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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to my channel Vice Rhino. Here today,
Speaker 2: I'm doing another one of those videos where I respond
Speaker 2: to a bunch of questions for atheists posed by several TikTokers.
Speaker 2: I know it's low hanging fruit, but it's such good fun,
Speaker 2: so let's go.
Speaker 3: I've got two questions for you if you're an atheist.
Speaker 3: My first question is if there are no arguments for atheism,
Speaker 3: no good arguments. I mean, they're all really kind of
Speaker 3: parasitical on Christianity and theistic arguments.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess atheism is me saying I don't
Speaker 2: believe you when you say that there's a God. The
Speaker 2: atheist arguments come up when you ask why I don't
Speaker 2: believe in your God. If you just stop trying and
Speaker 2: convince people that you're right, then we won't need to
Speaker 2: explain why we don't think you are anymore. So, while
Speaker 2: I feel that your use of the word parasitical was
Speaker 2: meant as a bit of a jab, it is true
Speaker 2: that if nobody was arguing for the existence of God,
Speaker 2: nobody would be responding to those arguments with explanations as
Speaker 2: to why they are unconvincing.
Speaker 4: And especially if you take the route that atheism, which
Speaker 4: I disagree with, is there's a lack of belief, so
Speaker 4: it's just kind of like a neutral position. I think
Speaker 4: that's like gnocissism, but let's go with it.
Speaker 2: Hey, fun fact, you don't get to define how other
Speaker 2: people use their labels. I could say that I don't
Speaker 2: think you can be a Christian while wearing a hat
Speaker 2: like that, and my saying that does nothing to change
Speaker 2: the fact that you still consider yourself a Christian despite
Speaker 2: the hat.
Speaker 4: If you think that there are no good arguments for atheism,
Speaker 4: then why are you an atheists?
Speaker 2: I'm an atheist because I found Christianity to be severely lacking,
Speaker 2: and I haven't seen any good reason to believe in
Speaker 2: any other gods, so I didn't convert to any of
Speaker 2: those other religions when I left Christianity, you don't have.
Speaker 4: Any arguments for atheism, then it would seem unreasonable to
Speaker 4: be an atheist.
Speaker 2: There are no good arguments for a lack of belief
Speaker 2: in gay unicorn Gary, the all powerful creator of everything,
Speaker 2: who's given everyone a desire to participate in a gay orgy,
Speaker 2: which some people deny in their unrighteousness. So why are
Speaker 2: you a Gary denier? Don't you find that unreasonable?
Speaker 4: My second question is why would you be agnostic considering
Speaker 4: that that would also be unreasonable If you think about
Speaker 4: Pascal's wager, the idea that, well, you have to wager,
Speaker 4: you can't just not wager, and if you choose not
Speaker 4: to wager, that's a wager in and of itself. To
Speaker 4: be neutral, to make no choice whatsoever is to make
Speaker 4: a choice for eternity.
Speaker 2: Well, he did a shit job of planning it, so
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take a crack at it here. Pascal's wager,
Speaker 2: for those who are unfamiliar, is essentially the idea that
Speaker 2: when choosing between Christianity and atheism, you should choose Christianity
Speaker 2: because if Christianity is true, the reward is great and
Speaker 2: the downside is horrific. Well, if atheism is true, the
Speaker 2: reward is negligible, and the downside is also negligible. There
Speaker 2: are a few problems with it. First, and foremost, you
Speaker 2: cannot choose your beliefs. If you think otherwise, then I
Speaker 2: suggest you try to make yourself believe in gay unicorn.
