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It's not rude at all It's a good thing to have that accountability And so we will send you the receipt if you'd like to see it 100% so with that We are going to jump right into it before we do I want to mention both of our guests are linked in the description So if you'd like to hear more from our guests, if you'd like to read more from our guests is Folks you have to click on those links. They're waiting for you right now. They're conveniently already there And so with that we're gonna get started. Dr. Malpass Alex. Thanks so much for being with us and the floor is all yours Okay, thanks very much. I don't think I'll need 10 minutes to start this off Probably because I'm going to present exactly the same argument that I did last time I was on here So we're gonna be talking about the Evidential argument from evil And I have what I call a modest version of that argument and I'll Skillfully share my screen right now I totally know how zoom works amazing look at that Right so you can see that presumably so this is this is my argument. We can't see it yet actually No, the screen share might not be oh there now it's showing perfect cool Okay, good. So this is my modest evidential argument. So some quick Definitions at the beginning by s I just mean some fact about suffering. So Doesn't really matter for the purposes of explaining the argument what that is But it could be you know, whatever your favorite kind of example of suffering is for these types of discussions just slot that in I Is the hypothesis of indifference. So that just means basically something like the kind of nature and Context to moral agents taking the widest sort of sense is not the product of of a mind whether benevolent or Or evil or whatever. It's just not the product of some mind that made it and then Tea is just the hypothesis of theism and by theism here. I just mean you standard Omni God, so all powerful good all knowing creator of the universe And so given those little definitions at the beginning the argument is simply just the probability That that fact about suffering that you're thinking of Would be true given The hypothesis of indifference is quite high Premise to the probability that that fact of suffering that you're thinking of Would be true given theism is quite low and that just means, you know Step three is just rephrasing step one and two really just saying that the probability of suffering on a difference is higher than the probability about suffering on theism And what that just means by definition really is just that s is therefore evidence that favors indifference over theism so it's evidence that Should make you think that the indifference is more likely than theism is Be a couple of words about this before we crack into the Before we see what brandl wants to say about this. Um, you think Well, there's there's a lot of different ways you can go about it. But why do you why should you think that suffering is Um quite high on the hypothesis of indifference. Well, that's because there's no reason to think that um, if we're kind of the If we are kind of the product of an evolutionary process or something like that that's not designed with By some mind that has our interests at heart or something But there's no reason at all to think that there wouldn't be all sorts of Sufferings all over the place Famines and mistakes in nature. You know, nobody's looking up for you. There's you'd expect that type of thing to happen It seems to me there's no reason to expect that everything would be cozy and like sweet and well set up for for life You'd expect sufferings to be there um So it just means that it seems like it's quite quite likely that it would be the case Um, we can obviously go into a lot more detail about that. That's just sort of thumbnail um, but then given theism, um, you would at least prima facie think that certain types of sufferings are not what you'd expect to see um and You know, we're used to thinking about the kind of very strong way of putting this in the kind of logical problem of evil Where which is not the argument I'm making but you know, there's an intuitive force behind thinking well, look if somebody's all All good or perfectly good and can do anything And knows about suffering that they could intervene and prevent Then their goodness means that they would intervene in that And that makes you think that well, they shouldn't be massively Egregious kinds of suffering out there. There might be some Um, fair enough if it serves a purpose or whatever, but where it seems to be pointless and extreme and unnecessary Um Serving no real purpose that really does seem like the sort of thing you wouldn't expect to see and yet if we just look around That sort of thing happens all over the place people dying of starvation animals rippling each other to bits Over millions of years Blah blah blah right so the world seems to be full of Suffering and it seems to have no real purpose to it doesn't seem like it serves any Noble end that we can discern and that just doesn't seem like the sort of thing We would see if theism was and it does seem like the sort of thing we'd see if there was no um intentional agent behind the whole scheme of things um I just so I would also just say look I'm not um I'm not like a super massive advocate for this argument I kind of like this argument and it's fun to talk about. Um, but it's not what I spend most. It's not certainly not where I spend my time um In a kind of academic philosophy of religion sense working on so this is kind of for me interesting I don't have a lot staked on it I think the analysis best analogy is I've been playing a lot of chess recently and I think of this It's more a question of kind of trying out an interesting looking opening But without any real I'm more interested to see how the moves play out and what the game is like when you start playing it like this Rather than thinking I'm going to crush some Christian Theist here and win and prove something or whatever. It's not like that. I'm more interested in exploring um What sort of moves people make when when this argument is presented and Uh, and how the ideas relate to each other and stuff rather than kind of winning or something and it might just be that um Randall's Thought about this a lot more than me and has has the right things to say and can say them much more confidently and I'm probably going to be Thinking things through as I'm speaking. I think Today, so it might just come across the Randall wins because he's Better informed about the argument than me. So I just thought I'd put that out there just in case I get utterly crashed today That's my excuse. Anyway, um Do you want me to leave that up or I mean Or I could take it off and we can just talk I think we could bring it back up once you refer to it Otherwise we Will jump back into the full screen mode with both people cool I'll stop sharing Excellent and the floor is all yours gentlemen. Thank you Well, uh, thank you alex. I appreciate the argument. I appreciate the clarity of it and also Sort of the humility with which you presented it. I mean sometimes These arguments these debates, right? They they start off as as you kind of said of the need to kind of Pillory the other position into the ground And so I think you've you've certainly recognized that reasonable people can can disagree on these kinds of issues And maybe the first thing I'd like to say With that having been said is is that it is important to underscore the limits Which I think you've already touched on but I just like to reiterate or underline that point So the same argument, which I think is a good argument. It's well formed. It's valid for sure The same argument could be used. However with any number of other Parent facts in the world that a person might believe they know And so a person might say, yeah, there's there's this piece right here that alex has summarized And there are all these other things which I think are more likely on theism and so based upon the weight of that I still think i'm perfectly rational and justified in retaining my position And so I with that in mind. I think that that there is a relatively narrow focus of this argument. It's just one piece of a much broader process of reflective equilibrium by which people would take in and want to assess all the evidence that they believe they have available to them So I don't think anything gets settled today. I think this is just part of an ongoing important conversation In terms of theism So I to kind of pick up what alex was saying about some of our assumptions about who god is and that So I think it's it seems to me that on this argument. There's an assumption That god is omnipotent which we understand to be able to actualize any logically possible state of affairs or something like that god is Presumably omniscient so that god knows every actual state of affairs now So it's not like some evil or suffering in the world has escaped god's notice and that's why it's occurring And then god is also omnibenevolent or perfectly good that In a way that would we would reasonably recognize so that To put it in sort of Judeo-Christian terms god desires the shalom of every creature of every sentient being or the wellness of every sentient being To the extent that that's possible And so the the fact that we see this Evil in the world or suffering of course as we can put it either way I think that's a problem I recognize and if you begin with those definitions I would say however It is important to recognize at the outset that there are certainly many different understandings of theism and even of christian theism So there are understandings of christian theism that deny This sense of god's omniscience the deny for example that god can know the actions Can know facts about the future contingent actions of libertarian free creatures Open theism would be an example of that and so open theists have somewhat of a different understanding Where they can have a different resource in terms of their understanding of who god is Then you have process theists and some process theists or christian theists started with alfred north whitehead but people like charles harkshorn sort of introduced process theism to the christian tradition And process theism denies god's omnipotence in this classic sense and so God is actually limited in gods ability to prevent evils in the world And thomas j. Ord is an example of a well-known christian theologian who's actively defending a process understanding of god And then you have even christian theists who appeared to deny god deny god's perfect goodness So an example is mark ron case. He's a christian biblical scholar. He wrote a book called raw revelation Not raw raw but more like r a w talking about the sort of morally problematic dimensions of scripture of the bible And part of his explanation is that god is morally imperfect and is sort of developing in his Own understanding now. I've got disagreements with all of those theologies So I do want to align with sort of the classic omni attributes that I think do undergird this argument, but I also want to concede at the outset That even if a person did believe the weight of this argument was sufficiently strong to require some sort of revision in their belief It wouldn't entail the abandonment of theism It could very well entail the revision of their understanding of theism. So you revise some To some degree your understanding of god's omniscience his omnipotence or your understanding of his perfect goodness And still be a theist having reconciled yourself to this distribution of evil in the world So, uh, I I have a lot more to say for sure, but I just maybe I'll stop at that point and just ask Alex has anything in reply Um Well, that was a nice Explanation of yeah, and I mean I can I agree that So this is one piece of evidence that we're considering in isolation from the Total data that we could be considering but obviously space permitting we can't we can't consider everything all at the same time So we're just considering this piece of evidence on its own So it's like picking up one item from a crime scene and just having a conversation about that and not looking at the rest of This crime scene and just working out whether that would be expected on different hypotheses or whatever um, and yeah, it's not like um The argument so modest in a way that it it's sort of useless as a cancer apologetic Because I'm changing anyone's mind or anything right? That's not my goal Um, but modest premises are easier to defend. I think that's the goal really is it It's it sort of seems like something is more reasonable I mean people generally take it that there's really ambitious logical problems of evil Are just too ambitious and it's not feasible to to maintain them these days in in the literature. It's more sort of interest in weaker arguments a bit like this um And it's interesting as well Yeah, you could You could bite the bullet and just say okay that evidence does point in this direction As you said and um, but still be a theist So that's all that's good and I agree with that. So I guess I'm curious to though Now what what move you want to make when I feel like I've you know, king's pawn to d4 now. What do you do now at this stage? I like I like the ongoing chess theme. I just watched the queen's gambit on netflix great show Um, although I don't have a mind for chess myself. Well, let let me respond like this and see what you think of this so, um All things being equal you would expect a good driver To ensure that every child in the car wears a seatbelt And I think that that's and so the hypothesis then would be this to run an allergy with your argument That if the driver is a good driver, then we should expect children to wear seatbelts If the driver is not a good driver all things being equal We would expect the children not to wear seatbelts or that that would count as evidence that the driver is not a good driver But what if we say the bigger story is That we believe the driver is piloting a school bus And in the school bus It's not advisable for children to wear seatbelts for various reasons In that case the fact that children don't wear seatbelts does not count against the driver being a good driver Because we believe the driver is piloting a school bus. And so if we come then to theism A part of the bigger story I think for many theists certainly for many christian theists Is is that we do need to to understand a little bit broader range of our data so that we have an accurate read on the this information and so if the bigger part of the data is for example That god did not create human beings To the end to be as happy as they can in this life But perhaps rather to be formed into morally mature Creatures and that suffering is pretty typically part of what it is to develop as Morally mature form creatures develop second order virtues such as courage and altruism and kindness And that may very well involve some degree of suffering in that Then when we look out at the world based upon that set of assumptions And in fact the the evil may not count against the existence of god In fact some degree of the distribution and intensity of evil that we find may be perfectly consistent With this sort of soul making assumption or greater goods assumption okay, so All right, so two things then it feels like I want to say at that point so first of all, no Let's just be clear that when you add Specificity to the hypothesis in the first place what that does Is it might make the evidence more expected on that