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Jordan Peterson Surrounded By 20 Atheists · Gil I Am

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're a Christian.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: You say that, I haven't claimed that.
• 0:03
  Speaker 3: Oh what is this?
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This is a Christians versus atheist.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Don't be a smart ass.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Either you're a Christian or you're not. Which one is it?
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: You're really quite something.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: You aren't ty, but you're really quite not think right,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: you're not a Christian.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: I'm done with him. Hello there, I'm doctor Jordan Peterson.
• 0:19
  Speaker 4: I'm a clinical psychologist, Professor emeritus at the University of Toronto,
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: an author, a podcaster, public speaker, and today I'm surrounded
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: by twenty five atheists.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: My first claim atheists reject God, but they don't understand
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: what they're rejecting.
• 0:48
  Speaker 5: Good afternoon, doctor Peterson. How are you doing so this
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: claim here that atheists don't know what they're rejecting. My
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: background is in studying to be called a traditional Catholic priest,
• 0:58
  Speaker 5: daily Mass, daily Rosary, going on law on retreats, deep
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: into the magisterium and biblical hermeneutics, like I was thoroughly
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: in it, and it seems like I do know what
• 1:07
  Speaker 5: I'm missing? Is there something that I missed over years
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: of study both this issue formally and living out religion
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: so deeply?
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: While you obviously feel that you missed something when you
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: were practicing for the priesthood. Your aim was off then,
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: so there's always the possibility that it's still off.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:24
  Speaker 6: What was off about my aim in the first.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Time, I don't know. That might take a long time
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: to figure out.
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: Then it seems kind of like this no true Scotsman
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: type of fallacy, in which you're the arbiter of people's
• 1:33
  Speaker 5: aims and how they understand those aims to be How
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: is it that you can claim that people don't know
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: something that you know about their life despite not having
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: met them.
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: Well, it's obviously a generic claim, just like the atheists
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: claim that there's no God has a generic claim. In
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: your case, it would have to be specified more. And
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: I'm not claiming to understand what was going on in
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: your mind.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: But yeah, my experience with atheists is twofold, is that.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: They have a very reductive no of what constitutes God,
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: let's say, in the Judeo Christian tradition, and they've often
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: been hurt by someone who was religious, or by the
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: religious enterprise, or perhaps by God himself, so to speak,
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: and that's left them with unanimus.
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: But I think that you have a reductive view of
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: what atheism is. You've defined religion so broadly to include
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: any sort of having aim in life, any sort of
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: cultural archetypes or having a metaphorical substrate, and atheism to
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: you is a very specific type of like three people
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: in the world that are these Raskolnikov type of they
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: want to get away with a perfect murder. It seems
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: like you have the reductive view of what an atheist is.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: Well, let's start with your claim. How do you define
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: the God that you're rejecting? Like, what is God?
• 2:42
  Speaker 7: To you?
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: You studied in the church, you found that unsatisfactory? How
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: would you characterize what you rejected?
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: I think the average Christian believer when they say that
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: they're Christian and they believe, they mean some sort.
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: Of God that is all powerful, all perfect, is.
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: Somehow involved in the matters of this world, and that
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: we look to them through wisdom and with the logos
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: incarnate in Christ. And it also seems like you don't
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: believe in religion in the way that the average Christian
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: says that they believe in religion. And there are as
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: many gods out there as our believers, because everybody has
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: mutually exclusive and different views of what God is.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: So it seems well, if everybody had mutually exclusive views
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: of what God is, no one could speak to each other.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: You're the mere fact of communication presumes a commonality of
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: assumption and definition and so. And it's certainly not the
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: case that I regard any archetypal manifestation whatsoever as equally religious.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: So that's that's not a real claim. Let's let me
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: give you an example.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: For example, there's a sub narrative in the story of
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: Moses where Moses is rewarded with a glimpse of God. Okay,
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: and that's one of the ways that God is characterized
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: in the Old Testament's stories. Yes, now Moses is a
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: faithful servant of God and a good man.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: At least that's the case within the confines of the story.
• 3:56
  Speaker 6: One possible interpretation.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Case within the confines of the story. Obviously, what does it?
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: Obviously, when we look at the Bible, the Bible can't
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: precisely say anything because there are so many different exegetical
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: and hermonutic views of this particular book, and that everybody
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: has agreed history or everybody has disagreed historically on it
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: seems like even the most benign detail about a book
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: this big, and it seems like you can only say
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: that the Bible says something if you first presuppose that
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: it's univocal.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: So your claim essentially is that Moses in the Old
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: Testament plays the role of a villain or is irrelevant
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: because the alternative claim is that good.
• 4:32
  Speaker 6: Because we can't talk to those others.
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: If you are going to start with the presupposition that
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: there's nothing I can say about any of these stories
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: that you're not going to disagree with from the perspective
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: that there are multiple potential competing claims, then I can't
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: speak with you.
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: So we also have a short time here. So I
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: want to get to the core of what you're arguing here,
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: and I love if we could.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: The core of what I'm arguing is that atheists reject God,
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: but they don't understand what they're rejecting. So I'm trying
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: to give you an example of what's being rejected and
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: its complexity. Okay, so God rewards Moses with a glimpse
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: of the divine.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: So this is a definition of the God that atheists
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: are hypothetically rejecting.
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: A possible one.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: I said, Ah, I didn't say the I said ah, possible. Yes, Okay.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: So despite the fact that Moses is a stellar character
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: and he's had a long and difficult life and can
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: withstand a lot of difficulty in travail, God puts them
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: between two cliffs so we can just see a crack
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: of what's in front of him, and when God walks by,
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: he allows him to see his back.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: So that implication and implication of that story is that
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: the divine is fundamentally unknowable, it's a pinnacle experience, and
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: that people in their finitude have to be shielded from
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: a comprehensive vision of the basis of reality. Well, that's
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: not the God that's defined in that manner, right, It's
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: not a simple personification. It's not a simple old man
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: in the sky. It's something that in its essence is
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: unknowable and overwhelming. And that isn't, in my experience, the
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: God that's defined by atheists who are attempting to undermine
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: the story. I mean, it's the same claim, for example,
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: that you're a finite creature and that you face something
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: that in the final analysis, is unknowable, and that you
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: have to establish a relationship with it, regardless of your
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: inability to perceive or even withstand perceiving the whole.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, is there a problem with that?
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: I mean the problem is that when we look at famously,
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: when you've been asked do you believe in God? The
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: question becomes what do we mean by God? And in
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: the Bible it's not even clear the biblical authors know
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: what God is because Yahweh has historically emerged from an
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: early storm God a deity that doesn't exhaust the category
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: of deity, and that has changed over the Old Testament.
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: Does God have physicality? God not have physicality? It seems
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: like yes. If you define religion to me and anybody
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: that hasn't aim, anybody that looks at the unknown, anybody
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: who wants to go from chaos to order, is inherently religious,
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: then yes. But also in the same way, I could
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: define atheist as somebody who doesn't dogmatically believe in a religion,
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: or somebody who doesn't regularly attend religious services or belong
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: to a denomination. Help especially the audience kind of like
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: boil this down. There is a lot of words there
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: that the central claim is that we exist somewhere between
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: the finite and the infinite. Central essentral claim is that
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: we exist somewhere between the finite and the infinite.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: Now I said that we were finite and we had
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: to establish a relationship with the infinite.
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and then in that case then we're all religious.
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: But then I can do the same thing and define
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: one particular element of atheism.
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: It seems like.
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: We both have reductive view of what the other side
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: looks like, to the point where a conversation seems incoherent,
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: and not just incoherent, but not in the way that
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: the average Christian understands Christianity to be.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Do you have a problem? Odd there?
• 7:57
  Speaker 8: Sorry, you've been quoted out to the majority.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: He David, David, good to see.
• 8:10
  Speaker 9: You tell me everything that you know about the Polynesian
• 8:13
  Speaker 9: deity Lono l O n O.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about Polynesian deity Lono.
• 8:20
  Speaker 9: So you're rejecting something without knowledge of what you're rejecting.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I'm not rejecting it. Do you more than I'm rejecting
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything. Do you believe in Lono?
• 8:30
  Speaker 9: Do you believe that he has a deity that exists
• 8:32
  Speaker 9: in the world, exists in the universe, that exists in
• 8:35
  Speaker 9: the existence of everything.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Do you do you believe that Lona that question once
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: you answer my question, which is.
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: Do I reject everything that I'm ignorant of, because that's
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: your presupposition that undergirds your argument.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Unless you can prove that that's valid, then there's no point.
• 8:52
  Speaker 7: My question is quite simple.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that doesn't mean formulated accurately. Do you believe
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: that Lono exists? Yes, yes, or no.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to answer that question for the reasons
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: I just described. You already insisted that if I reject
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: something that I that if I'm ignorant of something.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: I reject it.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Do you think that everyone in the world has to
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: know everything simultaneously for that to.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Be valid and true.
• 9:18
  Speaker 9: I think in order for your question to be true,
• 9:21
  Speaker 9: in order for it to be true that we atheists
• 9:25
  Speaker 9: don't understand what we're rejecting, then you need to also
• 9:28
  Speaker 9: apply that to yourself and to Christians and to Muslims
• 9:31
  Speaker 9: and to any other person on this earth, where if
• 9:35
  Speaker 9: you don't understand what you're rejecting the belief in, then
• 9:38
  Speaker 9: you can't reject the belief in it.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: That's the implication of.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: Your say that I rejected the belief in Lona who
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: Lono was?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Say anything about reject.
• 9:49
  Speaker 9: That's because I've asked you several times and you haven't.
• 9:51
  Speaker 9: But let me get to my even greater point. You're
• 9:55
  Speaker 9: saying atheists don't understand what religion is or what God
• 9:59
  Speaker 9: is in order to be able to reject it fully
• 10:03
  Speaker 9: or completely. We have someone over here who studied it
• 10:05
  Speaker 9: in their own way. I've studied religion. I have a
• 10:08
  Speaker 9: degree in religious studies, specialty in Christianity and Mediterranean traditions.
• 10:14
  Speaker 9: And further than that, beyond me, Pew research studies suggest
• 10:18
  Speaker 9: the atheists and agnostics actually know more about religion and
• 10:22
  Speaker 9: about religious stories the foundational principles than believers.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: That's because they're more religious than they think they are.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Okay, well, they're concerned with deep matters, and one of
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: the defining characteristics of someone who's oriented religious direction is
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: that they're concerned with deep matters.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, in fact, it's spiritually definition, right, But.
• 10:41
  Speaker 9: They also have to identify with a religious tradition and
• 10:44
  Speaker 9: accept the foundational stories that go along.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: Well, that would mean more that they're sectarian than that
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: they're religious. And most people, for exactle for example, in
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: the United States, deny that they're religious, but except that
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: they're spiritual.
• 10:56
  Speaker 8: Laws there you've been voted out by the majority.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Ah, Hi, nice to meet you. How you doing, I'm
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: greg nice to meet you. Okay. So I feel like
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: you're getting at this idea of polysimy, where we have
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: multiple related meanings for a word, right, like, for example,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: a famous painting can be emotionally moving in that it
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: changes my emotional state. And when I was on the
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: highway coming here to the studio, I was physically moving.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: I was changing my position. If I said I believe
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: the Mona Lisa is very moving and you said you
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: don't really understand what you're saying, it's nailed to the wall,
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: I would say that you're the one who doesn't understand
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying, not the other way around. And the
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: way that relates to this is there are many concepts
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: of God, and I'll admit I find a lot of
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: what you say about that interesting. I'm familiar with it.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: The idea of this kind of union higherhierarchical thing or
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: as a metaphor or a symbol, or the kind of
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: you know, atheist, materialist, literalist idea of agentic, omnipotent, omniscient
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: being that intervenes in reality right. So when I'm saying
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: that I reject the concept of God, I'm aware of
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: these other definitions of God. But I think that when
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: we use words, we tend to only imply one meaning
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: at a time. So the same way that I would
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: say the mona Lisa is moving emotionally, but I would
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: not say it's moving physically, I would say I reject
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: the concept of God in this very literal way, but
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: the way that God is this omniscient, omnipotent, agentic, supernatural
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: being that sent his son down and has you know,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: caused miracles and all these things like that. The idea
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: of God.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Is I think that there's an underlying unity of things.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Could you explain that question?
