dead._ So then I asked, *If I don’t take my body with me, and I don’t take my free will with me, why am I supposed to care about having an afterlife at all?* The reaction I got was very surprising at the time, and at 65 it is still surprising. In response, I was told, _Don’t ask such silly questions, and stop being a smartass._ That was the end of the discussion.
It was not long before I made myself a prayer, which I have always kept in my heart and in my mind. *_Dear Lord, let it be your will that will direct my life. Not as I would choose, nor as any person would choose, nor as any religious text would choose, but as you, dear Lord, would choose for me. This being done, I am content._*
Why would anyone pray? And why would anyone think a god exist?
@@themplar Good questions. I believe it is because before existence exists for us humans,.. our primary awareness is of ourselves,.. in particular our minds, consciousness, and our own willfulness. It's easy to believe, as Sam Harris does, that consciousness itself is a primary, even over existence itself. How is it that mere material, deterministic being can give rise to consciousness at all? Which strains our credibility more,.. a belief in God, or in a Cosmos that has always existed, and always will,.. including laws of physics which seem to both be true and simultaneously incomprehensible. Read *_The Tao of Physics_* at pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bd99/79a7203a618b3d85b251abf6e4af080728b6.pdf for instance.
I believe in God primarily because the belief completes me, because I need values by which to live by, while not being a lower animal with a complete and sufficient automatic instinct for survival. How do I know what I should do,.. and how do I know what free and sovereign people must do regardless of individual choice. My need for God comes from the same place that tells me I need a moral conscience. I believe even Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins all would recognize humanity's need to seek out and find transcendent values; the next question is do the existence of such transcendent values require supernaturalism. I don't absolutely think so,.. but I understand how much more satisfying it is to believe so.
*_There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion. France, the United States, and some other nations have divorced their governments from all churches, but they have had the help of religion in keeping social order. Only a few Communist states have not merely dissociated themselves from religion but have repudiated its aid; and perhaps the apparent and provisional success of this experiment in Russia owes much to the temporary acceptance of Communism as the religion (or, as skeptics would say, the opium) of the people, replacing the church as the vendor of comfort and hope. If the socialist regime should fail in its efforts to destroy relative poverty among the masses, this new religion may lose its fervor and efficacy, and the state may wink at the restoration of supernatural beliefs as an aid in quieting discontent. “As long as there is poverty there will be gods.”_*
~ Will Durant
*_If by God we mean not the creative vitality of nature but a supreme being intelligent and benevolent, the answer must be a reluctant negative. Like other departments of biology, history remains at bottom a natural selection of the fittest individuals and groups in a struggle wherein goodness receives no favors, misfortunes abound, and the final test is the ability to survive. Add to the crimes, wars, and cruelties of man the earthquakes, storms, tornadoes, pestilences, tidal waves, and other “acts of God” that periodically desolate human and animal life, and the total evidence suggests either a blind or an impartial fatality, with incidental and apparently haphazard scenes to which we subjectively ascribe order, splendor, beauty, or sublimity. If history supports any theology this would be a dualism like the Zoroastrian or Manichaean: a good spirit and an evil spirit battling for control of the universe and men’s souls. These faiths and Christianity (which is essentially Manichaean) assured their followers that the good spirit would win in the end; but of this consummation history offers no guarantee. Nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad; they define good as that which survives, and bad as that which goes under; and the universe has no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan._*
~ Will Durant
*_To the unhappy, the suffering, the bereaved, the old, it has brought supernatural comforts valued by millions of souls as more precious than any natural aid. It has helped parents and teachers to discipline the young. It has conferred meaning and dignity upon the lowliest existence, and through its sacraments has made for stability by transforming human covenants into solemn relationships with God. It has kept the poor (said Napoleon) from murdering the rich. For since the natural inequality of men dooms many of us to poverty or defeat, some supernatural hope may be the sole alternative to despair. Destroy that hope, and class war is intensified. Heaven and utopia are buckets in a well: when one goes down the other goes up; when religion declines Communism grows._*
~ Will Durant
*_While Catholics were murdering Protestants in France, and Protestants, under Elizabeth, were murdering Catholics in England, and the Inquisition was killing and robbing Jews in Spain, and Bruno was being burned at the stake in Italy, Akbar invited the representatives of all the religions in his empire to a conference, pledged them to peace, issued edicts of toleration for every cult and creed, and, as evidence of his own neutrality, married wives from the Brahman, Buddhist, and Mohammedan faiths. His greatest pleasure, after the fires of youth had cooled, was in the free discussion of religious beliefs. … The King took no stock in revelations, and would accept nothing that could not justify itself with science and philosophy. It was not unusual for him to gather friends and prelates of various sects together, and discuss religion with them from Thursday evening to Friday noon. When the Moslem mullahs and the Christian priests quarreled he reproved them both, saying that God should be worshiped through the intellect, and not by a blind adherence to supposed revelations. "Each person," he said, in the spirit - and perhaps through the influence - of the Upanishads and Kabir, "according to his condition gives the Supreme Being a name; but in reality to name the Unknowable is vain."_*
~ Will Durant
*_The invention and spread of contraceptives is the proximate cause of our changing morals. The old moral code restricted sexual experience to marriage, because copulation could not be effectively separated from parentage, and parentage could be made responsible only through marriage. But to-day the dissociation of sex from reproduction has created a situation unforeseen by our fathers. All the relations of men and women are being changed by this one factor; and the moral code of the future will have to take account of these new facilities which invention has placed at the service of ancient desires._*
~ Will Durant
*_I feel for all faiths the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun._*
~ Will Durant
*_Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance._*
~ Will Durant
I found this moving, and I'm a non-believer. Good stuff
@@k-3402 The following is from what I hope will be on my gravestone so as to provoke a thoughtful reaction from anyone passing by in happenstance. I offer it now as a thoughtful alternative to an afterlife of merely heaven, hell, purgatory, reincarnation, or the many other imagined possibilities.