Speaker 2: Gary Pascal's solution for that was essentially to fake it
Speaker 2: till you make it, But I feel like an omniscient
Speaker 2: God would know if I was just faking, so it
Speaker 2: wouldn't actually work. Second, Christianity has requirements for your life
Speaker 2: which can be incredibly burdensome, so to live in accordance
Speaker 2: with those requirements if atheism is true, could actually be
Speaker 2: a rather large downside, especially if you are someone who
Speaker 2: has been victimized by the church or are LGBTQ. Many
Speaker 2: Christian denominations would say you can't go to heaven if
Speaker 2: you're LGBTQ, So you have to suppress an important part
Speaker 2: of who you are as a person for your entire
Speaker 2: life in order to get the good Christian outcome. But
Speaker 2: if atheism is true, you have now made your one
Speaker 2: and only life a life of pain and misery for nothing. Third,
Speaker 2: the wager assumes that the choice is a binary it's
Speaker 2: either Christianity or atheism. But what if Islam is true,
Speaker 2: for example, then you live your life as a Christian
Speaker 2: only to wind up in Muslim hell for eternity. If
Speaker 2: either of them are true, then at least the atheists
Speaker 2: got to enjoy their one life. And honestly, there are
Speaker 2: a number of religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, whose
Speaker 2: afterlives reward you for being a good person in this life,
Speaker 2: not for being a member of their religion. These types
Speaker 2: of religions often come with an analog to hell that is,
Speaker 2: a temporary punishment proportionate to whatever bad things you did
Speaker 2: in your life, which honestly seems like a way better
Speaker 2: system than the Christian one. If those ones are true,
Speaker 2: then as an atheist, I get to live my life
Speaker 2: in a way that I find fulfilling without worrying about
Speaker 2: whether or not my cotton polyester blended T shirt is sinful,
Speaker 2: And as long as I was good to my fellow
Speaker 2: human beings, I don't wind up suffering for an eternity
Speaker 2: simply because I wasn't a member of the correct religion.
Speaker 2: And that's without even getting into these sometimes mutually exclusive
Speaker 2: versions of Christianity. There are denominations that believe that every
Speaker 2: member of every other denomination are doomed to hell. So
Speaker 2: how do I choose a denomination? Then if I choose
Speaker 2: the wrong one, I might still wind up in hell,
Speaker 2: even if Christianity is true and God doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: be open to clarification. So the way I see it,
Speaker 2: I may as well live how I want and not
Speaker 2: worry about the afterlife.
Speaker 4: So this would show that agnosticism itself is unreasonable, right
Speaker 4: I forgot?
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, Pascal's wager does not render atheism or agnosticism
Speaker 2: unreasonable unless you ignore the existence of non Christian religions
Speaker 2: and mutually exclusive Christian denominations, as well as all the
Speaker 2: other stuff I said earlier. Hey atheists, I have a question.
Speaker 5: So you believe the universe is a coincidence and without
Speaker 5: a creator.
Speaker 2: Not a fan of the word coincidence, but yes, our
Speaker 2: knowledge of the beginning of the universe does not indicate
Speaker 2: a creator at this time.
Speaker 6: But can this simple food be without a chef?
Speaker 2: T does that?
Speaker 6: What?
Speaker 2: Yes, it can be without a chef because chef is
Speaker 2: a term that is applied to the person at the
Speaker 2: restaurant who is in charge of the menu, coming up
Speaker 2: with the various recipes that they will serve along with
Speaker 2: several mangerial duties. Those appear to be French fries, which
Speaker 2: I can prepare at home, despite being only a moderately
Speaker 2: decent cook. But I suppose that the point you're getting
Speaker 2: at is that someone had to prepare them, whatever title
Speaker 2: that someone may hold. But if we expand the scope
Speaker 2: of this conversation, talk about food in general rather than
Speaker 2: that specific food item, there is plenty that you can
Speaker 2: forage in nature that can be eaten raw and without
Speaker 2: any sort of prep So no, you do not need
Speaker 2: a chef or a cook to prepare food if you
Speaker 2: know where to look.
Speaker 3: Your question for the atheist, oh, what event led you
Speaker 3: to believing that there is noga?
