He's in general and thrilled to have you here for another epic debate. This is going to be a fun one, folks. Want to let you know a few things up front first. If it's your first time here, consider hitting that subscribe button as we have many more juicy, controversial debates coming up. And so if you enjoy them, hey, hopefully that reminder of the subscribing will be helpful for you for those future debates. And also want to let you know, no matter what walk of life you're from, we really do hope you feel welcome whether you be Christian, atheist, you name it. We're glad you were here. Also, a couple of house cleaning things up front. We are very excited, folks. This is huge news. So we had mentioned, it's about a month ago, we had mentioned we're doing a Kickstarter. And so this was for the purpose of hosting the debate that you see at the bottom right of your screen between inspiring philosophy, Mike Jones, and Dr. Michael Shermer on whether or not Christianity is dangerous. This is going to be an epic one, folks. It's this Friday. And if you sign up at the Kickstarter, which is linked in the description, there's only three bucks to watch it live. And we've hit our goal already. So it's guaranteed. We've hit our initial goal. We are now doing a stretch goal. So you can see on the meter, on the far right of your screen, that's to reach our stretch goal. The additional funds that do come in instead of, or I should say, yeah, you could say instead of being used for this Friday's debate as that one's covered, we are going to, the plan is, and I told Matt, I was like, I'm gonna announce it on, it'll be more spontaneous if it's live. We would like to do, we'd basically like to use those funds to make a trip down to the atheist experience when they're ready. We don't want to pressure them. Once the COVID restrictions are loosed and everybody's comfortable with it, we would like to use those extra funds to make another trip down to the atheist experience studio with a debate with Matt in person. As to my knowledge, the debate that we have with Michael Jones and you Matt, that is our, it's got the average longest watch time. So apparently people, you've enjoyed it and so that's what we'd like to do again. And so that's, we've got to work out the details and we don't want to assume too much, but that's what we want to do. And so we've always enjoyed our friends at the atheist experience studio. And so anyway, folks, that Kickstarter is linked in the description. And with that, we're gonna jump right into it, folks. Want to let you know a couple of things up front. First, our guests are linked in the description. So if you'd like to hear more from our guests, you certainly can by clicking on those links in the description that are waiting there for you right now. Also, gonna give our guests a chance to just explain what you can expect to find at those links. We'll go from left to right on your screen. So Sal is pictured at the top left. We're thrilled to have you, Sal. Thanks so much for being back with us again. What can people expect to find at your link? In my link, we focus mostly on the creation evolution controversy. Very much on the scientific side, the graduate students there and also professors of biochemistry and biology who are on the creation side. And we go into the very fine detail that probably is not anywhere found on the net. So a little bit about me. I'm a former scientist and engineer in the aerospace and defense industry. I'm now a molecular biophysical research assistant for various researchers. So I will be highlighting some of my work on that website. You bet. Well, thanks so much, Sal. We're glad to have you back. And Matt thrilled to have you back as well. His link as mentioned folks is in the description as well. And so Matt, thanks for being back. What can people expect to find at your link? Oh, they can, it's my YouTube channel. So they can expect to find perhaps versions of debates I've done as well as debate reviews and topics designed to teach people how to have the conversations and the discussions better or get a better understanding of what we're talking about, whether it's a particular argument for the existence of God or something like tonight with Pascal's Wagers. One of the first videos I put up was a step-by-step deconstruction of Pascal's Wagers. Absolutely. And we're thrilled, you guys. We're working really hard on these new topics. And so keep your eye out as we have a lot of new topics coming up here at Modern Day Debate as we're trying to kick 2021 off right with some variety there. And with that, though, I wanna let you know the format for tonight's debate. It is going to be kind of loose and easy going. So it's gonna be about 12 minutes or so openings from each side, starting with Sal. And that'll be mostly open conversation. So about 50 to 60 minutes of open convo and then about roughly 30 minutes or so of Q and A. So with that, thrilled to have you guys here one last time. And Sal, I've got the timer set for you. Thanks so much for being here. And the floor is all yours for your opening statement. May I share my screen? I had a PowerPoint presentation I'd like to share. Absolutely. It should say Pascal's Wager. How should we then live? Does it say that? It does. Okay, let's go. Pascal's Wager, how should we then live? That's actually the title of Francis A. Schaefer's book on culture and that's really what I think the theme of Pascal's Wager is. I'll save the formal definition for the very end. But maybe one way to introduce the topic, consider Denise of Pascal, Marguerite Perrier. She was going blind and had terrible eye ailment. The doctors were about to cut into her eye and just remove it, basically remove the organ. So she didn't have a lot of prospects. A thorn, which was purportedly a thorn from the crown of Christ was touched upon her eye and she was healed immediately. Personally, I don't believe that that was a real relic, but at least for Pascal and his niece, this was an evidence for them of Christ's power. So again, for him that was a non-vanishing probability of God's existence. I'm sure it had an effect on him and definitely for Marguerite. In the modern day, Charles Duke, the youngest man to ever walk on the moon. When he returned to earth, he faced alcoholism and a troubled marriage. He became a Christian. In his book, Moonwalker, he recounts how after becoming a Christian, he led a prayer meeting and the young girl, there was a young girl there who was blind, who asked for prayer, the dad and the daughter. And in a few minutes, she was healed. Now, I'm not saying that this is proof of God, but again, for them that is something that they have to consider what happened. And December 16th, 2018, I called in to the atheics experience. I talked to Tracy Harris. I related the story of Charles Duke. I also related the passage in John nine on the blind beggar. I said, I would follow Jesus the rest of my life if I experienced a miracle like that. And I asked Tracy what she would do. She said she wouldn't follow Jesus. She would seek a naturalistic answer in question why it doesn't God heal everyone. Lots of atheists sided with Tracy and cheered her response as a brilliant one. So this is a good allegory of Pascal's wager on many levels. How should we then live when we're running out of positive prospects and graces offered to us? Richard Smalley, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. Later in life, he said evolution has just been dealt its death low after reading origins of life with my background in chemistry and physics. It is clear evolution could not have occurred. Shortly after saying that he passed away terminally ill with cancer. I don't know when exactly he became a Christian, but it was around the time he discovered he was terminally ill. You could see this does relate to Pascal's wager for people that are running out of prospects in this life. Now the problem of chemical evolution which I think Smalley was referring to, there is an excellent book that came out in 2019, the stairway or 2020, The Stairway of Life by change Laura Tann and Rob Stadler. These are Harvard MIT trained PhDs who work at secular institutions. The issue of the origin in life and evolution is, it's a new day as far as the creationist arguments. And I'll say that for later, but I should point out my alma maters. George Mason was my undergrad, Johns Hopkins is my graduate alma mater. At Johns Hopkins, we have a young earth creationist, Ben Carson. And at George Mason, these are people I know, Carolyn Crocker, professor of biology, Tim Standish, PhD in biology from George Mason. Gordon Wilson here, PhD in biology from George Mason. Timothy Brophy, PhD in biology from George Mason. Charles Jackson, biology degree from George Mason and he got a PhD in education and then professor, David McQueen of geology. The thing is, these are all creationists. It struck me that they hold the creationist view, reject the mainstream view of evolution. That's just the data point. Now at my alma mater, there's a professor who published this opinion essay. I can't believe that the prestigious scientific journal Nature published it. July 6, 2005, The Mental Universe. The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. And I highlighted and read at the end of his essay, he said, the universe is immaterial, mental and spiritual, live and enjoy in other parts of his writings. He says he's a deist, the God he believes exists is not a Christian God, but he derives some idea of an almighty God from his study of physics. Now, also when I was studying statistical mechanics and thermodynamics in my textbook, there was a physicist's reference. His name is F.J. Belinfante. He said this in his book, measurements and time reversal and objective quantum theory. We thus see how quantum theory requires the existence of God. Of course, it does not ascribe to God defined in this way any of the special additional qualities that the various existing religious doctrines ascribe to God. Acceptance of such doctrines is a matter of faith and belief. If elementary systems do not possess quantitatively determinate properties, apparently God determines these properties as we measure them. We also observed the fact, unexplainable, but experimentally well-established that God in his decisions about the outcomes of our experiments shows habits so regular that we can express them in the form of statistical laws of nature. This apparent determinism in macroscopic nature has hidden God and his personal influence on the universe from the eyes of many outstanding scientists. Now, the point I really wanna make here is I'm not saying he's necessarily right, but this follows from his interpretation and opinion as a respected scientist. The problem then is how can an atheist actually experimentally prove that this is false? As far as I know, there's probably no experiment that's gonna resolve the God question. And yet this is being put forward for an atheist to resolve the God question. I mean, hypothetically, he'd have to be eternal, all-knowing and all-powerful and by definition, he would be God. This is like a no-go theorem in physics. So I don't think it's a good wager to say there's no God. It may be a lack of belief, but to live your life like there's no God, that's kind of hard to justify formally in my opinion. Fred Hoyle, who is an atheist, he said a common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect is monkey with physics as well as chemistry and biology and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. His resolution to the God paradox then as he invokes nature is some sort of God itself, some sort of intelligent creature, nature on the whole. Now, what really got me though, is the problem of the origin of life is getting so bad and also for the fine tuning of the universe that evolutionary biologist Eugene Coonan, who I had the privilege of studying under one of his staff members when I studied bioinformatics and a little bit of evolutionary biology, he's proposing that the best solution to the origin of life problem is multiple worlds, multiple universes, and that's the reference there. But my problem with that is if one is appealing to these entities that are unknowable, untestable, unverifiable, how is this science? And how is it really any different than maybe faith statements that are just appealed to? So what I've been seeing then is I see these professors posing problems with a biogenesis theory, evolution theory, and fine tuning, and they start appealing to non-scientific solutions, just anything but God. So I haven't appealed directly, why would I specifically cite the Christian God versus other gods? There are respected scientists who are concerned the human genome is deteriorating and here are some of them, including Herman Müller, Nobel Prize winner, and I could go on to cite some of the articles. The one that has a nice title is by Condor Shope. He said, why have we not died a hundred times over? And Brian Sykes is another one, geneticist at Oxford. And there are many more. And I asked this question of an evolutionary biologist. Are there any respected scientists who think the genome is improving naturally? And I think he sort of punted on that question. He knew I would ding him on that. And again, people as respected as Nobel Prize winner, Herman Müller had been concerned about this problem. But one resolution to it is if we reject a biogenesis theory and evolution theory and maybe consider special creation with the deterioration of the genome happening this quickly, it seems one solution is that humanity is young and that would be consistent with the genealogy of Jesus Christ. So let's say that this is only a half percent chance of being correct. This is compelling enough to at least consider it. So let's move on. And I would, I really like Matt. He has a very compelling mind and arguments. And on the atheist side, in its favor, is the hidden God who took great pains to hide himself. Dawkins said, great pains to hide himself. The problem of evil. And I don't want to minimize this. I had a family member who suffered a horrible grizzly crime. Her name's Connie Reyes. I'm not going to go into detail. You can look her up. There's a Memorial Award for her in Kenosha, Wisconsin. So, you know, that's nothing I want to trivialize. On the Christian side, the interpretation of quantum mechanics, one of them points to an omniscient all-powerful God, the fine-tuning in life, it's a problem, a problem severe enough that they invoke multiple universes. We don't have to appeal to these mechanisms to solve ordinary chemistry, but for fine-tuning in life, people are appealing to it. And I find that's just kind of, well, okay, that it's no, creationism's no less, no more outrageous than that. The decaying genome, the failure of abiogenesis and evolutionary theory is consistent with the genealogy of Jesus. And for those in the audience who've experienced personal miracles, you know what I mean. I've experienced personal miracles and visions. I'm not saying that's proof of God, but that is still a non-zero probability for me. So I will now finally define Pascal's wager in his own words. Let us weigh the gain and loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. And he says, but at least learn your inability to believe since reason brings you to this and yet you cannot believe. And ever then to convince yourself. Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate that opening statement. Sal, we are going to kick it over to Matt for his opening statement. And Matt, thank you as well. The floor is all yours. How much time do I have again? I apologize. That one went a little bit over. So I'll give you the same flexibility. That one was, I think it was about 12 and a half to 13 minutes. So I'd say 12 to 13 minutes is fine. Yeah, no worries. All right, so thanks, Sal. Thanks, James and everybody here at Modern Day Debates. I appreciate the opportunity to come back here. This is a debate I never thought that I would have. And quite frankly, no offense to Sal who I like. I don't think we have had that debate. I've often been asked what is the worst argument for the existence of God? This is it, or at least one of a category of the worst and worst possible arguments for the existence of God. Because it is not in fact an argument for the existence of God in the slightest. It is an argument for belief. And yet it is used by people, and I'm not accusing Sal of this, but it's used by people as if it is an argument for the existence of God. But it's not. It's an argument for belief. Pascal addressed this, and we'll go through some of what Pascal actually has to say.  After all, why risk death by not wearing it? It's an attempt to sell you a Grigri, a Grigri being an African charm or fetish designed to protect you. This one, the fetish itself is just belief. There's so many problems with Pascal's wager that it's difficult to try to list them all in rapid fire order. First of all, it only compares one version, one very specific version of Christianity to strong atheism. It's either you believe this particular version of Christianity, which Pascal was advocating for, hit the one he accepted, or you believe that there is no God. Those are the only two options addressed by this. Now that's not a flaw in the argument itself because you can compare two things. However, it is a flawed argument when you're doing a cost-benefit analysis and you do not include all of the other potential consequences. And so one thing we have to ask ourselves, if we're gonna go with Pascal's wager is do we seek the best heaven or do we seek to avoid the worst hell? Or is there some other foundation? Maybe we go for the most average of the two. Maybe we go for the one where there's more evidence for it. But if we just assume that it's one version of Christianity or nothing, we get nowhere. Now, the colloquial versions of Pascal's wager are the, what if you're wrong? And of course, I know that there's people chopping in the bit for me to ask Sal, what if you're wrong? Which I'm sure we will at some point during the discussion. But what if the presumption of Pascal's wager is that a particular version of Christianity is true, wherein belief is the criteria for soteriology or the criteria for salvation. The soteriology of this position is that belief is it. That belief is something that you can come by or manipulate.  There is no evidential basis for arguing for the existence of God. So anybody who's defending Pascal's wager who's going to go and use evidence and try to make arguments for the existence of God is working in direct opposition to what Pascal was trying to do with the wager, what he flatly says that he's trying to do. Because this life that I have is everything until you prove otherwise with respect to my experience. And so you can come up with mafia boss scenarios of, hey, that's a nice soul there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to you. Which is just another version of Pascal's wager. But that wager ignores other theistic models. It doesn't consider, you know, Scientology. It doesn't consider, you know, Judaism, Islam, any of these. It's just this version of Christianity versus nothing. That already is poisoning the well with regard to trying to do a cost-benefit analysis. And the claim is that if you reject Christianity, you risk everything. But that's only true if there's no possibility of any other religion being right. So what these are saying when they evoke Pascal's wager is there is no possibility that any other religion could possibly be right other than this particular version of Christianity because that is what is pitted against essentially denial of that. And so if Pascal is right about Christianity and the afterlife and the criteria of avoiding that afterlife, then you have a case, but there's no demonstration that he's in fact correct about this. The only point here is that he's going to say, hey, it's between accepting this version of Christianity or nothing. But what about annihilation theory? What about a notion that I'm not gonna suffer forever in hell but that I'm instead going to be annihilated which is a different view of what happens in an afterlife that is consistent with a number of different versions of Christianity including, I think Billy Graham was an annihilationist along there. But the belief has to work in combination. What if you read the Bible and it points out that you're not saved by belief alone, but by a gift of God, by grace, by God taking some action that there's nothing you can ever do to be saved. And so it is pointless to start talking about what can you do or what can you believe to be saved because that presumes that you could fool a God. If the whole thing behind Pascal's wagers for me to believe and yet I don't, then I have to pretend to believe and hope that that's gonna fool a God. And I don't think that anybody including Pascal thought that that was actually a likely version or a likely event. In his original version, Blaise Pascal, who was a brilliant mathematician, had religious visions. And when he had those religious visions, he sewed those religious visions into the clothing that he wore. Now I don't know about you, but when people start sewing messages into clothing, that's kind of a red flag. And then when they go from being a brilliant mathematician to doing nothing more, nothing more of substance other than this, you know, defending the faith because religious experience, I started to question things. But Pascal said, God is incomprehensible. We cannot know what or if he is. That's Pascal. God, his point was, since we can't know God, all of these attempts to argue and present evidence is futile. And any Christian who is arguing to give evidence, well, here's the quote from him. First of all, he pointed out, says that we cannot reason towards God and that there is no reasoning towards the Christian God in his view. But he says, quote, translate. Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give reasons for their beliefs since they profess belief in a religion which they cannot explain. They declare when they expound it to the world that it is foolishness, stultism, stultism, sorry. And when you complain because they do not prove it, if they proved it, they would not be keeping their word. It is their lack of proofs that show they are not lacking in sense. This is Pascal saying the Christian God is something that isn't comprehensible. Now, I don't know how Pascal, sorry, my phone buzzed. I don't know how Pascal can claim to comprehend what he calls comprehensible because he talks about characteristics of God. And one of those characteristics, of course, is that God is incomprehensible. So he is already entered into a self-defeating position. He's telling us what God is while telling us that he cannot comprehend God and that Christians cannot comprehend God. And Blaise Pascal, by the way, not presenting arguments for the existence of God, acknowledging that this is not possible, instead presents the Pascal's wager. This notion that the Christians lack proof shows that they're keeping their word. Cool, that's fine if you like. But this is what I like to call Pascal's other wager and that you can safely bet that most theists, including Pascal, will attempt to reason toward a position they acknowledge at some level cannot be reasonably demonstrated. Pascal did this despite his saying that he shouldn't and that Christians won't. The wager is not an argument for God's existence. It is an argument for belief. Fideism, the notion that faith and reason are in conflict, something that I vehemently agree with or largely agree with. Top famously pointed out, you deny knowledge in order to make room for faith. Pascal, along with Kant and many others, was a defender of Fideism. The notion that you have to deny science, you have to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith. And he cites 1 Corinthians 121, which says, for since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believed. That shows from this particular verse that God was fine with the notion that this is foolishness. God is the one who saves those who believe, but there's nothing in there about presenting any sort of case or reason for God. So if you accept Pascal's wager and still try to offer evidence for a God, well, you're not representing Pascal's wager in the slightest. Essentially, we wanna be right and we wanna know, but we can't. So Pascal's saying we have to make a bet. And in this case, he sets it up where you gain all and you lose nothing, but that's not true because what I would lose if I were just to accept it uncritically would be my integrity, reason, intellect, access to the truth by pretending I already found it, time, money. Pascal suggests equal risk without demonstrating it and just goes for infinite gains versus finite losses. But if I have, let's say, 80 years of life and that's the end, how valuable is one second? How valuable? We already know that this is nonsense.  I guarantee you it would be different from what I would do if I knew I was gonna die in three months or three decades or three centuries, that changes the value of this, the life that I know that I have. So how can you calculate a risk versus reward? I don't know. I didn't hear anything much at all about defending Pascal's wager. I heard a lot of stuff about some scientists who accept creationism. So this almost turned into more of a creationist debate than a Pascal's wager debate. The defense of Pascal's wager didn't come to the end. It's worth pointing out that there's more to the quote that Sal mentioned. And that is Pascal, when he's talking about people cannot believe. Pascal says, true, but at least learn your inability to believe since reasoning brings you this and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour then to convince yourself not by increase of proofs of God but by the abatement of your passions. Translating that very simply, Pascal is saying reason cannot convince you of this and cannot compel you to believe. So you need to act as if you believe. He goes on to say, you would like to attain faith and you do not know how or what the stakes are. Sorry, you would like to attain faith and do not know the way. You would like to cure yourself of unbelief and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who've been bound like you and who now stake all in their possessions. These are people who know the way which you follow and who are cured of an ill which you would be cured. Follow, by the way, which they began acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, et cetera, even this will naturally make you believe and dead in your acuteness. Pascal is arguing for intentional self deception. He recognizes that you cannot force yourself to believe but belief is important. So instead you must act as if you believe in the hopes that doing so manages to convince you. That is the very definition of intentional self deception. It continues by saying, now what harm will befall you in taking the side? You'll be faithful, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend and truthful. That's a lie. There are countless believers who are not faithful, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend or truthful. And the only thing you can ever do is say, well, those aren't true Christians. Certainly you will have not had those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury. Oh, damn it. Certainly you won't have those luxuries but I'll tell you that by thereby you'll gain in this life and that each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk that you will at least recognize, at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite for which you have given nothing. At the end of my video about this, which I go into a lot more detail because it's like almost a half an hour, I finished it by saying that Pascal's wager is not a safe bet. It's the perfect con. However, it's not really a perfect con because many of us have spotted all of the problems that didn't point it out to everybody. It's just a good enough con to keep fooling people every day. I'm not only not required to make a decision about whether or not a God exists unlike what Pascal says. He only holds that I have to make a decision because not making decision to paraphrase Rush, if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice, that is his paradigm for this forced choice. But I'm not forced to make a choice. If I were though, I would bet against God because there's a complete absence of evidence for this. There's no reason to think that this is true. This is Christianity's version of a gree-gre saying, hey, that's a really nice soul. It'd be a shame of something were to happen to it. It's identical to saying, I have no evidence that you're going to die without wearing this necklace. Hold a minute left. And I'm not going to present any and it would be foolish for me to present any because this is a claim that is essentially devoid of understanding and evidence. But you should wear the necklace anyway, just in case. Thank you very much, Matt, for your opening as well. And with that, we are going to jump into open conversation. Want to say thanks so much to those of you who saw several of you jump into the Kickstarter. Thanks so much. Super encouraged by that. And I'm going to link that in the description. And so with that, this is about 50 to 60 minutes of open conversation. So thank you gentlemen. The floor is all yours. Oh, it's all ours. What are we going to do, Sal? What are we going to do? Maybe I could identify things I agree with. I have questions about things you said as well, but go ahead. Well, let me compliment you as I told you in person and I'm happy to say this publicly. I think that you have a very great mind and you articulated your case very well. The portions of the argument I would agree with is that Pascal's wager is the way that I understand it. It's not an argument for the existence of God. That's not how I read it. Now, his original writings were pretty hard to read. I mean, what I mean by that is I'd read it and just like, I don't know what it really says. I mean, I can read the text, but I'm just like, well, not exactly clear. I picked out the parts that I could understand. The part about self-deception is if that's what he was arguing, then that part is wrong. So I'm not necessarily defending the original version, but yet the way that I have articulated it and applied it in my own life is close enough to the original version that I think it's good. So it's one of these things where I don't say I'm not gonna throw out everything, but if you have identified some weak points, I have no disagreement there. Isn't an argument for belief, I interpreted it and the only way we would know is we had a conversation with Pascal and he would straighten us out on what he really meant. But I thought it was more of an argument when he had that hypothetical, sympathetic skeptic who said, I cannot believe, I'm not made. I made such that I cannot believe. And Pascal responded and said, true. Just, just convince yourself. And he gave a list of what to do, what you read. So I look at it as like confronting someone and saying, okay, you have to resolve this. If you agree with the logic that's important for salvation to believe that you should try to find a way to believe. And I don't think self-deception is a good way. And so if that's what he's advocating, then he's wrong. And I will respect that. There's no point in defending something that's just wrong. Okay, so for any version of Pascal's wager, it begins essentially with a sort of risk analysis that