*The Lake*
*_It is said by some that there is a place where a bright, clear, mountain lake resides, a place where people of this world never visit. To attempt to describe it is possible, but all such tales are probably just fancy. Be that as it may, here is how it was described to me, in my sleep, by the spring rain, when I was still very small and trusting. I was very certain at the time that the rain had not lied or exaggerated, but as I grew older I came to doubt. This would seem to be our way. How sad._*
*_The rain told me that the air at the lake was fresh and clean and yet so thin that I would faint were I to be there. This lake was in the midst of a forest of giant pine trees that appeared to reach forever to the skies above. In contemplating these trees one would wonder if this lake were not really just a small puddle on the forest floor. But as all bodies of water were the same to my singing spring rain, I imagine these distinctions had simply gone unnoticed._*
*_There was something most remarkable about this lake. For I was told that all the souls of all the men & women & little children like myself washed through this water. There seemed to be some hint that all of life had passed by and was passing by this oasis whose place could not be named. As each new life was made, a handful of water was removed from the lake and placed within a mortal body. Day by day the water would be made purer or filthier as that life spent it’s limited time in the world. When that life was done, the water that had been given to it was returned to the lake as it's body was returned to dust._*
*_And such was how all the hope and travail of life would come to each new generation. Some would succeed more than it would seem they should and so returned to the lake the courage and celebration that they had made of their lives. Others learned the habit of fear and distrust in their lives when they were very young and so took very meanly of every opportunity as only a threat. They only returned water that was foul and putrid for what else did they ever know._*
*_And so I was told, that was how it was with me and everyone who ever had been, or was, or would be. Parts of me had passed through many lives and parts of me were utterly new and untried. Parts of me would live other lives again and others would be forever still when I was done. None of us was ever created entirely alone nor could we ever be, for like the air and water of this world, which we all communally use and of which our bodies are literally made, our souls are unique and yet all made of the same stuff. How many times would you have to draw water from a lake to draw the same handful? Or is it just a silly question? I don’t know. Somehow it just doesn’t seem to be a very important question now._*
*_What would be an important question anyway?_*
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
The new atheist movement would be taken a lot more seriously or reverence by theists if they were all like Dan. Smart, yet calm and collected.
Its always been hard to remain calm when there are so many militant religious practitioners, leaders, and speakers all over the world.
Yeah... Daniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins, and Michio Kaku are THE calmest atheist out there, haha! I even used to fell asleep with their talks in the background when I was younger :)
Atheism is doing fine without reverence. It only requires 10% of the skepticism that we all use when buying a used car.... and you can see the car and kick the tires.
I'm not sure what you mean by reverence, but theists do take atheists very seriously, they are getting really upset and do a lot of talking about atheism.
The Kryptonite angle is an ingenious analogy.
And worse it is wrong, Kryponite wasn't inveted by the creators of the comics, but later by a radio show to explain the absense of the actor who played Superman.
+Drudenfusz That's completely irrelevant.
It’s not though. Religion is about telling a certain story but what dennet fails to recognize is that no one can escape the telling of their own story. The problem of evil is not a real problem, the real problem is where morality comes from. Without an objective basis for one morality there is no objective basis for an argument against any morality. Hence, religion is a subjective morality wherein the primary subject is god and god’s omnipotence is the argument against any other morality.
@@Drudenfusz Spot on!
As a Superman purist he is DEAD WRONG about kryptonite. The voice over actor for Superman was sick or had to miss a few days of recording. The kryptonite was not inveneted as a counter balance for Superman's kryptonian strength. It was for a mudane reason that someone had a cold or could not come into work.
Saying that you don't BELIEVE that God exists is different that saying God doesn't exist as a fact. If you just say the you don't BELIEVE God exists, you need no evidence for that. If you say, as a fact, that God doesn't exist, then the burden of proof is on you.
exactly
Do unicorns exist?
Arguments FOR Atheism is a strange way to put it. A positive argument for a negative.
"God doesn't exist" is just as much a proposition as "God exists".
jeremy miller Atheism is not "God doesn't exist". It means not theism. It's a word like Asymmetic (not symmetric) or Asymptomatic (not symptomatic). An atheist might make the claim that a god doesn't exist, but that is not what atheism means.
Pul5ar Atheism actually does mean that, because otherwise you would call it agnosticism and not atheism. Atheism means you believe there is no god, theism means you believe in god(s) and agnosticism means you don't/can't know or 50/50.
but there are positive atheistic positions. like: there is no god, there are no good arguments for the existence of god, etc. these are positive claims. you cant say all atheists hold a negative position, most of them dont even know the difference.
@Troll Face you can also be an agnostic theist you fool
Before defining an entity, one needs to know where is the limit of what can be undefined
"God always is, nor has He been and is not, nor is but has not been, but as He never will not be; so He never was not." - Augustine of Hippo
That's easy for him to say!
🤔
😄
I wouldn’t not disagree with that!
God is an imaginary friend for adults
What a wise and in-depth view of a multi-millenia-old concept...
TheDriza OK,drizzle. you and others like you say, God is an imaginary friend for adults, then why does all of hell, the demons, the devil's,satan himself, why do they believe in God.they believe to the point that at the name of Jesus, they tremble in submission to the name.
@@newestaddition5234
Those were imaginary foes of God and an imaginary Son of God.
I just don't get why grown ups can't see that.
@@TheBrunarr Thinking light came out of your eyes and many other incorrect guesses at how things work were millennium spanning ideas.
The self is imaginary.
The best argument for atheism is the absence of evidence for theism.
peter nicholson absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
jordan w Disbelief in the absence of evidence is the Default position., Atheism is the default position.
jordan w
“In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.”
- Copi, Introduction to Logic (1953), p. 95
jarrod, that would depend on what specific claim you are defending
Great comment. Most on here will not understand your coment.
These questions were done in an necessary vacuum. Polls have been taken of atheists. The most dramatic of which involves asking atheists how the universe was created, to which universally the response is "I don't know." The problem for theists and I don't know is that there is no more to discuss.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
@@thereisnonegoodbutgodjohn363 Your god is the ultimate evil and the only moral action with respect to the Biblical God is the total and complete condemnation for being all out evil.
@@MybridWonderful : Loving yes. But don't forget full of justice: You break mans laws you go to jail. You break God's laws you go to hell. But if you humble yourself and acknowledge that you are a sinner you Believe in Jesus and Repent; You will receive forgiveness of sins and when you die will go to Heaven. That is very loving!
@There is none Good but God John 3:16, Rev 3:16
There’s is absolutely nothing “loving” about punishing anyone for eternity based off finite transgressions, especially not if the most egregious of those transgressions is not believing far-fetched suppositions about a Jewish guy from 2000 years ago
lol why don't they just sit in the same row, dan looks super uncomfortable
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
“Atheism is a natural result of intellectual honesty.” (Paulo Bittencourt)
They're talking about the generic and vague "god" of the philosophers (sloppy). As for _specific_ ones, like Zeus, Enki, or Yahweh, well, they unequivocally do not exist.
