Latest / Brett Keane and Eve Show / Christian DarwintoJesus and Cedar Atheist Discussion /w Guests

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Christian DarwintoJesus and Cedar Atheist Discussion /w Guests · Brett Keane and Eve Show

2:51
All right. Cedar, are you there?
3:06
Cedar, can you hear me? I don't hear you.
3:13
Does anybody else hear Cedar? If you hear him, give him a a
3:16
thumbs up. You might need to drop out and
3:23
come back in. All right.
3:36
Hopefully this will work. All right.
3:43
Cedar, can you unmute? Hey, can you hear me?
3:52
I can't hear you. If you're talking,
4:06
do you want to try to just drop out of the room and then come
4:08
back in? Sorry about this, everybody.
4:20
I guess we're having some technical difficulties.
4:26
Thanks, everybody, for stopping in.
4:28
I appreciate it, Majin. Good to see you, man.
4:31
Defender. All right, let's see if I can
4:35
get this working here. Great to speak.
4:52
OK. I heard something.
4:55
Yeah, yeah. I can hear you and.
4:56
I'm coming through OK. Yep, you sound good.
4:59
Awesome. I had to change which my.
5:02
I had like 7 different microphones and I had to choose
5:04
the right one on my Internet settings.
5:08
I had a feeling it was something like that.
5:10
Well, awesome. We got that figured out.
5:12
So fantastic. Well, how you doing, man?
5:15
Doing all right, just enjoying my enjoying my Saturday.
5:19
Yeah, well same here. It's great to finally get to do
5:24
this. I'm, I've been looking forward
5:26
to it. Hopefully you have too and you
5:28
know I appreciate you coming in here to what could potentially
5:32
be like hostile territory. You know, hopefully you know,
5:36
it's not going to be like that, but still I appreciate it.
5:39
It's a pleasure to be here. I thank you for the invitation.
5:41
I'm pretty resistant to any negativity, so I I imagine that
5:46
we'll be OK. I know that you'll I have
5:49
confidence that you will help establish and maintain decency
5:53
as well. Oh, yeah, I will.
5:56
I I give you my pledge right now.
5:59
So if that doesn't happen, then everyone can call me a liar.
6:03
And this is recorded, right? So, but yeah, so you want to
6:08
tell us a little bit about yourself.
6:10
You know, not not a whole long story, but you know kind of why
6:15
you became an atheist and how long you've been an atheist,
6:18
that type of. Thing Yeah, So I was raised in a
6:21
Christian household. I was raised Fundamental Baptist
6:26
and went to church regularly and went to a college specifically
6:32
that was a Christian college so that I can deepen my
6:34
relationship that I had with God As I was coming into adulthood.
6:41
And in going to that college and trying to deepen my relationship
6:46
and deepen my understanding of the Word and my beliefs in God,
6:50
I was examining the beliefs that I had, trying to best understand
6:55
them. How could I?
6:56
How could I present this story or how can I present this
6:58
testimony to other people to help try and save them?
7:02
I wanted to. I wanted to follow the Word as I
7:05
believe it's first Peter 3:15 that says that you should be
7:07
prepared for the questions that the world will have for you.
7:10
And I wanted to be prepared in going forward into my adult life
7:14
to spread the word and in examining my own beliefs, I
7:19
found them to be wanting. I wanted to say, you know, how
7:23
can I convince other people if I can't convince myself first?
7:26
What are the reasons that I have for believing and how can I
7:29
share that reason to somebody else to help convince them?
7:33
That was a long process. There wasn't really a day that
7:38
it started or a day that it ended.
7:40
It was just a investigation over a few years.
7:42
And I would say I've been an atheist for close to 10 years
7:47
now. As a result of that, just
7:51
essentially running out of reasons to continue believing
7:56
what I was raised to believe that I Yep, so Christian about
8:01
20 years, and now an atheist about 10 years.
8:05
OK, so if I understand you right, you were on fire for God.
8:09
You went to college and you wanted to defend your faith.
8:12
And in trying to defend your faith, you started to basically
8:18
look into the reasons to give other people.
8:20
And you found that those reasons were not even compelling to
8:25
yourself and eventually just kind of faded away, Didn't find
8:29
the reasons compelling or you found there to be no good
8:32
reasons in some situations, I'd imagine.
8:35
And and so now you're an atheist, Is that correct?
8:38
That's a pretty good summary, yeah.
8:41
OK, cool. All right.
8:43
Yeah, it sounds like there's probably a lot more to it, but I
8:46
did ask for a quick summation. Yeah, feel free to ask any
8:48
clarifying questions if there's if there's any any suspicions or
8:51
any ideas that you have, do feel free to ask any clarifying
8:54
questions. Well, no, not, not the moment.
9:00
I don't, I don't think so. But it is interesting because
9:02
I'm actually a fundamentalist Baptist now, so we just we.
9:07
Directly switched sides then. Yeah, we did.
9:11
You know, 'cause I was an atheist until I was 2829.
9:15
Unfortunately, I didn't write down the date when I got saved
9:18
and everything, But yeah, so now I'm a fundamentalist Baptist and
9:22
I wasn't raised Baptist. I was raised, I was raised
9:26
Christian, but not Baptist. I was raised charismatic.
9:29
So they're the ones that speak in tongues for anyone that
9:33
doesn't know. They kind of run around and act
9:36
foolish and stuff. Oh that's not that's not
9:38
Methodist, but you just say charismatic, but were they not
9:41
non denominational? Yeah, like non denominational
9:45
Pentecostal, charismatic. Pentecostal.
9:47
That's what I was thinking. Of.
9:48
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:50
It's all the same type stuff, so that's very different than
9:55
fundamentalist Baptist. But anyway, I'm kind of
9:57
digressing. So you've been an atheist now
10:01
for 10 years, and what was it like to lose your faith that was
10:08
that grievous to you? It was a struggle.
10:11
I it since it never it didn't really happen all at once.
10:15
You know, like if if you think of most life altering events,
10:19
they tend to happen pretty quickly.
10:22
But my deconversion wasn't something that happened
10:26
overnight. It really started with being a
10:30
theist and investigating my faith in earnest and finding
10:37
them wanting and trying to ask questions.
10:41
Especially since I was in a Christian college at the time.
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I had many resources available to me, many different professors
10:47
that I can go and talk to and ask these questions to.
10:50
And it was just gradual. It wasn't, it wasn't just like,
10:54
oh, I'm an atheist now. It was, well, maybe, I don't
10:58
know, for a little bit. There was a there was a period
11:00
where it was like, well, now I'm now I'm getting really worried
11:04
because all these major foundational core beliefs that I
11:07
had are starting to fall apart. So maybe it's just OK Well, I'm
11:11
not as confident as I was before.
11:13
So now I'm at I don't know. And then eventually getting
11:17
thinking about that deeper. So I called myself agnostic
11:20
during this transitionary period and coming to a conclusion, you
11:25
know, it's like if you're sitting, I'm sitting in church
11:28
and listening to the sermon and I'm thinking to myself, I don't
11:32
even know if I believe this is real anymore.
11:35
I don't know if I believe that this God exists anymore.
11:39
And sitting and thinking about that thinking, I guess that
11:43
means I'm an atheist. I I both do not know that a God
11:48
exists, and I find myself now in the position where I do not
11:52
believe. Yeah, I remember when I was a
11:59
kid, so I pretty much always doubted it.
12:03
My mom will tell you that I got baptized when I was like 6 or 7,
12:07
but I don't remember that at all.
12:09
And she says, I went to a Christian camp or something and
12:13
I came back on fire for God, got baptized.
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I don't remember any of that. What I remember is always hating
12:19
going to church. So we're very different in that
12:22
respect because I was always questioning what I was being
12:25
told about religion. And my mom and dad never seemed
12:29
to have good answers as far as I was concerned.
12:31
So as soon as I got big enough, as soon as I got bigger than my
12:34
mom, I told her I'm not going to church anymore.
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And she knew that she couldn't make me because I was bigger
12:41
than she was and stronger. And I didn't go after that.
12:45
And then I got really big into atheism and everything.
12:48
So I felt that atheism was very well, I don't know if I would
12:55
say enlightening, but I thought that it was definitely the
12:58
intellectual position for sure. And you know, I my my transition
13:05
to becoming a Christian is pretty a pretty long story.
13:07
So I won't get into that, but I do want to say real quick for
13:11
anybody listening that if you guys have any questions for me
13:15
or Cedar, my guest here, please write those down because we will
13:19
be opening it up for the room at the end.
13:21
And of course, please be polite to my guest.
13:24
If you want to be a little bit abusive to me, that's fine, but
13:26
no abuse towards my guests at all, please.
13:29
And how long do I have you for? As long as you'd have me.
13:35
OK, cool. Just want to make sure that you
13:37
didn't have any time constraints.
13:39
So 10 hours sound good? We can, we can talk for one or
13:43
two hours, I'd be fine. I'd be fine with with that.
13:47
Yeah, I'm just coming out. So.
13:49
All right, cool. All right.
13:51
So let's talk a little bit about atheism.
13:56
So I want to convert you, and it's probably not going to
14:00
happen in this conversation, but maybe I can get the wheels
14:03
turning. Honestly, I want to convert you
14:04
to a Christian, but it's not what I'm about to.
14:07
Try. I understand.
14:09
I want to convert you to big dog atheism.
14:14
That you might have a harder time doing that one.
14:19
Well, because it looks like looking at your story, I did
14:21
read your thread on why you left atheism, your 12 part thread.
14:24
I did go through that and it seems like that was your
14:27
position, was that you were big dog atheist, that you said there
14:31
is no God. No, I was a little.
14:34
Oh really? OK.
14:36
I'm not going to lie about it. Yeah.
14:37
Yeah. I understand where you're coming
14:39
from more than I understand where the big dogs are coming
14:42
from. Because I thought that the
14:44
position of no God exists was untenable.
14:47
You know, I didn't want to have to shoulder a burden of proof,
14:54
but. But I think that if you're not
14:59
shouldering any type of burden, I think that you should be
15:03
calling yourself an agnostic. Are you familiar with this?
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I am, and the counter that I give to that is Gnosticism has
15:10
to do with knowledge, whereas theism and atheism has to do
15:13
with belief. I am in the position currently.
15:16
I do not know that a God exists and I do not believe it.
15:19
Belief is a subset of that knowledge.
15:24
And well, the way that I, I phrase it, OK, hear me out is if
15:29
I ask you like are there more even stars in the Galaxy or odd
15:33
stars in the Galaxy? I like that.
15:36
OK. Like what?
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Which would you say you know, like?
15:39
Well. Here's a proposition like the
15:42
The number of stars in our Galaxy is even right.
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Do you believe that? I don't know.
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I this, this is this is akin to the gumball analogy.
15:53
Exactly. So you don't know.
15:54
So that would be agnosticism. And what I'm trying to point out
15:57
here is that for every proposition in this proposition
16:00
was there is an even number of stars in the Galaxy.
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For every proposition, there are three doxastic positions that
16:07
are available, which is you believe the proposition, you
16:11
believe the proposition is false or you don't know, meaning you
16:15
reserve judgment. OK, You're on the fence, OK.
16:19
And that would be agnosticism, because you don't believe either
16:22
way and you don't know. So that's agnosticism.
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I think. So there's three positions I.
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Think that's a category error because you could.
16:29
Because knowledge and belief are two different things.
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So like you can say I know the number of impulses even I know
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they're odd, or I know, or I don't know, and then belief.
16:40
Is going to belief. Is going to be a subset of the
16:42
knowledge that you acquire. But when you agree that when it
16:46
comes to believing a proposition that there are three positions.
16:52
If if in this analogy there are three in this, in this in this
16:55
there are three positions it's the answer is either even.
16:58
I would argue there's always 3. Well, I think that in this, in
17:03
this position, when you're looking at it, it's either the
17:05
gumball number is even or sorry, the stars are even, odd, even or
17:09
odd, sorry, Those are the only two positions.
17:12
And then your knowledge claim after that is going to be one of
17:14
those three. I know that it's even, I know
17:16
that's odd or I don't know. And then your belief will be a
17:19
subset of that knowledge. So, So what I'm saying is that
17:25
if I give you a proposition, any proposition is always going to
17:29
be true or false. Would you agree with that?
17:31
Any proposition was always going to be true or false.
17:35
Yeah. I'm not sure that that's always
17:38
the case. Most of the time, it would.
17:40
Can you think of an exception the.
17:46
Proposition is always either true or false.
17:50
I would say. I think a more accurate way to
17:52
say it is just either true or not true.
17:56
Well, not true means false. If that I may, that may be just
18:01
me being potentic about it. I cannot at the moment think of
18:03
it. Think of an option there where
18:05
it's going to be something that's either you know.
18:07
A or. Not a.
18:08
It's going to be one of those two.
18:11
Yeah, so. So there's always, as far as we
18:14
can tell, unless you think of an exception, right?
18:16
Seems like there's always 2 possibilities.
18:19
True, true, false. All right.
18:20
For every proposition, all of them.
18:22
But we can also just reserve judgment, right?
18:26
Like so we don't have to say I believe that the proposition is
18:29
true. We don't have to say I believe
18:31
that the proposition is false. We can be on the fence too about
18:34
a proposition, right? Because we don't have enough
18:36
knowledge to come to a conclusion.
18:39
Yeah, we we, we just don't have enough information or maybe we
18:41
have good information on both sides.
18:44
You know, I can think of propositions like that where I
18:47
see some evidence on one side, I see some evidence on the other,
18:51
and my mind's not made-up. You know, I mean, like a lot of
18:54
time that happens. When we think about who's going
18:57
to win, you know, a game, you know, like an NFL game or
19:00
something like that, you, the proposition might be like my
19:04
team's going to win, but you can see reasons why the other team
19:07
might win, right. So you're kind of on the fence
19:09
about who's actually going to win.
19:12
Yeah, yeah. And the information, and even in
19:14
that analogy, the information is going to change as the game
19:17
progresses because you know, it's just it's a live.
19:21
The data is actively changing as you're observing it.
19:24
So what I'm saying is that if you're on the fence about a
19:27
proposition, well then you don't believe that it's true.
19:30
You don't believe that it's false.
19:31
So you don't hold a belief in either direction and you just
19:34
don't know. And if you don't know, well then
19:37
you're agnostic. I both.
19:40
Now you do. Hold a belief.
19:42
I have plenty of beliefs, no? No, no, I'm saying about a
19:45
proposition. So like you know, the
19:50
proposition is that there is an even number of stars in the
19:54
Galaxy. So you said I don't know, right.
19:57
Because you you don't believe that it's true.
19:59
You don't believe it's false. You just you're you're on the
20:01
fence. You don't know.
20:04
Well, if I let me try and explain it at least this way.
20:07
Going to the star analogy, if we're looking at either either
20:10
even or odd, I both do not know that they are even and I both do
20:16
not believe that they are even. My my belief is going to be a
20:21
subset of that knowledge. I don't.
20:23
But you don't believe that they're odd either, right?
20:25
Right. Yeah.
20:27
So you don't hold a belief either way.
20:29
I'm withholding that belief. My belief it might Yeah, I I do
20:34
not know and I'm not. Convinced.
20:35
I do not believe that they are even and I do not believe.
20:38
They are odd. Yeah.
20:40
So if there's no belief either way, then you're taking the
20:43
third position, which is just agnostic because you don't know.
20:49
I both do not know and do not believe.
20:53
Yes, You hold no belief. So there's no belief either way.
20:56
Because remember it for every proposition, you either believe
21:00
that the proposition is true, you believe that's false, or you
21:02
just don't know. And so you're not saying I
21:05
believe it's true. You're not saying I believe it's
21:07
false. You're saying I don't know.
21:08
So you're taking that third position, Agnostic.
21:10
I don't know. I know that this is trying to
21:14
get to like, well, you can't call yourself an atheist because
21:17
atheists have a belief claim. But that's.
21:19
If you want to call yourself an atheist, it I'm not going to
21:22
stop you. I know just pointing.
21:24
Out but this. That that I think that if you,
21:27
if you don't want, if you're literally on the fence that this
21:31
is the correct word that atheist should be using, is agnostic,
21:35
not atheist. You know, because it wouldn't
21:39
make sense if you if I said, hey, do you think that the stars
21:42
in the Galaxy are even and you said no, and I said, OK, well
21:46
then you're an oddest. Well, that would be weird,
21:49
right? Because you're like, whoa, whoa.
21:51
I don't think that they're odd either, right.
21:53
I don't know. That's why.
21:54
That's why the answer has to be I don't know if somebody if you
21:56
ask somebody that and they. Say.
21:58
Even. Know.
22:00
Yeah, you can't. They're they're making a mistake
22:02
there. They just need to say I don't
22:03
know and then the subset. Of it.
22:06
And that's their knowledge claim.
22:07
And then the subset of that knowledge claim is going to be
22:09
the belief. Which they don't have one in
22:13
this case, right? They're withholding belief.
22:18
That's. Yes, they don't have a belief.
22:20
Their belief is they don't know well.
22:25
Like if. You if you want to try and make
22:26
it. If you want to try and make it a
22:28
positive belief claim. They both do they.
22:31
No, I don't. Well, if I want to try and make
22:33
it a positive belief claim. They believe that they do not
22:36
know. Sure.
22:39
Yeah, sure. I mean, but that would still be
22:42
agnosticism, right? Both agnostic and a evenest, A
22:48
oddest whatever, whatever position you would have, it's
22:51
just like they both do not know and do not believe it it it is
22:56
both. So like if if we were to try and
22:58
take this over to theism, you can have agnostic theists and
23:03
gnostic theists. Somebody who knows God exists
23:07
and believes it and somebody who does not know God exists but
23:12
believes it. So like it's it's not if you're
23:17
since these are two different categories.
23:18
Since belief and knowledge are two different categories, you
23:21
have 4 results that are going to be descriptors that they are
23:25
Gnostic or agnostic and Theist or Atheist.
23:29
So I think this is what where where we kind of talk past each
23:33
other because I'm I'm trying to point out that there are always
23:36
3 doxastic prop avenues that you can take towards any
23:40
proposition. And you're pointing out that an
23:44
8 someone who believes in God doesn't necessarily or isn't
23:47
necessary claiming to know. But that's not what I'm pointing
23:50
out. I'm pointing out that for every
23:53
proposition, you either believe it, you don't believe it,
23:57
meaning that you believe it's false, or you just start
23:59
reserving judgment and you don't know, obviously, because if you
24:02
knew, you'd believe why. Wouldn't you say believe?
24:04
I would say you either know don't know.
24:07
You either know yes, no, no, or don't know belief, because
24:12
belief is going to be the subset of the knowledge that you
24:15
acquire from that. Well, do you agree that you can
24:18
believe something and not know it?
24:22
It would be irrational. Really, If interesting.
24:27
So if you go to the casino, do you know that you're going to
24:30
lose? I have a.
24:32
Based on previous experiences, I have an expectation that I'm
24:36
likely going to lose. I'm not.
24:38
You expect to lose. Do you believe that you'll lose
24:41
I? Don't know.
24:43
Because there's. A chance, Do you believe that
24:45
you'll lose? Well, I would have to say I
24:49
don't know my belief. My belief is yet to be formed, I
24:53
would say. Interesting.
24:55
So you it seems like you think that belief and knowledge are
24:58
synonymous. That might be where the
25:02
confusion is happening here, 'cause I don't think that
25:04
there's synonymous at all. I can, to me, I can believe a
25:08
proposition and not claim to know it.
25:11
You know, like I can believe in something with only 51%
25:15
certainty. You know, like it.
25:17
I I believe, you know, like we just talked about, if I go to
25:20
the casino, I'm going to lose. But the chances of me losing
25:24
it's is almost a coin flip. But I still believe I'm going to
25:27
lose because the odds are that I will lose.
25:29
So I have a belief because the proposition is will you make
25:34
money going to the casino. And I I believe that I won't.
25:37
So there's the belief because I think that I I do believe that I
25:39
will not make money. I believe that will be the case.
25:43
But I I wouldn't say I know that I won't make money because I
25:45
very well could. People make money at casinos all
25:49
the time. Yeah.
25:51
And I see, I see where you're coming at because I because I
25:54
think about that and it's like well if I think about it I'm, I
25:57
feel like I'm still like withholding that belief of
25:59
whether I'll win or lose. I'm thinking it's a chance and
26:02
then I'm like, if I'm, you know, if I'm going to casino, I want
26:05
to bet on the chance that's. Part of, right.
26:07
So if there's a chance, then, then you know, it's not really,
26:11
like certain. I wouldn't, I wouldn't call that
26:13
knowledge. You know, if there's a chance
26:14
you could be wrong, right? Yeah.
26:17
So is that fair to say that belief and knowledge are not the
26:20
same thing then? Or?
26:23
I'm I'm not sure that I expressed that they are the same
26:26
thing I I just expressed that belief is going to be a subset
26:30
that forms out of the knowledge that you have on any subject.
26:34
OK. So maybe unpack that a little
26:36
bit. Would you mind, just so I make I
26:38
make sure I understand exactly what you're saying?
26:41
Let's see. If somebody were to tell me that
26:44
it's snowing outside, I at that point do not know.
26:51
And it's like, OK, cool, you've told me that's snowing outside.
26:53
I'd be willing to believe you. I can look at my phone and see
26:56
if it's snowing or just go outside and look and go, OK,
26:58
it's snowing. When I've formed that knowledge
27:03
that it is snowing, it's like, OK, now I know that it's
27:05
snowing, then I believe with certain, with more certainty
27:10
that it is snowing. Like.