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: Well, Scientists, for example, believe that science unifies in a
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: comprehensive theory.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Do you yes, no? Or they are multiple competing truths.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Those are the options. Either things unify or there are
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: multiple competing truths.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: I think that I know that for example, like in physics,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: people are looking for like a theory of everything.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Why do you think they're doing that?
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: It's interesting, it's helpful, But.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: They also believe that there's an underlying unity to things.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: In a sense, Yeah, like I mean like the material
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: world and time and space are probably governed by universal
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: laws and principles.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Partly that yes, yes, but that the same thing might
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: extend to a broader demain that would include imagination and value.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Could you help me connect that to the prompt?
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm trying to define God, the god that I
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: don't think atheists do a very good job and define it.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: Here's another question for you. What do you think guides
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: you in your determination of whether or not what you're
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: saying to me is true?
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Can we go back? Can we stay on what we
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: were talking about?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: We are okay, You're just uncomfortable with the question now.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I feel like you're just kind of throwing different spaghetti
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: the wall. I'm not okay.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I asked you a very specific question.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: What is it that you think guides you when you're
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: talking to me to help you determine whether what you
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: say is true?
• 14:11
  Speaker 10: Uh?
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Logic, memory, reasoning, sensory information.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: How do you distinguish that from being governed by something
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: that's false?
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: It's interesting question.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: How do you know the difference when you speak between
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: what's true and what's false? So you can imagine I
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: can infer from what principles.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: So, and what what are you getting at.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: I'm getting at the fact that your conscience guides you
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: is that reasonable.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Conscious is defined by my empathy and my reason are
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I foundation.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Find it any way you want?
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Okay, So that's how I'm defining my conscience is my
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: you know, my kind of my conscience is my sense
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: of you know, right, right or wrong?
• 14:50
  Speaker 11: Yeah?
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly where does that come from?
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: I would say that comes from an evolved capacity to
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: empathize and a recognition of the benefits of engaging with
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: and nurturing that capacity. And then that empathy is constrained
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: and guided by reason. Right, Like, for example, I am
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: driving down the highway there's a kitten in the road.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: I'm going to empathetically feel, oh my god, I want
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: to save the kitten, but then reasonably like I'm going
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: to get hit by a car. Right, So that's sort
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: of the process through which I make ethical decisions. Okay,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: how do you be constrained by reason?
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: Do you think that people can differ in their response
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: to something empathically?
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Is there a mediating principle that can tell you one
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: person who's empathic and another person who's empathic that disagree,
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: who's correct?
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think that's where we'd have to,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: you know, talk it out, right. We do that in
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: real life all the time when we have whether it's
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: a discussion with a friend about the right thing to
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: do in a situation, whether that's a policy discussion about law. Right,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: that's where we can converse with each other, think about things,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: explain our perspectives, and then kind of reach a conclusion.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: Right that. I think that we do that all the time.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: So Elijah, the prophet, Elijah defined God in the Old
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: Testament as the voice of conscience within Okay, that's a definition.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: So you're saying by that definition of God, I guess
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: see this kind of goes back to where.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I'm saying, we're not defining Elijah.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: So as elijahs as Elijah defines.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: To find that way in Jonah too. Okay, so as
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: Cardinal Newman also defined.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: As I'm sure you know many people who defined it
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: that way. And it's impressive. You're a very knowledgeable person.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: Trying to be impressive. I'm just pointing out to you
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: how God is defined in the Old.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Testament, all right.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: So to respond to that, I do think there are
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: lots of interesting ways to define God, And that goes
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: back to my Then how do.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: We specify what we're arguing about.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: We use context clues or we special we again, it
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: goes back to my example.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: The God as conscience.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Okay, so that's interesting, but then you're kind of expanding
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: the meaning of going on.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: That's how it's defined in the Old Testament. So Elijah and.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: In Jonah, so whoever, so not?
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: Whoever, Elijah is one of the major Old Testament prophets.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: He's equal in statue to Moses. So it's not arbitrary.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Right, So that is interesting, but it's not relevant to
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: the context with which I am using the term God.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: It's directly relevant.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: Atheists reject God, but they don't understand what they're rejecting.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: If you accept conscience as a guide and conscious is
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: one of the defining characteristics of God in the Old test.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: I think you're being intellectually disingenuous in what way?
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Because I asked you if you believe the conscience guide.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: You just asked me a question and then you stop
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: me from answering it. In this setting, you understand the
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: way I am using the term God and belief.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Not in the least I don't understand how you're using
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: it in the least. That's why I'm trying to define it.
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: My definition of God is conscience, is a lot more
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: precise and oriented than your definition of the God that
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: you hypothetically disbelieve.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: It's irrelevant to the fault lines of this debate.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: How is it irrelevant?
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Because in common parlance, when we're talking about atheist god belief,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: not believing.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: We're not talking about common parlance. I'm trying to get
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: to something fundamental.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: I just I think your point is irrelevant event to
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: the way that people using these words, your point that
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: there are these polysymus you did, I made a.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Specific point that was associated.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: I just I just feel like you kind of retreat
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: into this semantic fog.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: I'm not retreating at all. I'm advancing, sir, you are retreating.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Well, it was very nice to be appreciate.
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very brave of you to do this. Surrounded
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: is now a.
• 18:28
  Speaker 12: Podcast available wherever you listen, search surround it, plug in
• 18:32
  Speaker 12: and stay part of the conversation anywhere, anytime.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: My next claim is that morality and purpose cannot be
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: found within science.
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: What is mister Canada?
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: How you doing? Man?
• 18:56
  Speaker 10: Do Brian?
• 18:58
  Speaker 13: I think it's interesting that you say the morality purpose
• 19:00
  Speaker 13: can't be found in size actually within within sir, structure. Sure,
• 19:03
  Speaker 13: purpose I actually grant you because purpose is subjective, right,
• 19:06
  Speaker 13: unless you want to boil it down to the purpose
• 19:08
  Speaker 13: of life is just to procreate.
• 19:09
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 19:10
  Speaker 13: Sure, whatever morality is actually something that we do see.
• 19:14
  Speaker 13: We actually have examples of Neanderthals and older individuals found
• 19:18
  Speaker 13: in the tribe missing an arm, missing teeth, still alive
• 19:22
  Speaker 13: somehow in his forties fifties.
• 19:23
  Speaker 14: Right.
• 19:23
  Speaker 13: Typically you're a Neanderthal. You can't eat, you can't hunt,
• 19:26
  Speaker 13: you die, right, But we know that members of this
• 19:28
  Speaker 13: harbor taking care of him. Right, So we know that
• 19:31
  Speaker 13: at some level early in evolutionary history we actually developed altruism.
• 19:36
  Speaker 13: We have examples of chimpanzees who actually have a basic
• 19:39
  Speaker 13: understanding of fairness.
• 19:41
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 19:41
  Speaker 13: If you give chimpanzee two grapes, right, and his buddy
• 19:45
  Speaker 13: gets three, right, he actually freaks out. Right, But you
• 19:48
  Speaker 13: give both shimps three grapes and they're good.
• 19:51
  Speaker 10: We have examples of.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: Parrots except for the greedy they.
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: Want four grapes.
• 19:57
  Speaker 13: You know those do exist, right, But we have similar
• 19:59
  Speaker 13: examp where we do animal tests, right.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: And so morality is intrinsic, I think, so it precedes science.
• 20:06
  Speaker 13: I think that actually a better way to define it
• 20:09
  Speaker 13: would be that social animals, which we are right, require
• 20:13
  Speaker 13: some level of morality or.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Into what to not disagree? Sure, why do they require that?
• 20:20
  Speaker 6: Because it's the only way that social groups can actually survive.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Right, that's my point with regards to science, Thank you
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: very much.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: Is that precisely the point that you just made, that
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: science has to exist within a moral framework that isn't
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: in itself scientific.
• 20:33
  Speaker 10: How's scientific?
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: Well, because it's not derived from the scientific process, as
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: you just indicated.
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: The scientific process.
• 20:40
  Speaker 13: It's the fact that we are social animals and we
• 20:42
  Speaker 13: need that to exist as a group.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: But you pointed to the morality of Neanderthals, to the
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: morality of chimpanzees. They didn't derive that from science.
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: They don't need to. That's not my point. Science explains it.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: No, Science doesn't explain morality.
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: It doesn't explain how social animal would need to be.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Well, that's that's a complicated question.
• 21:03
  Speaker 10: But we see it though.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but explaining the evolution of morality and explaining morality
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: itself aren't the same thing.
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: So you're asking why does this happen.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: I asked, Yes, that's that's more accurate.
• 21:15
  Speaker 6: We're social animals.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: But there's more to it than that, isn't sure? Sure?
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: For example, so we're moral animals that have a sense
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: of the future.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Sure, okay, that makes us unique, and that structures.
• 21:25
  Speaker 13: Are Actually there are other animals that can predict the future.
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: No tigers.
• 21:31
  Speaker 13: Actually there was a tiger that killed somebody and no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 21:37
  Speaker 13: Kids threw ship at the tiger. The tiger actually plotted
• 21:40
  Speaker 13: its escape and it found the kids.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Saying that animals can't think they can.
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: The future, That's what I'm saying.
• 21:48
  Speaker 8: The majority, good Man, Yeah.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: You know how you're doing is luke, you see it.
• 22:00
  Speaker 15: So your claim that morality and purpose can only be
• 22:03
  Speaker 15: found in science is a little shaky because I think
• 22:06
  Speaker 15: that your claim is really being framed to be morality
• 22:08
  Speaker 15: and purpose can only be found in religion.
• 22:11
  Speaker 14: Is that how you're kind of framing it?
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: I would say that the domain of religion is the
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: domain of morality and purpose, Yes, exactly, And also that
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: science is actually structured, at least in part technically to
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: eliminate such considerations from its purview. A priority, right, That's
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: why we define science's value free, but that has to
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: be wrong because scientists have to prioritize their attention towards
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: something before they can even engage in observation. And that
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: act of prioritization of attention is a value predicated act.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: And so I can continue.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: There's all sorts of things we have to assume about
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: science before it can take place.
• 22:50
  Speaker 15: Okay, So what I'm specifically pointing out here is about
• 22:53
  Speaker 15: religion in particular since you yourself are a Christian.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: Right that's people debate about that, and I generally don't publicly.
• 23:01
  Speaker 14: Okay, I understand that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 15: And me myself, I am a former Young Earth creationist fundamentalist.
• 23:06
  Speaker 14: Yeah, so I have experienced in this.
• 23:09
  Speaker 15: I used to run a TikTok channel, uh, directed about
• 23:12
  Speaker 15: apologetics about the Bible, specifically in this type of facet
• 23:16
  Speaker 15: with morality, evolution and such and going back and forth
• 23:20
  Speaker 15: with that.
• 23:20
  Speaker 14: So in the Bible it talks.
• 23:21
  Speaker 15: A lot about slavery, right, yes, yes, so in that
• 23:25
  Speaker 15: it teaches you how to take care of a slave.
• 23:27
  Speaker 15: Rather than saying slavery is wrong, I think.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: It just says that in the story of Moses.
• 23:32
  Speaker 15: Says slavery is incorrect.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Why Moses leads us people away from slavery.
• 23:36
  Speaker 15: But why does the Bible predicate and tell people exactly
• 23:40
  Speaker 15: how to take care of a slave.
• 23:42
  Speaker 14: Isn't that a moral don't?
• 23:43
  Speaker 15: Wouldn't you say that culturally we've evolved as a species,
• 23:45
  Speaker 15: as he said earlier about empathy.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say that the reason we evolved, so
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: to speak, away from slavery was because the West was
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: founded on Judeo Christian morality and the presumption that every
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: person was made in the image of God. Slavery off
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: became immoral, and that was established by Protestant Christians in
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: the UK, who then convinced the UK government for two
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: hundred years to go to war.