only pairs a particular version of Christianity against not believing in that version of Christianity, right? That's the way I read it. Okay. And so... We're in agreement there. Do you agree with Pascal that God is unknowable and comprehensible and not supported? There cannot be evidence-based reasonable arguments for God. I haven't read enough of Pascal to know if that is a fair characterization. Okay. If he's argued that, then I would not agree. And you would have a, you would win the point there. But there is something in mathematics. We have axiomatic theories where the foundations of math are actually themselves not provable when I was in math class that just about floored me when the professor said, well, these are just faith axioms. He said it's just like the Apostles' Creed. He used those words really strongly. That's a huge mistake. Well, anyway, this was Professor Kiley. And I was like, yeah, this is very interesting that he's saying these are, we have unprovable axioms that we accept. And why do you accept one set of axioms versus another? There's not any proof that these are the axioms we're supposed to accept. It just seems reasonable. And it seems to have some relation to the world we observe, but there's no reason we have to absolutely accept them. And so we get some very interesting mathematics when we accept different axioms. So I'm not averse to saying, and this also goes for physics and science in general. We have certain axioms we just accept as true. They are not formally provable. So I don't have a problem with saying we can believe in something that's not formally provable. That's the foundation of science and math. And so I'm perfectly fine with that. Sure. So I'm getting ready, hopefully in the near future, because I started working on it the other day. I'm gonna do a video about problems in mathematics because we tend to look at mathematics as if it's as precise as possible. But the truth is in most of mathematics where we're trying to do anything useful, we're dealing with approximations because we're dealing with, you know, calculus change over time. We're dealing with pi. We're dealing with numbers that aren't rational. And so we use approximations of them, which means our math is an approximation. Now an axiom within a mathematical system is something that's kind of done of necessity and it is only kept and only continually used if it continues to produce good results.  But if we found out that there was an axiom that was not actually consistently producing results, we would no longer use it. I believe that we've done that sort of thing in the past. So where's the demonstration of usefulness of accepting as an axiom, by the way, how bizarre that we would be talking about accepting God as an axiom. Well, I haven't really thought of it in those terms. So I'm sorry, I can't give you a good response now. That's a fair point. Okay, I have questions. Yes, please, please. I'll continue with, and you can ask whatever you want. And I did want to say something about axiomatic. There was an axiom, there was a longstanding axiom of Euclid's axioms about geometry. And it was in the 19th century, they began to say, well, why don't we adopt another set of axioms? And that seemed quasi outrageous, non Euclidean geometry. It took a few years before we started to see its application in general relativity. So the immediate utility of adopting an axiom, at least thinking about it, doesn't necessarily mean it's.  I mean, we've been talking about God, people have taken God as axiomatic for as long as we can recollect. This isn't an immediate thing. Where's the proof in the pudding? All right, you're asking proof that would convince you. And I'll just maybe to relate, I actually do think God, to quote Richard Dawkins, he is taking great pains to hide himself. At a personal level, at a personal level, and just perhaps so the viewers can understand my perspective, I've had visions, it could have been the hallucination. I think I'd seen miracles. This is like a non zero data point for me. So I'm in a situation, when I was dealing with Pascal's wager, I was in a situation where I couldn't, I said, you know, people like Matt Dillahunty had very good arguments against God. I'd be 99, I probably would have been 99% with you, but there was that non-residual, I said, I can't completely disbelieve you either. So you asked me what would- No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You asked me what good would the axiom of God do? I was like, well, okay, I think it's really good that when I prayed a few times, I thought I saw a miracle, and other people can relate that too. And what is there to lose by seeking out someone to pray for you? I still do that. No matter how many, even when I was in the depths of my agnosticism, I went to people and said, can you pray for me? I'm having problems. I don't see that there's any loss to that. That's Pascal's wager and the axiom of God that are very practical and personal level. Yes, it's called intentional self-deception. It's called intentional self-deception. There's that little girl who went up to astronaut Charles Duke and asked for prayer. You know? It's intentional self-defeation. You had a bias toward this and even in your agnosticism, you went out looking for more of this. So you said a minute ago, you thought you experienced a miracle. Let's say you thought you experienced a miracle and somebody else thought they experienced a miracle and only one of you is correct that it was a miracle. How do we tell which one of you experienced a miracle? I don't know that there's anyone that can judge. You make the bets. If you cannot, you're doing what Pascal did, but you're kind of tossing the side because you're basically saying, I have no way to demonstrate whether or not a miracle occurred. I'm just convinced of it. Yeah, that's about it. That's not reasonable. Sure it is. No, it's absolutely the antithesis of reason. If you say, I believe something, but I cannot demonstrate it, that is unreasonable by definition. No, we make decisions all the time where we have incomplete information. That's just the answer. This isn't about incomplete information. This is about, can you show that it's a miracle? No, I cannot. Then you shouldn't believe it's a miracle, should you? No, that's not true. That's not true. It is true because you shouldn't believe something until there's evidence for it. You don't need 100. There are decisions here. I didn't say 100% evidence.  I'm just saying. I'm not trying to do that, but I apologize if that's how you're feeling. Whether you're trying. But I was just pointing out, there's no one that has perfect knowledge. It's just, it is just... Did I mention perfect knowledge? It's perfect knowledge relevant. All I'm asking about is whether or not something is reasonable. What counts as proof for you? What counts as proof for you? What counts as proof for you? Can I finish? Can I finish? I'm saying what's reasonable. Are you just gonna talk over me? All right. Okay, order in the court. If you want me to try to respond to your questions, we'll try to do this orderly. You did respond. I asked you if you had a way to tell the difference between you experiencing a miracle and somebody else experiencing a miracle. I said no. When only one, and you don't. So you're admitting that you don't have a way to tell the difference, but instead you are framing that as nobody has perfect knowledge. I never said anything about perfect knowledge. I didn't say anything about requiring perfect knowledge. I asked, how do we tell the difference between a real miracle and a fake miracle? You have no method and yet you think you've experienced a real miracle. That is by definition unreasonable. You have no reason. You were saying it's unreasonable. I'm saying it's reasonable. It's not. You have no reason. How can you say I have no reason for X, but I call it reasonable. That is by definition a contradiction. No, because we have incomplete. When I said I have no way of proving it, proof would require perfect knowledge. No, it doesn't. I didn't ask about it. So proof doesn't require perfect knowledge. How can you demonstrate that it was a miracle? If you can't demonstrate a miracle, then you don't get to call it a miracle. And if you say I don't have a reason to believe it was a miracle, you don't get to say your position is reasonable. It is the antithesis of reasonable. I can believe it. Yes, you can't believe it and call it reasonable because it's not. No, if I were that blind girl and I was healed, that's reasonable to me. I have no evidence of a blind girl and you were not healed from blindness. Don't go to somebody else's claimed miracle. What was your miracle? I was in a Catholic church just before the night of my confirmation I'm no longer Catholic. I was just going through a church rehearsal for the confirmation ceremony. And I was just reading to him and then suddenly it looked like someone cut the lights on I was kind of annoyed by that.  I looked up, I saw a flame coming out of the cross and I didn't know what to make of it. And then I just kept reading my hymn and trying to sing. And then I looked up again and then the apparition disappeared. That's non-zero. Of course I could have been hallucinating. That was one. I also was involved in the paranormal.  I mean, we're supposed to be having a conversation here. If you're gonna- Because they're- You asked why am I doing this? Okay, go ahead.  You just talked about something which is you were in a church before your confirmation, you saw something, you looked down, you look back up, it was gone and you think that is a miracle despite the fact that you said it could be a hallucination. You are acknowledging that you don't have good reason to think it's a miracle and yet you wanna claim it's a miracle and that it's reasonable to do so. It is not. I have good enough reason to think it's possible. Same with- I didn't- This isn't a debate about whether or not something's possible. Well, you asked why we're having this debate. Or whether or not you have good reason to think it's possible. You don't become convinced of something just because it's possible to you. It's possible that I could have a $5,000 bill or $10,000 in my wallet but that doesn't mean that you should believe it. I have reason to suspect it. There are many decisions in life where we don't have complete information but we suspect something is true or false. Many times we don't know. Listen to you. We can't completely eliminate one possibility over the other and there is many times risk-reward decisions all the time when we don't have all the facts that we would like. I don't know anyone that has as many facts as they would like to be able to make a decision about something whether it's true or not. So you asked if I had a method. You asked if I had a method and I say it's pretty reasonable even if something is remotely possible to consider it. You haven't demonstrated. You have not demonstrated possibility. I haven't demonstrated it to you and- You haven't demonstrated it at all. That's the purpose of the debate. You don't get to just say that it's possible. The purpose of the debate is not to persuade you. I'm not here to try to persuade you. So what's the purpose of this debate? There might be people here who have- The purpose of this is for us to discuss- If you've had experience- Pascal's wager, which you haven't addressed hardly at all. I thought I did.   Let me- I'll give you- Go ahead. Pascal's niece was irrelevant to Pascal's wager. Your call into atheist experience was irrelevant to Pascal's wager. Richard Smalley's comment on anti-evolution is irrelevant to Pascal's wager. The stairway to life is irrelevant to Pascal's wager. Ben Carson, who thinks Joseph built a pyramid to store grain is irrelevant to Pascal's wager. All of those creationists in every argument and position about creationism is irrelevant to Pascal's wager. The claim the universe is immaterial when we're talking about the fact that it's material. Not only is that wrong, not relevant. Quantum mechanics, not relevant. Oil, not relevant. Or the origin of life fine-tuning, not relevant to Pascal's wager. Scientist X says something and it sort of sounds like God, not relevant to Pascal's wager. The human genome is falling apart, not even necessarily true, not within the wheelhouse of any of this, and completely irrelevant to Pascal's wager. What case did you make for Pascal's wager other than stating what it was at the end? I stated the evidence that I used to weigh the probabilities. You have probabilities of why you believe something. I stated that even if there's 1%, it's still the same principles of expected value. You can't show that it's 1%. Can you show it's 1%? It doesn't have to even be 1%. Can you show that it's even possible? Can I show it? Can you demonstrate that it's possible? What count is evidence of a demonstration? For you or for me? I don't know. What makes you think you're more qualified than me? Do you think you experienced a miracle while acknowledging that I've been in a hallucination?  I mean, you're not in a position. Did I, wow. Sal, why are you being so dishonest? Did I say I was more qualified than anybody else? Oh, you're accusing me of dishonesty. So this is- Yes, you just accused me of pretending as if I'm better than everybody else. I'm asking you- You said you're declaring what's reasonable for other people. Yeah, I'm not declaring it. I'm not saying because Matt Dillahoney said X is reasonable, that's the case. I'm saying because this is how reason is defined, that is unreasonable. If you say I don't have a reason and I could be wrong and it could be a hallucination, you don't get to say it's reasonable for me to conclude that it's a miracle. That's just not true. I said it could be. I didn't say it was. I don't care what it could be.  