hypothesis? But what it does is it drives down the intrinsic probability of the hypothesis itself um, so for instance You could say What's a good it so it might be like, um We find a crime We find like the I don't know murder weapon hammer or whatever covered in blood Um, and it's got like, I don't know joey's fingerprints on it, right? um, and obviously it's quite like The hypothesis that joey was the murderer is obviously substantially more likely given the evidence um Or at least the probability of the evidence given the hypothesis is likely let's say to put it in the same frame as the Argument, but if we build into the hypothesis that joey's got an identical hand twin, right? um So i'm referencing that friends episode where joey makes someone with an identical hand So i imagine is someone else out there with exactly identical Fingerprints, um, obviously that hypothesis Does explain the evidence now now sort of lowest the probability of the guilt hypothesis But it's sort of adding complexity to the hypothesis itself makes hypothesis itself is now very very unlikely so, um It doesn't so much help and i'm not necessarily clear that that's what you're doing this stage But let's just be clear that you can sharpen up hypothesis as much as you like Make it very very unlikely and span, you know It's going to definitely explain the evidence there But then the problem will be the overall kind of balance of probabilities isn't getting any better because you're just Making the initial hypothesis intrinsically unlikely um So there's this kind of worry about that and very quickly it's just I guess even if we To sort of move away from that and just think about well At best you're only going to be able to plausibly explain sufferings that seem to do any work in driving moral virtues or whatever so sufferings of like You know a dying blue whale on the bottom of the ocean No possibility for anybody to learn or do anything to save them or become better or whatever It's just pointlessly suffering out of the way from any moral agent that could do anything about it or learn grow or whatever So even you know, even if we conceded it, it still seems like it leaves arguably most suffering unexplained, right? Okay, so uh on the on the first one. Yeah, that's fine. I what I'm trying to do with with my rebuttal Uh is to say that That the way to that you set the table is sort of we come to this evidence And we just want to just present it analyze it in terms of this one simple hypothesis And then if you add on more Information as you said it reduces the intrinsic overall probability fair enough My point is that I come to the evidence already as a theist Not as one seeking just to construct some particular hypothesis And what I want to say is now as a theist based upon what I believe to be true about the world Does this evidence provide a defeater a reason to question my understanding of the world? So, um, I'm not coming to that understanding of the world simply as a hypothesis based upon this evidence What I want to see what I want to consider is whether this evidence provides a defeater to my belief and I think if you say Understanding it in terms of the school bus analogy Somebody who already believes the driver's piloting a school bus then in fact, this is not necessarily something you would Be surprised to find this kind of this evil and suffering in the world because a theist Who has that belief as part of their background belief? This would be something they would expect it would be a world that would Bring about moral maturation and creatures now You you then mentioned the problem of natural evil. That's another huge issue, of course So suffering and evil in nature that is independent of moral agency And there there are various theodicies So a theodicy for those who are not familiar. We haven't introduced that term yet Is this idea of justifying god's actions? It comes from actually john milton In his home paradise lost. So he's this idea of developing an explanation to explain why god allows evil There are various theodicies that are focused on natural evil and in particular animal suffering So things like animal resurrection Subtrendority for examples argued about that different views michael murray's argued about In particular understanding that animal may suffer but not be aware second order awareness of that suffering and that may change the nature of their understanding where they suffer and Then other there are different soul making arguments as well. The one could make I've actually got a One and a half hour exchange with skydive phil an atheist on this very topic. So for those interested We could certainly look there But I do agree with you alex that that a christian or a theist definitely has to consider the amount of suffering in the world and in in nature and If you consider for example I mean charles darman, of course famously talked about ikna monadate, which was This this wasp that lays its eggs inside a caterpillar and then it freezes him and then the eggs hatch and they slowly eat Their way out of the caterpillar much like in the film alien or something Those are very disturbing facts about nature. Another one is the bat bug So the bat bug procreates by way of traumatic insemination where the male bat bug impales the female Through her abdomen with his horn like phallus. I mean, this is like all things being equal This is not what you would expect. I mean, I'm willing to you can see that in nature So I think theists often like when they argue Uh arguments from design and so on that they very much in danger of the confirmation bias Right that they only look for the beauty and design as they see it in nature And not for the apparent disvalue of suffering and so on so I I recognize that's a bigger issue. There are theodicies that certainly wrestle with that But we should not be dismissive of those arguments now you also said something Uh, well, let me let me just turn it back to you there and then then we can go back further I'll talk later. Well, yeah, okay, so I mean it's interesting that the notion of like your kind of To me my thought about this idea of well may or may be animals become resurrected or whatever various Things seem implausible and kind of strange about that type of I bought just picking one because you Reference a bunch of different ideas are just to pick one that stood out to me when you run through those um Again, that's that type of approach feels like what it's going to suffer from the fact that that's an intrinsically very unlikely Hypothesis and unless there's any reason to think that in the first place just saying well Gee, maybe animals are resurrected or something. Um, if there's no reason to think that's true Um, and that seems intrinsically very unlikely on its face Then that doesn't do anything to increase the probability ratio. We were looking at in the first place, right? At least it's not clear why I should think that that's moved the dial at all Um, just like if I said well, maybe joey's got an identical hand to him Like it's maybe he does and if he did he wouldn't be guilty or at least if he did the evidence wouldn't be Tilting his favor, but that's of any reason to think that he does. Um Everything else being equal There's these fingerprints on the murder weapon and you know speculating idly about what might be the case Shouldn't really change my assessment of the probability there Um, so some of those things do seem a bit reachy to me for that reason I mean, do you see where I'm coming from there? Like unless there's some independent reason to suppose that type of hypothesis is true Is there make any difference to this type of argument? It seems to me So yeah, the the thing is that that um, if the argument is directed at a person who doesn't accept theism or atheism Or sorry theism or Christianity Then then it will have resonance with them because they don't and consider as part of their background belief This broader set of beliefs that I've been talking about But if you want to present a defeater That's going to have purchase with a theist or christian who already accepts this and has a different plausibility structure Background set of beliefs than you do I I concede. I mean all things being equal you just say if you're not a theist or christian You don't believe in such a thing as resurrection or god Then to talk about the resurrection of animals does sound kind of ridiculous But if you know, I already believe in resurrection it sounds much more plausible It's not so much that is it It's not so I I mean I accept obviously if I was to say all of these are such things are resurrection it just feels like um I'm just refusing to To see things from your point of view that would be kind of silly It just seems that like even from your point of view that what I understand the christian story to some extent and you know Man is made in god's image not like bees and stuff like that And well, there's no stories about like heaven being filled with you know The increasing Trillions and trillions of ants and stuff that have existed like It just feels like it it doesn't exist at any point in the christian tradition until somebody starts focusing on the problem of animal suffering And then someone goes well, I don't know maybe and then just makes up a hypothesis, right? So I just think from your tradition It comes out of nowhere and so you don't have any reason to think that it's true Unless there's some a priori argument or bit of tradition I don't know right just feels like it's fucked out of thin air Well, I did write a book on heaven in fact called what on earth do we know about heaven? and I do make the argument that Like the way that some christians talk about the afterlife in terms of this ethereal heaven Is really not a judaeo christian perspective historically the the new testament based upon the hebra scriptures Does in fact talk about a new heaven and new earth Which I think is properly understood to be a resurrection of creation because paul himself talks about the resurrection of jesus as the first fruits of creation He talks in roman's aid about creation groaning longing for the sons of god to be revealed So it too can be released from its own suffering Which was brought about through this narrative of the fall and alienation from god And then you have for example in isaac giving all these very earthy images of shalom coming to creation in this new heaven and new earth You know the lion lying down with the lamb kind of images So I actually think that that this is well placed within the judaeo christian tradition And to the degree that people haven't tune into it. They've been impacted by more platonic understandings of the afterlife well This doesn't that still feels kind of itchy to me. I mean there's like a couple of passages They say some vague stuff. You could kind of interpret like this. I mean at best. I'm thinking. Okay. There's a tiny bit of Evidential backing to that now. There's not very much though. Is it so it's still an unlikely hypothesis or you know considering It's not like you've got any direct passages where they say dogs are going to be resurrected So don't worry about your pet dog. He'll be with you in heaven. If it says something like that I go, okay, that's part of the christian tradition. It just doesn't say anything like that does it? So you have to interpret some text in a way that's you know, maybe but maybe not what it actually means So anyway, we don't have to spend the whole time talking about animal suffering But just just seems to me that and this is strikes me as um Almost a universal feature to this type of reply and it's not just that's why just pick one and talk about that And it's helpful to illustrate it because you know just packing in more information into the hypothesis Unless there's good independent reason to think that that's already true. It's not going to really do that seems to me that it doesn't really help get you anywhere so I take it so See could I give you an analogy with to kind of turn it back? And then I'd like to definitely talk about you know, sort of skeptical theist maybe kind of response as well But let me just try this out flipping it back in terms of naturalism So there are a lot of Theists who say well if there is no god then you would not expect There to be such things as moral objective moral value and obligation in the world And some atheists concede that but others say Well, actually for example, eric wheelingberg, right? I mean he could say well, but I'm a moral platonist and a naturalist I believe those two things are can be reconciled and if that's my framework Then the fact that you want to talk about a sort of materialistic understanding and say The existence of objective moral value is very implausible and or impossible perhaps in the materials. There may be a supervenient understanding of non-natural properties Well, then yeah, that becomes problematic But if you start off that Platonism is part of the package Then you're not going to be as deterred at all by the existence In fact, you'd expect the existence of objective moral value and it seems to me that that so it's not gonna that kind of argument Against objective moral values not gonna have purchase against a non theist moral platonist and I'm just making the same point in reverse Yeah, okay, so I mean this That's right. So if we pack in more information into the Hypothesis of indifference and turn it into naturalism, which it's it's not. I mean, it's deliberately wider than that Then sure, you can make something that's that's awkward on for explain Well for explaining a different type of phenomenon. I've been talking about the existence of moral values rather than suffering um I think actually if we were to specify the hypothesis to be naturalism Suffering becomes even more expected I guess and I'm not sure what the existence of platonic objects does to the expectation value of suffering probably nothing actually So forget that but um, no, I quite agree with you But the purpose of the argument isn't to show the naturalism is true. It's simply to show that This broad umbrella term of indifference is more likely than theism and that includes naturalism But it also includes some other hypotheses too I mean there may as well be ghosts and and all sorts as well Right there can can be anything on indifference just some just so long as it's not Um, the reality is the product of an intelligence. So it's basically all that it says Um, and if that's more likely than theism then the argument does does its job Um, but you're quite right that you know, if there are arguments That are similar looking. I mean the fine-tuning argument is basically the closest parallel to this it seems to me where it's showing you that Theist um explanation of the universe is more likely than than an indifferent one um Hey, but let me I'm not sure that I'm not sure that My point came through I mean just briefly kind of ref repackage it So let me say the equivalent of the indifference thesis here Is the object of moral values thesis and so then the theist argues Object of moral values are more expected on theism than on atheism And I mean many atheists have conceded with that so jail mackey famously as an example But uh, there are in fact some atheists who are moral playtonists who said Well, wait a minute. It depends what kind of atheism you're talking about If I'm an atheistic moral playtonist Then it's not surprising at all that there would be objective moral facts In fact, they're part of the package for me and I'm arguing in reverse that the uh indifference doesn't