27:15
Interesting. That the belief is formed once
27:19
you have knowledge of the subject.
27:23
See, I would call what you just gathered information or
27:26
evidence. I wouldn't call that like
27:28
knowledge necessarily. I mean, for example, I'm kind of
27:35
coming up with this on the fly, but, you know, sometimes you
27:38
troubleshoot something, right? Like your light isn't worse, OK,
27:43
and you need to troubleshoot it. You're trying to figure out
27:45
what's the problem, right? Because there's a number of
27:48
things that could be causing the issue.
27:49
It could be your switch, It could be that the light bulb
27:52
isn't working right. I'm following and so you need
27:56
to. I'm no, I'm following.
27:58
Yeah. And so you need to do process of
28:01
elimination, right? So the first thing that you do
28:05
is you change light bulbs, right?
28:06
You put in what you think is a new light bulb.
28:09
Obviously you're not 100% certain, but you think it's a
28:11
new light bulb. You screw that in and you turn
28:14
on and it still doesn't work right?
28:20
Now, you could form the belief right there that the light bulb
28:26
is not the issue, right? But that doesn't mean that you
28:30
actually know that the light bulb is not the issue.
28:33
You just have good reason to believe that the light bulb is
28:36
not the issue. Would you agree with that?
28:39
Yeah, I see. I see where you're getting at
28:41
with that. Yeah.
28:42
So like I'm for example, if the light were to go out in my room,
28:46
I might believe at that moment that something happened with the
28:49
light bulb. This is this is good because my
28:52
mind works better with problem solving.
28:54
So if I'm thinking about problem solving, why my light is out, I
28:58
might go and investigate. If it was just the light that
29:01
went out and not everything else, I might have the belief
29:04
that the light bulb is faulty and then investigate that to
29:09
gain knowledge to confirm that belief or falsify that belief.
29:16
Right. But you're never going to get
29:18
like you're probably never going to be 100% sure.
29:23
Yeah, that's. About what actually is the
29:25
problem? You know, it's kind of a theory.
29:28
You know the entire time you just get more and more likely
29:31
about what the problem is and then you know you do something
29:34
and and this you know it seems to have fixed the issue right?
29:37
And and was like, OK, that's maybe that's probably what it
29:40
was. Is that fair to say?
29:41
That's my experience. Yeah, that I would, that I would
29:43
investigate the, investigate the event, investigate what's going
29:50
on to better form my, to better gather information, to form my
29:55
knowledge. Yeah, right.
30:00
So. So would you agree then that we
30:02
can have beliefs without having knowledge necessarily?
30:07
Yes, I do see that. I see.
30:08
I see that example that you're getting to.
30:10
I can agree with that, that you can.
30:11
You can form beliefs without necessarily having knowledge.
30:15
OK, awesome. So and and and if.
30:19
If you can form beliefs without knowledge, then that means you
30:21
know. Usually when we have beliefs, we
30:24
have reasons for those beliefs, right?
30:28
Typically, typically like hopefully you know for a
30:32
reasonable person if you believe in something and somebody says,
30:35
well, why do you believe that, you should be able to say, well,
30:37
let me think because of this, because of that, because of.
30:39
This, do I need to backtrack a little bit?
30:43
Maybe because I'm thinking about like the light bulb analogy and
30:45
it's like, well, your knowledge that you gain at that moment is
30:47
the light bulb broke or that not, or the light bulb broke
30:50
that your knowledge is that the light bulb went out and then you
30:54
formed the belief afterwards. Yeah, I do have to backtrack.
30:57
So then you like if the light goes out.
30:58
Now I formed a belief based on that information the light bulb
31:02
must have broken and then I can investigate.
31:05
When I talk about, yeah. But when I talk about the belief
31:09
here, I'm talking about the belief as to what is causing the
31:12
problem, not about what the problem is.
31:15
Like. The problem is that your light
31:17
is out. Got it?
31:18
But what's what caused the problem is what we need to
31:20
figure. Out and and on my my initial
31:22
belief might be the light bulb broke.
31:26
Yeah, exactly. That's the theory.
31:28
And then you test it and then maybe you change your belief,
31:31
right? Or or you know, you feel like
31:34
your belief has been somewhat confirmed and you're like, OK, I
31:37
think this is it. And then, you know, maybe you
31:39
turn it on. It works.
31:41
Right, move on and yeah, and. So are we, are we still on the
31:45
same page? OK, all right.
31:48
So and and do we agree that when we have beliefs, we should have
31:53
good reasons typically for those beliefs?
31:58
OK, So what I'm saying then is that when it comes to atheism,
32:03
you know it. If there are three doxastic
32:06
propositions for any, you know, proposition, for lack of a
32:12
better term, whatever. If there are three ways of of
32:16
belief, which is I believe it, I I believe it's false or I just
32:19
don't know. When it comes to the question,
32:21
does God exist? Well, you either believe that
32:24
God exists, you believe God doesn't exist, meaning you
32:26
believe it's false that God exists or you don't know.
32:30
Right. So do you believe that no God
32:33
exists? No.
32:35
Right, So. So wouldn't it be fair to say
32:38
that you're kind of like more reserving judgement?
32:41
Yes, that is a fair that is fair that I am able to be convinced
32:46
with good reason to believe or not believe.
32:50
But I would need to see that good reason to confirm a belief
32:54
in One Direction to another. OK, OK.
32:59
So right now you're you're just kind of, you feel like you're
33:02
kind of on the fence a bit and you just don't really what are,
33:06
what are some reasons that you think that God doesn't exist?
33:14
You since, I think, a gut. I'm asking you, No, you're good.
33:16
You're good. By the way.
33:17
You're good. And you can ask me questions.
33:19
No, it's it's good. This is still good back and
33:21
forth. I I just like talking.
33:22
So giving me a question, letting me go off is good all.
33:26
Right. Well, I was raised with a
33:30
particular ideal or idea of a creator God, and I have not seen
33:36
evidence of a creator God or of intelligent design.
33:39
I can see in my in my field of study and in in biology, I see
33:49
evidence of how natural processes form different unique
33:53
features that would not make sense if it was intelligently
33:58
created in a certain state. I see that it's like it would if
34:03
it was a creator God. The God is tricky and creating
34:08
specific transitional features and vestigial features in
34:13
different species and different animals.
34:15
That suggests that this is a natural process that can't just
34:20
delete features or can't just make it more efficient to do a
34:24
certain function. It has to work with what it is
34:26
given naturally. So if there if there was a
34:31
presentation of, well, we believe that there is a creator
34:33
God. I see evidence against a creator
34:36
God, and more evidence for naturalist for natural, nor
34:42
evidence for naturalism that these things had formed
34:44
naturally, or arguments that the universe was created.
34:51
Instead, I see features of how the universe is naturally
34:55
occurring. I see features of that self that
34:58
nature self propagates, stars are able to form and form
35:04
accretion disks and form planets, and that all of this
35:06
can happen naturally without intervention from a creator God.
35:14
OK. So you you started studying
35:16
biology and you were look you you were looking at the way that
35:22
life worked and you felt like the evidence for evolution was
35:25
compelling. And so based on that and what
35:28
what you see when you look at the cosmos with with stars and
35:32
everything, it just doesn't seem like there's a need for God
35:36
based on what you've seen so far.
35:38
Is that correct? Yes, natural models that explain
35:44
nature and explain the cosmos seem to function without a God.
35:49
OK. Interesting.
35:53
Just for everybody that's in here in case anyone came
35:57
recently, we're going to be opening it up here in like an
36:01
hour or so depending on how long we we're, we end up talking for
36:07
for everybody. So if you have any questions
36:09
please write them down and and we'll be opening up for the room
36:13
in in a while to everyone for now it'll just be me and Cedar
36:17
that we'll be talking. So anyway, OK, are there any
36:22
other reasons besides besides this?
36:28
I think those are the strongest ones, at least at least for the
36:32
God that I was raised to believe in.
36:35
Right. And do you think that there are
36:37
any good reasons to believe in God?
36:43
I haven't found any personally. Most people when the strongest
36:47
evidence that people tend to give me when they're explaining
36:49
their God belief is personal experience, that there was
36:53
something that happened to them that they only attribute to a
36:57
specific God. Those seem to be the strongest
37:00
claims that theists make that I can't immediately dismiss
37:05
because I don't know what that personal experience was.
37:07
I'd be willing to believe they had a personal experience, but
37:10
I'm not convinced that that personal experience was with a
37:13
particular God. Right.
37:16
Yeah, I can understand that. You know, if somebody and
37:22
somebody told me that they had a personal experience where they
37:25
saw Bigfoot, it would be hard to believe in Bigfoot.
37:31
I I can understand that. You know, even if even if I
37:35
trusted that person, you know, I probably think that maybe they
37:39
saw a moose, you know, or or something happened to their
37:43
eyes, you know, based on my understanding of reality, right?
37:47
I might have a hard time. It's not that I would think that
37:50
they were lying, especially if they were a very trustworthy
37:52
person. But I might not necessarily, you
37:56
know, believe them, right? So I can understand why, if this
38:00
is all you're really hearing, that you wouldn't really be
38:05
convinced by other people's personal experiences.
38:10
So are you familiar with like, any of the actual arguments for
38:14
God? I mean, have you looked into a
38:16
whole? Bunch of different arguments.
38:19
And and you don't find any of them compelling at all?
38:24
Which? Which?
38:25
Which argument do you think is the strongest one?
38:28
The transcendent. The tag argument.
38:32
So the issue that I find with the tag argument is it it
38:36
induces. It says OK, logic exists, but
38:40
logic can only exist if there's an eternal mind.
38:42
Is that is that a really short one sentence memory?
38:46
Of it, that's one of them. I would.
38:49
I would say the one about knowledge is stronger personal.
38:52
That you can't. Form.
38:52
That's the one you. Can't form knowledge without
38:54
there being an eternal mind to give knowledge.
38:58
No, that unless an all knowing being exists, knowledge is
39:01
impossible basically. That seems silly.
39:06
Well, let me let me explain it. So the way that I think about it
39:12
is when we first of all let me just define knowledge because
39:19
it's important to define our terms when we talk about these
39:21
things. So when you when I say
39:25
knowledge, I'm talking about something that is justified true
39:29
and a belief, OK, so you're tracking all that.
39:34
We're copacetic. Yeah, that somebody's formed a
39:37
justified true belief. Right.
39:40
So it's a belief that is true and justified.
39:44
Now the reason why I think an all knowing being is required
39:48
for this to be the case is because if we were to draw a
39:54
circle right now, and you know I said OK, all the things that you
39:59
could possibly know in the cosmos are within this circle,
40:04
right? And how much, how much do you
40:08
think you know that's in that circle?
40:12
That's that question, immeasurably small.
40:16
Yeah. I mean, let's be super generous
40:17
and say like 1%. OK, Right.
40:21
So the question then to me is, OK, well, can the stuff that you
40:28
don't know that's in that circle prove you wrong about the stuff
40:31
that you think you know that's in that circle?
40:34
What do you think? I don't know.
40:37
See to I mean, obviously it can though, right?
40:39
I don't know that I can. I don't know that it's obvious
40:42
that it. Can you know that it can?
40:44
Yeah, you don't know that it can.
40:45
But but it is possible, right? That you could find out some
40:49
information that could disprove or or invalidate some something
40:54
that you thought you knew already.
40:56
It depends on what is being questioned.
41:00
I think anything you know, any new information, could
41:02
potentially undo knowledge that you already have or think it
41:08
that you have, right? Well.
41:11
If, for example, I'm working on an instrument that does
41:13
elemental analysis and I have like I put my ring on that, I
41:18
can come back and I see that it is 99% gold and it tells me, OK,
41:24
I'm really certain that this ring is made of gold.
41:29
We've. Defined what gold is.
41:30
We have atomic masses and I would like so much of what I
41:35
understand of reality would have to be wrong that I don't see a
41:40
possibility immediately aware to me that all of that.
41:44
Could be wrong, but you just said that what you know of
41:47
reality is just a tiny little point.
41:50
So you're not working with very much here.
41:52
That's all that I have. Yeah, But that's like relatively
41:57
nothing, right? I don't know that it's nothing.
42:01
Almost nothing. I mean, it's just a little point
42:03
in a huge circle. If this in this hypothetical, I
42:06
don't know if what I know about all there is to know about the
42:09
cosmos is 1% or 50% it could be 50% or it could be 1% I don't
42:17
know. So if you're if you're looking
42:19
at like, I don't know what I don't know about and I don't
42:23
know how massive and how immense what I don't know is, but to.
42:28
But of the area that I am familiar with, of the
42:31
experiences that I have with reality.
42:32
So much of what I understand of reality would have to be wrong
42:37
that I don't see a potential for all of that to be upheavaled
42:40
unless I find like a different universe worth of knowledge.
42:45
Well, I mean it. I think it'd be pretty easy
42:47
actually. I mean, just imagine if you're
42:49
actually in the matrix, right? Then pretty much everything that
42:52
you think you know wouldn't be correct.
42:54
I can't solve hard solipsism. I don't know that I'm a brain in
42:58
a VAT. That would again have to be
43:00
demonstrated, but my understanding is.
43:02
That, but that's something that you don't know, right?
43:05
I don't know that I'm not a brain in a vet, or that I am a
43:07
brain in a vet. That would have to be
43:08
demonstrated one way or another, which I think qualifies as
43:13
something that, like my entire reality, would have to be
43:16
upheavaled in one form or another.
43:19
And. Right.
43:19
And and so that would be an instance of something that you
43:22
don't know, but I think it's that if if it came to to to be
43:27
the case, it would undo the knowledge that you thought you
43:29
had. Right, that would be a
43:30
qualifying event, but I don't know that it is the case.
43:34
I don't even know that that's a possibility that I'm in a matrix
43:37
or. Yeah, I know that.
43:38
That's not my point though. I'm just pointing out that new
43:43
information can undo knowledge that we think that we have.
43:46
That's what I'm pointing out. So do you see?
43:49
It Yes, I yes, yes, I do. OK, so so if that's true and
43:55
obviously we can come back to this.
43:57
Of course, I'm just trying to explain the way that I think
43:59
about this argument. If that's true, that things we
44:03
don't know can prove us wrong about things that we think we
44:06
know, then it seems to me that the only way to know anything is
44:11
to know everything. Because if we don't know
44:13
everything, then stuff that we don't know can prove us wrong
44:17
about the stuff that we think we know.
44:18
Strongly disagree with that. OK, why do you just?
44:23
You don't need complete knowledge to form incomplete
44:26
knowledge. You don't.
44:29
You don't need to. You don't need to have complete
44:31
knowledge of everything to form partial knowledge about
44:35
something. So like, I don't need to know
44:41
all of general relativity and all of the publications of
44:43
Stephen Hawking to know that it's better to leave my house
44:47
through the front door rather than the 2nd floor window.
44:51
So what makes you think that you know that it's better to leave
44:55
the second? You know, whatever you just
44:57
said? What makes you think that that
44:58
is absolutely the case? I think it's better to leave the
45:01
house through the front door rather than the 2nd floor window
45:04
because I have a demonstration and personal experience from
45:08
falling from high heights that it's not good for my personal
45:11
health to fall two stories and I would prefer to walk on the
45:16
ground as that's a more reasonable way to get around to
45:19
prevent myself from being injured.
45:21
I don't need to have knowledge of everything to know that that
45:25
is the better of the two options.
45:27
So is this like you're appealing to induction then?
45:31
Appealing to induction? I'm not sure that I'm appealing
45:33
to induction, no. Well.
45:36
When you say like it's better, you mean that you don't want to
45:40
fall and break your leg potentially.
45:42
Is that what you're saying? Because how do you know when you
45:44
walk out of your window that you're not just going to float
45:47
down to the ground like what happens in the Barbie?
45:49
Because I have no experience of that ever being the case, right?
45:54
So why would I ever form? Why would I ever form that
45:57
expectation when that has never once before been the case?
46:03
Right. So that's what I mean about
46:04
induction. So when we say induction, we're
46:08
talking about drawing inferences from series of data, right?
46:14
So like I see a I've seen a white swan here and I saw a
46:17
white swan there, and all these things that look like Swans seem
46:20
to be white. And so therefore it seems like
46:23
all Swans then are white. That would be inductive
46:26
reasoning. Do do you see that?
46:29
No. Do you know what I'm talking?
46:30
About, that's completely different.
46:33
How's it how's? It if you're looking at it like
46:35
a population of Swans you have that's this is called the what I
46:39
think it's like a Black Swan fallacy.
46:41
If you're looking at this example, yeah all all those
46:45
Swans that I've seen are white. Therefore all Swans are white,
46:49
right? If you all have all that need,
46:52
all that needs is 1 demonstration of the falls.
46:54
Like. All that needs.
46:56
So like I have demonstration that falling out of a second
46:59
floor window hurts. I have personal experience that
47:02
falling off of a roof hurts. I don't that's I've seen my
47:07
black. I've seen my Black Swan.
47:11
Right. But that's that's past
47:12
experience. So how do you know the next time
47:15
you do it, it's going to do that?
47:16
Based on an expectation of how reality operates as observed.
47:20
How reality has operated right based on a set of experiences
47:25
that you've had prior? I'm.
47:26
I'm not. Going to How is that not Black
47:27
Swan? I have an expectation that
47:33
tomorrow, if the sky is clear, the clouds, the sky will be
47:37
blue. I have this expectation.
47:39
I'm not looking at a different sky the next day.
47:42
I'm not looking at a second swan, I'm looking at the same
47:45
sky. OK.
47:47
I have no expectation that suddenly the oxygen in our
47:54
atmosphere would disappear and our sky would then turn burnt
47:56
orange if. Are you saying if?
48:00
I were to leave tomorrow and see that the sky is burnt orange.
48:04
I'm not going to suddenly go. It's a miracle.
48:08
I'm going to think, damn, there's a fire nearby.
48:14
Right, OK, OK, I got it. I I think this will fix the the
48:18
disagreement here. What if it were the case that
48:21
our theory about gravity was wrong and what was actually
48:24
causing gravity on Earth? Just go with me.
48:27
Here was this little alien community that lived in, like,
48:31
you know, somewhere near the center of the Earth or whatever.
48:33
OK, And we don't know about this.
48:36
This is something that we don't know.
48:37
OK? And the alien, these aliens can
48:42
actually control how strong gravity is in various places of
48:46
the Earth, and they keep it pretty much the same everywhere.
48:49
But one of the aliens really likes you, and he wants you to
48:52
be able to float down from your window like they do in the
48:56
Barbie movie. Could he not do that?
48:59
Could that not happen? If that was how gravity worked,
49:03
yeah, it would be possible. Yeah.
49:07
So that would be an instance then of something that you don't
49:10
know, that would prove you wrong about something that you feel
49:12
very sure that you do know right.
49:14
And that belief would only change with the information that
49:17
these aliens existed. Of course, yeah.
49:20
So my expectation, I'm not saying you should believe in the
49:22
aliens. So that would be that would be
49:24
the case then, that my expectation is it is better to
49:27
leave through the door than through the window.
49:30
The only time that that might change is if my apartment's on
49:33
fire, like there. You can come up with a situation
49:38
where one would be better than another, but it's not going to
49:40
be because my expectations of how reality work are subverted.
49:49
Well, I mean, obviously, like your expectations of how reality
49:52
works could be wrong. And it would need demonstrated.
49:56
Well, it wouldn't necessarily need to be demonstrated, it
49:59
could just be wrong. No, I mean, it wouldn't.
50:01
It would be need to be demonstrated to you for you to
50:03
change your belief, but that's not my point.
50:05
My point is that stuff that you don't know can prove you wrong
50:09
about stuff that you think you know.
50:10
That's that's all. And I can agree with that.
50:13
It would just need to be demonstrated.
50:15
So why what? What about?
50:17
This goes back to the tag argument.
50:19
What about? What about knowledge requires an
50:22
eternal mind? Well, I, I said, an all knowing
50:26
mind. What?
50:27
About what? About knowledge requires an all
50:30
knowing mind. Right, So what I'm saying is
50:34
that in order for knowledge to be possible, there must be an
50:38
all knowing mind, because if there is no all knowing mind.
50:41
Because if there is no all knowing mind, go ahead.
50:44
Yeah, because if there is no all knowing mind, then we couldn't
50:47
know anything. Because if there's only finite
50:50
minds that you know kind of know a little bit here, a little bit
50:53
there, they really don't have any actual knowledge.
50:55
Because in order to know any one thing, you have to know
50:58
everything, because otherwise the stuff that you think you
51:01
know can be proven wrong by stuff that you don't know.
51:05
So in order to know anything, you have to know everything.
51:09
So in order for knowledge to even be possible, there must be
51:12
an all knowing being. I'm not convinced that that's
51:15
the case. I'm not convinced.
51:17
That no, no words. I I I've seen no, I'm just
51:20
telling. I I see no demonstration that
51:24
knowledge requires the existence of an all knowing mind.
51:28
Well, hang on. I'm actually going to come at
51:31
this two different ways. OK, all right.
51:34
So the 2nd way that I think that the knowledge argument proves
51:37
that God exists, is because I actually believe that this
51:42
argument shows that atheism leads to a contradiction.
51:46
OK. And what I mean by that is, to
51:49
me, if you say I know nothing, that's contradiction, would you
51:54
agree with that or no to? Say, yeah, I I know nothing is a
52:00
not a contradict. Oh, what's the word?
52:03
There's a specific word. Yeah.
52:05
Paradox. Thank you.