Atheism doesnt need to disprove a god. Not a single theist ever has been able to justify the claim that one does. The complete lack of evidence warrants atheism. Also atheism doesnt need arguments.. its just a position of unbelieve due to the consistent failure of theism.
If god is all knowing does he know how to disprove his own existence.
I think you misunderstand omniscience and omnipotent as they are classically defined.
Jack Stacks God does not have to prove anything.
If god's all-knowing does he know what it's like to suck a dick?
@@MrItachi18 Yes
@@MrItachi18 That automatically goes without saying, try him you may enjoy it.
I'm a Grey Alien, & my race doesn't believe in God, but we do believe in Daniel Dennett - period.
Atheism is the default position
Not at all. We just want more proof.
So is illiteracy, so what?
Maybe when you a child, and think like a child, until you start thinking about why anything at all exists, then these arguments are weak.
You're born without belief.
@@controllerbrain Knowing God isn't "belief" though
Why would god create a backstory that is impossible to belief unless you you stop thinking about and question it. That is basically what faith is. When you have faith all inquiry stops. Furthermore, when this happens, there seems to be a diminishing of critical thinking in other aspects of inquiry that are only vaguely or not at all related to religion. For instance, nationalism and politics. It seems to me to foster a gullibility in many other areas. This seems dangerous to me.
As an atheist I find Dennett's argument here to be unsatisfying. Certainly, in science the burden of proof is on the new theory, the theory seeking to challenge the established theory. But this has no applicability in metaphysical questions like the existence of God: there is no established theory, there is no Newton or Einstein. So the burden of proof is shared equally.
And in order for atheism, rather than agnosticism, to be warranted we need something more than just saying that theism hasn't successfully made its case: we need a positive case for atheism over and against both theism and agnosticism. The good news is, that isn't impossible to do, because theism plausibly DOES make some empirical claims and predictions about how the world is, and so making the case for atheism involves rolling up your sleeve and looking at + compiling the evidence from a bunch of different relevant areas: the evidence for special creation over and against naturalistic cosmology and/or evolution, the efficacy of prayer, whether religious scriptures or mystical experiences ever impart any new/novel information, and so on. And the evidence is pretty much what we'd expect to see, if naturalism and atheism were true, and highly inconsistent with the supposition that theism is true. THAT is what an "argument for atheism" must look like, not merely pointing out that theism hasn't sufficiently established its conclusions.
'There is no established theory... so the burden of proof is shared equally'. Why do you think that? The burden of proof is always on the one/s making the claim, irrespective of any previous claims made. Even in the metaphysical, each claim is assessed on it's merits. If atheism is defined as a lack of belief, then a lack of any evidence to support theism is all that atheism requires. Also, atheism and agnosticism deal with different positions. I'm an agnostic atheist = I don't know if god/s exist and I don't believe in any god/s. You're not one or the other.
I could conjure up thousands of inane ideas based on my imagination. Nobody can prove them all wrong. You're writing all these long paragraphs against a straightforward argumenr.
@@spuriusscapula4829 We're not talking about disproving thousands of inane ideas based on imagination. We're talking having good and sufficient evidence/reasons for supposing theism to be false, since without them atheism is not rationally warranted/justified. So not only does Dennett's argument here not work, it is completely unnecessary: it seeks to absolve atheism of a burden of proof that it can and does meet.
My argument for atheism is: false beliefs leads to dangerous consequences, so we should want to believe in as little false things as possible.
I have not always been a huge fan of him, but Dan D was wonderful here. Our brains, inherited from our ancestors, are wired to believe that natural phenomena have humanlike agency and intent. So, while you can do nothing if a nearby volcano erupts, you can sacrifice virgins to a volcano deity. By attributing natural things (like the universe) with agency, we then have some control. We can petition a deity, make sacrifices, pray. If the sacrifices failed, we should have sacrificed more. God must be very angry this time!
In this way, disproof is impossible. Many a former theist has struggled with internal doubts. They are told that the fault is theirs for not having enough faith, but the problem is that they are being fed stories rife with logical inconsistencies.
Dennett asks, "Why do we need God?" Albert Einstein would answer, "To express awe at our deeply awesome world, of which we scientists understand only a minimal fraction."
And then Einstein would tell you to stop mischaracterizing his view, as he explicitly wrote in a 1954 letter.
He's actually telling you why man created god.
Have you ever regretted making someone?
hahahaha
If you return during my lifetime, I have a baseball sized rock with your name on it.
Lmao, this is gold
If there is god which god? Christian god, Muslim God, Hindu God, Buddhist God or spiritual God? Is Christian god only to be followed? What is the notion about other religion god?
What even is "God"?
wao, I have known what santa thinks about all these things
Lmao!! Another God hater with santa syndrome.
@Stefano Portoghesi I asked for your evidence and proof that God does not exist not your opinion. Nice fail there lady.
@Stefano Portoghesi People worship anywhere. I do it while riding a motorcycle. You on the other hand have nothing but nihilism and only wish everyone was as miserable as yourself. Fat chance and a snowballs chance in hell thats ever gonna happen.
@Stefano Portoghesi A tiny virus didn't close down anything people did. And you still failed to give the evidence and proof that atheism is accurate and correct so cmon and convert us to your religion. We want to believe but just don't have your faith!
@Stefano Portoghesi Are you drunk again? Once more I never asked you for your opinion or philosophy. I simply asked you for the evidence and proof that atheism is accurate and correct. This is the third time now. You not only believe in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything but you also believe that you come from a rock. How's that for atheistic science. Now astonish us by presenting that elusive proof that you claim to have. I don't care about your opinion or philosophy I want the science behind your religion.
Is there a personal or impersonal God? Are there many gods and goddesses? Is there continuity after death? Is reincarnation or resurrection a fact? Are there heaven and hell? In the end all of us-agnostics, atheists, cynics, freethinkers, hedonists, skeptics, theists-have to find out WHY we want to believe or not to believe in those things. What is our motivation in accepting or rejecting those things? What is our intention? :D
+totalfreedom45
What you want to believe is irrelevant. Which beliefs are supported by arguments or evidence is the only relevant consideration regarding what is true.
+Paul T Sjordal In that case ONLY modern science has the answers, not philosophy or religion.
As an atheist even I could have of made a better argument for one.
