Everybody, today we're animating atheism and we're starting right now. Ladies and gentlemen, thrilled to have you here for another epic debate. This is going to be a lot of fun, folks. This time it's personal between Steve McCrae, the pope of agnosticism, and his not his son, you guys. That joke's getting old. It's his stepson. So what we're going to do today, want to let you know, it's going to be a flexible format and for real, they are debating the definition of atheism. It's going to be a lot of fun and it's going to start like this. Steve McCrae is going to go first with a roughly 10 minute, probably learn like five or two minute statement and then Snake will get his chance to give his opening statement, which could be as long as 10 minutes. Then we'll go into open dialogue. Want to let you know though, we are very excited because I put both of their links in the description for you guys. So if you're listening and you're like, I like that. I want more. You can hear more. Those links are waiting for you. So in addition, we're going to have Q&A at the end, which means if you have a question fired into the old live chat, why don't you? I will be looking for if you tag modern day debate, that way I can try to get every question in the list. Super chats are also an option, which you basically be able to give a question or a comment during the Q&A and it'll also push your question or comment to the top of the list for the Q&A. We just ask that you be your regular friendly selves for that. And we are very excited. We are going to get started. Steve McCrae, thanks so much for being with us. Taylor, thank you very much for being with us as well, also known as Snake was right. Appreciate you guys hanging out here tonight. Hey, well, good to be here again, man. By the way, I have to apologize. I have a little bit of cough. Hopefully I'll mute every time I do. It's only because I've been running my AC a little bit and it gets kind of dried out. So I don't have COVID. I don't want to hurt anybody, but I'm going to try to get through this without coughing too much. If I do, I'm going to mute like this. You got it. Okay. All right. So anyways, so we're going to part two on this. A lot of people in the first one had said that I obviously had a lot to say. And so I did dominate the conversation because I was trying to explain the conversation of what the actual topic was, the basics of the topic. And so I wanted to kind of a part two where Snake could actually claim by claim show what he thinks I'm wrong about, and then we can address that individually rather than having, you know, 10, 15 things you're storing out there because I still have my notes from last time, right? And so I have on my webpage, www.great-to-be-community.com, all my positions. They've been there since 2018. They haven't changed. It's very specific of my positions, right? The narrative that I'm a prescriptivist wrong. I'm a descriptivist. I've always been a descriptivist. I don't prescribe language uses. I've never argued that you have to hold to a certain type of linguistic format. I don't advocate that you have to take a very specific label. I don't advocate that there are any correct definitions of atheism. I am the antithesis of that. I'm the opposite of that. I actually have been the one for years saying you have communities out there like the atheists experience. You have the American atheists that say atheism is only one thing. Well, this is untrue. I've demonstrated this is untrue. They've come around and they've realized, yes, there are multiple ways of use this word. It is polyseamus because of the efforts of myself and other people. That's all my arguments are, is that there are other usages. I hold to the more academic uses, the normative usages. Now, that doesn't mean that these colloquial uses aren't found in philosophy. That's never been my argument, right? My argument is that the normative use, if you go to read a whole bunch of papers, almost every one of them is going to be used in the positive epistemic status sets, meaning the case that atheism is believed to not exist. You don't have to accept that. You don't have to accept that usages, right? I don't prescribe you must be this or that. I don't care what people label themselves. I never have. All I do is talk about if they label themselves this way, this is the ramifications for it by logic. So on my web page came up with something called Gumballs and God, which basically is a better way, I think, of explaining the situation if you have a gumball machine, if the gumballs are odd or even. I also have a argument called the week eight, the special pleading argument that if you do hold these particular positions, you have to allow for certain other things or you are special pleading. Again, these are logical. These are not semantic arguments. They're not contingent upon any kind of semantics. So what I want to do is I want to turn it over to Snake. And what I want him to do is basically fulfill what he was supposed to do the first time he told me and said to much people that I'm wrong in my arguments, then I was wrong in my Duke debate. That's fine. If people think I'm wrong, show me what you have. I've so far to date, not one person has any logical argument against anything I've said, not one. I mean, I've been around a very long time and so if they have a decent argument, all they have to do is put it on a blog or something, right? I'll review it. Anybody can run these arguments. And so if Snake thinks that he has a logical argument that shows my logic is wrong, then I'm willing to go look at it, right? So that's kind of what I want to do. I want to say, Snake, okay, so what do you think that I'm wrong on? Like, give me one thing that you think that for my positions that I've said, especially in the Duke debate that I was wrong on, and let's discuss it until we either exhaust that or we move on to another topic or have it resolved. You muted, by the way. Pulling the James there. Hey, no, James never figures that out. He'll talk for an hour and I'll realize he's muted. All right, all right, we've heard enough of this. Okay, well, first thing I want to say is happy Star Wars Day to everyone. If you can't tell, I'm a Star Wars fan, may the fourth be with you. Anyway, first claim, let's make it kind of an easy one. So I want to address what you said about the atheist organizations claiming that atheism is only lack of belief. And I feel like this is just obviously a false interpretation because they're saying that that's only the minimum criteria because they're not excluding people who are saying that gods do not exist. They're just saying that this is only the minimum criteria that needs to for you to qualify as an atheist. So could we possibly agree on that? No, if you go to American Atheist page right now, it clearly says atheism is only one thing, a lack of belief. That is only one thing is a qualifier. Arron is blogged when he wrote a letter blog to me from Mr. Atheist said that they use the only correct definition. These are prescription, right? These are prescriptive language just saying that there's only one definition. There's only one correct definition. So do you think that they would say that people who claim gods do not exist are not atheists then? No, because that they want it clearly because if atheism is only one thing, lack of belief, if you believe there are no gods, that has to entail you do not believe, right? So they're saying what they're saying is snake is that it is a necessary and sufficient condition for atheism. They're saying is only one thing and is the only correct definition. I can show you this if you wish, but do you want to go to the American Atheist homepage? Well, we did that last time. OK, so you see what I'm saying is they're just saying that it's the the minimum criteria. They're including atheists who believe that there are no gods in that statement. Well, again, that's the minimum criteria would be necessary and sufficiency, right? OK, so atheism is one thing, the lack of belief. Although if you go to IEP, they have multiple definitions for atheism. As a matter of fact, in my presentation at ages ago, I gave I think eight different definitions for atheism, right? So would you agree that the statement there's only one correct definition? Would that be incorrect? It depends on the way you word it. So I can accept that wording if what they're saying is that's the minimum criteria. But that wasn't my question. My question was if if Arn Ross says and he has said in his blog that they're using the correct definition, that implies there's an objective standard to be had. There's an objective definition, which I argue there is not. I'm not a prescriptivist. I'm the opposite of that. I don't think there's a correct definition. Anybody says that Steve says, oh, there's only one correct definition has never watched anything that I've done or read anything that I've written. Well, that definition includes all other ones, all other possible ones. So if it's necessary and sufficient, that means anybody who does not believe as an atheist, correct? But yeah, OK, that includes all the other definitions of atheism, too. But if there are other definitions that are necessary and sufficient, would change it to what? Well, it doesn't change it because it's normative. But if a definition says if the necessary and sufficient condition for atheism is that you have an actual belief that there are no gods, then their definition is not sufficient any longer. It's necessary, but it loses sufficiency. Would you agree that it loses sufficiency if you narrow it? Yes, because at that point, the sufficient condition now becomes the actual belief, which entails that you do not believe. So not believing is still necessary, but it's no longer a sufficient condition to be atheism under a strict definition called sensostricto rather than sensolato, which would be the broad definition. Yeah, but it's just a subset of not believing. Again, that's true. But the point being is that you have to have a sufficiency condition. American atheists and are on raw hold that sufficient condition to be merely not believing. That's their position. You can ask American atheists on this. It's very clear that Arne has very stipulated this. You don't agree that Arne has said this for atheism. I'm sorry, what? But that's a part of every definition for atheism. So it necessarily has to include lack of belief, every definition. No, it doesn't.  