Speaker 2: In my case, it was more of a process than
Speaker 2: a single event. It started with me noticing an error
Speaker 2: in the Bible. In Matthew two too, when the magi
Speaker 2: are looking for Jesus, they say that they were in
Speaker 2: the east. They saw his star in the east and
Speaker 2: followed it, leading them west. This is extremely minor as
Speaker 2: far as Bible airs go. There are plenty of interpretations
Speaker 2: that are quite reasonable and handle it quite nicely. It
Speaker 2: could be that when it says they saw the star
Speaker 2: in the east, that is referring to where they were,
Speaker 2: not where the star was. I was over there and
Speaker 2: I saw a star over there, and it led me
Speaker 2: over here. It could be that they weren't following it
Speaker 2: in a literal sense. They could have been astrologers. They
Speaker 2: read the stars, and their reading sent them west. Though
Speaker 2: admittedly this one does run into a problem when in
Speaker 2: verse nine it says that the star went before them
Speaker 2: and stopped over the place where Jesus was, making this
Speaker 2: look like it is a literal follow that light in
Speaker 2: the sky type of thing. Another possibility comes in the
Speaker 2: form of an alternate translation. The words that were translated
Speaker 2: as in the east could also mean when it rose, So,
Speaker 2: since this is a magical traveling star, God could have
Speaker 2: made it rise in the west, thus leading them westward.
Speaker 2: So yeah, not really a big deal, but it shook
Speaker 2: my conviction of the inerranci of scripture, leaving me open
Speaker 2: to noticing other potential problems. And once those doors were open,
Speaker 2: they couldn't be shut. If you're curious about the full
Speaker 2: story of how I became an atheist, I'll leave a
Speaker 2: link to that video.
Speaker 7: If you're an atheist, then I have a question for you.
Speaker 7: If Christianity were proven to be true, would you become
Speaker 7: a Christian?
Speaker 2: Maybe that's a hard one to answer. The God of
Speaker 2: the Bible is an immoral monster who does not deserve worship.
Speaker 2: So I would like to say that I'd stick to
Speaker 2: my guns and refuse to worship him. But Hell is
Speaker 2: scary and I don't want to go there, so I
Speaker 2: might pretend to worship him in the hope that eventually
Speaker 2: I'd be able to reach a point of sincerity that
Speaker 2: would allow me into Heaven. But honestly, having to spend
Speaker 2: an eternity worshiping the kind of abuse of monster who
Speaker 2: would make you prostrate yourself for fear of eternal torture
Speaker 2: sounds kind of like hell anyway, so maybe it wouldn't
Speaker 2: be worth it. Ultimately, I don't actually know.
Speaker 7: What i'd do.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 7: If your answer is yes, then what evidence would you
Speaker 7: like to see that would convince you?
Speaker 2: Well, how about we start with the evidence that the
Speaker 2: Bible says should be there. Christians should be able to
Speaker 2: heal people, cast out demons, speak in new languages, be
Speaker 2: immune to poison, and be able to pick up, sir.
Speaker 2: Notice that in this verse, it does not require the
Speaker 2: sick person to be a believer in order to be healed.
Speaker 2: If this verse is correct, then any Christian should be
Speaker 2: able to heal any sick person with the laying on
Speaker 2: of hands. And yet even in the most Christian areas,
Speaker 2: of the most Christian nations of the world, hospitals still exist.
Speaker 2: The only people who seem to be able to do
Speaker 2: any of those signs wind up being exposed as frauds
Speaker 2: a La Peter popoff. Also, the pickup serpents bit is
Speaker 2: kind of weird, like, that's a thing that I can
Speaker 2: do now. I guess the presumption is that they'll be
Speaker 2: immune to their venom, but that's not what it says.
Speaker 2: So I guess my handling of a garter snake that
Speaker 2: I found in my yard the other day makes me
Speaker 2: a true Christian. But yeah, Christians can still be poisoned.
Speaker 2: They can still die from snake bites. There isn't any
Speaker 2: indication that the exorcisms they perform are real. They don't
Speaker 2: miraculously know new languages, and hospitals still exist. So at best,
Speaker 2: here we are one for five on signs that accompany
Speaker 2: those who believe, and the one that you get is
Speaker 2: one that I, a non believer, can also do. The
Speaker 2: signs that the Bible says we'll accompany those who believe
Speaker 2: never actually materialize. There are two options here. The first
Speaker 2: is that nobody today is actually a true Christian. Y'all
Speaker 2: are just a bunch of fakes. And second is that
Speaker 2: the Bible is wrong. And if the Bible is wrong,
Speaker 2: I see no reason to believe that it is the
Speaker 2: word of God.