52:06
Yeah. So to say I know nothing is a
52:08
paradox. Yeah.
52:11
Yeah, I would say it's a contradiction.
52:12
I would say it's contradiction in the same way that saying the
52:16
truth is there is no truth is a contradiction.
52:19
Do you think that that's a contradiction, or do you think
52:21
that's a paradox? Paradox.
52:23
Interesting. So I would say it's a
52:25
contradiction because you're literally saying one thing and
52:27
saying something contrary to it that directly contradicts it
52:31
because you're saying the truth. So here's the truth is that
52:35
there is no truth. So you're saying there's truth
52:38
and there is no truth. So that that's to me seems like
52:40
a contradiction. I see that as a paradox because
52:42
it seems to feedback to each other.
52:43
So if it's like, OK, the the truth is there is no truth, OK,
52:48
that's a truth and the truth is there is no truth and that's a
52:51
truth and the truth, yeah. So like it it it's I I suppose
52:55
if you were to try and get, like physical about it, it's a it's
52:57
in a superposition of being both and neither.
53:00
Like, that's a sort of way to tie it to physics.
53:05
And I think it's important to distinguish between a paradox
53:09
and a contradictory statement. Because a paradox is both true
53:13
and not true. No, sorry, because paradox is
53:15
both true and not true, and a contradictory statement is
53:18
contradictory. Like it?
53:20
It falsifies itself. So can you give me an example of
53:24
something that you think is a contradiction?
53:26
Example of something that I think is a contradiction.
53:29
Yeah. A married bachelor.
53:37
To put you on the spot. Is a married bachelor a
53:39
contradiction? I think so.
53:42
So it's like. So why do you think a married
53:44
bachelor is a contradiction? A bachelor is somebody who is
53:46
single and not married. So then to be a married bachelor
53:50
just means like it's it's now. It's a contradictory statement.
53:53
Are like they are not a bachelor but.
53:57
OK, what about a person who always lies and who tells the
54:02
truth occasionally? Is that a contradiction?
54:04
Who always lies and tells? Yeah, that seems like that seems
54:06
contradictory. OK.
54:09
That was not a paradox. OK, so so if somebody says like
54:17
everything that I say is false, like every sentence that I.
54:24
It's a paradox. It's a paradoxical statement.
54:26
Interesting. So I would call that a
54:28
contradiction. OK.
54:32
Because if it's maybe that is a paradox, that might be a a
54:37
paradox. But I I do, I do really think
54:40
that the truth is there is no truth is actually a
54:43
contradiction. You you still not sold on that
54:46
one though? Right.
54:46
Yeah. That one's because it's making a
54:48
truth statement, so it seems paradoxical.
54:51
Yeah, it's a true statement, right?
54:54
And And it's a true statement that invalidates itself.
54:56
So it's self referential and it's saying that there is no
55:00
truth. So you're not you.
55:04
You think that's the paradox, not a contradiction.
55:06
Right. OK, so we'll we'll we'll table
55:10
that for now. But I'm telling you that I think
55:12
that it's a contradiction. OK, so you'll you'll probably
55:15
listen back to this and you know, maybe you'll your mind
55:17
will change and we can always come back to this.
55:19
But anyway, I think that it's contradiction.
55:21
So what I'm saying is that I don't think that atheism can
55:26
account for any knowledge whatsoever.
55:29
I think that atheism if there is no God, that's what I mean.
55:34
If there is no God, then that actually leads to saying I know
55:38
nothing or it makes knowledge impossible basically.
55:42
And the reason why atheism makes knowledge impossible is because
55:46
the only way knowledge is possible is if there is an all
55:49
knowing being. But I don't even need to go
55:52
there, because as long as I can show that atheism leads to a
55:57
contradiction, which is that I know nothing, or you know that
56:02
can't have any knowledge, which means I know nothing, well, then
56:05
atheism can't be true, and either atheism or theism is
56:09
true. Either there is at least one God
56:12
or there are no gods. So if atheism is false because
56:14
it leads to a contradiction, well, then at least one God
56:17
exists. Would you agree with that logic?
56:19
Not at all. Really.
56:24
Well, do you? OK, hang on.
56:25
Sorry, go ahead. Let's let's figure out where we
56:28
disagree. So do you agree that there's
56:31
either no gods or at least one God?
56:36
There's either no gods or at least one God.
56:39
Yeah. That's probably the case.
56:44
OK, so we're agreed there. And do you agree that if I can
56:50
show that the position there are no gods leads to a
56:53
contradiction, well, then it must be the case if.
56:58
If that position is not true because it leads to a
57:00
contradiction, then it must be the case that the other position
57:04
is true by default. If there's only two
57:06
possibilities, there are no gods, or there's at least one
57:09
God. I don't know how you could
57:10
demonstrate that there are no gods is false.
57:14
Now you're now you're trying to falsify a negative.
57:16
Statement. Let's say I could.
57:19
Let's say you could you. Then the easiest way to do that
57:23
would be to demonstrate a God exists.
57:27
But I'm going to demonstrate that a God exists by proving
57:31
that no gods exist is false. So I'm going to get rid of the
57:35
No Gods exist position, and there's only one position left,
57:38
at least one God exists. OK, how All right, go go for it.
57:43
I want. I want to.
57:44
Hear this are Are We gay? I want to hear this.
57:47
OK. Well, you have already heard it.
57:50
But maybe, maybe I didn't catch it.
57:52
Maybe I need to hear an ability to.
57:53
Hear it anymore, I'm going to go through it.
57:56
So the the way that I'm going to attempt to do this is by showing
58:02
that atheism leads to a contradiction.
58:06
So if one if it were actually the case that no gods existed,
58:10
then knowledge would be impossible.
58:12
And if knowledge was impossible then that would reduce the
58:16
atheist to saying I know nothing, which is to my mind a
58:21
contradiction. And if I know nothing is in fact
58:24
contradiction, well, then it cannot be the case that atheism
58:28
is true. And if atheism is not true, then
58:31
theism must be true. That's the argument.
58:34
So the issue is then the presupposition that knowledge
58:37
claims require an all knowing mind.
58:41
Well, actually, actually that's the other part of it.
58:44
But right now all I have to do is just show that atheism is
58:47
false because it relates to the contradiction of saying I know
58:51
nothing because and then I can show how on theism we can
58:56
actually account for knowledge. But, but we'll we'll come to
58:58
that next, OK? That's.
59:00
That's so. Do you want me?
59:01
That's my that's my main disagreement is that it requires
59:05
the presupposition that knowledge requires an all
59:07
knowing mind to falsify. In this attempt to falsify
59:11
atheism to suggest that. Atheism says.
59:14
I know nothing or not falsify, but to show that atheism is
59:18
contradictory. No, no.
59:20
So what I'm saying is that atheism, if there are no gods,
59:25
makes knowledge impossible because of the starting place of
59:30
the atheist. OK, And what I mean by that is,
59:33
if there is no God, then we all have to start from ourselves as
59:37
finite beings. And when we start from the 3 lbs
59:41
of meat in our heads, nothing is actually certain.
59:45
We cannot achieve any type of certainty, We cannot achieve any
59:49
kind of justification, everything that we have.
59:53
Yeah, I know and. And we're going to get to it.
59:56
Yeah. So I'm going to explain that
59:59
hopefully. But essentially what I'm what
1:00:02
I'm arguing here is that if atheism is true, that's our
1:00:07
starting position. And because of that, all of our
1:00:11
knowledge is not actually knowledge.
1:00:13
It's based on assumptions. And if it's based on
1:00:17
assumptions, well then we don't have any justification.
1:00:20
And if we don't have any justification?
1:00:22
Then we have no knowledge, and if we have no knowledge then
1:00:26
we're left saying I know nothing, which is a
1:00:28
contradiction. Let me let me.
1:00:30
Let me start from the beginning. It was if because I want to type
1:00:32
it down so I can see it. You said if atheism is like, so
1:00:34
the first point was if atheism is true, then there are no gods,
1:00:42
OK, Atheism doesn't make a truth claim.
1:00:47
That's the like from the very first premise, from the very
1:00:50
first point of this chain of reasoning, atheism does not make
1:00:54
truth claims. It makes belief.
1:00:56
Claims, well, beliefs are about propositions that are either
1:01:03
true or. False.
1:01:03
So how could you falsify a position that is a belief claim
1:01:07
and not a knowledge claim? How The only way that you could
1:01:11
falsify that first premise is to show that there is a God.
1:01:15
If atheism is true, there are no gods.
1:01:17
If atheism is false, there is a God.
1:01:21
I mean, we don't even have to use the word atheism.
1:01:23
We can just say either there is no God or there is at least one
1:01:28
God. It is not the case that there
1:01:30
are no gods, because that would make knowledge impossible.
1:01:33
Therefore there is at least one God.
1:01:35
We don't even have to use the word atheism if that's going to
1:01:37
derail us. Let me let me let me go down.
1:01:39
So there is so .1. There is a God or no God .2.
1:01:48
If there is no God, then knowledge is impossible, which
1:01:50
leads to the contradiction that I know nothing or I know that I
1:01:55
know nothing. If there's no God, then
1:01:57
knowledge is impossible. Yep.
1:02:01
How can you demonstrate that to be the case?
1:02:04
Sure. So if there's no God, then we're
1:02:07
we are all starting with ourselves.
1:02:10
What's the problem with that? The problem with that is that
1:02:14
we're not able to tap into anything outside of ourselves
1:02:17
and we're left with nothing but assumptions.
1:02:20
So do you want me to, I feel like that's where I need to
1:02:23
elaborate here. So, so when I say assumptions,
1:02:28
if if we were to talk about something that you think you
1:02:31
know, I could show I think relatively quickly that really
1:02:37
what you think you know is based on totally unjustified
1:02:41
assumptions. Do you have any idea what I'm
1:02:43
talking? About are you talking about
1:02:44
sense perception? Senses reasoning Induction.
1:02:52
Which everyone has to rely on. Theists and atheists, atheists
1:02:58
and atheists all have to rely on the same senses, the same logic,
1:03:03
the same information. And there's there doesn't seem
1:03:07
to be any problem with that. If there is no God, we all
1:03:11
share, we all seem to share a reality, and we can demonstrate
1:03:15
that we share a reality. Based on that, we can make
1:03:18
expectations and predictions of how reality is to operate.
1:03:24
And all of that seems to work without a God.
1:03:28
So hold on a second. Sorry, yeah.
1:03:30
If I sound, I, I, I if I sound angry, it's not me being angry,
1:03:33
it's me being passionate. It's it's me getting into the
1:03:35
conversation, really trying to express.
1:03:37
My I'm starting to sound like a big.
1:03:38
Guy right now? 'Cause you're like, I'm sorry.
1:03:41
You're like I. Had I had to catch myself there.
1:03:44
I I don't mean you any. I don't mean you any harassment.
1:03:47
I don't mean you any negativity. I just, I am passionate about
1:03:50
the subject and if I get into the mindset, I'm trying to get
1:03:53
all the words out before my brain.
1:03:54
Let's go of it so. No worries, nothing.
1:03:57
Against you. Continue.
1:03:59
Sorry, continue. So, so, so are we agreed that,
1:04:05
starting with from ourselves, when we try to justify beliefs,
1:04:09
we're really starting with axiomatic, totally unjustified
1:04:12
assumptions? Would you agree with that or no?
1:04:14
I'm not sure that would agree that they're unjustified.
1:04:17
If you want to, if you want to be a solipsist, they are like
1:04:20
unjustified is that you can't be absolutely certain.
1:04:24
What we can say is that we are reasonably certain.
1:04:28
OK. So which one are you reasonably
1:04:30
certain of? Tell me.
1:04:32
Reasonably certain on what? Which of the axiomatic
1:04:36
assumptions that undergirds all of your other beliefs are you
1:04:40
reasonably certain of? I'm reasonably certain I have to
1:04:43
depend on my senses to understand my reality.
1:04:47
OK, but really the question here then would be like, what makes
1:04:52
you think that your senses are reliable, right?
1:04:54
Because of course you depend on them.
1:04:55
Based on their continued use and demonstration of accuracy.
1:04:59
OK, and and do you know what the problem with that is, or do I
1:05:02
need to tell? You tell me what the problem
1:05:03
with that is. Problem is that the only way to
1:05:07
verify that your senses have continued to be quote UN quote
1:05:12
reliable is you used your senses, which is begging the
1:05:16
question. Is it begging the question to
1:05:18
use a pen to know that it works? I'm not sure.
1:05:24
So that I see that as. I see that as an exact parallel,
1:05:28
I can use my senses to know that they work with expectations of
1:05:31
what they're supposed to do. And if it doesn't behave the way
1:05:34
it is, I'm not going to suddenly say everything I know about
1:05:37
reality is wrong. I'm going to think something's
1:05:40
wrong with my senses because I have expectations on how the
1:05:43
senses work. I have demonstration that they
1:05:44
are reliable based on not just my understanding but other
1:05:48
people's understanding of reality.
1:05:50
An example of this would be like.
1:05:52
Sorry, go ahead. When you appeal to other people,
1:05:56
how do you know what they're what their understanding of
1:05:59
reality is? Where'd you get that information
1:06:00
from? Communication.
1:06:01
That they can communicate with me in a language that I
1:06:04
understand, and I can communicate with them in a
1:06:05
language that I understand and if we are understanding.
1:06:09
A Communicate. We can realize when it's not
1:06:11
working if we're miscommunicating and we define.
1:06:13
Our Right. So when.
1:06:14
So when you're seeing other people and you're communicating
1:06:17
with them and you're hearing them, what are you appealing to
1:06:21
in order to know that this is even happening?
1:06:25
Appealing to my sense my I suppose my senses.
1:06:28
Right. Yeah.
1:06:29
So do you see the problem? I'm appealing to my senses to
1:06:33
understand my reality, and I'm appealing and my senses seem to
1:06:37
work. And if I experience a yes, and
1:06:41
if I experience a problem with my senses, I can understand that
1:06:46
there's something wrong with my senses, not something wrong
1:06:48
with. Reality.
1:06:49
How would you know if there was something wrong with your
1:06:51
senses? Losing my sense of balance,
1:06:53
going blind in one eye droopiness on 1/2 of my body
1:06:56
might suggest I'm having a stroke.
1:06:59
So you would appeal to your senses again?
1:07:02
I'm using the pen to show that the pen works, and if the pen
1:07:05
stops working, that means there's something wrong.
1:07:08
Right, so you're appealing your senses, right?
1:07:11
In order to validate that your senses are working or not.
1:07:13
Working, which isn't, which isn't a problem.
1:07:18
Well, it is actually. Because once again, if I say
1:07:21
like, hey, how do you know that this thing is actually working
1:07:25
and reliable? And you say well, because it
1:07:27
told me that it's working and reliable.
1:07:29
Not because it told me, not because it told me, because it
1:07:31
because it demonstrated that it's working and reliable.
1:07:35
Yeah, but the only way you know it demonstrated it is because
1:07:38
you're assuming that it's working and reliable.
1:07:40
And I can demonstrate. The question.
1:07:42
When when I the. It's not that it is infallible
1:07:46
because if my senses aren't working, I can demonstrate that
1:07:49
they aren't working. I'm not wholly giving my senses
1:07:53
100% authority and saying everything that my senses
1:07:56
experiences are true. It's if I'm experiencing
1:08:00
something and my senses are, and my senses aren't giving me what
1:08:03
I'm expecting, I can then say something is wrong with what I'm
1:08:06
experiencing or something is wrong with my senses and I can
1:08:09
investigate that. I have a light bulb that goes
1:08:11
out and I can investigate the light bulb to understand if
1:08:13
it's. Going to use your senses the
1:08:15
more right? You can use your senses some
1:08:18
more in order to investigate your senses.
1:08:20
The would, Yeah, which I've said isn't a problem.
1:08:24
That's I I don't see that. I don't see that as begging the
1:08:26
question. I don't see that as circular
1:08:28
reasoning. Everyone has to do that.
1:08:30
Everyone has to rely on their senses in the same way, and
1:08:34
nothing about. That because we all have to beg
1:08:36
the question doesn't mean that we're not begging the question.
1:08:38
Nothing about that seems to be problematic, but of course it's.
1:08:42
Problematic because you're appealing to the very thing in
1:08:45
question in order to justify the thing in question.
1:08:48
Is using. So if the senses weren't
1:08:49
actually reliable, then when you appeal to your sense, when you
1:08:53
appeal to your sense data in order to say my sense data is
1:08:56
reliable, if it's not actually reliable, if it's giving you
1:08:58
faulty information, you wouldn't know, right?
1:09:01
So let, let, let's, let's change it real quick.
1:09:04
Let's go to reasoning, right. Well, do you?
1:09:06
Yeah, 'cause do you understand that?
1:09:08
Like, we'll come back to senses if you want, but I want to go to
1:09:12
reasoning because I think it's more clear, even more clear.
1:09:17
So when we talk about reasoning, like if I say, how do you know
1:09:19
that your brain works correctly? How do you know that your
1:09:21
reasoning is sound? Ever?
1:09:23
Like, how do you know you're not crazy?
1:09:25
Do you think that you can do that without begging the
1:09:26
question? I think I can get reasonably
1:09:29
certain. OK, how?
1:09:36
For like using logic I can form ideas in my mind and test them.
1:09:45
OK. But that would be you reasoning,
1:09:46
wouldn't it? Yes.
1:09:50
So if you were actually crazy and your reasoning was not
1:09:53
sound, then all the reasoning that you're doing and the tests
1:09:57
that you're doing that you thought were sound that prove
1:09:59
that your reasoning was valid wouldn't actually be sound at
1:10:02
all, right? Is there a demonstration that
1:10:05
I'm crazy? Well, you don't know.
1:10:08
That's the very thing in question.
1:10:09
You could be, you could not be right.
1:10:11
Because we're not just like, guaranteed to be sound right.
1:10:15
We know that people are crazy. Yes.
1:10:17
So that's the thing that we're asking like how do I know that
1:10:20
I'm not? Crazy through demonstration.
1:10:23
So we can demonstrate when somebody is crazy or so if
1:10:27
somebody's mind isn't working as expected, we have demonstration.
1:10:31
We're just talking about you, right?
1:10:32
Now. Well, if we're talking about me,
1:10:36
I am at, to the best of my knowledge, an independent
1:10:41
person. I live on my own.
1:10:43
I drive my own car, I go to work, I have friendly
1:10:46
interactions with other people, and I have experiences of other
1:10:50
people around me who are crazy and they don't seem to live
1:10:53
lives nearly at all similar to the way that I do people who
1:10:58
are. Crazier.
1:10:58
People who are schizophrenic have to take medication.
1:11:02
They sometimes have to be taken into institutions and have to be
1:11:06
washed over. They don't have caretakers.
1:11:09
And I look at those two comparisons and I can even
1:11:12
without knowing my own mental state, it seems that my own
1:11:16
mental state is in a sane and stable enough way that I can be
1:11:21
independent. And then I'm not dependent on
1:11:23
others and I'm not dependent on medication to keep me from going
1:11:25
crazy or seeing hallucinations or hearing things that aren't
1:11:29
there. OK, so so in other words, you
1:11:34
live, you appear to be living a self-sufficient life, you've
1:11:39
seen crazy people and you don't think that you're like them and
1:11:44
therefore you feel like you have good justification for thinking
1:11:47
that you're not crazy. Is that fair?
1:11:48
I feel reasonably certain that I'm not crazy based on those
1:11:51
understandings. Yes, Sir.
1:11:53
OK. So all of that, everything that
1:11:55
you just did was you reasoning, Do you understand that?
1:11:57
Yes. OK, so if you were actually
1:12:02
crazy or not reasoning soundly, then none of those would be good
1:12:05
reasons, right? Which would have to be
1:12:08
demonstrated like. No, it wouldn't because it's
1:12:12
begging the question, is my point.
1:12:15
Can the question be? If it's in question.
1:12:18
Can, but can that? Thing be tested, Justify the
1:12:20
thing in question. Can that thing be tested by
1:12:22
independent? Sources.
1:12:23
It can't be. That's what I'm trying.
1:12:24
That's what I'm trying to point out.
1:12:26
None of these things can be tested, we're just assume them
1:12:29
without any justification whatsoever.
1:12:31
It's always question begging. This is a well known problem in
1:12:34
philosophy. Which doesn't like it's a
1:12:37
problem, but it doesn't seem to upheal our understanding of
1:12:41
reality. It doesn't seem to upheal an
1:12:44
individual's perception of self that when somebody's perception
1:12:47
of sin like we because we can see when somebody's perception
1:12:51
of self is failing them, we can demonstrate somebody's state of
1:12:56
mind. Even if these, even with this
1:12:58
problem that you're presenting, even with these hurdles to
1:13:02
overcome, we can be reasonably certain in our own senses and in
1:13:06
our own logic that we can do things like send man to the
1:13:09
moon. Right.
1:13:11
But I mean, the idea that we can send men to the moon is
1:13:14
something that your brain deduced using reason, right?
1:13:19
Like you saw astronauts on TV going to the moon or whatever,
1:13:23
and you know, you think that you have these good reasons to
1:13:25
believe that that is the case. But that is still using your
1:13:28
reasoning in order to justify the very thing in question,
1:13:33
which is your reasoning. It's still circular, right?
1:13:36
Like my reasoning is valid Because my reasoning is valid.
1:13:38
Because my reasoning is valid because my reasoning is valid.
1:13:41
You see the problem? No, my reasoning is valid
1:13:42
because I use the reasoning and it works, right?