Go look at Oxford learner. Go look at all these different sources that don't have that as a sufficient condition. It is a entailed condition. If I believe that gods do not exist, that entails logically that I don't believe gods exist. There's an unnecessary logical entailment there. But just because I don't believe that is not a sufficient condition under certain more stricter definitions. This is just basic logic. If I hold to a stricter definition, then that sufficiency condition is the actual belief that the proposition is false, proposition of theism is false. Well, it doesn't matter because if the umbrella term is just lacks belief, then that can include anything that lacks belief. I think you're missing the point. You can be as pedantic as you want about it. It's not pedantic. This is basic logic. I don't see where you're failing on this, Snake, because again, there has to be a sufficiency condition. Let me ask you, what do you think the sufficiency condition for atheism is ubiquitously and normatively in philosophy? Most loosely, it's just lack of belief. And you think that's normative in philosophy? Yeah, so next question. Well, hang on, no, no, no, hang on. I want until we resolve it. How do you think that's normative in philosophy of I found you won't find any papers out there that puts that as normative? Now, you have people that argue for it. There are many different philosophers out there that's four that I can think of. Boulevard, Martin, Flue, and... They haven't written papers? Well, actually, that's about this. Basically, Martin, oh, Smith. The four of those have argued that they rather have negative atheism, but they don't agree that your usages is normative. Matter of fact, Flue says the common uses of atheism in academia is the strong case. Even Flue admitted that. I guess Jackson, his paper has a strong case. Moser has a strong case. What paper do you have that has it in the weak case? Well, there's Martin, Flue, Clouture, McGrath, L.R. Diller, Harris, Patience, Dennett, Dawkins, Hume. We're talking philosophers, okay. They're all philosophers. No, Dawkins is not a philosopher. He's a biologist. And you can be a philosopher. Well, if he has a philosophical paper, which I don't think that he does, but Flue says very specifically... So are all your sources from academic philosophers? Yes. Dr. Malick has a degree in philosophy? No, but he has a published paper in a philosophical journal. You don't have to have a PhD and to have a public published. He's published, he's peer-reviewed. With zero citations? From Google scholar, I mean, you cite it, but... Yeah, I mean, I've actually talked to Dr. Malick. I mean, we have gone over his work. We've gone over his paper. It is a published peer-reviewed paper. So yes, if it's published and it's peer-reviewed, that's an academic citation. Now, Flue says very specifically in his paper, Presumption of Atheism in 1972, he says, quote, where nowadays the usual meaning of atheists in English is someone who asserts that there is no such thing as being as God. So even Flue disagrees with you there. That is normative. In context, because he actually distinguishes between negative and positive atheism. Correct, but we're talking about normativity. You've advocated that in philosophy it's normative that atheism is more held to be in the weak condition rather than the strong. I have no evidence for this. So let's look at the normativity of your definition. So Dr. Malick has zero citations. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has 18 citations. Dr. Oppie has one citation. So... I don't see why citations have anything to do with it. They're still peer-reviewed papers. And I go by Stanford more than anything. Yeah, and so... There's no way you can grow in between Malick and Stanford. And so, for example, we'd have 83 citations. Who? The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Yeah, which I've read. But you don't know that's an opinion piece, right? That's a collection of opinion pieces. That has Boulevant and that has Oppie and other people. Those are opinion pieces. Yeah, Boulevant actually has a degree in religion. I understand that. He's the editor of it. But he's never said, I've read his paper. He's never said that weak atheism is normative. They're literally all opinion pieces. Right, but he's not claiming that weak atheism is normative. He never claims that in his paper. So what evidence do you have that... Yeah, he does. No, he didn't. Where? Let's see. I've read his paper. He doesn't claim that. Boulevant does. Yes, he does. Okay. He says, there is therefore a great deal of utility to be gained from finding and generally agreed upon, serviceable, if not perfect, scholarly definition of the word atheism, throughout this volume by contrast, unless otherwise stated, atheism is defined as an absence of belief in the existence of a God or gods. And that's what he's arguing. He's not claiming that's normative. As with most mainstream definitions of the term. Yeah, that's what he's advocating for. He wants what you guys call the colloquial version to be normative. Flu advocated the same thing. That's the whole point of the paper of presumption of atheism. And that paper is cited 67 times. So more than all of your papers combined. Citations make no relevancy here. It's what is accepted. Boulevant, by the way, is a theist who's advocating for this. But I don't understand your argument, though. He's advocating to have a different... He watched the word be normatively changed from positive to negative. The same thing flu did, which means that normatively it is positive. That's how it's understood most of the time. He's advocated. That's his own argument. That's Boulevant's argument. That was Martens as well. Michael Martin. So the articles I'm citing are more valuable than your sources. I don't understand what that is. Because they're cited more often in academia. Hold on, just hear the rest from Snake. They're cited more often in academia. They held to a higher standard. I don't understand. Hold on. It's more normative. Snake finishes point. James? I said just to let Snake finish his point, then we'll come back to you. It's more normative. So you're arguing that it's normative because you have a host of sources and I have just the same amount of sources saying the opposite. No, you don't. Yeah, I do. And they have more citations. No, you don't. You have Martin, Flu and Boulevant. And all of them are wanting to argue that it be changed normatively from positive to negative. Flu very clearly points out. Popular because it's cited more often. But you're missing the argument here, Snake. Does Flu not say, whereas nowadays, the usual meaning of atheists in English is someone who research that there are no beings, there's no such being as God. Is that not Flu's own words? Does he not say that atheism is or to me? The mainstream definition is an absence of belief in the existence of God. You're not addressing the question, Snake. Is Flu advocating? I mean, did you read the presumption of atheism? I've read part of it, yeah. Okay, he's advocating, he's saying, atheism is normatively held in the positive epistemic status. He says, I wanted the word to be understood, not positively, but negatively. That's his words. This is his argument. Because normatively, it's positive. So there's more acceptance of that in the field of philosophy. No, if there's more acceptance then why would he be arguing to have it changed? Perhaps it has already changed since he wrote that in 1972. Yeah, and it failed. 58 times more than all of your sources combined. It's got incited because people have torn it apart. I mean, go read Burgess Jackson's paper in 2017. Well, he disannihilates this argument on the presumption of atheism. And he's incited twice. So it's not... People can cite papers because they're disagreeing with them, Snake. Psychiatrists doesn't mean that you agree with the paper. Psychiatrists have no relevancy. Just to be sure that we get to hear the full sentence from each person. Okay. Yeah, it's not very relevant. It's cited twice. Yeah, again, citations have no value in the paper itself. I mean, a person can cite a paper because they're disagreeing with it. I mean, Flues paper is cited because Burgess Jackson destroyed his paper in 2017 with the finding atheism of the burden of proof. It's a great paper. Go read it. Do you agree when Boulevant says even today there are no clear academic consensus as how exactly the term... Correct, I agree with Boulevant on that. It's not consensus. It's normativity. These are very different concepts. If there's no consensus, how is there a normativity? Because normativity means what is normally used. So how are you gonna prove what's normally used? I can show you 10 papers that use it in the positive case and you can't show me one that uses it in the negative, probably. Boulevant doesn't use it in the negative. He's advocating for it. Flues doesn't use it in the negative. He's advocating for it. How can you not use it but advocate for it? Because that's the whole point of the argument that they're trying to do. I'm advocating for it and using it that way. How is that any different? Thank, I'm at a loss here, dude. I know. Look, these, Flues actually says... By the way, shout out to Nate Brody for some of this research. Yeah, well, this is what explains a lot. That's why you probably don't understand. Look, if Flues says the usual meaning of atheism is someone who asserts that their God there's no suspicions as God but I want to change to be understood not positively but negatively.  He's literally saying it in his paper and you're saying, well, Flues is not saying that. What was that, 40 years ago? New atheism has risen since then. That's an assertion. I tell you what, we'll do a one for one paper. You show me papers that actually not arguing for, hey, we want the weak atheism use but actually in their paper, just using weak atheism. So how many do you got? Because I can show you Moser. I can just show you Malik. I can show you, I guess Jackson. I can show you SEP, IEP, all these by McCormick, Draper. Oh, Opi, all these people have used it in the positive epistemic status case, which... But again, if you don't want to believe it's normative that's fine, that's your choice. But I can tell you right now that has been the normative understanding for 400 years. This is why Flues wanted to change it. This is why Boulevard wanted to change it. This is why Martin wanted to change it. You can't change something if it's not normative. And it has a big change in philosophy that way. That's the normative usage in the atheist organizations. Okay, but I'm not in those atheist organizations. I'm not talking about that. I'm not in any of the philosophers. Okay, so what? Boulevard, Martin, Couture, McGrath. Some of these are theists. Yeah, Boulevard's a theist. I understand that. So they're graphs, they're graphed. Is it similar? And I'm not even mentioning Hitchens and Harris. Those are not philosophers. So I guess it doesn't count. Yeah, Hitchens was a journalist and Doc is a biologist. They have no papers in philosophy. So it doesn't matter that they're thought leaders in the atheism. Yeah, I'm not, I do. I don't care about the atheist movement. I'm not in the atheist movement. I'm not in those atheist groups. How they use these terms, they can use them in a way they want. Nobody