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Speaker 2: Today's video is brought to you by surf Shark. Hello
Speaker 2: and welcome to my channel Vice Rhino. Here today, I'm
Speaker 2: headed back into the butt of world video Bible school
Speaker 2: and looking at a video called five Reasons Atheism Fails,
Speaker 2: And since I want to make sure my beliefs are
Speaker 2: in line with reality, if atheism fails, then I want
Speaker 2: to know about it.
Speaker 3: So let's take a look.
Speaker 2: First, I should probably clarify that I you did the
Speaker 2: butt thing at the beginning, because it's Kyle Butt and
Speaker 2: he's got a funny last name. Haha, I'm a child
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Speaker 3: Every system of belief or unbelief in the world carries
Speaker 3: with it certain implications that if the belief system is true,
Speaker 3: then those implications must be true.
Speaker 2: As will I don't know that I know enough about
Speaker 2: every possible belief system to be so absolutist about it,
Speaker 2: but caveating aside, yes, I can agree with that. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess you could even universalize it without knowing every
Speaker 2: possible belief system by getting all reductionist. If the atheist
Speaker 2: belief system is true, for instance, then an obvious implication
Speaker 2: of that is that there is no God, and that
Speaker 2: cannot be the case unless atheism is true. But here
Speaker 2: in lies another catch. Many atheists, myself included, would actually
Speaker 2: argue that atheism is not actually a belief system per se.
Speaker 2: Certainly there are atheists that can and do use their
Speaker 2: atheism to inform their belief system, but this is not
Speaker 2: a required part of atheism. Atheism is the answer to
Speaker 2: one single question, do you believe in God? If the
Speaker 2: answer is no, then you're still an atheist, regardless of
Speaker 2: what other belief systems you may hold.
Speaker 3: One way to show the belief system to be flawed
Speaker 3: is to show that the implications are false.
Speaker 2: Yes, if you can show that a God exists, then
Speaker 2: you will have successfully shown atheism to fail. Not sure
Speaker 2: what else could show atheism to be false. I mean,
Speaker 2: pick any topic and you'll find atheists on either side
Speaker 2: of it. Granted, for topics that are highly influenced by religion,
Speaker 2: there is frequently one side that is larger than the other,
Speaker 2: but you can still find them on both sides. Case
Speaker 2: in point, there is an organization called Republican Atheists, atheists
Speaker 2: who actively support the party that is most closely aligned
Speaker 2: with Christian nationalism. I don't know how they square their
Speaker 2: non belief with supporting the party most vocal about wanting
Speaker 2: them to not exist, but there you have it.
Speaker 3: The idea that God doesn't exist implies several ideas that
Speaker 3: can't be true.
Speaker 2: It's not so much that it implies several ideas, it's
Speaker 2: more that it negates the implications put forward by the
Speaker 2: various theistic world views. For instance, when an apologist says
Speaker 2: that it's okay to kill children because God commanded it.
Speaker 2: If there is no God, then the implication there is
Speaker 2: that it is not okay to kill children. But there
Speaker 2: is no atheist command to exterminate believers or whatever, so
Speaker 2: it doesn't really work in the reverse.
Speaker 3: Let's look at five reasons that atheism fails. First, atheism
Speaker 3: implies that human free will doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: Christianity implies that as well. If there is an all knowing,
Speaker 2: all powerful entity who knows everything you are going to
Speaker 2: do in the future, and is also the entity that
Speaker 2: created everything in the first place, then free will cannot exist.
Speaker 2: You cannot make the choices other than the ones that
Speaker 2: this entity already knows that you are going to make. Atheism,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, leaves it as an open question.
Speaker 2: It could be that everything that happens in the universe
Speaker 2: is the result of a causal chain going back to
Speaker 2: the initial state of the universe, where if you knew
Speaker 2: the position and velocity of every single particle at the
Speaker 2: origin of the universe, then you could hypothetically calculate every
Speaker 2: future event in the universe. But it also could be
Speaker 2: that there are some aspects of reality that are truly random,
Speaker 2: thus allowing for multiple potential outcomes given the same inputs,
Speaker 2: leaving open the possibility that we actually do have free will.
