everybody tonight we're debating whether or not atheism is the rational conclusion of skepticism and we are starting right now with our guest Randall Richardson's opening statement who is by the way president of Canadian atheists we are thrilled to have you here Randall the floor is all yours for your opening statement. Thank you James and I'm glad to have a chance to converse with John on this John Maddox. Thank you for being here as well. So is atheism the rational conclusion of skepticism and critical thinking? Yes. What is skepticism though is a question that some people might ask. Skepticism is the application of doubt about the truth of something. Although I personally strive to be a proper skeptic I certainly don't profess to be one but what I do know is that logic and probability are useful intellectual tools for skeptics and probably even among the most important of all the tools. When presented with an idea of a deity a goddess or a god existing I can utilize skepticism to assess this idea in an attempt to determine if it's logically valid. Given that the deity that my interlocutor believes in is the Christian God I find that skepticism leads me initially to a paradox between the characteristics of omniscience being all-knowing and omnipotence being all powerful and because of this paradox the logical conclusion of applying skepticism leaves me an atheist or in other words it leaves me not believing in this particular deity for doubt is my ally. Thank you that's my opening statement. You got it thank you very much and we will kick it over to John Maddox for his opening statement as well and also want to let you know folks if this is your first time here or maybe it's your several hundredth time here want to let you know you guys we are absolutely thrilled this Wednesday Erica YouTube's favorite daughter will be debating Mr. Batman on whether or not Noah's Ark could have worked so that will be an epic one to be sure you don't miss it live hit that subscribe button and that notification button as well as it's going to be a blast this coming Wednesday night so with that John thanks so much the floor is all yours okay I'm gonna need to share my screen all right is that coming through oh I gotta say I was really surprised at the shortness and the direction taken by my opponent so you know when the topic for this debate was proposed to me and my opponent was going to take the affirmative on atheism being the rational conclusion of skepticism to be honest I was slightly confused as to why an atheist would want to pursue this train of thought at all you know if the topic was agnosticism or non-theism is the rational conclusion of skepticism then that would make total sense and I would agree with whoever was taking that position however tonight you will hear ongoing assertions from my opponent more than likely from judging from his previous debates that atheism is a rational conclusion from skepticism we need to recognize he's attempting to make this debate not about what the vast majority of people consider atheism but rather about lack theism lack the isms don't not believe a God exists they claim just to lack a belief in God now this is mostly a very loud new atheist YouTube phenomenon the United States and Canada but if you go beyond the surface level talking points consistently proclaimed by YouTube lack theist you will quickly find that desk find desperate attempts to circumvent what meant the majority of us would consider rational I mean if you they just lack a belief in the existence of God or there isn't enough evidence to give them a level of belief then why not just use the already existing concepts for this position and declare themselves agnostic or they don't like that just non-theist why would a rational person try to redefine a term when there is another one that better fits what they claim while a larger group of people who claim to be atheists don't accept the definition of the word the way the lack theist wants it to be redefined that just doesn't seem very rational to me I mean if you're supposedly taking a rational skeptical approach and not actually reaching a conclusion about something why would you try to commandeer a well-established term if anything these actions make no sense as the opposite would remove a large amount of the ongoing controversy regarding their positions however in spite of this illogical approach the lack theist seeks to rewrite history and convince the rest of us that somehow they are being suppressed and there has been ongoing attempts to taint interpretation of the very concept of atheism the I think I'm a little bit off center here now if you're trying to normalize atheism and mitigate supposed oppression from theists what rational person would do this you know contrary to rational thinking they often people like my point often go on to quote things like after various debates and other intellectual encounters it started to become clear that the attempts to vilify atheists and atheism are actually the death throes of the ever shrinking community of oppressors often manipulative and or extreme theists who want to denormalize the absence of belief in deities atheism that community of oppressors which I call the atheism vilification community often uses a variety of tactics to vilify atheists and to misrepresent atheism which in terms serves to create false burdens of proof for claims that most atheists don't actually make unquote now I'm kind of confused as where this community of oppressors is and is this up happening up in Canada I know it's not happening in the United States not having the UK or the majority of Europe or in the largest country on earth China which is officially an atheist country so personally I find this claim to be quite funny as it demonstrates beyond doubt both the lax theist refusal to be rational and the obvious desire to use semantic fusion to confuse the masses more importantly there's an attempt to project an air of false confidence about their positions on the supposedly rational shroud of skepticism now to showcase why atheism is not the rational conclusion of skepticism let us quickly look at what atheism actually is and why lack theism is not atheism. So the position you have to question take into question is does God exists in that your potential answers are yes no maybe but the on the ontology of God's existence is dichotomous either God does or does not exist. However, the answer to the proposal does not have to be binary. It can be yes affirmative and that's the reason why atheism affirmative no atheism or it can be undecided you're agnostic don't care apotheist proposition is non non sense different terms for this but theological non cognizance is a very common one. So if someone responds to a proposition is undecided they are not making an affirmative yes or no like these other groups lack theists are non p equals theist p or not p theist or non theist therefore how's a remotely rational for a skeptical lack theist to I mean respond with a I lack a belief when the actual question being posed is do you believe God exists. So either I believe God exists in your theist or I believe God does not exist. Atheist it's pretty pretty straightforward stuff. Now I'm going to go down to a few more pieces that kind of support my position. And the first one's made from the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Atheism is typically defined in terms of theism. Theism in turn is best understood as a proposition something that is either true or false is often defined as the belief that God exists but here belief means something believed. It refers to the propositional content of belief not to the attitude or psychological state of believing. This is why it makes sense to say that theism is true or false and to argue for against theism. However, if however, atheism is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God that follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists. The a and atheism must be understood as negation instead of absence as not instead of without. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist. More broadly, the proposition that there are no gods. This definition has the added virtue of making atheism a direct answer to one of the most important metaphysical questions in philosophy of religion. Namely, is there a God? There are only two possible direct answers to this question. Yes, which is theism and no, which is atheism. Answers like, I don't know, no one cares. I don't I don't care. An affirmative answer has never been established or the question is meaningless and are not direct answers to this question unquote. Now, for those of you have not tuned out yet, the significance of the components of atheism address clearly here removes the concept of lack of even as being atheism and goes so far as to reject anything like it, which kind of coincides with the whole skeptical premise. Now, my next submission as evidence comes from the encyclopedia Britannica and their comprehensive dictionary definition of atheism, reflection on this should lead to a more adequate statement of what atheism is indeed as well to what an agnostic or religious response to atheism should be. Instead of saying that atheists is someone who believes is false or probably false that there is a God or more adequate characterization of atheism consists in the more complex claim that to be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons, which reason is stressed depends on how God is being conceived for anthropomorphic God, the atheist rejects belief in God because it is false or probably false that there is a God for a non anthropomorphic God, the God of Luther, Calvin, Aquinas and so on. He rejects belief in God because the concept of such a God is either meaningless, unintelligible, contradictory, incomprehensible or incoherent.  Next, I want to go into the Internet encyclopedia of philosophy and which is a quote peer reviewed academic resource unquote. The term atheist describes a person who does not believe that God or a divine being exists. For the most part, atheists have presumed that the most reasonable conclusions are the ones at the best evidential support. And they have argued that the evidence in favor of God's existence is too weak or the arguments in favor concluding there is no God or more compelling. Arguments for the non existence of God are deductive or inductive deductive arguments for the non existence of God are either single or multiple property disproves that allege that there are logical or conceptual problems with one or several properties that are essential to any being worthy of the title God inductive arguments typically represent empirical evidence is employed to argue that God's existence is improbable or unreasonable. Now a final piece of evidence which is from a 2018 paper defining atheism and the burden of proof which is published by the Royal Society of Philosophy. In this paper, I demonstrate how certain contemporary atheists have probably problematically conflated atheism with agnosticism knowingly or unknowingly. The first type of conflation is semantic fusion where the lack of belief in God is combined with the outright denial of God under the single label of atheism. The second is morphological vision which involves a separation of atheism into two subcategories where lack of belief in God is labeled as a negative as negative atheism and outright denial of God is positive atheism. Unfortunately, some atheists have implicitly or explicitly, intendedly or unintendedly, sought to distort the boundaries between atheism and agnosticism. Is this activity which has warranted the current investigation? At first glance, it may seem an unnecessary inquiry into semantics, but the issue needs to be thoroughly addressed as it directly affects how the different positions are framed. If atheism is conflated with agnosticism, atheists can deny the need to provide proof for their position. In order to avoid defining atheism as the denial of God's existence, some atheists end up misrepresenting their stance by conflating atheism with agnosticism. This occurs through one of two ways. Either, atheism is redefined, meaning lack of belief in denial of God's existence, in which case both atheism and agnosticism, as defined above, are semantically fused under one term, or lack of belief in God and denial of God's existence are demarcated as two different subcategories of atheism. I call the former approach semantic fusion and the latter morphological vision. Now, obviously, the entire position that's being obviously put forth by a lot of the people here on YouTube is an attempt to shift the burden of proof and to avoid any need to claim anything but skepticism and make ad nauseum I don't know diversions. However, in regards to the debated hand, unless my opponent is ready to suspend the lackliest position as actually being atheism, then I'm not sure how he intends to use skepticism as the rational foundation for atheism. Atheism requires deductive and inductive arguments in order to reach a conclusion. All skeptics do is say we can't actually know anything, which in relation to our discussion means skepticism and agnosticism are perfect for each other. But perhaps my opponent can provide clarification, although somehow I doubt this will actually occur. But perhaps when it comes to these kinds of debates, I am just a skeptic. I yield. Thank you very much from John Maddox for his opening statement. We will go into the open dialogue section now. And so we are thrilled for this, folks. It is going to be a blast and also want to let you know, folks, our guests are linked in the description. So if you'd like to hear more from our guests, we highly encourage you. Those links are waiting for you. That's why we put them there. And with that, we're going to jump into the open conversation and I want to also mention, though, our guest links are not only in the description box for YouTube, but also if you're listening via podcast. We also have their description or their links in the description box for the podcast as well now. So thanks, guys. The floor is all yours. Well, thanks, James. I appreciate that. So I guess to kind of get started. Hang on. Um, James, is it my turn to respond to the opening statement or? Oh, I was under the impression. Pardon. I might have forgiven me if I had the emails wrong, but I was under the impression it was like open dialogue. But if we all yours, guys. Oh, wait, yeah. Um, I go already. James, if it's when you open, we'll go back and forth. I'm OK with that. If you wanted to start something, you obviously had something immediate on your mind. So go ahead. Well, I was going to ask, I mean, in the context of the whether or not skepticism is rational or atheism, the rational conclusion of skepticism, is the position that I put forth in terms of your interpretation of atheism, is that correct or incorrect? What you're doing is you're listing a number of different definitions that are used by some people about atheism and the I didn't ask about other people. I asked about yours. I'm getting there. You're answering your question. Yeah. So, um, and what they do is they are limiting the scope of what atheism is and, um, what you've provided does not match, um, exactly with what, um, what I consider atheism to be, which is common usage and has been, pretty much the same thing all this time. There are people throughout history who have misused the term, um, very often to try to upset other people or to use it in a derogatory fashion. Um, but, uh, the, the meaning of the word has been quite consistent all this time. I did notice that you were, uh, saying, trying to move some of it over to agnosticism. These are different categories. Agnosticism is epistemologically based. It is about not having knowledge of deities. Whereas, whether they exist, whereas atheism is, is about not having a belief in deities. So, um, the way, as I specified in my opening statement, and I'm still consistent about it now, and always have been, uh, is that atheism simply means not believing in deities. Now, there are different ways people will use the word, but the vast majority who I encounter, um, online and offline, uh, are not having any problem with this. Okay. So are you directly contradicting Stanford, Encyclopedia Britannica, the Internet, uh, Philosophy Encyclopedia, and the Royal Society of Philosophy? In terms of the definition of atheism, and you also just conflated your own interpretation, which is clearly demarcated and in your previous debates, as well as on your multiple websites, that it's the absence of belief. You just, uh, and it's the lack of belief. So not believing in deities is the wording I used. It's synonymous with absences. So not or without. Which is your position? Yeah, without. Absence of belief in deities, not believing in deities. They're all, all the same things. Okay. So are you directly contradicting the Stanford, uh, position? Because they specifically demarcated in two different positions that absence is the incorrect position. It's not versus without. Stanford Encyclopedia actually acknowledges that atheism is used in this way. And they're specifying that within certain philosophical context that they're recommending using it in a more limit, scope limited fashion. So, um, SAP does not define it for the world. SAP is defining it for, uh, a specific, uh, portion of, uh, philosophy within it. So is it your position that is the, it's not having a affirmative position one way or the other is atheism. Is that your position of atheism? Um, I don't even regard it as a position, but you could say that it is just not believing in deities. So I, I don't hold to that. And you're really, you're really spinning right now because, Hold on. I do want to let him finish on.  