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Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to my channel Vice Rhino. Here today,
Speaker 3: I'm looking at a video on the channel Christianity nine
Speaker 3: to five called the Moral standards Argument for the Existence
Speaker 3: of God. It's been a hot minute since I've tackled
Speaker 3: the video exclusively on the moral argument, so I thought
Speaker 3: i'd give this one a look. So let's see if
Speaker 3: they find an angle on it that's actually convincing.
Speaker 4: Now, consider this, many people who are skeptical about whether
Speaker 4: God exists still tend to have pretty strong convictions about
Speaker 4: how we should live.
Speaker 3: Yep, it's pretty normal to have strong opinions about things
Speaker 3: irrespective of culture, religion, upbringing, etc. Of course, not everyone
Speaker 3: agrees on those opinionated topics, which is actually the whole
Speaker 3: reason that conflict exists in the first place. It's a
Speaker 3: bunch of people trying to convince other people that their
Speaker 3: strong opinion is the correct opinion.
Speaker 4: About how the world should be about what's right and
Speaker 4: what's wrong. Now, what's the problem with that, Let's find out.
Speaker 4: So you ask for an example of something that is
Speaker 4: wrong in the world.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go ahead and say it. Mint is
Speaker 3: morally wrong and should not be in anything, and to
Speaker 3: make use of the appeal to nature fallacy. The fact
Speaker 3: that mint can be used as a repellent for everything
Speaker 3: from mice to mosquitoes proves that I am objectively correct here.
Speaker 4: And they say something like genocide or terrorism or child
Speaker 4: molestation or human trafficking or racism or whatever, they say,
Speaker 4: your response, yes, I agree.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of big ticket moral items that
Speaker 3: most people have no problem agreeing with. Notably, the things
Speaker 3: that have the most agreement also happen to be the
Speaker 3: things that, evolutionarily speaking, would have had the strongest selection
Speaker 3: pressures working on them. Killing is bad. It's a really
Speaker 3: easy sentiment to get to. Evolutionarily speaking, If we all
Speaker 3: went around killing each other every time we got mad,
Speaker 3: that would place a pretty big negative selection pressure on
Speaker 3: our survival as a species, harming children who are the
Speaker 3: people who will be responsible for continuing to propagate the
Speaker 3: species after we're done with our turn would also be
Speaker 3: a pretty big negative selection pressure on our survival as
Speaker 3: a species. So like, stuff like that's easy, and why
Speaker 3: is that wrong? Because empathy exists. My question is why
Speaker 3: apologists can't seem to wrap their heads around right and
Speaker 3: wrong being based in well being? Like, is it really
Speaker 3: that difficult to conceptualize the idea that I don't like
Speaker 3: being harmed and that this preference can largely be generalized.
Speaker 3: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?
Speaker 3: Was a thing long for Jesus ever said it. Possibly
Speaker 3: the oldest sideration of the golden rule comes from the
Speaker 3: ancient Egyptian tale of the Eloquent Peasant, a story that
Speaker 3: was likely written about one thousand years earlier than the
Speaker 3: oldest estimated date for the oldest book of the Bible.
Speaker 3: And yet you're telling me that I need to get
Speaker 3: my moral code from your God.
Speaker 2: Wow, Now don't miss this.
Speaker 4: Unless they point to some sort of supreme lawgiver who
Speaker 4: determines moral behavior for all people at all times, well,
Speaker 4: then their answer to why is that wrong? Has to
Speaker 4: be subjective In other words, it has to be based
Speaker 4: on merely personal opinion or societal norms.
Speaker 3: And why exactly is that automatically a bad thing in
Speaker 3: your eyes? Is it somehow better if you can say
Speaker 3: it's wrong because this super powerful being said so, and
Speaker 3: he'll torture you for all eternity if you disagree.
Speaker 2: With him about it.
Speaker 3: I would rather base my morality in empathy, even if
Speaker 3: that is subjective. Then in a system of might makes right,
Speaker 3: and ultimately God's morality is subjective as well. It just
Speaker 3: shifts the subject from being human beings to God. Why
Speaker 3: is a thing right or wrong because it's God's opinion
Speaker 3: that it is right or wrong? Why is that better
Speaker 3: than it being based in the opinions of the people
Speaker 3: who are actually directly impacted by moral questions?
