People of the internet welcome to modern day debate tonight. We are debating which is a better ethical foundation And we are starting. I'm sorry, which is the better ethical foundation Christianity or atheism and we are starting right now So, uh, we have t jump crossing swords with ken. I mean each person is going to get 10 minutes for their opening statement And let me add them to the stream How you fellas doing tonight? Thank you for having us Um We didn't talk about who was going to go first tonight actually so, um Which one of you wants to go first? You want to go first to jump? Uh, no No, okay ken Nobody wants to go first Okay, fine All right, ken at your first word I will put 10 minutes on the clock Okay So, uh, better shit, but I love him. I should mind but at our edits It's generally been translated as in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth and for one It provides us a de novo prediction of the components of our universe what makes it up available by the latest, um scientific methods Which is a time-space matter continuum, right in the beginning time God created the heavens space and the earth matter And so it presents us with a god who is wholly other right completely Uh distinct not subject to time space and matter so He is the objective to our subjective and the absolute to our tentative and the intrinsic to our intrinsic and the universal to our mundane Right, so then we notice that God having created time and it proceeds forth the evening in the morning the evening in the morning evening in the morning Incidentally, that's why we Jews have traditionally helped to uh lunar calendar And so this is linear time functioning Purposefully so because it was created and so we find that causes followed by effect Right so that um provides us a premise for induction And uh, yeah linear times. I tell you it's just one thing after another, you know what I mean now, uh Biblically we're also Provided with various imperatives such as that we should gain knowledge We should seek wisdom. We should know truth And so that we ought to adhere the truth because truth is purposefully created And so this provides us a premise for various things such as adhering to logic because of course logic is Part of the furniture of the universe that some would describe it It's a description of our reality functions And then it would be uh Primaphasia that the one who gives life has something to say about the life that was given Now when it comes to god, we're dealing with a triune being Right one being and what some would turn three persons. Uh, some have described there's one one and three hoops And so god has eternally enjoyed relationships Right.  He communicates Uh, his relational Nature to us and to his creation. I mean there's Everything that exists really and enjoys some kind of relationship whether it's emotional or biochemical or gravitational you name it and so the We're dealing with god's very nature in essence when it comes to His creation of humanity being made in his image and these relations are vertical Humanity to god and then horizontal humanity to humanity You know, but the point is that the vertical relationships are providing the premise for the horizontal ones And now when it comes to the issue we're debating tonight, I thought to mention that ethnologically Ethics technically refers to the ethos and the ethos Are prescriptions of what people ought to do And so by definition That would be objective objective Absolute universal Etc Whereas morality would refer to the mores which it merely describes whatever happens to be that people are doing And so by definition morality in that case would be situational subjective tentative, etc Um, but that's really not so much about Terminology, it's more about the concepts, right? Because Some people would call ethics a body of morals other people would Describe what I defined as ethics as objective morality or universal morality or absolute morality. It's It don't really matter what we call it as long as we recognize that there's two categories We're dealing with one are those things that people just happen to be doing whatever it might happen to be And the other thing are the things that people ought to be doing And part of how we get a clue about the difference Is that uh, humanity as a whole has agreed on certain basics Uh, regardless of chronology, geography, theology or supposed life era, right? So like Uh, regardless of where people have lived regardless of when they have lived regardless of what they believe then There's certain basics that everyone has always agreed on And so I mean we can call them one and two or a and b or cucumber and chinchilla. It's just really Not about uh solidifying Word usage, I mean it would be nice because it would assuage a lot of confusion But the point is to recognize these different categories So now on The atheist view we have a universe from nothing By nothing to nothing for nothing Although i'm aware that a lot of atheists have taken to use the word nothing to mean something So yeah, there are atheists who believe in an eternally existing Uncaused first cause Which then was acted upon by nothing and then made everything without meaning Something like that. We might have to see to which, uh, atheist cosmogenic myth. Thomas hears That's followed by a very long series of happy accidents that Just so happens to result in uh, us accidentally developing the Accidentally emotively subjective ability to interpret the accidental byproducts of bio chemical neuro chemistry That are determined by the accidental laws of thermodynamics and physics within an accidentally existing brain Within an accidental existence whereby there is no universal imperative to adhere To the emotively subjective interpretations of the accidental byproducts Biochemical neurochemistry that are determined by the accidental laws of thermodynamics and physics within an accidentally existing brain So i'm really laying that out because i just have a feeling what we're going to hear tonight is tom emoting Right, we'll hear his accidental ability to communicate his subjective interpretations Of the accidental byproducts of his neuro chemistry and uh, well I mean You know your friends and family signed up to deal with your emotions. I certainly didn't So I guess we'll have to see And uh, I was thinking about how in our previous discussion I pointed out to tom that uh on his world view truth is accidental And by accidental I mean not created not designed not the result of an A volitional goal not a plan But just that it happens to have happened and it just happens to have happened the way it happened so that it could have Really happened any way it just so happens to have happened this way here So the truth is accidental As is our ability to discern it There's no universal imperative to adhere to it Nor to demand that anyone else do so And tom had i'll give him enough credit that he had a moment of clarity and And did have been reduced to admitting that for him This whatever he's doing online Is for subjective fun and to make money And again, I mean, uh, I'm glad you can have some fun. I certainly didn't sign up for uh Giving you any sort of uh forum to have fun And certainly not you're making money either. I mean, I'm not getting a single shackle out of this deal I don't know how that's ethical, but uh Like I'm not even getting a subway sandwich out of this deal, you know Where's james when I need to slap him on the back of the head? And so there we have it. Uh, that's my opening of the two views And I'll hand it over to tom All right, thank you so much and tom I will kick it over to you and I will start your time right your first word That was the most gibberish incoherent opening. I think I've ever heard like there wasn't a single coherent sentence in there like Argument premise premise conclusion. It's very very simple um We were talking about better ethical foundation like the question is is which works better atheism or atheism And so you'd have to show that an invisible all powerful sky daddy, which we have no evidence for Could somehow Qualifies a better basis for an ethical foundation than it being a higher order immersion property or law of physics Or just any of the other things we know actually exist in the universe So first you'd have to give some kind of reason to think this thing exists at all And how it could possibly enact as a grounds for morality to do that You have to start with the evidence of what is the evidence of morality and then you have to work from the evidence to a hypothesis You use the hypothesis to make a prediction Confirm the prediction and then that's how you go from evidence to conclusion He didn't show any of that. He just said a bunch of gibberish I don't even know what he was even saying in the vast majority of The gibberish he said but I'm gonna need to hear from him how he goes from what is the evidence of morality And how do you go from that evidence and how does it indicate a god? How an invisible magical sky daddy could act as an objective basis for morality because I imagine we're talking about objective morality here, not just Subjective and if it was subjective mean evolution would work better. Anyway, obviously, but So I don't I didn't see anything in his opening that could actually qualify as if anything Even remotely qualifying as an argument towards the conclusion that theism is a better foundation of ethics So he had nothing to respond to there Atheism is a better foundation like everything in atheism has a basis in reality. None of it's made up It's based on science Laws of nature or objective they exist. So if morality was a law of nature, that would make sense It would be objective. It would exist would apply to everyone without opinion It would be a stance independent model of morality, which is what objective morality is So If it's based on a god where it's an opinion of the god It's a stance dependent model of morality that makes it subjective by definition So it would be by definition a worse model of morality There is no evidence for theism whatsoever There is tons and tons of evidence for higher order emergent properties And so a higher order emergent property grounding morality is far more plausible than the main invisible sky daddy to be like a leprechaun The methodologies used in atheist models of morality are very simple. They start with the evidence They create a hypothesis. They make uh print make predictions based on the hypothesis How do you confirm the predictions? That's how it works theistic morality works the opposite way You start with your invisible sky daddy as the conclusion and then you try to make the evidence fit with absolutely no connecting data whatsoever So again, he's going to have to answer those questions um Another reason that atheism is better is it actually addresses the moral dilemmas and philosophical problems theism doesn't like In if you're trying to make a model of morality you need to address the moral problems that we have in morality and Theism doesn't do that doesn't even attempt to do that. It's just like whatever god says. That's the answer like okay Well, that was that how does it help us solve the moral problems? It gives us nothing and so until they can actually address the moral Paradoxes like the euthyphro dilemma godles or gm always up in question arguments Different variations of the trolley problem until they can show how god sky daddy answers those problems Then he's not actually providing a model of morality in order to provide a model of morality You have to answer the questions relevant to the field Just saying miss god daddy said so doesn't answer any of the questions Exactly like physics if you want to have a model of a theory of the origin of the universe You'd have to answer what is the perturbation density of the energy in space You can't answer that then you don't have