He's, he's literally, if you want to, if you want to address what he said after, but do want to give him a chance to actually respond. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So when I apply skepticism to the, um, uh, to the, uh, to the idea that a deity or multiple deities exist, um, I'm not convinced. So I'm left with being in a position where I'm not believing in deities. That doesn't mean I'm holding an anti-theistic view that deities don't exist. It just, I'm just taking doubt as my ally and not holding a belief in it. And that is what this debate is about. So you just said you're actually not taking a position. When it comes to whether deities exist, uh, normally not. Now, when it comes to the Christian deity being omniscient and omnipotent, um, I have a really good reason to doubt it. Well, this, this debate is not, this debate is not about the Christian. Because there is not Christianity. This is about atheism. Because those characteristics are, uh, a lead to a paradox. Go ahead. This debate has nothing to do with this one. And part of the reason I'm being so blunt with you right now is because I think your move in the opening statement trying to make this about the Christian guy, when this is about theism, um, is it was a little bit untoward. However, uh, moreover, actually in this context, now, where you're clearly attempting to dodge what your formally stated positions are on through, on the, uh, atheist frontier, uh, Randolph Richardson dot com and, uh, the Canadian atheist, uh, website, you make very clear assertions that it's only the absence in the lack of belief in God.  So I'm, uh, directly read from peer reviewed sources that state people that are doing, are claiming exactly what you just claimed are doing it for un, well, they said intent, uh, intentionally or unintentionally, uh, for purposes of shifting the burden of proof, which also is clearly defined on your website that it's about shifting the burden of proof. So are you now trying to, are you now trying to jump to skepticism to again attempt a removal of an eight level of burden of proof on you as a supposed, or as a, as a lack theist? Okay. We're not shifting the burden of proof. Uh, we're not accepting a burden of proof is what it is. Because a burden of proof doesn't apply to someone who does not hold a belief. Now, you're not an, you're not an atheist. Yes, earlier. You're an on theist. You mentioned that there. You think that I was trying to turn this into a Christianity? I was not. I cited that as one example. We can, we can examine other deities if you like. Well, we're talking about the concept of theism. So are you a global atheist or sorry, global skeptic or local skeptic? Global or local, what do you mean by that? Let's, let's be clear.  No, I say I'm striving to be a proper skeptic. I'm still learning. So tell me what you mean by global skeptic or so just just saying and I can answer your question. So just the Christian God or just the Jewish God, just the Islamic God, et cetera, or all potential anything that could possibly be a God. So global would be any possible thing. Local would be a like going down into subsets. Oh, well, in the case of the introduction, I did cite one example, but when it comes to deities, it's atheism is not believing in any deities. So any gods or any goddesses, none at all. Well, we're talking about skepticism right now, but we haven't gotten to atheism. You just asked me about atheism. So no, actually, I clarified and I said, are you a local or global skeptic? So I strive to be a proper skeptic. If somebody's presenting if somebody's presenting a particular deity to me, then of course, I will be looking at that one specifically. But in general, I don't hold a position on whether deities exist. Any. Okay, so I wasn't talking just I use I'd be more global in that. We're going to clarify in skepticism. I was using the gods example. I'm talking as a skeptic. Do you apply that there we can't ever actually define anything in beyond doubt or that it's only that certain things can be defined beyond doubt? I think it has to be looked at on a case by case basis. Okay. So basically in your you're saying your skepticism is 100% subjective. Yeah, I would say so. Okay. So in regards to your lack theism and I object to that term. I find it mandatory. It's a it's a will determine if he is clear at the beginning. Well, you're not actually you're trying to redefine atheism, which is why I've watched you in all of your debates. It is I've watched you online and if I read further in that paper from the Royal Society of Philosophy, they actually address your website and its misuse of terms. Oh, I'll be interested to read that. I wasn't aware the Royal Society has. Yeah, apparently some atheists quoted your website and they were rather the Royal Society was rather like surprised when they even looked at it because of the the inconsistencies. But my point where I'm going with all this is you are clearly in contradiction to the definition of atheism. Yes, your resources and your references on your websites. There's only two that actually showcase anything about lack of belief. And it's in the common or the current outside definition from Oxford dictionaries.com, which no longer exists. By the way, it's been changed in something else. But that's actually also addressed because it's more of a common use versus the actual definition. All of the others go with the denial of. The rejection of position. So you have created an entire position on multiple websites and I've done multiple debates and are now having this conversation with me under the position. That is an extreme outlier and one in which the whole reason why one of the major reasons I read in detail from multiple sources that in the context of atheism. Versus agnosticism and then how it correlates with skepticism. You are dramatically attempting to circumvent the necessity of an affirmative position. Okay, so you're thinking about problems and now isn't it interesting that the etymology is consistent with what I'm saying about what atheism is and that linguistic structure supports it and then common usage supports it. And that certain dictionaries are supporting this as well. And even the internet encyclopedia of philosophy agrees with me in its very first paragraph yet you picked a paragraph further down in it. No, actually, actually I read from the very first paragraph. Well, the very first paragraph of the internet encyclopedia of philosophy says, the term atheist describes a person who does not believe that God or divine being exists. Worldwide, there may be as many as a billion atheists, although social stigma, political pressure and intolerance make accurate polling difficult. So that first paragraph makes it very clear. Read that first sentence again. The term atheist describes a person who does not believe What was I saying? That does not. Doesn't just lack of believe, does not. Is that a... So actually I read that exact sentence, by the way, in my opening statement. And you can go rewind if you say I didn't. So you can either retract your position that claimed that I didn't read that and I just only read further. I did read further down additionally. But please retract that position that I did not read that first sentence. I'd have to go back and look at it. I don't remember it quite that way. But if that's what you did, then of course I'll retract it if it shows that way. Okay, okay. Okay, awesome. So back to skepticism. So in skepticism, the majority... You wanted to delve into the rabbit hole of atheism here. And I've made my point. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've been dodging in the whole position of... Yes, you are. In terms of skepticism, what if you say that you lack of belief, do you take any kind of position on what would make you believe something that you say you lack of belief in? And have no actual assertion that currently makes you not believe it? You just lack of belief. So what would make you actually believe? You're talking in hypothetically. Give me an example. What do you mean? I just asked you a direct question. Like, in what would make you believe? Believe in a deity? Yeah.  And you say that... In my... Atheism... I'm striving to be a skeptic. No. Right, okay. So you... But you're claiming... Okay, you're striving to be a skeptic, but you're claiming that it's the rational... Atheism is the rational conclusion for skepticism. Yeah, my opening statement made this very clear that... Your opening statement was like five cents, man. I have to let him actually speak, John. My opening statement made it very clear that not believing in a deity would be the rational conclusion of applying skepticism to the claim that a deity exists. Okay, so clarify. Clarify which part? How do you apply skepticism? That, I mean, your opening statement was like a paragraph. Yeah. Yeah, I tend to be... So I don't really know how you're actually making any kind of position to support... Okay, you're taking the affirmative, correct? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so in the affirm... The person taking the affirmative position is supposed to support their position, not just make generalized, nebulous, three-sentence statement about their position. The length of the statement doesn't matter as long as the statement is valid and correct and makes the point. And I think I made the point succinctly. Okay, so what would overcome your skepticism? For, let's say, what? The Christian deity? Brainy deity. The deity somehow being verified that it can be... That it's real. So if I can... Okay, and how is that? If I can, like with the Christian deity, somebody asked me years ago about this and I suggested, well, since the deity is all-powerful and all-knowing, they could present and provide me with omniscience and omnipotence for a short period of time so that I could experiment with these and determine for myself that this deity is real. That would be one example. So if God made you God, then you would believe that God exists. Oh, I didn't ask to be made a God. I've been asked to have omniscience and omnipotence. I'm not asking for other characteristics that God holds. Those would be sufficient for me. Okay, so you're saying that omniscience or omnipotence would not fulfill the most normal definitions of what a God-like being is? I just mentioned the Christian God for an example. The Christian God does have those characteristics, among many others, omnipresence and omni-chronological and whatnot. I understand that. So if per your own admission, that would be a characteristic of a Christian God, right? That's my understanding. And you want... And it would require you becoming the equal of God in terms of those abilities. Well, I mean, if God is omnipotent and you're going to be omnipotent, that means in omnipotence, you're equal to God. On that particular characteristic, sure. Okay, so my question has been answered now. Okay, so the only thing that would convince you to overcome your skepticism would be God giving you the power of God. Giving me... Granting me omniscience and omnipotence. I'm not asking for the other powers. I don't care. You want the power of a God in order to believe that a God exists. So are we playing a semantic game now? That is not my only... And that is not my only requirement. That is not my only possible solution. That's the one that I can think of right now. Okay, okay, so... If somebody else presents something to me that is reasonable and logical, I may consider it. I'm not close to other possibilities. So you're saying that it's rational as a skeptic, that the only thing that would convince you... I didn't say only. Or one of the... Something that would have to be on the level of literally gaining the power of God is what would be required for you to overcome your skepticism. Now, I'm going to lay this out. There are a number of different characteristics that the Christian God has. Omniscience and omnipotence are only two of them. All I'm asking for is provide me with those two for a short period of time. And I don't even care if some of those... If there is a limitation on those that I can't interfere with anything that God's doing. I want to just be able to experiment with this and verify for myself that this stuff really is real. And I'm citing that... Providing that as an example of one thing that would be qualify as valid proof for me. I understand what you're saying.  What I'm questioning is, do you not realize that that being a necessity from your perspective to actually overcome your skepticism means that you're fulfilling one of the recognized issues with skepticism is that it results in such extreme skepticism and inability to be convinced of anything that you acquire things that are not actually rational, which is the entire point being made in this debate is whether or not that's rational. And the point I'm making is if you're claiming that skepticism or atheism is a rational outcome of skepticism, but I would say that that kind of point you're making shows that that's... What's required for you to be convinced mean is irrational. Okay. Well, that's my own personal standard, which I don't think is irrational, because if it is, in fact, turns out that the deity is real, that can make these things happen, and that deity makes these things happen, then obviously it's not irrational. So what's below that level that would convince you? Present an idea to me and... No, no, I'm asking. I'm not the atheist. You're the atheist, the skeptical atheist. So which... What convinced you? You earlier asked me for one example. I provided you with one example. Now you're asking me for more examples. I think one is sufficient. Well, I mean, I'm taking the position... It's one that your deity is capable of doing. Okay, so the whether or not the deity is capable of doing it has nothing to do with whether or not the necessity for that should be evidence to overcome your skepticism is rational. So you're...  