Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to my podcast. This is an audio
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Speaker 2: Today's video is sponsored by serf Shark. Hello and welcome
Speaker 2: to my channel Vice Rhino. Here today I'm looking at
Speaker 2: a video on Trent Horn's channel, The Council of Trent.
Speaker 2: This purports to be him asking a question that atheists
Speaker 2: cannot answer, and he's a proper credentialed philosopher, not some
Speaker 2: amateur turned YouTuber like me, So this one has gotta
Speaker 2: be good. Right onto the video, but first a word
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Speaker 3: And today I want to talk about atheism, or a
Speaker 3: part of atheism that I think has a fundamental flaw.
Speaker 3: But understand why, I need to talk about something else
Speaker 3: called the God of the Gaps objection.
Speaker 2: So the thing that pretty much every argument for God
Speaker 2: eventually breaks down into sure, why not?
Speaker 3: So basically it goes like this God of the Gaps
Speaker 3: objection claims that arguments for the existence of God they
Speaker 3: all fail because they all essentially say the same thing.
Speaker 3: Here's something we can't explain, or here is a gap
Speaker 3: in our knowledge. God explains the gap in our knowledge.
Speaker 3: Therefore God exists.
Speaker 2: Thanks for watching. I'll be back next Friday with more.
Speaker 2: But if you want to get your rhino fix in before, Ah,
Speaker 2: there's more, isn't there.
Speaker 3: In other words, you can't argue in this way. I
Speaker 3: don't know what caused X, therefore God exists. That's a
Speaker 3: bad argument, correct, and it is basically every argument for God.
Speaker 3: The cosmological argument, we don't know what caused the universe,
Speaker 3: therefore God. The moral argument, we don't know what could
Speaker 3: be used as an objective standard for morality, therefore God.
Speaker 3: Argument from consciousness. We don't know how consciousness emerged, therefore God. Honestly,
Speaker 3: the only argument from God that I can think of
Speaker 3: that might not boil down to an argument for ignorance
Speaker 3: is the ontological argument, which is basically, I defined God
Speaker 3: as existing, therefore he exists, which is completely nonsensical. Now
Speaker 3: the unexplained thing. It might be morality, or the beginning
Speaker 3: of the universe, or the existence of something rather than nothing,
Speaker 3: whatever it is. Atheists say we don't want to rush
Speaker 3: to a supernatural explanation because we might miss an undiscovered
Speaker 3: or unknown natural explanation.
Speaker 2: That's not entirely it. It's more that an explanation has
Speaker 2: to have some actual evidence behind it, and by its
Speaker 2: very nature, the supernatural just won't ever meet that bar.
Speaker 3: On the one hand, I agree that arguments for God
Speaker 3: should start not from what we don't know, but from
Speaker 3: what we do know.
Speaker 2: And that's a tactic that can be used to pretend
Speaker 2: like whatever argument you're using is not an argument for ignorance,
Speaker 2: but it will usually wind up back there eventually. Like
Speaker 2: the cosmological argument, we do know that the Big Bang
Speaker 2: is a thing that happened that will often be included
Speaker 2: as a part of the cosmological argument. The universe had
Speaker 2: a beginning, then a bunch of unsubstantiated assumptions get added
Speaker 2: onto it, so we can say that the beginning must
Speaker 2: have been caused by somethings faceless, timeless, immaterial, and immeasurably powerful,
Speaker 2: and that must be God because we don't know what
Speaker 2: else it could be. Also, we don't know why the
Speaker 2: cause had to be spaceless, timeless, im material, and immeasurably powerful,
Speaker 2: but that seems cromulent, so we run with it. And
Speaker 2: while we're at it, we just need to make sure
Speaker 2: to never acknowledge the existence of cosmological models. That don't
Speaker 2: actually wind up at a beginning for the universe, and
Speaker 2: the Census's argument requires.
Speaker 3: They should start with effects we observe, and then reason
Speaker 3: to a cause for those effects, and then show that
Speaker 3: that cause must have divine attributes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's basically what I just said. Apologists are so predictable.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, I worry that atheists who lean
Speaker 3: too much into the God of the gaps objection they'll
Speaker 3: end up making atheism as unfalsifiable as some religions.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm just going to come right out and say it,
Speaker 2: atheism is unfalsifiable, at least inasmuch that that's even a
Speaker 2: coherent statement outside of a formal debate setting. Atheism is,
Speaker 2: by its nature a response to a claim. You claim
Speaker 2: that God exists. I don't believe your claim. I don't
Speaker 2: need to prove that your God doesn't exist in order
Speaker 2: to justify my non belief in your claim, especially if
Speaker 2: I don't actually care whether or not you continue to
Speaker 2: believe in God after our conversation. But if you want
Speaker 2: to convince me that your claim is correct, then yeah,
Speaker 2: you need to bring something more to the table. Then
Speaker 2: we don't know X. Therefore God so in one sense, Yes,
Speaker 2: atheism is unfalsifiable, but that is entirely a function of
Speaker 2: the unfalsifiability of the God that is not being believed in.