Speaker 4: So why is genocide wrong? Well, everybody knows that it's wrong. Actually,
Speaker 4: that's a subjective opinion. Everybody doesn't know that it's wrong,
Speaker 4: Otherwise it wouldn't exist, wouldn't happen.
Speaker 3: And that is how you know that a universal moral
Speaker 3: code is not written on our hearts. You're undercutting your
Speaker 3: own argument here. The whole point of the argument is
Speaker 3: that everybody does know that it's wrong, and the reason
Speaker 3: everybody knows it's wrong is because it's part of the
Speaker 3: moral law that God implants in our brains somehow. So
Speaker 3: the fact that everybody does not, in fact know that
Speaker 3: even these big ticket items are wrong is itself evidence
Speaker 3: that the moral argument does not work. Of course, apologists
Speaker 3: will try to rescue this by blaming it on the fall.
Speaker 3: We're fallen humans with free will that somehow means that
Speaker 3: it can be simultaneously true that most people agreeing on
Speaker 3: morality means that a God exists because God gives us
Speaker 3: all his moral code, and that not everyone agrees on
Speaker 3: this moral code despite God giving it to all of us,
Speaker 3: because you know, the fall or whatever. It's a have
Speaker 3: your cake and eat it too argument. Heads I win, tails,
Speaker 3: you lose.
Speaker 2: So why is genocide wrong?
Speaker 3: Honestly, that's actually a really good question that I don't
Speaker 3: think you can answer properly, given your God's pension for
Speaker 3: both commanding his followers to commit genocide and directly committing
Speaker 3: genocide himself. So just keep that in mind. When he
Speaker 3: starts complaining that human standards are arbitrary and subject to change.
Speaker 3: His standard allows for genocide and slavery, to be morally permissible.
Speaker 2: Well, it's illegal.
Speaker 4: Actually, the law is subjective too, in the sense that
Speaker 4: it's based on societal norms at the time. It's been
Speaker 4: different in other times in different places, might be different
Speaker 4: in the future.
Speaker 3: Yep. Almost like we don't get our law from a
Speaker 3: perfect lawgiver, but have to figure out what works best
Speaker 3: on our own over time.
Speaker 2: So why is genocide wrong.
Speaker 3: Because it does massive amounts of harm and provides little
Speaker 3: to realistically no benefit.
Speaker 4: Well, because it harms people, and obviously harming people is wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is that really such a bad metric to use?
Speaker 2: We see, even that is subjective.
Speaker 4: What if there's somebody else out there who doesn't think
Speaker 4: that harming people is wrong?
Speaker 3: Then, as it turns out, we live in a society.
Speaker 3: Most of us do agree that harming other people is wrong,
Speaker 3: so the people that disagree, in order to live in
Speaker 3: society have to adhere to society's rules. Plenty of people
Speaker 3: who exist who have things like antisocial personality disorder where
Speaker 3: they don't experience the same level of empathy as most people,
Speaker 3: but still manage to live relatively ordinary lives through an
Speaker 3: application of things like pragmatism.
Speaker 4: So is there any objective, unchanging immovable basis for us
Speaker 4: saying that genocide is wrong.
Speaker 3: Yes, genocide always does significantly more harm than good and
Speaker 3: so is always wrong.
Speaker 2: Or that anything is wrong for that matter.
Speaker 3: The harm versus benefit metric. Sure, it's not strictly speaking objective,
Speaker 3: but I don't understand why apologists think a moral system
Speaker 3: must necessarily be truly objective in order to be valid.
Speaker 3: They just assume that everyone will axiomatically agree with that
Speaker 3: point and then move on without justifying it, usually as
Speaker 3: part of an argument that acknowledges that morality is subjective,
Speaker 3: as he already did by pointing out that different people
Speaker 3: have different moral codes.
Speaker 4: Not without an ultimate authority, not without a supreme law giver.
Speaker 2: In other words, not without God.
Speaker 3: Not without might makes right.
Speaker 4: Like I said, this is called the moral standards argument
Speaker 4: for the existence of God, or the argument from morality.
Speaker 2: It's been around for.