1:13:46
Is it circular reasoning to use a pen to demonstrate that the
1:13:50
pen is working? Well, you wouldn't actually know
1:13:55
in this case. I don't think it's analogous
1:13:57
because. I think it's.
1:13:58
I think it's exactly an analogous.
1:13:59
You wouldn't. Actually, I think it's.
1:14:00
Exactly. Analogous.
1:14:02
No, it's not analogous because in the case of reasoning, if you
1:14:05
were actually crazy, you wouldn't know that your
1:14:08
reasoning was unsound. You would think that everything
1:14:10
that you were saying right now was totally justified and
1:14:14
copacetic, and it actually wouldn't be.
1:14:16
Whereas with a with a pen, you know, we can actually like see
1:14:20
that the pen is working, you know, it's it's kind of not
1:14:23
really a good analogy because with with these.
1:14:25
So you're appealing to your senses to know that the pen is
1:14:27
working. Yeah, I mean, I could have said
1:14:31
that too. Sure.
1:14:33
It just as just as, just as I have to like we we are.
1:14:36
Yeah, I'm not saying that we don't have to.
1:14:38
I'm saying that all of our knowledge is based on totally
1:14:41
unjustified presupposition. That's what I'm saying.
1:14:45
Are you seeing that? It doesn't seem to be a problem
1:14:48
calling them, calling them. I'm going to call them
1:14:50
unjustified. That we have knowledge well.
1:14:52
Calling them unjustified doesn't mean that they don't exist.
1:14:56
Oh, of course. I mean we we seem to be
1:14:59
reasoning. Sure.
1:15:00
I mean it's that seems to exist it the question is whether or
1:15:03
not it's sound. And when I ask you anything that
1:15:07
you think that you know you're ultimately, you know, you say I
1:15:11
know X and then I say OK, well how do you know that?
1:15:14
And you you're going to say a belief that's under that
1:15:16
eventually I'm going to say, OK, well, how do you know that?
1:15:19
And you're going to say a belief that that undergirds that
1:15:21
belief. Eventually we're going to hit
1:15:23
rock bottom at one of these unjustified, totally unjustified
1:15:26
assumptions. Does it need to be justified to
1:15:29
exist, or does it need to be justified to form reasonable
1:15:34
ideas? Well, remember we're talking
1:15:37
about knowledge. This argument has to do with
1:15:39
knowledge and in. Order for I think.
1:15:41
That's a really important question I just asked was does
1:15:44
it need to be justified? Does it need to be justified to
1:15:49
know that it? Works in order.
1:15:50
In order. In order to have knowledge, yes,
1:15:52
OK, it needs to be justified. I'm not convinced that it needs
1:15:57
to be justified to have a ultimate source.
1:16:02
That, and I think that's the crux of our disagreement, is
1:16:06
that I see that our senses and our reason work without an
1:16:12
ultimate justification, and you are convinced that it requires
1:16:17
an ultimate justification. Well, hang on, you, you haven't
1:16:20
heard my. I didn't say that.
1:16:21
Now you're putting words in there.
1:16:23
Sorry, that's my understanding of the tag argument.
1:16:25
No, no, no. Let me, let me finish now here.
1:16:28
All right. So what I'm saying is that
1:16:31
everything that we think we know is ultimately going to boil down
1:16:34
to totally unjustified assumptions, meaning that we
1:16:38
can't know anything. OK, If there is no God, if
1:16:41
there's no all knowing being, and we're just here in and of
1:16:45
ourselves, we cannot know anything because all of our
1:16:48
knowledge would come from totally unjustified assumptions.
1:16:51
And so building on an unjustified assumption means
1:16:54
that anything we build on top of that unjustified assumption will
1:16:56
also be unjustified. OK.
1:17:01
Does that make sense? At least you probably can
1:17:02
disagree. I understand what I'm.
1:17:04
Saying I understand the proposition that you're making.
1:17:07
Yeah, So if that's the case, then knowledge is impossible and
1:17:12
that means that we would be left with the statement or saying,
1:17:18
well, I can't know anything, which is the same thing as
1:17:21
saying I know nothing, which is a contradiction.
1:17:25
So if there is no God, then it seems to me that atheism is a
1:17:30
contradiction. It leads to the contradiction of
1:17:32
saying I can't know anything, which is the same thing as
1:17:37
saying I know nothing and therefore atheism is false.
1:17:40
If that's the case, and therefore theism, it must be
1:17:44
true because it's the only other game in town.
1:17:46
Does that at least make sense? You understand what I'm arguing?
1:17:49
I understand the argument. Yeah.
1:17:52
And and the way that, you know, people would say, well, how do
1:17:57
you as a theist account for knowledge?
1:17:59
And I would just say, well, the precondition for knowledge is
1:18:03
that there's an all knowing being because in order to know
1:18:05
anything, you have to know everything.
1:18:07
And so God, who's all knowing can give us some knowledge.
1:18:10
Because what I'm saying is it's not possible to know nothing.
1:18:14
To to know nothing is a contradiction.
1:18:16
So that means that we have to have some knowledge.
1:18:18
I'm not even saying I know what knowledge we have, but I'm
1:18:21
saying we must have some because to have zero is a contradiction.
1:18:25
And if having zero knowledge is a contradiction, then that means
1:18:28
we must know something. And if we have, if we have some
1:18:32
knowledge and the only way to have any knowledge is for there
1:18:36
to be an all knowing being, well then the fact that we have
1:18:38
knowledge proves that an all knowing being must exist.
1:18:41
Therefore God exists. So it kind of is A2 pronged
1:18:46
argument. One atheism is false, therefore
1:18:48
God exists. 2. We have knowledge because to
1:18:51
deny knowledge is a contradiction and therefore God
1:18:54
exists. Does that at least make sense?
1:18:56
Yes, it makes sense. And what how long has the tag
1:19:01
argument been? Around 3 centuries now?
1:19:04
Two centuries? Sometime in the 1700s?
1:19:06
I think it's when the tag argument was first formed.
1:19:10
And and. It's it's kind of hung around
1:19:13
but it hasn't been the end all be all thing that churches
1:19:16
present because of the counters that I've made.
1:19:21
Well, I I I find it very compelling.
1:19:23
Personally, I found it so compelling that, I mean, once I
1:19:27
realized that atheism was a contradiction, I I literally was
1:19:30
like, well, I guess that's it. I got to go repent.
1:19:34
But I actually waited 3, three months before I went and got on
1:19:37
my knees because I was so proud and wanted to keep sinning.
1:19:40
But anyway, that's kind of a different matter.
1:19:42
So did you want to talk about what I said about science?
1:19:46
Sure. OK, so you read my.
1:19:51
Thread I did, I did. Just for anybody listening that
1:19:56
isn't familiar with what I've been talking about lately, I
1:20:00
said that I think that atheism and science are not compatible.
1:20:06
And the reason why I said that is because I think that on
1:20:10
atheism, the philosophical presuppositions that undergird
1:20:15
science. So, so a lot of people don't
1:20:17
know this, but if you think about science, it's actually
1:20:20
resting on a foundation of philosophy.
1:20:24
It's resting on a foundation of unjustified beliefs, and I
1:20:28
listed about 10 of them, but there's even more than that.
1:20:32
I didn't list all of them. And these beliefs, I think, go
1:20:37
right alongside or are consistent with atheistic world
1:20:42
view. And I believe that these beliefs
1:20:44
are inconsistent and run contrary to an atheistic world
1:20:49
view. I think that atheism actually
1:20:51
undermines these core scientific presuppositions, and so for the
1:20:58
presuppositions that I talked about, let's see if I can
1:21:03
remember all of them. One is the ability to sense, to
1:21:10
use our senses correctly or to accurately interpret what is
1:21:13
happening in the external world. And the reason why this is a
1:21:16
philosophical presupposition, presupposition of science is
1:21:20
because in order to do science, we have to be able to use our
1:21:23
senses somewhat reliably. We have to be able to set up the
1:21:26
equipment to observe it, right? Observe observation is very
1:21:30
important. And some people might say, well,
1:21:33
we'll just have the equipment observe it for us.
1:21:35
Well, we have to observe the readings on the equipment, you
1:21:37
know, So we're going to have to observe it at some point, right.
1:21:41
So we have to have somewhat reliable sense data of the
1:21:45
outside external world. So that's something that we have
1:21:48
to believe in, that we have somewhat reliable sense data.
1:21:51
And then the next one is that we have to have laws of logic,
1:21:57
because whenever we do science, we are using logic in order to
1:22:04
come up with the experiment and say, well, this is false or this
1:22:08
is true. So you're always appealing to
1:22:10
logic whenever you're doing science.
1:22:11
So I believe that logic must exist.
1:22:15
Trying to think of of the other two.
1:22:19
Oh yeah, valid reasoning. So we need we need to have valid
1:22:22
reasoning in order for science to exist, or in order to do
1:22:29
science, we have to be able to rationally infer and reason
1:22:34
things of that nature. And then I'm drawing a blank on
1:22:36
the 4th, but it'll come to me anyway.
1:22:38
Did you want to talk about one of those now that I've kind of
1:22:40
explained where I'm coming from? The first one was the assumption
1:22:42
of uniformitarianism. Yeah, Uniformity of nature.
1:22:46
Thank you. So I think we talked about this
1:22:49
a little bit, but every time we do an experiment or whatnot,
1:22:53
we're assuming that the laws of physics will be similar or or
1:22:59
remain the same throughout that experiment and throughout that
1:23:03
room or wherever we're doing the experiment that that nature will
1:23:07
be uniform. So like if you imagine a cup
1:23:10
fizzing, you know, and you're you're trying to observe
1:23:14
something that's happening in that cup, you are going to just
1:23:17
assume that gravity is going to be the same strength everywhere
1:23:22
else and remain the same strength throughout that
1:23:24
experiment. And it's not going to change
1:23:26
like somewhere in that cup or or whatever at any time.
1:23:29
You're just going to assume that the the physical constants are
1:23:33
going to remain uniform throughout that experiment.
1:23:36
So science presupposes uniformity of nature.
1:23:39
All right. So, so you want to give some of
1:23:42
your thoughts on that? Yeah.
1:23:43
We talked about lots of logic sense data and determining if
1:23:46
somebody is reasonable. I think we talked about that
1:23:48
when we were going down the tag argument.
1:23:51
Well, they're pretty. We didn't.
1:23:52
Talk about. We didn't talk about which one
1:23:54
we. Didn't really talk about.
1:23:56
Well, we talked about it in regards to knowledge, but I
1:24:00
would argue that this is kind of a slightly different way of
1:24:04
looking at it. Because when it comes to having
1:24:07
reliable sense data, for example, I think that it makes
1:24:12
much more sense on atheistic worldview to believe that I
1:24:16
would have reliable sense data because I was made by a very
1:24:20
intelligent, you know, rational mind in order to correctly
1:24:25
understand the world. So it makes sense to me to rely
1:24:29
on my senses because I was made for that purpose, to be able to
1:24:33
interact with the world in a mostly reliable way.
1:24:37
So I was made for that, you know my my senses were made for that
1:24:40
purpose. Whereas on atheism there is no
1:24:45
rational mind. So if we're here, if we were
1:24:48
right that we even exist, we would exist as the result of a
1:24:52
non rational cause. And I think that if we are the
1:24:56
result of a non rational, mindless 'cause then becomes
1:25:01
very difficult to see why we would think that our senses
1:25:05
would be reliable because that's a very complex thing to be able
1:25:09
to do, to be able to externally and correctly sense what is
1:25:13
happening in the world, you know.
1:25:17
So that's what I'm saying. Does that make sense at least?
1:25:19
Yes, the counter that would have to that is the.
1:25:22
Well, I imagine you probably don't accept evolution.
1:25:29
Yeah. But I know that you do.
1:25:30
And so we'll talk about that. So what I what I would say to
1:25:32
that is we there are natural processes that drive evolution
1:25:37
towards ensuring that there are creatures that are going to
1:25:40
survive. If you are, if a species is
1:25:43
coming to arise that fails in one of its senses that if it
1:25:48
fails to hear prey coming, it's not going to survive.
1:25:52
So you have this process of evolution, of evolution by
1:25:56
natural selection that those that survive with traits that
1:26:00
are able to preserve themselves continue to propagate that
1:26:04
reliable sense perception that it doesn't.
1:26:09
That evolution and evolution, Well evolution by natural
1:26:12
selection seems to work without interference of any sort of
1:26:18
deity driving these senses and driving these traits to arise
1:26:23
naturally to ensure that they. Are capable.
1:26:25
Of survival. Right so and when you say it
1:26:28
seems to work, what are you appealing to?
1:26:31
The same. Like, how do you know?
1:26:33
How do you get all this information about evolution?
1:26:35
Reading, reading and study. I got my degree in biology.
1:26:40
What do you use in order to read and study?
1:26:41
The circular reasoning sense data and logic that you also
1:26:45
have to use. Right, yes.
1:26:47
So when you my my point is that when you appeal to your sense
1:26:52
data in order to talk about evolution and say that you know,
1:26:56
you think that you know how evolution works, what to me
1:26:59
that's really begging the question, right?
1:27:01
Because you're saying, well, I used my sense data which is
1:27:04
reliable, which told me about evolution.
1:27:07
And because I know about evolution, I know that actually
1:27:09
there's a good reason why we have all this.
1:27:12
You know, we we can rely on our sense data.
1:27:15
But you had to already be assuming that your sense data
1:27:19
was working in order to gather any of that information about
1:27:23
evolution which? Doesn't seem to be a problem
1:27:26
because we don't need to rely on an ultimate source for our sense
1:27:34
data. We don't need to rely on some
1:27:35
sort of ultimate source of knowledge in order to gain some
1:27:39
knowledge. I don't see a need for this
1:27:41
ultimate justification that even if this isn't absolute certain
1:27:46
justification by claiming that God solves that problem, you
1:27:51
have a problem with being able to still form reasonable
1:27:55
conclusions based on our experiences.
1:27:58
Yeah, but that's not what I'm getting at, right.
1:28:00
So what I'm getting at is just that there is either a good
1:28:04
reason to believe in our sense data or there isn't.
1:28:09
And I think that there's a good reason to believe in our sense
1:28:11
data if we were made literally to interpret the world And on a
1:28:17
non theistic worldview, if we have sense data, it came about
1:28:22
by some type of mindless process, whether that be
1:28:25
evolution or who knows how it came about because we really
1:28:28
have to use our senses to even try and figure that out and
1:28:31
assume that they're working. And it's very difficult I think,
1:28:35
to actually have the belief, have it be a rational belief
1:28:40
that irrational non mind processes would lead us to have
1:28:48
working and accurate sense data, which is a very complex thing.
1:28:52
Do you see what I'm saying? Yes, but our senses seem to work
1:28:57
not just by relying or trusting that they were developed by a
1:29:01
mindless process. But we have demonstration that
1:29:04
our sense data is working and we have demonstration when our
1:29:07
sense. And we have.
1:29:09
Which is the same as using a pen to see that the pen is working.
1:29:13
Well, I'm arguing that we have no justification whatsoever.
1:29:16
You're arguing that there's no ultimate just you're arguing
1:29:19
that the atheist worldview has no ultimate justification.
1:29:22
No, I would say you and I are in the same boat when it comes to
1:29:25
our sense data that we both have to completely beg the question
1:29:29
about, you know, if if we're going to rely on our sense data,
1:29:33
it's really just blind faith, both for both of us.
1:29:36
But what I'm saying is, it makes sense on my worldview to have
1:29:39
this blind faith belief because I was made by God.
1:29:43
Whereas on your worldview you were made, if you exist, by non
1:29:49
mind irrational processes that didn't have you in mind, didn't
1:29:53
have your sense data in mind. And so I don't think that the
1:29:57
belief that you would have working sense data is justified.
1:30:01
Does that at least make sense? It sounds like you haven't read
1:30:07
too much into how traits and how societies evolve naturally.
1:30:14
Well, I used to believe in evolution.
1:30:16
Believe in evolution or accept the evidence because I like I.
1:30:20
Yeah, both. So are you familiar with, say,
1:30:24
for example, the evolutionary history of whales and hippos?
1:30:30
I I mean somewhat. Somewhat, OK.
1:30:33
Not hippos whales. Well.
1:30:35
They actually come from a similar common ancestor.
1:30:37
The hippos and whales both have very similar anatomies and going
1:30:42
back on their lineage you can see where they had both evolved
1:30:46
from a similar 4 legged land animal.
1:30:49
So. Like but.
1:30:51
That's that's just a different tangent.
1:30:52
That's that's just a favorite one that tends to be talked
1:30:54
about, that tends to be one of the most common talked about
1:30:57
when it comes to teaching evolution, just because it's the
1:31:00
most interesting when it comes to evolving traits like ideals
1:31:07
or senses. These things are dependent, like
1:31:10
our survival is dependent upon those senses.
1:31:13
It doesn't need to be a mind, it just needs to be that which
1:31:17
survives will propagate surviving traits.
1:31:20
Traits that are capable of withstanding, capable of with,
1:31:24
capable of surviving in harsh environments.
1:31:26
It's not like it doesn't. It doesn't.
1:31:29
Everything that you're saying is coming to you.
1:31:32
You're saying this because of what you've observed, what
1:31:35
you've read, what you've seen with your eyes and heard with
1:31:38
your ears. Is that fair to say?
1:31:39
Isn't a problem because it continues to demonstrate that my
1:31:43
senses are a reliable source of information.
1:31:45
Without an ultimate justification of a deity or
1:31:49
ultimate source of senses, there's not an ultimate ear
1:31:52
somewhere in the universe that allows me to be able to hear.
1:31:56
Would you agree that saying something isn't a problem
1:31:59
doesn't mean that it's not a problem necessarily?
1:32:04
I've said it's not a problem because it seems to demonstrate
1:32:07
that they're working. The reason I say it's not a
1:32:09
problem is because our senses continue to demonstrate they're
1:32:11
working, just as using a pen to see that it works is not
1:32:15
circular, it's a tool. Yeah, but.
1:32:19
But I'm just saying that like just because I say something's
1:32:21
not a problem doesn't mean that's actually not a problem,
1:32:24
right? Is that fair to say or no?
1:32:25
I think I keep saying it because it doesn't seem to stick.
1:32:29
Right. But I'm saying that it's begging
1:32:32
the question and that hasn't stuck, right?
1:32:36
I guess that one is one that hasn't really stuck, because I
1:32:38
don't see the problem with relying on our sense data
1:32:41
without having an ultimate justification.
1:32:44
Well, you can rely on it. I'm just saying that it's blind
1:32:47
faith, that's all. I don't.
1:32:48
Think it's blind faith you? Can rely on all you want.
1:32:50
It's demonstration, blind faith, no justification.
1:32:52
Faith is when you when you use the word faith.
1:32:54
Do you mean Hebrews 11/1 faith? No, I mean, like, I mean blind
1:33:00
faith, like what Richard Dawkins characterizes it as, which is
1:33:04
totally unjustified. And the reason why I say that is
1:33:07
because if you're just completely, if all of your
1:33:11
justification is total blatant question begging, well then you
1:33:15
have no justification whatsoever.
1:33:16
When you have to appeal to the very thing that's in question in
1:33:19
order to justify things that's in question, that is no
1:33:22
evidence, no reason. You're just believing it.
1:33:25
And that's total blind faith, which I have.
1:33:28
And I'm fine with admitting that.
1:33:30
I wouldn't call it blind faith to rely on my senses.
1:33:33
I can use my senses to know that they're working, and if my
1:33:36
senses aren't working as expected, that's not a miracle.
1:33:41
So what if I just grant for a second?
1:33:43
What if it were shown to you that you are begging the
1:33:47
question right now? I don't think I understand what
1:33:50
you mean. OK, do you know?
1:33:53
Do you know what? Begging the question.
1:33:54
Is. It means that you're doing
1:33:56
you're it's. It leads to circular reasoning.
1:34:00
So can you give me an example of question begging?
1:34:03
I can't off the top of my head. OK, how about like, when it
1:34:11
comes to the Bible, you're probably familiar with this one.
1:34:13
So you asked me. How do I know?
1:34:15
You asked me. You say, Daniel, how do you know
1:34:18
that the Bible is reliable? And I say well because right
1:34:21
here in the Bible it says that the Bible is reliable,
1:34:24
obviously. Would that be question begging?
1:34:29
Yes. OK, why?
1:34:42
They're using the Bible to try to justify the Bible when the
1:34:47
Bible is the thing that's in question.
1:34:50
Exactly. OK, so when I ask you, how do
1:34:53
you know that your senses are valid?
1:34:55
What are you appealing to in order to know that your senses
1:34:58
are valid? My senses, right?
1:35:02
But you know what I can do with my senses that I can't do with
1:35:05
the Bible? What Demonstrate that's.
1:35:11
With your senses. I That's the key difference
1:35:16
like. Demonstrating that with your
1:35:18
senses. Do you think my do you think my
1:35:20
senses are just at the start of this conversation?
1:35:26
You weren't able to hear me. We knew that something wasn't
1:35:31
working. We were relying on our senses.
1:35:36
All of us had the expectation that our senses were working.
1:35:40
I seem to be able to do that without appealing to ultimate
1:35:43
authority. You seem to.
1:35:46
You seem to be convinced that it requires an ultimate authority
1:35:49
for those since dated to. Work well, Hang on now.
1:35:52
Hang on now. So what I'm.
1:35:54
Saying you seem to argue that it you seem to argue that it's
1:35:58
because it's unreasonable to not have an ultimate justification,
1:36:03
that it would be reasonable to conclude that there is an
1:36:06
ultimate justifier. Is that is that better wording?