a model of the origin of the universe So you have to answer the relevant questions to the field and theism doesn't as far as I know Do that it doesn't answer any of the relevant questions. It doesn't account for moral intuition. It doesn't account for moral progress It doesn't answer the moral limits and doesn't answer the philosophical problems that we have In the field, which is what we're trying to do when we create a model of morality So for those three main reasons, uh theism is trash I'll conclude there All right, thank you so much key jump for that opening and with that we will go ahead and kick it into the open discussion But before we do that, I just want to let you know Especially if it's your first time here on modern day debate that we are a neutral platform Hosting debates on silence science religion and politics and we want you to feel welcome No matter what walk of life you're from and if you have a question or a comment for one of tonight's debaters Fire into the old live chat and be sure to tag me at modern day debate Superchats will go to the top of the list all we ask is that you keep it civil Attack the argument and not the person as insults will not be read and that goes for the general discourse in the live chat as well Um, please show our debaters the moderators and each other the the respect that you guys deserve By not hurling personal attacks and insults our guests are linked in the description below Whether you're listening on youtube or via the podcast So if you'd like what you're hearing, please check out the links in the description below Hit the subscribe button because we have plenty more live debates come in your way including On the 20 i'm sorry the 21st at 7 p.m We have daniel hakikachu is going to be locking horns and crossing swords with Let me pull up the Uh Little ad that I have here Vosh on again, September 21st at 7 p.m. So Subscribe like share so you can see that debate come in your way And with that we will go ahead and kick it to our interlocutors for the open discussion For I believe we have 45 minutes of open discussion set So at your first word gentlemen, I will start your clock.  I think that yeah, you were partly confused there that was supposed to be an intro That's what we agreed on not a rebuttal I'm happy to do both. Could you give me an argument now premise premise conclusion? Yeah, so I think you uh As a cheap debaters trick you took advantage Can we go to the topic? What is the topic argument premise premise conclusion? Why do you think? Also, you are uh attacking theism. I'm not representing theism on Representing christianity specifically. Oh my god christianity is a type of theism bro. Come on Philosophy 101. What is that's a category error. Not that it matters on atheism And then you keep referring to morality I would urge you to reread the title of this debate. We're debating ethics I think somewhere all of your synonyms in philosophy bro catch up on your basic philosophy Yes, but I It was weird. I just a couple minutes ago. I uh drew a distinction and I said it's Important that we consider two different categories of phenomenon.  Can you give me an argument premise premise conclusion? Why theism which a theism or christianity is a form of theism. There is a god That's the theism means a god Um, why that would be better. Give me an argument premise premise conclusion Well, I'm gonna take a Page from the tom jump manner of argument Or rather debate and tell you that I don't need to provide a syllogism. That's virtually a quotation from yourself It's just an argument. I can I can translate it into a syllogism. Give me the argument Stop wasting time like you've had like five minutes and said nothing So you should refer back to my introduction where I explained what you're pretending. I didn't explain I just literally finished explaining that explain it make it an argument make it concise like a sentence or two This is the reason go So you're incapable of comprehending something unless it's uh spoon fed to you and um I'm incapable of comprehending gibberish when it's gibberish. So try to make it not gibberish Still waiting still waiting for an argument like oh my god. I've given an argument. It was very very clear Where is yours? Okay, so I'm not sure that this game you're playing is going to be very useful I'm asking you for a reason to believe the title of your side of the debate. That's the game i'm playing Stop wasting time answer the topic of the debate I did in my introduction. I'll refer you back to but if you need to wait introduction was gibberish That's a mere assertion. Not that it matters on atheism.  Okay so I think Since we have uh god creating the universe and all that it contains Therefore he has some say in what occurs within it And being an eternally relational being he puts some of that relationship Um ethos within us and that's what basically forms the basic for the ethics is that we ought to not just subjectively feel like it Uh based on a personal preference We ought to be ethical and ethical refers to even what do in private and the dark under a blanket in your basement Where nobody else would know about it. I mean, this is ethics. Okay How does this give you a better grounds of ethics than atheism? um because uh 1001 atheists have Assured me that atheism has absolutely nothing to do with one of except with one opinion And that's whether god exists or not now you are proving that it's a worldview and you're saying that it's How does theism provide a better foundation for ethics than atheism? Okay, so that would be the second part of my introduction. I mean, I just that was just a few minutes ago time I'm kind of shocked that you stopped wasting time answer the question Okay Because um on atheism presents us No universal imperative whatsoever, but pure subjectivism therefore anybody can do anything for example not answering your questions If I don't feel like in on atheism, there would be literally nothing wrong with that So you're stepping beyond the bounds of your worldview and that's probably why you're getting so emotional So are you saying that um, I have no value for what you're saying.  Therefore theism is better. That sounds like what you said I'm not arguing theism.  Therefore. It's better than a model that doesn't Mind your manners. You're not being ethical Atheism I have to meet everybody You're literally incoherent at this point. Don't tell me what you ever don't ever tell me what which is all Atheism leads you to do that's precisely it right there. What is your argument?  All right, hold on guys. Just a second. Hold on. I'm gonna help this out for a second I think what he is saying is that theism Provides universal imperatives That is what makes it better. Is that correct? Ken? Oh my god. That's that's his statement. The question is is how Is it because theism makes it up it therefore does what is the basis of these?  Is that is that this thing because atheism doesn't offer a solution? Anything that offers a solution is better. Is that his argument? Okay, so I think maybe we need to take a step back on atheism It's literally irrelevant because you have no premise to condemn anything so I could make up nonsense words And you would have to say well, okay, so that's what an accidentally existing ape has to say You know existence wearing it doesn't really matter what an Accidentally existing ape says because there's no universal imperative for the accident A to adhere to reality. No wrong one Just let me finish this sentence. Come on No, I'm not gonna let him finish this sentence because it has nothing to do with answering the question Atheism has as many options of objective imperatives in any other world you Atheism doesn't say there is no objective world you are objective imperative It says there's no god there can still be objective imperatives without a god most philosophers agree with this It doesn't answer the question What is the question is what is your argument? It seems like what your argument is as you say? Atheism isn't offering a solution Isn't it doesn't posit anything? Theism does posit something it makes stuff up and the fact that it makes stuff up means it's a better solution Is that is that not your argument? What if it's not? What is your argument? You know, um, I know you're probably This and you're focused on your chat You really need to be focused on the debate or opening statement because I don't know how many more times I literally said your opening statement is gibberish. It makes no sense. Explain it. I'm asking you to explain it In a search, where's your argument? I do not understand what you're saying Therefore, if I do not understand what you're saying, I'm going to ask you to explain it I'm asking you to explain it conclusion. I don't understand what you're saying. There's an argument Okay, so for the third time The argument is that the one who created this universe purposefully Lays out imperatives for us to perform. These are odds And that's where ethics come from. There are things that we ought to do it. Not is that better than atheism because uh atheism again Is a universe accidentally therefore all it contains is accidents And then you get to kind of pick and choose your flavor of the the juror which is better for you Which action do you feel like taking on any particular? No, that's false So atheism doesn't say it's just random. There are still many atheists The most of them believe in objective morality objective truth objective laws of physics Not random. So you still have all of those things all objectivity normativity without god Surveys this can you cite it? Google it Google it is your citation.  You dumbass fill surveys paper 2022 academic Reviewed published journal that says academic philosophers majority or atheist majority believe in objective morality objective meaning and purpose dumbass What is how explain again? You need to explain your argument. You made this claim Is that all imams are muslim therefore islam's true something like that No, what i'm saying is is that atheists have models of objective morality and meaning Without god and you're saying they don't and so you need to explain how their models of objective Purpose No, no, that's not what i'm saying at all. Literally you said that atheism doesn't provide objective all of this stuff Right. See you just committed another category error. Not that it matters on atheism. You see i'm talking to You just committed another category error. Not that it matters on atheism. What is the category error? The one i was just about to explain when you interrupted me. Okay. What is the category error? I'm talking about atheism. You're talking about atheists Right, so i'm talking about the world view the concept the idea you're talking about individuals who can somehow Accidentally manage to communicate whatever they want atheists can say whatever they want they can claim whatever they want And if you know anything about modeling whether it's cosmological or ethical or anything anybody can model anything Model is a model So, yes, there are individual atheists who have Accidented the ability to communicate whatever they want and they can stop stop stop stop So atheism just means you don't believe in a god There are many models of the world that don't have a god that do have meaning and purpose. It's not random There's no randomness. No one thinks it's random. So we do have all of that intentionality meaning purpose no god It's an atheist model Atheism isn't just there is no god and says literally nothing else You can have a model that says many things and has no god and it's an atheist model So again, you're wrong when you make these assertions that oh, atheism just means there's none of this stuff No, we can have all of that stuff with no god And it's equally or better Supported than a god-based model until you provide some kind of evidence or argument Why theism