Speaker 3: Or they won't be able to answer this question. What
Speaker 3: would prove God exists?
Speaker 2: Admittedly, that is a tricky question. I honestly can't think
Speaker 2: of anything God could do that I wouldn't first assume
Speaker 2: was something like a hallucination. But do you know who
Speaker 2: does know God? If the Christian God is real, he
Speaker 2: knows exactly what it would take to convince every single
Speaker 2: person on earth of his existence, and according to the Bible,
Speaker 2: he wants to convince every single person on Earth of
Speaker 2: his existence. Since he has not done so, it is
Speaker 2: safe to conclude that the God that is described by
Speaker 2: the Bible just doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: A few examples I've heard from atheists include healing and
Speaker 3: amputated limb through prayer, rearranging the stars to say God exists,
Speaker 3: or discovering on the human genetic code that our genetic
Speaker 3: code says made by yahweh on it.
Speaker 2: Some of those are better than others, and honestly I'm
Speaker 2: a fan of the healing one. If it were just
Speaker 2: a fact of life, that Christians had the healing powers
Speaker 2: that the Bible says that they have, it would make
Speaker 2: the case for Christianity a whole lot more compelling. The
Speaker 2: reason amputees are the go to examples because that's one
Speaker 2: of the harder medical conditions to heal through trickery. It's
Speaker 2: fairly easy for faith healers to have a plant in
Speaker 2: the audience that is on crutches or in a wheelchair
Speaker 2: who will then walk unassisted after being prayed for. But
Speaker 2: it would actually be impressive if they could cause amputees
Speaker 2: to regrow their limbs in front of their live audience.
Speaker 2: And if that were just a thing that all Christians
Speaker 2: could do, and it was a power that was exclusive
Speaker 2: to Christians, it would go a long way to assuaging
Speaker 2: the doubts of the hardened skeptics. I don't think this
Speaker 2: would necessarily count as definitive proof, even if I grant
Speaker 2: that it proves the supernatural. It could be something like
Speaker 2: the malicious deity of another religion making it look like
Speaker 2: Christianity is true in order to prevent that other religion's growth.
Speaker 2: But that's one of those we can cross that bridge
Speaker 2: when we come to it. Sort of things it's a
Speaker 2: bit of a moot point until such a time as
Speaker 2: Christians actually have the powers that they're supposed to have.
Speaker 3: Evan Vale says that if all the stars realign to
Speaker 3: spell the words men and mene, take al a Barshin,
Speaker 3: which is what God wrote on the wall at Belshafar's
Speaker 3: feast in the Book of Daniel, then quote that would
Speaker 3: convince me of theism or polytheism. No other explanation is
Speaker 3: remotely plausible.
Speaker 2: I see what you're getting at, and hey, guess what.
Speaker 2: I agree. A more likely explanation for the star is
Speaker 2: being rearranged like that is that I am hallucinating or delusional,
Speaker 2: though that certainly becomes a harder sell if the professional
Speaker 2: astronomy community confirms such an event. So maybe that would
Speaker 2: do the trick for me. Again, I don't know if
Speaker 2: that would convince me. It's possible, but God knows for
Speaker 2: sure exact exactly what would, and he has failed to
Speaker 2: do that thing, thus demonstrating that He either doesn't actually
Speaker 2: care all that much about whether or not I come
Speaker 2: to repentance, or that he doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: Doug from the Pine Creek Channel says that since the
Speaker 3: prophet Elijah could call down fire to light a soak
Speaker 3: sacrifice in the Book of Kings, and he could one
Speaker 3: up the prophets of ball by doing that. Then Christians
Speaker 3: should be able to prove Christianity is true by just
Speaker 3: setting a wet napkin on fire through prayer. Well, this
Speaker 3: would once again not necessarily prove Christianity. The fact that
Speaker 3: it's not something that Christians can do is rather odd.
Speaker 3: In the Bible, God is happy to show off in
Speaker 3: order to prove himself. The whole Plagues of Egypt thing
Speaker 3: was him doing exactly that. He explicitly stopped Pharaoh from
Speaker 3: letting the Israelites go so that he could continue showing
Speaker 3: off to them. Though honestly, given that a lot of
Speaker 3: the times God showing off meant a bunch of innocent
Speaker 3: people died, it's probably for the best that he doesn't
Speaker 3: do that anymore. Now. Some of the examples are better
Speaker 3: than others, but they all share the same flaw. I
Speaker 3: would ask the non believers who offer these examples, why
Speaker 3: would these particular things convince you that God exists?
Speaker 2: As I've already said a couple of times, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure that they would, but they'd certainly be a step
Speaker 2: in the right direction.
Speaker 3: I suspect ultimately this is the reasoning. I don't know
Speaker 3: what caused a limb to be healed, or the stars
Speaker 3: to move, or the napkin to catch fire. I can't
Speaker 3: imagine a natural cause. Therefore God must have done it.