I'll just say... You have to be God in order to agree that God exists. And I mentioned I'm not trying to be God. I only ask for two characteristics. You just want to be God for a short period of time. No, I only want those two characteristics for a short period of time. Probably a fortnight would be enough. Okay, so if you're omnipotent, you're not a God? Well, the Christian deity has more than omniscience and omnipotence as its characteristics. It doesn't mean you're not a God, though. So you're saying an omnipotent being is not a God? Not the Christian... We're not arguing about the Christian God. We're arguing about whether or not he is a God. I... If I don't have those two... If I only have those two characteristics, I'm definitely not equal to the Christian God because the Christian... We're not arguing about the Christian God. We're arguing about... Hold on. Let's let him finish and then you can respond, John. All he does is dodge back to Christian God. And we're talking about God in general. We're talking about... You can correct him right after he finishes. Go ahead, Randall, if we give you a chance to finish. And then we'll kick it back to John. We had to pick a deity to explore this with, and I gave an example. So that one happened to be the Christian God. It could be Allah. It could be the Muslim God, which has a whole bunch of the same characteristics as the Christian God. And my answer would be the same for that one at this point. Now, and I like an important point here. This is my personal requirement as somebody who strives to be a proper skeptic, saying, okay, this is what it'll take to prove it to me when somebody asked me once. And so I'm still consistent on this. But when it comes to just not believing, that is the conclusion of skepticism very often, is not believing something that we've been told is true. So are you skeptical about everything until you personally like view it in person in real time rather than being told or reading about it? It depends on what my confidence level is in that being real. So for example, if you were to tell me that you have 10 digits, four, eight fingers and four thumbs all together and you hold up your hands for me, I have no question about it.  I'll believe you because it's such a common thing. For people to have eight fingers and two thumbs all together. So for depends on what it is, the claim that's being made. Now in when it comes to the case of a deity, a deity is something that's quite mystical and something that I'm not encountering in common day life. So of course my confidence level in such claims like that is very, very low. So you do have a confidence level though. Yeah, and it depends on what's being claimed on a case by case basis and how common these things are in reality. Yes. Okay. So you have a confidence level in whether or not God exists. At this point, I would say that's zero because I have not received anything that has been compelling enough for me to change that confidence level. Yes. But at some point you did. I did. That's a question. Not that I recall. Okay, I've never been a theist. I've always been an atheist. So what has been presented to you that hasn't met the burden of proof? Oh, some people will say that they've experienced Jesus in their sleep or he rescued them when they were drowning in the swimming pool or various experiences like that. And you know, these are lovely stories. People are sharing lovely experiences. But I've not had any such experiences myself. And so I'm left thinking are, have they done the necessary things to rule out their beliefs on these experiences? Like were these imagined? Were these just dreams? Or was it that they were specifically expecting something like this and then the mind played a trick on them and then they thought that's what it was? Like I don't know. So I'm left with implying skepticism again at the thing is, okay, this is what this person's experienced. But I've not experienced that. So they're telling me a memory of their experience. And so to them, it probably seems quite real. To me, it doesn't. So when somebody's telling you a story about an experience they had somewhere else that you have not been, do you doubt that? It depends on what it is. If they said that they had an experience where they were sitting at the table and at a cafe and they spilled the drink and it burned and it made their leg hurt, I'm going to believe that. I have pretty high confidence value. That's probably a true story. But if they tell me something miraculous happened that is not typically consistent with reality, then I'm going to have a lot of doubts. So there's a lot of people who try to file lawsuits for supposedly spilling hot coffee on themselves. Why would you not apply the same burden to proof? Again, it has to be handled on a case-by-case basis. The thing about those lawsuits is there can be other factors involved too, such as the person who is responsible for that. There may be a sign on there saying caution hot, they may see steam, and yet they still do it. Whose fault is that? So this is what the courts make a determination on, again, on a case-by-case basis. Okay, so I'm going to go in line with the case-by-case basis. So you've made the assertion in multiple places that supposedly people are running around trying to vilify atheists and so on and so forth. How do you reach that conclusion? Because I'm rather skeptical about that conclusion.  And they'll try using guilt-by-association fallacies and say, hey, look, these people throughout history have done some awful things and they're atheists. Like, there's a fellow named Craig Hill. I think I got his name right. Craig Hicks, sorry, it was Craig Hicks. A few years ago, he shot three Muslim ladies over a parking spot dispute. And it turns out he's an anti-theistic kind of atheist, very strongly hateful against religion. And what came up in the media was, oh, look at this, an atheist shooting Muslims. And that would be an example of an attempt to vilify atheists. So there's that going on.  Those are threats. They're kind of, they're threats based on a promise of something that I think people don't really know is going to happen, but it is, but some people are very sure about it in their views. But these are the kinds of things that I'm referring to. Craig Hicks, okay, so is that the commonality or the outlier? More and more I'm finding it to be the outlier, but there still are quite a lot of people out there who do have these attitudes. So it depends on which community you're in. To which community you're referring to? Lots of different communities. There's communities, there's rural communities where the religion is taken quite strongly and anybody who doesn't fit in with it is an outsider and they must be converted. And then there's in the big city here, I find that like in Vancouver, BC, Canada, I find that there really isn't so much of this pressure put on people. And there's even communities on the internet where I find like there's some groups of people who are, let's say they're all religious people and they're quite welcoming. These are very nice. And then there's others who are there. No, we got to convert you now. There's something completely wrong with you. So it varies from community to community. And you don't think there's any, the reciprocal of that in the atheist community? Oh, I know there are atheists who push back. Unfortunately, there are some who push back in very bad ways as well. Now, of course, and I'm not trying to justify that. In fact, what I'm trying to do is to change that as well. My primary focus has been on countering the vilification of atheists since I'm an atheist. I have to pick something and focus on it. But of course, if somebody's being unfair to a Christian or a Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or somebody else, I'm going to stand up against that as well, of course. And I have before. The reason I'm asking is quite, I'm kind of confused about the, you know, you don't like the lackliest term, but you claim that there's no dogma, there's no beliefs in your position of atheism. So the lack... But hang on, I'm finishing my point. But on your website, you've got links to atheist churches that have clearly delineated positions. You're talking about the atheist frontier? Yes. Okay, that one's got a lot of general resources. And so there's always atheism. But I just don't understand how you can have, you can claim that atheism and lacklism are not one and the same. Or you can claim that they're one and the same in terms of it's just, oh, I lack a belief. That there aren't dogmas, there aren't beliefs, there aren't all these kinds of things. But then you have atheist churches, which you endorse, apparently. I don't endorse atheist churches. In fact, there was one here in Canada a few years ago. If you don't endorse them, then what about the 15, 20 of them you have listed on your website? I don't have that many churches there. I know there's two or three, maybe four or five, but the thing is with, there was a church here, an organization calling themselves an atheist church here in Canada a number of years ago. And the court ruled, because they took it to court, asking for tax exempt status like other religious churches yet. And the government ruled that atheism is not a religion. It doesn't entail a belief in deities. So it doesn't qualify for tax exempt status. And I agree with the courts on this. Canadian atheists does not endorse atheist churches. The Atheist frontier is an older site. That's kind of a hobby site that I've been putting as many resources together as I can. I don't agree with everybody who I link to on there, but the Canadian atheists were more selective about but who were linking resources, linking to our resources. So- And you have 10, by the way. Okay, 10. So I don't even know how serious some of those are. Some of them, I think, are just comedy attempts. But nonetheless, if you're finding 10 there, I'll agree with you on that. Well, one of the things I do find that's rather interesting about your position is that you're actually advertising. Join us for a night of blasphemy. Hysterical damnation. Yeah, look at the date on that. We haven't been able to host any more events because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I understand that. I understand that, but- I understand that. The point I'm making, the reason I'm bringing it up, is you claim this is just about the lack of a belief in God but are promoting, even if it's comedy, something that literally has blasphemy, hysterical damnation in the title. So blasphemy is covered by freedom of expression. It is- I'm not saying you can't do it. That's not the point I'm making. I'm addressing your position that says, oh, we're vilified. We're all those kind of things. But you are in- you're actually endorsing something that is intended, beyond all doubt, in terms of the literal title to denigrate the opposite. We teamed up with the atheist republic on that one. And they brought the guests in and did all that. And of course, we were very excited to be teamed up with another atheism group. Now, I do know that there are atheism groups out there that hold a very strong anti-theistic view on things. And ultimately, they are included in the umbrella of atheism because they ultimately still don't believe in deities. What I'm promoting is the fundamental of not believing. And these other groups, of course, I want to promote them too. And I do try to gently encourage them to focus more on the absence of belief portion of it. So is your position that- And they have many members who agree with me actually. So is your position that your interpretation of atheism, i.e. lack of belief, is actually a subset niche of atheism overall? No, it is the fundamental. The subset would be someone who holds an anti-theistic point, that perspective that deities actually don't exist. And I think anti-theists who hold that position do carry a burden of proof as well. And I think actually that theists, such as yourself, are in an easier position compared to the anti-theist because the anti-theist would have to be able to demonstrate that there are no deities in every part of our cosmos. Or not just our universe. Whereas for a theist like yourself, all you'd have to do is present God. So you have- Your burden of proof is not as difficult to satisfy as the anti-theistic one, in my opinion. Are you publicly stating that the paper I quoted from from the Royal Society of Philosophy, which clearly delineates the point that is made? I haven't seen it before, so I don't- I mean, I read from it. I read this exact point. Are you publicly stating that the Royal Society of Philosophy in 2018 has a completely false understanding of atheism? I can't make any such statement until I've read the paper. Well, I can just bring it up again. I don't think that reading that paper here is going to help us, but I'll read it at a later point. Well, I mean, I just tried to make a clarification on whether or not lack of belief in God is the commonality or the outlier of atheism. And at the beginning of my opening statement, in my opening statement, I read from a 2018 paper which discusses exact concept, semantic fusion and morphological fission, and the creation of two subsets, or the merger of atheism and agnosticism. Like, it's the whole paper. So my point is, and I agree, you understand, you're disagreeing with it. My point is, are you publicly stating that your position is the correct state of atheism, and absolutely categorically rejecting the position that's being taken by the Royal Society of Philosophy? You're asking me to reject a paper that I haven't read. I won't do it. But you are claiming your position that lack of belief is the majority position. It is the default fundamental, it is the fundamental characteristic of atheism, yes. You're saying that lack is the fundamental without instead of not, is the fundamental rather than the rejection? Well, without believing in deities, without deities, or not believing in deities, are essentially the same thing when it comes to atheism. Well, the A is either not or without, correct? Yeah, it indicates without, it indicates absolutely. So without is absence. Yes. Not is the rejection of. Depends, like, it depends on how you're using it.   But when I tell you that I do not believe in deities, that makes it clear that I'm not saying that I believe deities do not exist. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I do not believe in deities. There's a distinction there, and I'm very careful about that. But I, you know, I think we are very clear about that. I mean, atheism, I'm looking at defineatheism.com. Absence of belief in deities. Absence rather than opposition is indicated by the alpha. I mean, the alpha primitive. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's the position you're taking, correct? Yeah. So, okay. So my point is, and this is part of the reason I made this point. Quote, the A in atheism must be understood as negation instead of absence, as not instead of without. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist, or more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods. So are you categorically rejecting that position? That sounds like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy again. I'm quoting from them. Which are you, are you rejecting that? Yeah. So, because I remember it sounds like that. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is narrowing the scope. They're limiting the scope of what atheism is there, and they're recommending it in academic philosophy for usage in a specific specialized area. And there are many people who are professional philosophers who don't hold to that. Stanford Encyclopedia's article is an opinion piece, by the way. It is quite popular, but it is an opinion piece. But that doesn't matter. The thing is, I don't fully disagree with them because atheism is an umbrella that includes what they're promoting. In that paper, they acknowledge what the common usage is, absence of belief in deities. Not in so many words, but they do mention that. So, they do acknowledge it, and they're making a recommendation just for their specialized area. So, for specialized, so for philosophy. For the philosophers who accept the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's definition, yeah. And I do think that, I do disagree with them on that. I do think that they could have done better, but it's the way it is. Yeah, so Britannica, a more adequate characterization of atheism consists in the more complex claim that to be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons. Now, my expectation- So, are you rejecting Britannica as well? Are they also incorrect and only talking to a very niche subset of philosophers in some way? Britannica, okay. So, I'll address this, and then I want to get back to the debate topic because I didn't expect that we'd be going into this huge, this big rabbit hole. The Britannica Encyclopedia is attempting to impose an intellectual consideration on what atheism is by my read of it. And the thing about atheism being not believing in deities is that there is no minimum or maximum intelligence requirement for that or intellectual requirement for that. Not believing something is not requiring that you actually understand the concept in my view. So, you're suggesting that the quote, comprehensive definition of atheism is not being specific. That's not, what I just read from is not from like an introduction or from little abstract. That's from like the, it's literally comprehensive definition of atheism. According to Britannica? Yeah. Well, they are putting an intellectual consideration onto it, which is an additional requirement that really doesn't apply to atheism. It can, but it's optional. Okay, so do you- Up to the individual atheist to decide whether or not they want to have an intellectual requirement on it? Oh, okay. So, do you reject the Collins definition of atheists? So, there are different definitions in different dictionaries. I've cited a number of dictionary definitions on one of the websites that I run. Quite a few, including older dictionaries that go back to the 1800s and I think 1700s as well. So, it showed the continuity here. But I think that we're way off topic here. We're talking about skepticism. And the point I'm making is that if you, if your definition of atheism and the, versus the actual definition of atheism. My personal definition is standard definition. So, Collins, an atheist is a person who believes that there is no God. Merrim Webster used to- And then it says compare agnostic. So, you're doing comparison at that point. Cambridge, someone who's not believed in any God or gods. So, you got- Not believing in any God or God or gods or related to such beliefs. And you got the dictionary.com, a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings. So, I mean, and I can keep going. I've got a whole bunch more of these, but the point is- Definitions are kind of muddled. There's been some confusion. And there is, part of the problem is that there are people that I suspect may have had certain motives in writing these definitions. If they were actually taking a look at the linguistic structure, like they do with most of the words, they would be defined better than they are. And there are other dictionaries, like the Merrim Webster dictionary, that used to define it as the belief, the doctrine that there's no gods. And a few years ago, they changed it. Merrim Webster has updated it to be consistent with the etymology, linguistic structure, and common usage. So- Hang on. Did I just hear you correctly- Did I just hear you correctly that you think there was a conspiracy to have a false modified definition? And secondarily, did you just state that the people, whoever has been assigned all across multiple dictionaries, to determine the correct definition of the word, that they haven't been studying the linguistics? No, I am- Because you just stated that. You just said that. I stated that if I suspect that there's been a problem there. I did. There was a conspiracy theory.  Would you actually say that to somebody's face publicly? Who was the quote unquote expert to actually go and determine what it is? Yes, I'd be willing to talk to the experts about that. Are there any other words you would be willing to make the argument about? I guess, agnosticism would possible be another one. Theism would be another one, if they're defining it to be only monotheistic, because theism is an umbrella term for things like polytheism and monotheism. Monotheism being belief in one deity, polytheism being belief in multiple deities. But again, we're off topic here. I mean, Oxford, theism, the belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god.  So do want to hear the rest from Randolph, and then I promise to come back to you. I think that we're off topic here and that John is going to great lengths to try to use a different definition of atheism than what is in common usage. I, well, my response to that would be audience, go do some basic Googling for yourself. And when there's papers written two and a half years ago about the fact that what my opponent is claiming is the common definition, is actually a relatively new iteration, predominantly in the United States and Canada. I find it very entertaining to be hearing that from my opponent. But in relation to skepticism, the, I would say that you're extraordinarily skeptical. I don't know if it's rational skepticism, but you're definitely skeptical about whether or not anybody who disagrees with your outlier interpretation is somehow conspiring to taint the interpretation, the definition of a word. Well, I question it when I see something like a, I think it's reasonable to question this and wonder about this when you'd see a definition that smacks of an attempt to vilify atheists by saying the doctrine that there are no gods. It seems ridiculous and absurd to me. Like when the dictionaries have that, my first question is, okay, what doctrine? Nobody's been able to present any such doctrine because there is none. And I'll just point out that American atheists, the Puerto Rico atheists, the UK atheists, the Australian atheists, and the atheist Ireland, as well as my organization that I run, Canadian atheists all agree that atheism is an absence of belief in deities. So it means not believing in deities. And I'll just clarify a little further. We're not excluding people who make, who use a more narrow scope definition for themselves. We're just taking this all encompassing, all inclusive umbrella definition that is consistent with linguistic structure and etymology and common usage. So do you believe there are no gods? I don't hold that belief that there's no deities. So the answer is no. So you're an atheist? Yeah, I'm an atheist. No, I'm not an atheist. They're exactly the same thing. The non-prefix and the a prefix are synonymous. These are affixes in linguistics. And they're quite common now. There are times when they're used in different ways, but those are the outliers. Interesting. So you're saying that... You're asking for an anti-prefix. So you're suggesting that the... So it is your position, is your formal position that a non-theist is a direct synonym of atheists. Yeah, just non-theism is just not so often used because it more easily rolls off the tongue to say atheist than non-theist for most people. And the same thing when people talk about anti-theism, they don't use im-theism, they'll use anti-theism. Because anti-theism is easier to say than im-theism. Right, but non is not taking a formal position. It's not, it's neither affirmative, it's not an affirmative. Correct, same with the a prefix. They're synonymous. You're suggesting that the a has... Non-moral or amoral are the same. Okay, so you're not suggesting that the amoral portion would be an outlier versus against? So, no, non-moral is something I never really hear people say. Well, just because people don't say it, there's a lot of words that people don't say that has zero to do with whether or not the position. And right now we're talking about atheists. I'm trying to clarify something. So people don't typically say non-moral, they typically say amoral. Same with atheists. People don't typically say non-theist, we typically say atheist. Non-theist and atheist are synonymous, just like amoral and non-moral would be synonymous. So are you suggesting that this is true in philosophy? Depends on which philosophers you're talking to, I suppose, because when I see philosophical papers where people are defining terms differently, then I know I'm going to read the paper in that manner. So I think this goes back to one of the earlier points I was making. You operate from a 100% subjective worldview that can metamorphosize to fit whatever your current position is. I think my worldview is definitely subjective. If you and I agree on certain things, we can make objective or non-subjective determinations about various things. But the rest of what you're saying, as I strive to be a proper skeptic, I look at different things and try to figure out where I'm getting things wrong and getting things right as best I can. What is your understanding of skepticism? My understanding of skepticism, as I stated in my opening statement, is that it's the application of doubt about the truth of a statement, of the truth of something. Can you repeat that one more time? Okay. In my opening statement, I stated skepticism is the application of doubt about the truth of something. That was the first sentence. Okay. So do you think that you shouldn't... What I understand of is the philosophy position that one should refrain from making truth claims and avoid the postulation of final truths. Yeah, I think that's quite reasonable. And this is where propositions are interesting because you did mention some propositions earlier and in your presentation, which was very professional looking, by the way. You had made some kind of a mention about different responses to propositions. And my understanding of the proposition is that either you're accepting it or you're not. And if you need to know further details, presenting additional propositions is basically the key to that. Right. And that's why theism is a proposition. Yes, it is. Atheism is... Well, anti-theism would be a proposition. Okay. Okay, so if I make the statement, I don't believe in deities, I suppose you could put that as a proposition and you can accept that or not. Like if you were... If somebody were to come along and tell me that they believe in a deity, because it's a common thing for people to do, I'm generally just going to believe them. Now, if you were going to tell me that you believe in Hindu goddess and you're wearing a big cross on your... around your neck at Christian crucifix, I'm going to have some doubts about what you're saying, of course.  I have no doubt that you believe. Okay. So are you suggesting that the A and anti...  Nope. Okay. Anti-indulgent opposition. Right. Against. Right. Opposed. Versus the rejection of. So the, I think, by rejection is a bit of a loaded term. It comes up and gets confused a lot. Sometimes people are kind of writing rejection when they mean not accepting. And it can be taken as an opposite sometimes. There is... Well, non-accepting would be an affirmative no. No. No. Okay. Here, I'll give you an example. Refusal to accept something is an affirmative no is an affirmative no by default. Nope. Nope. And I'll give you an example. Let's consider this. All right. Follow through this with me. If three options are paper, scissors, and rock, and I make the statement rock is the winner, and you don't accept that statement, which of the other two is the opposite? You're in my problem. You're in a try option scenario versus a dichotomous one. We need, well, but we need to... Is God the existence of God dichotomous? Sure. Okay. So then your point is irrelevant. But not a no because not accepting... You can have yes, no, maybe. Not no. Not accepting the proposition doesn't mean I've accepted it. You need to put in an additional proposition to find out if the opposite is the case. That's how it works. That's my understanding. Okay. So is it your position that theism is not a proposition? Oh, no. I think theism can be stated as a proposition, indeed, because it's the belief in one or more deities. Okay. So how is antitheism? It is the... Not the rejection of... It is the belief that there are no deities. So it's the opposite of theism. Okay. But you said you just lack belief. Yeah, I don't hold a belief in deities. So you don't reject the belief that God exists. You just lack a belief. Say that again. I just want to make sure I understand you clearly. So you're not rejecting the belief that God exists? Yeah. I don't hold a position on it anyway. Anyway, a belief position, no. Okay. So you take neither an affirmative, nor an affirmative yes or an affirmative no. Therefore, you are not an atheist. Yes, I am. No. I don't believe in deities. I'm an atheist. So okay. So I think... So your skeptical position here is, I don't actually have to make any... You try to apply skepticism to atheism in the position that I don't actually have to take a position. I don't apply skepticism to atheism because it's not holding any position. It's the null hypothesis. It's the default. So the rational conclusion of skepticism in face of any belief statement is not believing. Oh, hang on. Any... Just repeat that. I think if somebody's to present that to say, oh, I believe that this goddess or this god is real or something. And I think you should too. The skeptic is going to come along and say, okay, I have doubts about this, whether this is real. Why should I believe in this if it's... Unless I can know that it's real. So the rational conclusion is to not believe it. Unless you can provide some sort of... Going to go into Q&A shortly, gentlemen. So what you're stating is that it's always going to be the rational conclusion to reject a position. To not accept it. Well, not accepting is... If you didn't accept something, you rejected it. Yeah, there's a bit of an implication with a bit of baggage on that. That's why I prefer to use the word not accepting. But if you're meaning not accepting by rejecting, yeah, I can go with that.  