I don't have to demonstrate it to you. I was there, you moved from one leader. Kind of a circle to a different topic. Oh, so I wasn't there. Well, okay, I've got a God and you don't know him, he goes to another school. So this may be a chance to go to a different topic where, for example- Like Pascal's wager? Pascal's wager and Pascal's suggesting that if you wanna believe, go to church and do these things, that's an interesting topic, whether or not we can choose belief directly and directly, whatever it is, other topics like that, but this one is just that we're kind of getting into the weeds on this one. It's not, I think that for a lot of us, at least me, it's not super clear how it directly relates to Pascal's wager. So any other topics we might wanna discuss? Well, the expected value, the reason that I framed it this way is Pascal along with Vermont and Huygens formulated the idea of expected value. The expected value is how you do risk reward in casinos. I played in casinos, I got kicked out of them. For using math skills. And so it's perfectly fine to say, I can't demonstrate that the next card out, coming out is gonna be an ace, but there's a probability it could be. So it's perfectly reasonable to have not 100% proof in making a decision on it. That's exactly the heart of why we think that's with incomplete information. And even though we have uncertainty, that's the way that I understand. I mean, this came out of Pascal's wagering theories. He was a pioneer of that. So I can't separate that from just the theological stuff that you were quoting. I mean, that seems the basis of it. That's why you're saying all these things are relevant. And it's fine for you to say that, that I consider the things, the list that I gave is relevant. And if it makes you uncomfortable to talk that and to make it part of the computation for expected value, that's your prerogative. Oh my God. There are viewers here who want to say it that way. Sal, don't pretend. Don't pretend, sir. Can I complete my thought? Only if you're not going to go on for 10 more minutes. I didn't need a lecture on this. I used to play poker for a living. I've played craps for a living. And you know what we do when you say that? Played craps for a living? Yes. You know what they do when we sit? Well, not for a living, but I made money playing craps. You played, that's, that's, all right. And then I finished my sentence. If you afford me the same courtesy, thank you. I did afford you the same courtesy. I think if you rewind, you'll find that you gave us whole lecture about gambling and about whether or not there's a probability of an ace coming up. But you know why we can tell what the probability of an ace coming up is? Because we know there are aces and we know how many cards are in a deck or in a shoe, and we can calculate that. Please stop pretending that you have calculated the probability of God until you show your work. I've shown my work. More specifically, just Sal, making it clear for people in what ways your past experience with gambling, if you can kind of give the meat of like, how that gives you reason to believe in Pascal's wager or gives others a reason to believe in Pascal's wager, just kind of connecting the dots for those. How many aces, how many gods are in that deck? And how do you know? Well, can you repeat the question, James, that you were asking? Were you directing the question to me? Regarding the past experience you've had in gambling is if you're able to explain kind of in particular, so like the way in which that gives you a reason to believe in Pascal's wager or otherwise. It's not so much believing in Pascal's wager. It is basically kind of the reasonableness of making bets on if you have some assumption of a probability that something could be true. You don't have to have 100%, you don't have to have 100% certainty that it's true. In the gambling world where uncertainty is the norm, you make wagers on outcomes. And if you're actually a skilled gambler, one of the better games is actually blackjack because the more observations you make, you have better estimate of the probability, the cards that are gonna be coming out. That's actually not true in craps. If it's totally randomized, that's why it's kind of hard to believe anyone is trying to make a living on craps unless they're using marketing methods. But the idea is what happens in Pascal's wager is not very different from many things in life where we have incomplete information or information that's less than we would like to have. People are called in to serve as jurors in the jury trial. They weren't there. They have to evaluate the evidence presented to them and weigh it. It's not perfect evidence. They don't have 100% certainty but they can still make reasonable decisions. So even though Hasbian asked whether I can prove it, I was pointing out that there's so many things in life you don't have. You don't even move forward until you have perfect knowledge. You have uncertainty and you have suspicions and you make decisions on those because you don't have perfect knowledge. So I was just contesting that it's unreasonable to not be able to demonstrate something and demonstration is perfect demonstration. I disagree with that. We don't have perfect demonstration that science works. I not only didn't say that. I not only didn't say anything about perfect demonstration or perfect knowledge but I've corrected you on this twice before. So let me ask this. Would you play craps? Would you gamble at craps? Only if I had marketing advantages. Well, all right, but you would play blackjack, right? I would play, I would not play craps without free bets. I need free bets, some sort of, because the casino is using the law of auction. You do realize that played properly, backed with odds. Craps has the lowest house edge of any game in the casino, including blackjack. Yes, it still has a house edge. Including blackjack. No, blackjack has an edge because it has. No, craps played correctly, has lowers the house edge lower than blackjack. No, why did I get kicked out of casinos? Why did people make three and a half million dollars? Because if you card count, you have a better estimate. Wow, you don't care about the actual math.  You can finish your thoughts, sir. I apologize. Thank you. I can go grab a craps book off the table and you can go into a website and show what the odds are. And a pass line backed with odds properly, especially where three, four, five odds is more common now, but at a place, there was a casino on the strip that used to have 100 times odds. But as long as you're backing it with odds, you can lower the house's edge to less than that. However, that's not the point I'm making. Would you, Sal, play a slot machine? Only if it's the piggyback one, but not a random one. I wouldn't play a slot machine. It's the worst bet in the casino. So you may or may not play a slot machine. You won't play craps and yet you'll bet on God when there's no requirement too. So you won't do it in a voluntary setting. Hey. Okay. All right, can I, I do apologize for interrupting you. I'll try to be better gentlemen, Matt. But I will point out that the readers can investigate. There is a famous proceedings at National Academy Sciences paper on Blackjack by Edward Thorpe, who proved the game can be beaten if played properly. So the question is whether there's a house edge in playing skilled Blackjack. Absolutely there is. That's why they go after card counters. That's why card counters get thrown out of casinos because to play Blackjack properly, the difference between Blackjack and craps and they can investigate this. And it's just funny to hear Matt say stuff. It's actually wrong. The craps game has independent Bernoulli trials. The Blackjack game does not. It has conditional probability estimates that you could do by card counting. That's why the game is beatable. And so I just laughed when you said you made a living playing craps. The only way- I was, I made a living, I corrected that. I corrected that because I made a living playing poker, but I was playing craps as well. But what is the house edge on an odds bet at the craps table? I only know the pass line bet. Zero, one zero, zero percent.  The house edge on an odds bet is zero. It pays out at exactly what the odds are. It is the only bet in the entire casino that will pay you at exactly what the odds are. And by playing pass line bets and come bets, backed with odds, you can lower the house edge down to about 1.41 percent. Jumping back to- Well, it starts at 1.4 percent. Sorry, 1.41 percent is where the pass line bet starts. And you backed that up with odds, which can be three, four, five times. And in some casinos a hundred times, you can lower the house edge down to half of a percent. What's the house edge in Blackjack? Even with, granted, card counting systems, yes, you can get kicked out of there and all that other stuff. But playing by the casino, playing by the casino's rules with no chance of being kicked out for anything else. What is the house edge on Blackjack? More so, unless this ties to Pascal's way draw. I do really want to- It does, because Sal, sorry, won't take bad bets in a casino, but it'll bet on God. Now, have you done, you haven't done any calculation with regard to craps or even looked it up. What's the calculation you've done to show that God is a better bet than the craps bet? A non-zero number, which is finite, times infinity is infinity. That's the- You don't get to use infinity. You don't get to use infinity that way. And the other thing is, you haven't given me, you haven't given me a reason. I'm sorry, I was in the middle of trying to explain- I'm sorry, I apologize, keep going. I did that, that finite, finite, finite number, conversely, I've asked the atheists, what's your expected value? And they don't give me very convinced anything- It's not calculable. So that's- I can't give you a calculable number when for something that isn't calculable, which is why I keep asking you, what are the odds of God? You're willing to take that bet. You're willing to talk about infinity as if it's a quantity that you can multiply next to other things. Infinity is a concept, not a quantity. You can't reach infinity. Therefore you can't quantize infinity. Infinity, sorry. Zero, in my view, it's non-zero. I could be wrong. The thing about Pascal's wager is it shows whether some of your worldviews and your actions are consistent with your worldviews. Richard Dawkins says he's like 6.9 on a scale of seven of certainty for his atheism. So there's a 0.1 in seven chance in his book that God exists. Now, if he's referring to the Christian God, if he's referring to the Christian God, that's a non-zero value even by his own estimates. Is his life consistent with that? Well, I don't judge it to be, but it's his life to live, not mine. I don't know any atheists that have given a 7.0 certainty on a scale of seven. No, nor should they. We're not absolutely certain about anything. I'm the guy that's preached about no path to absolute certainty on anything, period. So you've done the calculation for me. No. There's no certainty. That means that there's a finite possibility in your book there is a God. No, that's not what it means. It means it is unidentifiable. The fact that I do not have any way of calculating something does not mean it must be non-zero. That is simply false. What is it? Just because I can't calculate how many unicorns there are in the backyard doesn't mean there's a non-zero number of unicorns in the backyard.  That is a massive math error. So you're 100% convinced of anything. I've said this over and over and over again for 15 years. Right. OK, I appreciate you pointing out you're not 100% convinced of anything. Correct. Thank you. And I'll quote you on that. You don't need to. I've said it more times than you've spoken in public. 100%. You're not 100%. I'm not 100%. I have lectured about how they're not know this. You didn't bother to look at Pascal or me? I was just pointing out you're making decisions without 100% certainty. Yes, all of us are making decisions without 100% certainty. The point is to try to be as reasonable and consistent with the evidence as possible. At no point.  You accused me of it multiple times, which I corrected multiple times. And I am not only not said that. I have preached strongly against that in virtually every single debate I've done for the last decade. Well, first of all, I do apologize if I mischaracterize you. It wasn't intentional. So I mean, it's probably the one benefited in this exchange is that I have a better understanding of what your position is. And your position is you're not 100% certain of anything. Yet you're willing to make decisions. I am forced to make decisions. That's Pascal's wager. No, it's not because I'm not forced to make a decision about whether or not a God exists. There is no force. I don't. I don't have to decide whether or not I'm convinced that a God exists. Just like I don't have to decide whether or not I'm convinced of Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monster or Fairies. I don't have to say I am absolutely convinced there is or there are absolutely convinced there isn't. I can sit here as an honest person and say there isn't sufficient evidence to warrant my believing this. And therefore it would be unreasonable and irrational for me to conclude that it is true. I will reserve judgment and tell such time as there is sufficient evidence. I have not concluded that the statement God exists is necessarily false and certainly have never claimed that I can show that it is absolutely false. But in any case, all of this is irrelevant. Please make a case for Pascal's wager before this debate is over. Well, I felt that when you're saying you're not 100% certain of anything, then there's an uncertainty there. There could be a God. I just don't know. The fact that there's uncertainty doesn't mean that X is possible. It means we don't know. What is so difficult about saying I don't know whether or not a God is possible. You need to demonstrate that a God is possible before I can be convinced that a God is possible. I don't have to be convinced that a God is possible to not also not be convinced that it's not possible. Possibility and impossibility both would need to be demonstrated. I just don't see it that way. And I mean, that's obviously something we're going to do is to have a talk about reasonableness and just have you say, well, I don't see it that way. And then misrepresent me over and over again. OK, I don't know what to do. It's not my intention to misrepresent you. I mean, I will try. But how can you not see it that way, so? If you say you're not 100% certain, that means, OK, when people say that they're not 100% certain, and when they say they don't know, that means that they haven't been able to rule out all the other possibilities. Correct. They can rank them in terms of believability. So do you understand what an unfalsifiable proposition is? Yes, I think so. I would hope so. An unfalsifiable proposition is one that cannot be shown to be false, therefore it is a useless proposition. The notion of falsifiability is critical in science. You cannot have a testable hypothesis that is not falsifiable. The whole purpose of this is to show that there is at least, in principle, some way to show that something is false. For an unfalsifiable belief, it would be dishonest and unreasonable for me to claim that I have falsified the unfalsifiable, just as it is for advocates of Pascal's Wager to claim that they've detected the undetectable. Well, I never represented Pascal's Wager as saying, detect the undetectable. I do, you know, to the extent in his original writings that that's interpreted that way, that's wrong. I have no problem with that. But we all rank, again, based on the expected value ideas, we have rankings that we believe are statements being probable. So even if I had, if you can't calculate the expected value, you don't put the rank things. If you have three things and two of them, you can't calculate the expected value. If you're dealing with infinite payoffs, you can do that. No, you can't. If you have three propositions and two of them are incalculable, you don't get to rank which one is more probable. If you can't calculate a probability, you can't rank. I'll give you a math lecture right now. I mean, you're the same guy. I don't need a math lecture for somebody who didn't know anything about crapsods and things that you can multiply by infinity to prove that ostriches are from outer space. But I'm pretty sure I'm good without a math lecture. I'd just like to see what reason is there to think that Pascal's Wager is a good bet. And by the way, which heaven are we trying to seek?  