Speaker 7: But if your answer is no, then that exposes something
Speaker 7: because if you still wouldn't become a Christian even if
Speaker 7: it were proven true, then you don't actually care about
Speaker 7: truth or evidence.
Speaker 2: That's not actually how this works. Is Satan a Christian
Speaker 2: in your view? Because Satan definitely believes in God and Jesus,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't worship them. It is possible to believe
Speaker 2: that a thing exists without also worshiping that thing. In fact,
Speaker 2: that is my relationship with pretty much everything that I
Speaker 2: believe exists. It is a thing that exists, and I
Speaker 2: do not worship it.
Speaker 7: You see, often the reason why people reject Christianity is
Speaker 7: not because of intellectual reasons, but emotional reasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I've been told by Christian apologists. But as
Speaker 2: someone who actually experienced the loss of Christianity for myself,
Speaker 2: I can tell you that I was holding on to
Speaker 2: it for emotional reasons. It was years between my first
Speaker 2: doubts and my actual admission to myself that I had
Speaker 2: become an atheist, and I spent much of that time
Speaker 2: tearfully praying that God would reveal himself to me. When
Speaker 2: I left the church, I lost my entire social group,
Speaker 2: and I had it relatively easy. I know plenty of
Speaker 2: people who ended up divorced or losing family over their deconversion.
Speaker 2: If you only ever talk to apologists, you'll hear that
Speaker 2: most atheists are only atheists because of their emotions. They
Speaker 2: just want to sin, they want to be their own God,
Speaker 2: et cetera. But the story I have heard from atheists
Speaker 2: who are former Christians is almost always the exact opposite
Speaker 2: of that. They actually really wanted to stay Christian, but
Speaker 2: because of that aforementioned thing about how we don't choose
Speaker 2: our beliefs, they wound up as unwilling atheists. Why do
Speaker 2: you think it is that apologists seem incapable of listening
Speaker 2: to the atheists about why they are athis. I propose
Speaker 2: that it's because if the atheists are actually being truthful,
Speaker 2: then it proves Romans one eighteen through twenty wrong and
Speaker 2: the Bible can't possibly be wrong, can it. So every
Speaker 2: single atheist who claims to have wanted to remain a
Speaker 2: Christian must just be lying. Seems like a rather emotional
Speaker 2: reason to believe that.
Speaker 7: Huh, they don't want Christian and it need to be true.
Speaker 2: Not anymore I don't, but twenty five year old me
Speaker 2: was desperate for it to be true.
Speaker 7: And they refuse to submit to God because they choose
Speaker 7: to be their own God instead.
Speaker 2: There it is, we just want to be our own God.
Speaker 2: Never mind that my journey into atheism had me doing
Speaker 2: everything I could to submit to God in a desperate
Speaker 2: attempt to rekindle my faith. I really just wanted to
Speaker 2: be my own God, So I deny the true God
Speaker 2: in my unrighteousness. As so often happens when dealing with apologists,
Speaker 2: you are assuming that you know more about what's going
Speaker 2: on in my inner life than I do.
Speaker 5: The Bible actually never tries to prove God's existence incorrect.
Speaker 2: We literally just read the bit at the end of
Speaker 2: Mark that says that Christians will be able to do
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff as signs signs of what the
Speaker 2: fact that they follow the one true God. It also
Speaker 2: promises repeatedly that if you seek God, you will find Him.
Speaker 2: Not to mention all the Old Testament stories of God
Speaker 2: proving himself against the other gods of the time, The
Speaker 2: Bible makes many attempts to prove it's God to you,
Speaker 2: but y'all have to pretend it doesn't because, as it
Speaker 2: turns out, the things that it says prove God don't
Speaker 2: actually work.
Speaker 5: In fact, the Bible actually says only a fool believes
Speaker 5: there is no God.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's how it is. The Bible doesn't try to
Speaker 2: prove God. It just says that you're an idiot if
Speaker 2: you don't believe in him. I'm not sure how that's
Speaker 2: supposed to be a point in your favor, but eh.