would be a better explanation for this stuff, which you haven't done You've just said theism makes an ass bent assertion that we have this meaning and purpose because god created us. Therefore, it's better how Well, you're clearly Miss character But I I couldn't understand why you need to do that because if not answer the question Stop talking about my psychology answer the question provide evidence That we're just going to hear you emoting subjectively all evening and that's you're the one emoting You're not answering the question go to the topic because all you're doing is emoting about my emoting and not answering the topic I'm the one sticking on the topic. You're saying nothing That's that's just a cheap Atheist tactic and obviously you're not answering the question Body who listens to this will know that you're just literally parroting the latest atheist talking point is your So that's one of you aren't literally answering the question of the debate and I am so here Let me I'll show you how to do it Atheism provides a better ethical foundation than theism because it's grounded in reality All of the factors of atheism have support in empirical research The fact that morality can be grounded into law of physics or an emergent property. Both of those things have Empirical support. There is no empirical effort for an invisible sky daddy. Therefore, atheism is better Atheism answers the questions about moral philosophy It answers the questions of the moral dilemmas it answers the questions of the trolley problem It answers questions of moral intuition more progress and corresponds to the pieces of evidence How does any of your sky daddy stuff do any of that? So I'm not sure how you're Asserting that some adheres to reality is quote better closed quote than the christian model Those are mere assertions. Of course. I mean I I know that you want to pretend that there's some objective scale there, but on atheism again reality is accidental So what universal imperative is there to adhere to an accident? That's what you said Oh, so I'm putting you guys on 60 second timers from that one What was the very first sentence you said it sounded good. What was the very first sentence in that in that stream? Um, I believe what I was just so puzzled that I was wondering Where you get any kind of concept that we ought to base anything on Accident reality on atheism is accidental. What universal imperative is there to adhere to accidents? So the question is is we have a model that starts with evidence And it explains the data right there. What? Say that again, what?  I'm not going to tolerate this That's safe tom Ken you you said something and I didn't hear it. What did you say before? Before or before before I keep repeating so my argument here is that Atheism is a better foundation because It answers questions in the field of morality starts with the evidence moral intuition moral progress It corresponds to those things it answers moral dilemmas it answers the trolley problem Theism doesn't do any of these things Therefore atheism is a better model because it actually corresponds to the questions in the field How is the isn't better it can do none of those things Then how is it that incredibly successful first world cultures have been premised upon christian ethics? I don't know what that means. I thought you have a premise for demanding evidence, but that'd be a pretty solid I don't know what that means You said something about cultures being grounded in something something. I don't know what that means Well, I was just wondering how then it is that the incredibly successful First world cultures have been premised upon christian ethics. I don't know what that means That's not a coherent sentence Does say if tom or What yes, tom is the expert here when he's trying to understand your sentence and he doesn't understand your sentence He's like I don't understand that sentence. What does that mean? Okay, uh culture denotes citizenry a group of people who live together in community Uh premise like a foundation or an axiom Um, it's so first world meaning What most people would consider to be the better form of life with uh Comforts and luxuries and health and all that stuff Uh, so upon christian and that would be the view I laid out in my opening Ethics which I defined at the outset I still have no idea what any of that means or how it relates to the question So so again what I said was atheism is better because it answers questions in the field and you said something about Cultures are grounded in christianity or something the way it relates is you merely asserted That christianity has nothing to say on any of those subjects and I just prove to you That the evidence uh disproves your assertion Wait what okay, okay, so, uh, how does Christianity solve uh g. E. Moore's open question argument Uh, you would have to define what that is uh g. E. Moore's open question specific question on google it for you G. E. Moore open question argument Um it is Equating the property of goodness with some non moral property x whether natural pleasure or supernatural etc. So what makes something good Good is what? well again, uh On the christian ethic good has a vertical axis in a horizontal one And so preferably they both meet so that we're pleasing god and our neighbor and our enemy We're appealing to um our relationship with god and each other So what is good ultimately would be that which? proceeds from from god's Relational nature so that we have a relationship with him and it's not damaged by relationships with others And we have relationships with others that hopefully won't be damaged by our relationship with god Such as my relationship with you is damaged because you're so enraged that i believe in god I'm enraged that you're saying gibberish and not answering the question Like how does that answer g. E. Moore's open question argument your assertion You see you need to understand just because you declare something doesn't mean it is so So you can keep making a bottomless pit of assertions all night saying gibberish gibberish Tom doesn't understand tom doesn't understand that sounds like a personal problem You well in the in a debate you're trying to make a coherent argument and I don't understand and nobody in the audience understands So I'm trying to get you to make an argument that we can understand all the entire audience and that's your result yep Okay, well on atheism there's no universal imperative for any such thing Yes, there is Because it does say if tom or no, there are many models that are atheist models that have universal imperatives like We already went over this so you're just going in circles at this point You you keep you make a claim that atheism has no universal imperatives But there are many many models of atheism that do have universal imperatives. Therefore, you're wrong. That's just how it works So we we already went over this on One of the implications of atheism is that there are no universal imperative Why why do you think that later on atheists individuals? somehow Why do you think atheism? By definition has no Imperatives subjective interpretations of their neural chemistry and claim that there are Why do you think so those are two different categories? Do you think atheism by definition can't have universal imperatives? Okay, I'll tell you that again because I I started the debate with that statement I explained that to you already. Okay, explain it again. Go ahead. Explain it again Because by definition on atheism the entire universe and all it contains is accidental and there are no Which definition of atheism has any of that? None of them do zero of them say that Okay, so then on your atheistic view the universe was purposefully created Models of atheism and many of them haven't been purposefully created by like a force of nature. Yes, they're determined. They're not random Okay, so you're just kicking the problem back one step. I don't see how that solves anything No, there's no there's no infinite regress there It's an infinite digression And an infinite regression This isn't an accident because a law caused it and that law but that law is accidental and the one before that No, it's necessary. It's not accidental necessary beings. They think that there is a force which is a necessary thing That's always existed. It's not accidental. Okay, so now we're getting somewhere. You'll remember in my introduction I referred to this the atheists who believe in an eternally existing uncaused first cause I agree with that. I just uh, you happen to think it's not personal and I do Right So there is uh, you know, tom's god right there this uh, eternally. It's not personal. It's not a god well Do you think there is such a thing as an impersonal god that is not that gods can't be personal Can it be a god if it's not personal? Uh, I think on the atheist cosmology, whatever in your worldview Can there be a god that exists as a god that is not personal? Can that be a thing? No Okay, so I don't believe in a god But that's a category error. Not that it matters on atheism. You asked me about a category error And then you answered it as per yours. Those are two distinct things You said I believe in a god and then I said Can a god be impersonal? You said no, I agree gods can't be impersonal So neither of us think I believe in a god and so when you said I believe in a god, you were just wrong You what you're doing is doing a two quo quay fallacy because you believe in a god And you want to say well, you do it too. Uh, well, I don't Well, that's irrelevant on atheists and logical fallacies. They're obviously irrelevant, but no, they're not no version of atheism says that What's that? No version of atheism says logical fallacies are irrelevant Most academic philosophers are atheists and most of them think logical fallacies are very relevant. So you're wrong um again, so You're telling me that accidentally existing apes is somehow no, no again. That's not atheism interpretations of neurochemistry Said something therefore we must adhere to it and that's what you go here So that's a category error. That's you literally gotta let him speak man nations versus Whatever something happens to say This goes right back to my point about the etymological understanding of ethics versus morality see I'm focused on The ethic you're focused on morality. So I'm talking about the implications of the worldview and you're talking about what people who hold That worldview just invented and then claim that we must adhere to it because they said No, it's literally nothing that I said What I said is there are models of atheism that have universal imperatives where we are not accidental And it's not true because we said so Never said that it's could be true. They could be correct.  