cares. That's them. But you're saying, you're making a claim. You're claiming that that usage is now normative in philosophy. You have not demonstrated that. So what's the, what's the minimum criteria for normative, just you have one more paper? Well, obviously it'll probably over 50%. I'm telling you from experience and I'm telling you, if you ask anybody in philosophy, they're gonna tell you this, that this is the case. I mean, I didn't know it was that controversial that to say this, to me, this seemed pretty basic that most people understand that yes, in academia, atheism is generally held with the belief that God does not exist. That's pretty standard. I don't know any philosophy you know that would say otherwise. There is no clear academic consensus. Consensus, but I've never claimed a consensus. Consensus is that says, this is what the word is. That's prescriptive behavior, right? We're not talking about prescriptive behavior. We're talking about descriptive behavior. What's the difference between normativity and consensus? Consensus, okay, for example, consensus would be, for example, like a scientific theory, right? There's a consensus among scientists that evolution is a correct theory that explains and first, you know, makes predictor modeling, right? That's a consensus. That's a belief, right? They believe that this would be the case. There's a consensus that this actually works, right? Based on expert opinion. Normative, when we're talking about what is normative, this means if you go read, if you pick a random paper in philosophy and you read it about atheism, almost always, and as a matter of fact, I would say probably always, that paper is talking about atheism in the positive case and less as opinion piece trying to advocate for negative atheism. In the positive case, meaning that they're recognizing that atheism is also negative. Yeah, I know, I understand that there is positive and negative atheism. That's the point. What do you think positive atheism is? There is negative atheism. What is positive atheism? Positive atheism is the belief in the proposition that causes it to not exist. And negative atheism, which is atheism, is the lack of belief in the proposition God exists. Okay, and the question on the table is, they're all citing positive and negative atheism, which means lack of belief is still atheism. That's not an argument, I'm not arguing otherwise. I've never said lack of belief in atheism is not atheism. I've argued what's normative. I've argued that what they're saying is that that is the only condition for atheism. There are no other definitions. I've had been told by atheists, activists, atheist activists that any definition that says belief that God, the belief that God exists doesn't exist is wrong. I've been told that's a conspiracy. I've been told that those definitions must be wrong. I get atheists tell me that every day. I'm saying it's normative in academia to understand that atheism includes the negative sense. That's not the point. Yes, it exists, but it's not the common, right? That's the argument. What is most commonly used? All the people you're citing are using it. What? They're using, they're distinguishing between negative and positive. Yeah, we already established that exists that way, dude. But what's the most common? Between positive and negative atheism. What is the most commonly held belief? In academia, no, no, no, no. What is the most common, no, what is the most common usage to be best understood in philosophy? Oxford says it's- Positive and negative atheism. No, no, no, no. It's only one of them. Only one of them could be the case. Oxford- They go together. No, they do not. They're both atheism. No, they do not. They're both atheism. But they're different qualifiers. Negative atheism holds sufficient condition for merely not having a belief. Positive atheism does not have that as a sufficient condition. Positive atheism holds the belief as a sufficiency. Do you understand the concept of necessary and sufficient? Okay, then what's the- Okay, impossible. How are they both? How is one normative? It's just a definition. In positive atheism, right? What is the sufficient condition for atheism? To a belief that there are no gods. Okay, so that is the sufficient condition, right? Which includes the necessary condition of not believing. There you go. That's the difference. I understand that there's a difference, but both usages are normative. No, normative- Because you're not gonna say how is positive atheism, unless you're saying the term atheism itself can only mean positive atheism. Okay, if I had a hundred, okay, let's try this way. If I had a random sampling of 100 papers on this topic, what percentage do you think it's gonna have atheism as the weak case as opposed to the strong case? It seems about 50-50. Really? You have four papers that you can cite right now. I have about a dozen. I don't think that's equal. And by the way, those four are again opinion pieces. What of it specifically says that atheism is positive? They're all opinion pieces. No, there's persuasion pieces, and then there's actual, not all papers are persuasion or opinion pieces, but anyways, I think we've exhausted this. I think I've made my case that, look, if you wanna say that you think that it's more likely in philosophy that it's a weak condition, I think you have a hell of a burden on that. I challenge anybody to go out and look.  You'll find that almost overwhelmingly, like almost every case, atheism is held to be positively. I mean, that's, and even Oxford says that's the most accepted use, hang on. Negative atheism exists. Hang on. Oxford says that's the most recognized use for, uses in Cambridge says that's standard. Why does Cambridge say that's standard use? It's not normative. Because they disagree. Okay. Well, all the sources disagree with you on this. They say there's no consensus. I didn't argue there's a consensus. Why are we back on consensus? And out of the five different definitions they cite, four out of five are negative atheism. Again, people cite things because they disagree with them just like they disagree with flu. I, like I said, I challenge anybody, go look at the papers. You'll find even Moser, P.K. Moser says in his paper, atheism, simple atheism is God does not exist. That's the basic as you can get it. That's his paper. So I don't know what papers you're looking at because again, all I've ever seen is Boulevard from the Oxford Hamburg of Atheism, which advocates for that. Michael Martin has advocated for it and flu, and flu actually says it is normative. Well, what he says is atheism is a positive case, which you don't seem to agree with, but okay, but. If he's distinguishing the positive case, that means he's saying the negative case is also atheism. Nobody's arguing otherwise. You keep saying that like it's some kind of defeater. I used to show me what I'm wrong on. Because if he's saying that positive is normative, then the negative is also normative. No, no, you're losing the sufficiency condition. No, positive atheism. Yes, it does, man. Positive atheism holds the sufficient condition for atheism to be the belief that God does not exist. That's the sufficiency condition. You've already acknowledged that earlier. But why is he distinguishing positive and negative atheism if he's trying to claim that there's only one normative usage of it? Because in philosophy, the last 400 years of people used to word atheist in academia, they mean it in the positive case. Flu came around in 1972 and he wanted to change that. Smith wanted to change it in his book called A Case Against God, because they wanted to include many more people in the demographic of the term atheist for political reasons. This was a political movement to change the definition from positive to negative. No. Well, yeah, that's the fact. Dude, I just had David Silverman the other day talking about this and he was the prime leaders in this when he wrote A Fighting God. I'm sure there's a political usage to it, but that's not the reason. That was the reason I'm telling you that's the historical reason behind it. You can contact American atheists and ask them. Pam Whistler is their editor-in-chief. She has told me this exact same thing. It's an epistemic reason to distinguish between those who reject theism and those who accept that there are no gods. Rejection is acceptance of their normal gods. That's the same thing. No. Okay, well, rejection and logic. Rejectionism from Fred Geach is the position that you accept negation. That's normative. Now you want, again, this is why words matter in philosophy and in the domain of discourse. Okay, well, you can play word games. It's not word games. It doesn't matter. Look, if you're gonna be talking about a Pacific topic snake, it helps to understand the words as understood in the domain. You don't have to use them. They're understood in the positive and negative sense. That's why they use those qualifiers in most of your sources. If somebody is using the term atheism in a paper, almost always it's gonna be positive because that's the norm. Now, these atheist organizations wanna have that change. And the reason they wanna have it changed and the ways in they've contacted dictionaries, they did contact like Mary and Webster and they say, we wanna add lack of belief in there. They do that for demographics and they do that for political reasons. And again, if you don't believe me, go ask American atheists. Go ask David Silverman. I have. It's because there's a greater deal of utility and that's what these papers are saying. Well, utility arguments are different thing altogether. I mean, that's what David Silverman and that's what genetically modified skeptic argue. They argue that we want, they want more people to be under the guise of atheism for demographic and political reasons because they want change, right? They want a greater secular society. That is a utility argument, right? I'm not in that group of those organizations, right? So, I mean, for example, are you okay with me using atheism in the positive case? If I say, look, when I say atheism, I'm referring to somebody who believes there are no gods, are you okay with that? If you qualify it with positive atheism. Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. That's what positive atheism is. Well, as long as there's a qualifier, then that means that atheism alone includes both negative and positive atheism. You keep on making this horrific mistake here. How is negative atheism not atheism? Because you're looking at the logic and not the epistemic reasoning. Negative atheism holds, and I'm gonna say this again, negative atheism holds, sufficiency that merely not believing is sufficient to be atheist. Positive atheism has the sufficiency of having the belief. That's a huge difference there. Yeah, I know. Okay, so positive atheism has a sufficient condition that negative atheism doesn't have. I'm not a, I don't hold a negative atheism. Is negative atheism atheism? Yes, sure. That's the whole point. So atheism is lack of belief at the most bare bones minimum. But it's not sufficient. Can also be. Not everybody is subscribed to that definition. I don't, and most academics don't. You apparently do, since you just said you just said negative atheism is atheism. Yes, in some circles. Yes, but I don't subscribe to that. In all the circles. In some circles, there is a guess. But I'm not in those groups that use those types of laxadaisical, vague sensu-lato usages. Why should I subscribe to them? No, they're very vague. You know exactly what negative atheism means. Oh, believe me, it ends up in a lot of different problems which you went into the last time. But I'm just trying to get you to understand the difference between positive and negative atheism having a sufficiency condition. Which you see to recognize before, but now you seem to forget. I don't know why. No, you're just not, you're just kind of using that to get away from the point that negative atheism is also atheism. If you accept those definitions, sure, absolutely. I don't. Which most of your sources do. No, they don't. Yeah, they do. No, they don't. They say that exists, but it's not normative. They don't accept. They say it exists because these activists have made it. And these things are descriptive, right? But a dictionary is prescriptive. I mean, descriptive, not prescriptive, right? It doesn't define words. I didn't tell you this is how a word has to be used. What it tells you is this is how the word is being used synchronically, which it means in modern times. Not dichronically, which is over a period of history, how it's changed. It's saying, look, these atheists group use this word this way. That's why the dictionary reflects that. I don't accept their usages for me, right? Just like I don't accept evolution to be a guess, right? A theory to be guessed or evolution to be changed. I don't use those types of sensual atto definitions. Like, would you accept a creation and say, look, evolution is merely change. That's what it says in the dictionary. Sure, yeah, evolution's change, but I don't use that when I'm talking about science. I don't use atheism in the negative case when I'm talking about philosophy because that's not the normative case. Doesn't mean I don't agree that weak atheism doesn't exist. Of course it does. If you want to use it, go ahead. I've never said otherwise. But you can't apply that definition to me. Under the more stricter definitions, which I use, I'm not an atheist, agreed?  No, I'm not. Don't be dishonest. We'll get to that. Okay, well, first of all, don't label other people that is intellectually dishonest. I'm not an atheist. Anybody who says I'm on is being intellectually honest. Like you say, look, according to weak definitions, Steve's an atheist, sure, okay, great, yeah, whatever. If you say that I'm not theist as a rock, then I'm a rock, okay. Whatever you wanted to play semantic games, that's fine. But my position is not atheism. So that's not my position. When a creationist says that evolution is merely change, they're correct. That's why I always stipulate biological evolution. That's why you add qualifiers on because they're all normative definitions. And in this case, the normative definitions that I'm using is the positive case. There you go. Why are you qualifying in the positive case? Because that's the definitions that I use and most philosophers use. Why wouldn't you just say the positive case instead of? You can use positive, explicit, strong, whatever. That's normative. And would you see the word atheism? Right, because that's what it refers to. It's normative to qualify it because negative atheism is part of that normative set of qualifiers. It's not epistemically. All of those qualifiers are normative. So when you look at Wikipedia, why are they, is it not normative? Are the writers on Wikipedia not using normativity?  Be honest with you. Okay, Wikipedia uses the definition of weak atheism to say even babies are atheists. Because they just ask for it. Well, and I've argued against that, right? I mean, I'm adamantly against, even Dawkins says babies are not atheists. So if... Right, I mean, Dawkins himself says, is a bad argument to say babies are atheists, right? So how is this making it onto Wikipedia to be normative? Well, hang on, answer my question first. What was it?  He thinks it's a type of indoctrination. Is that a question? Do you agree with him? Yeah, do you agree with him? Do I agree with him? Yeah. Yeah, no, no. Okay. And so I've explained before that using these really vague definitions, these sensual acts of definitions, it does lead to absurdities, I think, right? I mean, to call baby an atheist or rock an atheist, I think it's ludicrous, right? But Bionic Dance has been arguing that for years, right? Well, that's why there's actually, it's distinguished between implicit and explicit. So babies are counted under implicit, but not necessarily weak. That's the same thing. Implicit means weak. That's the same logical position. Well, let me give you an example of why I think you're misunderstanding here. Let's look at Atheism real quick. Under Atheism, you have Christian and Jewish. Would you agree? I mean, those are two of them. Correct. Okay, I'm picking two. Both of them believe God exists. They're both BP, right? Believes the proposition that God exists. Would you agree? They're completely different positions from each other. So just because positive atheism and weak atheism, right? One entails the others because positive entails weak. Doesn't mean they're the same position. They are epistemically different from each other, just like Jewish and Christian, even though the same logic of both Atheist, there are very much differences between a weak atheist and a positive atheist.  The positive says, no, you have to actually have a belief to have sufficiency to be an atheist. I hold to that case. And you seem to have a problem with that. I don't know why. Because it seems like you have a problem with saying that the term weak atheist is a normative philosophical term. It's not normative. It's used, it exists, but normative means that what you see the most often, right? Which is normally the case, right? Or what you ought to use actually could be an ought. Normatively can also be used for saying, if you want to read a paper in context, you ought to use atheism in the positive case, so you won't understand the paper. But here's my problem. So it seems like you're saying more papers are written about positive atheism. No. I wouldn't say as more papers are written using atheism in the positive case as being how they want to discuss the topic. So how come they all distinguish between positive and negative atheism? Once again, because people like Flu in 1972 wanted to make the argument to change them from positive and negative. That was this whole paper called the presumption of atheism. It seems like it's stuck. If everyone keeps making this distinction, it seems like that distinction has stuck in the usage. Well, I have to completely disagree with you. Like I said, there's obviously a sufficiency difference. And I think you agree there's a sufficiency difference. Now, once again though, if I hold to the stricter cases, right? Under those stricter cases, I'm not an atheist. Do you agree? Yeah, if you define it that way. All right. So because there's different definitions, when somebody says there's only one correct definition, like R and Ra does, is he wrong? I think you're misinterpreting that. It's very, he's very correct. I mean, blame on this. There's only one definition. He will say there's only one definition and anything else is wrong. He said there's different times. Okay, if I accept that, then that means that he can't accept positive atheists as atheists. Oh, and I've actually said that before. I actually asked him that. I'd be like, well, what do you call positive? What do you say to somebody who believes that God does not exist? If you accept the other one, it's the only correct definition, right? So there's a problem to be had there, right? I don't remember, to be honest with you. I mean, I've had so many conversations with him in writing on this particular topic, but I have brought that up before. I'm like, I've asked people, well, what do you, the last person I remember this specific guy said, what do you call somebody who believes there are no gods? He's like, I don't want to answer that question. I'm like, why? He's like, well, that's a trap game. I'm like, no, it's not. It's a very simple question. Right? Like, what do you say? What do you call somebody who believes that no gods exist? Positive or strong atheist? I just call him atheist. I don't see why you need any differentiation. Because it's more clear. Why? Because it distinguishes between someone who believes there are no gods and who just- Okay, so by adding this weak condition, you've now made it more vague. This is why I'm saying, this is why changing it from positive to negative has made it such more vague that before years ago, somebody says, I'm an atheist, you knew what they meant by it. They are somebody who believes they're no God. Now you have to ask them, what do you mean by that? It has added this ambiguity to the dialogue. That's why I think it's silly to try to push this narrative that atheism is only a lack of belief as a sufficient condition. Because that's what I do read R&As and that's what I read the American Atheist as. It's very clear what they say. Atheism is only one thing, a lack of belief. Well, that's clearly a false statement. That proposition is false because it's not only one thing, there are other things by other definitions, right? Because what they're doing, they're trying to make what's called a conceptual dichotomy. They want to make it that everybody has to fall into two groups, theist or atheist. You agree? Well, I mean, I don't have a problem with that because you're fine with that when we're talking about atheist or non-theist. You're not asking my question. They're trying to make it so that everybody is either an atheist or a theist, correct? Sure, but it's the same with theist versus non-theist. No, it's not. And some of these people say that theism is non-theism. No, no. Or atheism is non-theism. You're confused here. I can actually derive theist and non-theist from first principles. I can start with the law of non-contradiction. Then I can get to a negation rule and then I can get to atheist or not theist. That's law of excluded middle. For any instantiation of A or not A, you have apple or not apple, theist or not apple, or maybe theist or not theist, right? So any instantiation, you have a negation of that. And that works for the whole realm of propositions. For if I have a set of propositions, anything I instantiate in there is gonna have a not to it. It is not the case, right? So same thing by just a simple A or not A. If I say A or not A, apple or not apple, that's just logic. That's law of excluded middle, correct? So actually it's more of the principle by balance. But you can't get that with atheism. Atheism, you have to change the word. You actually have to, that's a semantic now. You have to say, okay, not theist. I'm gonna make that atheist, but for semantic reasons. You can't derive that logically from first principles. Okay, you have to actually stipulate that by semantic argument. So, but do you agree though that they are trying to make everybody theist and atheist? Basically just substituting non-theism for atheism. Sure, but I can do that with dog.  