Accept, reject. If you're going to claim... Well, I'm going to go more with not accepting. Okay, is that synonymous with rejecting? Well, depends on your perspective. This goes back to semantic gamesmanship that is a very common tactic with YouTube atheists, specifically. Okay, what do you mean by YouTube atheists? Maybe you can clarify what you mean by that. People running around YouTube, such as yourself. Having debates and crowing that things such as your position of lacklism are somehow the standard. When it's clearly delineated that they're not the standard, it's a niche subset on YouTube and in some online communities. Versus philosophy in general. Do you think Graham Oppie... Would you say that Graham Oppie is a well-known atheist philosopher of high regard? Yeah, I've spoken with him once. Okay, well, Graham Oppie is on video. I watched it yesterday. Rejecting your position. Okay. So are you suggesting... I would like to do that. I will have to take a look into that. I'm wondering now when you're talking about YouTube atheists, when you use that term, it sounds like you're meaning all atheists who are on YouTube. And my experience is that not all atheists on YouTube share this view. Okay, so then you... Okay, per your admission there, then perhaps you're the outlier, not the commonality, but you've claimed throughout this entire debate that your position is the correct established one for the majority. And I suggested that etymology and linguistic structure both support me along with common usage that I'm encountering both online and offline. So the positions I put forth which reject that position clearly are false. I didn't accept them. So are we not accepting or are we rejecting? Which one? Well, you mentioned about the Royal Society writing an article and you asked me to indicate a position on it. And I told you I can't take a position because I've not read the whole article. So there's an example of one that I can't reject, but I can say I don't accept based on the introduction that you gave it. So are you rejecting or accepting Stanford? It's not a black and white thing. I think that Stanford is limiting the scope of what atheism means. If it's to be used broadly in common language, then I would disagree with them. So they actually acknowledge that atheism is the absence of belief in deities. It is without goddesses and gods. And they're recommending a usage for a particular academic area of philosophy. So they're kind of looking at a specific community and recommending it for that community is how I see that. So when they specifically stated in two different positions that it's not the absence, are you claiming that those sentences are incorrect? They actually acknowledged that it is commonly used this way. And what they're saying is they're making a recommendation for a much smaller group of people who are in academic philosophy to use it this way. Now, not all academics agree with them. So you are formally rejecting. Well, what they're doing in academia, the Stanford University is up to them. Okay. So are you or are you not formally rejecting the position that is clearly stated by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about the term absence and it not being applicable? So if that's going to be outside of the scope of their university, then yeah, I'll reject it. But within the scope of their university is up to them how they manage it. So I'm not nodding here. I'm giving clear answers. How is that remotely clear? Okay. You've been claiming that that's not actually the that none of the things that the sources I've used, which are you suggesting that Stanford, Britannica, Royal Society, and what was it? So we have philosophy and philosophy encyclopedia.  No. I'm not making that statement. Okay. So you're saying that even if they take polar opposite positions to you, you're claiming that they're the ones that are the outliers, not you. Well, I haven't read the Royal Society's article, for example. Okay. Well, we'll move the Royal Society. Since you accused me of not reading things from one of my other sources, and obviously you read it before.  The internet encyclopedia philosophy, I agree with their first paragraph. And I know that there's and I find it interesting that they present some different ideas in different parts of that article. So, you know, I think I agree with parts of it and disagree with parts of it. Britannica is definitely reputable, but I feel that they're adding an intellectual consideration to me, which seems arbitrary and beyond the scope of what atheism is. So I think they're erroneous in that point. So is your skepticism applied to methodological naturalism, which I believe is a position you take? Methodological naturalism. So, excuse me while I quickly look that up, unless you want to just tell me what that is. I know.  I'm amazed that I've witnessed you have debates where you talk about things like multiple big bangs and such to some of that's plain existence, but you don't know what methodological naturalism is. Okay, methodological naturalism, well, I want to make sure that I'm using the term in the right way here. So methodological naturalism is a way of acquiring knowledge. It is a distinct system of thought concerned with a cognitive approach to reality and is thus a philosophy of knowledge. Studies by sociologist Elaine Uckland suggest that religious scientists in practice apply methodological naturalism. So I'm still not entirely clear on it. It's not a doctrine, but an essential aspect methodology of science. So it sounds like it's utilizing science to determine things. So when it comes to reality, one of the best tools that it seems to me that we have is scientific endeavor and scientific consideration and scientific investigation of things. So I definitely would be siding with science on that because it has repeatedly demonstrated to be reliable. And when new facts are presented, that it doesn't resist change. It adapts and follows with new discoveries. And one example of that, you mentioned the Big Bang and multiple Big Bangs. It was Hawking and Penrose, as I understand, who updated their paper in the face of quantum physics to support multiple Big Bangs as creating the universe rather than just one single Big Bang. And so that would be an example of how science improves. So perhaps in earlier times, we were only capable with the tools we had at the time scientifically to make this kind of determination that the Big Bang may be what it is that we started with. And there were Catholics who contributed to that science, by the way. And it was great. Anybody can contribute to science, which is wonderful. But now with the quantum physics understanding, they've adapted and expanded on it, pun not intended. So is your position as a lack theist that even though it's something we have not observed, we cannot prove, cannot repeat, we should believe? That's not my position as an atheist. No. I'm talking about as a skeptic now. Oh, as a skeptic. All right. So I don't see skepticism as doctrinal. So I think it's mainly just about embracing doubt and questioning the veracity of a claim. And it's a very useful tool set in that regard. OK. So as a skeptic, as an important tool in that. So as a skeptic, you claim that there is no reason to believe that God exists, correct? No, I don't make that claim. I don't claim that there is no reason. That would carry a burden of proof. So here's a question. Do you actually consider the arguments? No, Pascal's wager is a reason that can be rational to people who consider it to be a logical thing to consider. So have you personally actually considered the arguments in favor of God? I have considered some. There's like one of them was the clam cosmological argument that's been presented as something that proves God. But it doesn't seem to me to connect the dots to proving God. OK. OK. So just to clarify, you explain me lack of belief. You claim that skepticism is the ration or atheism is the rational inclusion of skepticism. But for your own admission, you haven't really gone and looked into the arguments for or against. Yeah. You just kind of reach this position somehow and you're not actually investigating it. Is that correct? So no, I have looked into some of these. Now I wished that we had spent more time in this debate going over some of those kinds of considerations. But unfortunately, we ended up talking about definitions and things like that. I did a number of times attempt to bring the conversation back, but you wanted to keep going on and on about definitions. So that's fine. I went along with that. So just to clarify, you don't act. So just to clarify, you don't actually go and personally research the evidence for or against God. I have. You have, but you're not currently doing so. And on an ongoing basis, you're not looking at new arguments and new things. Is that fair? I'm just building a studio right now. I don't have enough time for that at the moment. But if there's some new arguments, I'll certainly. So you have enough time to run multiple websites to attempt to normalize atheism and to help people realize to stop vilifying and such. But you don't have enough time to go and pursue the freely and easily accessible information for evidence and arguments for and against God online. You have time for this whole debate and any preparation you did, which, well, you did have one paragraph opening, so it might not have been that much. But the. There was more than one paragraph there. You're not actually actively going and doing this, but you're being an active atheist? I'm an activist. You're an activist who is not actually researching whether or not you're the position you were being an activist for is valid. How did you jump to that conclusion? Because I just asked you if you are on an ongoing basis, doing active research into the arguments, which to which you said not really. And then you just said, I'm building a studio. I don't have time to do so, but you have time to be an activist as an atheist. I said it comes and goes. Sometimes I have more time for this and I do this. There's only so much time in the day. I'm not going to live forever. So there's other things in life I have to take care of, but I do research it. It comes and goes. I'm not actively researching anything at this moment, but what was the last thing you researched as a skeptical atheist? I was looking into Pascal's gambit, Pascal's wager. And I have reviewed it before, but I looked into it a bit further and I came to the conclusion that it's gambling. And I compared it to a casino in a recent stream. So how casino operates in that when it comes to gambling, the odds are usually stacked against the gambler. And it's no different Pascal's wager. And one thing I pointed out is that with Pascal's wager, there is this idea that all you have to do is to believe in God and you will go to heaven. But then what I also added to that, it seems that after people accept that wager, and they start believing, then there's upselling that goes on and people start being required to do more, to donate to the church, to get involved in church activities, to do other things, to promote it to other people and get other people converted. And that wasn't part of the original deal. So there's issues like that that I've raised about it. Okay, so Pascal's wager, hang on, James, hang on one second. The Pascal's wager has... We're going to jump into Q&A. So do appreciate it. This isn't the topic for tonight's debate. If you guys want to come back and debate Pascal's wager, I'm open to that. But do want to jump into these questions unless you guys have anything on the topic that we actually have for tonight. I just wanted to say, John, thank you for really appreciated this time with you. I wished we got more into the different arguments for God, but I'm glad that we hashed this out. Gosh, I want to remind you folks, our guests are linked in the description. You can hear plenty more where that came from. And that includes, if you're listening to Modern Databate via podcast, you can find their links in the description of that as well. And so if you haven't checked out the podcast yet, pull your phone out, pull up your favorite podcast app, and find Modern Databate as we've been really excited that a lot of people are saying, oh, it's useful while I'm like cleaning around the house, driving to work, whatever it is. And so that's encouraging. And so what we're going to do is, jumping into these questions, do appreciate it. Thanks so much. Steven Steen, nasty guy, says, rocks are the ultimate example of objects with a rational position. Hashtag Checkmate Atheist Rocks. I have, I guess that's for me. The, this idea went around, it comes up from time to time that people are claiming rocks are atheists because rocks don't believe in deities. Now there's a difference between an implicit and explicit view on this. So implicitly rocks would qualify as not believing in deities as atheists. But what I'm talking about with atheists is the explicit version of this, where someone explicitly is not believing in deities, they have the capability of deviating from that. They have a mind. They can conceptualize what a deity is and then decide whether to believe in it or be convinced by it. That would be an example of explicitly being an atheist is one who is capable, not necessarily one who has considered these ideas, but one who has at least the capability of considering these ideas. And so rocks and other inanimate objects obviously don't have those capabilities, so they would only be implicit. I'm not really interested in debating about implicit to this implicit point. Gotcha, this one coming in from Grimlock says, here's one for you Maddox. If you want to respond now, they say, so far this is all semantics and well poisoning. This is Grimlock. They say get on topic Maddox. If they don't understand the point being made in relation to the topic, then I think that similar to my opponent, they need to go do some research. Next up, Sebastian says, John, I am a biblical creationist and I believe in a young earth. What is your opinion about the age of the earth? Have you looked into flood geology? Thanks, Sebastian, for that question. I've looked into it. I lean towards young earth. From a biology perspective, I do completely. I'm open to other stuff, but I generally lean young earth. Gotcha, and this one coming in from Mark Reed, thanks says Maddox. This Stanford says definitions, plural of atheism. It has multiple definitions. Why did you omit the other definitions it provides? The other definitions do not contradict the point that's being made as the foundation that's being set up as to what the freaking word is and what it's founded upon, which is what I was reading. Next up, Daniel G 603 says, an atheist is traditionally someone who believes there is no God. That's not a claim to certainty. Turn off atheist experience. I disagree. Gotcha, this one. Atheist experience is a great show. You've been on there too, haven't you, James? No, I never actually have. Oh, you were doing stuff with Matt Dill. Oh yeah, we were on set. Yeah, at the building. That's true. There's been some debates. That's right. Yes, that is true. Grimlock, thanks for your question. Sorry, I'm going to interject on that one. It's interesting that the morphological fusion point that I was making is something that Dillante talk uses all the time when he calls himself an agnostic atheist. So I guess my point that I was pointing out is actually a valid one, at least according to the actions taken by Matt Dillante. Good. Next up, Daniel G 603 says an atheist. Oh, we got that one. Grimlock says, let's just replace atheism to be unbelief in God's. Now debate the topic. John has no argument and has resorted to such a cheap red herring. No, there's nontheists, agnostic, apotheists. I mean, there's many different clearly defined positions. Are you just going to negate all of those? Or does atheism equal the denial or rejection of belief in God? I mean, it's the existence of God. Like, that's what it means. The other ones have other meanings in relation to God. The semantic lunacy here is quite entertaining. Chris Gammond says, Maddox, if you accept Randolph's definition of atheism, do you then admit he has won the debate? If not, please argue based on his definition. Well, A, I'm no have to argue on somebody else's definition when my definition or the definition that I put forth is delineated. His is an outlier. And I mean, we can debate it all back and forth, but in what universe do you have to concede? I guess you're maybe in beta world, but that's not. I guess that's why you're not having a debate. Depends which country you're in. Some you have to concede always. Next up, I'm not in France. Everyday valet. I didn't mean France. Everyday valet says, if God is real, he should know what it would take to convince that he is real and yet he has failed. You know, I find this one so, that ongoing talking points, so annoying. Okay, I'm just going to use my opponent as an insult, but I'm going to use Randolph as an example of this. Per his own admission, he isn't actively going and researching the evidence for or against God, just like the vast majority of the individuals who make that statement of, if God was real, he knows what would make convince me. I was like, well, hmm, let's see, maybe if you actually took the initiative and went and looked, you would also become convinced. I have looked and I'm not convinced. Not in a long time, apparently. No, that's incorrect. This question. You admitted it. Coming up from Mr. Bodidli says, Maddox spends 20 minutes arguing definitions in bad faith, then accuses others of arguing semantics. L-O-L also, James. Thanks for hosting this. Oh, you're very welcome. So this guy, what's this guy's name? Diddly? Mr. Bodidli to you, John. Okay, so Bodidli, the entire point of reading definitions and getting the clarification was to avoid semantic BS. If you can't comprehend that, perhaps your IQ is not high enough to be involved in these sorts of conversations.  