It doesn't matter if I'm dumb or not The point is their models of atheism are correct. And yes, it does their models include meaning and purpose So it does matter Well, again, I I can't okay. So you want to go over this again anybody can model anything Yes, okay Could they be right? So that atheists decide to model something doesn't mean it's so Right, but it could be right. They could be right saying is that it could not be right because of the very Implications of atheism in and of itself. It doesn't allow for that It only allow playing whatever they want It doesn't allow it for what they claim to be accurate because it doesn't jive with atheism Not that being consistent is a universal imperative on atheism because it isn't How how do atheist models not jive with atheism when literally they're atheist models? Like where are you getting this idea? It seems like you've made up this idea of atheism from your perspective from your deluded christian perspective And you think that oh if anything doesn't map on to this then it's not true atheism Like you're doing a no-true scoutsmen of atheists now They're not real atheists because they don't think there's no meaning and purpose the only real atheists think there's no meaning and purpose Which is none of them a vast majority of them don't agree with that. What you're saying is gibberish Well for one on atheism, there's nothing wrong with being delusional. Yes, there is no true scoutsman fallacy Is it's not the fallacy? I mean you have this gift of saturating succinct statements with so many assertions and fallacies It's hard to keep up So the point was that when your premise Is That the universe just happens to have happened and happens to have happened the way it happened Then there's not a part of atheism nowhere in atheism doesn't say that So so Atheism and now I mean we're we're definitely into uh, Reification fallacy territory, but whatever that doesn't how is that a reification fallacy? Because atheism doesn't say anything. So i'm talking about the implications of that world view Which is that the universe was not created was not designed. What is a reification fallacy? Let's go to that one original goal or plan. What so? Because we would happen it must have happened to just happen the way it happened nothing you're saying is relevant right now What is a reification fallacy? Well like if we like you've been saying atheism says this and it doesn't what is The definition of a reification fallacy it doesn't say anything because it's not a being it's not volitional What is the definition of a reification fallacy? You accused me of using a reification fallacy. Tell me what a reification fallacy is and tell me where in my argument I did that That's what i'm doing and I could finish if you stopped interrupting me Okay, what is the definition of a reification fallacy go? Okay, so when you say that atheism says Don't don't tell me what I said. Tell me what the definition what the dictionary says the definition of a reification fallacy is Don't tell me what I say Start with that I'm not aware of a singular dictionary. Are you referring to a specific one? Stanford it's like the pd philosophy would agree be great. I don't hear any published academic definition of a reification fallacy go Okay Let's see here Stanford What was that stanford Google's fine reification fallacy just google reification fallacy. Give me a definition While he's looking that up I want to let you know folks if you have a question or comment for once nice debaters fire into the old live chat And tag me at modern day debate super chats will go to the top of the list Detect the argument and not the person and if you like what you're hearing from once nice debaters Their links are in the description below. So be sure to check those out How's that first going It's fine. I don't know why it's wrong with his computer What well, I know the definition you don't that's the problem Oh, let's see here I'm kind of obviously we're wasting time because there's nothing wrong with Logical fallacies on atheism, but again, I already said that's wrong Like there are many models of atheism that say yes Logical fallacies are wrong every atheist philosopher thinks they're wrong So that's just you straw man in atheism because you think it's a no true scotsman You're just using a no true scotsman fallacy. You're wrong Problems juice cosmic fallacy is a fallacy and I already explained to you. I'm talking about the implication of atheism You're talking to me about which I've explained to you. You're wrong about So stop straw man and atheism. You're wrong about atheism. Okay. We're done on that topic. You've lost Tell me what a reification fallacy is reification also as concretism hypostension epistatiation Or the fallacy of misplaced concrete Yes Is a fallacy of ambiguity When an abstraction abstract belief or a hypothetical construct is treated as if it were a concrete real event or physical entity Which is exactly what I was explaining to you before you decided to interrupt me and asked me to explain it to you Which abstract entity am I treating as concrete? This has to be a joke. Uh, atheism What how is how is that an abstract entity and how am I treating it as concrete like what what I'm shocked how many different times I have to explain the same thing to you You're you're telling me what atheism says or doesn't say and I'm pointing out to you Atheism doesn't say or say or doesn't say anything. It's not a being It doesn't make statements Right, which means it doesn't exclude objective meaning and purpose and I figure with the word you used Attentionality of something it doesn't exclude those things you can have those things in atheism because it doesn't exclude them You keep saying it does it excludes them. You can't keep any of that or atheism You're wrong and you were wrong about a reification fallacy because nothing I said was abstract and nothing I said I treated as concrete So the point being When atheist assert that there are These absolute universal imperatives on atheism They have to abandon the implications of atheism to construct a model that results in that right If atheism doesn't say anything then it doesn't have any implications Well, that's a category error. Not that it matters on atheism. How is that a how is that a category error? What what is a category? Google category error for me do do that. So it gets you to stop using that wrong word Yeah, I think I'm done jumping through your little quaint hoops. Um, I've already explained multiple times That one of the implications of atheism is an existence That's accidental and therefore there are universal imperatives to adhere to any part of it Uh, but then atheists somehow are Into the position where they're capable of Making assertions and they do so and then uh, we're expected to Be impressed by their imitation ivory towers from which they tell us that there are these things that we ought to do and What I'm saying is that's a house of cards with no house and no cards I've already disproved you. I've debunked you on this so many times like pay attention Academic philosophers are atheists have atheist models that have objective imperatives most academic professional philosophers Are moral realists who think there are objective odds objective imperatives? No god objective imperatives you've been proven wrong on this if this is what your argument is you've lost Okay, again, so you are asserting that i've been proven wrong because you're appealing to the Explications of accidental phenomena by The existing apes no objectively interpreting accidental biochemical reactions whether they're accidentally existing brain i'm appealing to academic professional Right know what atheism is you don't you don't know what atheism is they are professional academic philosophers because there's professional Accidentally existing apes then we should take them seriously. There are no Stop muting me There are no accidentally existing apes under atheism with objective meaning and purpose Which I just demonstrated is a thing in academic professional philosophers There are no accidentally existing apes not in their worldview of atheism not in your worldview of theism You keep again straw manning their position. You are wrong about this. I've debunked you on this position repeatedly You have been proven wrong All right, we'll have to meet you if you guys keep talking over each other I'm sorry, but I have to do that. No, I'm not going to accept that. He's I'm sorry. That's the instructions I've gotten from James. I don't have to do. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care I'm doing it my way. I'm sorry You go on your own channel to do it your own way. See I am on my channel Go back to the argument Again, just because you're co-hosting doesn't mean you can you get to It's not getting to all that just keep going So you said there are no accidentally existing apes. So are there purposefully existing apes? I don't understand Yes, atheism objective meaning and purpose objective aughts. They believe in objective all of those things Oh, that has no coherence to what I just asked so you're not answering the question The answer was yes. How does that not cohere to what you said?  That was the first word out of my mouth. How are you so dumb? Um, because when you make, uh, one word assertion That doesn't prove anything. It just tells me that you have subjective interpretation of biosensory Um input, um, how is the word yes supposed to be any kind of reputation? Okay, so you asked Tom No, no, you asked a question. Is their objective intention or purposefulness in our creation or something along those lines I said yes because of all of the examples of models of atheism I gave you before that have that if they are if any of those are correct And you haven't shown them not to be correct Then they have those things you simply asserting that you don't understand atheism And so you think it can't have those things just means you have your head up your ass Um, there are many academic professional philosophers who have models of atheism Which understand atheism far better than you do And they could be right and if they're right Then you can have objective meaning the purpose and all that stuff under atheism Very simple and their models are much more supported than your model So I think you're maybe way too impressed by could be That's what it sounds like to me. They they could be right. Therefore We should um, you know throw in our cards with them and then make fun of people who would disagree Um That's impressed by that as you are No, your argument was is that atheism by definition can't have these things. That means it's impossible It's impossible for them to be correct if what you're saying is true Which means if they're even possible that these other models are right And that proves you wrong That's all I need to show is that it's possible that these are correct These are academically published models of atheism, which could be correct And if they even could be correct, then that proves you wrong about atheism You are wrong when you say under atheism, we're all just brain fizz You're wrong because guess what? Here's a model of atheism where we're not brain fizz and if it could be correct Then your assumption that under atheism we must necessarily be brain fizz is wrong See, I don't think you're you're again. I don't think you're interacting with the category distinction Uh, I keep talking about atheism and you tell me about what atheists say and those I get I can't believe how many times I have to go over this. So Yes, atheists Um, are so Well, I've come to learn that atheists despise atheism. Some of them despise it so much that they invent Um tall tales about how well atheism's apple implications is something we obviously can't live with and we don't want to So we're going to invent these models and now you come along saying that if it's even remotely possible That they are right Then therefore that's a defeater for anything that disagrees with it Which is a refined and very pure form of incoherence, of course No, true scotsman fallacy.  I have proven in your argument why it's false I've proven you're using the fallacious argument, which I agree. Yes. Yes. No true scotsman is a true policy I agree. That's and why i'm telling you you're using it trying to get you to stop I'm curious, uh, do you think that there are atheists given today's popular usage of that term who believe in god? No So then you you're actually saying that there's no true atheists believes in god Yes Okay, and you just disprove their no true scotsman fallacy. It is a What So if I say that there are atheists who believe in god and you say no no true atheists believes in god right Actually, daniel then it would disagree with you, but you know, he's got his own problems I don't care about doing it. So yes, no true atheists would believe in the god because Literally the definition of atheism is Believe there's no god Actually, a lot of atheists would disagree with you on that, but I don't have a problem going with it So you're saying no true atheists believes in god Yes Okay, that's set the very root of the no true scotsman fallacy. No Well, of course it is no it's like, um Again, I'm going to repeat myself. I assert that there are atheists who believe in god Because no true atheists believes in god that's my definition, right?  