Speaker 4: A very long time. Emmanuel Kahn, maybe a name you've
Speaker 4: heard of, maybe the most famous celebrated philosopher in the
Speaker 4: last thousand years, made this argument so eloquently, so powerfully.
Speaker 2: And C. S.
Speaker 4: Lewis popularized this argument in his book Mere Christianity. Here's
Speaker 4: an excerpt from the book on this question of morality.
Speaker 2: Oh fuck me.
Speaker 3: I thought he was actually going to just present the argument,
Speaker 3: but apparently he rambles so much that the people who
Speaker 3: put his own video together felt the need to cut
Speaker 3: out an unknown amount of what he said. That awkward
Speaker 3: cut wasn't me and there's more coming.
Speaker 4: Lewis says, this says the moment you say that one
Speaker 4: set of moral ideals can be better than another. In
Speaker 4: other words, no genocide is better than genocide. The moment
Speaker 4: you say that one set of moral ideals can be
Speaker 4: better than another, you are in fact measuring them both
Speaker 4: by some standard, saying that one of them conforms to
Speaker 4: that standard more nearly than.
Speaker 3: The other, not necessarily. If you lay two sticks side
Speaker 3: by side and say that one is longer than the other,
Speaker 3: you aren't comparing those sticks to some objective standard of length.
Speaker 3: But what's really interesting here to me is that this
Speaker 3: quote comes one page after Lewis said, though there are
Speaker 3: differences between the moral ideas of one time or country
Speaker 3: and those of another, the differences are not really very great,
Speaker 3: which on its face seems like it's just a minor
Speaker 3: oversimplification that minimizes the cultural differences in morality to a
Speaker 3: greater extent than is warranted. But when you realize that
Speaker 3: he literally wrote that during the height of World War
Speaker 3: two and was aware of what the Nazis were doing
Speaker 3: and frequently used them as an example of immorality, it
Speaker 3: blows the top off the yixometer or yikesometer. I feel
Speaker 3: like it should be yixometer, but then I feel like
Speaker 3: it should also be yixometer. I'm not sure comment down below,
Speaker 3: let me know yikesometer or yixometer. But putting the strange way,
Speaker 3: he can say that cultures don't really have big moral differences. Well,
Speaker 3: still using the Nazis as an example of a bad culture,
Speaker 3: let's borrow an analogy that Lewis used earlier in that chapter.
Speaker 3: The moral law tells us the tune we have to
Speaker 3: play on the piano. Our instincts merely take the keys.
Speaker 3: But when watching a pianist perform, how do we determine
Speaker 3: whether they did a good job or not well by
Speaker 3: comparing what they played to the notes on the sheet music.
Speaker 3: The sheet music itself is arbitrarily chosen, but how closely
Speaker 3: the pianist adheres to the music can be objectively determined.
Speaker 3: Same with morality. If we agree that a net increase
Speaker 3: in well being is a good goal to aim for,
Speaker 3: then when taking an action, we can objectively determine if
Speaker 3: that action increased or decrease the well being. So a
Speaker 3: goal may be subjectively chosen, much as a song that
Speaker 3: a pianist plays, but you can still objectively measure morality
Speaker 3: based on it.
Speaker 4: And his point is that we can't claim that something
Speaker 4: is moral or immoral, right or wrong for all people
Speaker 4: at all times, across all cultures unless we recognize that
Speaker 4: there's a higher authority than what people think. And frankly,
Speaker 4: true atheists fully recognize the validity of this argument.
Speaker 3: Keep in mind here he's using valid in the philosophical sense,
Speaker 3: which does not mean that the argument actually works. It
Speaker 3: just means that it would work if all the premises
Speaker 3: were true. And given that he hasn't actually laid out
Speaker 3: a philosophical argument, it looks like he's gotten confused in
Speaker 3: this point himself. So let's look at an actual formulation
Speaker 3: of the moral argument, shall we. I'll take the version
Speaker 3: that William Lane Craig favors, as he's generally very highly
Speaker 3: regarded among Christians, despite his admission that he lowers the
Speaker 3: epistemic bar that Christianity must meet to be believed, simply
Speaker 3: because he wanted it to be true.