That's a semantic argument, true. Dog doesn't address theism. It makes no difference, these are words. Words are signifiers. If I have a dichotomy, theist or dog? Not theist, therefore dog. Is that not a disjunctive syllogism? Where you're eliminating one of the disjuncts? Well, if dog means non-theism, then it doesn't change anything. Well, yeah, but you're just stipulating that, right? So, but in that case, dog means non-theist, sure. But I'm a dog, right? Sure. That's all you're doing. All you're doing is changing not theist to be atheist. I say, look, boom, you're atheist. But I don't hold an atheism, that word means the same thing as non-theist. I hold that in the positive case. So you can't, there's an intentionality difference there. Because if I say Steve is non-theist, that statement propositions true. But if I put in the word Steve is atheist as a co-referential term, that statement is no longer transparent. It is opaque. There's an intentionality problem there. Because that statement has not gone from true to false. In Cloutours, the definition of atheism, he also cites Ernst Nagel. So that's two more papers. No, no, no, Nagel, if you read Nagel, Nagel actually has another positive case. Go read Nagel's papers. He actually does say it's positive. Well, he says, I shall understand atheism as a critique and a denial of the major claims of all varieties of theism. Yeah, and what is denial? Well, I guess it depends on context. Denial and logic, again, these are full officers. These are logisticians, a lot of them. Denial of P means that you hold P to be false. To deny P means false. That's what deny means. So then when you're reading these things and you read these papers, if you don't know the vernacular they're using, this is why you don't understand them. You said that about reject. Same thing, reject, deny, disbelief. These are all epistemic statuses of not accepting negation and affirming. Not accepting the proposition and affirming negation. What's the word to use when I say don't accept? Non-acceptant. You don't accept. You just say you don't accept. Or unbelief. They all mean the same thing. Unbelief. Go look up disbelief versus unbelief. It tells you this, I mean, new resources. Designing a belief is not holding a belief. Unbelief is saying that I don't accept. Disbelief means that I accept negation. This is how these words are used in logic. You just contradicted yourself. How? You said that disbelief means you accept the negation. But then you said merely not accepting the positive is disbelief. No, it's unbelief. Okay. And if you go to www.greatbakeway.com and look under my blog under disbelief, I have all the citations for this. If you wish I could pull it up. Basically, and by the way, okay, so let me ask you this. What do you think disbelief means? I'm curious. Not holding a belief. I don't believe you. You don't believe me. Okay, so you think that disbelief means lack of belief, correct? Yeah. Okay, so can I ask you why American atheist says that atheism is not a disbelief then? I don't know. It's all semantics. Well, hang on. No, no, no, no. They say, American atheist says, if you go to their about page, what is atheism? They say atheism is not a disbelief or denial. Why is that? Which means they're saying that's not a lack of belief according to you. Yeah, that's why this issue is complicated. That's why it has better utility to start with a broader definition and then clarify- That's not answering my question here. It says under what is atheism, it says very clear. To be clear, this is what it says, to be clear. Atheism is not a disbelief in God's or a denial of God's. It is a lack of belief in God's. Now you're saying that they're using this word wrong, I guess. You're saying that, no, disbelief is a lack of belief. So let's instantiate that, let's just substitute. If lack of belief and denial and disbelief are all synonymous and co-referential, then this would read as atheism is not the lack of belief in God's or a lack of belief in God's. Yeah, because disbelief means inability or refusal to accept something as true or real or lack. Forget you just, forget reading from a dictionary here. Try to understand the logic here, man. You're saying that disbelief is a lack of belief. That's what it's used as in these papers. Apparently. That's not what how it's used in these papers. Clouture is wrong. Who? Clouture. No, when they, when you see the word disbelief in a paper, no, no, look, look, when you see the word disbelief in a paper, they're saying that the, by the fact, if you go to Rutgers philosophy 101, it says, if you hold that the position of the proposition to be false, the correct epistemic status for that is called disbelief. So if you think P is false, that is called disbelief. That's Rutgers. Would you like to see the citation for that? Cause I have it. Sure. But no one says unbelief. People use words like deny or reject. Okay. But where's, look, when you read a scientific paper in science, you have to understand the words, how they use it, dude. And if you don't, then you're going to have some confusion. Simple as that. So let me, let me go to screen share here. Okay. Can you see this? Now they can. Okay. So this is called rational belief one. This is from a series of Rutgers University, philosophy. I believe it was one of one course, but it could be 110. It says disbelief. If you conclude that a proposition is false, then the appropriate attitude toward that proposition is disbelief. So when you go to American atheist here, right? And it says to be clear, atheism is not a disbelief in God or Denali God is a lacking God. They're using it this way, which is again, normative. They're saying atheism is not saying the proposition is false. It is a lack of belief in God's. This is how they're intending it. They're actually using disbelief and denial the way you would find it in academia, right? But you're saying that's wrong.  Well, under what standard is that? Because every source that I have shows otherwise. English, because apparently not all academics are agreeing to this. Really find me one that doesn't. Here, disbelief is more commonly used or express a mental opposition with it does not apply a brain-worthy disregard of evidence. Unbelief may be simply failure to believe from a lack of evidence or knowledge. Unbelief is, I don't believe, disbelief. Positive mental, positive unbelief, mental rejection of a statement or assertion that the creediness is demanded. That basically saying, I believe it'd be the case. Here we go. Disbelief is a case of belief. To believe a sentence is false is to believe negation of a sentence is true. Vergex Jackson, 2017, rethinking the presumption of atheism. Now you're saying that these papers are wrong. You're saying that these sources are wrong. You're saying disbelief is merely, I don't believe. Well, if that's the case, then why is American atheists using it the way they're contrary to how you're using it? And again, I'm not advocating in specific behavior. You can pick a word as long as you define it. The problem you're running into Snake is that if you don't know how these words are typically used in a field, you're not gonna understand the concepts, period. This works for science or any other field. Would you agree? Well, apparently it's used two different ways because I just read you a quote of Cloutour interpreting, what did he say? Reject or denial. Reject or denial means to accept negation in logic. If I say reject P, that means that I'm accepting not P. Both words. But that's what these... Reject or denial? Denial is the same thing. There's a little bit difference in speech act theory, but for logically reject, denial and disbelief all mean the same thing, you're accepting negation. That's how they're understood in logic. Logic, right? I mean, you do accept logic, correct? That's a different field from philosophy. Well, no, logic is a part of philosophy. And so it's not, they're not gonna be using the same jargon all the time. Well, I'm not understanding your argument here. G more, like for example, in G more is AEL2, which is the auto epistemic logic that he uses. Logic has three epistemic positions. Acceptance, which means you believe P is true. Rejection, which means you believe P is false. And lack of decision, which is suspension of judgment. Okay? Now this is normative. This is also what record says. Now you're saying that none of these things are normative and I don't see what you're citing for this. You can reject an argument from theism. That's the epistemic approach. You're using a colloquial term, right? You're saying reject is this mere non-acceptance, right? Sure, but I can use both of these. Like if I don't hire you, I reject you. I haven't hired you, right? You're saying there's this mere non-acceptance, right? Yeah. Okay. But that's not how the word is used in logic normatively. When you say, if you read a logic paper and it says deny P, reject P, disbelieve P, in logic, it is understood as acceptance of negation. If you want to use it a different way, go ahead.  They're going to be using it the way it's normatively used. I have taken those courses in college. Okay. And how they use these terms. They don't always use them the same way. Show me the syllabus. I beg to differ with you. I didn't keep my syllabus. Okay. Well, then you have no evidence for it. And there was never, there was, they don't discuss that on a syllabus. Okay. Well, every syllabus I have, actually even says in here, we're going to be using atheism this way in the positive case. I actually have a few I can find for you another time, but don't go there. I mean, syllabi that I have are mostly just schedules. And we don't really cover any courses for you. I've shown that the way disbelief is by, and I've cited sources. I haven't seen anything you've cited besides, I don't know why you think disbelief means what it is. Even though Rutgers disagrees with you. Gee, more would you disagree with you? I don't know. But anyway, so what's your name? Again, you haven't showed that I'm wrong in anything yet. I'm still waiting for, figure out what I'm wrong on. So I guess.  