What is the path to salvation that is the correct one to take for Pascal's Wager? Matt, I think I need to ask you some questions now. If that's fair, I don't think I've had the privilege to do that. I'll do something different, and I'll actually answer them. What does atheism have to offer Christians? How is that relevant to Pascal's Wager? Atheism isn't a proposition. Frame it in terms of expected value. Atheism. And if you say that you can't calculate it, then Christians feel that they're able to calculate it. We'll then say, well, atheism has nothing convincing for me. And that's basically what's happened. I tried to get them to frame their ideas in terms of Pascal's Wager. Tell me what the payoffs are in your estimated odds of why you believe you're right. What is there to gain for the Christian out there? What is there to gain for someone like Charles Duke, Jesus Christ, or are the other Christians here? Persuade them based on expected values. If you can't calculate it, then just say, you don't know how to answer them, and that's fair. Atheism is not a worldview that presents things for people. There's nothing there that is a benefit to someone. It's also not a positive statement. It is a reaction to the claims that people believe that a God exists. It is about being not convinced that a God exists. What does atheism have to offer people? At most, atheism could offer them the possibility of not continuing to be wrong about their irrational beliefs about the supernatural and God. Actually, not even just the supernatural, because atheism doesn't say anything about the supernatural. That would be more skepticism along those lines. But whether or not atheism offers anything to anyone is completely irrelevant as to whether or not God is a good bet. I disagree. Surprise. Benefits expected. The word benefit is expected value. What's the expected value for atheism? There's no expected value for Christianity either. There's no expected value. There's no demonstration of efficacy. There's no demonstration of reliability. There's no demonstration of an afterlife. There's no demonstration of any of that. It's just hope. You hope that you're right and you hope that you're not wrong. So what I get is that you have basically, you're saying atheism, they don't calculate the value that they may give to someone. Correct. Your best argument is the position that nothing to calculate a benefit from. It is a rejection of the claim we should believe there's a God. That's it. How is this new for you? Didn't you call the show like four years ago? I don't watch it very often. It's a great show. I don't have any problem. But we only have so many hours in the day. The other thing is honestly, I'll tell you something. I do respect some of the things that they say. But I'm not going to invest my time in something that doesn't offer me anything. And to the best of my knowledge, it's like. And you're doing Christianity. What does Christianity offer you? It offers hope. False hope is not hope. If there's no reason to think that the hope is in something good and true, it's false hope, right? I agree. OK. So what does Christianity offer you? How are you going to demonstrate that? Reasons I believe you may you may find them. I'm sorry. Please go on. I'm sorry, Matt. I interrupted you. No, we both we both done it.  What did you find? Just continue. OK. I gave you reasons I thought and that were valid. All you guys keep going, but as Sal was going to let you know, I think your connection is ebbing and flowing just a bit. I might be wrong. I agree. No, I've seen it break up. No problem. Let's keep going though. We've got you know. So I gave the reasons that I consider. I give the reasons that I consider that there is evidence. You don't view it as evidence. Nobody should. Nobody should view it as evidence for a proposition, but also this debate was supposed to be about Pascal's wager. So I don't know why you're trying to present any evidence at all. That's not Pascal's wager. Pascal's Pascal's wagering theories, expected value. You have your estimate of a probability and payoff. That's that's how you that's how the casinos beat the beat the gamblers and the gamblers might have a chance of beating the casinos. Except that's the way I just said was you. This is so bizarre. You're talking about expected value. It's not something you can calculate or approximate. But at the end of the day, what I said was why are you presenting evidence instead of defending what Pascal's wager is doing? And you just come back with Pascal's wager is about expected value. I know Pascal defines it as infinite gain and no loss, which is absolute nonsense. It is not no loss and it is not infinite gain. And there's no way there's no demonstration that anything that you do or try to do, including trying to self deceive yourself is going to result in convincing the God to give you an afterlife. I do have a question for you and I do appreciate you responding. I felt you tried to respond to me directly the last time. And I'm sorry that you don't think I'm responding to you directly. I'm doing the best that I can.  OK. A, I have no evidence that anything like that has ever happened. B, it can't happen to me until I'm blinded and see Jesus would have to show up. But how would I know if I'm blind one minute and then I can see how do I know what caused that change? You can't. Then why would I follow Jesus for claiming that he did it? Jesus is standing there. If I can, you just admitted that I cannot show how I got unblind. So why would I credit Jesus? I think we broke Sal's energy because in that case, he prayed for me. He said, cut my is it all right if I cut my camera? That might help. Thank you for the years for bearing. So I just cut my is just for clarity. There's a blind person because you cut out for second. I'm clear there's a blind person and Jesus comes up to them and they're no longer blind. How do you show that Jesus did that? You'd have to be God to show. Absolutely. So if I'm not God, I find that's reasonable. I have I find that that's reasonable. Someone has helped me. I was a blind beggar. No one cared for me. Someone came along, opened my eyes, told me he's the Messiah. I would follow. So are you blind? What do I have to lose at that point? Why is that unreasonable? The truth? You haven't. That's the thing that I was trying in terms of Pascal's wager. The atheist haven't given me a better reason. You're talking about someone being healed from blindness as if it's a real thing that really occurred when you have presented nothing to show that it's a real thing that ever really occurred. And you've admitted that even if it did occur, you can't show a connection between the healing and the person you're trying to attribute to. And yet you'd have to be God to know in your own words, you would have to be God to know that Jesus, that in your own words, you said you would have to be God to know that Jesus did it. And yet you are convinced that Jesus did it. And you weren't even there. You don't even have, there's no medical records. There's no nothing. You heard a story and you buy it. That was the point of me presenting it. The question to you, really what I was trying to show is how unreasonable you are. That there's no level of miracle that probably would persuade you. And when I get, when I hear that- We're done, Sal. We're done, Sal, because that's the most dishonest thing anybody can say. I will be convinced by anything for which there is evidence for. And if you or anybody else could demonstrate an actual honest to God miracle, I would believe that a miracle occurred in a heartbeat. Nobody ever does that. That's why there's a website called Why Won't God Heal Amputees? How dare you in a debate pretend I would present evidence, but just Matt is unconvincible. Nothing would convince him. That is a lie. It is dishonest. And it demonstrates that you do not have a defense for your beliefs other than flinging mud and saying, well, Matt just won't believe it.  I'll believe anything that you can demonstrate with actual evidence. I'm not gonna believe a story of somebody being healed from blindness when there's no evidence for it and then conclude that the story is right about how they got healed. Even you know that's wrong. That wasn't the purpose of the hypothetical because what you just said in that hypothetical scenario told me that, I mean, that doesn't look like you're gonna believe it that way. I don't care what you think anymore, Sal. Did you not figure that out? For a lot of people that would be evidence enough. I don't care what you think because you're talking about my character and you're attacking my character in the middle of the debate. So bite me. You are sitting here. You did an opening statement that didn't address Pascal's wager, didn't show how you could calculate, didn't show you could have expected value. Anything and at the end of it, when you got back into the corner and shown that you couldn't present anything to defend your position, your next response was to suggest, well, it wouldn't matter if I could because Matt wouldn't believe it anyway.   That's despicable. No, I was just trying to point out based on what you said, a miracle of that level wouldn't convince you. So the reasonable question then is what level of evidence? So I grant that God hasn't given you the evidence that would persuade you. I'm fine with just, I'm fine, I'm willing to say that God hasn't convinced you. Obviously that's the case. You didn't just say that God hasn't convinced me. You made an accusation that nothing would. I'm done with Sal, we can go to questions. Well then, I'll- I'm done with Sal, we can go to questions. If I'm to be insulted, I might as well be insulted by the jackasses in the chat that have been saying I'm brain dead or dishonest or whatever else.  I'm not sure if you can hear me, Sal, but, because I haven't heard a response from you, but what we will do is we do have a lot of questions, folks. So we are going to try to get through every single question that we can. And so, do appreciate all of your questions. Want to do a couple of quick housekeeping type things. First, thanks so much for your guys' support. Always thrilled to have you here. No matter what walk of life you're from, we really do hope you feel welcome. And thrilled, thanks so much, guys, for those new pledgers to the Kickstarter, which is linked in the description. We are pumped for it. We've got only until Thursday. Want to remind you guys, the Kickstarter will close on Thursday. And so once that 12 p.m. noon on Thursday, central time, once that threshold hits, that's where it's actually too late to actually jump in and pledge. And so we do encourage you if you want to watch Friday Nights, debate live, it's only three bucks, a cup of a cup of a cup of coffee. And with that, want to say thanks so much for your questions starting out with Dave Langer, who says, question for Sal, did you say at the beginning of the debate that you did not do a lot of research on Pascal's wager for this debate, or did I mishear you? Can you hear me, Sal? I don't, well, whatever, I'm sorry, whatever I said I said. So I had done it in terms of expected values. I did read through Pascal's original. I read, I also went through Matt De La Hunty's version of what he's critiquing for Pascal's wager. There's really not much beyond that, but you know, so I don't know what count is great investigation of this. It wasn't that long of an essay. Gotcha. And thank you for your question. This one coming in from Brandon Kaplan says. Yes, thank you for the question. Brandon Kaplan says, for Sal, if we choose to take Pascal's wager at face value, how does this provide evidence for a specific God? And how do we know we are following the correct one? The wager doesn't provide evidence. It is a method that you take with your view of the odds and the payoffs and you put it through. So the way that I look at Pascal's wager is that at least the way that I've applied it in my life is to see if there's consistency in the way that I've assessed the odds of something being true and the potential payoffs. So I wouldn't say that, can you repeat the question again, James? I wanna thank the viewer for the questions. It was from Brandon Kaplan. And the question itself was, if we choose to take Pascal's wager at face value, how does this provide evidence or how do we know we are following the right God? So the many God's objection. Good question, you don't. You don't and it's not evidence for God. I don't know any Christian that, I mean, personally, I mean, there may be some out there. Oh, I studied Pascal's wager now, I'm a believer. I get to meet one person. I mean, there might be someone out there, but the way Pascal framed it, he said, well, you don't believe, but you realize that you've come to this conclusion that it's a good bet. This is what you do now. And he suggested it. So even in the original nature, he wasn't saying that this is why you should believe. He was saying that you're realizing that it's a good bet and then Pascal then gave a prescription what to do to be a believer. So that's the way I interpreted it. So people that are saying this is evidence of God, I don't know anyone personally. I mean, there might be someone out there who says this is evidence of God. I've never said that's evidence of God or other God's. Gotcha. Or eliminating other God's. Gotcha. Thank you. And I do want to correct myself. Technically that isn't the many God's objection, more like an analog, if anything, but thanks for your question. This one comes in from Experiments in Prebiotic Chemistry. He says, Sal, consciousness is produced by the brain. How can someone experience the fires of hell without functional nerve endings to experience pain? That's a good question. And thank you very much for the question. I alluded to how this possibility could be when I quoted Richard Conn Henry from my alma mater, the universe is mental and immaterial. The exact quotes you have, you can actually go to the article in the journal Nature. And so that's how it can, on that assumption, again, that's provisional. That viewpoint is consciousness is fundamental to reality. That it has something that is more, actually what Richard Conn Henry's postulation was. Got you. So how can hell continue then? I need to rush you, Sal. But just because we do have a lot of questions, so I need kind of like the short and pithy responses. Okay. Or maybe just a bit pithier. I'll let you finish on it. Pithier, all right. So immaterial, and I gave evidence of at least someone's scientific opinion on immaterial, then it can continue in an immaterial world hell. Gotcha. Thanks for your superstickers from Mike, Q922, Q and 100th monkey. Appreciate your support. That means a lot. An iron litch gaming. Thanks for your question, said Sal. If Jesus was born of a virgin, then how are the genealogies of Joseph's line relevant at all? Also, does it bother you that the genealogies are fairly different? Both genealogies even disagree on who Joseph's father was. Brief answer. Yes, it has bothered me. I thought there were some good responses. Joseph's genealogy is important for trying to time the length of time that humanity was on the earth. Can you read the question one more time and I'll try to, in case I missed anything. And thank you for the question. Well, this is a long one. So it's one, I'll read the second part. Does it bother you? That was, says both genealogies even disagree on who Joseph's father was. Yes, it bothers me. I don't know if you heard me. Let's see, we're gonna move to the next one just because we have a lot of questions. But Sal, let me know if you're hearing me clearly. Ingwe Himawari says, sewing things into your clothing is a red flag. How about tattoos, permanently inking stuff on your skin? Is that a red flag? In parentheses, atheists love tattoos. I think this is for you, Matt, but I can't remember the context that it refers to. I missed part of the question, that this is about tattoos, I have tattoos, but what's the point? They, for some reason, I think they think that you said sewing things into your clothing is a red flag. I don't remember this. Oh, because that's what Pascal did. Pascal had a religious vision and I was pointing out that after that he became a little unstable and wrote down his vision and sewed it into his clothes. That's sort of, it's not like, when I've got tattoos, I'm not adding them to my skin in a way of making sure that these ideas stay with me all the time. It's just a memento. And tattoos can have different reasons, but when you start talking about someone who writes down their vision and then sews it into the fabric of the clothes they're wearing, that's a little bizarre. Meanwhile, it's not just atheists that love tattoos. The whole freaking planet is tattooed now. Gotcha, thanks for your question. This comes in from Tom's chair. So yeah, so we always loved when Tom's lazy boy sends in a question, says me, I'll use Pascal's wager and believe just in case. God says you're lying, LOL. Thanks for the convo, but there's still no God. So I think that they're at the heart of this objection. There is something that I think they mean seriously, namely that some people say, Sal, that God may say, I don't really knew, I don't really think that you were believing in me. If God is all knowing, God might say that you seem to be doing this for the wrong reasons or maybe that it's a fake belief, something like that, Sal, if you have any sort of response. Well, there was a case where Jesus was confronting someone and the man said, I believe Lord that helped out my own, that's the case for many people where they don't completely believe and yet they don't completely disbelieve because we're finite and we have a lot of information that we would like to have, but don't. So I think that's very normal. I think that what you're deals with is if you're in that situation, you do believe something to some degree, but not completely. You have to weigh the benefits in the possible costs of making a decision, sort of transduce healing, the blind girl in the name of Jesus. Those are decisions that people are faced with. They may not completely believe and yet they don't completely disbelieve.  