Speaker 5: If there is just one chance in a million that
Speaker 5: this is true, it's worth believing. And so my attitude
Speaker 5: toward this is just the opposite of Kyle's. Far from
Speaker 5: raising the bar or the epistemic standard that Christianity must
Speaker 5: meet to be believed, I lower.
Speaker 3: It Premise I if God does not exist, objective moral
Speaker 3: values and duties do not exist. Premise too, objective moral
Speaker 3: values and duties do exist, Therefore God exists. To say
Speaker 3: that this is a valid argument is not to say
Speaker 3: that it is true. It is simply to say that
Speaker 3: the conclusion actually does follow from those premisses. So the
Speaker 3: only way to show this argument to be false is
Speaker 3: to show one or more of the premisses.
Speaker 2: To be false.
Speaker 3: Now, personally, I am not one of the atheists who
Speaker 3: thinks that this is a valid argument. Both the premises
Speaker 3: are flawed. I don't think that objective moral values and
Speaker 3: duties do exist, and even if they did, I don't
Speaker 3: see how they would necessarily be contingent on the existence
Speaker 3: of a God. In fact, quite the contrary, if they
Speaker 3: require the existence of a subject in order to exist,
Speaker 3: then they are necessarily subjective. Apologists just don't seem to
Speaker 3: be able to grasp the concept of God being a subject.
Speaker 3: I feel like this argument is almost the opposite of
Speaker 3: what it should actually be. If objective moral values and
Speaker 3: duties do exist, they exist independent of the existence of
Speaker 3: any beings of any kind, including gods. Therefore, the existence
Speaker 3: or non existence of God is actually irrelevant to the
Speaker 3: existence or non existence of objective moral values and duties.
Speaker 4: Be consistent, they have to contend that there's no real
Speaker 4: right and wrong in the world.
Speaker 3: And in order to be consistent, you have to ignore
Speaker 3: cultural differences in order to make it look like objective
Speaker 3: moral values and duties exist and somehow transcend cultures, despite
Speaker 3: the fact that is not the case.
Speaker 4: Richard Dawkins, maybe the most famous atheist on the planet today,
Speaker 4: said this quite directly. He said, the universe we observe
Speaker 4: has no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Speaker 3: Okay, that doesn't say anything about the validity of the argument.
Speaker 3: That is simply an observation. The universe doesn't care about
Speaker 3: us or things like baby cancer wouldn't exist.
Speaker 4: Wow, nothing but blind pitiless indifference is actually an echo
Speaker 4: of Frederick Nietzsche from one hundred and fifty years ago
Speaker 4: of God Is Dead.
Speaker 3: Fame, a quote that unfortunately spawned a series of Christian
Speaker 3: propaganda films that depict a distorted view of reality in
Speaker 3: order to exert political influence, the fifth installment of which
Speaker 3: is in theaters now. Seriously, they have a profitable movie
Speaker 3: making business that regularly capitalizes on the perception that Christians
Speaker 3: are being oppressed and persecuted. If the picture they paint
Speaker 3: of the United States and those movies were even a
Speaker 3: little bit true, they wouldn't be allowed to make those movies.
Speaker 4: And Nietzsche insisted that if there is no God, in
Speaker 4: other words, if God is dead, then the idea of
Speaker 4: morality is completely baseless.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're giving me less to go on to find
Speaker 3: context here than Mike Winger did when he misconstrued Nietzsche's work.
Speaker 3: But whether or not he said that and actually meant
Speaker 3: what you are saying, he meant, I disagree with it.
Speaker 3: We can base our morality in broadly accepted goals.
Speaker 2: You might not like.
Speaker 3: That as a base because you have this weird hang
Speaker 3: up about ultimate objectivity. But for those of us who
Speaker 3: are willing to be more pragmatic, it's fine, but also
Speaker 3: to take it back to Nietzsche, because I apparently can't
Speaker 3: let things slide as it happens. His views on moral
Speaker 3: philosophy are extremely difficult to parse, to the point where
Speaker 3: it's actually a current area of philosophical debate, with philosophers
Speaker 3: trying to piece together what he thought about morality by say,
Speaker 3: lifting through all of his work, figuring out where he
Speaker 3: was being serious, where he was using hyperbole, and where
Speaker 3: he was being tongue in cheek. So while I'm not
Speaker 3: comfortable saying exactly what Nietzsche thought about morality with any
Speaker 3: sort of confidence, I can confidently say that his position
Speaker 3: is almost certainly not as simple as God is dead.