Go on then! What is the purpose of atheism?
Adegbenga Ogungbeje It does not have nor require one. Atheism is a simple observation of the world around us & natural law. However the belief that there is an all powerful immortal being that preserves our Consciousness after death is a great claim. And as with all great claims, requires extraordinary evidence.
@@himerosTheGod U said its an observation of the world around us. With what conclusion? Creation is also an observation of the world around us. If Atheism doesn't require explaining neither does creation too. Can't set a double standard. It's because no atheism can explain their 'ism'.
@@elisethacker9154 If it serves no purpose, let's not waste time talking about it.
@@elisethacker9154 What truth are people going to find out if it serves no purpose?
Not on any particular side, but it seems a weak argument against the idea of God when you ask questions like "Why would a 'good' God allow such horrible suffering". That's not God. That's a "Good" God. You're muddying the waters when you change it by adding "good" to God. And that's not nitpicky, word policing, it fundamentally changes what you're talking about. The answer to "why would a a good God allow so much suffering?" would be that he wouldn't, so I would agree, that "good" God doesn't exist. Not "God doesn't exist". Different God. My point is that shallow arguments like this are no more persuasive than the person who argues for God by talking about faith. Hopefully that made sense. Great videos as usual.
You must be one of the rare human beings who hasn't heard "The Good News", Jesus loves me, yes I cause the Bible tells me so".
Dennett didn't invent the Omnibenevolent God. You must have been living under a rock.
If one realizes their god is evil or powerless, it brings their whole religion into question on whether any of it is believable or not. A first step towards atheism.
The burden of proof argument! If you put forward a proposition either back it up or back down. 'Gog', how hilarious!
In a couple hundred years or less, no one will believe in a god and people will look back on modern religions just like how we now look back on ancient ones as being ridiculous.
I dont think that stuff is ever gonna be completely gone. But we can hope.
That is what people like Thomas Jefferson thought when he was alive, 1743 to 1826. There was a Universalist movement. The Universalist movement was after the Deists, which was very popular for a time. But Religions and Religious belief comes and goes in waves in human history.
@@ronaldlindeman6136 Sure but back then we didn't have nearly as much of a scientific understanding as we do now and it's only growing at an almost exponential rate.
@@party4keeps28 We are getting much more scientific understanding about the world we live in. But I think we do a bad job of explaining Religions like Christianity and why they are not true.
What is Christianity? What category of human experience explains Christianity the most?
Is it Philosophy?
Is it Science?
Is it History?
I'll just jump in their and give you my thought. Storytelling. Jesus of Christianity has more to do with Luke Skywalker of Star Wars, James T. Kirk of the Star Ship Enterprise, Wolverine of Xmen, Superman of Superman and Batman of Batman than anything else. I call myself a Christian Critic, not an Atheist. There are 2 types of Atheist, just like to types of Theists, 1) Story Atheist and 2) Nature's God Atheist. To really explain Christianity and why it is not true is best done to understand it as a story. Does Christianity have Philosophy, Science, History and other things like suggestions on personal relationships and a set of political views someone should have, but they are all pushed not by logic, Reason and knowledge, but by storytelling.
And people who call themselves Atheists suck at explaining all that stuff. Which is why at the pace we are going I don't think we are making as much of an impact on society as we could make.
Dennet just simply brilliant!! Destroys theologians and religion in 10 minutes!!
I love the "new atheists" but I'm not sure why they call themselves that given that they aren't saying anything new. They're presenting the exact same arguments that other atheistic philosophers throughout history have used.
If you deny God, as opposed to merely lacking belief, some burden of proof falls upon you. Dennett presents us with first the argument from Occam's razor. Then the argument from evil. Then the argument from divine hiddenness. Fine points, but at bottom, the qualities of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and omnibenevolence contradict each other and no being having all these qualities could possibly exist.
Deacon Verter but one does exist. he is self existent. there is no God but God, by himself,self existent. no one higher than him.
God is not a he or she.
@@stevemclendsy9478 If god is a father than it is a he.
"If you deny God, as opposed to merely lacking belief, some burden of proof falls upon you."
I do not see God right now.
"But you see churches and priests and the bible."
I see statues to the spaghetti monster and have similar amount of evidence to assume that Hades or Ra exist, what's your point?
"You don't see your friend bob right now."
It's true, I don't. But I have before and I can put trust in my belief I'll see them again or have a (presumably heartbreaking) reason on why I wouldn't in the future. Regardless if I see bob again or not, there is more evidence bob exists or existed than any god currently claimed to exist.
"So there's equal amount of evidence that Caesar and God existed in the past."
Now you're catching on. Let's go back to my 2nd answer.
RIP Danny
Daniel Dennett is a very interesting man. I'm surprised he's considered one of the four horseman, because he seems so calm and peaceful about his beliefs. New atheism is quite the opposite
Atheism in general is just defined as the lack of positive belief in a god or gods. That’s it. Anything else is just personal opinion
Rookmations well said. And spot on! Good job
That reminds me of the saying, “It’s only called a class war with the poor fight back”. Religion has always been at war with atheists so the idea that new atheists have started something is ridiculous.
I think after Hitchens passed the movement chilled out a bit. I wasn't a big fan of his war mongering.
@@franklinbarrett4630 Wish I could give this 100 thumbs up. If you look at any major religion's scriptures, you'll find extreme condemnation and vitriol directed at non-believers.
I was expecting something more complex or original. So basic, heard all this a million times.
We all agree evil exists like rape, murders, genocides, Abusing innocent Children etc. If evil exists, then good must exist. For good to exist there must be morals and freewill where one is able to choose right over wrong. For Morals to exist there must be a moral giver. GOD
Dennett looks like Charles Darwin
Believer would say well Gog hasn't written a holy book like God has.
The argument from preservation of free will is trivially easy to disprove.
Q: Is there evil in Heaven? A: No, evil is not allowed in Heaven; that's why the unredeemed are not granted entry to Heaven.
Q: Is there free will in Heaven? A: Yes, otherwise the angels would not have been able to revolt against Yahweh.
Therefore, free will can exist where evil is not permitted.
+John Smith Still a contradiction. If the angels revolted, and this is seen as evil then evil does exist in heaven. Both cannot be simultaneously true...
+John Smith
Thank you for illustrating the inherent contradiction in your claim.
How do you resolve the contradiction?