That's really the way I view Pascal's wager, saying, how should we then live? Gotcha, and thanks for your question from Johnny Mowley. There were some people saying there was an echo, but nothing's changed here on my end. So I don't know if the echo for me is on yours or not, but it's just strange to do that. Oh, people, you don't completely believe, you don't completely disbelieve. As I pointed out, atheism is not completely disbelieving. This is not a position of absolute certainty. This is not, hey, this is false. It is, I am not convinced. I don't know why this keeps getting framed as, well, we have to make decisions in the absence of certainty. Literally, I've given a lecture on the fact that we will always and have always had to make decisions in the absence of perfect information. And so you make the best decisions you can, which is why there are bets I won't take in a casino and out of casino and one of them. And anytime there's an unfalsifiable, non-calculable demonstration of efficacy, I'm not putting money on it or expect the value. I'm not putting money on it. Anyway, they say it sounds good now, so thanks, James. Good, and Johnny Moe, thanks for your question, says AP is a troll, okay, gosh, yeah. Silver Harlow, thanks for your question, said, Sal, mathematics is not built on accepting the axioms is true. It's built on, quote, if these are true, then these are the things that follow, unquote. And then they said, minor correction, Matt, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice, is not a paraphrase of, it's a direct quote from Rush, apparently, alright, thanks, Silver. Yeah, I probably said paraphrasing for fear that I would get it wrong because I think I said, if you choose not, well, anyway, it doesn't matter. It's a Rush quote, it's awesome. Gotcha, and Silver Harlow, for you, Sal, said, as I mentioned, mathematics is not built on accepting the axioms is true, it's built on, if these are true, then these things follow. Any response, Sal? If these things are true, then these things follow. That's the way of stating it, but when mathematicians spend their lives pursuing this, it's still an assumption. Gotcha, and thank you for your question. It's still a faith, you're gonna assume it's true. I mean, on some level, I would count that as belief. Gotcha, and Pudis? Because you have to assume it's true to be able to make all these derivations, that's all I have to say. Thank you, and Pudis Spencer, thank you for your question, said, Sal, why does the Christian deity have the properties it has instead of other properties? Why is it the case this deity's nature isn't, say, one of evil? I don't know, thank you for the question, and that's something I can't answer. I do appreciate the question, I'm very sorry I don't have a good answer. Gotcha, Ian Chen, thanks for your question or comments. I'm an atheist, but I really like Sal, modern day debate rocks, appreciate your kind words. And for the record, I really like Sal too. I got irritated by what he actually says, I don't have any problem with Sal. This is all about in the context of this debate, when you start telling someone what they will and won't accept, pretending that you can read minds in order to cut down what they're positioning, that's, I mean, in his own words, oh, you can't tell whether or not that's God or not. So let's say that there's somebody else. Let's say that there's somebody else in another religion who believes that they've experienced a miracle, even though they acknowledge it could be hallucination, and that this belief in this miracle leads them to believe in a God different from the one Sal is, there is no mechanism that either of them or anyone else has to tell which of them is correct. We know one of them must be wrong, and it's possible, or at least seems possible, that they might both be wrong. There's been no demonstration of anything to show what. This is just, Sal's telling us what he believes, that's it. Sal, given that I don't, I'll give you a chance to defend yourself, but then we gotta go to the next one. Nice to see you again, and apologies to Matt. I didn't, it wasn't, if I misrepresented you, it was non-intentional. So I will defer to how you describe yourself. So. Gotcha. Good one, next question. Says, I know this is about Pascal Wager. What do the debaters think about Kierkegaard's on quote, leap of faith? Is Pascal arguing against the leap? I'm not familiar with Kierkegaard, and I don't like leaps of faith. Maybe small steps. We all have some degree of faith in decisions we make. Gotcha, Matt, do you have a response on that one? That's all I had. I don't have anything additional on it. Gotcha. Thank you for your question. 25th says, Matt, I am wagering versus the Christian God, versus Voldemort, both seem fictional. I am just unsure what seems more real in our collective consciousness. Thoughts? Also, is math a Platonic concept? Can it be found? Wow, the second question is gonna cost me to think for a while, but yes, I think math is a discovery, but I wouldn't consider Platonic. Not in any sense where we're looking at ideals, because there's so much in the way approximation. It is derived from logic, essentially, identity is basically defining one and zero. That's what we all do, and everything from there becomes a mathematics there. Now, on the God versus Voldemort thing, this is where Sal and I could have had a discussion because it's wrong to pretend that you can calculate something that you can't calculate, but it's not necessarily a problem to say that you've approximated relative. So if we took a look at something like the Christian God and Voldemort, we have a complete track record history, including the person who invented Voldemort. For anybody to make a case that Voldemort was real, they would have to be arguing that basically, J.K. Rowling decided to tell a secret story that she knows and has access to or whatever. It would be kind of bizarre. So when you calculate how unlikely they are, I don't see any demonstration that either of them are possible or likely, but I can understand that someone says, I'm more likely to accept this thing that is being proposed as real than I am this thing that's being proposed as a fiction. Now, the problem is, I think they're both fiction. It's just that they're not being presented as fiction and it would be a mistake. And it is a mistake for atheists to come out with garbage arguments. And not all mysticists do this, but there are some mysticists do this that overextend what we can say. They can say, oh, we know God's not real and we know Jesus didn't exist and all this other stuff. They're taking up positions that they cannot defend. And I think that that's a mistake. It's a mistake to shift the burden of proof. But I can say that while I don't find God likely and I have no demonstration that God is possible, it's still, this is being presented as something that is real versus something that is false. So it's like, hey, which do I think is more likely? Paul Bunyan or Winnie the Pooh? Well, I think they're both fictional, but Paul Bunyan is at least consistent with more things within reality. Okay, you're welcome. I'm glad I pointed it out too. Whoa, one second, so sorry, I was on mute. So sorry, gang, in the chat. I know I'm gonna get 300 messages saying I'm muted and I appreciate that feedback, folks. I have just fixed it. So God is not real, thanks for your super sticker of a dancing rhino. And then the thing that Matt was just responding to was they said, Matt, thank you for pointing out that Pascal didn't propose that we believe, but that we pretend to believe that's a pet peeve of mine. Next up, Garrett Wolfe, thanks for your question. Said, what's to say there isn't a God that only allows rational non-leaf into eternity. What if the big test isn't faith, but is instead thinking rationally and the only way into heaven is atheism? I think that's for you, Sal. So... Can you read the question? And that is a very good question. So in a nutshell, it's saying like, what if there is this God that exists that actually favors atheists?  Then I'm toast. What if there's a God that... How's that for a healthy response? Well, there's no reason a God would favor atheism. The thing is, what if the God's actual test is whether or not you're gullible, whether or not you're willing to believe things without good reason? That is the atheist wager counter to Pascal's wager. I'm not a big fan of it, which is why I didn't really present it too much tonight apart from a half a sentence. But if the criteria under which we are to be saved is just belief, then the only thing that's required is for you to become convinced. But most versions Christianity, including what I grew up with as a Southern Baptist, don't hold that belief in and of itself is the criteria for salvation. Salvation is by grace through faith from God. There's nothing you can do, believe or otherwise, act or otherwise. That is the doctrine that I grew up on. I realize that is not the only version of Christianity, not at all. But if there's some other criteria other than belief, what could it be? Could it be, were you a decent person? Did you work to improve the world? I think that would be a better criteria than belief, for sure.  But I don't get to decide what the criteria for a particular God's salvation is. Without any saying of what that is, Pascal's wager has to stop at the very beginning until you demonstrate what the criteria for salvation is. Pascal's wager is moot. Gotcha. Given that the super chat was originally targeting your position, Sal, we'll give you the last word on this and then we gotta go to the next floor. Oh, you're talking about atheists? I just said that I'm toast. That was my response. That if you favored atheists over someone like me. Um, okay. Aaron Rorvik, thanks for your question, said question for Sal. God wanted to save humanity. At best though, all history, 50% are saved by their belief in Jesus. Was this a bad rescue operation? Is God incompetent? No, God is not incompetent. He plays favorites. How do you know this? I was expressing my belief. Oh, okay. Next, Ian Chen, thanks for your question, says words of encouragement for Sal. Good job. Got a fan out there, Sal. Caleb says kudos to Sal for a remaining calm and patient. Despite, let's see. Oh, so yeah, it's like more of this is trying to fan the flames, which I'm not. It's fine, let him fan, I'm not bothered by it. Soda Cabbage, thank you for your question, said how likely could it be that miracles occur but theological claims are not proven by miracles? Thank you. I think the whole thing with this invocation of multi-universes by scientists is testament that these are at least in the statistical sense, miracles. They're violations of the law of large numbers at the biochemical level. And then also the notions of what we call naturalness as far as the fine-tuning parameters. So yes, we can decouple kind of like the inference just from a physical observation from theological implications. I try to do that. I try to do that when I try to teach creationism and intelligent designs. Is it, we could say this, we could say in the statistical sense, this is a miracle. What you make of it in terms of your theological beliefs is formally separate. Gotcha, thank you for your question. This one comes in from, Soda Cabbage says, oh, we got that one, I think. Jesse Schodal, thanks for your question, said what's the probability of a God existing Sal? It's non-zero. Prove it. It's non-zero. We don't have to put a figure. The second you say it's non-zero, you have adopted a position and a burden of proof. Prove that the likelihood of God is non-zero. I'll buy you a steak dinner right now if you can prove that God is non-zero. I gave a reference to something that was a published scientific opinion in a scientific journal. And maybe that doesn't satisfy you. And I respect that. But I've given my reasons why I believe it. That's enough for me to say it's non-zero. It's a straightforward derivation from quantum mechanics. So basically, after everything Sal says, you can just say, this is Sal's opinion, don't worry about evidence, don't worry about a reason. This is just what Sal thinks and he doesn't wanna defend it. No, I'm afraid now you're mischaracterizing what I said. I cited an expert scientific opinion. Not on whether or not God is non-zero, you didn't. Where did you get that? That counts as non-zero to me. Wait, no, no, no. If a scientist said we'd derive this from quantum mechanics, that's non-zero. Sal, Sal, did a scientist say that the likelihood of God is non-zero? He actually said, there's a God. I gave a quote also with F. J. Bell and Fonte. He's cited in my statistical mechanics and through my dynamics book. These are respected physicists. He's not the only one who believes that. What's his expertise? That counts as non-zero for me. No, it doesn't. What expertise is there with regard to God? Where's the demonstration of any expertise about what makes a God likely or non-zero? What counts as a demonstration? Quantum mechanics is one of the most battle-tested theories. Quantum mechanics doesn't have God as a variable or doesn't address or talk about God at all. Nowhere in the field of quantum mechanics does it talk about God. There was a deduction there and you know, you don't have to accept that deduction.  