work for Uh christian theist who believes that the driver is in fact driving a school bus That's actually to be expected some degree of evil and suffering in the world So that in itself does not in fact count in the same way that it would count to a theist who didn't have that as part of their package of belief Well, I might be quite I might be being slow here, but On the hypothesis, so you've got your standard like hypothesis of indifference or atheism or whatever um, and if we if we bolt onto that the claim that there are moral values In the playtonistic sense Then it doesn't just raise the probability that there are moral values. It entails it, right? I mean it is this we just bolted on the conclusion. So obviously it entails that So it doesn't feel quite the same what you would be bolting on is not Um that there is you know god exists and suffering exists Obviously that would make the Expectation value that there would be suffering on that hypothesis would be one because it would entail it But you didn't bolt the same you didn't build the conclusion onto hypothesis. You bolted on That what god is uh wants people to have experiences that develop their souls or something I mean we weren't clear exactly what you were bolting on but You know you were saying you can increase Hypothesis in some way like that, but it just seems to me it's not quite the same as the moral value one I mean You'd have to say something about you know atheism plus something that makes moral values existing More likely than atheism on its own, but it can't just be the statement that moral values exist Otherwise, it just it's not analogous, right? So I so I think so we have uh atheism and uh an atheist who's also moral playtonist We have yeah, but doesn't that that's someone who just says atheism plus moral values exist as platonic entities Yeah, and so they're saying that your your theist argument against me just doesn't apply to me because it only would apply to atheists Who who don't accept moral playtonism like maybe they're maybe they could be agnostic for example about that And so if you have a theist who's sort of agnostic about the question well Um about you know that maybe I I believe part of my package of belief is the greater goods moral maturation of creatures Well, well, then then it would work for that person because they're they're not settled either way perhaps They don't they don't have any skin in the game as it were yet But if you want to present a defeated or a christian who's already committed to the greater goods thesis Just as you want to present an argument To the atheist who's a moral platonist can't go with with objective moral facts in that way That's well, we may have a standoff here, but I'm not sure and maybe my point I can come through but um if it's so let's just What's your expectation value of? s some fact of suffering on the hypothesis of just bare theism Right, and let's say it's like Kind of middling to low or something right and then you say well, yeah, but now I'm bolting on to the theism hypothesis This idea about like soul making and he wants us to have these challenges that make us better people or whatever Now that enriched theism hypothesis. Sure suffering is more Expected now than it was before you added in that extra bit of detail completely conceived that. Yeah, sure. Absolutely But the what you did to the Now we've got atheism towards the the hypothesis of m Let's call it that moral values exist given atheism Kind of like middling or whatever. I don't know. It doesn't really say anything about that Maybe it's low or something like that and then you say well We're bolt on to atheism the claim that moral values exist Right, and that's the blatantest claim effectively now. What what's my expectation value of their b of m? Well, it's one I haven't just increased to some extent. It's shut all the way from middling to one So in that respect, they're not analogous because you didn't just bolt on the claim You know the theist hypothesis and the claim suffering exists That would be what you would have to do to make two things analogous to each other That's all I was saying. Yeah. Yeah. So I I'm again I We aren't I think does some degree at least talking past one another. I am okay I'm recognizing your argument works if For that for the modest aim for which you purposed it with respect to the bare theism you're engaging with I'm just saying that his limited value just as the The theist arguing against atheism Simplicator based upon the existence of objective moral facts would have limited value to an atheist who already believes That objective moral facts vis-a-vis Platonism are part of their broader set of beliefs. It's not a feeder to that broader set So it would have absolutely no no impact at all on that person because it's entailed by their beliefs already that that exists Yeah, okay fine fair enough um, okay, so I mean Let's maybe talk about skeptical theism so I I'm just gonna say at the outset Also for those who aren't familiar with the term that refers to this idea that In fact the fact that that we should not be surprised that we cannot explain the amount of distribution of evil in the world With respect to the purposes of this god so defined Because we shouldn't be able to believe that we have cognitive access to god's reasons Even if he does have such reasons So the fact that we don't have access to such reasons is not evidence that he lacks such reasons or that such a being doesn't exist um, the first thing I would just want to say is um I like the term cognitive closure much better than skeptical theism Uh, I think that's a clearer term skeptical theism for one thing skeptical theism is a term leads I think to a misbegotten objection which is very common in the literature That if you reject or that if you accept some degree of limited cognitive access to god's reasons That somehow entails the sort of global skepticism About god's reasons and that has never been the claim of skeptical theists certainly not of me So I prefer to talk about cognitive closure, which is to talk about our limited access to the full range of god's reasons for allowing evil Uh, so what do you would you think about about that response? um so if he's if the response comes down to something like saying well God might just have a reason that we don't know about for allowing so let's say take some horrible holocaust or and you know sack of Baghdad by um the Mongols or some you know some horrible stuff like that And you just how could how could a loving god let that happen? He could have intervened made made people feel a little bit more remorseful and less and less Genocide or whatever and why didn't he do that and then the response is well You know hard to imagine why he would do that But maybe he's got some reason and we shouldn't you know that and we shouldn't expect to know That he's got a reason if if he has one so um It's just kind of appeal to that. Maybe something is out there. Um part of me thinks well I say Joey's fingerprints are on the murder weapon And you say yeah, well, I mean maybe there's an identical hand twin out there And we shouldn't expect to know whether there's an identical hand twin out there or not So I'm just going to shrug my shoulders at it. It just feels a bit like the move seems a bit like that, right? I Never watched friends. I've got a cons I'm sure everybody watching and see Sorry, I was busy watching Seinfeld back in the 90s Okay, okay, so I just think that that's a misleading analogy. I think that here's it. Here's a here's a different one Let's say Joey begins his first year of a five-year apprenticeship With some master in whatever field he wants to learn about And the first afternoon that master asks him to do x and that doesn't make any sense to him So for example a concrete illustration karate kid Mr. Miyagi asks Daniel to paint the fence. He asks him to wax on wax off on the cars And Daniel gets to precisely that point of Joey in the first year of the five-year apprenticeship Is this guy's doesn't know what he's doing or he's using me. He's not actually training me at all But in fact it shows that that Daniel is very presumptuous that mr. Miyagi knew precisely what he was doing because when he starts throwing punches Then Daniel starts blocking them and he's like where did this ability come from and he realizes The whole time mr. Miyagi was working at this meta level that he didn't even have cognitive access to And how much more than for Joey starting the first year of an extended five-year apprenticeship He's not in a position to say whether the master That he's not doing what would actually be proper for the formation of Joey And then how much more god when we have an infinite being and finite creatures like us Okay, cool. That's helpful. So, um I think that Now I don't find that analogy quite right here because um I don't think I'm a the equivalent of an apprentice beginning To learn about a field that they don't know much about already or at least even if I don't know A huge amount about Moral reality or something. Um, it does seem to me. I don't need to know very much to know that That well, let's see. So if I was to you know, just walk past somebody's suffering And I could do something about it and and I don't do anything about it And that just I feel like I just take myself to know that that's wrong I think you probably would as well, right that it's basic moral facts like that um, it It is wrong to just willfully ignore someone else's suffering that you could easily do something else about I mean we can build in caveats to that whatever But there are straightforward senses where it's just obvious that somebody's doing something wrong I don't I don't consider myself to be in a kind of moral skepticism Complete moral skepticism. I don't know anything about what's marring true or not. Um, and it just seems like A moment's reflection you could come up with some example of something where So for instance, I don't know somebody who's just being tortured to death that sort of stuff Happens throughout history pointlessly in like witch trials or whatever people get tortured to death in horrendous ways um And then the thought there would be well look First of all, um Can it be right To let that sort of thing happen I just feel like Very very unlikely that i'm so mistaken about morality that it could be right for someone to just let that happen and secondly You might say well, there's some compensating good that comes from that which god couldn't have got any other way Apart from letting that person die um Now I feel and this is sort of I'm gonna be able to do justice to this Right now, but the thought would be there's something like that it presupposes an indecent ledger, right where you're weighing um You know that that no concert that it's unfair and something sort of messed up about weighing somebody's Intent suffering against other goods. So it's instrumental in bringing about something else Right that that itself is a bad thing to do.  Even if that something good Instantly came from that that would still be a horrible thing for him to do would be bad like from that little kid's point of view like You know, it's it's just Unconscionable to expect to think that that's just okay because And 300 years from now some good will be realized like I just I denied I think I know enough about morality to know that like that's not good It seems to me and you have to be some kind of radical consequentialist to just suppose that you know people can be sacrificed, you know millions of Of years of animal sufferings and stuff just because it like brings about some future good or whatever It just seems like a crazy consequentialist kind of conception here. Some things are just wrong Right and doesn't matter what the consequences are That's how I would look at it Sympathy for that type of view. I would have thought you you do Yeah, but I I'd like to have a more fulsome response in a moment, but I'd like to maybe push back and on one point so Are you saying that because it uh, you gave initially I think a very strong statement that if you see some person suffering This is hold on a second. The sun's in my Okay, so if you see a person suffering Then you sort of have this moral obligation to prevent it or something Yeah, but but then you sort of you you mentioned well, there could be further caveats And you're right. There could be further caveats. So there I think we can both agree that there are instances Where human beings can recognize that that we ought not prevent some certain suffering in our vicinity that we could prevent because of some greater good now So I think we we hopefully can agree that there are at least some instances of suffering that we can recognize We are even morally justified to allow The next question is well, then presumably god does as well So then the question is at what reason does your intuition kick in and say but not this one This one somehow over the threshold for an infinite being Yeah, okay. I see there's objections going and I feel like I obviously I'm not going to give a cut off point where it's like 15 units of pain and then it's not enough or whatever But like I think it seems like it shouldn't be that controversial to say wherever the limit is it surely it's below A holocaust or something right like I don't have to set a cut off point to know that It's got to be below there and yet that thing happened So it doesn't feel to me like too difficult an objection to respond to there Maybe I've missed your point of your objection. No, no that yeah, you're saying I don't know how I don't have to know when the sun went below the horizon to know the stars are out Yeah Let me let me give you an illustration concrete illustration for maybe some reflection. So this came from uh, March 2015 on 60 minutes I was watching it the story called coming home about soldiers returning from the battlefield One particular soldier lost his leg to an ied in either Afghanistan or Iraq and scott pelley So the interviewer was interviewing him and I mean it's you hear his story I mean it's you know as you can imagine it's pretty pretty horrific to being an explosion and then find out that you Bought him part of your leg is missing And then the rehab right and then the the ongoing pain the phantom limb syndrome and all the other things Scott pelley asks him having been through everything you've been through would you do it again? And the soldier replies without missing a beat In a heartbeat it made me the man I am today Now the one thing I want to say is I want to be very careful about ever making claims about anyone else's suffering But I do want to as as well recognize that people who have suffered But themselves can comment on their subsequent perspective on their own suffering do a particular authority to do so And it seems to me that like at the first blush It would it would be could there be any reason why I would ever be okay with a my leg getting blown off with an ied and I would say no But then you have people like this who are testimonies to their own life subsequent to that traumatic experience and they say yes And it just suggests to me a general caution about our ability to reason in these kinds of situations okay, so I want to issue a cautionary note on that tale too because um, I think we have a tendency to rationalize our current situation post-hoc and make the you know it is kind of um tendency to make a best out of the situation that we're in but And I think that's particularly rational. I think that's just kind of like Good thing for survival and