• 24:07
  Speaker 15: And the way you say that this is about the
• 24:09
  Speaker 15: cultural evolution of humans in general rather than just I
• 24:13
  Speaker 15: think it's.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: The flowering of the ideas that were embedded in the
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: Biblical texts across long, long spans of time.
• 24:19
  Speaker 15: I feel like this is just humans editing based on
• 24:23
  Speaker 15: the cultural evolution.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: What do you mean by just just just humans?
• 24:28
  Speaker 15: Well, human editing well, based on culture and history, Right,
• 24:32
  Speaker 15: we get better.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: They did do it based on culture and history. But
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: culture and history have their foundations too.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 24:38
  Speaker 15: Yeah, but we were talking about slavery, so many people
• 24:41
  Speaker 15: bolstered it based.
• 24:43
  Speaker 14: On everyone, based on the Bible, they justified it. In
• 24:47
  Speaker 14: the United States and the South, they justified Slater.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: But the main thrust, the main thrust of Protestant thought
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: in particular, was stringent slavery, and it was about the
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: only movement in the history of the human race that
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: had an anti slavish direction.
• 25:00
  Speaker 14: Which was driven by humans.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: And in one way, well, it depends the.
• 25:04
  Speaker 14: Same with women's suffrage, I mean women's in the page.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Do you mean it was driven by humans. Humans drove slavery.
• 25:11
  Speaker 14: Too, Yes, exactly they So there's no argument there.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: If slavery and anti slavery were both driven by humans,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: what what does your claim that they were driven by
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: humans have.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: To do with it?
• 25:22
  Speaker 15: Based on the culture that within the society that they live.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, So with as well as a.
• 25:27
  Speaker 15: Very similar topic in the Bible, there are denominations in Christianity,
• 25:31
  Speaker 15: such as Pentecostal movement which do bolster women to be pastors, right,
• 25:35
  Speaker 15: which I think that's a great thing to do, But
• 25:37
  Speaker 15: most like to disregard where do.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: You think the idea that human beings were sufficiently equal
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: to all vote and not be slaves.
• 25:44
  Speaker 14: Came from humans.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but so did the idea of slavery.
• 25:48
  Speaker 14: So did the idea of God.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: Fine, but what's your point, Like, you're not making an argument.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: You're just saying, all thoughts come from humans. Regardless of
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: the thoughts, it's not driven.
• 25:57
  Speaker 14: By higher power.
• 25:59
  Speaker 15: It's driven on our experience hiens, which is what is
• 26:02
  Speaker 15: best for all people. Driven by conscience, it could be
• 26:06
  Speaker 15: which conscious is also something that has evolved over time,
• 26:08
  Speaker 15: and I think that's what does evolve with morality and empathy.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, I don't understand the point that you're making.
• 26:15
  Speaker 15: My point is that God influenced slavery. People looked at
• 26:19
  Speaker 15: the Bible and went, this is moral because God says
• 26:22
  Speaker 15: that just like woman suffrage and just like homosexuality, all.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: Human societies were slave owning. So you can't blame that
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: on the Bible.
• 26:30
  Speaker 14: If humanity decided wait, address.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: That first, all human societies were slavers.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: So you can't blame that on the Bible.
• 26:40
  Speaker 14: Well, you can say it bolstered it.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: Well not if you look at the broad sweep of history.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: Because it was the Protestant Christians.
• 26:46
  Speaker 16: Based on their interpretation of the Bible.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: It was the Protestant Christian which.
• 26:50
  Speaker 8: Evolves over time, going out by the majority of talking
• 26:55
  Speaker 8: with you, talking.
• 26:55
  Speaker 17: To you, dot you Peterson, Good to see you man.
• 27:06
  Speaker 10: What's your name, Brian.
• 27:08
  Speaker 18: So the first thing I would like to say is
• 27:09
  Speaker 18: I would like to engage in this discussion in a
• 27:11
  Speaker 18: symbiotic manner. I would not like to engage where there
• 27:14
  Speaker 18: is one clear winner and one clear loser, emotions are
• 27:18
  Speaker 18: activated and ultimately comes about ego. So I'm just saying,
• 27:21
  Speaker 18: I'm really trying to understand your position, and I would
• 27:24
  Speaker 18: just like you to really try to understand my position. Deal, Okay,
• 27:27
  Speaker 18: sounds good with that. If you're saying that morality and
• 27:32
  Speaker 18: purpose cannot come from science, is the opposite of that true,
• 27:36
  Speaker 18: that morality and purpose can only come from God.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: That's a way of defining it.
• 27:42
  Speaker 10: Yes, okay, that's right.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: That's good.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: So I would say that with regard to the first
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: claim say atheists don't understand what they're rejecting is I
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: would say, by definition, God is the unity upon which
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: moral claims are based.
• 27:57
  Speaker 10: That's a definition, right, Okay. If there is a God,
• 28:00
  Speaker 10: what is the purpose of life?
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: Well, and in the Christian tradition, the purpose of life
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: is to engage in voluntary upward self sacrifice so that
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: the Kingdom of Heaven can be established on Earth.
• 28:16
  Speaker 10: So you're trying to make it to heaven and avoid hell.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's a good way of that's a good way
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: of thinking.
• 28:21
  Speaker 10: About what is the purpose of heaven? Do you understand?
• 28:26
  Speaker 10: So here's the deal.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: The opposite of endless suffering? How about we can?
• 28:31
  Speaker 10: Okay?
• 28:32
  Speaker 18: And so should we not try to achieve infinite suffering
• 28:36
  Speaker 18: on planet Earth? And if we can achieve infinite suffering
• 28:39
  Speaker 18: on planet Earth with avoiding it, avoiding it, if we
• 28:43
  Speaker 18: can do that without God, then that does that defeat
• 28:46
  Speaker 18: your claim?
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, except that it doesn't.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: You circumvented my initial definition because I said that by definition,
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: God was the unified source of morality.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: And so if we engage in a moral exercise.
• 29:00
  Speaker 18: And when you're when you're talking about morality, though, when
• 29:02
  Speaker 18: you really reverse engineer and you get it down to
• 29:05
  Speaker 18: its root you're a psychologist, It really seems like it
• 29:08
  Speaker 18: just has to deal with motivation.
• 29:10
  Speaker 10: People are saying there is a God, there.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Is more specific than that.
• 29:14
  Speaker 10: Well, I so let me ask you this.
• 29:16
  Speaker 18: So, if there is a God and there is a
• 29:18
  Speaker 18: moral code and it doesn't come at your benefit, are
• 29:21
  Speaker 18: you going to follow it?
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: It depends on how you define your benefit.
• 29:25
  Speaker 18: If if it's going to come at your expense, would
• 29:29
  Speaker 18: you still follow it?
• 29:30
  Speaker 10: If God came down.
• 29:31
  Speaker 18: And said, here is my moral code and you should
• 29:34
  Speaker 18: follow it. But even if you follow it, you are
• 29:36
  Speaker 18: still going to end up in hell? Are you going
• 29:39
  Speaker 18: to follow it?
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: That was the question that was put to Job and
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: to christ right. Because they were required a question, they
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: were followed. They were required to withstand trials that would
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: break anyone and maintain their upward orientation regardless.
• 29:59
  Speaker 18: In the did that with the motivation of believing that
• 30:03
  Speaker 18: this omnipotent, all loving God would somehow turn it into
• 30:07
  Speaker 18: a benefit. So they still did it solely for their benefit.
• 30:10
  Speaker 10: So well, yes, that's to.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: Hang on it's defined benefit, Like if I did something
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: for your sister, would that be to your benefit? Like
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: how are you defining your benefit? Do you mean one
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: of your whims gratified now or do you mean you
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: and everyone you love and know over some reasonable span
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: of time.
• 30:31
  Speaker 18: When you're talking about whims, I think you're talking about
• 30:35
  Speaker 18: something that's more dopamine. When you're talking about morality you're
• 30:38
  Speaker 18: talking about something that's more serotonin and more ultimately satisfying.
• 30:42
  Speaker 10: So you and I agree on a lot.
• 30:45
  Speaker 18: I mean, when it comes to talking about how men
• 30:47
  Speaker 18: should be masculine and things of that nature, you and
• 30:49
  Speaker 18: I are one hundred percent in agreement. We just don't
• 30:52
  Speaker 18: agree on the justification. That God is the only thing
• 30:55
  Speaker 18: that provides morality.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Not a justification, it's a definition.
• 31:00
  Speaker 18: What's the difference then, between a definition and a justification?
• 31:03
  Speaker 18: I mean, it's ultimately psychologically the same thing.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: Well, we have to define what we're talking about before
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: we can just Okay.
• 31:09
  Speaker 18: Well, so I said that God among others, I'm actually
• 31:13
  Speaker 18: a non theist, I'm not an atheist. I believe the
• 31:15
  Speaker 18: human condition is one of uncertainty. And what that means
• 31:17
  Speaker 18: is that I don't believe that you can conclude there
• 31:19
  Speaker 18: is a God with certainty, and I don't believe that
• 31:21
  Speaker 18: you can conclude that there is a God without un
• 31:24
  Speaker 18: In the same position. Now, with that, I don't care.
• 31:27
  Speaker 18: I still wake up every day and I have motivation
• 31:30
  Speaker 18: to be a moral person moral what I ought to.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Do and what I ought to do.
• 31:37
  Speaker 18: Ultimately, it comes down to what not just benefits me,
• 31:41
  Speaker 18: but what benefits the entire planet, what benefits the entire system.
• 31:45
  Speaker 18: I think that your entire moral perspective comes from linear thinking,
• 31:50
  Speaker 18: and when you look at the reality of the universe,
• 31:52
  Speaker 18: it's actually more so holistic. So when you look at
• 31:55
  Speaker 18: how Aristotle defined God when he said that there had
• 31:58
  Speaker 18: to be an unmoved move an and cause cause, he
• 32:01
  Speaker 18: was defining God from a linear perspective. And you do
• 32:04
  Speaker 18: the same with morality, and you do the same with purpose.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: Definition of morality. How does my definition of morality hypothetically.
• 32:13
  Speaker 18: Because you're saying that there's something that exists in a vacuum,
• 32:17
  Speaker 18: that it exists in and of itself, and nothing in
• 32:20
  Speaker 18: the universe exists in a vacuum. Nothing exists in and
• 32:24
  Speaker 18: of itself. It's a whole system's based morality. It's a
• 32:28
  Speaker 18: system's based reality, and that is what they're quantum.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: Is there a hierarchical structure? Are some things more important
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: than others?
• 32:35
  Speaker 10: Are somethings?
• 32:36
  Speaker 18: I think that some things lead to more benefits than others.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: By your own definition, some things are more important than others. Yes, okay,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: what isn't there?
• 32:44
  Speaker 8: You've been voted out by the majority.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: You doing nice to meet you nice to meet you.
• 32:57
  Speaker 19: I guess since you said morality and purpose cannot be
• 33:00
  Speaker 19: found in science, it would just depend on what you're referencing.
• 33:03
  Speaker 19: If you're saying a description of your psychological preferences would
• 33:05
  Speaker 19: be considered within science. Sure, but I don't think that
• 33:07
  Speaker 19: you have to say that it comes from science in
• 33:09
  Speaker 19: order to be like an atheist. As an agnostic atheist,
• 33:12
  Speaker 19: I don't know if God exists, and I don't believe
• 33:14
  Speaker 19: that God exists, and the only ones that would really
• 33:16
  Speaker 19: reject would be like the all knowing, all powerful, all good,
• 33:19
  Speaker 19: perfect notion of God that plenty of Christians like prescribe themselves.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: So I guess is that relevant to this claim?
• 33:25
  Speaker 19: You're basing a position of morality and purpose in some
• 33:28
  Speaker 19: notion of God that isn't the same type of notion
• 33:32
  Speaker 19: of God that typical Christians would prescribe.