Speaker 2: As far as I know, this is still an unanswered
Speaker 2: question either way. The existence or non existence of free
Speaker 2: will is not actually an implication that comes along with atheism.
Speaker 3: Atheistic biologist William Probyne stated naturalistic evolution has clear consequences.
Speaker 3: Human free will is non existent. Renowned atheist Sam Harrish
Speaker 3: wrote an entire book on the subject of human free will,
Speaker 3: and he stated free will is an illusion. Our wills
Speaker 3: simply are not of our own making.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, you can find atheists arguing against free will,
Speaker 2: but you can also find atheist arguing for free will.
Speaker 2: Down to is a question of the nature of reality,
Speaker 2: is it entirely deterministic or not? And we don't have
Speaker 2: a solid answer to this question. But all that's kind
Speaker 2: of beside the point. Anyway. You said that this is
Speaker 2: atheism failing. If I agree that the existence of free
Speaker 2: will means that atheism fails, then what have we accomplished here?
Speaker 2: Until free will is demonstrated to actually be a real
Speaker 2: thing that exists, nothing, Honestly, the same is true of Christians.
Speaker 2: Not all of them believe in free will. Have you
Speaker 2: heard of Calvinism, Kyle? I know, strictly speaking, if you
Speaker 2: ask them, they'll tell you that free will is a thing.
Speaker 2: It's just that without divine intervention, our fallen natures will
Speaker 2: always choose to do evil. So every time someone does
Speaker 2: something not evil, that is God actively intervening to make
Speaker 2: them go against their will. But that feels like a
Speaker 2: distinction without a difference. My point is there are Christians
Speaker 2: on both sides of this issue, just like there are
Speaker 2: atheists on both sides of this issue. So I don't
Speaker 2: know what you even think you're accomplishing here.
Speaker 3: These atheists did me that if free will exists, then
Speaker 3: atheism is false.
Speaker 2: Yes, those particular atheists are of that opinion, or at
Speaker 2: least some of them are. I've seen Kyle take quotes
Speaker 2: out of context before. It wouldn't surprise me at all
Speaker 2: if some of those were actually just additional victims of
Speaker 2: his quote mining, But the point is so insignificant that
Speaker 2: I don't feel the need to check up on every
Speaker 2: quote to make sure it was an accurate representation of
Speaker 2: their beliefs.
Speaker 3: Their solution is to deny human free will. However, the
Speaker 3: fact that you're choosing to watch this video right now
Speaker 3: proves you have free will?
Speaker 2: Does it? If free will is an illusion and my
Speaker 2: choices are ultimately determined by my current position in a
Speaker 2: cascade of physical interactions, then I had no choice but
Speaker 2: to watch this video, and the feeling that I did
Speaker 2: have a choice is an illusion. Just because a choice
Speaker 2: feels like a free one does not mean that it
Speaker 2: is so. Even if I grant your premise, you have
Speaker 2: yet to demonstrate that free will is actually a real thing.
Speaker 3: If humans do have free will by all accounts, atheism
Speaker 3: is false.
Speaker 2: By some accounts. Just because you ignored the accounts that
Speaker 2: disagree with yourclusion doesn't mean that all accounts are in
Speaker 2: agreement with you.
Speaker 3: Second, according to atheism, if humans don't have free will,
Speaker 3: then they can't be held responsible for their actions.
Speaker 2: Counterpoints, If humans don't have free will, then when we
Speaker 2: hold each other accountable for our actions, we don't have
Speaker 2: any choice in the matter, because you know, no free will.
Speaker 3: If atheism is true, there's no such thing as human
Speaker 3: moral responsibility.
Speaker 2: Perhaps, but the illusion of moral responsibility would still be there.
Speaker 2: And it's not like we could do anything differently anyway,
Speaker 2: if you're right, of course, which is not a settled matter.
Speaker 3: Atheistic biologist Jerry Coyn, in a speech titled you Don't
Speaker 3: Have free Will, stated I don't consider myself morally responsible
Speaker 3: because I don't have a choice.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe that's why he contributed to a book edited
Speaker 2: by Lawrence Krauss, long after it became known that Krauss
Speaker 2: is a sex pest, and he deleted his blog post
Speaker 2: explaining that he would dissociate from Kraus in light of
Speaker 2: the credible nature of the allegations, as well as additional
Speaker 2: allegations that Coin was aware of that were not public.