happiness and whatnot that we do that But it's probably best that we're not completely rational about our own evaluations of our own settings, right? difficult to live every day with the true scale of your Mediocracy or whatever right better to have an indent in the hearing ability Belief in your own abilities or whatever right even if it's false It's like nicer to have that and I think it's somebody who's gone through a traumatic experience like that might be part of their Way of getting back to sanity and normality again to construct a narrative that whereby that's the making of them And it's it's a good thing. But I mean, look just just to make it clear If someone has his leg blown off, he's not going to be going. Oh goody now. I've gone experience You know all this like suffering to live through and maybe a better person Then all the things are good thing and if if you were stood next to him and he got his leg blown off And you didn't you wouldn't think that you were the unlucky one because you don't get the chance to go through the Moral progress and other person's going to go through. You're the lucky one and and you're trying to tell me that like There actually is an objective sense in which he's the lucky one and you're the unlucky one I just feel I just think that's wrong. I think you've just confused somebody's post-hoc rationalization about How they've managed to live through a trauma with And and blown it out of all proportion as if that's actually the stroke of good luck that that bad thing happened to them And actually objectively it's a bad thing that happened to them And it's just kind of nice that they've made the best of it and told themselves a story that helps them live That seems much more plausible to me So I have two things. First of all, I agree. It's a bad thing Right. The the idea is not that these are in and of themselves good things They're bad things allowed for a greater good. And so we do want to keep that distinction in mind Okay, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but the second thing is is um, I agree that that uh We our first person awareness of our own interior states is not infallible, right? And this he could be rationalizing his experience But I also simply don't have access to his first person perspective to know whether that is the case And I do want to give a Prima facie deference to to how people interpret their own current state Rather than to impose mine upon them unless I have some overriding reason not to now You may believe you do and that every time a person says that Then they're they're wrong It seems to me that I don't have that kind of confidence that I would defer to him recognizing That he could be wrong and I could be wrong as a result But it seems to me that that I will grant that kind of recognition that people can undergo great suffering And look back at it subsequent to that suffering And realize that while the suffering itself is not a good thing They are nonetheless thankful for that degree of suffering because it brought about some greater good They perhaps could not have acquired otherwise Okay, you had to stand off there Perhaps but then I wonder if You know, I guess people have a tendency to say And I won't go into too much of a rabbit hole about this But I do get a bit annoyed when people say things like or you can't regret anything because that's the You have to have everything exactly the way that it was or it wouldn't be me the very same person. I am now whatever that um Kind of annoys me a little bit I'll try and put that to one side. Let's just consider your friend. Um or the character from this, um anecdote who Like sure, he might be saying well, look, I wouldn't be me with all of the outlook and perspective and stuff I've got now, but I think if he would just sort of take him out of his body and it's gonna Christmas carol way and show him what his life might have been like had his leg not been blown off and you just show him like 40 years of like having You know, perfectly normal life and You know, a beautiful wife loving kids big house Every day you're going to work at a job. He enjoys or whatever and just saying saying to him You know, you can swap now. I'll use my magical powers and you can pick which life you'd prefer to to live I mean, it does seem a bit strange to think that he would pick the leg being blown off one Even though he learned a moral lesson out of it Which just seems like it's obvious So what I'm saying is that you're saying something bad happened to him But a compensating good happened and that offsets the badness But it seems to me that even still it doesn't offset it enough That certainly doesn't overbalance it and to to such an extent that it's on balance a good thing Right on balance. It's much better. That's what not happened and for him to just live what is just a Pretty normal life. It would have been much more enjoyable And I'm just not sure I see why the moral growth I guess I I guess what this comes down to is I just I'm not sure And my evaluation of things that moral growth is more important or justifying I'm not sure that on the weighing scales of kind of event evaluation that it can have really balanced out like massive intense Suffering, you know, like someone being tortured to death. Well, that's good because they'll grow up or someone being tortured for years somehow in any way being compensated for by then going becoming a Wiser person at the end of it. I just see it just feels wrong Maybe I'm just finding it difficult to as I said not prepared for this possibly anywhere nearly as well as you because um You do this more For living than I do, but um, I just see I'm struggling to explain this so Um, do you see where I'm coming from like I just I can't see weighing those two things up like that Randall, I'll give you a chance to respond I just want to let you both know that maybe in a few minutes we'll go into qna. So maybe like five or so minutes Thanks so much. Excellent I mean, look, we're both dealing everybody here is dealing with intuitions, right? That's an inevitable part that ellenor stump has a nice statement one of her essays About issues like this that we really we're really formed by paradigm instances of Experience and reflection that really then informed just the way the world seems to us and it seems to me That that people will find themselves On a full range on the scale as to what seems plausible for them that god could allow At what extreme case someone may think I can't even imagine god allowing a bad headache Another extreme case people could say, you know, I even the holocaust I can understand I mean, I can't understand by any means all the reasons god can allow But that seems to me that he could have reasons to allow that I don't have access to and it seems to me that people can reasonably stop at various points on that continuum And be reasonable because they're just informed by their own intuitions and the way things seem to them A couple things I want to respond to specifically is so you sort of talked about the Reference the christmas carol and this guy having the soldier having a life another life Showing to him that things could have been this way. Would you choose that instead? I'll first of all say that the best Version of the christmas carol is robert zemeckis is underrated 2009 animated version with jim carrey. It's a great version But I think that this is somewhat of to me a misleading because it's it has a rather atomistic picture of it My claim is not simply that this individual That that the reasons why god would allow his suffering is so that it could make him the man he is today there could be Incalculable incalculable range of reasons that god could have that touch upon the lives of all sorts of different people And so as he would be looking at these various scenarios of how his life The ring out to the impact of his life on all these other lives as well And I think maybe if he had all that information. Yeah, then he would say, you know what god is not simply in the the Purpose with the end of creating individual atoms Individual persons, but god is on the purpose of creating whole worlds And my place in this world including the suffering that I've endured is something that I would choose And the the impact it had collectively on this world over a world in which didn't have that suffering And which the didn't have the greater goods that went with that suffering. If I can just okay, go ahead Well just very quickly. I think that's probably, you know, of course from god's point of view, who knows, right? but from our point of view, we've no reason to expect that um that any Of these kind of butterfly effects that your life could have uh A different there's any reason to think that Someone having his leg blown off makes a bigger impact in an overall good sense than the guy who doesn't have his leg blown off We should be indifferent about what the effects are there and the the question is just what what your expectation is on That type of evil or suffering or whatever like and you could say well, maybe god's You know fits into this one plan and it couldn't work unless this guy had his leg blown off That's true. Maybe but unless you've got a reason for thinking that that's actually true It's just adding complexity to the hypothesis and lo is the intrinsic probability and it doesn't help Um, right. I mean, but in truth, you know, you don't have any reason to think that Having your leg blown off Makes any difference to your impact on the world All we can say is that it gave him a sense of himself You definitely did that it had that and it's plausible to think that if you didn't have his leg blown off another comfortable life Uh, you wouldn't have that kind of fortified moral character that he developed through going through all that pain and suffering I've got reason to think that there's that type of difference there and and all the other differences are just complete speculation Whether it has any other impact at all. So I think the only things we can actually see clearly. It just seems obvious that Um, it's much greater in uh overall good if he doesn't have his leg blown off, right? Just that that seems simple and obvious. I don't feel sure what your intuition is I mean, my my dad passed away from Alzheimer's two years ago and it's a very nasty disease and a very nasty decline And my brother was a high school teacher for 25 years And journeying through the the experience of my dad's own decline in Alzheimer's That convinced my brother to start a new career as a health care aide And so he now works with dementia patients As a result of that and I believe that my brother's own moral formation Is one small bit of the story of my father's cognitive decline that my father's cognitive decline some of the explanation for it Is the moral formational impact it had upon my brother Upon myself upon my mother and upon countless other people. So it does seem to me that that When we look at the suffering in our own lives and really reflect in some of the ways that that suffering Has had positive impacts on ourselves and others then it can become it can come to raise the intrinsic probability of this hypothesis Well, I would I would buy that more if I thought that there was that People were unlikely to Do things like start working as carers unless they had that type of experience But I think actually on the whole most people Take jobs as carers or nurses or whatever caregivers for completely mundane reasons They don't have to go through suffering to to to do that. It's a fine profession, right? There's nothing wrong with that whatsoever. You don't need to have a have an experience like that to do that So, um, you know everything that's it's just doesn't increase my thinking that oh good The good thing about people suffering without time is is that it makes loads of people go into Caring me. There's no actual correlation there and there's no reason to think that that would go down If if that type of suffering was diminished. I think there'd be just as many carers really so, you know Yeah, okay. I know james wants to get in so i'll just give one And I will shut up I I will just say that that Yes, there are many reasons why people take on that profession in terms of the reasons that might have compelled my brother I don't think either one of us has access to that but I do think That the fact that my dad's suffering was this catalyst from my brother taking on this new Career his vocation is a part of the story as to why my dad suffered and it does begin to help me make sense of it Okay, I'll turn over to james Well, thank you very much gentlemen. It's been a true pleasure to get to listen to this We've got a lot of positive feedback in the chat and also Yeah, not only in terms of the intellectual rigor, but also just the congeniality you guys are both very pleasant And so this has been an awesome event and while we have stay tuned folks We have questions We're going to get into and also want to mention I hate putting you on the spot alex But I I did because I knew that randall had books and I found alex that you also have at least one book And forgive me for putting you on the spot, but I but someone asked in the chat That's why I bring this up. But I one thing I want to mention folks is that Both of our guests have books and so if you look for them, I know that dr. Randall My guess is that people can find your books at your Website which is linked in the description and then alex I had seen yours is on I just found on amazon and I want to encourage you folks that Sometimes people ask me does my mind change as a result of these debates? And yeah, to some extent, you know, it like moves in degrees right my positions on different arguments But I always tell people though. I think the channel is I hope it's a value and I learned new things here I would highly encourage you folks Today we have two scholars on it reading scholarly work is I think it's going to kind of help Make your own thinking more rigorous help challenge your own ideas And so you can read both of our guests today and you can kind of read it kind of these like higher levels Then kind of the kind of uh, I'm not slamming it I think that there's still value in some of these other secondary sources where they kind of predigest it for you But I would encourage you folks. I oftentimes say though that The debates don't influence me too much Uh, they do some but at the same time reading because having gotten a master's in philosophy Like having read a lot of the scholarly scholarly works That's kind of more of my foundation is this kind of like scholarly level arguments and readings And so want to encourage you folks to check out both of our guests links So you can read or hear more from both of them. And so with that We are very excited to jump into these questions. We want to say thank you so much This first one coming in from help me says Alex go get them tiger Is that an inside joke? I don't know is that do people usually say that is that a common thing in britain in england? um Particularly Just wondering I do it. It's always fun to learn and so uh, but yes, uh, Do you know who help me is maybe there's just a fan though, but Red phase gaming. Thank you for your super chat. And by the way folks. I don't know if I had uh, mentioned it I know I mentioned it but not recently 100 percent of super chats today are going to the gary sinise foundation Which is linked in the description along with a link to its charity watch dog Evaluation and so thank you guys so much for those redface gaming says Thanks