• 33:34
  Speaker 7: Your notion of God.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Is what typical Christians?
• 33:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 33:36
  Speaker 19: Typically, when I talk to Christians, they say that they
• 33:39
  Speaker 19: believe in all knowing.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: Vote Cardinal Newman, who defined God as conscience. He's a
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: major influence on all of Catholic social theory.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: About that.
• 33:47
  Speaker 19: Christian Sure, I'm so, do you believe in the all knowing,
• 33:50
  Speaker 19: all powerful, all good, notion of God.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: What do you mean by believe?
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: Do you think it to be true?
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: That's the circular definition. What do you mean I would believe?
• 34:01
  Speaker 7: How is that circular?
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: Because you added no content to the answer by substituting
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: the word true and believe.
• 34:09
  Speaker 7: I said you think it to be true?
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: All right? So if you believe something, you stake your
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: life on it.
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: What do you mean by that?
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: You live for it and you die for it. That's
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: what I mean by that. It isn't something that you say.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: It isn't something that's associated with logical consistency. It's not declarative,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: it's not propositional. It's not a figment of your imagination.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: It's the presupposition of your attention and your action. And
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: you're either fragmented, in which case you worship multiple gods,
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: or there's some unity at the bottom of it that
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: makes you an unstoppable force.
• 34:48
  Speaker 19: Okay, So you're saying that you don't believe something if
• 34:50
  Speaker 19: you wouldn't die for it.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Really no? Okay, So how would you define belief something
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: you say?
• 34:56
  Speaker 10: Case? Why?
• 34:56
  Speaker 19: I explained, like I could believe it is the case
• 34:58
  Speaker 19: that this pen exists, but if someone like threatened my life, right,
• 35:01
  Speaker 19: I would lie in order to be able to save
• 35:03
  Speaker 19: my life. Right Like, I think you would do that too.
• 35:05
  Speaker 19: You wouldn't lie, to say, be so sure? You wouldn't
• 35:08
  Speaker 19: lie to save your life?
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: How much do you know about me? I didn't lie
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: to save my career. I didn't lie to save my
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: clinical practice.
• 35:17
  Speaker 7: Would you lie to save your children and your mom?
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: Your dad?
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I don't think lying would save the.
• 35:22
  Speaker 19: Can there ever be a circumstance logically that lying could
• 35:25
  Speaker 19: save something?
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And if you're steeped in sin, you're likely live
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: in circumstances like that.
• 35:30
  Speaker 7: Well, give you an example.
• 35:31
  Speaker 19: If you're like in like Nazi Germany, and it is
• 35:33
  Speaker 19: the case that there's like Jewish people in your attic
• 35:35
  Speaker 19: and you're trying to retect, would you lie to like
• 35:37
  Speaker 19: the Nazis?
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: I would have done everything I bloody well could, so
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't be in that situation to begin with.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: It's a hypothetical and it's noteticals.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: No, I can't answer a hypothetical like that because it's Look,
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: you don't play games. If you present me with an
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: intractable moral choice that's stripped of context, and you backed
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: me into a corner.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: You're playing game.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: I just told you ypathetic, I would do everything that
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: I could to make sure that I'm never in that situation.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: By the time you've got there, you've made so many
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: mistakes that there's nothing you can do that isn't a sin.
• 36:14
  Speaker 19: Being born in Nazi Germany and trying to protect people
• 36:17
  Speaker 19: that you care about, Like there could be a Jewish
• 36:19
  Speaker 19: friend that you have and you want to protect them.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Adding that line of question, give up.
• 36:23
  Speaker 19: On just like trying to clarify your position because you
• 36:26
  Speaker 19: don't like, are you like uncomfortable with me asking this question?
• 36:29
  Speaker 19: It's just a basic hypothetical, like I could ask you.
• 36:31
  Speaker 7: It's just a basic apathetical where you're like, what.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: Jews life's at stake in Nazi Germany, that's just a basic.
• 36:37
  Speaker 19: Obviously you would lie in that scenario to save their life.
• 36:39
  Speaker 19: But you're like not trying to answer this question. What
• 36:42
  Speaker 19: for some reason, I just told you, why are you
• 36:44
  Speaker 19: anti fascists? Like so you're asking that I was just asking.
• 36:48
  Speaker 19: I'm just clarifying, but like, okay, again, you're not answering
• 36:51
  Speaker 19: this hypothetical because you know it shows that you clear
• 36:53
  Speaker 19: would lie to.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: Say find acceptable obviously care about I wouldn't be in
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: that scenario.
• 37:00
  Speaker 19: Obviously right logically, because that's already happened, Like that's in
• 37:03
  Speaker 19: the past.
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: You don't have a time to travel device.
• 37:05
  Speaker 19: Where bring this logical hypothetical luve to show you that
• 37:08
  Speaker 19: in some circumstances that do happen within the real world,
• 37:10
  Speaker 19: you would lie to save people's lives. So your definition
• 37:12
  Speaker 19: of truth isn't actually how we're typically using it. So
• 37:15
  Speaker 19: what you're trying to do is you're trying to muddy
• 37:16
  Speaker 19: the waters when I ask you, like do you believe this?
• 37:18
  Speaker 7: Do you think this to be true?
• 37:19
  Speaker 19: So you don't actually have to answer the questions, And
• 37:21
  Speaker 19: plenty of Christians don't like that because they clearly see
• 37:23
  Speaker 19: that you don't really want to be associated with Christian.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: Imagine that I was in a situation where the best
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: I could do as a consequence of my previous mistakes
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: was to tell the least amount of lie I could
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: manage that that would likely indicate that I had made
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: all sorts of catastrophic errors on my way there.
• 37:42
  Speaker 7: So you would lie to save someone's life.
• 37:43
  Speaker 19: So again, you do believe it to be true in
• 37:45
  Speaker 19: that circumstance, even though you like lied in that scenario.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: So the context that I put it in.
• 37:50
  Speaker 19: You were not willing to die. We're not willing to
• 37:52
  Speaker 19: let other people die for it. So that's not what
• 37:54
  Speaker 19: you see to be true. Then, seemingly.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: You're doing exactly what I say you were doing at
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: the beginning of the conversation. You're generating an impossible restricted
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: hypothetical with no precursors to back me into impossible.
• 38:09
  Speaker 7: Is there something contradictory about it? Nice to need you?
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, nice to reach you.
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: Cont My next claim is that everybody worships something, including atheists,
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: even though they might not know it.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: HI, good work, I'm Zina.
• 38:30
  Speaker 20: So I want to start off with like difining terms,
• 38:33
  Speaker 20: how do you define worship? Prioritize prioritize so almost like
• 38:36
  Speaker 20: having a preference over something.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: Other than it's a hierarchy of preferences, and you use
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: it to direct your attention, so whatever you're attending to
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: your worshiping.
• 38:45
  Speaker 20: Right, So I've kind of be come a little bit
• 38:47
  Speaker 20: familiar with your idea of like this value aid and hierarchy, right,
• 38:51
  Speaker 20: and you kind of posit that at the bottom of
• 38:54
  Speaker 20: this hierarchy you call it top or bottom of this
• 38:56
  Speaker 20: post at the bottom of this hierarchy, this, this foundational
• 39:00
  Speaker 20: priority in your life is going.
• 39:01
  Speaker 21: To be considered God.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: That's correct, yes, right, I'm.
• 39:04
  Speaker 20: Trying to imagine a situation in which could there be
• 39:06
  Speaker 20: that someone has a priority at their foundation that is different.
• 39:09
  Speaker 21: From someone else's.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely right.
• 39:11
  Speaker 20: So we can have different conceptions of God. That's why
• 39:14
  Speaker 20: we fight, right, So essentially there is no there's not
• 39:18
  Speaker 20: one God, but there are multiple gods, and these gods
• 39:20
  Speaker 20: exist in some realm of truth. Like it's true that
• 39:24
  Speaker 20: this person has one God and it exists.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, probably better to think about it as multiple values,
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: but that there's a hierarchy of values with something at
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: the bottom.
• 39:32
  Speaker 21: Right, But at the bottom is God and there's a definition. Yeah, yeah,
• 39:35
  Speaker 21: so at.
• 39:35
  Speaker 20: The bottom is God and everyone there can be multiple
• 39:38
  Speaker 20: people with different conceptions of God and they're each valid
• 39:41
  Speaker 20: and being called God. So there are multiple Gods that exist.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: It depends on what you mean by valid. So far,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: so good.
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: But it depends on what you mean by valid, because
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: I would say that some foundational conceptions don't play out
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: when they're implemented. So if you put the wrong thing
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: at the foundation, you end up in hell. For examp,
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: that's what happens in totalitarian states. Okay, so you're saying,
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: so they're not all equal, like all foundational principles are
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: not equal, even though they might be equally foundational.
• 40:10
  Speaker 20: Right, So what makes one kind of foundational tenet like
• 40:13
  Speaker 20: better than another one?
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: That's an excellent question. Iterability. Imagine that you play a
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: game with someone and you're a kid and it's fun,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: so need play again and again and again. It's yeah,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: it's playability across multiple iterations. So then you have a friend,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: and a friend is better than having a game, right,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: So that's one breadth of application. Is another So if
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: it's just for me now, it's not as good as
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: something that would be benefit to both of us across time. Right.
• 40:46
  Speaker 20: So we're explaining like characteristics that can be applied to
• 40:49
  Speaker 20: like these types of like foundational values. But why is
• 40:52
  Speaker 20: it that that this iterability makes it better?
• 40:55
  Speaker 21: And what does better mean?
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: Well, one hallmark of better is likely to be selected voluntarily,
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: so it's invitations.
• 41:05
  Speaker 20: A descriptive kind of quality. So we're talking about characteristics
• 41:09
  Speaker 20: that in some type of system with a goal an
• 41:11
  Speaker 20: output being like we could maybe say happiness, right, or
• 41:16
  Speaker 20: some type of harmony.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: Harmony, Yeah, that's better not happiness because it's too short
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: term exactly.
• 41:22
  Speaker 20: So, as someone who is an atheist, right, I can
• 41:25
  Speaker 20: explain that within a system there are things that we
• 41:27
  Speaker 20: can see it's better or worse to meet this goal
• 41:30
  Speaker 20: or meet this output. But what I what we're interested in, though,
• 41:34
  Speaker 20: is what could make these things regardless of any system?
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: Well, imagine that you set up a system and you
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: implement it and it produces the opposite results to which
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: you intend.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: That's not a good exactly right. So the foundational.
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: Principles are lacking because when you implement them, the game
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: degenerates instead of moving towards the aid.
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 41:52
  Speaker 20: So we're talking about within a system that when we
• 41:54
  Speaker 20: talk about something being moral, right, just absolutely moral, it
• 41:57
  Speaker 20: means that without a system, right, this thing is just
• 42:00
  Speaker 20: simply moral with no reason, like stance independent, this thing
• 42:03
  Speaker 20: is good. So I'm trying to figure out if such
• 42:06
  Speaker 20: thing can exist, and if so, do you believe that
• 42:09
  Speaker 20: these things are moral in of themselves like self evidently
• 42:13
  Speaker 20: moral or are they moral in accordance with the system.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: I can't define them any more accurately than I already did.
• 42:19
  Speaker 20: Really, Okay, in regards to morality, when we talk about
• 42:22
  Speaker 20: the divine, when we talk about God and religion, these
• 42:24
  Speaker 20: moral tenets and religion right, and God exists as good
• 42:29
  Speaker 20: because it is God right. So it's self evident right,
• 42:32
  Speaker 20: without any kind of goal or output, This thing is good.
• 42:36
  Speaker 20: So I want to figure out how.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: There's an element of that that's true. So, for example,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: in the story of Job, Job is unfairly tortured in
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: consequence of event between God and Satan. So Job is
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: emblematic of someone who's being hurt for no apparent reason. Okay.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: So Job's response to that is.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: That he refuses to lose faith in himself, and he
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: refuses to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of being okay,
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: And those are like those are axiomatic decisions, they're not
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: exactly evidence dependent. Because he is suffering. There's an arbitrariness
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: in that that's reminiscent of what you claim.