Next up, Chris Gammon. I clarified in the opening statement what was meant. It was very clear. Go ahead, James. Chris Gammon strikes again, says Maddox, you can ask for examples of what would qualify as proof of God forever. He gave an example and admits he could imagine other options. Come on. Okay, so if you can imagine other options, why would it be the rational position to take? Well, the one that I'm most certain of is if God made me God. I mean, if it's going to require that level of certainty, then I question your ability to have critical, do any kind of critical thinking if it requires all the way to that extreme to reach a positive conclusion. I mean, it's like, in no other context would it be like, I literally have to be Michael Jordan in order to believe that Michael Jordan could dunk from the free throw line. Like that's the equivalent of what we're talking about here. Versus, hmm, I wonder if something could, can't actually do that. It's, it's just point out that's a mischaracterization of what I said. I said that I want to experience two of God's characteristics, not all of them, which is not the same as saying that I want to be God. I don't want to be God. So back to the whole point of playing semantic games. If you are omnipotent, are you not by obvious to anybody with remote modicum of common sense? If you're omnipotent, you are a God. Yes or no?  If you're omnipotent, are you a God? That is a manipulative question. And it is and the answer is nuanced. If the only requirement is to be omniscient, omnipotent to be a God, then I guess that would be as a matter of consequence. Yes, it is not my intention. This one coming in from Will Stewart says, John, why do you find it necessary to use a narrow definition fallacy in order to negate Randolph's position? Would it not be more logical to argue the merits of his position rather than the definition of an encyclopedia? Okay. So again, obviously these atheists are not comprehending the point being made, which is that's, oh, I've had many reactions with the if you don't comprehend that the entire point of this was about skepticism being the or atheism being the rational, operative word, rational conclusion of skepticism. If you're not, one of the recognized issues with skepticism is that you go so far out that you require things like literally being omnipotent in order to believe that God exists. And then you're going to try and apply that outlier mindset to lack theism versus the rejection of God and the recognized definition of it. They just clearly defined it from multiple sources to remove any nuance from the equation and then to create a foundational position to have the debate about skepticism and then we continue down the semantic rabbit holes. And then I'm the one that's accused of this. It's very hard. It was one example of a requirement that would satisfy my my doubt. That fellow, by the way, was a Christian. Now, Sigma N, he says, John. Who was? Will Stewart asked that last one. He's a Calvinist. Will Stewart's a Christian? He's coming. He's coming on Monday. He's a Calvinist. He's in debating. Oh, I was a Calvinist. That makes no sense. Sigma N, he says, John, what novel, testable, repeatable future predictions can we make to help us discover the glory of God, parentheses without faith, etc. Okay, I'll make a prediction. I will predict that we will discover a subset code-based information transfer protocol from carol-induced spin selectivity and that it is an additional layer of information that is sent through electrons. When do you have a time frame in mind when that prediction will come to fruition? Within my lifetime. Juicy, this one coming in. Appreciate it. From Sigma N, he says, John. Oh, we got that. Amy Newman says, aftershow on my channel. That's linked in the description, folks. 11 p.m. after this debate and question for John. For John, are you an agnostic theist? If so, on a scale from one to 100, how confident are you that a God is real? All right, repeat, please. They asked, let's see. Are you an agnostic theist? If so, so on a scale of one to 100, where would you fall in terms of your degree of belief? That God exists? Yeah. I mean, 95. Gotcha. And Will Stewart strikes again. He says, John, are definitions nothing more than the editorial process of the individual that wrote them? Should you not be more interested in debating the position of your opponent? Well, actually, I attempted to do that in some positions, regarding the lack of belief, and there was a nuanced dancing about that one as well. James Grove throws his hat into the ring. He says, Maddox, atheism is the result of logic and reason. Therefore, atheism is inherently rational. See how that works? The amount of suspension of rational thought, logic, and basic reasonable considerations by a significant portion of YouTube atheists would directly countermand that position. I'm not suggesting that all atheists are illogical. Would just say it's not the common reasoning. Next up, Mark Reed says, Maddox, what does amoral mean? Next. We already went over this in the debate. They can go back and watch. Gotcha. They did talk about the prefix A earlier.  We went around about A and the definitions of it, and the meanings of it, not and without, over and over and over again, versus non. Whether non and A are synonymous, go do some research. Mark Reed, let me know if your question came in after that. I assume it might have come before they talked about the prefix A. But let me know. Jamie Russell says, Atheist equals not a theist. Ignostics lack belief. Lack theism is tipping hat that you reject the agnostic title. But pointing out, you aren't atheist. Is that for me? I don't know. That's, is that Jamie Russell? Yes. Yeah, that's random. Can you read it again? I'm, there are quite a few terms tossed in there. They say Atheist equals not being a theist. That's why I agree with that. Ignostics lack belief. Lack theism is tipping your hat that you reject the agnostic title. But pointing out, you aren't atheist. So agnosticism is about not knowing whether deities are real. It's an epistemological category. It's focused, it's centric to knowledge. Atheism is about not believing deities, which is, you could say psychological state. It's a belief statement or a non-belief statement. So not believing Atheism, not knowing agnosticism. Gotcha. Karag Knight, well, thank you for your question, says John and Randolph need to become Muslims before it's too late. And by the way, if you happen to be a Muslim debater, let us know folks that we are looking for Muslim debaters. It's hard to find Muslim debaters, to be honest. Michael Dresden says, Maddox is right. Graham Oppie is a famous Atheist philosopher and he constantly has to teach Atheists that Atheism is a rejection of Atheism, not absence. Yep. And by the way, the, somehow I was looking for that laugh, that previous question. Not all Atheists deny that gods exist. The gods exist. That's correct. Which is what I was saying in the debate as well. So, are you saying that they are not, are they just an outlier group? No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying everybody who, like people who take an anti-Atheistic position that deities don't exist are also, as a matter of consequence, atheists because they obviously don't believe in deities. So, they don't, they do believe in deities. They just reject them. No, they believe deities don't exist. Well, no, I mean, there's groups, there are subsets of Atheists that actually do accept that gods exist, but they just reject, they still reject them. I mean, yeah, I'm trying to pull, I mean, I read about this yesterday. I'm just trying to pull it up and quote it to you. Those are theists. No, no, no. There is a clearly defined subset of atheists. Let me see if I can pull it up from here. If they believe that deities exist, they're theists. If they don't believe deities exist, they're atheists. It's really that simple. So the rejection, if it goes back to atheists being somebody who rejects, God can still be, it might be an outlier there. So you can find that paper that was talking about this. This one comes in from Jamie Russell, who says Randolph should apply skepticism to why people make distinctions in language. Christianity paved the way to tolerate his lack theism. Bra. Christianity did not pave the way for it. Throughout history, Christianity, even there's a part in the Bible that states that infidels should be killed. And I'll just bring up the section of that. If he's giving me one sec here, I'll have it right away for you. It is, because I have it at my fingertips here. So under the Holy Bible, and I'll read from the King James translation, two chronicles, sorry, two chronicles, 1513, says that whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. That does not sound like Christianity paving the way to atheism to me. Gotcha. And thank you very much for your question. This one coming in from spicy Rhodes who says, what evidence does Maddox need to believe in a different God other than his own? I'm just believing a different God other than his own. Okay. So one, they're going to have to present to me which the other God that I would be concluding about. That's reasonable. Um, otherwise it's just hypothetical. Yeah. I mean, what's this person's name, James? Their name is Spicy Rhodes. Okay. Spicy Rhodes. If you want to have a debate about this, email James. I like that name. Juicy. Maybe you ought to start saying spicy. Webb Bard says, John, why call us atheists? We don't fit your definition. Just because you want to create your own fantasy land doesn't mean that you actually left reality. Atheism is not about creating a fantasy land. Well, I did a video on the atheist fantasy land projection complex which is very, very fascinating. I did it as a joke originally and it's proving itself to be true. Something like that. I'll take a look. And want to quick remind you as we have more questions right here but I want to remind you speaking of links, both of our guests are linked in the description folks. Mr. Bo Diddley says, bringing up IQ John, Christian behavior, question mark, I do declare. You know, I find it very entertaining that people love to talk mad trash when they get called out Oh, that's not Christian. It's like, well, I apologize for you having lived in a soy boy environment where people let you get away with being a jackass. But that's not the world I live in. And if you can't hang, don't come and play. In other words, political correctness is not my master. Next up. Sure. Will Stewart says, John, so now you are in a position to judge the issue of my salvation. Are you claiming to be Jesus? So, since we didn't talk about that or eternal ramifications or not, I'm not really sure where they're coming from on that one. Are you just showing up late to the debate and like throwing in usual BS talking points? No, I think it's because earlier you answered a question and I was asking, is that person an atheist? Do you assume they're an atheist? And so I think that's the same person. I think that's what he's referring to. It is indeed. Okay. Well, again, the everything I said. Calvinist. Just reiterate again. Gotcha. Yeah. And stop badmouthing my soy products, John. What's your deal? Next up. Thank you very much for your question, Jason. You're not only on soy, James. I have so much soy. Nobody has more soy than me, believe me. Jay Pacific says, does John Maddox believe one can come to believe in God by research alone? If so, what is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in one's conviction? So do I think somebody can come to the belief in God through research alone? Yes, I do. Juicy. I think that's probably true. I think if you, people actually would take the time to go and use the resources that are at our fingertips in the modern era to go and look for the elements in relation to whether God does or does not exist, you have to willfully suspend rational thought, critical thinking, and the intellectual capacities we've been blessed with to not reach the conclusion that God exists. And judging from the talking points I hear over and over again from a lot of people on YouTube, as an example, it either comes from a willful refusal to go and do the research or a rejection of things they find because it does not fit with their desperation to avoid any macro level responsibility. Gotcha. And thank you very much for your question. Jay Mixon just came in last minute, says Randolph is a great example of how to debate a gaming trickologist. I'm glad I mentioned Pascal's gambit. Juicy. I don't know what a trickologist is that one of the new slang words you guys use now? I'm guessing they're trying to say that John Maddox was being tricky in the debate. I don't know if I entirely agree with that. Juicy. This one comes in from Mr. Bodidli. He says donating to Maddox's vasectomy and John's soy milk. Well, thank you for that. You're having vasectomy? Congrats. I didn't know that. So, but yeah. We are, let's see. Did you say John's soy milk? You mean my soy milk? They must have meant me. But anyway, yes. No, I can assure you. I mean, John's not having vasectomy. Are you? Okay. Hold on one second. We had one last one come in. Will Stewart. We know this one must be Juicy because James is pondering whether or not he's actually going to read it. No. Let's see. Will Stewart says, so you reject Romans 3, 10 through 17? I think this is the idea when we had mentioned the question earlier of whether or not you could come to believe in God based on research alone and then they said, but wait a minute, but if you do believe that, what is the role of the Holy Spirit? This is his follow-up to you. I'm like, so this is like one of the points in which I'm like so tempted I just wish I could myself insert myself into this debate, but go ahead. John. James, would you like me to read that passage? If you'd like. In fact, yeah, I suppose, because I think for a lot of... I'll read it out and because I think the question's for John. So I'll read it out. From the new international version just came up in Google, Romans 3, 10 through 17 says, as it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.  Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways and the way of peace they do not know. Okay. So that's all about the need for a savior. Let's see. Let's go. What's this dude, this freaking Calvinist name? Will Stewart? Will Stewart. He's actually a really nice guy. Okay. So that's right. Randolph debated him like a week ago. It was a wonderful debate. And we both agreed later on in Amy's after chat that neither of us won. I'm not really certain how, like, what his point is. Like, do you think that the spirit of God cannot reach somebody who is searching for God through the world that surrounds them? I'm pretty sure there's verses. I think in Romans chapter one about people without excuse, because of what they observe around the world, the cosmos, that all things, heaven's another verse, the heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth his handiwork, day and day, earth, peace, and night and night showeth forth righteousness. I mean, if you're going to go down that little nuanced, narrow rabbit hole will, perhaps you should go and look at other things and see if scripture should be interpreted by scripture rather than a very narrow exegesis of a small passage. Juicy, and we do have some other questions. Folks, we might not get to every single question, but earlier some people asked a couple that I do want to get to, because we do still have a bit of time if you guys are okay with it. So Nicolai says, does lack of belief in a unicorn mean the same thing as being convinced unicorns do not exist? And should we come up with two names for these two world views? That's not for me. You know my position on that one. They're not the same thing. One is not holding a belief in unicorns. The other one is taking a belief position that unicorns don't exist. If it was something that gets commonly discussed, then I imagine a word would come up for it. I don't see that there's really enough discussion about it to warrant creating a specific word, but that's up to the general public. So what about what Tom Jum says about, as examples of like farting pixies and leprechauns? Should we do the same thing for farting pixies and leprechauns? Yeah, if you believe they don't exist. No, I'm saying that they apply that to atheism and theism. They do? We could just as easily believe in farting pixies or leprechauns. Insert God. Oh, okay. I didn't know what that had to do with atheism until you said that. Well, that's the whole point about the unicorns. Like, so do we need to have separate word for unicorns? Or leprechauns or farting pixies? I want to give Randolph a chance to respond, and then we do have a super chat as Will Stewart is really throwing his hat into the ring with you, Maddox, but go ahead first, Randolph. Yeah, again, there are different categories, the different classifications. So unicorns is a separate area. Pixies that are taking action in the universe is another category. Leprechauns are another one. They all sound like superstitions. But don't you apply that same premise to the gods of Greek mythology versus the Christian god versus Gaia or any other concept in relation to gods and gods? You mean not applying skepticism? Sure. No, no, no, you're saying that, oh, well, it's just unicorns and leprechauns and farting pixies. Do you apply that same dismissal to the gods of Greek mythology, gods of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any universal mind or anything like that? I don't mean to be dismissive of it. It's just I don't encounter this very often. It's very rare that different ideas like this come up, so I don't really see them. So you don't think spiritualism is a rapidly growing position? So I don't see the need for having a specific word indicating one doesn't believe in those things. But like what I was saying is if it starts getting discussed very commonly, I wouldn't be surprised if a word gets created for that.  Your new buddy out there, Will Stewart, thank you very much, says- These two got a debate. Says no one seeks God, not even one Maddox. I think I would. Oh, John.  If he's all the way to that nobody seeks God, I mean, that's just ridiculous. That nobody seeks God whatsoever.  I don't think it's very nice to call him a clown show. He's a real nice guy. I think he's quoting Scripture Maddox. Just we are on the same page for that, right? He wants to claim that nobody has ever sought God. Is that what he's stating? I can't remember what verse it is, but that's what he's quoting. Again, if you're going into, okay, let's look at, if there is a verse that says that, let's look at context, because there's other verses I know beyond now that talk about man searching for God. So there's many Psalms that go into that concept. So if we want to go very hyper-nuanced, very rigid interpretation of things, which is very common tactic of Calvinists, we can, but I'm not here to debate a freaking Calvinist at 9.06 on Saturday night. If you want to have an after-show at some point, we can. I can't do it tonight because I've got somewhere to be here in like 35 minutes. Well, I've got news for you. Go ahead. I didn't mean to erupt. Whatever, good. He says in another super chat, that's what the Bible says, John. He keeps saying that.  So you're welcome, James. Yeah, I'm sure that's what it was. But thank you very much for your, let's see, James Grobes as... Well, since I've had 99% of the super chats, I guess I think I have been somewhat influential. Good. Next up, Top Dog Shattuck. Don't worry, John, you get all the credit. Next, Top Dog Shattuck says, is it better? I can't deal with Top Dog. Man, that guy is, he is a weird... Are you guys buddies? He's been on my show many times. I've watched, he's always on the Speed of Pudding channel.  What's he saying? He says, Maddox, is it better to be an honest, rational human being than claiming a label? Atheism will come naturally? I don't even know what that means. I think, I'll say Atheism is the natural, the null default, the null hypothesis default. We're not believing in deities. It's something we either create a deity in our own imagination, or mostly I think we learn it from others. Okay, so how is it the null hypothesis if it's actually the common position? I have, I told you earlier in the debate that I actually don't generally consider it a position. Although Atheism can be held as a position if people want to have some... So you just said it's the null hypothesis, and it's the natural one? That's the default. Yeah. So that's a default. So you are saying that it's a position? So if I don't hold a belief in something, it is a position if I have some justification for that. But if I don't have justification for not believing, then it's not necessarily, it can just be like a clock. So do you or do you not have justification for your current Atheist position? I want to give him a chance to respond. Then we got to go to the next question. I don't consider that justification is necessary to not believe in deities. So again, you don't actually go and research whether or not there is evidence for it? Well, that's a separate thing. I do research, but I don't actually... This is the most amazing epic dodge. Wow, this last 30 seconds was worth the entire debate. It's a null position. It's the default null hypothesis. Well, actually, so do I have a position on it? Do you have a... No, no, I don't really. Oh, no, no, I don't have a justification for not believing. I don't believe I need justification for not believing. Okay, so you're suggesting that even though all these other people think they do have justification for it, you don't have to have justification as to why they're wrong. Nobody has to have justification for not believing things. Okay, so in the context of... So are you an activist? Yes or no? Certainly. Okay, so if you're an activist, you are actively putting forth that your position is the correct one. No, I'm not saying... So you don't think that you're actually an atheist? No, no, no. I'm not saying that atheism is the correct position. So you don't actually do anything? I'm saying that atheism should be regarded as normal in society, as a normal thing. To not believe things is normal. That's what I'm promoting. That's what activism is about. Not believe things or just not believe in God? Well, in the case with Canadian atheists, that's definitely the crux of it all. Yes, not believing in deities is a normal thing for... Okay, so put in any other topic, politics, which is another one I know you are active in. Do you take a formal position in politics? You do, because it's delineated on your website. So do you take formal positions as an activist? I do take active positions in politics. So you should take... So you think that if you have a position, you should take action and have justification for your position in politics. I choose to take position in politics, but this is off topic here. We're going to... We're on the same website, right? We have many questions. How many more questions? I know you're a huge fan of Randolph's website, but we do have more questions. Thanks for letting me my website, by the way. Huge student of your work that Maddox is. So you have a position that you need to have. Don't do not mute me. Hold on. If you do, I'm not coming over here. Maddox, Maddox.  Listen, no, no, no. Maddox, don't make me do it. Maddox, seriously, you're being very rude, okay? Maddox, you have to trust me. Listen, Maddox, no, we are going to the next question. You have to stop being rude. We have lots of questions. Nephilim Free, your buddy is asking a question, Maddox. Okay, I'm dead serious. I'm dead serious. Nephilim Free says, semiotics employs symbolism is a property of language and material and can't be produced by material processes. It could not exist if atheist physical materialism were true. Therefore, atheism is not true. Atheism isn't a proposition that can be regarded as true or false. It's a classification of not believing deities. So that is a non sequitur. Juicy. Nephilim Free, I think Nephilim Free would like a debate with Randolph. That folks, would you like to see that? I mean Randolph, I don't know. What do you think? It depends on the topic. We can deal with that later on. Juicy. I have no objection to debate Nephilim Free. It just depends on what the topic is. Well, it's going to be juicy. I'll tell you that. And would you be up for a fun one? Did dinosaurs walk with man? Sure. That's a juicy one. It depends. We'll figure it out offline. James Grove says 350 watching and only 42 likes. He must have been a while since James refreshed his page. We're over that now. But yes, please do hit like if you want to help. That means a lot, folks. Maddox, they also say Maddox equals noob, like noob saibot. And they say thanks, James. Thank you for your kind words, James. Maddox, are you as noob like short for noob saibot or is that an insult? Noob means like a new user. An honest user. So anyway, back to your website. So in politics, do you think you have to have formal evidence in favor of a activist position you take in politics? Well, I'm not an activist in politics, but I do hold position, political positions. I generally try to keep that out of the atheism activism sphere because there are atheists who are on various different, who have different disagreeing opinions about politics and I don't want to alienate people. Right, we're talking about concepts here. So in terms of politics, can you just operate? If you're actually going to be an activist in politics or take formal positions in politics, can you just be like, well, I actually lack a position, even though I'm taking this position? I think if your activism is for people who don't want to be involved in politics, then I suppose you could do that. But for me, I don't really see too much of a point in that because politics are just kind of part of our democratic processes here. And people want to take that. I'm not working actively in politics. I'm talking about like the concept. The concept of taking a position in politics? Yeah. Well, yeah, I think if you're taking a position in politics, that you should be supporting your position. You should have some kind of reason for supporting it. Sure. So if you support a position, then you are rejecting the opposite. Well, here in Canada, we have more than two political parties. So which ones are the opposite? Okay. So do you actually think that the party is the policy? I think you're doing a black and white fallacy here. How am I doing black and white fallacy? You're the one trying to go to a binary. Oh, it's not binary. We have multiple parties. I'm talking about a policy position, an issue not the position of the parties. I'm talking about the policy itself. Well, you know the difference of that, right? Yeah, there can be different solutions in different policies and different positions. And there can be multiple. So to say that not accepting one is rejecting or is accepting the opposite is a mistake because there are very often more than just two options available. Okay. Well, just because there's more than two options available, which I think that's the point I made in relation to this entire topic of, is it binary? Yes, no. Are there additional options? Yes, that aren't binary in relation to atheism, agnosticism, apotheist, theological, non-cognitivist, cognitivist, et cetera, et cetera, in the relations overall topic. So per your own admission in politics, you can have multiple positions. It doesn't have to be a binary on this particular point. Well, politics. You're saying that logic does not apply in atheism. Is that your position? Well, politics is a, this is a different category. What's a different category? Politics is a different category than belief in deities. So the positions you take on anything, are you saying that's like an, like, no, I'm talking about the logic. Are you saying that logic, that's an entirely different type of logic for, like, theism versus politics? No, I'm not saying there's a different type of logic. Well, you just said it's totally different. No, I said politics is a different category than belief in deities. Right, but I was talking about the logic. So are you saying that there's a totally different logic that's applied? No, we want to go to the next question. Where were you rejecting the point I made? Maybe the point wasn't clear the way you thought it was. It sounded like you were saying that not accepting a political position means rejecting it. It means taking the opposite. And that's what I was objecting to. We're jumping back. This one from Will Stewart, your new buddy, John, says, John, come to Amy Newman's after show, and we can chat sometime. I'd like to list the numerous versus that say the same things. I think John already clarified he doesn't have time today, but he can come to your screen. Am I right there? James, I have 12 more minutes I can be on. You got it. EndoXD says, if intelligent design is a thing, why is there... Okay, that's nasty, please. Brian F says... Now, read it. No, it's gross. Read it. John, seriously, it's nasty. Is it the one about multiple... Then why is there hair on my orifice? You like that, don't you? Okay, so look at you. You're as happy as a clam now. Okay, go ahead to answer if you want. Well, he wanted the question read, so maybe he should answer it. Well, I believe, actually, that there has... If he's talking about his a-hole, then there's actually been studies about that in terms of existing out in non-protected areas, shall we say. There can actually be benefits, same thing with the hair on the other side of your body. So a lot of these arguments that people make don't recognize that in specific conditions, they're actually a dramatic advantage versus a disadvantage. And the overexpression of them from a epigenetic perspective, sometimes just purely genetic, but very often epigenetic, is things that could or can be accounted for in other scenarios. So people who operate from this myopic, very narrow understanding perspective, like, oh, I don't like this one thing in this context, but don't understand that there's massive benefits in all these other contexts.  