Speaker 3: Their form morality has no basis.
Speaker 2: Merely subjective.
Speaker 4: No reason to be kind to anyone or even civil,
Speaker 4: no reason to care about others, no reason to work
Speaker 4: for just there's no basis for any human rights.
Speaker 3: Why are the consequences of your actions considered? No reason
Speaker 3: in your mind is if I am civil and kind
Speaker 3: to people, they will also be civil and kind to me.
Speaker 3: Not a reason to be civil and kind. Sure, you
Speaker 3: might complain that that's a selfish reason, But that doesn't
Speaker 3: make it not a reason. And what about empathy? Is
Speaker 3: empathy no reason? Because there's more than just recifrocation. There's
Speaker 3: also I know or can imagine what it's like to
Speaker 3: be in that situation, so I will do something to
Speaker 3: help because not helping makes me feel bad for them.
Speaker 3: That's a reason, is it not. It's not even a
Speaker 3: selfish one, So you can't just dismiss it as being
Speaker 3: a reason you don't like, as you might do with
Speaker 3: the expectation of reciprocation. Why is the basis of increasing
Speaker 3: human well being no basis in your mind? Why is
Speaker 3: it objective or nothing? And really, given that human morality impacts,
Speaker 3: you know, humanity, why do we get no say in
Speaker 3: the creation of a basis for human morality? Seriously, you
Speaker 3: keep arguing that a god has to exist in order
Speaker 3: for objective morality to exist, which I disagree with. That
Speaker 3: would still be a form of subjective morality. But if
Speaker 3: I grant that that counts as objective for some reason,
Speaker 3: why should I care whether the basis for morality is
Speaker 3: objective or subjective? Y'all just assume that objective is superior.
Speaker 3: But your objective moral code has provisions for slavery and genocide,
Speaker 3: which modern morality that has subjectively changed over time as
Speaker 3: we as a species went through a process of learning
Speaker 3: and growth, says that they're always wrong. Now, why should
Speaker 3: we go back to the regressive slavery, endorsing genocide, permitting
Speaker 3: anti LGBTQ moral code of the ancient Hebrews When modern morality,
Speaker 3: as subjective as it may be, is objectively better for
Speaker 3: human outcomes. Hell, the very fact that morality is subjective
Speaker 3: actually makes it better than your objective, biblical base morality.
Speaker 3: Because if there's something that we think is morally permissible,
Speaker 3: but through a process of learning we figure out that
Speaker 3: it actually has a negative impact on the overall well
Speaker 3: being of us as a species, we can update our
Speaker 3: morality to include that information. By not being set in stone,
Speaker 3: we are free to change it when we figure out
Speaker 3: that it needs to be changed. So why would I
Speaker 3: want a strict, unyielding morality that has objectively worse outcomes
Speaker 3: even if the source of that morality were actually objective,
Speaker 3: Especially since the very apologists who argue for God because
Speaker 3: they see no other way to ground morality can be
Speaker 3: found pivoting to the very same consequentialist moral system that
Speaker 3: I'm suggesting here. When difficult subjects like genocide show up.
Speaker 6: We need to understand this was not an arbitrary ethnic cleansing,
Speaker 6: but in fact, this is a specific judgment on a
Speaker 6: morally degraded people.
Speaker 7: God's command for Israel to drive out the Canaanites was
Speaker 7: not race based, but behavior based, as the Canaanites engaged
Speaker 7: in acts that would be considered criminal in civilized societies.
Speaker 8: Is first it starts off with incest, and then it
Speaker 8: goes into adultery, then it goes into offering your children
Speaker 8: to molek, homosexual sins, and then bestiality. And we know
Speaker 8: from Canaanite primary source documents another that all of these
Speaker 8: things were being practiced by the Canaanites.
Speaker 9: He gives reasons, right, he doesn't just wake up like
Speaker 9: a mob boss and go Canaanites, I want him dead, right,
Speaker 9: He's got reasons for it. And probably the biggest reason,
Speaker 9: after four hundred years of warning, is that the Canaanites
Speaker 9: were sacrificing their children on the molten hot God molek.