Speaker 2: Yep, which is why I typically respond to these sorts
Speaker 2: of inquiries with the I don't know what would convince me,
Speaker 2: but God does line. I can understand why apologists might
Speaker 2: not like that answer, but I've honestly never seen one
Speaker 2: of them address it with anything more than a dismissal,
Speaker 2: usually with a jab about how arrogant it is to
Speaker 2: expect God to personally provide you with a demonstration. Who
Speaker 2: do you think you are that you can command God
Speaker 2: to perform at your whim, Which is fine, I'm actually
Speaker 2: not that arrogant, But that does basically confirm that the
Speaker 2: God described by the Bible does not exist. Because that
Speaker 2: God gave people personal experiences all the damn time, and
Speaker 2: he wants everyone to believe in him, so it seems
Speaker 2: reasonable to expect that such a God would continue to
Speaker 2: provide demonstrations similar to those that he did in the past.
Speaker 3: In other words, they commit the God of the GAP's
Speaker 3: fallacy in their hypothetical evidence. I don't know what cause
Speaker 3: dex Therefore God exists. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And remember, folks, that's a bad reason to believe in God.
Speaker 3: Here's a blatant example of this from my debate with
Speaker 3: atheist Dan Barker. When I asked Barker what would convince
Speaker 3: him to give up atheism. He said that if I
Speaker 3: prayed and told him what was written inside an envelope
Speaker 3: he had on stage with him, then he would believe
Speaker 3: God exists. He also claim that since God is all knowing,
Speaker 3: I could pray to God and God would tell me
Speaker 3: what's written on the card. Here is my reply, So
Speaker 3: let me understand, we have fifteen seconds left. If Jesus
Speaker 3: appeared and performed a miracle for you, you would ask God
Speaker 3: to apologize. But if I could do a magic.
Speaker 4: Trick, it's not a magic trick Christian, It's not a
Speaker 4: magic trick trant.
Speaker 3: I mean, suppose I really did guess what was written
Speaker 3: on the envelope Inside the envelope, would Dan Barker convert
Speaker 3: No way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're probably right, but it is quite telling that
Speaker 2: Christians don't actually have the ability to do any of
Speaker 2: the stuff that the Bible says they should be able
Speaker 2: to do. Granted, I don't think that the Bible says
Speaker 2: you'll be able to ask God about the contents of envelopes.
Speaker 2: But it does say that you'll be able to heal people.
Speaker 2: And what's more, it doesn't say that they'll only be
Speaker 2: healed if they have faith, or if the faith healer
Speaker 2: has faith, or something like that. It just says that
Speaker 2: they will lay their hands on the sick and they
Speaker 2: will recover, not they'll recover if they also believe. Not
Speaker 2: the person performing the miracle has to be a particular
Speaker 2: denomination or something, just that those who believe will be
Speaker 2: able to heal with the laying on of hands. It
Speaker 2: is explicitly called a sign in this case, meaning that
Speaker 2: these are things that Christians will be able to do
Speaker 2: in order to convince non Christians of the truth of
Speaker 2: Christianity while spreading the Gospel. Granted, these the words signs
Speaker 2: is one of the signs that this part of the
Speaker 2: Book of Mark is a later edition, as the Book
Speaker 2: of Mark is very much anti signs and wonders. That's
Speaker 2: more of a John type of thing, and Trent is Catholic,
Speaker 2: so he probably is willing to treat the Bible with
Speaker 2: quite a bit more nuanced than the typical apologiest that
Speaker 2: can be found on my channel, which as an atheist
Speaker 2: I appreciate. But if I put my admittedly Protestant Christian
Speaker 2: hat back on for a moment, I never understood how
Speaker 2: anyone could believe that God had a hand in writing
Speaker 2: a book that was supposed to be his message to us,
Speaker 2: but he treated it as sort of a side project
Speaker 2: where if somebody made a mistake with it, it's fine,
Speaker 2: humans will probably be able to figure it out. Like, No,
Speaker 2: this is the most important book in human history, and
Speaker 2: it contains God's most important message to humans, So why
Speaker 2: would he not carefully choose every single word and make
Speaker 2: sure that the whole thing says exactly what he wants
Speaker 2: it to say. As much as I prefer Christians who
Speaker 2: are willing to treat the Bible as more of an
Speaker 2: interesting anthropological artifact rather than the inerrant word of God,
Speaker 2: I've never actually understood that position.
Speaker 3: He'd think, you know, well, maybe it was a lucky guess,
Speaker 3: or maybe before the debate, when he was distracted, I
Speaker 3: opened the envelope, I read it, and then I resealed it,
Speaker 3: that would be way more likely than a miracle.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly why I can't believe in miracles on
Speaker 2: the basis of testimony written down thousands of years ago.