• 43:14
  Speaker 20: So I'm essentially trying to figure out do you believe
• 43:16
  Speaker 20: that something can be good like stance independently something that
• 43:19
  Speaker 20: can be good.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know what you mean by stance, independence, independent.
• 43:22
  Speaker 21: Of people, independent of people.
• 43:24
  Speaker 20: We can use that or more so, I want to
• 43:26
  Speaker 20: be more specific, something that can be good, right, regardless
• 43:30
  Speaker 20: of any end goal.
• 43:32
  Speaker 21: It's just good.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: No, I think good is tied up with goal.
• 43:36
  Speaker 21: Okay, I completely agree. So in a sense, this is why.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: That's why the religious school in Christianity is the establishment
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: of the heaven, of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: It's goal dependent, okay, it's in reference to a goal,
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: or the goal would be the ination.
• 43:51
  Speaker 21: Of someone's goal.
• 43:52
  Speaker 20: Right, can be something that doesn't compass being in congruence
• 43:56
  Speaker 20: with God or being with God.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: You know, the thing that they want to be in
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: that's right, that's right, that's right, that's good, that's great.
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: The thing they want to be in congruence with is
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: fundamentally equivalent to their gold.
• 44:09
  Speaker 20: So what makes someone a Christian and what makes someone
• 44:12
  Speaker 20: not a Christian?
• 44:12
  Speaker 14: What makes like?
• 44:13
  Speaker 21: That's what i'mring figure out because that's a good question.
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, Well probably the deepest answer to that is
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: willingness to shoulder your cross voluntarily and trudge uphill regardless
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: of circumstances.
• 44:24
  Speaker 20: Okay, So someone can believe in someone can have a
• 44:26
  Speaker 20: God because in your definition, your first preference that is God. Right,
• 44:30
  Speaker 20: So someone can believe in God right and not be
• 44:33
  Speaker 20: a Christian, right.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, there's a statement that Christ makes in the Gospels.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: He says, not everyone who says Lord Lord will enter
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: the Kingdom of heavens.
• 44:42
  Speaker 21: So not that they're even saying that they believe in God.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: They no, No.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: But that's why I'm saying this to you is that
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: Christ himself points out that there's a difference between.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: People who say they believe and people who act it out,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: and the fundamental issue is the action rather than the
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: stated belief.
• 44:56
  Speaker 20: But he also says that you know, to be saved,
• 45:00
  Speaker 20: you must believe God has died for your sins or
• 45:03
  Speaker 20: that God has read it resurrected in some way. So
• 45:05
  Speaker 20: it's like, I don't necessarily think that we can take
• 45:07
  Speaker 20: from the Bible and say that like acting in accordance
• 45:09
  Speaker 20: with God necessarily means or acting in accordance with, you know,
• 45:13
  Speaker 20: the principles of God. The for example, sacrifice like you
• 45:15
  Speaker 20: talk about, means that you are Christian. I don't see
• 45:17
  Speaker 20: how you can get that from that interpretation, and then
• 45:20
  Speaker 20: you know, kind of justified us.
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: I don't think that the fact that you sacrifice is
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: sufficient to make you Christians.
• 45:25
  Speaker 20: So can we repeat once again what you believe makes
• 45:28
  Speaker 20: someone Christian.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: There's many things, but one of the most fundamental is
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: that you believe that the cosmos itself is founded on
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: the principle of voluntary self sacrifice best founded. Let me
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: offer you a contrary example. So I could assume that
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: power rules, and so that my assumption would be if
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: I can make you do it, I win, right, and
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: I can found a whole society. And that happens a lot,
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: by the way, and that's also how societies tend to degenerate.
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: And so that would be a society that was founded
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: on the principle that you get to sacrifice and I
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: don't have to right now. The contrary to that would
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: be something like you give up voluntarily and with courage
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: all the things you need to situate yourself properly in
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: relationship to the future.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: And other people.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: Right, So then there's a there's a harmony. That's why
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: I talked about harmony earlier.
• 46:20
  Speaker 20: So you navigate your life right and accordance kind of
• 46:22
  Speaker 20: to this principle of self sacrifice. Can I say it
• 46:25
  Speaker 20: in that way?
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, you can definitely say it that way. That's exactly right.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: And navigate is the right term.
• 46:31
  Speaker 20: Someone does not have to have any awareness of Christ,
• 46:34
  Speaker 20: of the story of Jesus, and they but let's say
• 46:37
  Speaker 20: sixty percent of their actions, right or more, whatever kind
• 46:40
  Speaker 20: of metric you want to use, are in line.
• 46:42
  Speaker 21: With this self Christian Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: The Christian thinkers of the Middle Ages dealt exactly with
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: that problem when they were talking about the pre Christian philosophers,
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: for example, and they noted the similarity, let's say, between
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: pre Christian Greek thought and later Christian thought and presume
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: that there were more all actors outside the Christian domain, right,
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: addressing Christian though well to some degree. Again that's a
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: matter of definition, because they wouldn't be proclaiming Christian propositions,
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: but they're acting out the pattern.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: So yeah, So you imagine that full Christianity would involve
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: a dozen things, and you can imagine someone who knows
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: nothing of Christianity, say, acting out eight of them, So
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: then they'd be eight twelves Christian or something like that.
• 47:29
  Speaker 20: Well, but to be like a full Christian, how can
• 47:31
  Speaker 20: someone say I am Christian, Like I am Christian, not
• 47:35
  Speaker 20: eight twelves but Christian.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: Well I hesitate to do that personally because I think
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: it's the kind of goal that you be very careful
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: about proclaiming the technical.
• 47:44
  Speaker 20: Belief is not necessarily to be mostly Christian belief is
• 47:47
  Speaker 20: not necessary eight twelves or you.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: Know right, Well, it depends on what you mean by beliefs,
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: because I would say that acting out the pattern is
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: the deepest form of belief. Now you could add to
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: that what you say, so you know, maybe in the
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: optimal situation, how you act and what you imagine and
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: what you say they're the same. Right, But you can
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: imagine a hypocrite who says all sorts of wonderful things
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: and does nothing, And you could imagine another person who
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: acts in a very positive manner but proclaims nothing.
• 48:17
  Speaker 20: So what I'm kind of seeing is like a descriptive,
• 48:20
  Speaker 20: a really early comprehensive but descriptive analysis of human action,
• 48:25
  Speaker 20: human thought, and by which we can characterize people and
• 48:28
  Speaker 20: put people in boxes.
• 48:30
  Speaker 21: But I don't.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: See why in boxes.
• 48:33
  Speaker 20: When I say in boxes, I mean like I can
• 48:34
  Speaker 20: categorize you based on your actions, not necessarily what you say,
• 48:37
  Speaker 20: but based on your actions that you are more so
• 48:39
  Speaker 20: or less so Christian? Right, things like that, Right, So
• 48:41
  Speaker 20: we can categorize people as Christians.
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: Well, I would say, more or less voluntarily self sacrificing.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Speaker 20: Yeah, but that's also what we came to though, is
• 48:50
  Speaker 20: that someone can be like sixty percent or seventy percent
• 48:53
  Speaker 20: Christian based on simply just acting.
• 48:55
  Speaker 21: In that way.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: And Richard Dawkins is like that.
• 48:57
  Speaker 8: I watched that you've been voted out by the majority.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Very good, Thank you for really very thoughtful.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: And doctor Peterson, how are you doing, nannyice to meet you?
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: What's your name, Danny? You're saying atheist worship things or
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: people or places whatever. Can you just be very clear
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: about your definition of worship again.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Attend to prioritize and sacrifice.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: For Okay, that's it. That's your understanding of worship.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I could flash it out, but that'll do for
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: the time we have.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, do Catholics attend to marry well, yes, okay, so
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: do they fit that description of worship? Yes, So you
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: would say Catholics and other people that revere Mary, like
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: the Eastern Orthodox tradition worship Mary.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Well, they might not put her in the highest but you.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Would put it that way. No, you just said it.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Now you're taking it back.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: There's still a hierarchy.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's a hierarchy, but within there's something out the top.
• 50:00
  Speaker 12: All right, you can worship Mary is.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Quite a ways up the hierarchy, but not at the top.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Let's go for your definition of worship again. What's your
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: definition of worship? Attend to, attend to do, prioritize do
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Catholic sacrifice for? What do Catholics attend to do they
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: prioritize Mary over all other human beings.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: I didn't say over all, did I? I didn't add
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: that to me. You understand, I said there was a
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: hierarchy as well. You attend so you can attend to
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: something trivially or you can attend to it deeply.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, now you're adding stuff the definition, but your original.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Added the hierarchy part at the beginning. Are you familiar
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: and understand?
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Are you familiar with the Immaculate Conception?
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Why is that relevant?
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Because you go to a Catholic church? Don't or you've
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: attended recently? You're interested in Catholicism, aren't you sure?
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: All right?
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Are you familiar with their doctrines?
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Somewhat?
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're familiar. How do they regard how do they
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: regard Mary?
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: Why are you asking me?
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Because you're a Christian.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: You say that I haven't claimed that.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Oh what is this?
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Christians versus Atheist?
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: You don't know where you are right now?
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Don't be a smart ass.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, either you're as or if you're a
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: smart ass, Oh, either you're a Christian or you're not.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Which one is it?
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: I could be either of them? But I don't have
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: to take you.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: You don't have to tell me. I was under the
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: impression I was invited to talk to a Christian? Am
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: I not talking to a Christian?
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: No, you were invited to.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: I think everyone should look at the title of the
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel. You're probably in the wrong YouTube video.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: You're already quite something you are, aren't I?
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: But you're really quite nothing? Right, you're not a Christian.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: I'm done with him. Hi there, h what's your name?
• 51:42
  Speaker 10: Gerard?
• 51:42
  Speaker 12: Hello, nice to meet you, sir. So you've said that
• 51:45
  Speaker 12: worship is when you prioritize and sacrifice for something, right, Yeah, Okay.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: There's a hierarchy in there.
• 51:51
  Speaker 12: Sure, so I prioritize and sacrifice for my wife more
• 51:54
  Speaker 12: than I would prioritize and sacrifice for a random person
• 51:57
  Speaker 12: on the street. Right, Probably presumably do I.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I've seen some pretty bad, pretty bad marriages.
• 52:03
  Speaker 12: Assuming a good marriage, are you saying I worship my wife.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to define worship.
• 52:07
  Speaker 12: That's what I'm asking. So prioritize and sacrifice.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: The higher it is in the hierarchy, the more what
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: you're doing is akin to worship. But even in your
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: trivial acts of attention, you're prioritizing and partaking in.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Worship, even if you don't know it. So I am
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: partly well with regard to your wife. Say so, why
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: do you value your wife? You do? I value your wife.
• 52:26
  Speaker 12: I love her, so I prioritize in my sacrifice.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: Work right, right, So that's within the confines of love.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: Let's say, what else does it serve?
• 52:33
  Speaker 12: What else does what serve your love and your marriage?
• 52:36
  Speaker 12: I mean, I am married to my wife because I
• 52:38
  Speaker 12: love her. That's also why I prioritize and sacrifice for her.
• 52:40
  Speaker 12: I certainly wouldn't think I worship her, and I don't
• 52:42
  Speaker 12: think anyone else would make that hard trying to make
• 52:44
  Speaker 12: a definition. Okay, Yeah, that there's a.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: Hierarchy of attentional priority, and as you move up it
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: or down it, depending on whether you think about it
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: as a pinnacle or a foundation.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: You move more towards worship.
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: Right, So even the small things give you an example.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: Imagine you go on a date. Well, and imagine that
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: your aim is a long term.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: Relationship like a marriage. Okay, now imagine that your aim
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: is short term sexual gratification. Your pattern of attention is
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: going to vary during the date, depend on your ultimate end.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: If that's the hierarchy.
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: The way that you attend to your wife is dependent
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: on your ultimate aims, even if you don't know it.