Speaker 2: It's not really relevant here, but I mean, come on,
Speaker 2: if he didn't have free will, then he had no
Speaker 2: choice but to contribute to Kraus's book whining about cancel culture.
Speaker 2: But it's always nice to know that the apologists are
Speaker 2: picking the cream of the crop when it comes to
Speaker 2: actually representing atheists.
Speaker 3: You see, if we don't have a choice, then we
Speaker 3: aren't responsible. But each one of us knows that we
Speaker 3: have felt very real guilt when we've chosen to do
Speaker 3: things that we knew were wrong.
Speaker 2: So far, for points one and two we have I
Speaker 2: feel like the atheist position is wrong. Therefore atheism is wrong.
Speaker 2: He hasn't even stumbled his way up to the argument
Speaker 2: from consequences that this is supposed to be.
Speaker 3: If humans can be held morally responsible for their behavior,
Speaker 3: atheism can't be true.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is still president of the United States. Ergo,
Speaker 2: atheism is true. That's at least as good an argument
Speaker 2: as any he's made.
Speaker 3: Third, according to atheism, real objective moral right and wrong
Speaker 3: can't exist.
Speaker 2: Again, it depends on which atheist you ask. Though at
Speaker 2: least this is a position that I personally hold, so
Speaker 2: it's progress, I guess for me at least.
Speaker 3: Charles Darwin stated that if a person doesn't believe in God,
Speaker 3: he can have for his rule of life, as far
Speaker 3: as I can see, only to follow those impulses and
Speaker 3: instincts which are the strongest, or which seem to him
Speaker 3: the best ones.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and finish that quote. Apologies, it is
Speaker 2: a bit of a lengthy one quote. A dog acts
Speaker 2: in this manner, but he does so blindly. A man,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, looks forwards and backwards and compares
Speaker 2: his various feelings, desires, and recollections. He then finds, in
Speaker 2: accordance with the verdict of all the wisest men, that
Speaker 2: the highest satisfaction is derived from following certain impulses, namely
Speaker 2: the social instincts. If he acts for the good of others,
Speaker 2: he will receive the approbation of his fellow men and
Speaker 2: gain the love of those with whom he lives, And
Speaker 2: this latter gain, undoubtedly is the highest pleasure on this earth.
Speaker 2: By degrees, it will become in tolerable to him to
Speaker 2: obey his sensuous passions rather than his higher impulses, which,
Speaker 2: when rendered habitual, may be almost called instincts. His reason
Speaker 2: may occasionally tell him to act in opposition to the
Speaker 2: opinion of others, whose approbation he will then not receive,
Speaker 2: but he will still have the solid satisfaction of knowing
Speaker 2: that he has followed his innermost guide or conscience. So yes,
Speaker 2: there is no moral objective standard. But Darwin described a
Speaker 2: moral philosophy that came to be known as enlightened self interest,
Speaker 2: the idea that doing good to other people will, on balance,
Speaker 2: result in better outcomes for yourself. If I help other
Speaker 2: people when they need it, they will be more likely
Speaker 2: to help me when I need it. Also, it just
Speaker 2: feels good to do good deeds, so why wouldn't you.
Speaker 3: If it's true that it is objectively wrong to murder
Speaker 3: innocent people just for fun, then by all accounts, atheism
Speaker 3: can't be true.
Speaker 2: And we once again see an apologist using the addition
Speaker 2: of the for fun modifier. There. Surely the ancient Israelites
Speaker 2: who were enacting the will of God didn't do it
Speaker 2: for fee fun, so it was okay for them to
Speaker 2: murder babies. We know that it's objectively wrong to torture
Speaker 2: inferance for fun.
Speaker 3: Every one of us knows that torturing an innocent baby
Speaker 3: for fun is wrong, as do we understand that torturing
Speaker 3: babies for fun is really wrong, that it's truly always
Speaker 3: wrong to torture a baby for fun.