to our debaters and james love this channel. Thanks so much redface gaming. That's seriously encouraging and mohammed Farouk, thank you for your super sticker support. I'm surprised it was People I think were like totally zoon kind of like focus. We don't have too many questions We have let's see Ralph Ellis says does dr. Rouser understand that his position seems to violate occam's razor in In a superfluous extraneous way that in the end doesn't support his position So occam's razor do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Simpler explanation is the preferred one Uh, but here I think that this does kind of get back to one of our Of our standoffs perhaps or disagreements so I I did concede that alex's argument works in terms of First of all, it's modest Goal and if you just have just bare theism in terms of these three omniatributes But if part of your belief system includes this broader spectrum about soul-making, etc in the world Then in terms of a defeat or this does not really provide a defeat or to that because it's like the school bus Analogy you do expect it if I was adding these additional hypotheses in to just explain the existence of evil Then it falls to occam's razor. You don't need it, but I'm not adding this to explain the existence of evil I'm just this is already part of my background belief and I'm saying given this background belief I don't think it's a particularly strong objection Gotcha, I think just um just ask a question about that. I mean, is it actually part of your background belief? That animals are resurrected is I actually part of your background beliefs No, but well part of I don't have a conviction about that part of my background Believe is that that they're Well, I mean I do to have a discussion about animal resurrection in my in my book on heaven But part of my background belief is certainly the skeptical theist response to animal suffering and so an openness to these various hypotheses with respect to animals so it's like you can um Where you actually do have commitment because presumably when sorry James I'll shut up in a second where you do have a piece of background beliefs that's relevant then there'll be some um Reason that you already hold that so there'll be some It does explanatory work or it's got some like argument and evidence or something that makes you And so so it kind of pays for itself somehow that would be okay too, but what if we just sort of um If if I then bring up a different aspect and say well, what about animal suffering and you don't actually have a belief about that um Then you fall into the problem I was talking about before where you would just be adding complexity to the hypothesis but without Any intrinsic gain and probability I did a loss of intrinsic probability and then it balances out and doesn't actually help you So I think that you know It's okay If you had a background beliefs that were well justified in a massive range of theodices or whatever and fine You know, then we would be talking about what the justifications were but um, yeah, anyway, sorry.  We can give you the last word Randall a short and pithy one and then we'll jump into the next one I know that that's that's fair enough. I think it does come down to Are you kind of adding this in or is this already part of your background belief? I I'll just say I am I mean having read Doherty and thought about this myself and having argued This idea of the resurrection of creation new heavens and new earth. I'm very sympathetic with the view So and I do hope I see my dogs again because they're they're nice dogs Thank you very much for your super chat from Ian Chen says no question Just to say love modern day debate. Well, thank you Ian for your support. That means a lot. It really does general Ballsack, thank you for your super chat support appreciate it. I didn't see a question attached if you want to add one Let me know in a normal chat and I'm happy to read it as a super chat Otherwise, thanks for your support toward the charity and lab lover chris. Thanks for your super chat says so glad super chest Thanks so much. Uh, they said so glad that they're going to charity and our pleasure And thank you to the debaters for helping make this possible the debaters are the lifeblood of the channel Folks, so we appreciate them so much and one quick reminder I I think that this is something I could improve on folks is we want to I ought to communicate this as often as possible that we always want to encourage you to attack the arguments And uh, rather than the person as sometimes I know it gets heated Heated it's inevitable as a debate channel that it may get heated sometimes But uh, and you know, we don't freak out about it being heated But we do want to ask you to nonetheless focus back onto the arguments. Zach Branigan Thank you for your super chat said for both Isn't it possible to reverse any justification for a perfectly good god? Be a justification or I'm sorry. Let me read that again because I butchered it a bit say they said for for both speakers Isn't it possible to reverse any justification for a perfectly good god to be a justification for a perfect perfectly evil god? You wouldn't say something about that So I'm sure steven law likes this question. So there's kind of the evil god argument I mean, I would say that The experience our experience of the world is consistent with any range of hypotheses Including the hypothesis that there is this maximally malevolent being that's just toying with us is going to subject us to an eternity of suffering but That doesn't mean that I have any reason to find that to be a particularly plausible one nor does alex So I'm not troubled by the fact there could be in principle some maximally malevolent being I believe The god that I understand exists So so I'm not you know, I'm not concerned with that now. I guess where you could kind of tie it more directly into this conversation is by arguing in terms of the skeptical theist response that Yeah, but but god could have these reasons so unknown to us that in fact that which we now think to be good is evil and evil is good And god's just playing with us or something like that. Um, I wouldn't find that compelling as an argument either I touched upon some of those issues, but But yeah, I'll just leave it at that and turn it over to alex Well, um, I think that there's a source of asymmetry because because you might think well Can't you just say all the evil in the world is um, well, so just reverse my argument. So The probability of this suffering on on the evil god hypothesis Um, it's quite high, right? Fair enough. Um, isn't it higher on the evil god hypothesis than on Uh, the indifference hypothesis because if it is then evil or suffering is actually evidence for the evil god over Indifference, right? So it's kind of an argument for theism in a way an argument for like Bad theism or something like evil god theism. Um You might think that but I'm actually kind of sympathetic to the thought that It's not quite as much suffering as you would expect. Uh, if There was an omnipotent god who who wanted nothing more than that Um, and actually it's just about the right amount that you would expect if it was There was no plan So it seems to me that you that it's slightly higher on indifference than on the evil god hypothesis It there's there's certainly more than you'd expect on the perfect being Hypothesis but not quite as much as you'd expect from imperfect or morally What's the one am I trying to say there but you perfectly evil god hypothesis Well, since we don't have a ton of questions, I mean if I can just offer a brief rejoinder on behalf of the evil god So so, uh, of course in psychology, we know what this concept of the contrast effect Which is where your your experience of a particular state is Heightened by the contrast with another state. So for example Uh, if you were outside for a while, it was really cold You step out of the house It feels really warm because of the contrast with the outside But if you've been in the house all day, it doesn't feel really warm and so the evil god Defender could say yeah, but Maybe that the degree of good that we experience in the world Is actually just enough to heighten the contrast effect so that when we're subjected to an eternity of suffering collectively It will be even greater suffering than if we've been thrown into suffering from the beginning And by my point of raising that is not to defend the evil god hypothesis But really just to suggest how limited we all are In kind of reasoning to any Magisterial conclusion based upon the ratio of suffering and happiness or joy in the world You got it we Let me just double check that we have gotten all the questions want to say We appreciate all of your questions folks and our guests are linked in the description Highly encourage you folks to check them out if you love philosophy and discussions like this one Oh, we do have a couple more questions. I would highly encourage you I might guess you probably love reading it as well or listening to other youtube channels on it I know I have linked dr. Alex. Dr. Alex is a link youtube Channel in the description and then dr. Randall rousers personal website in the description as well Converse contender. Thank you for your question says it doesn't seem right to judge god from human Normative standards like everything in existence is derivative from god on that model Alex, what are your thoughts? Um, they asked right So, I guess I'm not well, okay, so what you could say is It's not you can't make any assessment about god at all Um, because it's coming ineffable and his standards beyond our comprehension whatsoever um That would be fine, but then it's then it becomes a hypothesis that generates no expectation value in particular about anything um, and so It still feels like all I need is That the suffering is more likely more than 50 percent say on indifference and it's just There's you can't say anything about what what that probability is on a complete ineffability kind of god hypothesis It still seems to me like my argument probably would run anyway um Right like if you can't say anything about the probability, but I can say it's quite high I think i'm still entitled to conclude With um the hypothesis that makes it high. Um, Maybe you don't mean in quite such an extent that you can't say anything about Um about that Maybe it's just worth pointing out. I'm not really trying to judge god Um, I'm really just trying to talk about like what our expectations should be given a certain hypothesis and Um, that doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that. I'm not Um, I mean, I think randall you agree Right that it's okay to sort of say well if god's like this This is how it would change my expectation of a given hypothesis or a given piece of evidence Right, that's not wrong because it's judging god or something. Would you agree with that? Yeah, again, I I said like if we if we limit ourselves to That there is this agent who is omnipotent omission and perfectly good and that's all else. That's all that we say uh, and then then your argument relative to this Evil the distributions uh, intensity of evil in the world that provides more evidence for indifference than theism just on itself. Yeah What the one thing I'd want to say about that so the converse contenders question um I think we can give examples of particular beings that have rights Over other beings that others don't so for example A parent or legal caregiver can have the authority to bring a child in for a medical procedure that some stranger does not um, and Just follow that reasoning out and if we think about god as the absolute creator and sustainer of all things god presumably has rights over creation that No creature would have And so we have to be careful about saying well because no creature would be justified in allowing x or y that god would not Be justified in allowing x or y we have to be careful about that reasoning And Next super chat coming in from frequency point Says if humans did not exist god would gods would not exist more of an assertion But thank you for your donation to the charity. We appreciate that and next question. Let's see Slammaren says does youtube get 30 of the super chat? It does But in this case for the charity streams, we always take uh amounts from other debates Where we have super chats and we fill that 30 it and so your uh Super chats are in the fullest sense 100 percent are is going to the charity brian stevens. Thanks for your question I'm gonna jump to that. But first I I saw smoky saint asked one said for the synees charity Thank you for doing that. Oh gentleman all of you randall. I'm a fan Your mind is appreciated is an appreciated asset to apologetics. You got a fan out there randall and then also one Oh, yeah, that's uh, and we but let's see. Oh, sorry brian stevens I almost missed it. So they said question If someone tells a story for years as truth and then finds out this story was a satirical story Would it be moral to continue to tell it as truth? Uh, that would I mean that's uh All things being equal. I mean, I think the question really boils down to is it Moral to lie, right if the idea is that You communicate something to another person with the intent that they come to believe it as true Yet you believe it to be false or that it is and it is false Well, then that would be lying and so there are more there are cases where it's morally sufficient reason to lie I think if you're hiding jews in the basement, the nazis knocking your door then you are justified in lying to them So it would depend what would be the circumstances under which you'd be telling the satirical story as true You got it and With that I want to say thanks everybody. We're gonna wrap up We will I promise we'll try to go longer next time We do want to respect the time of our debaters and also all of you as I'm sure you've got plenty to do today Or maybe tonight if you're watching from far away, we hope that you have a great rest of your day or night We appreciate you tuning in to watch no matter what walk of life you're from and one final reminder Our guests are linked in the description, so it doesn't have to end here and so with that Thank you gentlemen. It's been a true pleasure to have you randall and alex Thanks for your benches. Yeah, it's been it's been a delayed talk with the alex and Especially like in in the midst of everything that's going on in the world and American politics how divisive things can be it's nice that we can have as they say don't talk about religion and politics Well, we talked about religion civilly and we had a lot of fun doing it. So thanks 100% this has been excellent. And so thank you guys and I will be back and about 58 I'll say about 58 seconds to do a post credit scene giving you guys updates on the channel stuff like that slam rn Thanks for your last super chat said for gary senes appreciate that slam rn And so with that, thank you all and as mentioned, I'll be right back in just a moment folks. Thanks so much Hello, hello you guys. I am excited. That was epic. I'm so thrilled about how well that went Both these guys, I love these guys. They we are really thankful to have them on modern day debate We really are because they are just rigorous thinkers and friendly guys to where a lot of people I understand Sometimes we you know, sometimes the debate will get heated, but these guys are pros They just do a great job of being considerate of letting everybody have kind of their time to make their case and also Yeah, they're charitable. So