Continue. Next, this one coming in from... Brian F. says, the gospel to Calvinists is hope that God picks you. Me? No, no, no. No, they're jabbing at the Calvinists who think that the only people that have any potential of being saved are the ones that were preordained by God. Everybody else is screwed because God actually doesn't care. He's a very elitist entity that doesn't allow, not only allows a certain number of folks to have the opportunity for salvation. They very often either aren't aware of or reject the premise of the sin offering versus the payment for sins or paying for your individual sins versus being the sin offering. It's amazing how that is misinterpreted. Gotcha. And thank you very much for your question. Jungle jargon. I know that you asked this earlier. I'm assuming that this is a sincere question because we are over our normal time. So I'm assuming you're not trolling. They had asked Randolph, what is your Y chromosome? Does this ring a bell? Do you know what he means? It sounds like a question about biology. I don't have a strong point in biology. So I think there's XY chromosomes and XX chromosomes. I certainly have the male version of XY, I guess. Gotcha. What Jungle's asking is, I know Jungle's asking specifically why is the male and in relation to the world is basically split up into what appears to be the Y chromosome descendants of Noah's sons. So people like the different subgroups of the world all tailor back down into that subset or to those sources. So it's a question about incest, basically. Gotcha. And thank you. If that's your response, wow, you need to go do some research. Well, the idea that we all came from one person or one family does sound incestual. So the idea that we all come from a universal common ancestor doesn't? If they're from different families, no. Okay, so I'm assuming you've never actually researched abogenesis nor evolution. Well, I just stated that biology and evolution are not my strong point. So, again, another example of something you haven't actually researched in relation to your position as an atheist. So how much time do I have right now to research this to answer Jungle Garden's question?  Sure. More than 20 years. Okay, well, I was being... No, no, no, no. So more than. So you've had 30 years? Okay. And why should... So you've had 30 years and you haven't actually... Well, you have to actually let it kind of... Why should I be required to research evolution because I'm an atheist? I'd like to know what the connection there is. We must move. So if an intelligent agent that existed prior to the existence of life was necessary, would that not negate at least locally atheism? It depends on what that agent is. If that agent is a deity, then, yeah, then... No, no, no, no. If it's an intelligent agent that must exist prior to our existence. You mean like the Neanderthals? No, no, no. Before the existence of life on our planet. Oh, like some alien species that maybe drop their seed here. So Pamspermia. Okay. So how does that get to deities? So then who created... Who seeded the aliens? That's a great question. I don't know. So again, we go back to the core of the point is if an intelligent agent of some kind is required to exist prior to our existence and the... Do you take the position that we were created by an intelligent agent or you were not? Well, if that intelligent agent can at least be the Neanderthals, then I guess that would be yes, but that's probably not what you're getting at. You're wondering... No, we're talking about life. We're talking about life on the planet Earth. Neanderthals are hypothetical ancestors of humans. The... We're talking about life. We're talking about the existence of life on the planet. If an intelligent agent is required for the simplest form of life to exist, does that... I mean, does not have... Are you saying that has no relevance to atheism? No, it's... If it's not a deity, then it has nothing to do with atheism. It's completely incidental. Like scientific endeavor is again a separate category like politics. There are atheists who are into politics and atheists have no interest in it. There are atheists with interest in science and evolution, and atheists who have no such interests. So you're saying... So are you stating that Uranus had no relevance to the creation of life on Earth in from a deistic perspective? From a deistic perspective. Earth... Sorry, atheistic perspective. From a atheistic perspective, it's... Again, it's a scientific category. You're dealing with cosmology and evolution and things... And those kinds of ideas and perhaps even philosophy of people are just kind of considering the ideas. Atheism, all these ideas, they're incidental to atheism. Because atheism is one thing, not believing in deities. That's all it is. Right. So you're... Are you suggesting that a deity which is creating...  Well, I don't know if it's a deity. If... See, I don't believe in deities. I actually don't know the answer to this question. I have no idea about this because this is not an area of specialty for me. So I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Okay. In the majority of theistic positions is a deity, the existence of a deity, the root foundation of life. In many theistic beliefs that is the job of the deity or deities, not all, but many. Okay. So if you're going to reject all of those... They're going to move. You don't think that that has the research into that, and having the curiosity to go and determine whether or not those positions have relevance? I'll give you a chance to respond Randolph, then we're going to wrap up. Yeah. You're talking about an implicit conclusion of something, and I don't hold those positions explicitly. So... But as a skeptic, you don't think you're looking at that? We are going to wrap up. We do appreciate your questions. If you guys would like to come back on in the future to debate this topic, well, we'll see if Randolph is up for it. But I want to say, folks, our guests are linked in the description. Both John and Randolph have links to their own YouTube channels in the description. And so that is not only the description box here on YouTube, but also on the podcast. And so I want to say thank you to our guests. It's been a true pleasure to have you, both John and Randolph. Thanks so much for being with us tonight. James, thank you very much. And thank you, John. Sorry, my run-up was a good time. Yeah, absolutely. I'll be back in just a moment with a post-credits scene, folks, letting you know about upcoming debates as we are stoked for some epic ones in the next coming week. So be right back in just a moment. Ladies and gentlemen, that was an epic one. Very exciting. And so I want to say thank you guys so much for all of your support. We really do appreciate it. Good to see you. I love getting to say hi. So truth is hose 101. Thanks for being with us. Funky Swerve, glad you're here. Tuss Beatbox, good to see you again. Sith, glad you're here as well as King101. Thanks for being with us. And Spicy Rhodes, glad you're here. Spicy. And also thanks for your kind words, Paul Nordall. So thank you for another entertaining evening, sending positive vibes your way. Take care, everyone. Thanks so much, Paul. We appreciate that. Let me know if it's pronounced Paul. John Pelosi, thanks for being with us. Glad you are here. And Jay G, glad you're with us. Sky Watcher, good to see you. Sigma N, good to see you again. And then also Word On Strings, glad you are here. Word On Strings. And also Bolly Nacks, thanks for being with us. Randolph Richardson, thanks for your patience. I know I just ghosted you guys. So sorry. I hate interrupting conversations like at parties and stuff. I'm always like, I just ghost people instead. But yeah, so thanks, Randolph, for your patience. I really do appreciate you being on here. And John as well. And so folks, I want to remind you our guests are linked in the description. We really do appreciate them. And so thanks again, Randolph. And Clinton Rosch, good to see you. Did I pronounce it right? Let me know. Farron Salas, good to see you again. Thanks for coming by. And Will Stewart, thanks for being with us. You gotta get me on with John Maddox. That could be a juicy one. And Chris Gammon, good to see you. Chris, are you Chris from Dallas? Chris Gammon, realist, realist. Thanks for being with us. We're glad you're here. And thanks LR for being with us. Are you a vegan? I'm not actually a vegan. However, I do have great sympathy for the vegan arguments. And so that's one way to put it. Likely a zombie, thanks for being with us. Titan Uranus. Oh gosh, I just realized what it means. Thanks for being with us. And thank you so much. We are glad you were here. Apricot Sloth, good to see you. As well as Nikolai, thanks for being with us. Sideshow Nav, good to see you again. So it's a real challenge in moderating tonight. Great job. Thanks for your kind words. That means a lot, Sideshow Nav. And let's see. But yeah, we also, Urschman, good to see you. And Michael H, glad you are here. And it was a juicy one, King 101. I think you're right about that. Will Stewart says, I guess he didn't realize that I'm a regular super chatter. Yeah, I was surprised that he hasn't seen you by now. And then you've been on to debate as well. I don't know. But Mr. Boadidly, thanks for being with us. He says, beta! And yes, you guys. Taliesin Overlander, good to see you again. Thanks so much. And it's true. Hit that like or dislike in order to express yourself.  And Chris Gammon, it was you. You're Chris. Okay, I'm connecting a name to a face. You could say it was good to see you this morning, buddy. Thanks for hanging out. And let's see. Megan Satan is good to see you. Dave Langer, thanks for being with us. Oh, I'm jumping over to the Twitch chat in a sec. James Grove, thanks for hanging out with us. Fox Sushi, glad you're here. And yeah, you guys. We are pumped, though, as you guys. This is going to be epic. You don't want to miss this. We are just loving the fact that Erica, YouTube's favorite daughter, right here. You can see her here. She's going to be debating Mr. Batman on Wednesday. Oh, no. Oh, I put the wrong date. I put Monday. So sorry about that, Erica. They're going to be debating on Wednesday, actually. So sorry, brain fog. But that's going to be epic, folks. So if you have not yet hit that subscribe button. Well, do hit that subscribe button and that notification bell so you can see Erica and Mr. Batman live next week. That's going to be a blast, you guys. So we're really excited about that. And Nicholas of House Strowed. I see you in the Twitch chat, my friend. Thanks for being with us. Brooks Sparrow, good to see you. And Toppotsel, thanks for being with us. And thanks again for your help with our emotes in the Twitch universe. And yes, poor Lucy. Good to see you there. And yeah, I just love it that we have Twitch. People are enjoying the Twitch and that it's growing. And so I'm glad that's useful to people. And thanks, everybody, for helping us get the Twitch going. Like Dave Langer helped us big time. And so thanks for that. Joseph Turcott, thanks for being with us. And let's see here. Am I behind? I am catching up with the chat. Fox Sushi, glad you were here. And yeah, good to see you again. Always looking out for that fake Sushi. And Apricot Smith, thanks for your kind words as you have an addicting show. I'm so glad it's that enjoyable. That's encouraging. And Getsuk Gibbons says, James, I am getting flack for the Mr. Batman debate. Can you hire me a PR squad? I know you're right, Erica. You're going to get a lot of people are going to be like, you shouldn't even do it. You know, it's a bad idea. Believe me, I really think you should. We explained it. You guys, I told the story last night about adventure. Erica, trust me. So says, no one asked me why I agreed I am. Trust me, it's going to be worth it, Erica. Not taking questions at this time. Sorry, hit enter too early. Yeah, trust me, it's going to be tremendous. You don't want to miss that, Erica and Mr. Batman. Grumler, thanks for being with us. Good to see you. And yeah, you guys were pumped for the future, though. And so again, Randolph, I'm so sorry for ghosting you. I wasn't trying to be rude. It was seriously, it was just kind of like a goof. But thank you for your kindness. And so, but yeah, we are pumped. And we are just excited about upcoming debates in addition. So, Erica and Mr. Batman on Wednesday, Monday, Skyler Fiction and Will, who was harassing John in the Superchats tonight, they will be debating on Monday on Calvinism.  That's for sure. Now, I do want to remind you guys, even in the post-credits scene, please do remember to attack arguments rather than the people. We really do want to change our culture in that positive direction, as we do want guests. We do want them to feel welcome. And so the same way that, you know, when, you know, I called out people who were harassing Matt DeLahunty that one night and I said, hey, you know, we do want you to try to attack the arguments rather than the guest. Same thing. We do want that for every speaker. And so that's how we, as a debate channel, work. And so in other words, like, if speakers are like, man, I don't feel like you treat me well and people in the chat are saying this and that, then they don't come back. And so we do want to show them our respect and our appreciation. And so we do have to be consistent with that. And so thanks, Randolph, who said, no worries, James. I really like that you're hosting these debates, contributing to the quote-free exchange of ideas, unquote, which is always a great thing to do. Thanks for your kind words, Randolph. Seriously, that means a lot. And so I think it is fair. Mr. Bo Diddley, if they attack you explicitly, then I actually would say like, I don't care. I don't mind if you then come back at them. I can't really complain about you coming back at them. But are they like, you know, explicitly addressing you or are they, you know, like, I don't know, like, sometimes it's like, well, if they assert their view, they're asserting it. That implies I'm wrong. So I'm insulted. I'm like, you know, if it's stuff like that. But praise IM says, Romans 3 is talking about all those who live under the law rather than grace. Gotcha. And so we are excited, though, the super, you guys, the super S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T debate is coming up this Tuesday with Tom Jump and Jengles. So that is going to be epic. You guys, you don't want to miss them. And so we really are excited for you guys. And so you don't want to miss it, you guys. Erika, that's right. Erika, I've never, I don't see Erika spelled with a K that often. Erika, are you German? Let's see. Manic Panas says, I like how you put the format and durations up at the beginning of the debate. It's good improvement to the opening routine. Thanks for that. I appreciate that support. Mr. Bojidli said, thanks, Meng. Is that, yeah, basically we do want it to be the case that we don't want everybody waiting where they're like, ah, this is like, why am I waiting through all this introduction stuff? And so that's why now we're trying to encourage, like instead of hitting, telling people immediately at the start of the video, like, hey, hit that subscribe button for reminders of future epic debates. Now we just wait until later in the debate. And so we hope that's valuable. The biggest reason we did it is we know that it's like, you guys are here for the debates. That's what you guys want to hear. And so we want to jump right into those debates right when we start. And so thank you guys so much, though, for all of your support. It seriously means a lot. Oh, worldview detective, you're right. A story from my couch surfing days. And I will, let me tell you one. Gutsick Gibbons says, I'm named after my German grandma. That is so sweet. Oh, good for you, Erica.  You know that? In addition to being YouTube's favorite daughter, you're a good egg. So I'll tell you guys a story. This was, I only have so many enemies. I mean, there are enemies who like, there are some people who hate this channel, but I'm not even, I don't consider them e