Speaker 5: That you can look out into creation and you can
Speaker 5: easily see there is a God.
Speaker 2: It doesn't try to prove God. It just says that
Speaker 2: such and such a thing is proof of God. Do
Speaker 2: you not see it?
Speaker 5: The Bible doesn't try to prove the existence of God
Speaker 5: because there's a very tough filhophical question that many atheists
Speaker 5: have a hard time answering, and the tough philosophical question
Speaker 5: is this, why is there something rather than nothing?
Speaker 2: I don't know, and neither do you. You just pretend
Speaker 2: to know because your book that says that anyone who
Speaker 2: disagrees with you as an idiot says that God done
Speaker 2: did it.
Speaker 5: The reason there is something rather than nothing means there
Speaker 5: must be a God.
Speaker 2: Why and would whatever logic you use to get there
Speaker 2: not hold regarding God as well? God exists instead of nothing,
Speaker 2: So there is something rather than nothing, so there must
Speaker 2: be a super God.
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 2: Oh, but I forgot y'all define God as existing eternally
Speaker 2: without being created and refuse to justify that definition in
Speaker 2: a way that would actually preclude it from applying to
Speaker 2: whatever came before the Big Bang. So God's a special case.
Speaker 2: If only there were a word for when you plead
Speaker 2: specially like that.
Speaker 5: So the Bible's not arguing to try to prove God's existence.
Speaker 5: What the Bible does is tell us who the God is,
Speaker 5: what he is like, and how we relate to him.
Speaker 2: And if the God of the Bible is the God
Speaker 2: that exists, then he is a genocidal monster who is
Speaker 2: massively self absorbed and I wouldn't want to relate to him.
Speaker 5: And no book better does that than the Book of Genesis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the book where, if it were true, he
Speaker 2: does the biggest genocide in history. Thankfully it's not true.
Speaker 6: Christian here asking a question to all my atheists, have
Speaker 6: you ever considered that? Like, if your belief system is wrong,
Speaker 6: then like there is an eternal punishment unfortunately, Like, if
Speaker 6: you are wrong, I could.
Speaker 2: Ask you that same question. If you are wrong, you
Speaker 2: could wind up in Muslim hell. Have you ever considered that?
Speaker 6: But if we're wrong, the Christians are wrong, and it's
Speaker 6: just like black all of this when you die, then like,
Speaker 6: what do Christians have to lose in what we believe?
Speaker 2: Only the entirety of the one life that you know
Speaker 2: for sure that you get.
Speaker 6: And I know this type of question aggravates a lot
Speaker 6: of people.
Speaker 2: There are two reasons that I can see that would
Speaker 2: make this question aggravating. First is the frustration with the
Speaker 2: christians apparent blindness to the myriad of options that could
Speaker 2: potentially be correct but do not fall into the dichotomy
Speaker 2: of Christianity or atheism. Second is that the first thing
Speaker 2: has been pointed out time and time again, but Christians
Speaker 2: keep asking the same question as though it hasn't been
Speaker 2: well and thoroughly answered to bazillion times already. This isn't
Speaker 2: like the normal philosophical stuff where there will be forever
Speaker 2: arguments about the validity and soundness of some formal argument
Speaker 2: or other. It is a question that is completely answered
Speaker 2: by the mere existence of non Christian religions. But Christians
Speaker 2: continue to think that it's some big showstopper of a
Speaker 2: question for some reason.
Speaker 6: But I do want to bring it up because it's
Speaker 6: a really good and valid question.
Speaker 2: It's really not though. It'd be like going out to
Speaker 2: a restaurant and telling the person you're with that they
Speaker 2: really have to consider the consequences of ordering the salmon
Speaker 2: or ordering nothing. If you order the salmon, you'll leave
Speaker 2: here happy and fulfilled. But if you order nothing, then
Speaker 2: in the end you'll just still be hungry. So you
Speaker 2: may as well order the salmon. But wait a minute,
Speaker 2: what if I order the mushroom rafaoli that is also
Speaker 2: on the menu. I don't understand. If you order the salmon,
Speaker 2: you'll be happy, but if you order nothing, you'll be hungry.