Speaker 3: Or at best, Dan would think that I have some
Speaker 3: unknown natural or supernatural power to read hidden messages, but
Speaker 3: not that God exists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is directly relevant to a lot of
Speaker 2: the arguments that Christian apologists often use. Even if I
Speaker 2: grant that, say, the cosmological argument proves that a supernatural
Speaker 2: being created the universe, it does nothing to get us
Speaker 2: to the God of the Bible.
Speaker 3: So I think this shows we have a double standard
Speaker 3: among some atheists, specifically among those who dismiss who dismiss
Speaker 3: classical arguments for God as essentially saying I don't know,
Speaker 3: therefore God. They just dismiss all the classic proofs I
Speaker 3: don't know therefore God. Then I say, you could prove
Speaker 3: God exists through one of their hypothetical examples, like guessing
Speaker 3: a card in an envelope, which is also a case
Speaker 3: of I don't know, therefore God.
Speaker 2: I think this might be the most that I've ever
Speaker 2: agreed with an apologist in any of my videos. Yes,
Speaker 2: that is a double standard, and that's why I don't
Speaker 2: use that particular argument against God. And I appreciate that
Speaker 2: Trent said that this was among some atheists. It's always
Speaker 2: good to see acknowledgement that atheism is not monolithic. As
Speaker 2: much as I've brought up the tens of thousands of
Speaker 2: denominations of Christianity, I would wager that there are significantly
Speaker 2: more versions of atheism. But of course, the main difference
Speaker 2: is that atheism doesn't actually have a God figure that
Speaker 2: explicitly stated that atheist unity is how you can know
Speaker 2: that atheism is true.
Speaker 3: I mean, what's the difference between an amputated limb coming
Speaker 3: into existence from nothing, proving God exists and a universe
Speaker 3: coming into nothing coming into being from nothing. Wouldn't that
Speaker 3: also prove God exists if that's what happened.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily depends on what you mean by nothing, I suppose,
Speaker 2: But the main difference that I can see here is
Speaker 2: that we would actually be able to witness a limb
Speaker 2: growing back with our own eyes. When it comes to
Speaker 2: the beginning of the universe, we are constrained to using
Speaker 2: our knowledge of how physics operates to construct mathematical models
Speaker 2: for what happened before the Big Bang, and our knowledge
Speaker 2: of how physics operates is such that we can't actually
Speaker 2: be sure what happened before the Big Bang. As of
Speaker 2: this moment, we've got several plausible ideas, but until that
Speaker 2: question is answered definitively, that is a pretty big difference
Speaker 2: between these two scenarios.
Speaker 3: The bottom line is that no matter what wildly fantastic
Speaker 3: scenario and atheist proposes that would allegedly prove God exists,
Speaker 3: you could always ask him, how do you know that
Speaker 3: there isn't an unknown natural explanation for that scenario?
Speaker 2: We can't know, Sam Goes for the argument for God.
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Speaker 3: What's interesting is that some atheists have even conceded that
Speaker 3: nothing could prove God exists, since you could always imagine
Speaker 3: another unknown explanation being the true cause of what everything
Speaker 3: you observe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as far as I can tell, even in the
Speaker 2: most extreme of cases, hallucination will be a more likely
Speaker 2: explanation than the existence of an actual supernatural entity. Of course,
Speaker 2: if the God that you believe in is all powerful
Speaker 2: and all knowing, I'm sure he could come up with
Speaker 2: something more convincing than my feeble atheist brain can. So
Speaker 2: we once again wind up back at a place where
Speaker 2: if God wanted to convince me, he could, but he
Speaker 2: has chosen not to.
Speaker 3: So it seems like you can either have an extreme
Speaker 3: God of the GAP's view towards the arguments for God
Speaker 3: and write them off, or be open to God existing,
Speaker 3: but you can't be both.
Speaker 2: If you acknowledge that all of the arguments for God
Speaker 2: do in fact make use of the God of the
Speaker 2: Gaps fallacy, then yes, you are correct, because this once
Speaker 2: again brings us to a point where the all powerful,
Speaker 2: all knowing being that you believe in should be capable
Speaker 2: of providing evidence of his existence that does not run
Speaker 2: a foul of fallacious reasoning in order to work. So
Speaker 2: the fact that he has not is pretty good evidence
Speaker 2: of his non existence.
Speaker 3: Instead, atheists, they should just be open to the classical
Speaker 3: arguments for the existence of God, and if they're not
Speaker 3: convinced by those arguments, be able to explain either which
Speaker 3: premise in the argument they don't think is true or
Speaker 3: what fallacy so civic logical fallacy the argument commits.
Speaker 2: Hey, that's basically my whole channel at this point.
Speaker 3: Yay, Now, let me address a few objections to this
Speaker 3: argument that I'm offering. One objection is that theists all
Speaker 3: they have to do to prove God exists is just
Speaker 3: offer repeatable, testable predictions of the God hypothesis, and that
Speaker 3: would prove God exists.