But the fact of the matter is, if you're gonna sit here and say that God is a non-zero, that there's a non-zero possibility of God, you have to do more than just say, that's what I believe. And then when I push on it and you say, oh, well, there's a scientist that said it. And I say, did the scientist say there's a non-zero? Well, he believes in God. Well, it's not what I asked. If you said that you're not 100% certain of anything, I could have fixed a non-zero probability of God. You've gotta run through these. You're wrong about non-zero possibility with uncertainty. You've gotta keep moving. You're just flat wrong. We've got a lot of questions left. Devin Hardy says, Sal seems more so, okay. Like I said, folks, try not to fan the flames. Nick Jansen thinks to your question says, speaking of chances, what are the chances we'll get Adila Huntie versus William Lane Craig debate now that Craig's doing online debates? I don't know. It's zero. Craig has flatly said that he will not debate me. Got you. And many people have tried, including friends of his. So if somebody wants to see Craig debate me, they got a lot of work to do because he's repeatedly flatly refused. Got you. That's his prerogative. I'm not gonna hold it against him. Next up, Ingway Himawari thinks to your question said, Matt, in math, the concept of quote limits, unquote, invoke infinity incessantly. As the limit approaches infinity is a coherent and useful mathematical phrase. Yes, it's a concept, but it's not a quantity. It is, it is essentially an assessment. So the same reason why we're using calculus, we're using approximations. We're using pi, we're using approximations. When we use the golden ratio, we're using approximations. I'm not saying that we don't get incredibly good calculations. As a matter of fact, my point is the approximations are good enough. We don't need pi to 50 million digits. We don't even need to know, ever know what the 50 millionth digit after the decimal point in pi is. We don't ever have to know that to be able to use pi, the concept, to do incredibly accurate calculations. However, they're not precise and they're not absolutes. We are constantly using approximations. And so, yes, infinity is an incredibly useful concept. Without it, you couldn't have calculus, but that doesn't mean that it's a quantity where you can say, oh, any number times infinity, oh, for Christ's sake, that's just, hey, zero, but. Next up, thank you for your question. One three, L-A-C-L-E says, Q-M is the quantum mechanics is the interaction of fields, conscious or not, fine-tuning is a scale dependent. Decaying genome assumes independent events. Evolution is dependent. That's outside of my area. I don't know what this person's getting at. Either of you? Well, thank you for the insightful comment. And the decaying genome is something that is observable and medical community is very concerned about that. That is a real legitimate concern. All of us should be concerned. So that's why the creationists have been very, kind of in a sad way, very excited because they view that as a data point affirming the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Gotcha.  I'm gonna bet that this concern about the genome decaying is tied to a gross misunderstanding of evolution and natural selection. Because in order to say that it's decaying, you would have to, there would have to be some goal, but evolution doesn't have a goal. So all we can say is that our genome is changing. Oh, is it changing in a way that's harmful to us? Sure. Is it changing in a way that's beneficial to us? Sure, that's what evolution is and natural selection will act upon those changes. But the notion that there's some perfect genome that we have fallen away from is already circular reasoning when you're trying to talk for, oh, God created us perfect and now we've fallen away from it.  And apostate.  I wanna keep going. We've got a lot of questions. Apostate, Pauly, the thing is, I'm actually happy to take bets and lose them as the case may be. I'm just not willing to take bad bets right off the bat. Gentleman's bet, no money involved. We're not advocating online gambling here. Go on. Oh, right. Apostate, Pauly, thanks for your question. So has solved the problem of hard solipsism? No, I haven't explored it. Richard Cohn Henry did talk about solipsism when he was trying to discuss his quantum mechanics. There are some issues for that that I've heard with Boltzmann's brain, but no, short answer now. Gotcha, and let's see. This one comes in from Crystal Ross as Matt. Have you ever checked your, let's see. Yeah, some of these that you guys, you guys are- Go ahead, ask it.  It might help your anger and remove any blind spots you have. Yeah, it's not my pride. And by the way, what you see is anger is probably more frustration, but it's not my pride getting in the way. It's reason and dishonesty and argument. That's what's getting in the way. You go back and watch the debate that I did with Stuart where we actually had a conversation where when I asked a question, it got answered, where there was no attack on the individual and where Stuart didn't just sit here and go, hey, I believe something without a reason, but I'm gonna call it reasonable. Gotcha, and I know that folks, it's a debate channel, so it's almost inevitable that there's gonna be some kind of battle in the chat or elsewhere, but we really do want to encourage you to be congenial, to be welcoming, and to attack the arguments and stay focused on the arguments, folks, as we do appreciate you no matter what walk of life you're from, and we hope that we can do a better job. I think that's ultimately on me. It's my responsibility to try to lead in that way and to do a better job of communicating the importance of that, and so we do really want you to feel welcome and attack arguments rather than people. The Batman, okay, that's cheese. So yeah, we've got a lot here that some of these I'm skipping, and so folks, I just wanna encourage you with your questions, comments, please keep it focused on the arguments. SmokeySaint says, after show on my channel right after the debate ends, open mic, come share your opinions, conversation continues after the debate ends. I don't know if you said it. Somebody in chat said my genome's falling apart, and that's the funniest thing I've seen all day, so a good laugh on that, my genome's falling apart. I gotta go write that down. Gotcha, and so yes, there's a number of after shows, folks, if you have an after show, especially if you're able to email me the link prior to the debate, I can put it in the description for you as we wanna do that no matter what side you take or what position Atheist Christian, and Heartland, he then says, how do you assume the probability of a God? Explain in detail showing your work. I presume that that's directed to me. By the way, I do recommend SmokeySaint's channel. I do have a after show with a biologist. Wait, are you recommending the channel or the people who did a four hour conversation about how I'm a soy boy cuck and then try to investigate the final, you're advocating that channel? You sure? Yeah. Okay, so. That's good. I did not. Now I know what bucket to put Sal in. I'm just pointing out, I'm having an after show that won't be like that. I'm talking with a biologist about evolution, and, but I'm sorry, James, there was something else that, oh, how do I calculate your work? I've just said, you take your own certainty about God, if it's, if you're not, if you're 100, I mean, this is the way that I understand it, okay? It may not represent the way you represent your views, but for the viewer who provided that chat, if you're not 100% sure that there's no God, then that, I would just, I don't know how to put a figure on it. I would just put that as non-zero. Gotcha. So basically somebody has to calculate something. That's non-zero. I don't know how else to do it. Somebody has to have to calculate something, and you came up with an answer that's the rough equivalent of just make up whatever you want. I mean, that's make up, what is your best estimate? That's all we can do. Gotcha. We also have another question. This one coming in from, let's see, we have a number. I didn't know that Smokey St. had that stream. I thought that was, I had heard of this. I may be wrong. I don't know if it is. It might be. Let me see. I thought it was Maddox, but we, oh, I thought it was all of them together. Let me say this, Matt. I say kind things about you. I don't know that I'd said anything. That's fine. I mean, if I've said things that you don't like to talk about. But you're fine sidling up to the people who've said unkind things, and you're fine with accusing me of things during a debate. That's fair for you to point out. So thank you. Next up, FFKF says, wouldn't atheism with regard to a particular God claim save the time practicing from that religion? In other words, like, isn't there a benefit, thus, in being an atheist relative to other gods? I think they're saying, they're saying there's value in that big up J-man. Am I J-man? I don't know. But anyway, that's the- You are J-man for sure. I guess I'm J-man, but I don't really understand. I just don't understand if they mean, wouldn't atheism with regard to a particular God claim save the time practicing that religion? Yes, I don't have to get up early on Sunday. I don't have to go to church. I don't have to go to synagogue on Saturday. No matter what religion I'm not a part of, I'm not spending that time doing it. This is what I touched on when Pascal, or Pascal's wager says that you've lost nothing. The truth is, if you devote your idea, your life to an idea that is not true, then what you have lost is access to the truth. And every minute that you've spent in devotion to that idea that wasn't true, and every dollar that you've spent in devotion and in support of that idea that's not true, if it's not true, you have lost access to the truth. Because once you are convinced that you have the right answer, you don't keep looking for the right answer. You're convinced you have it. And so when Pascal or anybody else using Pascal's wager suggests that I should just believe in a God because I lose nothing, that's not true. Because believing in a God comes with baggage. Even if a God isn't there, even if I just said, you know what, I don't believe that the Christian God actually exists, but I'm gonna take this list of things that apply to a version of Christianity and I'm gonna put those in practice in my life.  Maybe I get the one where I'm okay with slavery. Maybe I get the one where I'm okay with subjugating women. All of those I would find as negatives. What does atheism have to offer? Freedom, individual responsibility, equality, those things. Not because of atheism, it's humanism. It is the principles of humanism that guarantee those things, but there's no equality under Christianity. Not the slightest bit. Iron Lich Gaming thinks your question said, Sal, I healed a man from blindness. I am the Messiah. Will you follow me? You have the same level of evidence for this claim as you have in Jesus. I would take Charles Duke's word over yours. Nothing personal. Gotcha.  SJ Thomason in the house. SJ says, Sal, please share the miracle from your life. Oh, she's probably talking about, my mother was sent home hospice care, June, June 2018. And I invited people, but we have many medical professionals in our family, both my sisters and nurses. They sent her home to die. I estimated she had seven days to live. People from my church came into our room. Actually, this very room, they set up a hospital bed, kind of in here, about 40 people prayed for her. She recovered. She had lost her ability to walk. She had not a lot of desire to eat or to drink. She couldn't read. She couldn't write. She recovered all of that. And that's Pascal's wager on a smaller scale. There was nothing to lose by asking people to come to my mother's death bed to pray. Atheism cannot offer me that. Nothing personal, but that's- Atheism doesn't, neither can evolution, neither can calculus, neither can knitting. That those are not the purpose of that. That's not what it, you're taking a religion that is designed to give false comfort.  We can talk about it another time. Thank you. Gotcha. That's, thanks, Matt. That was decent on you. Appreciate it. No problem. It's the right thing to do. I tried to do the right thing. You did the right thing. I'm not always gonna do the right thing, but I'm gonna try to do it. No, no, I totally, you're like my favorite atheist that's still alive.  Thanks, Al.  Bertrand Russell, John Stuart Mill. Any dead atheists have renowned that somebody wants to let me in the same bucket as? It's an honor, undeserved, but an honor. Next up, let's see. This one comes in from logical, plausible, probable. That's right. John Maddox says, Craps is the second best odds. He disagrees with you, Matt, I guess. This, I can't remember what you had said about this. So, backer on the banker bet is the best single bet odds at like just over 1%. Passline bet is at 1.4%. But the odds that money that you back the pass line with is at 0%. So if you look up what, if you play a pass line bet backed by odds and consistent combats backed by odds, you can offset that 1.4 to under 1% so that it comes in as better than a single bet in Bacchera. But it's not the best single bet. So one, some people look at it at, what is the best single bet? Well, it's Bacchera banker at like 104%. Other people look at like this and say, hang on, what are my actual, or what's the, sorry, I'm losing my train of thought as I go through this. If I play a particular strategy, what are the odds get to? And this is what Sal's talking about when he's talking about counting cards and other mathematical things there in Blackjack that can fundamentally change the odds. However, of things you can legal bets, bets that you can make it any casino and not be kicked out for. There's nothing better than playing a pass line regime backed by odds, combats backed by odds. It gets down under a 1% house edge. But even if I'm wrong about what's the best bet in the casino or the worst bet in the casino, okay. Still, all of these are better than a slot machine and all the slot machines are better than a God. Gotcha, next up, lab lover Chris says over 2000 viewers, awesome and thanks. That is awesome. Hope everybody enjoyed it. This will definitely be one that we'll remember. This one comes in from Fran Wilson says, for Sal, I remain unconvinced of your position. What other evidence can you present? That's between, thank you very much for that. And it's not my place to present evidence to other people that's between you and God. And if he chooses to reveal himself, that's all I could say. So I mean, I do appreciate the question nonetheless. Gotcha, Frank Allen says, for Sal, if you were shown a miracle in the Catholic church, why are you not Catholic? I'm reformed, a Presbyterian church of America as close to my theology as I was a member. And one reason I'm not Catholic is I don't think that it agrees with the Bible and also the spirit that I saw didn't talk to me. So it says in the Bible, not all spirits are of the Lord. So to this day, I don't know what I saw. Gotcha, thanks so much.  