Speaker 2: Why would you choose to order nothing. That's what y'all
Speaker 2: sound like when you keep using Pascal's wager. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 6: And it forces you to think and look at things
Speaker 6: like a little bit more deeply, because I know that
Speaker 6: we don't have to worry about death right now, but
Speaker 6: someday we will.
Speaker 2: Well, I would encourage you to think a little more
Speaker 2: deeply about why you believe what you believe, because ultimately
Speaker 2: you'll regret not agreeing with me after you die. Isn't
Speaker 2: all that convincing of an argument. That's it for this one.
Speaker 2: Today's comment to the Day It comes to us from
Speaker 2: Josh Bunch of letters and Numbers, who says, if evolution
Speaker 2: were true, we should see the genome growing every single generation.
Speaker 2: We don't. Also, we've had bacteria under observation for over
Speaker 2: seventy thousand generations, which equates to millions of years of
Speaker 2: human generations, and they haven't changed at all. There's still bacteria.
Speaker 2: Evolution disproved. Well, Josh, regarding the genome growing, why do
Speaker 2: you think it should grow if evolution were true? There
Speaker 2: really is no reason that I can see for that. Now.
Speaker 2: Certainly there are evolutionary mechanisms that can cause there to
Speaker 2: be more genetic material from one generation.
Speaker 6: To the next.
Speaker 2: Look up polyploidy. Sometime it gets wild in a hurry,
Speaker 2: but there's no real reason to expect that to happen
Speaker 2: for every generation. As to the bacteria, bacteria is in
Speaker 2: classic taxonomy a domain of life. The three domains are bacteria, archaea,
Speaker 2: and Eukaria. To say that they haven't changed because they
Speaker 2: are still bacteria is to say that elephants and mushrooms
Speaker 2: are essentially the same thing, because you know they're both eukaryotes.
Speaker 2: But if you had actually read up on the long
Speaker 2: term Ecoli evolution experiment, which is the experiment I think
Speaker 2: you're referencing here, you'd see that they were documenting evolutionary
Speaker 2: changes in the various strains of E. Coli starting at
Speaker 2: generation two thousand. If you go to their website, there's
Speaker 2: even a handy dandy history graph that you can scroll
Speaker 2: through to read about all the significant changes that happened,
Speaker 2: everything from the evolution of hypermutants that were able to
Speaker 2: much more rapidly adapt to new environments, to the stable
Speaker 2: coexistence of several lineages of Ecali in the same environment,
Speaker 2: to their evolved ability to metabolize citrate in aerobic environments.
Speaker 2: The E. Coli experiment is one of the most interesting
Speaker 2: examples of evolution observed in a lab, so your dismissal
Speaker 2: of it because they are all still bacteria just shows
Speaker 2: that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution even is,
Speaker 2: which likely isn't even your fault. But I would encourage
Speaker 2: you to look beyond creationist sources for your answers, as
Speaker 2: I have found that creationists are shockingly comfortable with lying
Speaker 2: to you. You don't even have to leave Christian sources.
Speaker 2: Read some Biologos articles. They are a great resource for
Speaker 2: scientifically accurate material, and it's an organization run by a
Speaker 2: bunch of Christians dedicated to explaining how science can be
Speaker 2: compatible with the Bible. Thanks for watching. I'll be back
Speaker 2: next Friday with more, but if you need to get
Speaker 2: your Rhyano fix in before then, I live stream with
Speaker 2: service every Wednesday eight thirty Eastern around my other channel,
Speaker 2: the Watering Hole. Thanks to Piper for being my editor,
Speaker 2: and special thanks as always to my patrons who are
Speaker 2: the mushroom ravioli available at the restaurant that is my channel.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to be deliciously ignored by Pascal's Wager.
Speaker 2: You can join us on Patreon for as little as
Speaker 2: a dollar per week over at patreon dot com, slash vice, Tryna,
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Speaker 2: which is also where you'll find links to my other projects.
Speaker 2: If for whatever reason you want to send me stuff,
Speaker 2: my pobox addresses in the description. See you next time.