• 53:24
  Speaker 12: So at what point is it worship? Because it sounds
• 53:26
  Speaker 12: like you're saying worship is almost a spectrum, right, it's
• 53:29
  Speaker 12: not a binary.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: It's a it's kind of like that that's a good.
• 53:31
  Speaker 12: So when is when is it worship? As opposed to
• 53:34
  Speaker 12: just I love my wife.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: The closer you get to the top or the bottom,
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: the more it's like, it's more.
• 53:39
  Speaker 12: Like, how close to the top? Because I don't think
• 53:41
  Speaker 12: I worship anything. And if you're saying I have to
• 53:43
  Speaker 12: hit a certain threshold for it to be worshiped, it
• 53:45
  Speaker 12: is possible I don't worship anything, then, right.
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: It's not possible that you don't worship anya, what do
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: I worship? Because you wouldn't attend love.
• 53:53
  Speaker 12: So do you think I worship love?
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Do you attend in consequence of love? I say, I'm
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: trying to define something. What do you mean? Where I
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: told you what I mean? What do you mean?
• 54:02
  Speaker 11: So?
• 54:02
  Speaker 12: I mean it's a word. Something you worship is something
• 54:05
  Speaker 12: that you have a reverential view for in a manner
• 54:07
  Speaker 12: in which you believe it to be above and beyond
• 54:10
  Speaker 12: normal things you like, like like you, you.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: Have that attitude towards your wife. I have that privilege
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: her to compared to other women.
• 54:17
  Speaker 12: Of course I privilege her compared to other women. But
• 54:19
  Speaker 12: I don't worship her worship, nor does she worship mean.
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: By the definition you just offered, Yes, you do, because
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: we talket. You just offered a definition that involved prioritization
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: and elevation.
• 54:29
  Speaker 12: And thinking that she is divine, above and beyond what
• 54:32
  Speaker 12: a normal another women be, not other women, no, beyond
• 54:35
  Speaker 12: any human being could ever be. I will prioritize her
• 54:38
  Speaker 12: over again. You're making an assumption she is.
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: You're making the assumption that only the thing at the
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: top or the bottom has anything to do with worship.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: And I'm saying that's not true.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: It's a hierarchy of prioritization, and there's something there's either
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: something at the top or the bottom depending on the metaphor,
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: or you're fragmented and confused.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: Those are the only options.
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: So you're either going in many directions, okay, or you're
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: going in one direction.
• 55:05
  Speaker 12: Let's suppose I'm fragmented and confused. Then you agree I
• 55:07
  Speaker 12: don't worship anything.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: No, then you'd worship multiple things.
• 55:10
  Speaker 12: How But so what's the threshold when it's worshiped?
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 55:13
  Speaker 12: I've prioritize a lot of stuff.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: I said that the closer you get to the pinnacle
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: or the close.
• 55:19
  Speaker 12: Can you give me some sort of metric how close
• 55:20
  Speaker 12: do I got to get to this pinnacle?
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Do you know the difference between cheap literature and deep literature?
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: Yes?
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: Okay, that's the same issue. And how do you how
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: do you distinguish between them? What's the difference between cheap
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: and deep?
• 55:33
  Speaker 12: I mean, it's really an opinion based thing, right, So.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: It's just an opinion that Sstoevsky is better than a
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: poor no magazine.
• 55:39
  Speaker 12: Well, I've spoken to people who think To Kill a
• 55:41
  Speaker 12: Mockingbird's cheap. It's one of my favorite books. So, I
• 55:43
  Speaker 12: mean people will differ on it.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: Also, just because people are stupid about things doesn't mean
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: that their opinion is valid.
• 55:48
  Speaker 12: That's certainly.
• 55:50
  Speaker 8: That.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, do you think there is a hierarchy in
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: literary quality.
• 55:54
  Speaker 12: I think that there is a hierarchy to an extent
• 55:56
  Speaker 12: in literary quality, but I think once you get to
• 55:58
  Speaker 12: a certain threshold, it is just opinion. I agree Dosto
• 56:01
  Speaker 12: is better than a pornomag, but is f Scott Fitzgeral,
• 56:05
  Speaker 12: I don't know.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough. Why do you think.
• 56:07
  Speaker 12: That because of what a book is, what literature is?
• 56:10
  Speaker 12: Doskovski he follows what literature is the purpose of more
• 56:14
  Speaker 12: than the porno magazine.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: Okay, good, good, well purpose, so let me yeah, sure, sure,
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: let me give you an analogue. Then, depth of worship
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: is analogous to depth of literary significance. And the closer
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: you get to what's deep, the more religious and worshipful
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: your practice. And maybe you don't know what's at the bottom,
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: but something needs to be or you're confused.
• 56:35
  Speaker 12: Well, so to use your analogy, then how deep do
• 56:36
  Speaker 12: I have to go for it to be worshiped? Do
• 56:38
  Speaker 12: I have to be catcher in the ride? Do I
• 56:39
  Speaker 12: have to be war in peace.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: Or depends on what's what you're seeking for.
• 56:44
  Speaker 12: I'm seeking to know whether I worship something you've claimed
• 56:46
  Speaker 12: I worship something.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: I want to have a deep and meaningful life.
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: Then you have to go all the way to the
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: bottom or the top, and so far as you're capable
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: of doing that, because otherwise you'll be fragmented and miserable
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: and anxiety ridden and hopeless.
• 57:00
  Speaker 12: So I have to worship something to have a meaningful life.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: And there's no difference between those two things.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: Okay, they're the same thing.
• 57:06
  Speaker 12: So if I don't worship anything, my life will not
• 57:08
  Speaker 12: be meaningful.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: Correct, Well, that's the definition of nihilism.
• 57:11
  Speaker 12: Okay, So if I'm a nihilist, I don't worship.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: Anything, that's true.
• 57:14
  Speaker 12: And then you okay, you just said everybody worship something.
• 57:16
  Speaker 12: I think you've just agreed. There is a class of
• 57:18
  Speaker 12: people that doesn't.
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: Well, they're incoherent in their worship, and hand gestures like
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: that aren't going to help, all right, Yeah, Okay, Look,
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: if you're incoherent and fragmented and aimless, which is what happens,
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: if your objects of worship are unstructured and chaotic, then
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: you're going to be anxiety ridden and without hope that happens.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: That's a technical argument.
• 57:40
  Speaker 12: But there's happy nihilists. How do you explain that there
• 57:43
  Speaker 12: are a happy nihilists then, because the.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: Mere fact that you state that there are happy nihilists
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: doesn't make it true. Like, what's your evidence that, how
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: do you measure nihilism? And how have you associated with happiness?
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: And what's your definition of happiness? And have you compared
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: them to religious people? Because if you do, by the way,
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: it's clearly the case that religious people, over the long run.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: Have better mental health.
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: It's a well documented fact in psychological literature.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: So your claim is just a claim. It doesn't stand
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: on anything.
• 58:10
  Speaker 12: So you disagree with the claim that there exists even
• 58:12
  Speaker 12: one happy.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Nihilist, you need to say that.
• 58:14
  Speaker 12: Okay, would you agree there exists at least one happy
• 58:16
  Speaker 12: nihilist in the universe?
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: I have.
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: It's not a question that has any meaning as far
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: as I'm concerned, because it depends on what you mean
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: by happy, and it depends on.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: The duration that you're trying to calculate over now.
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: And then there's probably some deluded soul who thinks he's
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: a nihilist who is momentarily pleased with himself, but as
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: a long term strategy to deal with the future, to
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: get along with yourself and with others, it's sadly lacking.
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: That's why Nietschen warned that when God died, as he
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: announced in eighteen fifty, that people would be flooded with pointless,
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: anxiety ridden, hopeless nihilism, and that was what would attract
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: them to example, for example, to the false gods of totalitarianism,
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: which is exactly what happened. Because everybody worships something, even
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: atheists who think they don't.
• 59:01
  Speaker 12: Aren't there unhappy Christians or difficulty of believers, So worshiping
• 59:05
  Speaker 12: something is neither sufficient nor necessary for happiness.
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: Then well, terrible things can come your way regardless, and
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: that does happen. But it's the case that even when
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: circumstances become deeply troublesome, that how you're oriented makes a
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: big difference.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: So I'll give you an example.
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: So the Book of Job deals with the issue of
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: unfair suffering. So Job is a good man who has
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: everything taken away from him in the most painful.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Possible way to settle a right with Satan.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, and so he makes the axiomatic presumption that he
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: won't lose faith in himself or in the spirit of
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: being itself, and that helps him remain calm and forward
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: looking through his time of trial.
• 59:50
  Speaker 12: Doesn't he absolutely curse God?
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: No, his wife tells him to do that. Thank you,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: thank you good.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: My final claim is that atheists accept Christian morality but
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: deny the religion's foundational stories.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Hi.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 6: There, it's very nice to meet true I mean, hi, Yes.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 6: So God says that you can earn people as property.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: He says that you can beat them with a rod.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 6: Two he commands genocide and Deuteronomy in numbers and in Samuel,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: I mean they have a goddamn baby barbecue in numbers. Like,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: is all of this in line with Christian ethics?
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 8: No?
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: So then God doesn't fit within Christian ethics.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: Well, the Biblical library is a continuing story and everything
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: written in it has to be contextualized by the entire text.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: There's sixty five thousand hyperlinks in the Biblical text, and
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: you can take pieces of it out out of context
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: and criticize them, and that's what you're doing.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: But that's a mistake.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: I think it's an analytic mistake because you're putting the
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: cart before the horse.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 6: I really don't think so. I think that if we
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 6: if we say that something is Christian ethics, then I
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 6: think that all of the books essential to Christianity would
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: fit with it, especially if it's like the main character
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: when we're talking about do you deal with.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: The morality of war? So, how do you think you
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: should deal with the Sure?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: Sure, because I feel like the morality, like I feel
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: like Christian ethics, Like this is kind of I guess.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: I just think it's like kind of an absurdity to
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: say that God doesn't fit within Christian ethics. But sure,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 6: well we can go on my ethics. That's totally fine.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know what you mean by an absurdity. What
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: game are you playing with?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 6: Well, I just think that it's an absurdity to say
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: that the Christian God doesn't fit within Christian ethics, that like,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: the Christian God is like Christian.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: That the specific statements that you made don't take the
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: context of the stories into account, and so that your analytical.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: Approach is faulty. Sure, don't put words in my mouth.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: Sure, then let's go through the example. Yeah, so, and
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 6: I apologize. So let's go through the example. So when
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 6: first Samuel fifteen to three. God says, go and slaughter
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: the Amalekite, slaughter the men, the women, the children, the infants.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 6: What's the justification for that?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: Is that?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: Within? Is that in life?
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: That's a good question.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: I don't really know what to do with the terrible,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: blood soak saturated history of the human past. I don't know,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: and I don't think anybody knows. I mean, what you
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: try to do in your own life, as far as
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: I can tell, is to conduct yourself in a manner
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: that makes such things much more unlikely.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: We're all saddled with the problem of the catastrophes that
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: got us here, aren't we.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah, But this one was commanded by God. That's the problem.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 6: That's what differentiates it from anything else, is that this
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 6: one it's God's sake.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Do you think that there's ever such a thing as
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: a righteous war?
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: I'm skeptical. I'm not sure. It would probably be.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Situational well right, right enough.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 6: But this one certainly wasn't a just war. The context
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 6: for the Amalekite slaughter is that four hundred years earlier
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: they fought one battle which they lost, and God says,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: that's it. I'm going to wipe them off the face
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 6: of the goddamn earth. And then four hundred years later
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 6: he commands the Israelites to genocide. They're great, great, great
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 6: great great great grandchildren. That's not a just war at all.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 6: And also, a genocide is not a war.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Well, a genocide can be a war.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 6: But absolutely not the genociding of the Amalekites, the men,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 6: the women, and the infants. That's not a war. The
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 6: infants aren't combatants.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: Look, I already said that it's very difficult to look
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: at the blood soak past and to know exactly what
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: to do about it. The answer I gave to the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: gentleman who was sitting here before you is that it's
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: necessary to read a text like the Bible at all
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: of its levels of analysis simultaneously. And there's a directional
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: morality that emerges across time that has its roots in
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: an Old Testament, for example, with its restrictions against murder. Specifically,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: that makes itself manifest in the Christian texts as the
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: insistence on voluntary self sacrifice as the foundational belief. That's
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: a profoundly anti violence ethos.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 6: Do you have the belief in your theology?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: What do you think of that. Wait a second now, redress.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, So I'm about to address it, but I'm
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 6: addressing it with a question. Do you think that God
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: is by his very essence perfect?