IF it is seen as evil. You can't just add bits to the story to refute an inconvenient conclusion.AlchemistOfNirnroot
Free will can't exist with an all knowing god. If everything is known then every choice has already been made and no free will.
Not if the god is all knowing. If everything is known then every choice has already been made and there is no free will.
I tend to agree with Dennett, but I think his “Gog” thought experiment slightly overstates our position as atheists. Strictly, Ockham’s rasor tells us that we have no reason to posit “Gog”, not that we should assume “Gog” does not exist. That we *do* tend to disbelieve in “Gog”, if we do, is not due to Ockham’s razor, but to (roughly) Bayesian thinking: thermodynamics tells us that order does not tend to arise spontaneously in closed systems, and we cannot imagine agents or natural processes that would create “Gog”, so we assume that it probably does not exist. There is a disanalogy here. What “priors” do we have about God that are (I) supported by experience; (ii) nearly as compelling as those that lead us to reject “Gog” as unlikely to exist?
It’s easy enough to argue that belief in God is not justified without having to overstate the case.
i love smart santa!
If you're in his naughty list you receive a king James bible. As useful as charcoal.😁
An argument for the existence of God...
If God created everything, where did God come from or who created God?
This question is where logic stops being useful, for it attempts to understand infinity and limit and it just bounces between these two concepts as it rejects one and seems to only have the other as the only answer and they both do not seem to make sense. Let's try it:
Take any theory that attempts to tackle the where did it all start at, you have our present, you have the past all the way up to but excluding the beginning point and then the beginning point. All the theories that attempt to explain it all start with some basic point who is not a super natural ineligient designer. So, where did that basic point come from? Who made that basic point? How do we account for the obvious intelligent design that is evident everywhere? Let's try God as that beginning point vs all other possible theories that attempt to explain it all:
God created everything (the beginning point is a super natural intelligent designer who we do not completely understand ) we can ask who made him, to which the only answer is infinite regression, our mind rejects it, and sends us to limit (God as that limit; that beginning point), our mind bugs us again... but where did God come from? So, with God as the beginning point i have a limit that i do not understand how it came to be, but it answers who the designer is. With every other possible theory that does not have a supernatural intelligent designer as its beginning point we have a basic beginning point and design by chance/accident. Did a building just came to be, no desiner? How about the car you drive, it just happened by chance? No designer?The various systems in the human body, no designer?
I think the argument for evil is the weakest argument against the existence of God.. if one considers any of the events of Nature as "evil".. they are on an infinite regress of judgements against nature that is based on some ideal of what "ought to be" rather than what truly and naturally is..
just like faith..
+Akili Alexander It's not an argument against all gods. But it is an argument against an all powerfull, all knowing, all good god.
Pyriold Wether plural or singular.. the same problem applies.. an argument against evil is entirely subjective.. not only because the relativity of what can be considered evil between us humans.. but also because if an all powerful loving and good, yet incomprehensible God truly does exists.. why should we expect to be able to understand what is evil in its eyes?
is the workings of humans understood by ants? no.. so why should we expect to understand the Mind of God..if it does exists.. our morality merely approximates to its Nature.. insofar as this God can be objectively understood...
Look, i understand that this argumenting is just like discussing the color of lord voldemorts panties. We do not *know* anything about any god, there are just believes. All we can do is checking those believes for consistencies, from our human point of view. That's what i did. You can not assume the view point of a god. Arguing from that perspective makes every discussion about it totally futile.
Btw.: This is just like the standard excuse from theists, "god works in mysterious ways". Well, sure... but then you don't need to pray to him, because you have no idea what his judgement of your praying is.
I don't think you are a theist, it just strikes me as the same way of arguing.
Pyriold Very few claim to *know* things about God, like one would know empirical facts.. What theists often do.. is reason concerning the philosophical implications of one's beliefs.. Hence why Atheists are quite out of date when it comes to theistic arguments, just like most Theists are out of date when it comes to arguing theories in Science...
Fact of the matter is, Theists form sects based on the philosophical implications of their theologies.. Just because atheists like Daniel Dennet argues as an outsider against their claims, which is often filled with Straw men because they don't understand Theistic Epistemology.. doesn't make the "mystery of God" a mystery to the people who form beliefs about such symbols/objects/entities...
Well, i don't need to study all the intricacies of astrology to know that it is all hogwash. All i need to know is that the basic assumptions are not supported by evidence. Same with religion and theistic epistemology.
I've never understood the "if God is all good and all powerful than evil disproves his existence." argument. this has major assumptions inherent in the argument including the fact that evil and struggle are not part of an all good Gods purpose. all proponents of Christianity for example have a plethora of reasons why evil and struggle are essential parts of the purpose of God. I'm sure the other religions have very well thought out answers as well.
The god character talks to preachers and tells them they need a new private jet.
You can't blame God for the work of false preachers. Just like I can't blame your grand parents for that ignorant comment you just made
Fallacy of exclusion.
@@lexyasimplename1479 Newsflash: all preachers are false. It's an oxymoron to to say otherwise.
@@FactStorm So your way is to generalise?
Not all preachers are false. Some genuinely want to spread the Gospel of God, so please don't generalise
@@lexyasimplename1479 Yes they are all false because they claim to know things no human is capable of knowing. If that's not arrogant then I don't know what is. They have the audacity to pass it off as meek and humble but its the furthest thing from.
Claiming to have access to the supernatural is the epitome of delusional-narcissism.
Spread the gospel of god? And who's to say what that is? Christians claim it is theirs, and even within its Mormons, Orthodox etc..let alone competing religions which make parallel claims.
It's like dealing with a bunch of children who never grew up.
About evil, how can we know what others are feeling when we say that 'evil' is happening to them. Everyone can have different strengths of taking different situations. what you cannot bear, may be bearable to someone else.
Evil isnt a thing, its just a word people use for bad and harmfull things.
Islam will give you the proof bro
No it won't, not even close. You are just another indoctrinated religious person.
@@FactStorm well religion is better option than stupid irreligious like u
@@jamespottex5197 Lmao, you're either a kid or a really stupid adult.
thanks again DANIEL.
Look at Paramahansa Yogananda
Like the way Dennett doesn't really take the proposition seriously, unlike the way he speaks about consciousness.
The best argument for atheism is THE COLLECTION PLATE.
The best argument for atheism is the complete failure of theists fullfilling the burden of proof on their claim.
Actually a collection plate has nothing to do with theism. That is a specific religion
I believe in goodness and atheism at the same time yes both ways.
how do you know what is goodnes?