Speaker 2: We've already kind of touched on this. It would be
Speaker 2: a massive step in the right direction. But I honestly
Speaker 2: can't think of anything that would actually prove one religion
Speaker 2: over another, given the existence of so many malicious gods
Speaker 2: in the various religions that might want a trick humanity
Speaker 2: into believing the wrong thing. So well, it would be
Speaker 2: a step in the right direction, it doesn't quite get
Speaker 2: you there.
Speaker 3: This is basically saying, well, if you can scientifically prove
Speaker 3: God exists, then atheists would change their mind their minds.
Speaker 3: But what is science like? What is science? Science is
Speaker 3: the search for natural explanations of observe phenomena.
Speaker 2: That is, specifically the aspect of science known as methodological naturalism. Yes,
Speaker 2: but here's the thing with that, if the supernatural existed
Speaker 2: and interacted with our world in a detectable manner, then
Speaker 2: methodological naturalism would never have been developed in the first place,
Speaker 2: because it wouldn't be an accurate method of learning about reality. So,
Speaker 2: given that the best way we have for learning about
Speaker 2: reality precludes the idea that supernatural forces are at work,
Speaker 2: it seems reasonable to conclude that supernatural forces are not
Speaker 2: at work in our world if we could show something
Speaker 2: was testable, predictable part of our world, whatever effect that
Speaker 2: might be. Like, let's say only Catholic priests can change
Speaker 2: water into wine when they say certain words, say we
Speaker 2: do show that.
Speaker 3: Why wouldn't we conclude this is just an unexplained part
Speaker 3: of nature. And now we get back to the crux
Speaker 3: of the matter. This is all in highly hypothetical because
Speaker 3: the world works in exactly the way we would expect
Speaker 3: it to if no God existed. So, yeah, hypothetically, if
Speaker 3: only Catholic priests could convert water into wine, there may
Speaker 3: be some hypothetical, naturalistic explanation for that phenomenon, but that
Speaker 3: wouldn't be the default expectation if God did not exist.
Speaker 3: We would just expect nobody to be able to turn
Speaker 3: water into wine if no God exists. And that's what
Speaker 3: we see. So we are once again at a place
Speaker 3: where that would be a step in the right direction.
Speaker 3: But so far apologists only seem to be capable of
Speaker 3: taking hypothetical steps in the right direction rather than actual steps.
Speaker 3: I mean, who knows, maybe despite all our bluster, most
Speaker 3: atheists would be convinced by such things. We can't actually
Speaker 3: know for sure until such things actually start happening, So
Speaker 3: put up.
Speaker 2: Or shut up? I guess. Ah, man, this was so
Speaker 2: cordial up till now. Oh well, don't feel bad. Despite
Speaker 2: Trent appearing to be one of the more reasonable apologies
Speaker 2: that I've dealt with, there is plenty of nutbaggery underneath,
Speaker 2: and it's not hard to find. Within second of doing
Speaker 2: my basic background search to make sure I'm not responding
Speaker 2: to a version of Christianity that he doesn't believe in,
Speaker 2: I found an article where he bemoans the fact that
Speaker 2: people wouldn't tolerate arguments against contraception nowadays that are based
Speaker 2: on homophobia. So yeah, I don't actually feel bad about
Speaker 2: being less than cordial here. Oh god, damn it. I
Speaker 2: didn't even really get rude. Suck a doc trend. You
Speaker 2: might like it. No, why people tapologia is seriously but
Speaker 2: not me.
Speaker 3: This objection is basically saying, I'll believe a supernatural being
Speaker 3: exists if you can prove it as a regular part
Speaker 3: of the natural world that we observe. But that's a contradiction.
Speaker 3: You're saying that you will believe in the supernatural when
Speaker 3: you can show me it is a part of nature
Speaker 3: because science provides natural explanations for the things that we observe.
Speaker 2: And that seems like an admission that the supernatural does
Speaker 2: not interact in any detectable way with our world, which
Speaker 2: honestly sounds fine to me. Not sure what the distinction
Speaker 2: is between that and it just not existing in the
Speaker 2: first place.
Speaker 3: The point is you cannot prove God exists with science.
Speaker 3: Science studies material causes, effects, and forces. God's existence is
Speaker 3: something you would demonstrate philosophically, like other immaterial things you
Speaker 3: would demonstrate philosophically.
Speaker 2: That's not how Old Testament God seemed to see it.
Speaker 2: He had no problem people right up to prove that
Speaker 2: he was real. Wonder what changed, such as the existence
Speaker 2: of minds, moral truths, or numbers and other abstract objects.
Speaker 2: I would argue that you can't actually demonstrate the existence
Speaker 2: of minds. I'm only aware of mine because I'm in it,
Speaker 2: and I find the idea that other people that are
Speaker 2: acting as though they have minds of their own do
Speaker 2: so because they do have minds of their own to
Speaker 2: be a reasonable one. So I have no problem living
Speaker 2: with that as an axiomatic assumption. As to moral truths,
Speaker 2: I'm not convinced that moral truths are real in the
Speaker 2: sense that they would exist if moral agents did not exist.