You don't recognize that Are people born in africa? Are they true scotsman's? A scotsman is a person born in scotland's scotman. So a true scotsman is born in scotland, right? So Is someone born in africa a true scotsman? I'm sure many of them are and could be I mean, I don't understand these international laws, but somebody could be outside the united states of america First base and be considered a u.s citizen by birth even though they weren't born in the usa So I'm not sure we need to get into geopolitics I'm just saying and I don't know what you're having in jahana It doesn't matter to commit logical fallacy Atheism because there's no universal imperatives against the logical fallacies on atheism Because on atheism logic is accidental as is our ability to discern it. There's no already proved you're wrong on that Well, wait a minute. How come your con? I know there's no universal imperative against contradicting yourself on atheism But don't you remember? Yes, there is. I've already proved you're wrong on that Don't you remember our previous discussion? so so The fact that there are some true categories Yeah, I'm trying to this the no true scotsman thing I want to try to try to explain you just the very basic logic here that you're missing So you're going to refuse to answer the question and you're going to go over ground that we already left You literally asked do you remember what we just previously talked about and I'm trying to discuss what we previously just talked about I apologize then that's my fault. I was referring to the discussion that we had quite a few months ago The one I mentioned in my opening statement Months ago. No, I don't remember anything from several months ago Okay, so that's where I pointed out to you that on eighth and just hear me out I mean I stated in my opening statement. I don't know how you could have missed that but I pointed out that on atheism Truth to accidental as is our ability to Discern it. There's no universal imperative to adhere to it. I already proved you wrong. Why are you tell it? Why are you saying this again? Nor to demand that others adhere to it And you had to accept that you had a moment of clarity and that's why you were reduced to admitting that you're doing what you're doing To have subjective fun and to make money I encourage you to go back and listen to our discussion Yes The reason I do youtube is to make money that has absolutely nothing to do whether there are objective imperatives Those are two separate topics. The fact that I do youtube for money does not prove there are no objectiveization of the point I just made The point I just made is that you accepted those as facts in our discussion No, I never accepted those as facts. I just told you that I do I make youtube videos for money. That was that's true How how is it all of a sudden you so you just remembered the discussion we had a few months ago? No, I'm a moral realist. I believe in objective meaning and purpose and you don't Bro, I'm a moral realist. I believe in objective meaning and purpose It's like one of the top through the first three videos on my channel. My position hasn't changed on that Okay Any of us can go and listen to that discussion It's great. I hear that you collapsed to the point of admitting that this is just for subjective fun and making money I literally just said that. Yes. I'm doing this for fun and money right now. I'm telling you that's why I'm doing this Yes, I agree Right, but that came on the back of me pointing out the four things. I just pointed out No, I never accepted that gibberish. That was never something I accepted Like I said, any of us can go back and listen to it Yes, they can go back and know I'm right But go back to the argument or something like what does that have to do with the topic? We're just having because I want to go back and explain how what you said about a no-true scotsman was just completely gibberish Not that it matters on atheism It does I've already proved you wrong on that you keep you keep saying things that I've debunked for our open discussion. That's right All right, so All right, we had two seconds left All right, so let's go ahead and kick it into the Question and answer but remind you folks that if you have a question or comment for one It's nice to better fire into the old live chat Super chats will get priority attack the argument and not the person And with that we will go ahead and ask our first question for 199 from Cameron Hall. They asked Ken can God ever commit an immoral action? No by definition Well, okay, hold on. Hold on Because now we're getting into the the fuzzy terminology God cannot commit unethical actions By definition. He is the source of the ethos Gotcha Okay, and our next question comes from Mr. Monster a member for nine months. They say I love this channel. Thank you, Mr. Monster This channel this channel loves you and Mr. Monster also said a $10 super chat They say what do you mean by accidentally existing ape as an atheist? I believe life is inevitable through chemical reactions and not an accident Okay, so Remember I defined accidental in my opening So I'll just jump to that what you're doing is the same thing tom did you're just taking the accidental problem back one step so you're saying that Apes aren't accidentally existing because they came about through chemicals But then the chemicals are accidental accidental as are the laws of physics with them thermodynamics the whole kitten caboodle The whole world view is premised on a long series of happy accidents So you can keep jumping back as far as you can possibly imagine You're just chasing that problem down the line. It's an infinite digress and an infinite regress Same thing tom did earlier At no point did I do that none of that is accidental. None of the laws of physics are accidental They weren't created. They weren't designed. They weren't purposeful. They just necessary They're necessary based on Something before that that is also not created not designed not purposeful. You know google what a necessary bean is I don't know why you're advertising google so much, but I understand your ignorance And so I don't want to explain it to you. It's being uncaused for his cause. I do get that And it's not accidental. That's the opposite of accidental, isn't it? Well, no, of course not Okay from jupiter Okay from jupiter darman For five dollars. They say do you need? No, i'm sorry. I've been skipping one from mr. Monster for five dollars They say can you have morality without a god? I would say yes I have compassion for all life and still be an atheist. Why do we need god for morality? Great question By definition. No, of course not since morality is whatever it just so happens that people are doing Then yeah, you can you have morality without god Of course because anything that people do would be categorized as moral As per the etymological definition I provided in my opening Which is a reference to the mores that merely describes but note how It's interesting That you couldn't bring yourself to say that we ought you just said I have so again. It's pure subjectivism Okay, you have you have that as a subjective personal preference. That's all it is Gotcha from jupiter darman for five dollars. They say Do you need some higher power to tell you it's wrong to cheat on your wife? If you can't reach that moral without someone telling you that's a better system If you can reach that moral without someone telling you that's a better system so This with all due regard and discretion I would say is what's known as a half thought right because there's something If you subjectively choose to think it's wrong to cheat on your wife Something is telling you that it might be yourself. It might be your parents. It might be a grandparent It might be somebody it might be something but there will always be something or someone That tells it to you. So why is god disqualified from being the one that tells it to you? I I really don't get it But on atheism, it doesn't matter what an accidentally existing egg does To betray the trust of another accidentally existing egg, of course, it's just irrelevant. It's not non-issue Gotcha and from From Franco Trujillo Trujillo, sorry about that for five dollars. They sent a message for a teak jump that I'm not going to read but thank you so much From the lee voy for five dollars. They say if all religions and deities were proven false human fabrications where we're then Where we're then would be sorry to start over If all religions and deities were proven false human fabrications Where then would be you beginning Where then would be you be getting or would be I I'm gonna go to the next one. I'll read this one. I'm sorry. I'm not even reading the the question and I get what they're asking Yeah, so bottom line is that um on atheism you could very easily categorize theism Extremely broad term, but whatever as a Darwinian survival mechanism And so in fact, I don't understand why atheists take it upon themselves to purposefully attempt to damage somebody's ability to survive So on atheism it'd be perfectly acceptable for someone to believe that a being exists Even if it was proven 100 percent that it doesn't because then that would just be An accidentally existing apes ability to survive better than it would otherwise so there'd be literally nothing wrong with it Okay, I'm gonna finish reading that question because I know I missed it up Where then would you be getting or where would you have gotten your morality from? So you finished answering that you're good Well, it's a little tricky again because i'm not really sure if they mean Morality as Maurice or morality as ifas that that's kind of one of the problems that trying to be precise causes but I mean, I suppose if no god actually existed Then we're in the situation atheism is in then claiming that Morality, I guess Is something that evolved meaning it just happens to have happened it happens to have happened the way it happened It didn't happen by accident and we can subjectively choose to adhere to it or not And so, you know, you can kind of play the pick and choose game As to what you want to adhere. This is one. I why I titled one of my books from zeitgeist to poltergeist because I remembered so well Richard dock is going on and on and about about the moral zeitgeist and I kept wondering well, what makes you think that it's unidirectional What about if it turns into a poltergeist? And so because atheists Will generally claim that morally it evolved Well, that means it stopped really they should be claiming that it's evolving And that causes another problem so that they can't complain about anything in the past because that was moral back then They sort of really can't even complain about anything today because for all they they know what's moral today is becoming immoral tomorrow What's the moral what is moral today vice versa? So it's ever changing and Good luck trying to figure out what's what at any given time All right, thank you so much. Sorry about that lee boy Something about that phrasing just brain hacked me into a brain fart. Anyways coffee mom for 199 They say what is the ethical foundation for christianity? um Well, that's what I explained in the opening and then about four different times since tom kept asking about it The ethical foundation is god's ontology is very nature and essence is eternally relational It is uh free of conflict and truly dynamic And so that is part of what theologians would call a communicable attribute of god So when he creates us he front loads as it were his uh ethical nature in us And then it's administered by conscience so That's yeah, that was the right of the outset and then um numerous times that would be the explanation to that all right, thank you so much and from Franco shuhio for five dollars. They say Is it objectively immoral that both debaters are wearing wired earbuds? It can't be Because we're doing it. So you're merely describing that that's what we're doing No reaction tgm Well, I didn't pay attention That's uh from mr. Okay from mr. Monster for five dollars. They say theism supports slavery and slavery is unethical boom debate over Okay, so again to me theism.  