@Kitalia the kitsune someones cokmon sense can be murder
@@lawmaker22 How do you not know what goodness is? It stoning adulterers goodness?
@@philscott3759 i dont know, maybe yes oh those people are hitler and stalin
@@lawmaker22 Maybe stoning adulterers is good, you say? I see.....
Interesting. An emerging view is being added to the theist/atheist/agnostic triad: non-theism, meaning the deity idea is so undefined it is meaningless.
Or perhaps it's so far beyond the mere rationality of ape brains, it's not accessible to the processes humans have invented
This position is called igtheism. Non-theism would be a blanketing term to refer to both atheists and agnostics --- anybody who does not hold the position that God exists.
@@nullscreen - Thanks. Will add it to my vocabulary, although many will not understand it. I believe non-theism works as an adjective as in non-theistic Christainity or Judaism, both of which have adherents... and then there's Messianic Judaism..
A statistical impossibility is defined as “a probability that is so low as to not be worthy of mentioning. Sometimes it is quoted as 1/10^50 although the cutoff is inherently arbitrary. Although not truly impossible the probability is low enough so as to not bear mention in a Rational, Reasonable argument." (*The probability of finding one particular atom out of all of the atoms in the universe has been estimated to be 1/10^80.) The probability of a functional 150 amino acid protein chain forming by chance is 1/10^164. It has been calculated that the probability of DNA forming by chance is 1/10^119,000. The probability of random chance protein-protein linkages in a cell is 1/10^79,000,000,000. Based on just these three cellular components, it would be far more Rational and Reasonable to conclude that the cell was not formed by undirected random natural processes. Note: Abiogenesis Hypothesis posits that undirected random natural processes, i.e. random chance formation, of molecules led to living organisms. Natural selection has no effect on individual atoms and molecules on the micro scale in a prebiotic environment. (*For reference, peptides/proteins can vary in size from 3 amino acid chains to 34,000 amino acid chains. Some scientists consider 300-400 amino acid protein chains to be the average size. There are 42,000,000 protein molecules in just one (1) simple cell, each protein requiring precise assembly. There are approx. 30,000,000,000,000 cells in the human body.)
Of all the physical laws and constants, just the Cosmological Constant alone is tuned to a level of 1/10^120. Therefore, in the fine-tuning argument, it would be more Rational and Reasonable to conclude that the multi-verse is not the correct answer. On the other hand, it has been scientifically proven numerous times that Consciousness does indeed collapse the wave function to cause information waves of probability to become particle/matter with 1/1 probability. A rational and reasonable person could therefore conclude that the answer is consciousness.
A "Miracle" is considered to be an event with a probability of occurrence of 1/10^6. Abiogenesis, RNA World Hypothesis, and Multiverse would all far, far, far exceed any "Miracle". Yet, these extremely irrational and unreasonable hypotheses are what many of the world’s top scientists ‘must’ believe in because of a prior commitment to a purely arbitrary, subjective, materialistic ideology.
Every idea, number, concept, thought, theory, mathematical equation, abstraction, qualia, etc. existing within and expressed by anyone is "Immaterial" or "Non-material". The very idea or concept of "Materialism" is an immaterial entity and by it's own definition does not exist. Modern science seems to be stuck in archaic subjective ideologies that have inadequately attempted to define the "nature of reality" or the "reality of nature" for millennia. A Paradigm Shift in ‘Science’ is needed for humanity to advance. A major part of this Science Paradigm Shift would be the formal acknowledgment by the scientific community of the existence of "Immaterial" or "Non-material" entities as verified and confirmed by discoveries in Quantum Physics.
What is the probability for a deity to occur?
Information doesn't create the cosmos. Information waves are the fabric of the cosmos. And, as demonstrated with the famous double slit experiment, a conscious observer converts those information waves of potentiality / probability into "particle", "matter", or "cosmos". The Prime Observer creates the Cosmos. Matter cannot exist without physical laws and constants first existing. Physical laws and constants cannot exist without mind / consciousness / intelligence first existing. Mind / consciousness / intelligence is Prime. Mind Exists Before Matter.
@@moses777exodus _"Mind Exists Before Matter."_
Do you have any verifiable evidence that this is true?
@The Real Cat of 2020 Atheists Believe in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything. nothing can’t create something (the universe had an initial cause- Its unscientific otherwise) When we see a building how we know there was a builder? Well a building can’t build itself in the same way a book can’t write itself and scientists call DNA the book of life which has instructions on how to make an eye, legs, ears, senses etc. Also, we all have a conscience knowing good from evil it is universal that lying, stealing, killing is wrong this conscience is God given since we are made in his image and likeness (animals do not have a conscience). Also, Just because you can’t see God doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. Can you see Love (no but you can feel it) Can you see gravity (no but you can feel it)
@@hmgrraarrpffrzz9763 We all agree evil exists like rape, murders, genocides, Abusing innocent Children etc. If evil exists, then good must exist. For good to exist there must be morals and freewill where one is able to choose right over wrong. For Morals to exist there must be a moral giver. GOD
Hey Dan, what justifies your faith in Truth. “Burden of proof” applies to material claims.
WOW
David Bentley Hart was correct on this program when he highlighted the reality that 99% of arguments for atheism are ridiculously bad, and that the list of somewhat competent atheist philosophers is an exceedingly small one.
Don’t understand why the interview format is this way, professor Dennett twisting his neck through the whole affair? Richard Dawkins conducted one in similar fashion.
Does anyone know why it is done this way? and in church?
It's pride and sin in general that keeps people from God. Not logic, intellect and Science. The Bible literally says that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble .
If jesus was a lion of juhdah...
Then who was his dah?
The problem I have is that I CANT believe. I’ve tried but I cannot. It doesn’t make any sense.
Do you have a valid reason why you don't believe or is it just a feeling?
@@godbeIess it’s impossible for me to believe that there is a person up in the sky who keeps track of everyone and loves us all but let’s children die in pain. He lets people be tortured and murdered. Cannot believe that. He’s supposed to be omnipotent and omnipresent. Why does he let this happen? Because there is NO GOD!
@@kathyorourke9273 so you have a valid reason. I also have a valid reason, insufficient evidence a god exists. We play on the same team.
Occasionally I ask atheists why they don't believe and they say it just does not make sense. To me, that falls short of the mark.