Speaker 2: It seems to me that what we consider to be
Speaker 2: moral truths are our opinions based on our feelings that
Speaker 2: have developed largely through our solution as a social species,
Speaker 2: and numbers are just how we conceptualize quantifications of things.
Speaker 2: They're not an inherent part of nature. As far as
Speaker 2: I can tell, we invented math to describe reality. Reality
Speaker 2: is not inherently mathematical.
Speaker 3: An atheist might say, well, God is all knowing, so
Speaker 3: even if an atheist personally doesn't know what would convince him,
Speaker 3: God knows what would convince him, and therefore God could
Speaker 3: just show that person the evidence he needs and he
Speaker 3: won't be ignorant about God anymore.
Speaker 2: My God, it's like he's been listening to me.
Speaker 3: I think one way to address these objections is to
Speaker 3: shift the question away from what evidence would convince you
Speaker 3: that God exists to what evidence would make it reasonable
Speaker 3: for someone to believe God exists.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's really helpful here, because reasonableness is
Speaker 2: just as subjective a metric as the concept of what
Speaker 2: it would take to convince me. It's just externalizing the
Speaker 2: same thing. Though, to be fair, the examples I already
Speaker 2: gave would meet this mark. Again, I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: they would actually convince me. But if Christians all had
Speaker 2: magical healing powers like the Bible says they do, then
Speaker 2: I would at least think that the belief in Christianity
Speaker 2: is a reasonable one. The problem once again lies in
Speaker 2: the fact that all of these scenarios are purely hypothetical,
Speaker 2: because the reality of the situation is that reality behaves
Speaker 2: just as you would expect it to if there were
Speaker 2: no God.
Speaker 3: You see, being convinced of something. Being convinced seems to
Speaker 3: be almost a matter of personal taste. For example, I
Speaker 3: could ask Matt Dillahunty, how would you know that what
Speaker 3: convinced you that God exists actually gave you a good
Speaker 3: reason to believe God exists. I mean, people are often
Speaker 3: convinced of false things, So the fact that something convinces
Speaker 3: Matt dilla Hunty to believe it doesn't mean it's a
Speaker 3: good reason.
Speaker 2: And conversely, you can have good reason to believe things
Speaker 2: that are not true. When I find a bunch of
Speaker 2: shredded tissues on my bed, we have good reasona believe
Speaker 2: that the dog got into the garbage again because for
Speaker 2: some reason she loves snotty Kleenex and apparently wants to
Speaker 2: make sure it gets on my pillows specifically. But there
Speaker 2: have been times when it turned out that a child
Speaker 2: was to blame, so it was reasonable to believe that
Speaker 2: the dog did it, but that would have been a
Speaker 2: false belief.
Speaker 3: Saying that what would convince Matt Dillahunty to believe is
Speaker 3: just what would convince him is circular. It reduces the
Speaker 3: debate over God's existence to whether certain external observations merely
Speaker 3: cause us to have convincing internal feelings, rather than following
Speaker 3: a process of reasoning. That's why I think it's better
Speaker 3: to ask whether certain beliefs are reasonable or unreasonable, and
Speaker 3: then use our reason to follow the arguments made in
Speaker 3: favor of those beliefs to see if either one of
Speaker 3: the premises is not true, or we have no good
Speaker 3: reason to think it's true, or there's been an error
Speaker 3: in the reasoning or a fallacy.
Speaker 2: Would you consider a belief to be unreasonable if it
Speaker 2: hits one of those marks, because you've already basically conceded
Speaker 2: that the arguments for God all make use of the
Speaker 2: God of the Gaps fallacy. So if that's our standard,
Speaker 2: then no belief in God is not reasonable.
Speaker 3: After all, you can think something is reasonable even if
Speaker 3: it doesn't convince you. And that seems to take us
Speaker 3: more into the domain of reason than the domain of feelings.
Speaker 2: Okay, but there's no shortage of apologists making it explicitly
Speaker 2: clear that feelings are what convince people that God is real.
Speaker 2: So this seems like, once again, it may be a
Speaker 2: bit of a moot point. And I just so happen
Speaker 2: to have a montage of apologists saying just that. So
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and give that a little luky lou.
Speaker 2: Shall we learn to circumnavigate or go around the person's
Speaker 2: intellect the place of argument and speak directly to their conscience.
Speaker 2: And I didn't want to resist.
Speaker 5: I had a hunger to give in to this.
Speaker 6: The klom cosmological argument. I like, oh, that's a really
Speaker 6: good argument for God's existence. But I don't know how
Speaker 6: much it strikes people's emotions. I look at the moral
Speaker 6: argument and I go, ah, that one hits people's emotions,
Speaker 6: and it's intellectually strong as well.
Speaker 4: Our lines are all meant to touch the heart, to
Speaker 4: go right past, in a sense, the intellect, and to
Speaker 4: speak directly to the existential awareness people have.