Speaker 2: And if my timing works out properly for this video,
Speaker 2: my last two videos will have gone into much greater
Speaker 2: detail about how this line of thinking convinces Christians that
Speaker 2: modern day atrocities are morally good. Is that a world
Speaker 2: you want to live in? Kyle? This is not one
Speaker 2: that I want to live in.
Speaker 3: Fourth, if atheism mistrue human life is meaningless, incorrect. My
Speaker 3: life has a lot of meaning to me, and I'd
Speaker 3: like to think that it means a lot to my
Speaker 3: loved ones as well. The fact that this meaning will
Speaker 3: not persist very long after my death does not mean
Speaker 3: that it is meaningless. It's just meaningless to people whose
Speaker 3: lives will be meaningless to me because I'll be dead,
Speaker 3: you see. Atheist Alex Rosenberg wrote what is the person
Speaker 3: of the universe? In his book The Atheists Guide to Reality?
Speaker 3: He stated, there is none? What is the meaning of life? Ditto?
Speaker 2: There is no ultimate purpose to the universe, and our
Speaker 2: lives are not given meaning by some higher power. But
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that our lives are meaningless. It just
Speaker 2: means that the meaning is not assigned to us by
Speaker 2: a third party. We get to determine that for ourselves.
Speaker 3: Meaning there is none. Atheist Graham Lawton, the executive editor
Speaker 3: of New Scientist magazine, wrote a very brief article titled
Speaker 3: the Meaning of Life. His first line read, the harsh
Speaker 3: answer is it has not sure.
Speaker 2: The only meaning your life has is that which you
Speaker 2: give it. I don't see this as harsh necessarily, but
Speaker 2: if you thought your life had some eternal, transcendent meaning,
Speaker 2: then I guess it could come across that way.
Speaker 3: Dan Barker wrote, you and I are like ants or
Speaker 3: rats or pieces of Really, in the big picture, we
Speaker 3: are no different than a piece of broccoli in the
Speaker 3: cosmic sense. If a human life has more objective value
Speaker 3: than a stalk of broccoli, atheism can't be true.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, what is the objective measuring stick by which
Speaker 2: we would measure human life and broccoli? As a human
Speaker 2: I am perfectly comfortable agreeing that we humans are more
Speaker 2: important broccoli. But that is a subjective determination. What is
Speaker 2: your proposed measuring stick that would make it objective? Even
Speaker 2: if God is real, God's opinion, that's subjective. Again, it's
Speaker 2: just God's opinion. Sure, you can say that God's opinion
Speaker 2: is more important than ours if you want, but that
Speaker 2: doesn't make it objective.
Speaker 3: Fith Atheism demands that nothing spiritual or supernatural exists in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 2: No it doesn't. I mean, I don't believe that anything
Speaker 2: supernatural or spiritual exists, but I know atheists who believe
Speaker 2: in things like ghosts. Checkmate.
Speaker 3: I guess now that would mean humans have no soul.
Speaker 2: Correct, We're all a bunch of soullesss bastards.
Speaker 3: It would imply there's no such thing as real love.
Speaker 2: Incorrect. Real love is an emotion that we experience. Experiences
Speaker 2: are real, even if souls aren't.
Speaker 3: Or courage or virtue.
Speaker 2: If we don't have a soul, then I guess none
Speaker 2: of us have thoughts, opinions, or emotions. Kyle does know
Speaker 2: that brains exist, right, and that they're super duper complicated,
Speaker 2: like complicated enough to explain thoughts, opinions, and emotions. I mean,
Speaker 2: given what's come out of the world Video Bible School,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they don't believe
Speaker 2: in brains. But yeah, this point of his is refuted
Speaker 2: by the existence of brains.
Speaker 3: But what we call love or virtue would just be
Speaker 3: a mechanism to pass on our genetic information.