That's That's not what I'm here to do. But see, uh, you made a mere assertion So there's nothing to respond to You would have to explain to me how it is that some Essentially hairless apes enslaving other essentially hairless apes says There's anything wrong with it whatsoever Within an existence wherein there is nothing wrong with essentially hairless apes to enslave other essentially hairless apes So that's just a jump to a conclusion.  It's just a mere assertion Gotcha from gregory. Oh six for two dollars. They say nothing's wrong with wired earbuds jumping to your defense And I agree I have a pair within reach just in case So sometimes, you know, move and it'll get snagged up and pull right out of your ears. There's something definitely wrong with that You can't depend on bluetooth. It's just You know, that's true as well What if this is, you know, like worse than the euthypher dilemma?  Okay, let's go to the next Definitely more of an expert than you in pretty much everything. I wouldn't doubt it for a second. I can't see how it's relevant. That's, um Epic fallacy. Not that it matters on atheism You really need to learn what the fallacies are before you name them because you got every single one of them wrong so far I feel free to google it. Yeah. Genetic fallacy is a fallacy of origins. I actually know the definitions of all these I'm like you Right. So you're saying because I didn't know how to pronounce the word in the way that you pronounce it therefore My statement about it is incoherent. Is that what? Saying you don't know what the pronunciation is isn't a genetic fallacy because it's not an argument The argument isn't you don't know the pronunciation therefore your argument is wrong That may be a genetic fallacy if I use some kind of origin of the the pronunciation is the the source of it But no way did I make that argument said you're ignorant of the pronunciation You're ignorant. I apologize. I gave you way too much credit I thought you had enough integrity that you were actually tackling my statement Not just being childishly nitpicking a pronunciation. My goodness. I mean my english is my second language I mean give me a break Yes. Yes. I was just correcting your mispronunciation of youth Youth Afro is how you say this But you know, I understand you got to make money All right from oliver b. Perez for ten dollars. They say ken How could we possibly know that god has good intentions for us? How do we know he's not abusing our limited cognitive and perspective ability like we do livestock? I think I would actually like to point out that Tom is sort of involved in this debate as well. Maybe we could find one little question for him also Well, all my statements were coherence. So everyone understood what I said. No one understood what you said.  So Well There's a certain point at which anybody who's dealing with ideas logical philosophical whatever understand that there's certain basic axioms foundations premises assumptions and So mine because remember my point of view in this Debate is Christianity as is and so by definition The ethic would be again based on relationships that are free of conflict and also truly dynamic Okay, so that's how I would know I mean it's by definition of the worldview that I bring into this that I know That what god has for us is for the good because it's an expression of his eternally conflict free Relationships Gotcha from jupiter darman for five dollars. They say t jump Do you put a notch in your chair leg after each w? If so, do you fear that you'll need a new chair after this? That's that would be true if I if I did that I would need a new chair like every week it would be be unpleasant And you know, there can't be a video with tom and it without somebody discussing his chair. I noticed My opinion is I think it's an idiocracy chair And by the way, if you think I'm this marching his intellect What I mean is if I hear a flush. I'm out of you Gotcha from Gregory 06 for two dollars. They say ken evolution does not mean accident or random Well atheistic evolution does Precisely what it means by definition Uh, because there's no intelligence behind it. There's no end goal in mind. There's just Survival benefits and on atheism the instinct to survive is accidental as well and there's no universal imperative to adhere to it either So evolution, I mean, of course, we'd have to define the term but Contextually we'd be talking about atheistic evolution, which is stuff just happening to have happened and happening In a way that it happens all by itself Or by accidental stuff happening to it From previously exact existing accidental stuff. It's accidental stuff all the way down Gotcha from I'm sorry get the last word for you Oh, yes, um Well, we already talked about One or two definitions of atheism. I mean it depends on the denomination or sect, but Again, I've been talking about the implications of it. Not what individual atheists like to subjectively assert Gotcha from aliyusha for ten dollars. They say the various religions have built many social structures How to how do you build a system on a negation? There is no there's no there there You need some sort of archetypal structure niches madman pole That's sort of true Yeah, that's sort of true that atheism is just a rejection the god the rejection of belief in a god, which is fine Um, but then you can also have positive claims Like there's a higher order emergent property of morality or that morality is a law of physics or something like The atheism all of those models would still be atheist models if there was no god in those models So simply saying there is no god Doesn't preclude you from having a lot of other stuff in your models as well It's just it's not just no god and nothing else. It's no god and whatever else you want to pause it doesn't include god So I think that's an interesting point the question or brought because Obviously, there are reasons why and and just mere decades atheists set the Mass and serial murdering worlds record even though in a manner of speaking they were competing against religions that have been around for millennia Hey millennia In a couple decades they managed to top that And it's because of the worldview. It's because there's literally nothing wrong with that on atheism and it's also why atheist countries for decades led the world in I'm gonna be careful to not get uh, james channels bombarded by youtube so the production of forms of media that depict Children being forced to perform certain actions. They're not really age appropriate Shall we say there's reasons why atheist countries do these sort of things?  That's why atheists make up 0.4 percent of prison populations where christians make up about 60 to 80 percent of prison populations Ken just doesn't know anything as usual That was a question for tom so we're going to move on christian I have the last word This question is from coffee mom for 199 They say and this is a follow-up from their last question Maybe we were asking about the ethical foundation for christianity and in this question. They're saying to you ken So what is it? How do you know what it is? Okay, so there would be a few different ways one. I I already mentioned two of them In a way, I'm kind of surprised that I keep being asked As if it's de novo For to explain things I already explained One of them would be that they're expressed to us in the written text that has come to be known as the bible And the other one would be that it is administered by our consciousness. So That this is why historically when people set out To do something unethical they first justify it to themselves It's okay. Actually that I do this because and they come up with an excuse, you know, and I mean I I guess I can't prove this but I would Say it's pretty fair to think that one thing that separates us from the animals is that we justify our actions, right? We make excuses for them Although one thing I know for sure separates us from the animals is um fashion faux pas Man, we need a rim shot sound effect here somewhere. But anyhow, that would be two that would be two other ways Okay from pee bot dooloo for our five dollars from another country If our morals are front loaded, how do I access more mental ram to possibly gain more morals? so Again going back to the terminology. I wouldn't say morals are front loaded. I would say ethics are front loaded and one way It would be to exercise them, right? One would so for instance if I want to lift heavier weights Well, I need to start by lifting lighter weights and progressively Increase the the weights that I lift and so that would be one way is Act morally.  Hey, you know what? This is actually wrong Hey, you know what? You should really do this even though it might put you at risk It would help somebody and that's how you kind of gain that that strength to to Access I forget how the question might but access the higher form or the or more or however that was put Okay, and from bubble gum gun for two dollars. They say slavery and racism are both engines of evolution Let's be Tom Uh, I don't know what that means engines of like you mean consequences of evolution like yeah And I'm not sure Um, I mean like you believe in a god they're the commands of god so Gotcha from pivot, uh Cryo cryo cryo cryo Cyroy for five euros. They say Would be very nice if ken would stop debating against the straw man atheists address t-jump properly Uh, they are disappointed with what they consider is dishonesty here Would I agree? Yeah, even though there's no universal imperative against dishonesty on atheism, but the point is that's the strong I've interacted with atheists Thousands of them literally thousands for decades And so when tom gives me this myopic subjective Opinion of what it is. I know for a fact that there's a wider sloth. That's why I'm talking about Or mentioned before that there's denominations and sects So every atheist demands that I adhere to their myopic definition of atheism.  