Speaker 5: This idol, the culture that is described there, this was
Speaker 5: one that practic It's not only all sorts of human
Speaker 5: sexual aberrations, but also temple prostitution. In the worship of God,
Speaker 5: they practice best reality. There are texts describing how a
Speaker 5: buck would be strapped down to a wooden frame, and
Speaker 5: then women would mount the buck and copulate with it.
Speaker 5: They were engaged in offering child sacrifice to their gods,
Speaker 5: and so reading these ancient documents that are from pre
Speaker 5: Israelite canaan really bear out the truth of the Biblical
Speaker 5: description of them.
Speaker 3: Not a single one of those people said that the
Speaker 3: Canaanite genocide was okay because the order to wipe them
Speaker 3: out came from God, who is the source of all morality.
Speaker 3: They all appealed to the behavior of the Canaanites as
Speaker 3: the reason their destruction was justified. So, since apologists can't
Speaker 3: even be consistent when it comes to their supposedly objective
Speaker 3: source of ma reality, why is it a bad thing
Speaker 3: that I am advocating for a type of morality that
Speaker 3: these apologists all appeal to when they're put in a
Speaker 3: tight spot by the scriptures that they claim are morally perfect.
Speaker 2: Horrifying, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Why is it horrifying that I won't accept a moral
Speaker 3: code that allows for slavery and genocide. In what world
Speaker 3: is that horrifying?
Speaker 4: I heard this news story the other day of parents
Speaker 4: who are on trial for starving their two young boys.
Speaker 3: And I heard this news story the other day that
Speaker 3: people are eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio. But
Speaker 3: when you actually look at the source of the story,
Speaker 3: it wound up literally being an acquaintance of a friend
Speaker 3: of a friend of the original poster's daughter. Now why
Speaker 3: do I bring this up? Mainly I just wanted an
Speaker 3: excuse to play.
Speaker 6: This were.
Speaker 3: They're eating the cats, they're eating they're eating the pets
Speaker 3: in Springfield. Also, I'm skipping the rest of the story.
Speaker 3: People do bad things sometimes. That's not a problem for atheism.
Speaker 3: We're not the ones that have to explain how bad
Speaker 3: things are possible when there's an all powerful, magical man
Speaker 3: in the sky who could prevent bad things from happening
Speaker 3: if he actually wanted to, Because we don't believe in
Speaker 3: the all powerful, magical man in the sky.
Speaker 4: Now, why am I telling you this story? Notice that
Speaker 4: an atheist can't even call.
Speaker 2: That behavior wrong. Why not?
Speaker 3: Starving children harms them, resulting in an increase in net harm?
Speaker 3: And if our goal is to maximize well being. Starving
Speaker 3: children can be shown objectively to get us farther away
Speaker 3: from that goal, and so can be said to not
Speaker 3: just be wrong, but objectively wrong.
Speaker 4: Why because there's no evil, no good, nothing but blind,
Speaker 4: pitiless indifference in the universe.
Speaker 3: You're mischaracterizing that statement. Let me read the full quote
Speaker 3: with some added context. In a universe of electrons and
Speaker 3: selfish genes, blind physical forces, and genetic replication, some people
Speaker 3: are going to get hurt, other people are going to
Speaker 3: get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason
Speaker 3: in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe
Speaker 3: has precisely the properties we should expect if there is
Speaker 3: at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good,
Speaker 3: nothing but pitiless and difference. He's not saying that there
Speaker 3: is no good or evil in the universe in the
Speaker 3: sense that we cannot look at an action or behavior
Speaker 3: and decide for ourselves that it is good or evil.
Speaker 3: He's saying that the universe that we observe is much
Speaker 3: more closely aligned with the idea that there is not
Speaker 3: an omnib benevolent, all powerful being watching over us than
Speaker 3: that there is. So we can look at parents starving
Speaker 3: their children, declare it to be morally repugnant and not
Speaker 3: have to explain how an all powerful, all loving God
Speaker 3: allowed it to happen.
Speaker 4: And I suspect that many people who think of themselves
Speaker 4: as atheists really have no idea the monstrous implications of
Speaker 4: that worldview.