I didn't hear what you said. P.B. Clouture interprets denial as mere lack of belief in the assertion that God exists. Okay. Good for him. So do you. And you could do that. Nobody's going to stop you. But that's not normative. And let's see. Charles Bradlaw says, the atheist does not say there is no God. He says, I know not what you mean by God. I am without the idea of God, where God to me conveys no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God. Because I cannot deny that of which by its affirmers. So imperfect is unable to define it to me. Yeah, that's a stipulative thing. Sure. There's a billions of stipulative definitions of uses. So what? Oppie says atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist. If we're going to compare point by point, I mean, oppie is a philosopher in the field. He says atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist. Do you think that's wrong? Only if he doesn't stipulate that it's the positive sense. I think he's being unclear. I think he's being very clear because there are millions of people who use the word atheist as an umbrella term. I get that. Well, anyways, I mean, whether you accept this or not, at this point, whatever, let's move on to something else. People can go look that the evidence is out there. But what have you shown? Give me another thing you think I'm wrong on because you haven't shown that I'm wrong on that. You just literally haven't. So if that's being cited 57 times to show that it's wrong, how come they're not citing, how come they're not citing oppie to show that it's right? How come they're only citing him twice? Irrelevant. You can cite people and actually, hey, look, I'm citing this paper to show that it's wrong. Yeah, but if oppie is an authority in the field, then he should be cited alongside these other ones that they're critiquing.  It was only in 2017, it was a PDF. Okay, but I mean, who cares about citations? Absolutely irrelevant. It doesn't change anything about the academic standing. It changes the relevancy of it in the field. If 57 more philosophers are talking about this subject than yours. How do you know why they're citing them? How do you know that they're citing them? Not to... I can assume that they're all trying to refute him, but how come they aren't? How come we don't see similar numbers for your sources, which are apparently more authoritative, which should be cited the same amount of times? Because people aren't arguing against them as much. The reason these other papers like Flu was cited, because Flu was rejected most of the time. No, but you need to cite them both. If you're going... No, you don't. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to say this is wrong, you're gonna have to say who's right. Not wrong, normative. This is like, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the words, how they're typically used. Well, if you're critiquing something. Well, that's something that, like again, if you could speak science, you need to learn the language of science. Philosophy is no different, okay? Flu's paper is heavily cited because it's critiqued so much because he didn't even believe his own argument. He became a deist. That's the reason why his paper cited a lot because it was the academic community said, no, this is kind of bogus. That's why it's heavily cited. But even Flu says atheism is the belief that God is not exist as being normal, as being the most used. He wanted to be changed. But go ahead, find something else that you think I'm wrong on, like in the Duke debate. I still don't have any idea what you've demonstrated I'm wrong on in my logic. Because if they're using the disambiguation positive or negative, then atheism is a part of both. I still don't know what I'm not following. Negative atheism is atheism. But what's the sufficient condition? What differentiates positive from negative atheism? What is this, the line of demarcation that makes one more sufficiency than the other? What is it? We're on the same page about that. Okay, there you go then. One sec. Just wanna let people, I'll let you guys keep going. Sorry for interrupting, but do wanna let people know in you guys as well, that we'll be going to the Q and A in about five minutes. And by the way, it's fine. But okay, so we've established a suspicious condition. Positive atheism holds its sufficiency as the belief. Weak atheism shows the sufficiency of merely not believing, right? And so I wanted to get to this point where there's a paper called the Anti-Atheist Bias in the United States. And that studies whether the religious community basically can distinguish between lack of belief and those who positively assert that there is no God and they have the exact same bias. So any attempt to fence it is just pointless. You're gonna be seen as part of the atheists anyway. That's not correct. I don't know what I did with it, I just recently read a paper on demographics where they actually separate agnostics from atheists for that very reason for demographic purposes. I'm sure they separated for demographic purposes, but this paper is looking at an anti-bite and anti-non-theist bias. Okay, that's irrelevant. I mean, we're trying to establish that agnostic and atheism are vastly different positions as normatively held in philosophy, are we not? That's the whole reason for all this. They're understood to be the same thing by the religious community. No, they're not. They're understood to be the same thing. I know a lot of people that live- Do all these philosophers agree for that? I'm sure there are people who disagree. That's why they argue. Okay, but I'm not understanding your argument here. If demographically wise, they still separate atheism and agnostics and logically they're different. You're trying to claim that there's this one overwhelming usage when it's not overwhelming. Well, it actually is in academia. And by the way, if you do this experiment mistake, go out and talk to a random person and say, look, what is an atheist?  Or more specifically, you can say, look, do you hold that atheism is somebody that believes God does not exist or do not? No, almost always in my experience, I tell you that somebody who believes almost ubiquitously about the world. Now, again, that's anecdotal. I get that, right? Yeah, because if you do that same experiment with atheists, they're gonna say lack of belief. Yeah, in the atheist communities, but I don't use that definition. Do I have to? Well, you just called them the atheist communities. Yes, but I respect their usages, right? But do I have to use it for myself? But it's creating confusion, which is why there's more utility. Let me make this very clear, Snake. Are you saying that I prescriptively have to use a weaker definition because these groups use it? I'm saying that you should probably qualify and clarify. That's not my question. Okay, please just answer the question. Do you advocate that I have to use their weak definitions? No, what I'm advocating for is that you should use a qualifier because that makes it clearer. Well, no, but if I don't hold the weak definition, then I don't need to clarify it because, normatively, atheism is the positive case. This has been well established to talk to. Then everyone has to memorize how. That's my argument against weak atheism, dude. They're making it more confusing, not me. They are. Just to hear that last point, what were you saying, Snake? Then I have to, I mean, it's easy in your case because you're known for this, but if you don't clarify, then I have to memorize how you're going to use it unless you're going to use a qualifier. Yeah, but again. So I say positive and negative atheism. Let me ask you this, though. Let's say me and a philosopher having a conversation, okay? And we're talking about atheism, right? We both understand and we're both using it in the positive case, okay? Grant that so far. You have problem with that? Why would you need to clarify that it's in the positive sense? Because if I say the word atheist to my interlocutor and he is going to interpret that I'm using atheism in the positive case, okay? Is that cool so far? Not necessarily. If he's a philosopher and we've already pre-established atheism in the positive case, let's say that we've already pre-established. You okay with that? If you're one of the philosophers you like, but there are plenty who don't. That's not answering my question. I don't know why you make things so difficult. If I'm talking to somebody, right? Who's a philosopher and I say, look. Because not all philosophers agree. But I don't care about them right now. I'm talking about the interlocutor that I'm having. If I'm talking to a specific individual and we both agree on terms that atheism is going to be used in our conversation as the positive case. Do you have a problem with that? No. Okay, great.  That's not what atheism is. Atheism is only a lack of belief. Do you not see a problem there? Because this happens daily, just about. Are those people wrong to do that? Because they are. Are they not? Because we're not talking about it the way they're using the term. We're having a more academic level discussion. They jump in and say, you guys are both wrong. You're strawmaning atheism. There's only one thing. It's a lack of belief. You've seen it all the time. What do you do? What do you tell those people? I would tell them that they're missing some context, but I wouldn't tell them that they're not being academic about it. Well, I kind of would. Because it is academic to distinguish between negative and positive atheism. But would you tell them that, look, there's nothing wrong with the uses of Steve and the other person are using? This is why under those uses is I'm not atheist. I'm agnostic, right? I mean, you do grant that. Would you not? You can agree to any terms you want. I'm fine with that. Thank you. And by the way, that's my position as well. How these groups have used any uses they want, right? I don't care. I will explain they do lead to category errors, right? Because I think that they do. Because how do you have a theological and a cognitive as what does that go into? Can't be a theist, it can't be a theist. But that is, it literally nullifies their position, right? Because they're neither. They don't think either group has any cogent meaning to it, right? So if it has no cognitive or cogent meaning, they can't be either one. It ruins their position. Because the theological and cognitive says, hey, both these groups, nonsensical, I'm neither of them. But you're saying, oh, no, it must be one. That's a category error. But you can use these usages as all you want. All I've asked is let me use the more academic usages, the more normative academic usages, and be on my merry way. I mean, according to those usages, I'm not an atheist. And I don't know why people insist that those usages don't even exist. I've had people tell me, those users are wrong. Like actually tell me they're wrong. I'm saying that it's more academic to use the qualifiers. Whatever, listen to the use of qualifier. Again, am I wrong to use atheism in a positive case? Not necessarily, as long as you say that it's positive atheism. Whatever, I don't think you need a qualifier. But you agree though, if I'm talking to somebody and we have already established positive case, there's no problem with that. For the atheist to come in and say, hello, look, you've got to be a theist or atheist. And we're like, we're not using it in that schema. Do you have a problem with that? No. Okay, there you go, thank you.  