I'll font right at the very outset. It's a worldview that fails before it even begins It's such a collapse mess that that's why tom ends up saying Well, we need to import other stuff into it in order to build something that we then end up calling something like objective atheist Morals or ethics or something right? They have to Beg borrow and steal from elsewhere just to fill the gaps in their collapsed worldview or Nope, atheism had those all originally christianity stole from atheism and When you're talking to somebody you have to address their worldview. Not somebody else's is literally what a straw man is So if I said christianity is the belief that Jesus drowned babies and if you don't accept that then you're not accepting true christianity. That's called a straw man It's not me being a good debater So you need to learn how to actually accurately address the position that you're talking to not make up your own position Of what you think it should be This wasn't better ethical foundations. Tom jumps subjective interpretation of atheism or christianity. It was atheism Well, I just said from Cameron Okay from Cameron hall for 199. They say can is it unethical to eat crab because the bible says so Is it uh present tense? No It was Oh, this is tricky Because of the issue of the biblical religion versus rabbinic Judaism, which is the majority form today, but For a place and a time and a culture and a people who agreed to adhere to certain laws It was unethical for them Um to those to whom it doesn't apply. It doesn't apply So for instance, I as a jew I'm not an ancient israelite in an ancient culture in an Ancient monarchy And an ancient land of israel haven't agreed to adhere to those laws So You guys The car or yeah, we could hear the car Sorry anyways From mr. Monster for five dollars. They say is it ethical for an all-powerful god to destroy its creations Right, so that's something I referred to at the outset Which is that it Um The one who gives life has something to say about the life that was given that's that was my initial statement. So Yeah, by definition Then if god wanted to destroy his creation Then that's what it is his Creation it is his it pertains to him. Yes Gotcha from coffee mom for 199. They say have you actually read the bible? It's not ethical Um, have I read the bible? Yes And a mere assertion that there's nothing there for me to respond to It the subjective personal opinion is your based on hidden assumptions that it's not ethical So I could just just just respond by saying yes, I've read it and yes, it is ethical next Gotcha, and that is the end of the super chat. So if you have a super chat for one It's nice debaters fire into the old live chat and it will go straight to the top of the list It will be the next thing we asked but we will go ahead and go to the unpaid questions from uh Wakfu guides they ask does teach them understand that in insults interruptions don't advance or progress the conversation Uh, does he understand that gibberish doesn't advance the conversation? So if insults can actually get the person to address the argument But it's better than listening to gibberish And I only insult people when they don't actually address the argument And now we get a good definition of how tom Decides what's better or worse And so that pretty much helps collapse his concept of ethics because obviously what he considers better Is just another subjective interpretation How are you so dumb like literally nothing I said had anything to do with moral obligation. That was all logic From Owen Grant, they say slavery is acceptable in the bible. Is that ethical Ken? So unfortunately, that's one of those incredibly complicated topics because you're just employing vague generic subjective english term and you're actually compounding a lot of different categories and collapsing them into this one single thing. So That's kind of what I was getting at earlier as an example of tom making very Saturating succinct statements with a bunch of assertions and fallacies. So it it leaves it to the To the one he's debating against to spend a lot of time really unpacking things very carefully So I would have to know what you mean but um, basically, I mean It's difficult to even answer because I literally don't know what you're talking about I don't know what form of uh anything you're talking about But as a very Basic basic principle that might just miss the whole point since I really don't know what you're asking about We're dealing with a system of recompense for Um, you know for finances and the output of work and so This is how people uh dealt with For instance being in debt. You're in debt and you can't pay it.  Well, there's a price to be paid for you Putting your energies towards trying to uh destroy the Israelites and I mean Again, it's very difficult to to discuss something so generic But the concept would be a styled cost-benefit analysis and how is it that you're gonna repay The actions you've taken or the situation that you're in That's very very rough. I mean All right from aliyusha for ten dollars. They say going back to niches warning Is the 20th century's experiment with atheism in its various iterations the soviet union, etc Any evidence of some possible issues? No, because those weren't models of atheism. Those are models of communism. If we look at models of atheism, which are the current Um majority secular nations in the world. They do better often literally every statistic So there's this uh silly theist idea that communism equates atheism. It doesn't All right We have the words left behind to us by those atheists who told us why they were doing What they were doing and in fact, um a form of atheism would equate to to materialism and communism is literally premised on materialism No, it's not Secondly the fact that there are some That do no, it's not. You're just That's what they were They are the ones explaining that. Oh my god.  No, it's not why they did what they did and yeah You're coming along saying, you know, that's not why you did what you did. Yes. It's not why they did what they did We know it's not this is the we have academic papers the way that has nothing to do with atheism What they did what they did has nothing to do with atheism. You're ignorant like for example Stalin murdered people because he Used lysincoism as his basis for growing crops was then called starve starvation because he didn't acknowledge science Atheists today acknowledge science. No, it has literally nothing to do with atheism We know he has nothing to do with atheism.    The question is for t-jump. So we're gonna let him get the last word anyways So dumb dumb can so as the fact that you can list one person who wasn't atheist and who did a bad thing Doesn't mean atheism tends towards bad things in order to make that argument You would need to make a generalization based on the number of all atheists But if we look at all atheists and all religious people guess what religious people do more crime Atheists make up 0.4 percent of the population of prisons if atheism Was the cause of greater violence then guess what kiddo? We'd see a proportional amount of statistics that atheists would do more crimes So the fact that it doesn't seem that way and the fact that all you have is indicates christianity causes more crime If your own argument disproves your own dumbass points Atheism has nothing to do with communism and equating the two is Assamite All right, and the last super chat of the night from the craw daddy 029 Well, actually, they'll be the second to last one from ken They say to ken, would you be my slave by the rules in exodus 21? Um, I would have to read that entire chapter to really answer you but no, I don't know you anything so I'm fine. Thank you very much All right, and the last one from dustin robbins for ten dollars They say ken do you think the innate disposition of matter being Matter slash being to organize itself into ever more complex forms even ever Developing conscious ones could provide an objective godless ethical basis Well, the problem is you're begging way too much. I mean You're asking if an eternal Uncaused first cause piece of matter that's not personal or or a literal nothingness can Accidentally become something else.  There's too many Begs of the question along the way. I don't I don't see how how that's coherent just just to Again postulate A extremely long bottomless pit of assertions to then end up in hey now we have a model and we're gonna Demand that people adhere to it because it's possibly possible. That's probably could be maybe All right, and that is the end of our super chats and on the end of our questions So before we go, I just want to thank the moderators in the chat Thank you to james in the audience and for creating this platform Thank you to everybody in the audience everyone who sent in super chats and elevated the conversation Thank you to the debaters t jump and ken you guys are the lifeblood of the show So to everybody who is in the audience like it if you loved it Share it if you want to spread it and subscribe as we have many more debates coming your way including on the 21st Vosh versus daniel akikachu at 7 p.m. Is porn bad? So like and subscribe so you will check that out when it comes out And thank you everyone. Have a great night and remember to keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable. Have a great Thank you guys Thank you


Charles Randall Paul is the founder and president of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy, New York and Utah that works to build trust between religious critics and rivals. He is the co-founder of the World Table, a software platform for respectful conversations on the internet. He received a BS from Brigham Young University in Social Psychology and an MBA from Harvard University. After a career as a commercial real estate developer, he obtained a PhD at the University of Chicago Committee on Social Thought. He and his wife, Jan, have five children and 15 grandchildren. Please welcome Randy. Can God have limitations, asks President Kimball, I'm glad it was a question. Because my report is yes and he would not want it any other way. I've taken my liberties here today to respond to a couple of things and in Mormon style. I feel impressed to respond to Brian Johnson's comment first, give a context. Those of you who are scholars in the room who care about this, I'll be talking heavily influenced by radical empiricism and personalism as my religious context. William James and Jonathan Haight, by the way, if you haven't seen any of Jonathan Haight's work on the social psychology of conflict in our country today, check him out on the internet. It's great stuff. In terms of social psychology, they deeply influenced me. In social theory, of course, Joseph Smith's notions of Zion coupled heavily with a French Belgian scholar who's about 74 years old by the name of Chantal Mouff today who has written a great set of books, my favorite being agonists or agonistics. You'll see why I'm going to be talking about that word today in a big way. In terms of Brian Johnson's work and some of the work we heard today, I believe there's a basic notion that comes from Plato, if you look at our Western history, that if we just could have the mind of God, if we just knew the full truth and the full context, our behavior would be good, period. The fundamental problem is ignorance, lack of perspective, knowledge, full knowledge equals good. My whole theory is that's wrong, I'm a Dostoevskyan where he believes there's what he called stupid freedom to do for no reason at all, evil, to literally act, to harm. We put that out there today as a radical assumption of everything I'm talking about. You'll see where it applies in many places. What's the therapy if you cannot, no matter how smart you are, by action on another or in put into another, even in God's presence in the war in heaven we have the classic example, no atheists, there is the loving being and yet there's a war in heaven. What is going on here? I think this is a deep Mormon mythological, not in any negative sense, in a sense of deep meaning aspect that has informed all my work. I would resist Brother Johnson's notion that if we just could all get there as superhuman knowers, the behavior would follow just fine in terms of our, and I'd love to have a conversation more with him on that subject. Next point quickly, I believe that we are in a divine, lively experiment to use another one of my favorite characters, Roger Williams, in optimizing the experience of joy producing love. Though I don't claim that there is a ultimate purpose that is final, the penultimate purpose of our system of salvation or our divinities is to optimize joy producing love and that itself is always a negotiation. There is no commandment set, there is no formula that will allow it to be fixed and final. It's always a question of mutual negotiation of what love means between us now. Speaking with God, speaking with each other, it's an open question. It's very important, given my remarks, that you understand that that to me is the driving purpose, and I'll be talking about teleomachy today, or conflict or war over purposes. I believe we do have that as part of our structure. God is love and Christ at the end of his life, of course, said you are no longer my servants, you are my friends. If you want to be a Christian, you will love each other like I love you, right? This idea of the form we call friendship couples with the idea of what love is. It's equivalent as far as we can get in communicating in this world to friendship. And we'll talk a little bit more about that again in a few minutes. But I'm going to my final points first, so that if I lose steam later, you can all say, oh, I think he said this. Okay, and the next one, I'm going to put a point on my point. According to the Dr. and Joseph Smith, 132nd section, everlasting or eternal beings are gods. It's provocative to say it, but I think we have to all admit it, that we have various definitions of gods as Mormons. Living God is not the answer to a joyful eternal life is crucial to what I'm about to say. Just living forever is not the answer to joy. Just having the ability or capacity to avoid scarcity of anything you would worry about in this world is not the production of joy. Joy that matters is derived from a free gift of another free agent that you cannot command or control. The one thing in heaven that you value most, that our God's value most, is a free agent to love me.  