Speaker 3: Even if I grant that what you are saying is correct,
Speaker 3: which lets be clear, it's absolutely not. But even if
Speaker 3: I grant that that's nothing more than an argument from consequences,
Speaker 3: I do not like the implications of God not existing.
Speaker 3: Therefore God must exist. That is what we find at
Speaker 3: the root of the moral argument for God. But like
Speaker 3: I said, it's not even true. The monstrous implication here
Speaker 3: is that we as a society can get better. As
Speaker 3: much as we've gotten better in the last few centuries,
Speaker 3: there's still more improvements that we can make. And rather
Speaker 3: than being rigidly opposed to any change because that would
Speaker 3: mean morality isn't objective, we can evaluate potential changes to
Speaker 3: find out which ones will have better outcomes for us.
Speaker 2: All again, this is.
Speaker 4: The moral standards argument, or the argument for morality. Well,
Speaker 4: please don't miss the larger point here. All this falls
Speaker 4: under this general question of how should we live? And
Speaker 4: the only way to have a rational, defensible answer to
Speaker 4: that is to agree that a supreme being is there
Speaker 4: who determines right and wrong.
Speaker 3: He just has failed to communicate that to us in
Speaker 3: any definitive way. And this is evidenced by the fact
Speaker 3: that Christian infighting over morality is quite prevalent. Is it
Speaker 3: moral to allow women to be pastors? Is it moral
Speaker 3: to accept LGBTQ people or who they are? Is it
Speaker 3: moral to use a drum set during worship service? These
Speaker 3: are all questions where a disagreement about the answers have
Speaker 3: caused church schisms. If there really is one objective moral
Speaker 3: truth that God gives to us, you'd think that the
Speaker 3: people who believe in the God who gave us this
Speaker 3: moral truth would be the ones who are most in
Speaker 3: line with that truth. But as it turns out, they
Speaker 3: can't even decide amongst themselves what that truth even is.
Speaker 3: That's it for this one. Today's comment of the day
Speaker 3: comes just from Nicholas Klee Music ninety eight two, who
Speaker 3: says the Christian deity isn't omniscient or omnipresent, and never
Speaker 3: has this been as demonstrated them by asking where the
Speaker 3: only two people in existence were after they ate. The
Speaker 3: fruit also doesn't have the power to make themselves omniscient
Speaker 3: or omnipresent, and therefore is not omnipotent, or they would
Speaker 3: have done so, assuming the idea occurred to them. Draw
Speaker 3: what conclusions you choose from this counterpoint. If I were omnipotent,
Speaker 3: maybe I would choose to make myself omniscient, but I
Speaker 3: definitely wouldn't go for omnipresent, because then every time someone
Speaker 3: takes a shit, they do so directly into your mouth,
Speaker 3: and that is very much something I do not want.
Speaker 3: Thanks for watching, don't forget to go to surf shark
Speaker 3: dot com slash rhino for four bonus months for free.
Speaker 3: I'll be back next Friday with more, but if you
Speaker 3: need to get your rhino fixed in before then, I
Speaker 3: live stream will service every Wednesday, eight thirty Eastern on
Speaker 3: my other channel, The Watering Hole. Thanks to Tim Robertson
Speaker 3: for being my Patreon and sponsorships manager, and special thanks
Speaker 3: as always to my patrons who are the basis for
Speaker 3: the morality that is my channel. If you'd like to
Speaker 3: be objectively amazing, you can join us on Patreon for
Speaker 3: as little as a dollar per week over at Patreon
Speaker 3: dot com, slash vice Rhino, or by supporting the channel
Speaker 3: in one of the other methods that can be found
Speaker 3: at linkst vice rhino dot com, which is also where
Speaker 3: you'll find links to my other projects. If for whatever
Speaker 3: reason you want to send me stuff my pobox addresses
Speaker 3: in the description see next time. This is a valid argument,
Speaker 3: both puddles stop stop stop running. Stop running.
Speaker 1: You being loud.
Speaker 2: You want to be in the video. You want to
Speaker 2: be in the video. You want to come here. No,
Speaker 2: you don't want to be in the video.
Speaker 3: Sorry, guys, you don't want to be.
Speaker 1: In the video, I asked, She said no.
Speaker 3: As a society society studio studio, that's not how that
Speaker 3: SOGN knows