Speaker 5: Far from raising the bar or the epistemic standard that
Speaker 5: Christianity must meet to be believed, I lower it. I
Speaker 5: think that this is a message which is so wonderful,
Speaker 5: so fantastic, that if there's any evidence that it's true,
Speaker 5: then it's worth believing it.
Speaker 2: As Pology is so astutely observed in his recent video
Speaker 2: covering apologist reaction to Reht McLaughlin's interview with Alex O'Connor,
Speaker 2: it seems as though nothing more than pleasant feelings are
Speaker 2: all that is necessary to become a believer in christian
Speaker 2: But if you should ever want to leave Christianity, you
Speaker 2: better have read every goddamn apologetics book there is and
Speaker 2: be fully prepared to respond to every single claim using
Speaker 2: nothing but facts and logic. Otherwise you obviously weren't really
Speaker 2: a Christian to begin with, or didn't give Christianity or
Speaker 2: something along those lines.
Speaker 3: So i'd ask an atheist, could it ever be reasonable
Speaker 3: for someone to believe God exists?
Speaker 2: Using the criteria that you laid out here and taking
Speaker 2: your admission that arguments for God are all based on
Speaker 2: the God of the gaps fallacy into consideration now. But
Speaker 2: in the hypothetical world where only Catholic priests can turn
Speaker 2: water into wine, or where Christians can heal amputees, yes,
Speaker 2: it could be reasonable. I'd even go so far as
Speaker 2: to say that if you had a personal experience that
Speaker 2: you are convinced was genuine, then in our actual, real world,
Speaker 2: belief in God could still be reasonable. But as I
Speaker 2: have already pointed out, reasonable beliefs can be wrong, and
Speaker 2: I would argue that it is at least as reasonable
Speaker 2: to doubt the existence of God based on the complete
Speaker 2: lack of anything approaching actual evidence.
Speaker 3: So let me return to the title of this video,
Speaker 3: which I admit it it's a bit of a generalization,
Speaker 3: but video titles can kind of be that way. I said,
Speaker 3: there's one question atheists can't answer, and that's what would
Speaker 3: prove God exists? I said, it's not helpful to frame
Speaker 3: the question as what would convince you God exists? Since
Speaker 3: that's more about feelings than rational discourse. I'd rather ask
Speaker 3: an atheist, can a person rationally believe in God? And
Speaker 3: if so, under what circumstances could that take place?
Speaker 2: Okay, you're changing the language of the question, though I've
Speaker 2: already said that it could be reasonable to believe in God,
Speaker 2: but now you're asking if it could be rational. Those
Speaker 2: two words are often used interchangeably. But when we're getting
Speaker 2: into the philosophical weeds regarding arguments for God, we need
Speaker 2: to be careful and intentional with our language. And if
Speaker 2: we're digging up rationality, we now have to distinguish between
Speaker 2: the different kinds of rationality. Are we talking about normative rationality,
Speaker 2: which explains how people ideally should make decisions based on
Speaker 2: logic and reason, taking all possible data into account, whether
Speaker 2: the person knows about the data or not. Or are
Speaker 2: we talking about descriptive rationality, which explains why people actually
Speaker 2: make decisions based on the knowledge that they actually have,
Speaker 2: combined with their desired outcomes. So, for example, if someone
Speaker 2: pursues a PhD in some obscure field of anthropology with
Speaker 2: very few career opportunities, then we could say that from
Speaker 2: a normative perspective, they should have chosen a field with
Speaker 2: better prospects, But from a descriptive perspective, they chose the
Speaker 2: field that they are passionate about and derive more fulfillment from.
Speaker 2: So the normatively irrational choice was the descriptively rational choice.
Speaker 2: All this to say that, yes, belief in God can
Speaker 2: be rational, but that depends heavily on what you mean
Speaker 2: by the word rational. I didn't even get into prescriptive
Speaker 2: rationality or what happens when you mix and match between
Speaker 2: these three views.
Speaker 3: It's not helpful to say, well, under this miracle, this
Speaker 3: specific miracle, or that specific miracle, it'd be reasonable to believe,
Speaker 3: because those are just examples of sufficient evidence, subjective examples.
Speaker 3: They aren't objective definitions of what level of evidence would
Speaker 3: be sufficient for anyone to believe.
Speaker 2: That's because it's actually impossible to objectively define the level
Speaker 2: of evidence required for everyone to believe, because that is
Speaker 2: an inherently subjective metric. What it will take to convince
Speaker 2: someone will vary from person to person based on their dispositions,
Speaker 2: their lived experiences, their prior knowledge of the subject, their
Speaker 2: current state of mind, et cetera, et cetera et cetera.
Speaker 3: So here's my new question then for an atheist, and
Speaker 3: one you could ask an atheist or an agnostic or
Speaker 3: non believing friend to be this, what is the best
Speaker 3: argument for the existence of God and what's wrong with it?
Speaker 3: Or what is the least problematic argument for God and
Speaker 3: what's specifically wrong with it?