So why should I care about anything you're saying? There's no reason you should care about anything I have to say. One of the reasons I'm in these debates is to see if there's any reason I should change my mind. Gotcha, and thank you for your question. This one comes from Joshua Elex says, Matt, when I am in the woods, I'll experience the sublime. It might be biological or God. I get that will never persuade others, but is it testable evidence to support my choice to believe it is God? So A, I'm not convinced that belief is a choice. I'm sharing my screen in case, can you see that, James? Yes, the full screen is off. This is house odds on craps where if you have full double odds on the pass line, it gets to 0.52%. You can get all the way down at a hundred times odd of 0.02%. If Maddox or anybody else thinks that that this is the odds are wrong, I suggest they could talk to like mathematicians and stuff because that's what the odds are. Gotcha, and- Sorry, I was still looking that up before. And so I apologize, I've missed the question. No problem. So stick that in your pipe and smoke at Maddox. And Joshua Elex says, let's see. Oh, we got here's, or got his do-tales says, Sal loved your solid case. Your solid case, can we use Pascal's wager to hone our perspective into mere Christianity and disperse with the baggage others tack onto Christianity? That's a good question. I haven't read mere Christianity. I've said that I don't even think Pascal was saying that this is a basis of belief. And I don't think he said that pretend like you believe when you don't. So I think Pascal's wager is to just kind of do a self-assessment of, especially for people that are kind of in that situation where they believe and don't completely believe either. That's very common where someone has some degree of certainty and uncertainty. So where that leads is perhaps to try to go and investigate more how it played out in my life is I started to study more science. And that led me, that made me believe more in a God in the process. So I haven't really studied mere Christianity. Or Pascal's wager. So when you say you don't know for sure that's what Pascal meant. Let me read you one sentence from Pascal that seems to contradict exactly what you just said and see what your understanding of what it means is. Endeavor then to convince yourself not by increase of proofs of God but by the abatement of your passions. What does that mean? That means the passions, the way I read that is the passions can be very delusional. That's why you have to try to abate them. But it says- It doesn't say anywhere there pretend that you believe and we don't. I don't think- Oh, it does. It just doesn't in that sentence. That sentence is saying, convince yourself not by proofs but by giving up your passions. I didn't see where it said pretend you'd pretend that you believe when you don't. I don't see that. God, yeah. I mean, abatement of passions. That also, the idea that passions can be delusional that's, you know, there are people, I mean it's kind of sad there are people that are anorexic and you try to tell them that, hey, you know, you're not that. And just don't give in to how you feel. But, okay, that sentence was about the proofs. The sentence further on says, follow the way by which they began by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, et cetera. Even this will naturally make you believe and deaden your acuteness. How is that anything other than a cry to fake it till you make it? For myself. It literally says act as if they believe. I'll give you a chance to respond, Sal. I'm gonna move to the next one. No, sometimes when you follow the practice, maybe God will start answering your prayers and revealing things to you. That's exactly where I was. I went to prayer group and asked them to pray. Maybe God will answer your prayers. And maybe God will answer your questions. I wanna give Sal a last. So we can go on. Okay. Next up, this one, I'm sorry, I can't, I don't know the language that your name is in, but I can read your super chat and we appreciate it. It says, for Sal, if uncertainty about a claim means it could be false, then does that apply to the Christian God who's considered to exist necessarily? Uncertainly, God decided to play to a God. Yes. Gotcha. And for Ron, for Ron Salas, thank you for your questions at Pascal, distilled it down to a false dichotomy, a God or no God wager, but what about all the other possible scenarios? So this is the many God's objection. Yep, which we've touched on a couple of times. I think, yeah, I think we have done so. So I wanna jump to El Spaghetti. If you're, thanks for your question said Pascal's wager was a tool devised to distract humanity from the obvious fact that the universe and everything in it was created last Thursday. Also, don't forget to destroy that like button. Appreciate that El Spaghetti. So, but I think you get the point Sal in the first part. Can you read the first part again and thank you for the chat? I don't know if it's really meant to get at a serious point. We'll jump to the next one, but Oz, it's kind of a metaphysical or epistemological fun thing, but Oz, thanks for your question said, well, that was another beat. Okay, gotcha. Thank you. Just sticking with more of the questions pertaining to the topic. 24 says, Sal, the number of deities in the believe exists square equals is limited only by imagination. What is the best method you can recommend for me to narrow it down to the right one? Study science, study science, make observations. And if you don't know, maybe the right data point rule arrived, that's what's happening with me. I'm seeing more and more data points favorable to the genealogy of Jesus Christ. That John Pockinghorn said distinguishes Christianity from other religions as it's bold claims about history. Pockinghorn was a particle physicist during Christian minister. I thought that was really good advice. I'm confused about something if I can ask and we may have to do this another time. You're saying you're finding more evidence favorable to the genealogy of Jesus. We have no genetic way of evaluating Jesus or his genealogy or even by knowing which one is accurate if either. So how are you finding evidence in support of Jesus' genealogy when we don't even know what it is? It's a timing of the genealogy. If we look at the genealogy and we make a literal interpretation, it would estimate humanity arrived here between six to 6,500 years ago. Holy, nevermind. I take it- That is a testable hypothesis. For clarity, you just don't exist. That's a testable hypothesis. No, nevermind. Next up, this one comes in from Ian Chen, says, just so we're clear, I love Matt a lot. Appreciate that. Arn Warwick also says, I have warm feelings for Matt too. And so you got a couple fans out there. Silver Harlow thinks your question says, sorry, Sal, but mathematicians regularly spend years exploring the implications of alternate axioms because again, the axioms are not believed as true. Well, thank you. I didn't hear your question. I think it was just a correct answer. Yeah, well, sometimes they do that to do a proof by contradiction too. So that's actually how we found out that the square root of 2 is not rational. We actually explored it. And anyway, go on. Thank you for the comment. Thank you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you for the comment. Oz says, Sal got, OK, it's the cutest girl. Thanks for your super chat. Didn't see a question. If you have a question and you want to just put it as a normal chat, and I'll read it as a super chat since I didn't see a question here in case something went wrong, logical plausible probable said after show on Sal's channel. I'll post a link. Let's talk about how, OK, gosh, let's see. Standing for Truth says Kent Hovind versus Matt Dillahunty. Make it happen also. I remember asking you about that a year ago. That won't happen. They said, also, Kent Hovind on my channel tomorrow at 8 PM Eastern, love Q&A, bring your questions. God bless, modern day debate. We appreciate your kind words. Somebody from Kent's ministry, him or his assistant or whatever, after he got out of prison, messaged me about a debate. And I agreed to do the debate, provided that it wasn't a creation versus evolution debate. I'm going to talk about some principle point of Christian doctrine and that the debate was free and available to everybody because I didn't want to do, I didn't want to refinance his ministry again, his disastrous ministry. So yeah, but as soon as I said that we were going to do it for free, all of a sudden they had no more interest. So. Gotcha. And thank you for your question. This one comes in from Norm Future. So no question, but if you want me to read one, if something went wrong, send it as a normal chat in Tagny at modern day debate. Ralph Ellis, thanks for your question said, you theists may want to check your claims of Matt being arrogant. Let's see, it's like more of a feuding drama. Otangelo grassal. OK, obviously that's not really what Otangelo says. Norm Future, yeah, we have plenty of trolls here. So for real though, for real, we do want to reduce the trolling and have more engagement with the arguments. Norm Future said, Sal, how can you prove your God is the correct God? The only way that can be done is if you're God yourself. So barring that, we make the best estimate. The only way that you can prove God is to be God yourself, that it's the Christian God. So that's the necessity of faith. You got it. And Carmen's eyes says, Matt, may I be your girlfriend? I already have one. Thank you. Juicy romantic dramas. That's what we want. Blaster Master 80. She's probably in chat listening to this right now. And she's like, what? You better step back, girl. Blaster Master 80, thanks for your question said, can Sal provide a reliable method for evaluating said person experiences from God? No. Gotcha. Virillian thanks for your question says, does Sal think using Pascal's wager gives the person a confirmation bias instead? If you're at 100%, you don't need Pascal's wager. I think I never thought of it in those terms, so I don't have a good answer. But the idea is that this is not different from other decisions in our life where we may believe partially and partially disbelieve. And this is perhaps, I mean, we see that when we buy car insurance. So, I mean, in those situations, the payoffs are very well-defined. We have actuaries, but the way Pascal's wager is like, okay, just it looks at how to weigh your behaviors versus your estimates of your own personal estimates of the probability of something true and your estimates of the payoffs, that's all it is. It's not, I don't, like I said, I don't know anyone that said this is the basis of faith. Gotcha. Thanks for your question, statement. Apocalypse here says for Matt, thanks as a Christian myself for arguing and exposing Sal doesn't know what Pascal's wager is. Just to be clear, Sal, is you would not take a contemporary version, you would not adhere to a contemporary kind of spin on Pascal's wager, like some people like Liz Jackson argue. Am I correct that you embrace Pascal's original wager argument? There are probably some modifications. And, you know, it's fair to look at all the other versions out there. I'm not, you know, I've offered how I've applied it and perhaps some of my own modifications and it's fair to criticize me on whether my modifications are legitimate. But it all boils down to the way I frame it. How should we then live in the face of the data that we're confronted with? Gotcha. And this one is for you, Matt. So we have had a lot for Sal, but finally, and you guessed it, it is John Maddox who still says, Matt, BJ House edge one to 2%, CPS 1.4 to 5%, check your odds, you must be, let's see, okay, Dallas. So I've learned more about gambling tonight than my whole life. I literally showed you the page. If Maddox is too stupid to look at the page and understand that this is a system of playing pass line with odds and that it actually goes through and calculates the odds, I can't do anything to help him.  You've done it now, John. All right, so next one. Appreciate your question. If you're gonna come and tell me I'm wrong, you better not be wrong. This one comes in from, standing for truth says for Matt, what mechanism can you invoke that will filter out so many effectively neutral deleterious mutations pouring into our genomes? What's getting into the genomes? Yeah, it's not really, so they said what mechanism can you invoke that will filter out so many effectively neutral deleterious mutations pouring into our genomes? I don't understand why I would need to invent something to remove things from the genome or how that's relevant to Pascal's wager. So bring your A game next time because that one didn't get through the filter. Next up, Arn Rurvik, thanks for your question said. Question for Sal from God, will it make you stop if I tell you that you're feeding souls to Mark Pellegrino just by talking? Who's, Sal, who's Mark Pellegrino? Is this one of your foes from the past? James, I need about a five minute commercial break. My mom is in distress. Why don't we all take just a minute? You got it, thank you. So we'll have a brief intermission and so if you have to use the restroom or anything else, want to let you know, folks, we, as I am showing you on the page, I am, you guys, I am pumped. I am thrilled as you guys, this is epic. On Friday, we met our Kickstarter goal for this debate which is happening this Friday. So don't miss it, you guys. The Kickstarter closes this Thursday. So it closes the day before the debate and for only three bucks, you can watch it live and we are trying to reach our Kickstarter reach goal. In other words, going beyond our original goal and we had mentioned we want to use that to travel down to the Atheist Experience Studio so that we can have another live debate with Matt and we'll see who it might be against. And so we really do want to encourage you guys to, if you have not pledged already, consider doing it and I got to tell you guys, we are really pumped. Want to show you a couple of things about this. One, you might be thinking, well, James, why are you doing this though? It allows us to take frankly, kind of you guys a bigger risk in terms of the things we do, having more in-person debates, having more travel, having all sorts of stuff like that, that takes costs and so that's one way in which you help support the channel. And so I want to, maybe you're like, hey, I don't know if I really like the topic of whether or not Christianity is dangerous. I want to say, have you ever enjoyed, have you ever felt like this debate offers you value where you're like, hey, yeah, I've enjoyed the debates there? I say, hey, even for that purpose, even if you're not crazy about this debate, namely the one that you're seeing on the screen, well, just know that this helps us to know by you pledging that this Kickstarter idea is an effective strategy so that we can have bigger, better, future, made that up right now, debates in the future. And so we highly encourage you, the link to that is in the description and during this intermission is a great time to check out that Kickstarter page. I want to show you guys a couple of things as it is thrilling that we've reached the goal. I have to say thank you so much to everybody who has helped. If you're wondering, well, how do I do Kickstarter? Like, how does that work? As you can see on the screen, you can log in with Facebook. You can just bypass creating a Kickstarter account. It's a piece of cake. And if you log in with your Facebook, it basically saves that information. And so the day of the debate, we're gonna send out a link so that you can watch it live. It will be posted for the rest of the world to see. And so it's not gonna be, it's gonna be several, sometime within the next couple of days after it airs live.  I want to ask you to consider, you know, throw a few bucks in, three bucks, it's basically the price of a cup of coffee. As you're seeing on the screen, that's all it is. That's our lowest pledge amount. And that way you get to watch it live. And as I had mentioned, that helps us do fun, cool things, like make those trips down to the Atheist experience studio with bigger, huger speakers. And so that's a really cool thing as well as, let me just see if I could find this. I had mentioned you guys, we're crazy. We, there it is, it's right. We have been going crazy. This is our post-credits scene usually, but don't worry, we've got more questions to come. This is myself, Steven Steen and T-Jump doing our car wash in January. You can tell it was a cold day, but we still bore the short shorts. It was, you know, it was just what we do when we do car washes. We are determined to reach this goal for our Kickstarter reach goal. And it has a purpose, namely to do more fun events traveling, because I'm not joking. I'd actually love to do kind of like a traveling, modern day debate. What's the word I'm looking for? On tour type of thing this summer. And so making a trip down to Texas, for example, that would be epic. That would hopefully be a part of it. And this is, again, I'm inviting myself into the Atheist experience studio. But this depends on one COVID restrictions and everything and when everybody's comfortable and ready for it, because we don't want to rush that. However though, we do, and by the way, Sal, if you're listening, let me know whenever you're present. And if you're not, we'll check in in just a couple of minute