1:36:09
Well, I haven't said anything about an ultimate justification.
1:36:13
What I'm saying is that when it comes to sense data, we are all
1:36:16
in the same boat. That boat is blind faith.
1:36:19
None of us have any justification whatsoever for
1:36:22
using our senses. We just do it because it's
1:36:25
practical and. And we have no other option.
1:36:29
No other option but to try to justify it is going to be
1:36:33
viciously circular and beg the question, do we agree on that or
1:36:36
no? It does not seem to be circular
1:36:40
because you can. You're not trying to demonstrate
1:36:43
a claim by using circular reasoning.
1:36:46
You are demonstrating the thing itself by using it.
1:36:52
OK, so just to be clear, when we say begging the question, that
1:36:56
means that when I say how do you know X is reliable?
1:37:00
If you were to beg the question, you would appeal to X and and
1:37:03
use X to prove that X is reliable.
1:37:06
That's begging the question, right?
1:37:08
So when I say how do you know that reasoning or sorry that
1:37:12
your senses are reliable? So far, the only thing that
1:37:16
you've appealed to is your senses.
1:37:17
Is that fair? And.
1:37:18
I can demonstrate when the senses aren't working.
1:37:22
But even to demonstrate the senses aren't working, also is
1:37:26
an appeal to your senses. You're using your senses to do
1:37:28
that too. Which right, everybody has to do
1:37:32
and I don't see. OK.
1:37:33
But that's not relevant to the point though.
1:37:34
Stay on the point, right? So you're using your senses to
1:37:39
justify your senses. That's begging the question, is
1:37:42
it not? Yes.
1:37:45
OK, so do you see the problem I? See that it is begging the
1:37:49
question, but I don't see any other alternative.
1:37:52
I'm not saying that you have another alternative.
1:37:55
I'm just saying that we are all in a situation of total blind
1:38:00
faith when it comes to these axiomatic assumptions.
1:38:03
And I'm saying which world view harmonizes with our belief.
1:38:07
Because you, you and I both believe that we can rely on our
1:38:11
senses. We have no justification for
1:38:13
that belief. However, given our world views,
1:38:17
it makes sense given my other belief that God exists, that I
1:38:22
could rely on my senses. And I'm saying if there is no
1:38:25
God having the belief that my senses arose from a non mind,
1:38:30
from an irrational source that didn't have me in mind, didn't
1:38:34
plan for me to have senses or anything like that, it then
1:38:37
becomes very difficult to see why I would think that my senses
1:38:40
were reliable. Do you see what I'm saying?
1:38:43
What I see is it seems to be an invention by theists to try and
1:38:48
solve the presented problem by putting God into it.
1:38:51
I don't understand how this works without God.
1:38:56
It seems to be that it seems to be just injecting God.
1:38:59
Like a God of the gaps. A type of God of the gaps.
1:39:01
Because this isn't this isn't filling up unknowns.
1:39:05
This is just filling up a problem.
1:39:06
This is a problem with philosophy.
1:39:08
So it makes perfect sense if I say God is the ultimate reason
1:39:12
why we can rely on these senses. Yeah.
1:39:15
So, So the way that I think about it is it's about
1:39:18
harmonizing beliefs. It's about beliefs going
1:39:21
together, you know, because we want our beliefs to harmonize
1:39:24
together. We don't want to have a belief
1:39:27
over here that is contradictory or inconsistent with another
1:39:30
belief over over here, right? So what I'm saying is that the
1:39:34
belief that God exists and made me in order to understand the
1:39:38
world harmonizes with the belief that I can rely on my son's
1:39:43
data. Those two beliefs harmonize very
1:39:45
well together. Whereas the belief that there is
1:39:49
no God, there is no mind or rationality that is fundamental
1:39:53
to reality does not harmonize well with the belief that I can
1:39:59
reasonably rely on my senses. Because my senses were not even
1:40:04
in intended, I wasn't even intended.
1:40:06
So if I have senses, they're the result of some kind of mindless
1:40:10
process, right? I understand that they didn't
1:40:13
have or senses in mind. I understand that you see how
1:40:15
those two beliefs. Don't harm.
1:40:16
I understand that. That's your belief.
1:40:18
But I don't think that's the belief shared by atheists.
1:40:21
I don't think atheists express there is no God.
1:40:25
Knowledge is impossible. That seems to be a.
1:40:28
Well, hang on though, we're I'm not talking about knowledge,
1:40:30
right? Now sorry, if if there is no
1:40:32
God, then I guess your sense perception is impossible.
1:40:36
Well, it's not that it's impossible, it's that it's
1:40:38
unreasonable on atheism to think that your senses would be
1:40:42
reliable. That's what I'm saying.
1:40:45
It's not. It's not a reasonable belief.
1:40:46
Except you can demonstrate when they are working and she goes
1:40:50
back into begging the question, but I don't see any other
1:40:53
alternative. I know, but that's not relevant
1:40:56
still. Total blind faith.
1:40:57
We're both total blind faith. And now we're just talking about
1:41:00
which world view makes sense of us believing this thing that we
1:41:05
have no justification for. I'm saying that theism does,
1:41:09
atheism doesn't. Do you see what, at least?
1:41:11
I see what you're saying. I see that the presentation that
1:41:15
is being made is that theism solves this problem, but I don't
1:41:18
see that that is demonstrated to be the case.
1:41:22
OK. Would you agree that it's it
1:41:27
makes sense on theism like that the two beliefs harmonize.
1:41:31
Would you agree with that or no? I agree that you believe it.
1:41:37
I'm not sure that it is the case, because I'm not sure that
1:41:40
all of those points that are being made are demonstrated.
1:41:46
They may be sound, but not demonstrated that you can make a
1:41:50
sound argument. You can make a sound argument
1:41:52
that isn't true. Sound and valid so.
1:41:57
Not sound and valid? Yeah you can.
1:41:59
You can. Sound and valid would be true,
1:42:01
right? Sound and valid would be true,
1:42:03
and you can make a sound argument that is not valid.
1:42:08
I don't know if that's actually true, Majin.
1:42:11
Do you think that's true? Give me a thumbs up if you think
1:42:13
that's true. He might not be listening.
1:42:17
OK, I'm not sure if that's true, but we'll just.
1:42:20
I'm not. I'm not sure either way.
1:42:21
But in in order to demonstrate that beliefs need to harmonize,
1:42:26
I want to talk about the roulette wheel analogy that I
1:42:29
gave. Because maybe if we talk about
1:42:31
that, you'll kind of really see where I'm coming from.
1:42:34
Is that OK? We did talk about that and if
1:42:35
you want to open it up to questions, we are at looks like
1:42:38
about an hour and 45 minutes in. All right.
1:42:42
Do you want to talk about the roulette wheel and then open it?
1:42:44
Up We'll make the roulette wheel our last conversation.
1:42:48
OK, perfect. So in the roulette wheel analogy
1:42:54
that I gave, I'm just going to go over it because not
1:42:56
everybody's read it and this is going to be recorded.
1:42:59
So the analogy is that you and I are standing at a roulette table
1:43:03
and the ball drops and it goes around and lands on 7 and
1:43:08
happens again, lands on seven and seven and seven and lands on
1:43:12
seven 1000 times in a row. OK, now there are two
1:43:17
explanations for this phenomena. The phenomena that we've
1:43:22
observed is that the roulette ball has landed on seven 1000
1:43:26
times in a row. That's the phenomena.
1:43:29
And the two explanations are either there's a mind behind
1:43:33
this and the table is somehow fixed to do this to land on
1:43:37
seven, or the 2nd belief or the 2nd explanation is this is a
1:43:43
coincidence. There was an equal chance that
1:43:45
it could have landed on any other number and it just hasn't
1:43:48
until now. Or sorry, it just hasn't, it's
1:43:51
just been landing on 7. So this is all a big coincidence
1:43:54
now. If.
1:43:57
I believe that the table is fixed.
1:44:00
If that's my belief, then doesn't it make sense for me to
1:44:05
believe that on the next role it will also land on 7?
1:44:08
Do you see how those two beliefs harmonize?
1:44:10
The table's fixed. So I think on the next role it's
1:44:13
going to land on 7. Does does that harmonize
1:44:15
together? Would you agree?
1:44:16
I think that's a good that's a possible explanation.
1:44:20
And those do those do support each other.
1:44:23
Yes, yes, that's what I'm saying, that the two beliefs
1:44:25
harmonize. It makes that they go together,
1:44:28
right? They they're consistent with
1:44:29
each other. However, if you believe that the
1:44:33
table is doing this as a coincidence, then does it still
1:44:37
make sense to believe that on the next roll it's going to be a
1:44:40
7? Or on the next?
1:44:42
I don't know what you call it, but spin the next spin is going
1:44:45
to be A7. I go back to how you presented.
1:44:48
It was that there are two possibilities, was that there's
1:44:50
a mind behind it or a coincidence.
1:44:51
I would correct that to say there is a mind behind it or
1:44:56
there is not a mind behind it because it could be the case
1:45:01
that this is happening for some other explanation, Not pure
1:45:05
coincidence, but there is an unmind, there's a non bind
1:45:09
explanation for why it could be happening this way some some.
1:45:14
For example, it could be the case that there was a magnet
1:45:18
that had wound up fallen like falling from the ceiling or
1:45:21
falling from somewhere that was an accident and landed on that
1:45:24
spot on the roulette wheel and that is attracting the roulette
1:45:28
ball to that particular spot. That does not require a mind and
1:45:34
it's not coincidence. That's an explanation.
1:45:38
So at least in this in, to start with this roulette wheel
1:45:42
analogy, you would have to go into it with the expectation
1:45:46
that it is fair. If your expectation is that it
1:45:49
is fair and it keeps coming up with seven, 1000 times in a row,
1:45:54
there's going to be some explanation for that and it
1:45:57
needs to be investigated. Well, of course, right?
1:46:01
I mean, I would think that it would need to be investigated
1:46:04
after probably like 10 seconds in a row.
1:46:07
So, and I'm not going to say that it is pure coincidence that
1:46:13
it happened 1000 times a row, I think I'm going to be just as
1:46:16
sensible as any other person to think something's fishy here.
1:46:19
This should not be happening and there is some explanation for
1:46:23
it. I'm not going to just chalk it
1:46:25
up to well, it wasn't a mine, so it's pure coincidence.
1:46:29
Right. Well, let's say though that you
1:46:32
and I are with somebody and that they're kind of thick, right?
1:46:35
And they're like, no, I think that it's coincidence, right?
1:46:38
If they think that it's coincidence, like let's just say
1:46:41
that that's what they believe, OK.
1:46:43
Does it make sense for them to think that on the next role it's
1:46:46
going to be A7? If they think it's pure
1:46:48
coincidence, it sounds like they'd be falling into the
1:46:51
gambler's fallacy. Exactly, I totally agree.
1:46:54
And and do you want to elaborate on what that?
1:46:56
Means the gambler's fallacy is the idea.
1:46:59
For example, somebody's gone, somebody's watching somebody on
1:47:02
the slot machine, and they've seen that they've done slots for
1:47:04
like 100 rolls. So then they fall into this
1:47:07
fallacy that OK, now I'm more likely to get a win because I've
1:47:11
already had this many losses, so if I keep going, I'm closer to a
1:47:15
win. That's.
1:47:18
That's that's an idea. It's basically seeing a pattern
1:47:22
and thinking that they can draw, you know, seeing a pattern thing
1:47:26
that the pattern will continue when there's actually no
1:47:29
justification to think that the pattern will actually continue.
1:47:32
Would you agree with that? Yeah, that they're that they're.
1:47:35
So in this case, yeah. So in this case, if they were to
1:47:39
be not committing the gambler's fallacy, they should think that
1:47:42
there's an equal. If it was just coincidence, then
1:47:46
even though they've seen 1000 sevens in a row, that has
1:47:49
nothing to do with what it's going to be on the next spin.
1:47:52
So it would be irrational to believe that it's going to land
1:47:56
on 7 on the next spin based on their prior belief that the
1:48:00
table is is fair still. Right.
1:48:03
If they if the if they have for some reason the belief that the
1:48:08
table is still fair. If they if they have, well, I
1:48:13
would even say it like this. If they have justified true
1:48:16
belief that the table is fair, then they would be reasonable in
1:48:20
saying that the next number is still fair.
1:48:24
If that the next number that it doesn't have to be 7 next time
1:48:27
that it's still fair, yes. They, they should say the
1:48:32
correct answer. If I say, well, what do you
1:48:34
think it's going to be on the next one?
1:48:35
If I ask them that, they should say based on their prior belief
1:48:39
that the table is there, they should say, I think it will land
1:48:42
on any number. I think there's an equal number
1:48:44
for it to land. There's an equal chance that it
1:48:46
will land on any number on the table, right.
1:48:49
Would you agree? OK, Yeah.
1:48:51
So if they said I think it's going to land on 7 on the next
1:48:54
go around, that would not be harmonizing with their belief
1:48:57
that that the table's fair and that this is all coincidence.
1:49:02
Would you agree with that? Well, seven is any number.
1:49:10
Right. But to think that it's going to
1:49:11
land on 7. To think that it's going to land
1:49:13
on 7 again while also believing the table to be fair does not
1:49:18
harmonize. Yes.
1:49:20
So so do you see what I mean about harmonizing beliefs?
1:49:23
And then on the on the same, on the flip side of this, if I were
1:49:27
to say, I think that the table is fixed to land on 7 every time
1:49:30
and then you said, well what what number do you think is
1:49:32
going to land on the next one? I say five that doesn't
1:49:36
harmonize either, right. So do you see how it's important
1:49:40
for our beliefs to harmonize with each other?
1:49:44
I do see what I'm getting. I do.
1:49:46
I just think it's a it's an interesting hypothetical, but I
1:49:49
think it relies on expectations that that weren't clearly laid
1:49:54
out. I thought it was also a weird
1:49:58
tangent, at least on that. I was just like, you were going
1:50:00
down like the simple guy who's had like 15 booster shots and I
1:50:02
was just like. That's.
1:50:04
That's an interesting tangent. I think that's going to be good
1:50:07
bait to get people into here. What bait?
1:50:12
Yeah, I thought about taking that out, but I find it really
1:50:16
funny. This is kind of a quick tangent,
1:50:18
but I just find it very funny how it how difficult it is to
1:50:22
get atheists to believe in any type of conspiracy.
1:50:25
It's like so many atheists don't even believe that Epstein killed
1:50:29
himself. Do you think Epstein killed
1:50:30
himself? Absolutely sorry.
1:50:32
Absolutely not. He had way it.
1:50:35
It seems that he had way too many, way too much information
1:50:41
and somebody, somebody, somebody did something.
1:50:45
Yeah, I I talked to a lot of atheists that are even obtuse
1:50:49
about Epstein. And I'm like, how do you not see
1:50:53
this stuff? And they're like, well, well,
1:50:54
give me the evidence and I'm like, at some point you have to
1:50:58
be able to connect some. Thoughts.
1:50:58
The evidence, I think the evidence is he knew a lot of
1:51:01
really powerful people and he had a lot of information against
1:51:04
those powerful people. So that's that's where that
1:51:06
conclusion comes from. Yeah, well, I I'm glad that you
1:51:11
know, I I I figured you were a bit more sensible than than
1:51:14
that. At least you know I'm no.
1:51:17
Never. Thank you.
1:51:18
Thank you for, you know, my ego's a little bit bigger now.
1:51:20
I appreciate that. Like it's stronger with every
1:51:22
comment. Yeah.
1:51:25
Anyway, so slight tangent, but but yeah, so, so I, I I wanted
1:51:30
to talk about the roulette wheel, just to really drive home
1:51:33
the point that it's important for our, our, our beliefs to
1:51:37
harmonize. And I don't think that atheism
1:51:41
and what it entails harmonizes with the beliefs that undergird
1:51:47
science. I don't think it harmonizes well
1:51:50
with the belief in uniformity of nature.
1:51:53
I don't think it harmonizes with the belief that we can rely on
1:51:56
our sense data. I don't think it harmonizes with
1:52:00
the belief that we can rely on our reasoning and that our
1:52:02
reasoning is sound. And I don't think that it
1:52:05
harmonizes with the existence of eternal conceptual laws of
1:52:10
logic. That's what I'm trying to to say
1:52:13
there. Does that at least make sense?
1:52:17
My counter is just that I don't think that atheism is making
1:52:21
truth claims. I think science Science has
1:52:24
traditionally and seems to be a secular practice that doesn't
1:52:29
operate on theistic or atheistic ideas or world views.
1:52:32
And the important thing is that when there's something that the
1:52:36
atheist doesn't know, investigation should always be
1:52:41
encouraged. Is that if there's something
1:52:43
that you don't know, investigation should be where
1:52:45
you go to. Instead of trying to rely on a
1:52:49
belief claim that solves the problem, you can reserve that
1:52:53
belief and continue to investigate genuinely to find an
1:52:57
answer. So just to be clear though, if I
1:53:03
could show you that these beliefs, that these
1:53:07
philosophical presuppositions that undergird science, if I
1:53:10
could show you that those are all theistic, that that those
1:53:14
make sense on theism and that they don't make sense on
1:53:19
atheism, would you agree with me that that atheists really don't
1:53:24
have any business doing science? Well, I did go through that.
1:53:28
We, I think we talked about it. A lot of it seems to rely on the
1:53:31
tag argument that it's unreasonable to rely on your
1:53:34
sense or your logic without without an ultimate authority.
1:53:40
And we've disagreed. Well, I didn't say anything
1:53:42
about an ultimate. Authority.
1:53:43
I keep using the wrong word without, without.
1:53:47
Justification. Yeah, without ultimate
1:53:50
justification in a deity or ultimate.
1:53:53
Justification of it. Is is God not the ultimate
1:53:56
justification that you use for these?
1:53:59
Am I? Am I mistaken in that I?
1:54:00
Would say the I would say my belief in God is is something
1:54:05
that harmonizes with my belief that I can use my reasoning and
1:54:10
that it will be reliable and sound most of the time because
1:54:13
he made me as a being that would be able to reason in the world
1:54:18
and I I understand. I understand that belief in my
1:54:21
counter is that our senses are reliable because without
1:54:24
reliable sense data we would not be able to survive.
1:54:28
Our species would not have been able to survive and pass on
1:54:31
these traits through evolution through through natural
1:54:34
selection. But like the the the first
1:54:37
point, at least going back on the four points that you're
1:54:41
making on like why atheists can't do science, at least on
1:54:43
uniformitarianism. I mean, I took notes when I was
1:54:48
doing this. I'll just read the note and see
1:54:49
what my line of thinking. Was you mean you mean uniformity
1:54:51
of nature? OK, the assumption of
1:54:55
uniformitarianism. Uniformitarianism has to do with
1:54:58
a lack of demonstration of the Latin natural that the natural
1:55:01
laws were or could have been different in the past.
1:55:05
There hasn't been a demonstration that these natural
1:55:09
laws change depending on where you are in space or time, but
1:55:14
they seem to apply everywhere, and there's not a demonstration
1:55:18
that it could have been different.
1:55:19
It doesn't have to do with future observations, since that
1:55:23
only since we cannot observe the future, all we can do is observe
1:55:26
the present and evidence left behind from the past.
1:55:29
And so far, the natural laws seem to be consistent.
1:55:33
Seem to be, yeah, yeah. Was that from it?
1:55:37
Was it? Was that argument from Ken Ham
1:55:41
OK? Van Till maybe, But so we have
1:55:48
no justification or no information about the future.
1:55:50
You'd agree with that? We have no information about the
1:55:52
future. Yeah.
1:55:54
All we can do is make predictions about the future.
1:55:57
Right. But we have no actual
1:55:58
information about the future, right?
1:56:00
We're going in totally. I agree.
1:56:03
OK, so we can't really infer anything from the past about how
1:56:07
the future will be, because we know nothing about the future.
1:56:10
Right. No, no, no.
1:56:12
Would you agree or no? We can make predictions about
1:56:14
the future based on observations made of reality.
1:56:17
For example, if you know. I mean in the past.
1:56:20
If you know how much energy it takes to heat up a certain pot
1:56:24
of water, you can put the pot on the stove and turn it up to high
1:56:27
heat, and you have an expectation that 5 minutes from
1:56:30
now in the future it will be boiling.
1:56:33
You have an expectation, but that's not the same thing as
1:56:35
knowledge, is it? No.
1:56:37
I don't know that it's going to be boiling in 5 minutes.
1:56:40
I have an expectation. Yeah.
1:56:43
And I I. So we can.
1:56:44
Still make predictions about the future based on our observations
1:56:48
of reality. Sure, we can make predictions.
1:56:50
That doesn't mean that we're going to be correct, though,
1:56:52
right? And doesn't mean that we know
1:56:55
anything about the future, right?
1:56:57
Right. So I'm saying we don't know
1:56:59
anything about the future. We're going in totally blind and
1:57:03
saying that we have any information about the future
1:57:06
because we have information about the past is actually a
1:57:10
total non sequitur. To be.
1:57:12
To be knowledge. It's not the same thing as
1:57:14
future knowledge. Yes, if you were to be pedantic
1:57:16
about it, yes. Because what people say, what
1:57:19
people say, when they say they know something is going to
1:57:22
happen in the future, it's more accurate to say they have a
1:57:27
prediction of what is to occur. We have what, like for example,
1:57:31
when the Curiosity Lander was or Curiosity Rover was being sent
1:57:35
to Mars, there were expectations of what was to come as it was
1:57:39
being sent there based on the natural laws of how the universe
1:57:43
operates. You're going to send a probe out
1:57:44
and then have to wait three months for it to get to where it
1:57:46
needs to be. And so you have predictions of
1:57:50
how that's going to work out. And when it doesn't work out
1:57:54
that way, it can be investigated.