Speaker 2: If you're super reductive about it, I guess yeah, But
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that I don't still experience the thoughts
Speaker 2: and feelings that I experience. If I'm reductive about my
Speaker 2: YouTube channel, it is simply a mechanism to put food
Speaker 2: on the table. But that doesn't mean that I don't
Speaker 2: also derive joy from what I do, or that the
Speaker 2: people who watch the videos experience whatever thoughts and feelings
Speaker 2: keep them watching. Just because something can be reduced to
Speaker 2: a single, uninspiring fact does not mean that there aren't
Speaker 2: other aspects of that thing that are significant.
Speaker 3: In a very real sense. If you have ever really
Speaker 3: unselfishly loved another person, atheism can't be true.
Speaker 2: Well, that's just a load of shit. What's next?
Speaker 3: Ultimately, atheism strips humanity of everything that makes us human.
Speaker 2: And I guess the concluding recap is, what's next? Okay? Well,
Speaker 2: if there is no God, then we have defined what
Speaker 2: it is to be human, and we have done so
Speaker 2: by observing traits that we share. But hey, at least
Speaker 2: Kyle is pro choice, right after all, most of this
Speaker 2: that he said makes us human are things that embryos
Speaker 2: do not have. They don't experience love or virtue or
Speaker 2: well anything. Since that's what makes us human, then in
Speaker 2: Kyle's worldview, abortion must be okay.
Speaker 3: It denies our free will, our moral responsibility, and sense
Speaker 3: of real right and wrong.
Speaker 2: Free will is a debate. Moral responsibility is a social construct,
Speaker 2: as are our senses of right and wrong. Now that
Speaker 2: isn't to say that these things aren't important. Quite the contrary,
Speaker 2: social constructs of all kinds are incredibly important to our
Speaker 2: day to day lives. Like money, Money is a social construct.
Speaker 2: Without a society saying that money is valuable, then the
Speaker 2: papers that represent money are not valuable. But obviously money
Speaker 2: is important. So don't confuse my saying that morality is
Speaker 2: a social construct with the idea that morality does not
Speaker 2: exist or is not important.
Speaker 3: It robs our lives of purpose and any real meaning.
Speaker 2: It robs our lives of the imposed purpose of suck
Speaker 2: God's back. We get to choose our own purpose and meaning,
Speaker 2: and that is far more valuable to me than believing
Speaker 2: that worshiping a being that logically shouldn't even need worship
Speaker 2: in the first place is my meaning.
Speaker 3: And it slanders every commendable attitude of love, virtue, and
Speaker 3: kindness as a manipulation strategy we used to pass on
Speaker 3: our DNA.
Speaker 2: One specific moral philosophy can be seen that way if
Speaker 2: you are incredibly reductionist about it. Yeah, but that is
Speaker 2: not the only moral philosophy compatible with atheism. Your lack
Speaker 2: of knowledge regarding moral philosophy does not prove atheism wrong.
Speaker 3: In light of this information, C. S. Lewis's conclusion as
Speaker 3: he abandoned atheism still rings true. Consequently, atheism turns out
Speaker 3: to be too simple.
Speaker 2: So Ockham's razor sides with atheism. Okay, I'll take it.
Speaker 2: That's it for this one. Today's comment to the day
Speaker 2: comes just from Andrew Sangling, who says, what genocide. I
Speaker 2: wish people would stop spreading this BS, do better and
Speaker 2: check the facts. This was on my video from a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago where Frank Turrek defended the biblical genocides,
Speaker 2: and I pointed out that we shouldn't be surprised that
Speaker 2: Turrek also defends the genocide that Israel is doing in
Speaker 2: Gaza right now, now, Andrew, if you had been paying
Speaker 2: attention to the video, you might have heard me say
Speaker 2: this genocide and yes, it is a genocide. This is
Speaker 2: not me using hyperbolic language to make Frank look bad.
Speaker 2: This is the conclusion arrived at by institutions like the
Speaker 2: United Nations and the International Association of Genocide Scholars. I'm
Speaker 2: not really sure what more fact checking you would want
Speaker 2: other than the consensus of scholars specializing in genocide and
Speaker 2: the conclusion drawn by UN commission that spent two years
Speaker 2: studying the situation specifically to determine whether or not it
Speaker 2: was a genocide. More to the point, you offered no
Speaker 2: sources credible or otherwise to counter the conclusion that it
Speaker 2: is a genocide. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to go
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