You have to participate. You have to give the free gift to God. Just as God gave us through Jesus in his example, he loved us first so we would love him. He puts the extender out there. But that which is most valuable in heaven is that which God cannot command or do with all their technology and all their knowledge, which is to have another free agent to love them. And that's what makes it powerful, right? That's why we're all important. And just to say it outright, I believe that we ought to stop, I'm a Mormon transhumanist, business of God in embryo. We're all God's already. In tortuor to Mormons, we are all God's already. By the definition I've said, we're eternal intelligences.  You're not a human in embryo.  And so we are divine beings and that's why we have this tension all in our society between people I love here who I agree with and disagree with when Joseph Smith and King Follett says, the great secret is if we were to see him today, he'd be sitting out there and you could talk to him like a friend. That did not sound like a mystical experience. I'm not saying what it was, but I'm trying to say this is an important notion, more than a notion, direction of Mormonism that we don't even believe I think at one level our own doctrine certainly hasn't been canonized, right? For some reason, but I push it there in a society like this because it makes a deep difference to say we're already there that the fall was from divinity, if you will. This experience was what the Christian theologians would call canosis an emptying. It wasn't only an emptying for Jesus. It was an empathy for all of us. We've had our brains knocked out. We're incapable of a lot of things that we were probably capable of before. We certainly lost our memories. And so with the idea of a personal existence prior, we can see that we've all gone through this canosis and for some reason, and I'm claiming the reason that Jesus gave was to enhance our ability to experience and enjoy love. That's what this world's about. Okay. And that's why people can get it even going through the spirit world and just coming down here for a few seconds. I think we, anyhow, that's another subject. Okay. That's the background. Let me go now to the paper. I've got 10 minutes. How many minutes I have left? Help. 10. Okay. 10. 10. I got 10. I recently said that if all future advances in technology were already realized, eliminating today scarcity of resources, extending life indefinitely, expanding knowledge massively and universally, there would be chaos because human ethical habits, philosophical and political systems have not evolved to handle the exponential change in human capacity from technological innovation. We have the thesis here, and I'll just jump to right now then, is that with all our work on transhuman extension of life, we have not extended our capacity for complex dealing with conflict, especially the conflict over what we do next. For when we get to a point where we're no longer worried about feeding the poor because there aren't that many more or any poor, let's just put it there, we in Mormonism have a wonderful analogue for what's going to happen from some transhumanist point of view in a few decades, maybe a century or two, we'll have on earth superhumans who no longer have scarcity issues but who have this great question of what do we do next, right? And the conflict will then be what is our collaborative effort next? Well where was that once in our story in the war, counseling war in heaven, right? We had that same story going on there, so in a sense we'll have a recapitulation of a war in heaven, we'll have it among superhumans on earth, and my project in life in general and here is to find a way of engaging in that conflict over ultimate purposes between beings who have different views of the good future in a way that is loving, respectful and not violent. I want to, given the time, just trash most of what I've done here and just say, I'd like to talk about these categories and write them down if you have them. I've been working on these for years. On one side of your paper put enemy, then next to it put antagonist, then put in the middle agonist, and then put ally, and then put friend. Okay, I'm going to work with five categories very quickly with you. A friend is someone who loyally cares about your well-being and is willing to sacrifice deeply his or her well-being in regards to what you see as good for you. It's a Christ-like action in that sense. It's a deep loyalty. An ally is someone who shares your interests, might not give a darn about you, might not even like you, and might certainly not be committed to you as a loyal friend, but they share your interests, okay? An agonist is someone who disagrees with you deeply and resists your persuasions, but does so in a sense of mutual respect. The agonist's goal is to convert you without coercion or threat, but to change your view. And it's a serious conflict, but it's a contest without coercion. An antagonist is someone who is acting like an enemy. Moving in coercive means seems to have malevolent motives toward you, but you do not know yet whether that person has malevolent motives or thinks you might have malevolent motives and is acting defensively, all right?  I vow, no I vow, you're an it, right?  That's an enemy. Now, the whole project that I'm working on, and I think it has scriptural and social-psychological basis for serious consideration, is to shift our general view of those who deeply disagree with us about our ultimate purposes and methods from people who appear to be antagonists to agonists, people that we can respect as honorable rivals in a persuasive contest that will go on for eternity. The idea here is the screw-up, and remember this is a speculation, I'm not saying what happened, but the war in heaven could be seen as a failure of divine love that lost its patience, right? It came in and beat up the enemy, darn it, we've had it, we've got to get on with this thing, we're going to have a world or not, right? And it's time, right? So this idea of Christ actually, the whole atonement program of Christ is a way of saying, well, the war in heaven didn't work, what will work? How could we move people's hearts and minds without coercion or violence to come our way? How do we get the third part to come our way? Well, let's try this radical sacrifice of love that is undeniable to try to move the hearts. Truman Madsen used to say, if getting up on that cross and going to Yosemite, if you'd learned about that and that doesn't get your heart, you got a heart of absolute stone, right? So this is deep in his thought too, I remember years ago we used to talk about that, anyhow. So I think what I'd like to do is simply say then, we know that the instant there's a group, there'll be heretics, even if they're all of one faith or one group, radical perspectivalism is part of Mormon theory. If God is a person, there's got to be a reason that God has a different experience than you do, and with different experiences you will have different views of what the next action, good action could be. A deep Mormon idea that I'm challenging is that to be of one heart and one mind and having no pour among you means that you ultimately come to a convergence on all important what we would call content issues. That's the most beautiful blue period, we all know it now, right? That is the only way to goodness, we all know it now. My view is the great liar, not God said, there is no other way. There's always another way. That is the idea of freedom that allows us to negotiate the good going forward and why we're interesting to God and each other and eternity, why it's not boring, is we're always trying to create new collaborative projects, if you will, experiments without a cycle theory of history, a spiral theory of change going forward, sometimes not getting it quite right. It's always, though, always having the possibility of a serious war, a desire for imposing the next program on the group as a possibility and that to be avoided by this idea of being an honorable and loving agonist who you actually desire to have in your eternal life, you actually find that bother deeply moving to you because you find that other person or entity wanting you to be part of his or her life and you wanting the same and then throwing out, in my opinion, the flawed idea of unconditional love, all love is conditioned on particulars in this sense and we choose who we love and that's why love matters. We love in hierarchies and the conflict over whose program is next to be adopted in a heavenly environment can hurt your feelings if it's not yours. You might say, oh, well, we've got an eternity here and just get in line and it's no big deal, we'll just wait a few gazillion years. Don't get upset if your experiment isn't the one that the Grand Council wants to do next. We know that in the particular reality, we still have our feelings hurt. Envy can come up and overcome love and I believe that I'll just end by saying that if we oppose envy to love, we can see the Luciferian move was not so much give me the glory but what the Buddhists would call a lack of muddita instead of taking joy and pleasure by loving another being being elevated, taking joy in that envy moved in and destroyed the interrelation of love that is the basis for joyfulness.  It's a conflation of Bonnie Honig's work and Samuel Chambers are both students of Chantal Mouff. To affirm the perpetuity of the contest is not to celebrate a world without points of stabilization. It is to affirm the reality of perpetual contest even with an ordered setting and to identify the affirmative dimensions of contestation. Agonism is not simply the undifferentiated celebration of antagonism. Agonism implies deep respect and concern for the other. Indeed the Greek agon refers most directly to an athletic contest oriented not merely toward victory or defeat but emphasizing the important of the struggle itself a struggle that cannot exist without the opponent. There must be opposition in all things and that doesn't mean evil that means the edge that creates intelligibility itself. Victory through forfeited default or over an unworthy opponent comes up short compared to a defeat at the hands of a worthy opponent a defeat that still brings honor. An agonistic discourse will therefore be one marked not merely by conflict but just as importantly by mutual admiration and where both live to fight another day. Thanks.