1:57:55
Understand why that was the case.
1:57:57
And never has that been reality stopped working in the way we
1:58:01
expected it to. Never so far do you want to open
1:58:05
it up for? Questions.
1:58:06
Yeah, absolutely. It's been, it's been 2 hours.
1:58:08
We can. Has it been two hours?
1:58:10
Two hours? It's been 2 hours, man.
1:58:12
Time's been flying. Love this?
1:58:14
Yeah. Let's open it up to questions.
1:58:16
All right, Well, if anybody would like to talk and ask
1:58:19
questions, Please remember to be very polite to my guest.
1:58:23
I think he did a wonderful job and should be commended.
1:58:26
It was really wonderful talking to Cedar.
1:58:30
Not that we're done yet, but yeah, go ahead and request the
1:58:33
mic. Anybody that wants to talk and
1:58:35
just please be polite and courteous.
1:58:39
Usually it takes a little bit before anybody requests.
1:58:43
For some reason, everybody's always shy at. 1st.
1:58:46
Zach. Zach, did you want to ask a
1:58:48
question? I think I saw something about,
1:58:53
OK, Brett wants to talk. He's connecting now.
1:59:03
Hey, Brett, what's going on? We had the ability to use the
1:59:07
mic in one of these things. Usually people go on for so
1:59:10
long. I never get an opportunity.
1:59:12
How you doing, Daniel? I just got your message.
1:59:14
I was busy on a podcast and seeing that you you were doing
1:59:19
some stuff, How you doing? Oh, I'm doing good, man.
1:59:23
It's great to see you. Did you have a question or
1:59:25
anything? Well, it looks like the guy in
1:59:28
the Is there any non believers in the room?
1:59:31
Or 'cause it looked like the guy got raptured up or something.
1:59:37
He I think something happened and he lost his mic.
1:59:43
I'm trying to add him back as a speaker now, but he and I were
1:59:45
just having a conversation, a 2 hour conversation about atheism
1:59:50
and theism and that type of thing.
1:59:52
So. There seems to be some kind of
1:59:54
weird thing. I think I might be.
1:59:56
Curse I I might. Oh, oh.
2:00:02
Oh, wow. OK.
2:00:05
All right. So I guess, well, first of all,
2:00:09
who are some of the other people that we got in the room?
2:00:12
We've got atheist. I don't.
2:00:13
I can't see past VIR and Cat can.
2:00:17
What's their theologic? The cat's theological position?
2:00:21
Oh, cat's a Christian. She's up in Canada with, what's
2:00:27
his name, Professor Tampon or whatever.
2:00:31
I don't remember what they call them up there, but Captain
2:00:33
Tampon. Well, Daniel, the the problem is
2:00:36
I just got in the room and I don't want to ask questions that
2:00:40
don't go along with the topics You guys been going on for two
2:00:43
hours. It seems like it'd be
2:00:44
disrespectful of me. You.
2:00:48
You can ask anything of me that you like.
2:00:49
That's OK. I think.
2:00:51
I think Kat wanted to talk. I think she asked for a Mike.
2:00:55
I invited you to speak, Kat, if you wanted to listen or ask a
2:00:59
question, I mean. Hey, yeah, thanks.
2:01:03
I was just wondering what your friends sorry, didn't catch the
2:01:09
name Atheist bird Cedar Cedar. Shoot, now it escapes me.
2:01:16
Oh, what's your biggest objection to theism?
2:01:19
My biggest objection to theism? Like, what's your biggest reason
2:01:22
for not believing that there is a creator God?
2:01:25
It hasn't been demonstrated. I examined the reasons that I
2:01:29
had for believing. I don't think there's like any
2:01:31
one really big reasons like, oh, This is why I can't believe.
2:01:34
It's more that the proposition has not met its burden of proof
2:01:38
to convince me. I haven't had personal
2:01:41
experiences with a God I haven't had or seen miracles.
2:01:45
I haven't had any sort of demonstration made to me that
2:01:48
shows me that a God exists. So have your have people's
2:01:53
attempts at demonstrating to you that a creator God exists were
2:01:57
strictly, strictly, oh, I had a personal experience.
2:02:02
Or it's true because I say it's true.
2:02:05
Just trust me bro. Like, have you ever read, for
2:02:09
example, any of the philosophical contemporaries of
2:02:14
our time like William Lane Craig?
2:02:16
Or apologists like Frank Turek, or John Lennox or James Torr or
2:02:22
Michael Brown or Michael Behe? Any of the scientists that are
2:02:27
more physicists than biologists, who overwhelmingly say that as
2:02:32
they study their field, AKA physics of some kind or
2:02:37
cosmology, they 60% of them are theists.
2:02:40
Have you considered any of that information in your when it
2:02:44
comes to assessing whether there is or isn't to God?
2:02:47
Yes, I've read Frank Turek's work.
2:02:49
I read William Lynn Craig. I've watched videos from Doctor
2:02:51
Torr. Dr. Torr is really interesting.
2:02:54
He seems to be more in my field because he does biology.
2:02:57
He's really interesting to listen to.
2:02:59
He's a nano. He's a or.
2:03:01
I believe he's an organic chemistry.
2:03:03
I think that is his trade is an organic chemistry because the
2:03:05
main thing he talks about is abiogenesis, which is still a
2:03:08
relatively new field. It's not evolution, it's a it's
2:03:11
how life can form from non life. And he presents these problems
2:03:14
of what that has to overcome, which is really helpful because
2:03:18
it helps us to better investigate the problem of
2:03:20
Abiotrix. And have you come across the
2:03:22
work of like let's say Michael B, he who talks about the
2:03:25
irreducible complexity of the cell?
2:03:28
I have not. I have not read that one.
2:03:30
I'm not sure what irreducible complexity means.
2:03:32
I have heard that before. So I can explain it.
2:03:35
I can explain what irreducible complexity means.
2:03:37
It means that initially when you know for example, Darwin said
2:03:42
OK, there's everything is made-up of cells and his belief
2:03:45
about the cell that it was a just a BLOB of protoplasm.
2:03:49
And as science progressed, what we actually learned about the
2:03:53
cell is that it is a spectacular factory that looks incredibly
2:03:58
designed, and it could not come about without like by just
2:04:03
individual parts evolving over time, Like everything had to
2:04:07
come into existence for it to function as it does.
2:04:10
And time plus chance works against that kind of
2:04:15
possibility. Are you familiar with the
2:04:18
evolution of the eye? I have not specifically looked
2:04:24
at the eye, but I've but I've encountered arguments from
2:04:28
scientists who are theists who explain things.
2:04:32
For example, like what are those type of symbiotic relationships
2:04:36
that say one can't survive without the other.
2:04:38
So they would have had to involve evolve at the exact same
2:04:41
time to function and that's just extremely unlikely.
2:04:44
It's virtually impossible. Not always at the exact same
2:04:47
time. Cells are complex, yes.
2:04:49
Oh no, sorry. I remember the other question I
2:04:50
was going to ask. But yes, cells are complex.
2:04:52
But I ask, how do you identify that something is designed?
2:05:00
Well, first of all, just for example, just from the sheer
2:05:04
fact that information exists within everything and that's the
2:05:08
genetic code and which is extremely complex, it's 1.3
2:05:12
billion letters long. It it serves a function.
2:05:16
It it, it contains all the information that an organic
2:05:22
Organism would require to, for example, you know, it
2:05:25
predetermines everything. Like, for example, for a human,
2:05:28
your eye color, your height, your sex, your all of those
2:05:31
things. And in DNA, even the evil
2:05:36
billionaire Bill Gates says is like the most sophisticated
2:05:40
software you have ever seen, like way beyond anything that a
2:05:44
human mind could produce. So he calls DNA information.
2:05:47
And I like the argument goes that for when there is
2:05:52
information, you automatically have to posit a mind behind the
2:05:56
information. Just like if you look at a book,
2:05:59
there's a whole bunch of information in it.
2:06:01
You don't see the person who wrote The Who wrote the book,
2:06:03
but you automatically infer, just by the sheer fact that the
2:06:07
book exists, that there is intelligence behind the book.
2:06:11
So the question was how do you identify design?
2:06:16
I understand that DNA is called information.
2:06:19
It's not exactly information. It's kind of a category error
2:06:22
but like I under I've, you know I've I've done a lot of.
2:06:25
Research scientists call it information.
2:06:27
Scientists call it information. It is information.
2:06:30
Classify it as information and that it gives instruction.
2:06:33
But it may or may not be the case that it is information in
2:06:36
the same sense that words on a book or information protein
2:06:39
interaction is really complex. Let.
2:06:41
Me ask him a question real quick.
2:06:45
If if it was information cedar, would that indicate to you that
2:06:50
God existed? If it was indeed information, I
2:06:54
don't know. I don't know that that would
2:06:57
conclude that it that God exists.
2:06:58
But I ask I I still ask again, how do you identify that
2:07:01
something is designed? You mind if I.
2:07:05
Well, you look at a building, you automatically, you can see
2:07:09
that it's designed. You you can't look at a building
2:07:11
and say, you know what, that was just a force of nature.
2:07:13
There was a hurricane and it was a really powerful one.
2:07:17
It blew up a whole bunch of material and it just plant, you
2:07:20
know, fell into place the way it fell just like by accident, you
2:07:24
know, via like a billion hurricanes, You know, like
2:07:27
whirling it all up, throwing it down, no design.
2:07:30
And then all of a sudden it, you know, gets plopped down as a
2:07:32
building. Like you look a building and you
2:07:35
see that it's designed just like you can look at, you know, the
2:07:40
the human DNA and what it's capable of.
2:07:43
And you you can automatically see that it's extremely complex.
2:07:46
It and it contains information, it contains instruction.
2:07:50
And so whenever we see things like that, we, you know, we
2:07:55
naturally with things like a book or a computer or a building
2:07:59
or a car or an engine, you you automatically, you know, know
2:08:02
that it's designed just by looking at it without having to
2:08:05
have met Henry Ford, for example.
2:08:07
So notice you did list a lot of things that make sense on design
2:08:10
and you went to cars, buildings, books.
2:08:13
The main thing to take away and understand is that when we try
2:08:16
to identify that something is designed, we contrast it with
2:08:19
that which naturally occurs. If you're walking along a beach
2:08:22
and you see a sand castle, you know that the waves did not form
2:08:25
that sand castle because we have an understanding of how nature
2:08:28
works. We have an understanding how the
2:08:30
tide would come in and come out and leave behind these WAVY
2:08:32
patterns on the sand. And when it's low tide, you'll
2:08:35
see where high tide sits based on debris and that's naturally
2:08:39
occurring, but you identify what's designed like contrasting
2:08:43
it, which naturally occurs. That's how it.
2:08:45
Is so one second, real quick, one second.
2:08:48
If anybody, if any of the other speakers want to ask a question
2:08:52
or anything, go ahead and put your hand up, look at my hand,
2:08:55
see like that. Just put your hand up like that
2:08:58
and we'll get over to you. But if nobody else wants to put
2:09:02
their hand up, we'll just keep having this conversation with
2:09:05
Kat. I just want to make sure that
2:09:07
nobody is waiting needless. I don't, I don't have a hand
2:09:10
button anymore for some reason. Just so the mic, I can mute it
2:09:14
and that's it. Would I be able to ask a
2:09:16
question? Kat, did you want to keep going
2:09:22
for a bit? No, I'll, I'll yield my time.
2:09:24
OK. Thanks, Kat.
2:09:25
Well, I'm curious about some of the I I'd like to get into some
2:09:29
of the stuff Kat's talking about, but I'm interested in
2:09:32
finding out from you. Do you believe in that there is
2:09:36
other life out in the universe? And also, do you believe in The
2:09:39
Big Bang Theory? There's a reason why I ask that.
2:09:42
I have no idea if there is or isn't life out in the universe.
2:09:47
The size of the universe suggests that it's possible, but
2:09:50
I'm not aware of any life somewhere else out in the
2:09:52
universe, so I'd have to withhold belief on that.
2:09:56
As for The Big Bang, the evidence available to me seems
2:09:58
to suggest that at one point our universe was smaller and had
2:10:03
expanded out rapidly in all directions, suggesting The Big
2:10:06
Bang. So do you believe what the claim
2:10:10
is of The Big Bang where it says that all time, space and matter
2:10:14
came into existence from a singularity or a small source of
2:10:18
points? Began space and time are one
2:10:21
idea or one property of our universe, and that seemed to go
2:10:25
together that space and time are the same not the same thing, but
2:10:29
tide How do you and time seem to begin Seem to begin at The Big
2:10:33
Bang. How do you define a word like
2:10:37
supernatural? What is your?
2:10:38
Definition of it, If you don't mind me asking, I don't have a
2:10:44
robust definition of supernatural.
2:10:46
I suppose. Supernatural tends to be a
2:10:49
bucket for things that are not natural, things that seem to go
2:10:54
against natural explanation. But I haven't found a good
2:11:00
demonstration or definition of supernatural that seems to exist
2:11:06
much in the same way as magic doesn't.
2:11:08
The reason why I ask you this, I'll I'll give you the basic
2:11:12
definition that could be looked up.
2:11:13
On Google, it sounds like you haven't even you haven't looked
2:11:16
at the word for a while, and I can understand why being an
2:11:19
atheist, but it's something that exists beyond the laws of
2:11:22
nature. If you're saying right now that
2:11:25
you believe in The Big Bang that had happened, then you're saying
2:11:28
that you believe that there was a point where nature did not
2:11:31
exist as the universe as we know it, that our laws at some point
2:11:35
in time did not exist. So the origin of The Big Bang
2:11:38
would have been a supernatural origin.
2:11:41
So you do accept the supernatural?
2:11:43
At least I'm not sure that I do The Big Bang doesn't seem.
2:11:48
Do you mean that like? Before The Big Bang.
2:11:50
That it wasn't nature? No, there was no, there was no
2:11:54
material and there was no substance, time or space.
2:11:58
During this time of the singularity, so you didn't have
2:12:01
any laws of nature laid outline here, which means that the
2:12:05
origin of this would have happened before the laws of
2:12:08
nature themselves. Nature didn't create itself.
2:12:11
So in doing so, by going along with this model of the universe,
2:12:15
you're stating that the universe is supernatural in origin.
2:12:19
I think it was important that I made the distinction that we
2:12:21
don't know that material came to it like.
2:12:24
Was. Created at the moment of The Big
2:12:26
Bang. We don't know that matter
2:12:28
existed at the time of The Big Bang, or had formed at the time
2:12:30
of The Big Bang, or existed before The Big Bang, but that
2:12:34
space and time began to exist. We have, we know that space-time
2:12:37
started to exist at the point of The Big Bang, but we don't know
2:12:40
about the matter that makes up the universe, the definition on
2:12:44
the and I don't even know if anybody cares about Wikipedia or
2:12:47
the. Dictionary.com But the
2:12:50
explanation and summary, a simplified version of it, is
2:12:53
that through the singularity, space-time and everything that
2:12:58
exists came through this. That means that the laws of
2:13:01
nature did not exist because the universe had not come into
2:13:04
existence yet. And that moment of whatever you
2:13:08
want to call it, temporal event, that's supernatural by
2:13:11
definition, no laws of nature. So if you accept The Big Bang
2:13:15
then you have to accept some form of that.
2:13:18
And you also said you're open minded aliens, but you're not
2:13:20
really sure, right? Yeah, it would need to be
2:13:24
demonstrated. I I'm almost.
2:13:27
Certain that they haven't interacted with our planet in
2:13:30
any significant manner, I got one last thing for you.
2:13:34
And then I'd love to hear some more of Kat and Mr. Darwin for
2:13:37
Jesus. Or whoever wants to go along.
2:13:39
But has it ever been scientifically shown that life
2:13:43
forms can come from inanimate objects or something that is not
2:13:47
alive scientific wise? I don't think it has been shown
2:13:50
yet. OK.
2:13:53
I appreciate your intellectual. Honesty and it's nice to meet.
2:13:56
You, by the way, thank you for. Answering my questions, it was
2:13:59
nice to meet you as well. Thank you, Brett.
2:14:02
Thanks a lot. Brett Surfer.
2:14:04
Dude, you want to ask a question?
2:14:06
Yeah. Hey guys.
2:14:07
How are we going? Lovely space.
2:14:10
Great to see you. Appreciate.
2:14:11
Yeah, you too, man. And hey, I've just got a
2:14:15
question regarding the supernatural sort of things
2:14:17
again. So I I, I try and watch as as
2:14:20
many videos as I can regarding you, you know people with
2:14:26
different perspectives and atheism and stuff, debating
2:14:30
theologians and that sort of thing.
2:14:32
I find it very fascinating. So I appreciate you being here
2:14:34
and been able to have this conversation.
2:14:36
I don't I don't get to ask atheists questions very often
2:14:39
but it's so I'm quite excited about this opportunity.
2:14:42
I just, I'm curious about what is your thoughts on people
2:14:52
saying that they've had interactions with?
2:14:55
Demons and. Angels and and and supernatural
2:15:00
beings. So what's your perspective on
2:15:01
that? When they say that they've
2:15:03
actually seen these things in real life, I'm convinced that
2:15:06
they've had an experience. I have one friend from back when
2:15:10
I was in high school. Who swore up and down that she
2:15:13
saw a ghost walking about our church?
2:15:17
I I'm convinced that she had some experience.
2:15:21
I'm convinced, like I'd be willing to believe her, that she
2:15:23
had experienced something. But I don't personally have good
2:15:28
reason to think that it was a spirit or a demon or an Angel or
2:15:33
anything along those lines. There hasn't been to me
2:15:37
sufficient demonstration that there are demon spirits or
2:15:40
angels running amok on our planet, interacting with people.
2:15:44
There are people who are convinced that that's the case,
2:15:48
but there hasn't been reasonable demonstration that what they are
2:15:52
experiencing actually is what they experienced.
2:15:55
I always compare this to people who give first hand testimony
2:16:01
that they were abducted by aliens.
2:16:03
You can go and interact with people today that will tell you
2:16:07
to your face that they are convinced that they were
2:16:10
abducted by aliens, that they looked like this.
2:16:13
They were Gray and they're bald and big headed and they did this
2:16:16
to me and even find testimonies that are very similar to one
2:16:19
another. But I'm not sure if people here
2:16:23
would also be convinced that aliens exist and are abducting
2:16:26
humans. They might have experienced
2:16:28
something, but it likely wasn't alien abduction.
2:16:35
So in order for you to. Believe it for yourself, you'd
2:16:39
literally have to see it. For yourself there, the test
2:16:41
there the the power of someone's word is is not that that that
2:16:47
demons and angels or or someone's actually seeing Jesus
2:16:51
actually has happened. You'd need to see it for
2:16:52
yourself. Well, seeing for myself would
2:16:55
help, but I haven't seen enough evidence to suggest.
2:16:58
That they exist in the 1st place like that.
2:17:02
That there are people who give testimony to these things, just
2:17:04
as they're people who give. Testimonies to aliens.
2:17:06
Abducting them. But I haven't seen demonstration
2:17:09
of aliens. How did you guys get on the
2:17:13
subject of aliens? Can you guys stay on top of it?
2:17:15
Well, hang on, hang on. L snark.
2:17:18
Let let them finish. I'm all right.
2:17:20
Just keep your. Hand up please.
2:17:21
Sorry, my bad, my bad. I'm.
2:17:23
I'm using it as a comparison because I think that other
2:17:26
people would agree. With me that we're not.
2:17:27
Convinced Aliens are abducting people, so I'm using that as a
2:17:31
comparison that y'all may be aware or not aware that people
2:17:35
give testimony of being abducted.
2:17:37
By Aliens, But you aren't. Convinced that aliens exist, and
2:17:40
you might need to have it happen first hand to believe it, but
2:17:43
I'm giving. I'm using that as a comparison
2:17:45
to show I'm not convinced that angels, spirits or demons exist,
2:17:49
because it hasn't been demonstrated in a reasonable way
2:17:53
to any, to to a public, or to a group of people.
2:17:56
Just. Individual experience.
2:18:00
I I appreciate your your thoughts there, man.
2:18:03
And and I have to be honest. Some of the things this is
2:18:07
supernatural stuff I've experienced that is demonic and
2:18:11
angelic by nature. Even my Christian brothers and
2:18:14
sisters struggle to believe it. So it's all good.
2:18:17
I appreciate it. My pleasure.
2:18:18
Thank you for your question. Hey, thanks a lot, Surf dude.
2:18:23
I appreciate. It elsinark.
2:18:24
Go ahead. So you guys, I'm assuming I just
2:18:28
jumped in, but you got an atheist and.
2:18:30
Atheist, correct and. You're believing in
2:18:33
Supernatural, you're believing in a bigger metaphysical
2:18:36
universe than previously imagined.
2:18:38
So this is amazing, amazing progress.
2:18:42
So I believe in Sasquatch. I believe in aliens.
2:18:45
I believe. But.
2:18:47
But I don't believe in God tonight.
2:18:49
So can you convince me? God's real?
2:18:51
I don't need proof for aliens or Sasquatch as a typical atheist.
2:18:55
But I need proof for God though. So can you help me out?
2:18:59
Well, right now the conversation was between me and Cedar.
2:19:04
Who's the. Atheist.