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: You'll have to provide more sure.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 6: Just like maximally great knowledge, I think sure, yeah, flawless yes? Okay,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: So does a thing change? Does a flawless thing reveal
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 6: like more and better information over time, or would a
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 6: flawless thing say, here's what's good, here's the the absolute
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 6: good thing to do at all circumstances in time.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Well, we know some of that.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 6: True, that's one that's totally fine. But no, no, no, no.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: You don't get over that total it's a straw man.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 6: In my position, it's a strong man of the argument.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: So the argument you find.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: One maxim that's transcendent across.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 6: Idea of those words. I'm not sure what.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: Don't be a smart ass.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, seriously, I mean it. If we're going to
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: have a conversation, conduct yourself properly. Okay, okay, rephrase your
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: question so that because I must have missed it, I
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: tried to answer it.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 6: So in my mind, I guess, by my lights, a
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 6: perfect being doesn't change. A perfect being if they're maximally good, maximally.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: More, does our understanding of the perfect being changed?
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 6: Our understanding might? But how do we.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: Distinct how do we disteel it? I agree? How do
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: we distinguish between that though at the human level, How.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: Do we distinguish between between our transforming understanding of perfection
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: and perfection itself?
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: We can only yeah, well we can.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 6: Presumably a perfect being would be revealing all of these
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: aspects all the time, especially if God's outset of time.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: I don't know how a God who's outset of time
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 6: feeling different things at different times, that just seems like
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 6: incoherent to me.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: Imagine something that's perfect, sure and complete? Sure, okay, and
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: it's trying to communicate with creatures who are anything but that. Sure, well,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: they're going to get it wrong. Sure, But now the
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: way a sect, do you blame that on the interpreters
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: or the phenomena itself?
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: For example, attending.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 6: To your conscild on at the point in time when
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 6: God is literally the one who created us, you could
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: have created us in a way where we would always
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 6: be receptive to these principles, where we don't have to
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 6: go across like a learning curve where you know, maybe
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 6: we'll understand free thousands of years, thousands of years in
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 6: the future, maybe we'll do it. Also, if you believe
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 6: in an all knowing God, then free will is impossible
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: because way because you through you, through free will into
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 6: the mix.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: Well that was the answer to your question.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, God, Well you know it's kind of through years
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: of deep thinking philosophers would disagree with you.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and a thousand years of or at least like
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: the last fifty years of philosophers would disagree with you.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: These analytic philosophers, people like Graham Oppi and make arguments
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: about the incompatibility of omniscience and free will that if
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 6: God created this world, if he chose this world instead
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 6: of that world, then he makes it causally inevitable every
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: single action that you were going to make. If he
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 6: made a world where we were just electrons in love,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 6: then none of this would have happened. But by making
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 6: us in this world knowing exactly what's going to happen
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 6: in the future, it makes all of those events inevitable,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 6: which means that they're all causally determined, which means that
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 6: we have no free will. If you believe it in
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 6: all good God or in all knowing God that made everything.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 6: Have it your way, Okay, the odyssey fails, Well.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: It fails for you. That doesn't mean you've disproved it.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: I mean you'll try to make argument. Yes, you tried
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: to make a case for a causally deterministic universe.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: You don't think there's any evidence for that at all.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: Do you think that God could have created a different
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: universe than the one that he created?
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: I have no idea.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 6: Okay, So then there's going to be a double bind. Right,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 6: So either he couldn't have done it, in which case
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: he lacks of power, or he could have done it,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 6: in which case we don't have free will because he
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: chose this world instead of that world, making the events
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 6: of this world instead of that world inevitable with his
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 6: infallible nights.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: I don't understand where you're handed.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 6: Which just means that the free wild defense fails. Like
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 6: all this like under your.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: To have it failed, no problem. I don't know why
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: it's relevant to the issue.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 6: Do you acknowledge that under your view, free will doesn't exist? Oh,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 6: then you want to respond to the argument.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: You'll have to phrase it more clearly that someone like
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: me can understand.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I got youa so. So God already knows
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 6: in advance everything that's going to happen, which means that
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 6: by making this world instead of that world, everything is inevitable,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 6: which means that God's act of causing this world.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Instead of that world mean determined.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 6: It's causally inevitable. If God chooses this world instead of
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 6: that world, causally inevitable means determined absolutely as it does.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: Well, have it your way, Okay, that's not the case.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 8: You've been voted out by the majority.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 11: Please return to your.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: Suit, very zippy. I'm Liam, Liam. How are you doing?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: I'm doing well?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: How are you not too bad? Surrounded by atheists?
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 16: My question to you, let me scoot in, would be,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 16: what does it mean to accept Christian values precisely or
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 16: Christian morality?
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: It means to aim up as hard as you can,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: no matter what happens to you.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 16: Okay, okay, So I think that I think that that's
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 16: a very broad definition of what Christians.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: But it'll come in handy at some point in your life.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 14: Right.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 16: But I think that many different like disciplines and theologies.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: Well, yea ask for a truncated answer. I mean there's
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: other ways of representing the situation, but I wanted to
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: give you something that was kind of foundational.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Briefly. Yeah, that makes sense. It doesn't mean it's you know, exhaustive. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: I could.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: You know, I could say that you you would have
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: to believe that Christ is God and he died for
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: your sins. Right, But that's in a very difficult way
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: to understand.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: That's the same claim.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 16: If there are other theologies and disciplines that have similar
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 16: types of values, how then does that definition mean, Like,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 16: wouldn't those also be Christian values under your definition?
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: That's a good question.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: I spent a lot of time studying different religious systems
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: from all over the world and found multiple interesting layers
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: of concordance. So, for example, in ancient Egypt, their god Horace,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: who was the reviving god of the totalitarian state. He
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: was the god of attention, right, And the Jews hypothetically
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: came out of Egypt, and there was cross talk between
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: Egyptian and Jewish foundational morality, and then that led into Christianity.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, the human beings all over the world have
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: come up with moral systems that fit roughly into a
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: pattern and they're very usefully studied. Now, I learned a
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: lot about Christianity by studying Taoism, for example, like a lot.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: So I think you can make a case that Christianity
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: formalized the landscape of good and evil more comprehensively and
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: in more detail than any other religious system. And I
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: think that that's part of the reason that it defeated
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: Paganism and spread so broadly across the West and is
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: still dominant.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: Inderstructures our culture.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 16: For example, the way you feel about Horus or Taoism
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 16: or something is how I feel about Christian morals, I think.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: But how do I feel about them?
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 16: Well, that you took inspiration from them, you learned from them.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: Maybe that's a good start, because I would say that
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: actually constitutes belief.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: Like you said, well, not right. In Noah.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: In the story of Noah, right, Noah is inspired by
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: the apprehension that all hell is going to break loose.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: He regards that inspiration as God right, and when God
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: comes to Abraham, he comes to Abraham as the spirit
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: of adventure.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: It's inspiration.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: One of the definitions of God in the Old Testament, Unsurprisingly,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: given the derivation of the word is inspiration, and so
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: if you take inspiration from Christian ideas, then insofar as
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: you do that, you are in fact a believer, which
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: was my point with regards to atheists not understanding.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 16: But have you taken inspiration from Taoism or from studying
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 16: Egyptian mythology?
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: Definitely, so then you.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 16: Believe them under that definition.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I've incorporated them into something I think that's
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: more comprehensive.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 16: Is it possible to take inspiration and to appreciate the
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 16: teachings without being a believer in their truth claims?
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think so, But I think you see,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: there are different kinds of truth claims, right. There's propositional
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: truth claims, which are the truth claims of what you say,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: and then there's embodied truth claims, which is the truth
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: claims of what you do that should be prioritized.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: Optimally, what you say and what you do would be
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: brought into harmony. But I would say, if you had
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: to prioritize, it should be what you attend to and
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: what you act first. And that's what Christ actually says
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: in the Gospels, because he points to the Pharisees, for example,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: who say all the right things, but don't do any
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: of the right things, and points out very clearly that
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: that's not acceptable.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 16: No, I don't know that the Christian morality, those those
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 16: principles originate in Christianity, because you brought up other other
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 16: things that predate Christianity that you can very like, very
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 16: close to.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: The time questions to well, I don't think they do
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: originate precisely. I mean, I don't think the Christian claim
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: is exactly that they originate Christianity.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: So if I'm living.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 16: Those values, how is it that I'm living the Christian
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 16: values and maybe not the Egyptian values or something else.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: That was good?
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 21: Hi, I'm good, are you?
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 14: So?
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 11: I was curious about this like Christian morality that you're
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 11: talking about, because a lot of my issues of Christianity
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 11: have to do with the base morality of it, specifically
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 11: with like the idea like the rapture and how we
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 11: see people that aren't going to come up with us
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 11: with the rapture and that concept of heaven and hell.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 11: I don't really agree with that morality, But if you
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 11: could explain that to me and how I do agree
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 11: with that, I would love to like here.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I can't explain the rapture to you, because that
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: isn't something I concern myself with, and that's more of
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: a sectarian belief than something that's central to Christianity. Now,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: there's all sorts of evangelical Protestants who might disagree with that,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: but that doesn't have anything to do with me.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 4: You asked a more deeper question with regard to let's say,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: heaven and Hell and judgment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well that's
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: a tough one, right, I mean sin. You could put
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: it this way. Sin is what puts you in hell? Right,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 4: And so then you might ask, well, how do you
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: know you're in hell? How about you do anything to
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: get out of it?
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: How about you know that you put yourself there.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 11: Do you think is sin like a part of Christian morality?
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: What do you mean exactly? Sin as a part? It's
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: missing me? Sin? Okay.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: It's derived from an archery term, and it means to
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: miss the target. And so it presumes that there's such
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: a thing as a central target and that you can
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: miss it in many ways, and the consequence of that
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 4: will be your life will be ridden with anxiety, your
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: life will be pointless, people will turn against you.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 11: Don't believe in sin at all?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: Well, do you believe in error, any mistakes?
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 11: But if I believe that the mistakes that you make,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 11: that they're fixable, and so that no sin is finite,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 11: and that that that's a Christian belief of.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 21: The idea of hell.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 11: I don't believe that's also a Christian belief, by the way,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 11: a Christian belief as hell.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: No, that there's no sin. That, wow, there's one. The
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: sin against the Holy Ghost is unforgivable. But that's really
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: the sin against the process that would enable you to learn.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 11: But is the there's a Christian belief that hell does exist,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 11: and if I commit sin, I'm going to go there? Correct, Yes,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 11: So what if I don't, I don't believe in that,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 11: like I think.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 21: Attle bit sure.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 11: I think I think that when you commit sin, that
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 11: it's because of a lot of environmental factors in your life,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 11: like where you were born and who you were raised by,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 11: and so there are certain things. Is that leads you
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 11: down a dangerous path, and once you are dead, I
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 11: think you're kind of removed of that person. There's no like,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 11: there are no factors of the earth.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: That to what happens after.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: So I would ask you in these times that you've
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: suffered terribly in ways that you thought would never en
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: Do you believe that you had any causal role in that?
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: Like, did you play a part in that.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 11: In my own suffering?
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 11: Maybe sometimes I would say that there was a part
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 11: that I played.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's the thing they find out.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 11: I think that maybe it's like a concept of free
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 11: will that I don't really believe in somewhat of free
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 11: will that I think that there are certain things in
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 11: your life that leads you to do certain behaviors, and
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 11: so when you commit those sins, you go to hell.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 11: I'm not too sure why you would still be when
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 11: you content.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: You believe that, Like I said, I can't address that.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: Do you believe that you can change?