Speaker 2: And this is honestly a really tough question, because I
Speaker 2: don't find any arguments for God to be even the
Speaker 2: slightest bit convincing. Best I could give you is that
Speaker 2: the cosmological argument gets to places where the scientific counter
Speaker 2: to the gap that it sticks God into is full
Speaker 2: of stuff that I just will never understand, not even
Speaker 2: in the slightest But that is itself the problem with it.
Speaker 2: It is the argument that I have the hardest time
Speaker 2: dealing with because it deals with the subject where there
Speaker 2: are a lot of unknowns for me, as in, the
Speaker 2: knowledge gap that God gets stuck into is bigger than
Speaker 2: the other arguments that I'm familiar with. So that's why
Speaker 2: I have a harder time with it. I don't see
Speaker 2: how that could be convincing.
Speaker 3: Remember, to show something is wrong with an argument, you
Speaker 3: need to point out either an untrue premise in the
Speaker 3: argument or some kind of fallacy in the reasoning specific fallacy,
Speaker 3: not just like it's God of the Gaps, What specific
Speaker 3: logical fallacy is being committed?
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess, if you want to get technical,
Speaker 2: the proper term for the God of the Gaps fallacy
Speaker 2: is actually the argument from ignorance, which is the phrase
Speaker 2: I used for it before Trent started using God of
Speaker 2: the Gaps to reference it. So that is the specific fallacy.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what more you want than that. I'm
Speaker 2: happy to acknowledge the fact that a fallacious argument can
Speaker 2: have a conclusion that is true. So saying that the
Speaker 2: arguments for God are fallacious does not automatically mean that
Speaker 2: God does not exist, but it does invalidate those particular arguments.
Speaker 2: But hey, if we want to get robust, let's use
Speaker 2: the colomn cosmological argument. Premis one, whatever begins to exist
Speaker 2: has a cause. Premise too, the universe began to exist. Conclusion,
Speaker 2: the universe had a cause. Despite everything I've said up
Speaker 2: to this point, this argument does not make use of
Speaker 2: the argument from ignorance fallacy. But you'll notice something else
Speaker 2: about it. Despite apologists regularly using it as an argument
Speaker 2: for God, it actually only gets you to a cause
Speaker 2: for the universe. So even if I stop here and
Speaker 2: don't point out the composition fallacy that it makes use of,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work as an argument for God. But it
Speaker 2: also does make use of the composition fallacy, which is
Speaker 2: where you infer that something is true of a whole
Speaker 2: from the fact that it is true of the parts
Speaker 2: of the whole. We don't know that causality as we
Speaker 2: understand it within the universe is applicable in the same
Speaker 2: way to the universe as a whole, so the conclusion
Speaker 2: does not follow from these premises. It also makes use
Speaker 2: of the equivocation fallacy, where the same word or phrase
Speaker 2: is used in multiple senses in one argument. In this case,
Speaker 2: the phrase begins to exist in the first premise that
Speaker 2: everything begins to exist has a cause. We are talking
Speaker 2: about things beginning to exist within the universe. But everything
Speaker 2: that begins to exist within the universe is not beginning
Speaker 2: in the same way as the universe as a whole.
Speaker 2: Everything within the universe is technically a rearranging of pre
Speaker 2: existing energy and material. But when we get to premise too,
Speaker 2: with the universe beginning to exist, apologists will usually explain
Speaker 2: this as being created out of nothing. There was nothing.
Speaker 2: Now there's a universe that is not using begins to
Speaker 2: exist in the same sense as we understand it within
Speaker 2: the universe. So there you go, two fallacies in one
Speaker 2: of the most robust arguments that apologists use. And they're
Speaker 2: not even the argument from ignorance fallacy, which inevitably comes
Speaker 2: up once you try to connect cause of the universe
Speaker 2: to God of the Bible. And that's it for this one.
Speaker 2: He just goes into book recommendations from there. Today's comment
Speaker 2: to the day comes to us from Steve Weber seven
Speaker 2: oh seven, who says, saying that the Disciples disappeared from
Speaker 2: reliable history requires them to be in reliable history accounts,
Speaker 2: to which I say, yeah, we can be pretty confident
Speaker 2: in Peter's existence based on Paul having written about going
Speaker 2: to meet him in Galatians. But given how a bunch
Speaker 2: of the disciples got smushed together in church tradition, when
Speaker 2: it became apparent that each of the gospels had different
Speaker 2: people on the list of jesus twelve disciples, I do
Speaker 2: feel pretty confident in saying that at least some of
Speaker 2: them were themselves a part of the legendary growth of
Speaker 2: the story. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to go to
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Speaker 2: but if you need to get your Rhino fixed in
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Speaker 2: to Piper for being my editor and special thanks as
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Speaker 5: M h.
Speaker 2: Either doesn't care all that much. Do not disturb for
Speaker 2: two hours, probably not keep my clap position. But what
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on anymore.