2:19:04
Bird and we're having a conversation about God and why
2:19:10
he doesn't believe, basically, and why I do believe.
2:19:14
So you're kind of coming in really at the tail end.
2:19:17
The point of this time right now is to kind of ask us questions
2:19:21
about the conversation that we just had.
2:19:24
Not to, like, prove God to anybody.
2:19:27
Because if I were to do that with you right now would
2:19:29
probably be another two hours, two hours conversation.
2:19:33
But yeah, well then I I appreciate the good spirit.
2:19:35
Of this debate. But why do atheists my?
2:19:38
Point is, why do atheists need so much evidence for God when
2:19:42
they need little to no evidence for aliens or Sasquatch?
2:19:45
I mean, there's really none for the for the latter.
2:19:48
So why do they have a double standard?
2:19:50
For proof May may I say something real quick, Darwin, go
2:19:55
ahead to be fair. The atheists that we've been
2:19:57
speaking to, he actually. Acknowledged that.
2:20:00
He is very skeptical about aliens as well.
2:20:03
I was hoping that he would say yeah, like most atheists, so I
2:20:06
can get him on the Fermi Paradox, but he dodged me on
2:20:09
that one. Oh, sorry, the saying, Sarco.
2:20:13
I think the saying usually goes that.
2:20:15
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
2:20:18
Nat. Aliens technically are or could
2:20:21
be a natural thing to the universe, just another living
2:20:25
thing that could be demonstrated.
2:20:27
So that doesn't require supernatural evidence.
2:20:31
Or it just would require, I guess, evidence.
2:20:35
But yeah, so like, it's it's not necessarily that there's a
2:20:38
double standard. It's just that if you were to
2:20:40
say that you have a pet dog, I'd be willing to believe you've
2:20:43
bought a dog. And if I investigate that and
2:20:46
find you don't have a dog, I might know more about you that
2:20:48
you might lie about having dogs. But if you're going to say that
2:20:51
you have an invisible, fire breathing pet dragon, I'm going
2:20:54
to need a lot more than your word to convince me that you
2:20:56
have an invisible fire breathing pet dragon.
2:20:59
That's not being inconsistent. That's just reporting my beliefs
2:21:03
to this, to the available evidence.
2:21:05
Because I know dogs exist. I don't know that invisible
2:21:08
fire. So you believe in dogs, but dogs
2:21:10
and aliens are very, very different.
2:21:12
How? How do you?
2:21:13
Justify not needing the same criteria to prove God is an
2:21:18
alien. That's absolutely ridiculous,
2:21:20
Narco, he said. He doesn't believe in aliens,
2:21:24
so. How much evidence does he need
2:21:26
for an alien? How much?
2:21:27
Evidence does he need for God? I think you can put it to.
2:21:29
Rest if the answer is that I don't know, I haven't been
2:21:34
presented with the evidence, I know I.
2:21:36
Know I know what you're trying to say.
2:21:37
You're trying to say that if you understand.
2:21:40
Science and matter that there's really good chance that there's
2:21:44
other life forms, even bacteria on other planet.
2:21:48
But to go from bacteria to God would be a big leap.
2:21:53
I I get that. I get that I believe there's
2:21:58
gold on some planet somewhere, but still there's zero evidence.
2:22:03
Even with a great mind like Elon Musk, he has very little proof
2:22:07
for what he's looking for. You have to acknowledge that,
2:22:09
correct? I think the if you were to try
2:22:13
and look for evidence to convince.
2:22:15
You that a God? Exists.
2:22:17
Daniel's argument today was the tag argument.
2:22:19
So if you want to look up the transcendental, what was it the
2:22:21
transcendental argument for the existence of God that you can
2:22:24
start with there, and you can investigate that for yourself as
2:22:27
well to see if that's something that convinces you that a God
2:22:29
exists. For me, that tag argument did
2:22:32
not convince or does not convince me that a God exists.
2:22:36
I've I've seen the argument before, as presented by William
2:22:39
Lane Craig, and it hasn't convinced me personally that a
2:22:43
God exists. I would need something else.
2:22:46
May I ask you that? Well, most of your ancestors
2:22:49
believe in God. Most of your ancestors.
2:22:51
Believed in God? So would you be?
2:22:53
Comfortable saying they're all crazy?
2:22:55
I don't think no, I wouldn't call them crazy.
2:22:56
They had reasons for believing whatever they believed.
2:22:59
But I'm not going to call them crazy.
2:23:00
For it, Roman culture celebrated the Pantheon, and they would
2:23:05
come up with stories if like a wagon's wheel.
2:23:07
Like when seizure's wagon wheel broke in front of in front of
2:23:12
Zeus's altar. They interpreted that as he's
2:23:17
fallen out of favor with Zeus. I wouldn't call them crazy for
2:23:20
that. That's just the culture of the
2:23:22
time, and that was what they believed, whether they had good
2:23:24
reasons or not. Hey, I probably have arguments
2:23:28
you haven't heard before because I haven't spent a lot of time.
2:23:31
In these. Spaces, but I'll give.
2:23:32
You one argument. I believe in filial piety.
2:23:35
I'm like the Chinese. I have reverence for my
2:23:37
ancestors. Most of my ancestors, the great
2:23:40
majority, believed in Jesus, but very few believe in aliens.
2:23:45
So I'm going to go with the ancestors that believe in Jesus.
2:23:47
Is that a pretty reasonable approach for me?
2:23:51
I think so, if that's what you want to do.
2:23:54
I'm not going to be the one to tell you to do otherwise.
2:23:57
Why I'm not comfortable saying I'm smarter than millions of my.
2:24:01
Ancestors that believe in. Christ.
2:24:04
So I'm going to go with Christ and maybe ditch the alien
2:24:07
belief, because there's really not many of my ancestors that
2:24:10
believe in the aliens. Isn't that a good approach to
2:24:12
figuring out how the universe works?
2:24:14
Is trusting your your fellow humans, Your fellow ancestors
2:24:19
especially? I think that's a.
2:24:20
Really good argument I've. Never heard it before and I just
2:24:22
made it off top of my head. Mr. Darwin for Jesus.
2:24:26
Would I be able to ask one more question?
2:24:30
Well, Brett Kat actually had her hand up for a.
2:24:33
While now would would you mind? Waiting.
2:24:35
Oh, of course. Of course I I enjoy hearing her.
2:24:38
Unfortunately, my screen is not. Zoomed out.
2:24:42
I don't know how to do that, so I couldn't see her hand up.
2:24:44
I apologize. I see Kat, Kat and Convexity
2:24:47
both have their hands up. Convexity I don't see.
2:24:53
Who's, who's? Convexity, convexity, convexity.
2:24:57
I would love to hear if Kat can prove something.
2:25:01
I'm really excited. Convexity.
2:25:04
Were you next? Have you been asking like?
2:25:06
This whole time they've had their hand up for a while.
2:25:08
I'm not sure who is next, but I'm on my computer and I it
2:25:12
actually. Doesn't let me raise my hand.
2:25:14
OK, Yeah. So yeah, you've been waiting for
2:25:16
a while. Yeah, go ahead.
2:25:17
And then it'll be you, Kat, if that's all right.
2:25:20
Sure, yeah. Yeah.
2:25:23
Thanks again for joining Atheist Bird.
2:25:26
Yeah. So I I think most of the cases
2:25:28
so far have been kind of external evidences.
2:25:30
Which? You know, they're they're
2:25:31
interesting and I I like to hear them.
2:25:34
Would you be open to an internal evidence from the Bible, an
2:25:37
internal evidence from the Bible to demonstrate that a God
2:25:39
exists. Right.
2:25:42
So essentially every other religion in the.
2:25:45
World, you know. Either they're panotheistic,
2:25:48
right? So God exists everywhere you
2:25:50
know or you have the other monotheistic religions, right,
2:25:53
the Islam and and Judaism. So essentially what makes the
2:25:57
Bible unique against any other religion in the world is its
2:26:02
ability to prophecy. Right to prophecy.
2:26:06
So and one I think would be interesting to you and your mind
2:26:10
is Daniel 926. So in Daniel 926, it's called
2:26:15
the the 70 weeks prophecy, but 69 of those weeks actually
2:26:20
pertain exactly to the day that the Messiah would show up April
2:26:24
3rd, 33 AD. And if you actually calculate
2:26:27
the math from that, and I know it's kind of nuanced here to
2:26:31
verbally speak it to you, but you know, I can send you a
2:26:33
message later to show you the math.
2:26:34
I've, I've done it myself. My background's in mathematics.
2:26:38
So essentially if you calculate the day that the decree was made
2:26:42
in Daniel Chapter 9, which is there's three different decrees,
2:26:46
one's from Ezra, it's not really important to know this, another
2:26:49
one's Nehemiah chapter 2, but that decreased specifically that
2:26:53
I'm Speaking of, it's the 69 weeks prophecy and if you
2:26:58
multiply 69 times and it's not the Hebrew calendar but it's the
2:27:02
prophetic year, the prophetic year is 360 days.
2:27:05
The Hebrew calendar is actually pretty ingenious.
2:27:08
They it's a Luni solar calendar, which means they sort of they
2:27:12
calculate the number of days in a year from the from the moon,
2:27:15
but they correlate it to the sun.
2:27:17
So it's called Luni Solar and they actually are very, very,
2:27:21
very close to getting the exact amount of time in a year.
2:27:26
You know, we currently calculated it's a Julian
2:27:29
calendar year is about 365.25 days, right?
2:27:32
And then the Gregorian year is 365.25 except for a leap year,
2:27:37
right? We we had an extra, we had an
2:27:39
extra day every every leap year except for every 400 years.
2:27:44
You don't add the year the the leap year.
2:27:46
So but anyways, not getting into the nuance there.
2:27:50
If you calculate that math out from Daniel 926 to 69 weeks from
2:27:54
the from the word of Nehemiah to rebuild the temple, is the exact
2:27:59
time which is 444 BC that year translated into a Julian
2:28:05
calendar if you convert it. The.
2:28:07
Math is 173,859 days. Now if you add that math from
2:28:12
4:44 BC, which is that day would that it happened, there's
2:28:16
there's evidence for this archaeologically.
2:28:18
It's written on a tablet. They found it.
2:28:21
You know it was the decree from art the Xerxes the 1st and that
2:28:26
day is known it was Nissan the first which is the first month
2:28:31
you know in the in the Jewish in the Jewish calendar right that
2:28:35
day from that day if you count from Daniel's prophecy in the
2:28:38
Bible from 920 Chapter 9 verse 26 gets you to the exact day of
2:28:43
the crucifixion of Jesus on April 3rd 33 AD which is Nissan
2:28:47
the 14th. You know if I if I can show you
2:28:50
that math, it's impressive because Daniel.
2:28:53
Was written 5. 100 years. You know he wrote that book 500
2:28:57
years. And this is part of the reason
2:29:00
why a lot of skeptical scholars will say Daniel was written much
2:29:03
later. But we have internal evidence
2:29:05
because that Hebrew that's used in Daniel is of a much earlier
2:29:09
Judaic period. But anyways, it was 500 years
2:29:13
before the birth of crisis when Daniel was writing in the
2:29:14
captivity in Babylon. Maybe not something for you to
2:29:17
answer now obviously, but just something kind of neat maybe to
2:29:21
wrap. Your mind around.
2:29:21
Later, and you know, I can show you the math later too.
2:29:25
I'll, I'll follow up with this. Did the New Testament writers
2:29:29
have access to the Old Testament prophecies?
2:29:34
Yes. So yes, they they would have.
2:29:38
So essentially there's kind of there's multiple communities
2:29:41
that you had the the Qumran community, which they're they're
2:29:44
the ones who were responsible for writing the Dead Sea
2:29:45
Scrolls. They might have been a part of
2:29:48
the sect called the Essenes. Essenes.
2:29:51
They were definitely around in the area.
2:29:53
They were in caves around. Jerusalem.
2:29:56
There's about 11 different caves and they were essentially
2:29:59
writing all the Old Testament texts.
2:30:01
Now, there were definitely scrolls apart from them.
2:30:05
These guys were kind of hermetic.
2:30:07
They didn't really, We don't know if they really interacted
2:30:10
with a lot of people that that period, but they were known to
2:30:14
the Jewish community. Now there were scrolls
2:30:17
available, but. It was.
2:30:18
Very costly. We actually read, we can read in
2:30:22
the New Testament, there's an Ethiopian who comes to Jerusalem
2:30:26
and he buys the scroll of Isaiah and essentially Philip teaches
2:30:31
him what what it's speaking about there in Isaiah chapter
2:30:35
53. So.
2:30:37
They. Did have that available to them?
2:30:39
Yes. OK.
2:30:40
Thank you for sharing. Yeah, you're welcome.
2:30:45
Yeah, just. Send that stuff to them.
2:30:48
Convexity. Yeah, she can talk in depth.
2:30:50
About the convexity, like, yeah, awesome.
2:30:53
Thanks a lot man. Yeah, Kat, go ahead.
2:30:58
Yeah, so I was just wanted to go back to the design.
2:31:03
Argument for a moment and wondering if I can just get your
2:31:07
reaction to two quotes. One is from Fred Hoyle, who is
2:31:12
an astrophysicist and a cosmologist and a professor of
2:31:16
astronomy and experimental philosophy at Cambridge.
2:31:20
And he says this a common sense interpretation of the facts
2:31:24
suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics and
2:31:28
that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.
2:31:32
The number one calculates from the fact seem to me so
2:31:36
overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond
2:31:39
question. And the second question is from
2:31:43
Paul Davies. He is a physicist and a
2:31:46
recipient of the Templeton Prize and the Kevin Medal from the UK
2:31:51
Institute of Physics and the Michael Faraday Prize as well.
2:31:54
And he says there is for me powerful evidence that there's
2:31:59
something going on behind it all, meaning our universe.
2:32:02
It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to
2:32:06
make the universe the impression of design is overwhelming.
2:32:10
And the second thing I wanted to ask is, do you disagree with
2:32:15
Stephen Hawking, who makes the claim that because for example,
2:32:21
in his example he cites the law of gravity and he says because
2:32:24
something like that exists, that the universe, which is all
2:32:28
space-time and matter, came into existence out of nothing.
2:32:34
So, because I know you mentioned earlier that you don't believe
2:32:36
matter came at The Big Bang, but someone like Stephen Hawking
2:32:40
would disagree with you and say that everything came from
2:32:42
nothing, from what I've seen about at least what Stephen
2:32:46
Hawking has said he suggests. An interaction from 1/4
2:32:51
dimensional plane that, when interacting with our
2:32:55
three-dimensional plane, interacts at a point, and that
2:32:59
interaction between these two dimensions makes it seem like
2:33:02
everything came from nothing. Does he have any evidence?
2:33:06
Has that evidence been demonstrated or is that just?
2:33:08
A theory in I wouldn't. Even say theory?
2:33:10
Or just a working idea? Yeah, so it it has it.
2:33:14
Has no evidence for the theory we can't see.
2:33:17
It we can't taste it. We.
2:33:18
Can't demonstrate it yet. He believes in it.
2:33:20
I'm not sure that he believes in it.
2:33:23
I'm not convinced that it's the case.
2:33:25
It's a. Proposed idea that hasn't been
2:33:27
supported. I'm not sure that it's something
2:33:30
that I believe to be the case, because ultimately if it comes
2:33:32
to like what caused The Big Bang, I don't know what that
2:33:35
cause was. All we can do and what do you
2:33:38
say? Sorry, all we can do is observe
2:33:41
the details of. The big.
2:33:44
Bang observe and especially like following up on your comments on
2:33:46
Fred Hoyle and Paul Davies, some funny thing actually occurs in
2:33:50
the field of physics. A lot of physicists, when they
2:33:52
start looking at Big Bang cosmology and trying to better
2:33:54
understand the beginning and how these constants came to be, they
2:33:59
cut. They, a lot of them are like,
2:34:01
well, this is weird, a lot of these.
2:34:03
Really look. Like, they're finely tuned.
2:34:06
A lot of them do kind of lean into this fine tune argument,
2:34:11
not just kind of overwhelmingly, but from physicists.
2:34:15
Astrophysicists, cosmologists, etcetera.
2:34:18
I would have. To see.
2:34:19
That to see that it's. Oh, that, the, that, and well,
2:34:22
this is the quote from. Paul Davies He says the design
2:34:25
is overwhelming and he's. A an, a physicist and the
2:34:29
recipient of the Templeton Press.
2:34:31
So you disagree with Paul Davies.
2:34:32
The design is overwhelmingly evident in our I agree that
2:34:36
there are very intelligent people in the field of science
2:34:38
who come to a conclusion that it was designed.
2:34:41
But I'm not convinced by their words that it is indeed designed
2:34:47
when it comes to When it comes to the fine tuning argument, the
2:34:50
thing that makes it problematic is that they're using intuition
2:34:56
to think that these values could have been other values, that
2:35:00
these constants have the possibility of being any other
2:35:04
number. When we don't know that to be
2:35:05
the case, we only have one observable universe with one set
2:35:10
of constants to observe. So we don't know of the
2:35:13
possibility of any other universes that are capable of
2:35:16
existing with different values. All we see is the result of a
2:35:21
universe with this set of values.
2:35:24
Well, there are scientists proposing that there are that
2:35:27
there is a multiverse so like. They are saying that it is
2:35:30
possible that other worlds exist that are not like ours.
2:35:33
Yes, Yeah, that's the the and that comes from trying to make
2:35:37
inferences of the unknown of. Well, if this value was
2:35:40
different than planet orbits would actually operate like
2:35:42
this. And that's that's essentially
2:35:45
what they're doing, is they're trying to follow the math from
2:35:48
those fundamental values being different to try and think of
2:35:51
what a multiverse would look like, what other universes would
2:35:56
have happened that would not happen in our own universe.
2:36:00
It's it's very, very annoyingly academic, but.
2:36:08
It's not something that. I've been able to delve too
2:36:10
deep. My specialty is in biology, not
2:36:13
in physics, and not certainly in Big Bang cosmology.
2:36:18
OK, so like when Big Bang cosmologists like say that?
2:36:21
You know, make the claim. That everything, that the chance
2:36:25
of our universe being finely tuned for life is like 10 to the
2:36:30
123rd power, which is just an astronomically unimaginable
2:36:35
number. You you don't, you say you can't
2:36:39
take them at the word because you haven't delved in enough
2:36:42
into the physics. Well, that, that following up,
2:36:45
at least what I had said earlier, we only have the one.
2:36:47
Universe for example. Like the chances of winning the
2:36:50
lottery is like one in 500 million.
2:36:53
Like the the Powerball lottery is like one in 500 million.
2:36:56
So like, you know the chances of winning that are exceedingly
2:37:00
small. But we have somebody who wins it
2:37:03
every week or every month very. I don't think.
2:37:07
I don't think it's comparable because the chances of the
2:37:10
winning the lottery are much. Greater than the chances of
2:37:13
something like 100 plus constants in our universe being
2:37:18
so finely tuned. And if any one of them was
2:37:21
changed by a hair's width in any One Direction, the universe
2:37:26
ceases to exist, according to physicists.
2:37:29
The point, the point I was trying to get to is that we
2:37:31
don't know how many times a universe.
2:37:33
Has tried to come into existence and that's that's that's what
2:37:37
I'm trying to get at. So like when I compare it to the
2:37:39
Powerball lottery the like the chances of winning the lottery
2:37:43
as an individual are. They are.
2:37:45
Essentially. Close to 0 and the universe is a
2:37:49
googolplex. More complicated and bigger than
2:37:51
that. But the what makes it different
2:37:54
is we have 300 million people trying.
2:37:57
We don't know in the whole of the This is why the multiverse
2:38:00
idea has been proposed. We don't know in the breath of
2:38:02
the whole multiverse or cosmos that there are other universes
2:38:07
trying to come into existence or trying to form.
2:38:12
Well, what? What?
2:38:13
I believe what scientists say when talking.
2:38:17
About like we don't know how many times the universe has come
2:38:21
about. What what I've seen scientists
2:38:25
say about that, is that the law? One of the law.
2:38:29
I believe it was the law of thermodynamics suggests that it
2:38:32
can't have infinitely like you know, exploded and regressed.
2:38:36
Exploded and regressed because energy is always finite in a
2:38:39
closed system, so the second law of thermodynamics has to do with
2:38:42
closed systems. Maybe it wasn't the law of
2:38:47
thermodynamic, It was something like there.
2:38:49
That one of the laws of. Physics suggests that it can't
2:38:53
have perpetually expanded and converged, expanded and
2:38:57
converged, because eventually it would run out of power.
2:38:59
You're talking about entropy, I believe.
2:39:02
Yeah, maybe that. It may be the case at some point
2:39:06
that our universe. Will cease to exist.
2:39:09
We are living. At a time where we have energy
2:39:12
and we have we have available and workable energy that we can
2:39:15
do something with and there's an idea of like the heat death of
2:39:18
the universe that at some point our universe may stop having
2:39:23
exciting things happen. There will be no more reactions,
2:39:26
no more, no more protocols or particle decay or anything like
2:39:29
that. But that I with with the
2:39:32
discussions that very I know very intelligent physicists have
2:39:37
put forward the idea that they do believe in a creator.
2:39:40
There is 60% of them believe in a creator.
2:39:44
See that poll. Because.
2:39:47
To the best of my knowledge, the majority.
2:39:49
This is getting into. Ad populum.