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 21: I do.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: Do you believe you can change for the better? I do?
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: Do you believe that when.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: You change for the better you abandon the things you've
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: done in the past that weren't good?
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 21: I think that you can.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, then that's very much in keeping with Christian doctors.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 11: Can you explain to me how that's in keeping with
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 11: Christian doctors?
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: You believe you would go to hell for you believe
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: you can improve, right, and you believe that if you improved,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: you would let go of things that were impeding you.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: That's a sacrifice.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: You believe that improvement would be upward, and you believe
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 4: that you have agency in that.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those are all Christian presuppositions.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 11: I guess maybe we have different opinions of what Christian
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 11: morality is. Yes, I think that my opinion of christ
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 11: reality is something that I don't really agree with, and
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 11: maybe you would define that as like the foundations.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: Let me give you an example. So if you want
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: to atone which means to unify yourself and unify that
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: with the world, then the first thing you have to
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: do is figure out what you did wrong and admit it.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: That's a confession that was good.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: I picked Zena because I think she asked genuine questions
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: and wasn't trying to win.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 21: Hey, well hello.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 20: My claim is Jordan Peterson's framework for understanding Christianity is
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 20: probably not the one that the Bible intended us to use.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 20: In regards to the way that you interpret the Bible,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 20: I don't see you have said in some circumstances that
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 20: there's not a way to kind of say whether or
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 20: not onto logically the historical claims made by the Black
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 20: Bible are true, like, for example, the story of Cannabel.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 20: You've said that this story is like a meta truth
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 20: in the sense that it is it exists all throughout
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 20: time culturally, and the way that you define meta truth,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 20: I don't see the distinguished a distinction between that and
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 20: like a metaphor.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 21: Right.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 20: But if and you also say that you cannot say
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 20: whether this story is true. You can say that it
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 20: exists eternally, you know, metaphorically, but it is, you can't
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 20: say that it's true. And if you can't say that
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 20: there is sorcle facts being set in the Bible as
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 20: stories that haven't that weren't really said with much ambiguity ambiguity,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 20: how can we say that we can understand the Bible
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 20: in the way that it's meant to be interpreted. Like
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 20: how if you cannot make any claims about these stories, right,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 20: you don't know they are the repulse? How do you
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 20: know that your interpretation is the correct way?
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: See, that's why I picked you. You ask intelligent questions.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 21: Thank you?
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was good. What do they say by their fruits?
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: You'll know them?
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 21: Okay?
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 4: Well, so one of the things I look at is
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: the impact of what I'm doing right, And so I
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 4: know a lot of Evangelical Christians, a lot of Catholics,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: a lot of Orthodox Christians, a lot of people from
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: other faiths, and they've told me, like many of them,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: that they found my interpretations very helpful and that it
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 4: deepened their faith. And so that's interesting because I wouldn't
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: have necessarily expected that to be the case.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: And I've also.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: Talked to thousands of people who've told me that they
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: came to understand the foundational story of their culture better
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 4: as a consequence of listening to me, and that they
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 4: did everything they could sort out their lives and that
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 4: it worked. That's many different pieces of evidence that all
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: converge on something like the practical and conceptual utility of
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: my approach.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: Now is it the same? There are a lot of
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: There is a lot of.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: Approaches to Biblical interpretation historically, and what.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: I'm doing is possibly less new than you think.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 20: Yeah, I want to make a claim on whether this
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 20: evidence is enough right to substantiate whether or not your
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 20: interpretation is going to you know, be more plausible, right,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 20: be the most plausible, Because in.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 21: Regards to open question, yeah, right, you bet so.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 20: In regards to how we interpret the Bible and how
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 20: we see the Bible. Something can add value to someone's
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 20: like an interpretation can add value to someone's life. The
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 20: interpretation can connect you to your conception of what your
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 20: faith is. But if it's the quote unquote interpretation that
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 20: God does not intend that can lead to a plethora.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: That's certainly the case.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: That's why the media, the evil Christians were so concerned
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: about heresy exactly. Yeah, because they felt and that's why
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 4: the Catholics objected so much to the Protestant Reformation, because
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: they believed that the fractionation of Christianity would result in
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 4: an indefinite fractionation, right.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: Well, and that's exactly what's happened, right, So.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's definitely a problem. I think one of the
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 4: foundational principles. For example, there's a foundational principle in the
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: Old Testament of hospitality, right, So what you want to do,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: if you set up your local environment properly is to
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: make it welcoming to people voluntarily.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: And so one of the ways.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 4: You could judge the validity of the interpretation of a
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: classic story is that whether is whether or not that
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: interpretation might be regarded by someone as welcoming. Does that
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: represent something you'd actually like to have if you were
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: acting in your own interest in the long run?
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 21: Right, And we can talk about that like like do.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: Protect you from fear?
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 20: Might be another one exactly, so we can talk about
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 20: how these interpretations of the Bible, like if they kind
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 20: of resonate with us. But I do, and I think
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 20: that that can in some way casey some kind of
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 20: like evidence. Oh this might be true. But I think
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 20: we ask is evidence damning?
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 21: Is this evidence? Certain?
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 10: Right?
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 21: So, but I do want to.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 20: Look at again the consequences and our understanding of this
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 20: interpretation once more. So we look at again the story
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 20: of canaan Abel and we say, yeah, so I believe
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 20: this is a metatruth. I believe that this story is
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 20: resident throughout cultures that is all trendanding. And I'm sure
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 20: that there is some in some way the story was
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 20: put in here for the reason, right to tell us about,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 20: you know, fights between brothers. But also you can't say
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 20: I do know, I don't know that this story is
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 20: false or true in an ontological historical sense as a
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 20: historical fact. Were there two people like like that we're
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 20: specifically referenced.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 4: Okay, I don't think that's knowable, but I'm not sure
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 4: why it matters to you.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 20: So the reason why it matters to me is because
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 20: we need to know how we should interpret the things
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 20: that the Bible says and the ways right, but like
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 20: if we.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: Interpret times, poetry, sometimes history, sometimes.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 20: Fact for example, the reason why it's important, right, very important,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 20: is because for we can talk about something like God
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 20: says I believe it's like First Corinthians fifteen seventeen, something
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 20: about how belief in God specifically as someone who resurrected
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 20: or as someone who died for our sins is important, right,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 20: But we have to look at if we can interpret
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 20: that as just like you have to believe that God
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 20: is a symbol of sacrifice. That is different from believing
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 20: that there was an actual person named Jesus Christ who
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 20: died on the cross. So if you believe one and
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 20: not the other, that can be the difference between you
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 20: going to hell and you're going to heaven. So if
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 20: we cannot make like, we cannot say that we know
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 20: whether or not certain historical facts in the Bible happen
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 20: like even as just like events like does the events
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 20: matter because again, God dying for our sins on the
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 20: cross was an event. If we can't say that we
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 20: know these things happened, these things did or didn't happen,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 20: this then leads us to kind of like the conundrum
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 20: of how do we know what we are meant to believe,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 20: what the Bible intended for us to believe? And this
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 20: can be very very important to like our fate.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: Do you see that?
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got no disagreement with any of that. What
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: sort of response do you want from that? You pushed
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 4: me beyond the limits of my knowledge?
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 21: Really well, I think.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: There's so many things you can't know. I'm struggling.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: I know that the Biblical stories are the foundation of
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: Western culture. I know that the consequence of those stories
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 4: has been the genesis of society that is, in the main,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: freer and more abundant than any societies have ever been.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 4: I don't exactly understand the relationship between those stories and
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 4: that outcome.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: But it's not nothing, right. But I don't know.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: I don't know the answer to the questions that you're asking.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: You know, it's the case that forever, when people have
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 4: been interpreting religious stories, they wrestled with exactly the question
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 4: that you just described. When is it fact? When is
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 4: it poetry? When is it music? When is it metaphor?
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 4: When is it ritual? When is it time bound?
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 20: But what I'm saying is that your interpretation of the Bible,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 20: if you cannot tell us again if these historical events
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 20: happened or not, that can be deciding factor one is
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 20: like damned to help for eternity or if they go
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 20: to heaven.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 21: So that's why I'm I.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 4: Don't concern myself so much with that particular question, you know,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: like that that would be something that would stem more
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 4: from an evangelical viewpoint.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: And I'm not putting that down, by the way, I don't.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: You're asking me a question I really can't answer. I'm
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: not claiming even that my interpretations are canonically correct. I
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 4: can only tell you the consequences of having released them
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 4: into the world, let's say.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 20: So, I guess we've kind of come to a conclusion
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 20: about that which I've kind of wrestled with your framework
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 20: and pushed it kind of to its kind of to
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 20: its end, at least in the way that you can
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 20: answer my question. So I don't know that we can
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 20: more wrestle with that.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: See, I don't.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: I guess the problem is, you see, I don't exactly
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: understand I don't think anybody does the relationship between fact
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: and destiny. I know, well, there are different realms in
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 4: a way, because knowing what the world is made of
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 4: doesn't help you navigate through it, not really, it doesn't
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 4: provide you with a foundation for navigation.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: But knowing the.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 4: Facts of the world is obviously useful, and the relationship
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 4: between those two things. Part of that's the mystery of
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: Western civilization and the continued competition between science and religion.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 20: To bridge this kind of understanding between fact and destiny
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 20: is like an important question that the burden is on
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 20: Christianity to answer and physically interpretations of Christianity.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: And if we can't that, why is the burden on Christianity?
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 20: Because it posits right, the disinterpretation right is going to
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 20: be a way to understand God.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 21: But if it's faulty right that.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: Evidence would you see? What evidence would you accept?
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 20: That would be an interesting question because I haven't met
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 20: I've seen people try to answer the question, and I've
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 20: never really been moved because I can always attack and
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 20: then against kind of gets to this a point where
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 20: the answer is I don't know.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: Well, here's an answer there.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, that's time.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 21: Okay, Well, thank you.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: So much for the right Well, I definitely picked the
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: right person. That was very good. Thank you very much,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: very good. I don't like talking to win, but.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 4: There were portions of all the contents that were truly
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: productive and that it's instructive for people to see the
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 4: distinction between a debate that's aimed at local victory and dominance,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: that's say, even of ideas, and a discussion that's predicated
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 4: on mutual exploration and establishment of like a harmonious understanding
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 4: in peace.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 20: Jordan Peterson, out of all of the kind of feasts
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 20: that are on the internet, he is one of the
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 20: better ones in regards just like being genuous as a person.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 20: But I do feel like he does a lot of
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 20: I guess wordplay that can make it a little bit
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 20: difficult and kind of just muddies the waters in regard
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 20: to what we define as Christianity and atheism.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 5: Jordan Peterson I credit to turning me into an atheist.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 6: I'd a blast talking to him today.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 5: I think if the average person followed what Jordan Peterson said,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 5: they'd realize that fundamentally Jordan Peterson is not a Christian,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 5: in fact, uses many atheistic principles and operated under bad
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 5: faith by seeming to forget what basic words meant when
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 5: he didn't want to answer a question.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 9: His definitions can kind of shift a little bit, ending
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 9: on the moment, and I think that he wasn't afraid
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 9: to flex that definitional muscle.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 6: I felt really good about our conversation. I thought that
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 6: it highlighted some key issues in Jordan Peterson's theology. I
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 6: hope he reflects on these issues and maybe deepens his
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 6: perspective on them in the future.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 9: With Zenas, she was able to build up such a
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 9: rapport that he chose her in the end, and they
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 9: were able to have an extended dialogue, which is something
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 9: I had hoped for. So maybe I learned a little
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 9: something from Xena about being more cordial.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: It's extraordinarily useful to be able to model productive debate
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 4: and conversation for people and see how my thoughts were
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 4: landing with people who are particularly skeptical, and to put
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 4: that in front of a large audience and to assess
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: the consequences