they're not trying to you know, so it's I just I could go on and on about how much This has been a total blast of a debate. And so Want to say thank you guys so much for your support really appreciate it and really excited you guys This is unreal you guys We are so pumped last night. It was yeah, that's right last night We met our Kickstarter goal our stretch goal. So you guys this is beyond so for this epic event Which is happening tomorrow. You guys the party is tomorrow night at 9 p.m. Eastern time the Kickstarter closes though you guys it's closing in. Let me check how many minutes this It's closing in 30 minutes. You guys I would highly encourage you This is going to be epic if you have not signed up for it yet. It is linked in the description I'm also going to pull that link and put it into oh, I saw someone just signed up right now So thank you so much for the the person who pledged I'm not supposed to Kickstarter always asked that I won't share the info Thanks Tuss beatbox for linking that Kickstarter link is you guys I am thrilled that this debate is happening It's honestly This I'm telling you you guys This is encouraging with how well it went We have learned a lot about how to do the old Kickstarter kind of you know strategy and you guys I'm pumped We are going to I really think that this is a strategy that we can use To make it such that epic debates happen and that people you guys get to watch it for live for We're trying to keep it reasonably priced. You might be thinking like oh james I don't know about Kickstarter like I've heard about this Maybe you've seen some of our ads you put out ads for it on youtube even we've been you know trying to promote this To make it huge and so want to let you know folks It's very we I purposely asked around I was like hey What's a reasonable price that like anybody would be like yeah You know like fast three bucks like a price of a cup of coffee, right? And so we want to let you know you guys it really is that cheap if you want to watch it live It is only three dollars. I mean it's pretty uh, you know you could say price friendly We wanted to make it that way because we know that you guys you guys have plenty of expenses and things like that And so this is just a way that makes it a little bit easier for everybody to be able to do it And watch it live and you guys I am showing it on the screen. This is the actual Kickstarter page So I think it's a little bit. Yeah, so we've got it's actually growing since then so Uh, we probably got I think I think the backers were up to like 50 now So in terms of the three dollar tier and so I would highly encourage you guys This is going to be epic. It's only three bucks You could say three bucks to enter the party. That's a pretty easy cover Charge and so This helps us do bigger things though at modern day debate We want to build a bigger platform for our debaters and the way that you do that, frankly, is you get bigger speakers on That builds the platform builds the following and so we want to offer more value to you We want to offer more value to the debaters as well in terms of a bigger platform to speak on And so I encourage you it is nick p. It's like a pay-per-view boxing match Except it's not what is it pay-per-view boxing has to be like 40 50 60 bucks And so this is like three bucks to watch this pay-per-view and you guys it's going to be Honestly, I'm thrilled about it. Dr. Michael Schermer Founder of skeptic magazine. This is going to be a big one you guys IP obviously a strong debater that's going to be I'm so glad that that's the way it is and so yeah, it's like if you're looking at the screen Well, that's right. Let me move it over three dollars is the smallest tier a piece of cake you guys And also though if you want to add in extra it's like another three bucks Makes it such that you're watching it live and let me show you It's at the bottom of your screen watching it live and making this event huge Is that's helping us fund the promotion as like I said, we had been putting youtube ads out and then let me show you So here's another tier your name in the screen In the on the screen. Thank you list. That's like ten dollars. I think a lot of people have done that actually I'm surprised at how many have and I I'm just kind of like wow Thank you guys for going the extra mile for us. So many of you guys have just really Helped and so we really do appreciate that You might be wondering though, you know, James. Okay, cool. It's not, you know, it's not pricey. I appreciate that Well, you might be wondering, but yeah, is it, you know, I'm still concerned. Is it how do I do kick starter? What is it like? Because it's a really user friendly website I'm showing you right now that you don't even have to give them your email Now you're seeing my sign in because I obviously made an account because it was like, well, we're going to use this I'll make an account, but if you're just like, hey, I'm just going to do this like once maybe ever Well, then you can just sign in through facebook and at this Kickstarter page When you sign into face through Using your facebook the Kickstarter saves your information So you'll have like a little inbox and that's where we'll send you the link to the show tomorrow And so man, I'm telling you guys it is a piece of cake And you don't even have to give them your email address. You can just sign in through facebook or apple whatever you want and so easy peasy, I mean it's super convenient and I'm excited you guys this is uh You might even say James, I don't even know, you know, like, okay, maybe three bucks to watch it It's like a dollar fifty per hour of entertainment And that's a pretty fine deal and it's a live show you guys So that kind of makes it more fun and engaging than just going to the movie theaters and you watch it from your home I mean, that's pretty nice so I'm pumped Want to let you know the Kickstarter is we kind of have set like an unofficial additional stretch goal Trying to get to 3100 by the end of the day as you guys might be thinking well But wait, I don't understand like if you at this point James if you have Already reached the goal Then what are these reach goals for like what do you plan on using the extra funds for? It's being reinvested back into the channel. What we're planning on doing is we want to basically first we want to use I would say that extra initial $500 Toward a trip down to the atheist experience studio for another in-person debate with matt dillahunty our most popular video in terms of average watch time is our Matt dillahunty versus inspiring philosophy debate that was at the atheist experience studio that Is definitely our most popular video. So apparently people have really enjoyed that and so we want to do another video like that I don't know the details of it like whether or not it would be ip or someone else I assume It will be in the late spring or maybe early summer. So that Is what we're planning on doing with the stretch goal money because originally this debate was only 2,500 for the actual goal and then a good chunk of that goes to dr. Shermer's honorarium and then a chunk of it goes to we wanted to give even though, uh, mike Jones said no I said bro, let us give you an honorarium of some type. We want to do that. And so that's the goal We've got to see how much we've got uh in the end after I think that we should easily be able to I don't know if we'll be able to give uh, mike don't see the exact same amount that's Probably not going to be the case, but I told him I said let me give you something man Because we do also in that kickstarter campaign if you go to the kickstarter page We have a graphic that shows like all of the fees or what all of it's used for And so I can maybe I can pull that up right now because you guys might be wondering like what where is all of it going So let me show you because we did even made a little graphic. Oh, yeah here. Okay, wait. No, no, that's not the right page Two seconds folks bear with me. We're almost there We're gonna make it Uh, so we do have a debate event budget. The majority of course is going to the Speakers honorariums. Let me just pull this up kickstarter and then going down to chrome full screen, okay, so This just gives you an idea is where speaker honorariums will be roughly three quarters And promotion you see is the orange piece there Which is the second biggest piece and then kickstarter fees because kickstarter It's like eight to ten percent that kickstarter actually takes from the pledges And so we're trying to cover that and so by you could say building it into what we're fundraising and then covering taxes I think that's looking at it now. I'm like that's uh I think taxes would be a little more than that, but it's all right. We'll be fine um The goal here folks is It's going to be epic. It's going to be phenomenal. And so we hope you consider that and then Yeah, I honestly in pump though. Willy channel says do you accept other currencies? I'm in the uk Thank you. I think that kickstarter does allow currency conversion so that you can donate in whatever way you want And so slam rn says, how do we see the debate here? It's actually going to be in your kickstarter account. So If you log into kickstarter, whether it be through facebook or any other way There is like a little inbox there where you'll be able to see a message from me Which will have the link tomorrow. I'll be sending that out and that will basically But I promise like you'll definitely get it I don't know exactly what time because we're deciding if we're going to have if we're going to embed the live stream modern day debate.com or if we are going to instead Two seconds If if we're going to instead just use a watch page that we would ask people to like not share out just because we Want to say thank you to the kick starters who? Kickstarter people who have contributed. We appreciate them. And so that is like what we had promised. So let's see Converse contender thanks for your support man. So if you haven't Supported the Kickstarter yet get on it and I would say yeah, you guys like it's only what is it? Time-wise there's only 21 minutes to go and so I would say if you're kind of like, yeah, you know, I don't know Maybe you're wanting to try new things do something outside of your normal comfort zone And you're kind of like, yeah Kickstarter seems like weird or different Well, this might be that thing to kind of step out of your comfort zone and try out Kickstarter If you're trying to try, you know, kind of stretching yourself in this new year of 2021 No one says James's positivity is the perfect counterbalance to the ambient vitriol surrounding so many of these topics In the world. Thanks. No one. I appreciate your kind. Whereas that means a lot and Let's see. But yeah, do you guys have any questions about the Kickstarter like how it works and thank you for your Digital gnosis has take $15 from that Kickstarter and get a logitech webcam so we can see you in hd Nice shameless plug for your your own company's webcam digital gnosis. I'm just teasing. It's not really I'll check it out. We uh, this one. I've got like a little gear head Uh camera and I do have a an hd one that we want to get set up It's just been so busy But let's see I should know who logitech is I'm embarrassed. I don't very embarrassing And men and I my rent says are people really tripping out over three dollars? Yeah, I would guess not I would guess some people might be Just kind of like, ah, you know, james. I just don't even really care to watch this debate anyway And they're saying, um I will just not watch it ever at all anyway. Maybe that's the case I don't know But I would say this you guys is that if we've ever been of value to you if this channel has ever been of value You're like, hey, yeah, I've enjoyed like the matt dillahunty debates or the in-person debates We've had some of those maybe a handful is that I would say hey consider just throwing a few bucks in the reason being That helps support the channel And so that's a way that we can put on bigger debates in the future and at this point even if you don't like this debate that's going on tomorrow um Want to let you know You guys That here's the trick Um This at this point any contribution you make to the Kickstarter doesn't actually go to Like today like tomorrow's event because this is kind of part of the stretch goal Where now we're using it to try to fund a trip down to atheist experience studio and So I mean that's something to keep in mind is that if you're like, ah Well, don't worry. I mean your money is going to something that you'd probably enjoy anyway. And so, uh, let's see Mennonite says uh Those who to be honest they said those who complain have their own internal issues with money to be fair Very few people have complained which I appreciate like some people are like Well, you shouldn't have to pay anybody anything and I'm like They're like they should just come on for free and we we should just watch for free and I'm like, um Yeah, that's true like 99.9 of our debates are free is um That's true And Some people might be thinking everybody should just come on for free and that's just the way it should be and I'm like um That like I would just kind of want to remind you that A lot of these people like they have their own jobs too And if so we if we ask them to do a debate, there are a few things to keep in mind one They're not just taking their time out for the debate. They're preparing for the debate That's less time that they're being able to use for their own like let's say jobs or hobbies or passion projects or side hustles that they do and so um, it's just not It's just kind of like strange that some people think like no everybody should just do it for free And it should be free for me and I'm like, uh Well, that's just not quite how the world works Brian Stevens. Thanks for your Additional support. I haven't checked the Kickstarter yet, but he had said some speakers charge over 50,000. Yes, that's true and um Brian Stevens says a lot of these people have never worked with booking people 500 to 2000 is super cheap Yes, Brian Stevens is right that a lot of our debates a lot of people don't know We do pay honorariums like we most of the time make up for what we pay for and if we don't So we do sometimes have debates where we pay let's say 500 or 1000 For honorariums and sometimes it's over like if we do a traveling trip It'll be like 1500 or so maybe 2000 In that ballpark in terms of the amount that's expended or needed That Is not a very big amount in the speaker speaker world A lot of speakers do charge like 10,000 or 15,000 which i'm just kind of like Yeah, i'm not going to do that unless it's somebody if we really want it But it's just kind of a normal thing that that's the way the world works even if people think that Even if people think that's not how it ought to work. It's like that. This is the world works as it does I can't help that But yeah, we do I think that these are you know reasonable JW says who charges 50 grand the rumor. This is just a rumor. I think that I've actually heard that Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro charge 50 grand I can be wrong about that But I can tell you this I know that the last time a friend of mine checked Sam Harris was charging $25,000 for a debate. So that's a small salary Which and by in my opinion, I'm like I personally I'm gonna be honest. I'm like in terms of the quality what he brings to the table as an alleged philosopher. I think that's uh Ludacris, I think that Sam Harris is a brilliant