Whatever, that's fine. But I'm just saying that if I and my interlocutor have decided that we are not using the schema that you use because we think it has problems. We think it leads to epistemic issues and category errors and absurdities and special pleading possibly. And we have all these arguments why these weak definitions are poor. And we don't use it that way. We're using like in a science conversation, we're using more of a more precise language. And somebody jumps in and says, well, you guys are strumming atheism. That's nonsense, would you agree? I'm gonna just quick jump in and let you know if one of you would like to defer to the other and letting them have the last word, that'd be excellent. Otherwise in about a minute. Yeah, let me ask you that question and then he can have the last word and we have the Q and A. Do I have a problem with, if you agree to terms now? Okay, thank you. The problems arise when you claim that you have the academic monopoly. Well, that's not my claim. Okay, go ahead. All right, take some time for the last word. Going to jump into these questions. Thanks so much.  Gotcha. Okay. Well, I would just like to say that I don't think there is a category error when you use the weak sense because when you look at it epistemically, it's not the question about whether God exists or not is not symmetrical. So that's why I say that the even or odd gumball analogy is a terrible analogy because it is because it's a, that is a symmetrical problem. The, whether you believe there is an odd or an even number of gumballs, it's the same epistemic choice on both sides. But when you're dealing with the existence of something, merely lacking evidence of it or lacking a good argument for it is good enough reason to reject that argument or to reject that proposition. Because in... Short and piffy. Sorry, the best analogy for that is the teapot orbiting around the sun. I don't have to tell you that I believe that there's no teapot orbiting around the sun. If you can't tell me there is none, then everyone who doesn't believe that's in the same category. Gotcha. We are going to go into Q and A. I appreciate you giving the last word to Snake, Steve and we will be jumping right into these questions folks. Thanks so much for being here. Wanna remind you, if you're listening and you're like, hmm, more, you can hear more, just go down to the description where I put these gentlemen's links. So with that, thanks so much for your super chat from Steven Nasty Guy Steen as he likes to be called. Hello troll. Says, that's right.  Says, Steve is James's father-in-law. Yes, that, I think that- I'm related to more people than I realize, I guess. I think that, would that mean that Tom and I, I think that means Tom and I are married. Yes, this- By the way folks- Not creepy at all. I wanna let you know folks, Tom Jump, Steve McCrae, it's happening this month and it's going to be extra spicy because- Well, under certain conditions, you have to make those things happen first. Don't worry. Don't worry. I trust you, buddy. It's going to be- I'm happy to have you jump anytime, man. Yeah, I'm okay with that. It's gonna be special, folks. It's happening this month. It's gonna be different from what you might expect. You might expect the one-on-one, but it might not quite be that. So, thanks, Steve and Steve. Nasty guys, Steve. The sinister- Nasty, Steve and Steve. The sinister porpoise. Thanks for your super chat. Said, let's see. Can Steve do the end and or truth tables?  I have a thing called for all of X that starts doing truth tables. I don't really have them memorized. I mean, I was doing that material condition last night, which was basically you have P implies cube. This is always true unless the consequence is false, right? So, and is always only true if you both have the antecedent and the consequence true or false. I mean, I could probably figure them out. I don't have them memorized because why? But I used to work a Boolean logic. I used to work electronic gates. But I think that if you people want to go find your Boolean logic, go get this thing called for all of X because if you go to the natural logic checker, it basically tells you how to use that natural logic checker, but it gives you the truth tables for or and exclusive or, but yeah, I don't have, I don't really have them memorized off the top of my head. I don't really need to, but I mean, I could if I really had to, I guess, and whatever. Gotcha. And I know most of them, I mean, but. Thank you, Steve in his spare time before he goes to bed for fun, he does logic tables. So very exciting life over there. Yeah, well, mainly, or an exclusive or the difference there, right? You know, it's because exclusive or is, or would mean it's still true if both of them are true. One of them is true. The other one's false, but if they're both false, then it's not the case. That's like exclusive or it versus inclusive. But yeah, who, who memorizes these things? You just, you just kind of intuitively know them when you're doing logic, I guess anymore. Okay. Now you've taken it too far. Thanks to your super chat from Steven Steen. It says Dawkins is to philosophy as Hovind is to science. Agreed. Geez. Bill, though Baggins, thanks for your super chat says, Steve, if your opinion was correct, it would be easier to convince people. Then they say, but you have been on this lost ship for years and a small crew to back you. How many hundreds of atheists have sent me messages thanking me for having them understand this properly now? Hundreds, very. I mean, so it's been, it's been a lot of people. So I have made an influence. I've had people go back to college to study philosophy because of this. I mean, I started with a new show with Dr. Fuzerana because they like my, my opinions. They like my arguments. And so I mean, people can say that I haven't had a huge influence, but I don't have a huge audience either. But I gotta tell you, if you think the logic's wrong, show the logic is wrong. Any, any atheist activists out there that says I'm wrong, they need to show that the logic is wrong. And then nobody's has yet to do that. I was on with Landon Curt and Oll the other night, who was an expert in bullying logic. He's like, go ahead, where's, where's the problem with this logic? A friend of mine who has a master's degree on my Facebook page said, I've reviewed this. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the logic. So if somebody says I'm wrong, like Snake says I'm wrong with the logic, he needs to show the logic's wrong. And I don't know if you advocate for that. Snake, do you say that my logic is wrong when I use my logical proofs? Is there any invalid? I mean, for example, like I don't have your syllogism right here, but basically I was gonna, I was trying to get to like, the reason I called you an atheist was you reject at least one God. That's atheistic, not atheist. That's a global atheism. Short and pithy here, so we can get back to the... Well, I just want to know, does he think my logic is wrong? That's my only question. Yes or no? Yeah, and like one reason why is theism is accepting at least one God. And so atheism, if you reject at least one God, then you're on the side of atheism. No, you're not. That's just nonsense. We got Snake's answer. Josiah Hansen, thanks for your super chat who says, Steve is a very pleasant pheasant. This is fun, thumbs up. Next up. Wait, who was that from? Josiah Hansen. Josiah, okay. All right, thanks Josiah.  She strikes again. She says, let's get to the category errors. I'll explain that to the theological cognitivist. Can't be theist or nor can they be atheists. If you need more understanding of that, go watch Ozzie and I explain it in detail on my channel. Gotcha. And movie theory, thanks for your super chat who says McCray is in all caps dominating, sorry, weak McCray haters. Okay, apparently you've got a- I have a lot of those. Yeah, but you know what? You've got a white- None of them have a logical proof against me that we can look at, do they? Shocker. Next up, Nate Brody. Thanks for your super chat. Says, Snake, was this study done over 10 years? I thought I cited it. Even today, however, there is no clear academic consensus as to how exactly the term should be used. I agree with that. And that was from Boulevant, I believe. Yeah, that was from Boulevant. Yeah, in Oxford's Hamburg of Atheism. I read this stuff, Snake. I mean, I'm well familiar with the literature and I agree with that statement. This is again, there's a difference between consensus and normativity. Next up, Gareth Spears. Thanks for your super chat who said, why you get so worked up over this topic, Steve. Well, I mean, it's like anything else.  And by the way, if you accept weak atheism as the sufficient condition for atheism, you must allow a theist to allow the sufficient condition to be, you lack of belief that gods don't exist or else that is special pleading. That's my weak atheism special pleading argument. Somebody coined it wasp the other day, because it stings. I have yet to have a refuter for that or a refutation for that, a defeater. There's a portmante right there. But yeah, nobody's shown that logic to be wrong. Everybody who's reviewed it that knows logic says this is logically correct as follows. That's a whole different argument that if one of these days Snake or anybody else wants to challenge on them, happy to do so. But it's simply basic logic. I mean, if you allow for one, you have to allow for the other or it is special pleading by definition or special pleading. Well, all I can tell from that is you're saying that weak atheists are atheists. Just to be sure we don't gang up on Steve, that super chat was targeted at him. So I do want to make sure that we don't go too far down the rabbit hole on that. Sigefratos Rabia, thanks for your super chat. Who said argument from quote, nah, ah, and burden shifting. I see that a lot with, yeah, I see that a lot actually. Yes. Who was he referring to though? Well, I see it all the time. So I don't, I assume, I know him I assume that he's actually referring to the other side that they, they just basically stick their fingers in the year and go, oh, Steve's wrong by fiat. But I'll tell you what, where's your logical proofs guys? Where's your logic here? I mean, I've given my, my arguments in logical form that logisticians have said this is valid. Why, where's