1) There's something very dissatisfying about "burden of proof" arguments. "What reason do we have to believe?" is enough reason to be skeptical-- agnostic-- but not enough reason to deny. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 2) Arguments against a benevolent god are not the same things as arguments for atheism. God does not have to be benevolent. They are separate issues.
The concept of god or monotheism is predicated in an all-loving being. Refute that and you basically refute god because the concept of god is not just an ordinary creator.
It's "dissatisfying" because you want ro keep believing your fantasy. Cognitive dissonance
@@spuriusscapula4829 No u: You accuse me of motivated reasoning because of your own motivated reasoning.
Now, I very well may be wrong about that. After all, I have no evidence to support the claim. You are just some person on UA-cam that I've never met. But people are vulnerable to motivated reasoning, and maybe I got lucky even without justification for the claim. Yet even if I got it right, what purpose does it serve for me to say that, other than to maybe make me feel better about myself? So I apologize for my leading sentence: I take back what I said. I had no justification to say it. Maybe I was having a bad day, we all do.
I am an atheist. I believe in most of Dennett's *conclusions* even if I don't believe in his reasoning. I'm not usually going to offer that in conversations like tihs, because my conclusions are irrelevant to my reasoning: when I do it right, my conclusions follow from my reasoning, not vice versa. Yet, humans have various cognitive flaws, like tribalism, like confirmation bias-- I believe we're all vulnerable to those-- and I don't want to do anything to support those flaws. I want people to accept or reject my reasoning on the basis of the reasoning, not on the basis of the conclusions that I reach, not on the basis of any shared cultural identity.
Burden of proof is one of those things that seems to change whenever we travel in time or space. If we travel 1000 years in the past, we'll find philosophers telling us that the burden of proof lies on atheists, because God is so obvious. We could even stay in our own time and travel around the world and hear the same thing. Concepts like burden of proof imagine their own God, the God of Method, where burden of proof is something objectively true, rather than something that exists only in our minds. We can argue all day about where the burden of proof lies and never get anywhere; we can never find a trustworthy authority to tell us exactly where it lies. Somehow, consistently, when we raise the issue, we each find that it lies on the person that disagrees with us. That is what I find dissatisfying.
@@MsNathanv @bandages my bad I made that assumption. And I will try to distance myself from my motivated reasoning. I understand your point of view.
The arguments for me always have to start with what even "God" means.
And it always boils down to the sheer lack of necessity for any such belief. Absence of evidence might not be evidence of absence, but I could conjure up an infinite amount of imaginary concepts with zero basis in reality, and of we go by that reasoning for all of those concepts, we will remain stuck in a loop of disproving all of them. We could also say, "let those beliefs be", and remain stuck in a pseudo-philosophical limbo. But in that case what would be the point? If we don't allow ideas to clash then there is no progress.
@@spuriusscapula4829 I can understand that. But we're either lost or not lost, and no rules we invent will move us from the first category to the second; if we're stuck in limbo, isn't it better to acknowledge that than to deny it? When we can posit a million imaginary possibilities and cannot decide between them except in a dissatisfyingly arbitrary fashion, then so be it, because there's no rule that we have to know everything or even anything. If Socrates was wiser than most men, after all, it was because he did not imagine that he knew what he did not know.
Why did Dan stay so quiet during that whole four horseman thing (at least with respect to the other three)? He was the only one consistently worth listening to.
The only thing that gives Daniel Dennett name recognition is that he is the author of popular books. Otherwise, there is nothing to distinguish him from any other philosophy professor. And, we would hope for a better "argument for atheism" coming from a "world-class" expert. Instead, Dennett gives us the same explanation that any college freshman might give us in a dormitory bull session, after a few beers.
Yeah ,he only give good reason to be a non believer ,rather than destroyed or severely diminished the notion of the possibility that God existing and sustaining all things and beings.
The possibility God exists as advertised cannot be demonstrated false.
The "physical world/universe" exists, in large part, due to duality and the interaction and balance of these opposing forces. Light v Dark; North v South, Positive v Negative; Right v Wrong, Yin v Yang, Good v Evil, Up v Down, True v False, Male v Female, Hot v Cold, Wave v Particle, etc. is observed to be interwoven within the fabric of the "physical world/universe". This scientifically confirmed property of the physical world/universe does not preclude the existence of a Prime Observer/Cause.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
@@thereisnonegoodbutgodjohn363 There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His Messenger
@@zhess4096 Ok. In Islam you pay for your own sins in Christianity Jesus does but you must repent.
In Mark 10:45, Jesus declares: "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." His disciple John later said that "he appeared so that he might take away our sins" (1 John 3:5).
Qur’an 35:18-And no bearer of burdens shall bear another's burden, and if one heavily laden calls another to (bear) his load, nothing of it will be lifted even though he be near of kin.
Qur’an 29:12-13-And those who disbelieve say to those who believe: “Follow our way and we will verily bear your sins,” never will they bear anything of their sins. Surely, they are liars. And verily, they shall bear their own loads, and other loads besides their own, and verily, they shall be questioned on the Day of Resurrection about that which they used to fabricate.
One verse says we shall not bear others burdens but another says we shall bear other loads on top of ours so which one is it? What about Christians and Jews burning in hell for the sins of Muslims
Sahih Muslim 6668-Abu Burda reported Allah’s Messenger as saying: There would come people amongst the Muslims on the Day of Resurrection with as heavy sins as a mountain, and Allah would forgive them and He would place in their stead the Jews and the Christians.
Omnipotent/all-powerful doesn't mean that you control everything and everybody. It means that you COULD control everything if you wanted to.
Evil means no God?I never understood why if God existed why couldn't evil still exist,just cause we dont understand why evil exists doest mean God still couldn't exist.
We need to start making the world a better place. If God exist he will help us. If not we will help ourselves.
Looks like we’re helping ourselves!
😱No god...😭😭😭😭.
If there's god,God, why didn't God save people from Covid-19?
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏✌🏼✌🏼✌🏼✌🏼
Kids dying of cancer, world hunger etc This is because we live in a fallen world full of sin.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
@@thereisnonegoodbutgodjohn363 Did you get this information from a divine being or some guy in a fancy hat?
@@jeil5676 God through the Holy Spirit has shown me several things relating to the afterlife with the purpose of convincing people like yourself. Stuff like Heaven and Hell, Angels, ,evil Spirits, the Lord Jesus (not worthy at all), a miracle happened to me that saved my life (thank you God) & so much more. I am more than happy to give further details.