in neuroscience. I don't think he's To be paid $25,000 to do a debate as a philosopher. I'm like that. No, I don't think that makes sense myself Um, but I know that a lot of people want to see it and the trick is If we have Let's say Some mavericks that Jordan Peterson should charge a hundred thousand. Well, that's a lot Uh, let's see Chiddle digital noses says how does one go about becoming a speaker? I think that There are a number of things Jay mix and no the Kickstarter contributions are not recurring. So this is a one time deal folks Is that if you sign up for the Kickstarter, it's just one time you get charged to watch it for free And so yeah folks, I'm excited. We only have 14 minutes. And so it's closing shortly Thank you so much to the extra pledgers or brian stevens I should say and brian stevens for uh giving additional Amounts as we were at 3061 that's epic. And so yeah, I'm pumped to you guys is that This though is that you might be like, well, I don't know about it Oh, and then who did I see someone asked a question about who the dilla hunty debate would be with Yeah, brian stevens is right most people get money for their name and that's true like if we for example, even if we have let's say, uh, you know, he's not like On the level of like jordan peterson in terms of popularity But like but matt dilla hunty coming on the channel that adds a lot of value to our channel A lot of people are tuning in and it gets a lot of attention where people would not have known about us otherwise And so yeah, and it's like partly their name, which frankly kind of you could say comes from fame whether it be I can tell you that getting a phd alone usually doesn't get one fame It gives him a little bit of a, you know, kind of a little more perceived value in terms of the speaker But I can tell you that Uh, it's with michael schermer for example, he's been on joe roguin experience He's more importantly the founder of skeptic magazine and the current editor. So Yeah, I would say that there's a lot of it's more so that that it kind of gets uh Awareness, but yeah j mixon said who would matt dilla hunty be debating in the spring or summer I have to find out that I honestly don't know for sure right now Um It's a small. Yeah, so I'd have to get back to you with that. Um, but I promise we would be wanting to make it epic So digital nosa said I just overtook sj and subs. Can I come on? If you one of the bigger things is if you have prior debate experience that makes a big difference if you go to what is it? If you go to sorry, I'm like What's the word my mind is scrambled still if you go to modern a debate at gmail.com You that basically if you send a message there We'll send you an automatic reply that kind of lists the things that we are looking for in potential debaters and so Appreciate you asking and Brian Stephen said I'd watch a philosophy date with digital noses Oh, well, maybe if you have experience that's pretty that definitely is like the key Uh feature of the debaters as we're looking for people with experience And yeah, so you guys I am pumped though as we have just so much coming up if you're regarding the Kickstarter This strategy can open up huge doors for us In other words, I'm telling you like think of people that you'd like to have on the show like political too If it's david pacman if it's sam cedar if it's and these guys in person as well for those type of debates That's what we want to do this summer is we want to say hey, would you be willing to come on? Here's an honorarium we could give you is that we absolutely believe that it is worth it And so I promise this is being reinvested back into the channel And so Randolph Richardson says digital noses. I've been on a modern day debate and a number of different debates I'm happy to team up with you if you need or want experience. That's nice of you Randolph I mean, sorry Randolph and Yeah, you guys is that if we want to do I don't know if you guys have seen those epic debates with like jordan peterson and sam harris or jordan peterson and matt dillahunty That's and and those have been videos that have gotten like millions no joke at least a million views for each of those Some of them probably like two million three million. That's the kind of event we want to do in the summer That's really what i'm looking for. We don't plan on doing the Kickstarter very often Uh, it's just a one-time shot maybe quarterly Maybe even like twice a year. I don't know the reason that We don't want to do it often is because we want to have it be the case that 99 Percent of our debates are just live stream live And by the way, you might be thinking like james is like you're putting the debate behind a paywall Technically, we're only putting the live showing behind a paywall So it will be live on saturday, but I would say If I want to do a friendly challenge if you're kind of thinking like, you know what james I already know the debate's gonna happen. I can just save, you know I don't want to give three dollars. I want to just watch it afterwards And then I don't pay but I got the free debate I got to watch that you that everybody else paid for I would say To counter that to challenge that type of thinking if that is anybody's thinking is that and I mean this in the most like friendly and transparent way like I'll just openly challenge you and not trying to be mean but Uh, if like has this channel ever provided value for you to where you're like, hey I am kind of wanting to see this strategy this new strategy of using Kickstarter succeed and I would say hey like, uh This is a great way to contribute Back to the channel if it has ever given you any sort of value and that yes the Kickstarter is I'm going to put it in the chat. It's got less than 10 minutes folks so only nine minutes left and I'm putting it in the chat and I'm going to pin it to the top of the chat as well So that Kickstarter is very convenient for you and so Mennonite Myron says pay while everything and make people upset. That's the thing is that I mean I don't ever plan on doing that but like if I did I'm kind of like I I do sometimes I get emails from people who are like you should do everything for free and nobody should get paid And I'm and they're like and I should be able and we should all just be able to watch it for free No pay walls or anything like that if I when I get that kind of like those messages um I frankly I'm just kind of like do you think that you might be a little entitled?  This is really rare. There's a 0.01 percent of people that they just strike me kind of like I'm like Uh, you there seems like some things off. Um, either they're really really young like seven. Um, so that they're still in what uh PSA referred to as the egocentric kind of phase of cognitive development Or they're uh, they have a severe personality disorder. I'm sorry. I know that sounds really mean, but uh But yeah, and so I'm not saying that's anybody who uh, I'm not saying at all that that's like anybody who doesn't Join in for the Kickstarter. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that's for the people who are like James you should do everything for free and I should get everything for free and um, I I Like because I do kind of get messages like like that and I'm like this is ridiculous Um, but I understand that a lot of people are like, I can't give to the Kickstarter I work at that time. Maybe they don't even have the pay available like some countries Some people have told me the Kickstarter. It doesn't work there. Whatever it is. I I'm no judgment We appreciate you hanging out at modern day debate all together. But yeah, some of the people the extremes of Not only people saying like uh, like I totally don't mind if people say I don't want to be in be in on the Kickstarter I'm like, yeah, that's fair. I like we're not entitled to it. Like it's okay friend And uh, but the extreme of the additional going above and beyond to where some people like I say They're like all these people should come on for free and I'm like many of the guests that we've had on in the past That are big name people that draw uh debate like Tens of thousands of views for our debates We've paid and uh, like I said Uh, this is just kind of how the world works Converse contenders says james people want to have a big debate You should get kirk mcregory versus james white on molanism james white has been talking trash about william lane craig that would be juicy and I uh, I'm open to that that would be pretty dank and then Let's see digital noses says if you value the form of the good you'll do it for free. Thanks for that plate that platonic reference and then brian stephen says how much to have james coon's debate on the channel I would like to have more time to prepare. It's not as much at all a matter of money to debate on my own channel Like but it's more that Um to have time to prepare would be really helpful and that's something that's hard to do while i'm doing the phd but All over cat wall says i've spent several hundred hours watching these means i only spent point zero zero zero three dollars per hour That's funny. That's uh We do want to make it a value and that's why like i said the schirmar debate will be free afterwards it for everybody Um rich randolph richardson says i don't think if this is as a paywall You're running a fundraiser to pay for necessary expenses to operate this upcoming debate. I think that's reasonable Appreciate that randolph that seriously means a lot and digital noses says if you value the form of the good you'll do it for free Oh, that's right. I read that already digital noses says uh Yeah, if you if you don't pay up you have a personality disorder not at all what i'm saying I'm only saying when I get messages from people that say All the debaters should come on for free and james, you know You shouldn't pay them and nobody should have to pay anything and i should get to watch it all for free That's when i'm kind of like our is this person serious like Uh We are thrilled to have our guests on and some of them are big names And so they maybe charge big bucks if they're new york times best-selling authors like He's like a lot of a draw for them. And so totally cool though Like if you don't give to the kickstarter don't feel i'm not trying to like make you feel bad I'm only making i'm trying to say i don't like the when people do the old Well, everything should be free and you know, yeah james and And all these people should come on for free and i'm like, how can you just say that about all these other people? But yeah, so I totally understand if you're not in on the kickstarter Like I said some people you can't make it on time Like you you work at that time or you maybe in your you're in europe You're asleep at that time and that's totally cool. The maverick says at same time moderators need to fish out or troll Silly questions to bring quality up. Yeah, we could work on that. We'll work out And king crew. Thank you for your support says smash that like button Totally appreciate that king crew For that support and yes, we are super pumped out or pumped up the shire Cryer says you should branch out into physical debates. We absolutely do We we do want to do more in-person debates once the restrictions lift And ryan steven says goal 100 100,000 subs for modern day debate by the end of the year That no joke that is something that i'm considering like that's maybe something that we should strive to grow for As we do want it to be a bigger party the more the merrier and also it gives our speakers More exposure because that's I think for a lot of speakers. They've told me Some I should say some have told me like yeah, this is like how my channel got like a pretty good start Is I had a debate with so-and-so and it gave it got me a lot of new subscribers So the shire cryer says james you do so much. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you appreciate your positivity and encouragement. That means a lot and Mennonite says how many subscribers are you trying to hit this year and do you smoke weed? I would love to grow to like a hundred thousand because that would be like Hey, we have a legitimate platform where we can get bigger names to come on and so Uh a hundred thousand by the end of the year would be epic But that depends on I think if we can use this Kickstarter strategy if it's successful and Stoked we are at the Kickstarter the unofficial Kickstarter Extra stretch goal. We have two minutes to go you guys and so whoa, we just said Another 28 so thank you so much to those of you who have jumped in I'm honestly so pumped up you guys This is like super encouraging Oh, man, that is epic. And so thank you so much I'm putting that in the description. There is only seconds left on the Kickstarter right now you guys So if you have been considering if you're like, oh, I don't know there's 92 seconds left on the Kickstarter That's a minute and a half and so Thank you so much to those of you who have given extra and jumping in Richard Ashton says I'm in thank you Richard We appreciate it. Seriously. That means a lot and I am pumped you guys. Thank you guys and that's something that Randolph Richardson says for people who expect everything to be free Perhaps they can help arrange some major paying sponsors so that it can be free for all audiences Running your channel is hard work. Appreciate that Randolph It is and like I said, I the only people that I'm a little bit like kind of turned off by are the people that are like all these people like Michael Schirmer and Matt Dill huntie and everybody else should come on for free and It should be free for me and I'm like Like you guys like they have their own time too. They want to spend time with their family and friends and things um But thank you for everybody's support and Digital honestly says I want to do MMA debate with Muhammad hijab Hey, if you can get Muhammad to come on, I'm open to it, but he's hard to get He's uh, he's pretty big on in-person debates. No joke this summer though. We might I might I'm gonna try to see if Matt Don't tell Matt. It's a I'm gonna try to see if I can get I'm gonna try to talk Matt into coming to England With me to do live debates with some people there So I don't know if that'll happen But that's kind of some of the stuff that we're like looking for and so Robert Page says value for value I get value out of modern day debate. So it was not a hard decision for me Well, thanks friend. That seriously means a lot And we are pumped about it. So seriously Wow, we just hit 3138 so we had another $10 pledge at the very end And now it has zero seconds to go and I can't believe it made it you guys I am so pumped 142 backers have pledged 3138 and 99 cents to help bring this project alive modern day I don't know if you guys are watching the Kickstarter page when the time ran out, but fireworks showed I'm so excited You guys this is going to be epic. Thank you so much for your support you guys have been just the most supportive people in the world and Yes, I am pumped though I think for real Brian Stevens if we can get a big debate that gets like a million views I know that sounds crazy, but if we get some big-time speakers this summer We I think we definitely could we can get a million views And it could be absolutely epic and It could get us to the point where it helps push us up to that 100,000 mark But I'm I'm super excited that I think that yeah, I'm pumped that that'll hopefully the good thing You might be like James Let's see Brian Stevens says should be 24 7 completely free with big names. Yeah, I know 24 