2:39:51
Which is the fallacy? I'm not using this to justify my
2:39:54
position, or justify your position or falsify your
2:39:56
position. But to my understanding, the
2:39:58
majority of people who work in the sciences are atheistic
2:40:02
actually. At least in their in their ideas
2:40:06
or beliefs, you'd have to you'd have to categorize that by the,
2:40:09
by the, by the type of science they're.
2:40:11
Doing for example, you know evolutionary biologists will be
2:40:15
will tend to be more towards agnostic, slash atheistic and
2:40:18
then physicists because they study the universe and what
2:40:22
appears to be designed. They it like it screams in their
2:40:26
face that it looks so designed that that's they don't.
2:40:29
They are not even Christian per SE, but they are theists, just
2:40:32
based on the fact of their field of study, which is physics,
2:40:40
astrophysics and cosmology. Hey, just real quick guys.
2:40:44
We're going on almost three hours now, so OK, I'm going.
2:40:48
To yield my time now. Thank you.
2:40:49
I think may I ask one more question?
2:40:51
That's it. Well, Brett.
2:40:55
Adam was next. And then?
2:40:57
Daniel and and you'll go last all.
2:40:58
Right, sounds good. All right.
2:41:01
Go ahead, Adam. Hey sorry if this.
2:41:05
Might have been covered. I wasn't.
2:41:06
Here for the whole 3. Hours but and.
2:41:09
Actually, I thought it was, it was perfect timing because you
2:41:11
actually mentioned the idea of the universe being an open
2:41:14
system. That was going to be part of my
2:41:16
question to you was that, yeah, do you believe that the universe
2:41:19
is a closed system or an open system?
2:41:21
I don't have enough information to come to a conclusion on that.
2:41:26
OK. So it's possible that it's an
2:41:28
open system, right? It could be.
2:41:29
It is. Possible.
2:41:31
At least I have not been shown that it is impossible.
2:41:34
Would be a good way of saying that.
2:41:37
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
2:41:38
I think that's very, Yeah, it's very.
2:41:41
Possible and stuff and I think it's a.
2:41:43
Very reasonable position to hold and stuff in that case.
2:41:48
Now the other question, I was just curious about that again,
2:41:50
sorry if you guys have covered it and stuff, but are do you are
2:41:54
you also proposing abiogenesis or what?
2:41:58
Since I I figured I'd ask you a question more related to biology
2:42:01
since he said that was your your field.
2:42:04
Abiogenesis is super fascinating.
2:42:07
It has not been shown to be. The case, it is an active field
2:42:10
of investigation. To the best of our knowledge,
2:42:15
that's what seems to have happened.
2:42:17
We don't have a demonstration that it was a.
2:42:20
Supernatural. Or magical event that caused
2:42:23
life to form from non life. So all we can do is investigate
2:42:27
the possibility of how this is. This is what?
2:42:30
Oh my gosh, I totally forgot his name Doctor.
2:42:33
Not Turek Torr. Thank you Doctor.
2:42:37
This is this is what Doctor Torr does, and he.
2:42:39
Really. He's really good at talking
2:42:40
about. This is how it has to start with
2:42:42
chemical evolution, that you have to start with really basic
2:42:46
fundamental chemicals that can interact with each other in a
2:42:48
way that propagate each other and how that can go into life.
2:42:53
Because we have things that exist today that propagate
2:42:56
themselves, that aren't technically life.
2:42:58
We call those viruses. They aren't technically living
2:43:02
things because they depend on other things to propagate
2:43:05
themselves. So whatever abiogenesis was may
2:43:10
have been something akin to viruses in that they were able
2:43:14
to propagate themselves in some way that wasn't like life as we
2:43:17
see it today. Yeah.
2:43:20
But I mean are you are you proposing that that's a
2:43:23
stronger? Hypothesis than.
2:43:25
Atheistic one. That seems to be the case that
2:43:27
all we have are the all we see and observe.
2:43:31
Is the natural universe, but James Tour makes the claim that
2:43:36
it's impossible for. For organic chemicals compounds
2:43:43
to just like formulate themselves into He doesn't make
2:43:46
the He doesn't make the argument that it's impossible.
2:43:48
It's it's clear there's a clear distinction here.
2:43:50
Because what? He says is that we are clueless.
2:43:52
That's the word that he uses. Is that we are clueless to this
2:43:57
idea. How is it you're getting from?
2:43:59
How is it you're getting from clueless to more probable?
2:44:03
We are clueless. Into how it?
2:44:04
Happened, but all that I see is the natural.
2:44:07
World, I don't see that there was a.
2:44:09
Isn't that a presupposition though?
2:44:13
How is that a presupposition? Isn't it a presupposition that
2:44:17
all there is? Is a natural world.
2:44:19
That is, I think that. Is accurate to say that that is
2:44:21
a presupposition that that is all there is?
2:44:24
But that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is all that we
2:44:26
can observe, all that we have been able.
2:44:29
Not all we can't observe. All that we have been able to
2:44:32
observe and test and make predictions on has been the
2:44:36
natural world. There has been no demonstration
2:44:39
of a supernatural element that necessitates or causes life to
2:44:43
form from non life. Yeah, I mean, I I I would.
2:44:49
It would. Seem to me that if a Biogenesis
2:44:52
is not proven. To be true, then, that would
2:44:54
necessitate that you need something outside of this
2:44:57
universe, right? Because you can have one more
2:45:01
time if abiogenesis is false. Right.
2:45:07
Then how can? You have life at all.
2:45:09
If you don't have a supernatural element, then abiogenesis would
2:45:12
need to be demonstrated to be false.
2:45:16
Sure, but it would also have to be demonstrated to be true.
2:45:19
Which is why it's a very active field of.
2:45:21
Investigation right now, now that we have at least better.
2:45:24
Understanding and better tools to try and create an environment
2:45:28
of what Earth would have been like however many billions of
2:45:32
years ago. It was when we first started
2:45:33
seeing life arise. How could you do that though, if
2:45:39
that would be an unrepeatable? How could you study an event
2:45:41
that's? Not repeatable, like the
2:45:43
creation of, you know, our world whenever it was however many
2:45:48
billion years ago. You can't repeat that.
2:45:49
So you can't. Therefore you can't.
2:45:51
We can't repeat billions of years.
2:45:54
But what we can do is at least create an environment.
2:45:57
That would be akin to what we believe that Earth would been
2:46:01
like. We can try and come up with
2:46:02
different environments to see how life can form from non life
2:46:06
and we're actually, we're so far removed from that event that it
2:46:10
does make it super difficult to do, but not impossible.
2:46:19
All right. Let's go to Daniel.
2:46:22
Hey, Daniel. Hey, Daniel.
2:46:23
Hi. I love your name, by the way.
2:46:27
Well. Atheist as well, I see.
2:46:29
Yeah. Awesome.
2:46:30
Yeah, I enjoyed. The conversation.
2:46:32
Guys, Cedar, I wanted. To ask you a question about the.
2:46:35
Reliability of the senses. So when you were discussing that
2:46:40
with Daniel, you said that you can know that your senses are
2:46:43
true and reliable because we've evolved through natural
2:46:47
selection, which naturally selects for what is true and
2:46:50
reliable because that's what that's what helps us survive,
2:46:54
not necessarily true and reliable, that our senses arose
2:46:58
from natural selection. We can know that they're true
2:47:01
and reliable by demonstrating their use, right?
2:47:07
Because what I was going to say. Is.
2:47:10
How would you explain? Then that we've also.
2:47:12
Evolved. Through natural selection for
2:47:13
every civilization that's ever existed to believe in some type
2:47:17
of of God or deity. Oh no, not every civilization.
2:47:20
Are you familiar with the Paraha Paraha people?
2:47:25
Braha are an indigenous tribe I believe was in.
2:47:28
Brazil, Some evangelicals. Had worked to.
2:47:31
Try and go to this tribe so that they could spread the word of
2:47:33
God to these people. And they were actually having a
2:47:35
hard time translating the Bible because they didn't have a word
2:47:40
to describe a God or supernatural.
2:47:43
They didn't have a God in their language because like none of
2:47:47
them had a belief in a God. None of the big as a society had
2:47:50
expressed belief in a supernatural or God or theaties
2:47:53
or anything like that. So the theist had a really hard
2:47:56
time translating it because the language literally did not have
2:47:59
the word for God. So it's sounds like the atheist
2:48:02
got going first. What's that?
2:48:06
Sounds like the atheist? Missionaries got going first.
2:48:09
Never heard of atheist? Missionaries.
2:48:11
Wonder where that is? But.
2:48:15
I thought you were on Twitter. They're around all the time.
2:48:17
I just talked. I'm.
2:48:18
I'm talking to people. I'm.
2:48:19
I'm investigating. I'm investigating the God claim
2:48:22
the best. Way that I can describe it is
2:48:24
that I've been more active in investigating for the existence
2:48:29
of a God as an atheist than I ever was as a theist.
2:48:33
When I was a theist, I believed it because I was raised to
2:48:37
believe that and I just kind of ran with it.
2:48:39
But then as I went to college to deepen my understanding and
2:48:42
deepen my faith, all I can do now is try and investigate and
2:48:45
find sound reasons that would suggest or sound evidence that
2:48:49
would show that a God exists. What kind of evidence would that
2:48:56
look like? Because.
2:48:56
There's different kinds of evidence, like for example, you
2:48:59
know when. We say a creator God exists by
2:49:02
the fact that that you know something exists rather than
2:49:06
nothing, and that the something which is space-time and matter
2:49:10
had to come into existence A finite time ago.
2:49:13
And whatever is whatever is made, whatever caused space-time
2:49:18
and matter can't be made of space-time and matter because
2:49:21
that would be like arguing in a circle.
2:49:23
You know everything, created everything.
2:49:25
You know what I mean? I don't know what evidence it's
2:49:27
going to take to convince me personally that a God exists.
2:49:30
I'm not aware of what. Evidence it would be.
2:49:33
What I am aware of is that the God I was taught and raised with
2:49:38
should know what that evidence is and hasn't presented it to
2:49:42
me. If at some point in the future I
2:49:46
am convinced, I argue that I would be just as evangelical and
2:49:51
vocal as any one of the 12. Except maybe not Judas, maybe
2:49:57
not that one. What?
2:49:59
What would that evidence look like?
2:50:01
What would I don't know. I don't know what evidence that.
2:50:03
Would be to convince me that I got to exist.
2:50:05
I'm just aware. So if you if you don't know what
2:50:07
the evidence, sorry if you don't know what the evidence would
2:50:11
look like. How do you know you haven't
2:50:13
already seen it, but just disregard it.
2:50:14
That's why I have to keep investigating.
2:50:19
Fair enough. So.
2:50:19
Would you say that, let's say? You were presented.
2:50:23
Sufficient. Evidence that, for example, the
2:50:26
Christian God exists and is true and is the only God.
2:50:30
Would you become a Christian? I don't know.
2:50:33
I couldn't say that I was an atheist anymore because now I
2:50:36
have knowledge. That a God exists.
2:50:38
I couldn't call myself an atheist from that point.
2:50:40
I don't know that I would call myself a Christian.
2:50:43
Do you think that's a rational position to hold, to know that a
2:50:46
Christian God exists? And whatever he says is.
2:50:48
True. And to still say I don't know if
2:50:50
I'll become a I may be Catholic. Well, I just mean like the
2:50:55
general. OK, let's Catholic.
2:50:56
Just means. Common Catholic just means, you
2:50:59
know, the. Common church, let's just say,
2:51:00
let's say a good idea. I honestly don't know.
2:51:04
I would have to. I would have to see.
2:51:06
What it is that convinced me and what it is that?
2:51:08
That God would want from me. If I can have a conversation
2:51:10
with that God to ask what they would have of me, then I would
2:51:13
suppose I would have to do what that will is.
2:51:16
I'm I'm most interested in understanding what our reality
2:51:18
is, and if our reality has some sort of God or creator behind it
2:51:22
that I could be able to get a lot of information, at least for
2:51:25
my own selfish gain. I have a.
2:51:26
Lot of questions to ask. Cedar, I really appreciate your
2:51:30
honesty. You know, like I can.
2:51:33
Tell you're genuine. You know, personally, I think
2:51:36
the best evidence is internally there's 300 prophecies, that
2:51:39
prophecy about Jesus and there's 1800 about his second coming.
2:51:42
That was for the first. You know, I I know it's going to
2:51:45
sound all strange to you right now, but I would love to just
2:51:48
send you a link. Just have you read it and maybe
2:51:50
go over it one day, take a couple and just take a look and
2:51:53
see what you think? Because I think internally the
2:51:56
evidence presented in the Bible is the strongest case of the
2:51:58
best evidence of God's existence.
2:52:00
Because these prophecies, when you combine them
2:52:02
probabilistically, I mean you're you're talking about numbers
2:52:05
way, way larger than what Kat just mentioned, way larger.
2:52:10
We're talking like basically a finite estimation of Infinity 10
2:52:14
to the 650th power. I I just want to kind of give
2:52:18
you a link just maybe one day take a look at it see what you
2:52:21
think. Because the claims that Jesus
2:52:23
made, they're just unlike any other claim anyone else in it in
2:52:27
the world's ever made. I mean it's like the strangest
2:52:29
things ever, right. I'm the I'm the truth, the way
2:52:31
in the life who says that these things are just unrivaled to any
2:52:37
human ever that's ever existed. And so if there's existence for
2:52:41
Him and his resurrection and his death and His crucifixion, I to
2:52:44
me personally, that is the best evidence possible of A.
2:52:48
Creator. And you know, I just.
2:52:51
Don't think there's anything that compares.
2:52:52
To it, but and I and I get all the probabilistic, you know,
2:52:55
scenarios that you know, I can give you even stats on
2:52:58
hemoglobin itself being a probabilistically impossible
2:53:01
combination of the amino acid sequence, which you probably
2:53:04
know way more than me about it. But the exact amino acid
2:53:08
sequence in hemoglobin, it's like if it's just one protein is
2:53:11
off just one little bit. It's not hemoglobin.
2:53:14
It's, you know, it's some other mutation that probably leads to
2:53:17
death. I know you probably know more
2:53:20
about that than me. But anyways, I'll stop there and
2:53:24
maybe I can send you something that you can take a look at.
2:53:26
One day. I imagine we could have an old
2:53:28
whole another three hour conversation just talking about
2:53:30
prophecies. This is absolutely and I
2:53:34
appreciate it, brother. You've been great by the.
2:53:37
Way. Thank you so much.
2:53:38
Thank you, Brett. Sorry, you've been waiting a
2:53:41
while. Yeah, my my question was more.
2:53:43
Basic and all. That it's kind of a
2:53:46
psychological. Hypothetical.
2:53:48
It gives me an idea of where you are whenever it comes to
2:53:52
investigating research and what your desire is for the truth.
2:53:56
It's a simple question. You wake up tomorrow, you find
2:54:00
yourself in a dark room and there's two doors up against the
2:54:03
wall, and you see a dim light coming from beneath as you
2:54:07
approach the doors. One of the doors says universe,
2:54:11
with 100% evidence that Jesus Christ rules this universe.
2:54:16
And then there's the other door that says this is the atheist,
2:54:18
naturalist universe. The moment that you step through
2:54:22
either one of these doors by your own choice, it becomes your
2:54:26
reality and there's no returning back.
2:54:29
So which would you do if you knew for a fact that if you went
2:54:32
through either one that would become your 100% reality, you'd
2:54:36
have full knowledge of it. What would you pick and why, if
2:54:39
you don't mind me asking, This one might make me cry.
2:54:47
If Christian, if I could walk through a door that would make
2:54:50
Christianity true, I would choose that door.
2:54:55
I love the idea that I could see my grandmother again.
2:55:00
I miss her dearly on a regular basis.
2:55:05
And if it was possible to have an opportunity to be able to
2:55:09
spend an eternity continue. If I please let me continue to
2:55:14
investigate nature. I I asked too many damn
2:55:17
questions and I just want to continue to learn more about the
2:55:20
universe and more about nature. And selfishly, it's because I
2:55:23
want to see my grandmother again.
2:55:28
I think you got a beautiful heart.
2:55:29
And I hope. To have the opportunity to be
2:55:31
able to talk with you again, I enjoyed.
2:55:33
Listening to you. Thank you.
2:55:36
Hey Cedar, real quick. I had one other.
2:55:39
Question. From my friend Zach, he's not
2:55:44
able to ask this himself, but he asked me to ask.
2:55:48
He said he was talking about evolution and certain creatures
2:55:54
having X trait to let the creature survive to then pass X
2:55:58
trait down and keep the species alive.
2:56:01
Where does he think the X trait comes from?
2:56:04
If not a creator, then where? Where did X trait begin?
2:56:08
Or did it spontaneously pop up in one lucky creature?
2:56:13
That's his question. Environmental stresses is the
2:56:16
answer to that. So for example, you can create.
2:56:20
More resistant strains of bacteria really quickly is one
2:56:25
example. So like you can you can have a
2:56:27
really long growth plate and then you have increasing
2:56:30
concentrations of a certain antibiotic and allow them the
2:56:34
time and chance to grow into those higher higher strains.
2:56:39
It shows that they developed this resistance.
2:56:41
It's that which survives based on this is the by natural
2:56:45
selection part of evolution. It's evolution by natural
2:56:49
selection is that when you when nature places a certain stress
2:56:52
on an animal, if they cannot find a way to survive in that
2:56:57
environmental stress, they will go extinct.
2:56:59
It's why the vast majority of species that have ever existed
2:57:03
are extinct. So for example, when the last
2:57:09
Ice Age started, as it started to get colder and colder and
2:57:12
colder people are animals that were in those environments that
2:57:16
got colder had to adapt. Maybe they developed a trait
2:57:19
where they would Burrow underground to stay warm.
2:57:23
Or maybe they evolved a trait where they would develop a
2:57:26
thicker fur. Maybe a double coat of fur that
2:57:28
could take one mutation to cause, like we even see it in
2:57:32
humans, that there's one mutation that occasionally
2:57:34
arises where humans have hair that grows all over their body
2:57:37
extra thick. And if they don't have that
2:57:41
trait that arises, they go extinct.
2:57:47
Awesome. Thanks.
2:57:48
All right. Well, I think we're.
2:57:51
Pretty much at the end here, did you have any final thoughts
2:57:56
before I can I say something? Whatever, that was all.
2:58:02
Right. Just really quick go.
2:58:03
Ahead, you just said that the. Reason.
2:58:06
Selfishly, why? You're.
2:58:08
Doing all this, this nature of looking on the.
2:58:11
Earth and. Everything like that is because
2:58:13
you want to, you know, figure something out about your
2:58:16
grandma. Do you think that if there?
2:58:20
Was a God. Do you think that your selfish
2:58:23
desires would be the way to be able to discover who he really
2:58:27
is? Well, I would want to clarify
2:58:31
that selfishness came from that hypothetical.
2:58:33
That if I had the choice between.
2:58:34
Those two, I would have a selfish motivation to choose
2:58:37
that one of the two doors. My investigation is genuine just
2:58:41
because I want to understand the reality around me.
2:58:44
I think that if there is a God that exists in the way that I
2:58:46
was raised to believe in, they should be able to recognize my
2:58:51
investigations and my genuineness and my heart that
2:58:55
I'm not doing this because I want to sin or I don't want to
2:58:58
be a Christian. I'm doing this.
2:58:59
Because I want to. Understand the reality that's
2:59:02
around me. Fair enough.
2:59:06
I don't think that. That's selfish, though.
2:59:08
That's that is unusual. Way of.
2:59:10
Putting it. You can believe in God and be a
2:59:14
part of the universe that has a higher power and still
2:59:16
absolutely enjoy the creation and nature around you and still
2:59:21
find out the mysteries that God put forth.
2:59:27
Yeah, absolutely, Brett all. Right, so sorry.
2:59:31
My wife is going to tell me so. We're at 3 hours.
2:59:33
Close this Thank you and and apologize to her from us.
2:59:37
Apologize. To her.
2:59:38
Yeah, this is a. Great space.
2:59:40
Honestly, I feel like we. Could keep this going for three
2:59:42
more hours easy. But anyway, did did you have?
2:59:46
Did you have any final thoughts there?
2:59:48
I have. Nothing else.
2:59:49
To nothing else to express, I thank you for your time and I
2:59:52
thank everyone here for. Their kindness and their
2:59:55
sincerity, I appreciate it. Cedric, thank you.
2:59:59
It was it was a pleasure. It was mine.
3:00:01
All right. Well, awesome.
3:00:04
Well, thank you very much. Cedar if.
3:00:07
If anyone in here wants to support atheists that are well
3:00:11
behaved and engaging in awesome, respectful conversations like
3:00:15
these, please give Cedar a follow.
3:00:18
I strongly recommend it. I think he did a wonderful job
3:00:21
tonight. I really enjoyed the
3:00:24
conversation and definitely, hopefully we can do it again.
3:00:30
I would definitely like to do that.
3:00:33
And. I just want to say to everyone
3:00:37
thank you so much for spending this time with us.
3:00:40
Thank you for your engagement. Thank you to everyone that asked
3:00:43
a question. I really appreciate it.
3:00:45
And I just want to say that Jesus Christ is the way, the
3:00:48
truth and the life, and that Christianity is true.
3:00:53
And he died for all of us. He died for our sins and he
3:00:57
loves everyone, you know, So if you want to have eternal life
3:01:02
and get to know God, just get down on your knees and repent
3:01:06
and and believe in him and trust in him and and you'll be saved.
3:01:10
And that's the shorthand version of the gospel.
3:01:14
And with that, I will say thank you once again to everybody and
3:01:19
have a wonderful night.