Even if you could actually PROVE the existence of a Creator-god it wouldn't make any difference as we'd still be left with this same rotten world. Anyway does anyone know if Dennett is still around and if so how's he doing?
There is no positive arguments for numbers kiddo
Dont jump to conclusions and God fades away.
The opposite is true. The atheist jumps to the conclusion that there is no God without proof and in the face of the evidence. The theist can listen to science and reason to the conclude that there must be an immensely intelligent and powerful agent outside of the universe.
@@bridgefin For something to disprove you first need to prove if that exist in first and there's not single evidence of god being existed. :)
Live and then disappear. So why do atheist argue if it does not matter?
I don't think Denett ever debated a Thomas or read any serious metaphysics... Go check "the reality of God and the problem of evil" by B Davies for instance.
Well please explain who put the firmament there that encloses a geocentric earth?
The problem of evil is an interesting topic but not the topic. The topic is does God exist, not is he good in what we define today as good.
Technically you can say if God find suffering good that suffering is good then.Or that he is in a spinozist way neutral, there is no evil and good.
This is all a second debate, not about atheism or theism.
Judgement Day for the non-Christian will be the worst experience imaginable. You will be tried and found guilty of crimes such as lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, lusting, disrespecting parents etc Your life will be played back to you and ALL your sins revealed. Many will run to their good works to save them like charitable deeds, Fasting, being kind to others; but that won’t help. If you break man’s law you go to jail, If you break Gods law you go to Hell. But Jesus came and paid your penalty on the cross If you only Repent and Believe in Jesus than God can grant you forgiveness of sins and let you into Heaven because of JESUS LOVE.
"God" does not exist as a belief because of it's explanatory value regarding the universe. People simply believe it exists because that was what they were taught since they were little. Nobody ever believed in it who wasn't told that it was so by someone else first, even if it required some form of "transcendent experience" to finally convince them.
Atheism comes about exactly because of the lack of coherent explanatory value of "God" and the mystical.
Argument for atheism: God is so powerful, he need not exist in order to save us.
Yeah there are some irrefutable arguments against the existence of an all powerful, all loving god, but…..
You cannot prove something doesn't exist, you can only argue that things may exist in science. If enough credible people decide it may exist, we say it does, tentatively.
I can prove that I do not not exist because I exist.
you will NEVER see an Atheist and Satanist Arguing because we are both Mutuals
Thank you Mr. Dennet for bringing some realism to this argument and to this host who has had a number of religious proponents on that ge has let skate with dubious and fallacious arguments against new atheism!!
Is it like something to be Dan Dennett? The more I hear about his theory of consciousness, the more I think he has no actual experiences. His brain just processes information and spits out behavior, but it all happens in the dark.
Or he has some sort of qualia blindness--i.e. He sees, hears, feels, etc. things, and he responds to those sensations just like anyone else...but he somehow fails to notice the qualitative aspects of those things, kind of like the phenomenon of "blindsight".
Or he's just so dogmatic with his materialism that he's managed to talk himself into the silliest delusion in human history--he's convinced himself that he doesn't REALLY have any experiences.
I mean...I'm an atheist too, but how can anyone say that experiences don't REALLY exist? Why can't we just accept that there's something a bit "supernatural" (i.e. non-physical) about subjective, first-person experiences, not to mention the purely qualitative contents of those experiences?
How do you get purely qualitative experiences like the redness of red, or the pain of stubbing your toe from purely quantitative physical science? If it's possible to get those things quantitatively, then what's the mathematical description of the redness of red?
C'mon, dude...
That's not a very fair assessment of his views. In some sense, you are begging the question against him when you say things like "How do you get purely qualitative experiences like the redness of red, or the pain of stubbing your toe from purely quantitative physical science?" The whole idea is that this is an incorrect way of framing the issue. He isn't saying experiences don't "really" exist. He is saying they don't exist as qualia, as distinct properties, that there are no "facts about red" on the one hand and "the pure experience of redness" on the other. It's kind of analogous to the relationship between philosophy and motion. The ancient Greeks and later Medievals just simply lacked the conceptual and linguistic tools to understand and describe how things move and change. Our current understanding of consciousness could very well be so primitive. Indeed, it would be expected if one appreciates the full history of ideas.
The lesson to be learned here is that we need to keep an open mind. Dennett is a serious philosopher and represents a perspective on consciousness that's taken seriously by plenty of other people in philosophy and the cognitive sciences. It's not a fringe view. This very well could be a dissolvable issue. And it's not dogmatic to hold-out for materialistic explanations of things. There are good epistemological and practical reasons to look keep looking in that direction.
Today I heard this comment - the illusion or appearance of design in our existence. What does that mean ? When we can see intelligent design in creation ( and we do ) then where is the argument ? You're running from truth to say it's just an illusion ! Man up ! 🙈🙊🙉
I can never understand the position that evil has to be explained. It's entirely obvious to me that evil is just a concept made up by humans. Evil, love, hate, good are just human inventions.
The moment you posit "the good" then by that very act, you also have to also posit its opposite, "evil," just as when you posit something as warm, you need to contrast it with something known to be not warm. So the fact of evil in no way discounts the existence of the "good" or even of a good God. It merely has to be explained in another way. As for human suffering -- the Judeo-Christian belief is that it is "redemptive" in nature, in which case, it is actually a "good," given the context of eternal life.
All in all you believe in a higher power...
No, I really dont. To do so, you first need a scale. Is a cow higher than an ant? Apples and oranges.
The vaguest thing ever..we're left at square one.
Theology is an absolute joke.
Philosophy on the other hand is interesting - it's all about open-minded questions.
Religion on the other hand is all about dogma and presupposition.
Philosophy: questions that may never be answered.
Religion: answers that may never be questioned.
@@thevulture5750 That's honesty, unlike the psychotic theists who claim to know everything and cannot back it up with evidence.
I still don't understand the "problem" of evil. It's just a word like red or tall or big. What is this evil? Flooding, famines, disease? These are just natural occurrences. I would guess evil is just a humans description of an undesired circumstance or outcome but that's only from the human point of view. Evil, good, loce, hate have no more tangible existence than a god.
Richard Wyant this is the comment I’ve been looking for! EVIL and GOOD are mere constructs , relative to the only absolute of existence... experience.
Evil entails agency and malicious intent.
Are floods and earthquakes and volcanoes evil?
How about a parasitic wasp?