7 you just tune in any time there's live debates and digital losses says would like to set up a grapple debate format like chess boxing that sounds juicy Converse says James boxing matches between participants seems like a good way to raise money Like t-jump versus ip boxing would be epic. I'll do one that actually would be really cool You guys I don't know it'd be kind of I like no joke It would actually be really funny if it was just like a play boxing match so don't destroy each other but Where that it would just be epic Just like a fun thing to watch and people would get a kick out of it seeing, you know Tom jump or someone like going at it. So Let's see Thank you guys. I'm seriously. I so I appreciate it Randolph Richardson says congratulations. That's wonderful I appreciate that Randolph seriously. I'm pumped and Manic panda says I really like dr. Rouser. I don't agree with him at all But I want to see him again. He's possibly my favorite theist debater. I've seen so far honest interesting and respectful so glad to hear that and Mennonite Myron says good job wish you success moderating a bait. Thanks so much. That means a lot friend seriously Jerome Robinson says come of England. We will still be national lockdown by then. Oh, that's true That might be But yeah, I would love to come to England and do like a debate tour in Europe or at least in England And have some epic ones. That would be so fun. And so Yeah, I'm pumped you guys But that's seriously like the kind of stuff that we'd want to do with kind of the stretch goals that we've had And so man, I appreciate you guys so much. I'm so encouraged and enthusiastic and just stoked that this is uh Gone as well as it has so yeah, I'm like I can't believe it. I'm also yeah I'm just it's like I could go on and on about how great this is so I'm really really excited you guys and That is encouraging so it's just seriously I'm a little bit like whoa can't believe it. But yeah, thank you guys I don't completely know what you mean In your sentence, but Consider hitting that subscribe button if you're not already subscribed and remember that little bell button next to it Makes a difference in terms of whether or not you are getting a remote or notifications Jerome Robinson says meant to say come to England can't type for some reason. No problem My friend, I don't know what you mean. I don't know what you mean. I don't know what you mean Can't type for some reason. No problem my friend and yeah, but yeah, I'm I'm seriously excited Marked 123 ministry says great program by the way from a ministry here in Orlando. Thanks friend for your encouragement. That's super nice I am encouraged you guys Is there something that I can do for you? Are there I'm kind of Is are you guys willing to name speakers that you'd be like, man I'd love to see this person come on and debate because we are wanting to think we're like What are we going to do with the stretch goal extra funds? We want to do that with bigger speakers. And so Let me know If you have ideas as we that's the biggest thing is that we are probably going to have like an official survey Maybe saturday or monday after the Kickstarter event and we're basically going to say Hey folks Here's a survey with names to pick Let us know which of these speakers you would most want to see come on to modern day debate and so um That means a lot we do appreciate that and We definitely want to get your feedback tusk beatbox says I want to see dylan burns. Could have swore I emailed him. I I can't remember if I got a response. No joke If I did I think he was kind of aloof like he just didn't seem particularly into it But let me reach out to him again. I might be wrong about that like I might be thinking of someone else so I don't want to Say that if I'm wrong so uh, but he seems pleasant like I I've got nothing against dylan burns like he seems pleasant And uh, we'll give it a shot Let's see digital noses says if you're in manchester or liverpool uk hit me up. Thanks friend. I appreciate that And digital noses says, uh, I would love to see james fotor debate bill craig Oh, okay That's juicy. Let me write that down for real I'm putting that in my calendar as like a debate to try to go for because that would be epic and Man, that would be an epic in-person debate with william lane craig this summer if we could get that Like that would be pretty sweet. Uh, let's see Two seconds just clicking in and finding a spot I will try that seriously. I think that'd be fun And then we had another one said brian steven's best part of the debate was when matt Okay, let's talk about matt and sal um digital noses says I also want to see more darth docan's right Oh, man, that's really funny. And then uh, let's see David panciano says sorry james coons, but ip's content equals zero value to me For 2021 stay safe Thanks, david for your feedback and let's see um The stolen earth thanks for your super chat said Or a question they said nathan thompson versus kent hovind is the earth flat? That would be epic Let's see I don't think kent will I think kent knows it's too far outside of a specialty I don't think you'll do it. I've asked him several times. I think I know for sure at least once Uh, but who knows maybe And then gerome robinson said what can you what you can do for me is make everything free It's like, uh, oh, that's right. And then Let's see Digital noses says james fordora is in australia though. So might need flying out or something Woolly channel says, uh, just keep being awesome. James. Thanks for your support friend And then Jay mixon says have you considered cosmic skeptic? He can speak to atheism or veganism. Yes I just emailed cosmic skeptic recently And the goal is hopefully we'll get him on for veganism this month and Tuss beatbox said I think dylan burns would be down in an interesting in an interesting enough debate Either someone a bit known or maybe just someone who is in a foreign policy policy Which is the main area of expertise as I've understood it That'd be cool. I'm up to it dylan burns on foreign policy um Civil war debate with ryan dawson versus any schmuck gotcha open to that and Shire crier said would love to see a debate about disease theory of addiction juicy And let's see Why do you platform guys like nathan thompson or darth dawkins? Hey, it's true darth for example I don't get along with that well either Nathan i'm actually like i don't think nathan is as i don't think he runs people over in the discussion as much as darth I think uh, but anyway The reason we have people on is we say hey, we'll we'll be willing to have anybody on and I agree like sometimes darth is just uh rude and that's why you know i've muted him before and that's what made him rage quit and so That's something that we say that we're willing to have anybody and like we mean it with exceptions like Godless girl said a word on the stream that was just not what we were wanting and so I was like yeah, I'm not So we've given her some time away, but Mennonite myron says alex jones versus inspiring philosophy. Yeah That would be interesting um Christopher hatch says has vegan gains ever been on the show? Yes. He has for both a flat earth debate and Uh veganism debate and vegan gains is scheduled to come on next monday you guys So that should be cool. That'll be at 8 p.m. Eastern time. So I think that for friends in europe That's probably like midnight or later. Sorry about that, uh, but It will be obviously on the stream afterwards And someone said Mennonite myron says pine creek versus frank turrick. That could be fun. I think I messaged pine creek I didn't even get a response back too cool for school pine creek I messaged him like a week ago to see if you wanted to come on But that's all right. No hard feelings. I like pine creek. He's cool. He's actually I actually like I actually yeah I genuinely like pine creek and uh, the only reason I say I actually like is not to not at all A backhanded compliment to him. It's more that Um, it's true that I don't like everybody So there are some characters that I don't like having on um And so whether it be that we we all we just don't have them on at all anymore or maybe we Um, we do but I just deal with it the the fact that I don't like everybody Um, but it's usually they've got to be pretty like I I just don't like when people if they just Want to run people over in the debate. It's like, oh gosh, you're just what Just chill out. Um, David Bermudez says William Lane Craig versus Matt Dillanti That would be cool. I agree Stephen Burtis said where is king crocaduck? That would be cool to have him too. I've reached out to him I've gotten a response from him, which I appreciate Um, and I don't ever hold it against somebody if I don't get a response except pine creek but um, that was a joke, but I um I do appreciate when people do respond, especially when they've got a big following because king crocaduck has a Pretty big big following and so we know he's probably a busy guy with a lot of offers Brian steven says you laughing at darth is a highlight of any darth debate. Oh, man I couldn't help laugh at darth. He was just he would get so angry. I just can't help but laugh When people get really angry and I'm like, why are you getting so angry? Like just It's not a big deal. Like take a deep breath. It's like not it's oh, it's okay But so I laugh Oh, digital osus says pine creek's seen the message, but isn't sure about coming on No problem. Like I said, I like dug It's we like him whether or not he comes on or not Um chase ray says I'll smash like once I decide if I like the debate You've got it chase ray and I wouldn't have it any other way flat earth preacher says. Hello people Hello, you globies And then j mixon said matt won't debate bill craig. Actually, I think he will I think he said that he'd be willing but bill craig won't debate him uh, brian stevens says pine creek versus turrick would be epic um Reached out to pot holer 54 on climate change Sorry about that. I'm still getting used to getting up in the morning On climate change and creationism. I will do that. Seriously. I would love to have pot holer on that'd be fun What's pot holer is like main thing that he does now like what is he like to debate on is it on climate change or Is it on creationism? I truly don't know Mark porto said do you think conspiracy cash will actually believe the positions he debates? I truly don't know. Frankly the dinosaur one. I doubt. I don't I don't know for sure, but after the last debate I don't know. I was like really. I don't know. It's just hard to believe Um, I I do think he does believe in some conspiracies whether or not he believes in all of them. I don't know We try but we do I I do tell debaters though that we don't want Uh, we don't want what's the word I'm looking for devil's advocate debates We tried it once in our early stages people were turned off by it and I just see I I don't think there's anything wrong with it There's obviously I think there's value in it too. It's just not our thing More power to those who like to do it. I know that other channels have sometimes got it and I'm like cool like I think it's a good thing, but It's just that for our Theme or nature of the channel. It just hasn't really been what we wanted And Dave Langer thanks for being here friend. I'm excited you guys Is Dave Langer by the way? Since he's out since he's here. I have to give huge credit. He helped us a lot Randolph said I caught his yawn. They're they're very contagious. They're very very contagious, but Dave Langer has helped us a lot he Taught us about twitch I didn't know that twitch that we could become affiliates. We are now affiliates on twitch Which means you can subscribe to us on twitch I would highly recommend If you have amazon prime you may not have known you actually have a free um Twitch subscription that you can give to any Almost any streamer you want But we are one of them that you can give it to because we are an affiliate now of twitch So I would highly encourage you folks like consider doing that as That helps fund the channel as well and it's no cost to you you get that subscription And whether or not you use it it can either go to waste every month or you know use you don't use it Or you can use it and in which case I think it's it's not a huge amount I think it's like two dollars and fifty cents we get per month if you sign up But hey, I mean like like it's uh, if you use twitch anyway, I would say hey piece of cake I mean might as well and that's like I said we want to do some big stuff this summer is like it's time We're about to come to like 40 000 subs It's time to to make the next big leap And to do this and so appreciate all of your guys's support Digital gnosis says I think recently. Uh, it has been people make goofy claims about the c o v i d being fake Oh, yeah, I think alex does that sometimes i'm not sure digital gnosis says eddie bravo on conspiracy theories I don't know who eddie bravo is But um, I'm open to it and dave linger though. Thank you though seriously and tusk beatbox has been super supportive as well Super helpful She's helped us a ton. I'm linking the twitch link that tusk beatbox just shared That's in the that's linked at the top of the description And yeah, like I said, you can use your twitch Subscription on us as it helps us and it's no cost to you Uh, it won't you don't get charged anything or anything like that if you have amazon private It's just for free you can you have to re add the subscription each month Um, just so you know is it basically it unsubscribes to us in a month automatically And at that point you can re subscribe to us with that same free amazon prime twitch sub And again, it won't cost you anything. It'll give us another two dollars and fifty cents which helps And again, it won't cost you anything. But yeah, i'm seriously you you guys it's time for us to do big stuff What i'm talking about is big in person debates Going for debates that are just gigantic that get like half a million views or a million views and More important than views like for me, it's not about views per se But views is like a proxy and indicator of how much people liked it because youtube sees the average watch time They see the click-through rate and so they know like is this something that people find valuable And if they do they recommend it to more people That's what gets you more views So con converse contender says james matt delenti told me he would debate me on biblical savory a few weeks ago I'd like to do that if his current debate falls through or there is room for another I'm open to that. I know cliff and steward are Chomping at the bit. They're excited for it But i'm open to it in the future because we do want to have more that's another thing in 2021 We want to have more diversity of our topics So we want to do certain like let's say certain arguments like today the problem of evil and We want to have New topics wolf heidegger. Thanks for being here. We hope that you are doing well I'd like just getting to hang out with you guys like this. I do appreciate you guys It's always fun for me. Manic pand is good to see you again Randolph, that's right. I destroyed darth with my giggles Randolph Richardson says you should make a special douglas noel adam's episode when you reach 42 000 subs He's the reason people make so many jokes about the number 42. I don't even know I don't I've never heard of this phenomena I don't know who this fellow. I don't know who your friend doug is but that's interesting Digital asses says eddie bravo is a bjj guy from joe rogan e