your guises that they can look at and say if it's valid? If it's targeted at the other side, we've got to give, we'll give a snake a chance to respond and then we'll move on to the next one. Go ahead, snake. Sure. Well, the logic just depends on what premises you use. So if you use a certain definition, then you can make it, you can make it a valid logic. That's not how logic works. But it might not be sound. That's not how logic works. Hold on. Got a, the super chat, according to you Steve was targeted at a snake. So we've got to let him finish. That's fine. All done, snake. Yeah, I thought that was, yeah. You got it. And next up, thanks for your super chat. Kaleb or Caleb, as he sometimes likes to be called, says do a debate on immigration for Cinco de Mayo. It's very un-PC of you, Kaleb. Kaleb, thanks for your other super chat who says both debaters lost. Oh snap. Man. When I see those logic arguments coming in, I'll look at them. But until then, nobody's provided one. Josiah Hansen, thanks for your super chat who says, would snake be so willing to tell someone how they identify themselves is wrong on other matters, such as orientation. Steve is agnostic by the way. Sure. If it doesn't meet the definition. Oh, she's a prescriptivist, okay. If it does, that's how logic works. So if you say this x equals whatever definition, then you can hold whatever conditions. If you're agreeing to that, every syllogism has to have definitions. Next up, don't worry. We've got one for you, Steve. Can I have one follow up? Well, quick follow up. I swear it'd be 10 seconds. Well, I've got to give him a follow up then too, because it was targeted. That's fine, he can have a follow up. Wasn't that one targeted at him? So if you want to do it, we've got to be short and pithy, Steve. Pithy. Do dictionaries define words prescriptively or just describe usages? That's it. That's what I want to know. Got you. They describe it. There you go. That's not prescriptive. So if it's describing a certain usage, if what we're looking at doesn't meet those conditions of the definition, then you can't hold to that. That's prescriptive. Okay, we have to, the super chat's geared toward, it's targeting snakes. So I got to give him the last word on the phone. No, I'm not talking about prescribing a certain definition. I'm just saying whatever definition is being used, if you don't meet the criteria of that definition, then that usage of that word is not appropriate. Don't worry. I got one for you, Steve. Your dearest friend, Nate Brody, sends in another super chat. Steve, I love you, buddy.  Okay, they say Oxford looked at 10 years of papers and said there is no consensus. I agree there's no consensus. Hold on. They said if it is normative, then it is consensus. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Then they said Steve has been refuted by Oxford. Oh, yeah. There's a used definition of consensus, right? Like if I say the scientific theory of gravity is general relativity by consensus, right? There's a difference between that and saying, what is, if I say the word reject is normatively used in logic to mean negation, except it's negation. That doesn't mean there are not weaker versions of that, but they're less used. So there's no consensus of how the word ought to be used. There's no consensus there, but there is still a normative understanding when you see this word, how it should be interpreted. That's not consensus. That's normativity. There's a huge difference in terminology there. Next up. Thanks for your super chat. Josiah Hansen, who says normative does not equal consensus in any manner. Correct. Let's see. So I think that's targeted towards you. Snakearoo, do you want to give her some? Yeah, I still don't understand how he's made any distinguishing factor between... I've explained it, I think, in great detail, actually. It was just a standard of the norm. Yeah, I think I've explained it in great detail. I got it. Let's snake your tongue. The consensus usage of biological evolution is the normative definition of biological evolution or gravity or whatever you want to call it. Yeah, with that case, it's the same thing. I mean, in that case, those uses are normative and consensus, but they don't have to be... You can have a consensus of something, but in some circle, like what is normative in the ACA for the use of ACAism, right? It's not... The normative in that case, right, is that it is the lack of belief. Although in academia, that's not... There's no consensus for it. There's clearly a difference between consensus and normative because you're gonna have a group that has a different usage, which is normative, doesn't affect the consensus because there is no consensus of which one you should use. That's what they're talking about. There's no consensus in philosophy is which one has by fiat a correct usage. It only explains these both are used. It is more normative that when you see this word is used this way. That's the standard. Even Cambridge says it's standard. That's all. I mean, but who cares? Whether it's normative or not doesn't matter. They do exist. I hold by one, you hold by the other. As long as I don't call you, if you don't... I do have to give a sneak the last word on this super chat was directed at him. Okay. Again, it depends on the scope of what your group you're looking at, but then Oxford says the standard is different. So Oxford does not say that. Thanks for your super chat. Don't worry. Movie theory is white knighting for you, Steve. They say, quote, all the McCray haters bought her because they know he won. So you've got a fan out there, Steve. Next up, Angry Roach. Thanks for your super chat. Said, what does Steve mean when he says, quote, normative definition? I've literally been over that how many times but here's Oxford right here. So I can just share it with you. Now, this actually shows up here. And yes, I've read my own sources. Okay, I read my stuff. This talks about there's an absence of belief in God. This is again, an etymological reason. This is what Boulevard argues. Boulevard's papers arguing from etymological roots, right? But it says also that belief that there are no gods arguably the most popular current usage, which would be normative, would it not be? This is actually saying that this two, not one, up here is the normative, that arguably the most popular current usage. Would you agree that this, and this is Oxford? That he also says it's the generally agreed upon serviceable scholarly definition of the word atheism is lack of belief. No, who says that? Boulevard. Boulevard says there's no consensus. Sorry, that's, no, I think that is Boulevard. Yeah, Boulevard literally is paper says there's no consensus on this. He prefers the weak case because he thinks it's more in line with the etymological roots. Did he do read his paper? Or are you just taking shots from it? Are you just taking notes, man? Or did he actually read his full paper? Be honest. Yeah, I read it. Okay, because if you read his paper, then you would know why he's arguing the way he is. He's arguing from etymology. Next up, we have to go to the next super chat. Go ahead.  Thanks for your super chat. She strikes again. Now she says, is there such a thing? And then once you're, if we can return to the good old screens where we get to see your. Yeah, I just want to show one more thing for my evidence. Cambridge dictionary philosophy. A strict sense knows the belief that there is no God. This use has become the standard use. There you go. Gotcha.  I love her. Is there such a thing as lack of belief in no God? If not, why is there no symmetry in these terms? Who's she asking that to? I don't know. I said there was no, there was a lack of symmetry. Yeah, there's a lack of symmetry if you use the weak case because the ism relationship, atheism really only has a symmetry in the positive case. Well, there's a lack of symmetry epistemologically because you can't, you need, you can say something is not true or you lack the belief in it, simply by lacking any proof or argument of the positive. Okay. I don't know how to answer the question, but yeah, I think to answer your questions, the ism relationship has a symmetry when you have it in the positive case. If you go read use of reasons, use of reason by Dr. Malpass's blog, he explicitly points out the difference between the ism and the ism or the is it, the ism and the ist breaking when you start using these weaker conditions. Gotcha. Thanks so much for your super chat from Nate Brody. He says, the more paper is cited, the more credible. Millic equals zero. Malik. Malik. You can't get his name right. Come on, jeez. You gotta cut me down like that. All right, go ahead. I bet, I mean, he get it wrong at you, but yeah, citations again, a relevant argument stands in its own merit. Everything that Malik has put in his paper, did you, by the way, did you read Malik's paper, Snake? I read some of it. Okay. His paper's in line with what Martin says too, Michael Martin. And Michael Martin advocates for the weak condition. So there, if you go read Michael Martin, they're in line with each other. They're not expressing different things. Yeah, I mean, most of them talk about the difference between negative and positive atheism. So I'm saying that that's a normative to distinguish between them. Yeah, Steve. Okay, moving on to the next one. Thanks for your super chat from, let's see. I do want to, to be fair though, I have to give Steve the last word on that. If you want to give a really, because that was- I don't know where to go with that, man. Frustrated atheists, thanks for your super chat said, this should be on the utility of the definitions. I agree. And I love that discussion. And I think that's unfortunately a discussion. I had that discussion with David Silverman a couple of weeks ago. Joe, go check out caffeine corner on my channel. Dave and I, I get along with exceptionally well, even though I disagree with him philosophically wise. Oh, he's backed off quite a bit. I think he's changed a little bit. But we started talking about utility arguments for that very reason, because the reason why atheists want to change positive normative status case to be the negative is for demographics. This is again, they put this out. David Silverman put it out and finding God and he's even said this, Pam Wistel from American Atheists, their editor-in-chief has told me explicitly they do it for demographic reasons. They're not a philosophical organization. Don't quote them as such. Her words, they want, they have two goals is what Pam Wistel told me. They don't realize the use of atheism and to increase the number of atheists for demographic reasons for voting and to get more members for their group. That's what she told me. Gotcha. Thank you, Gary. So you think that one was for Steve? I don't know. Well, I think that it's more than just demographics. It's because there's an epistemological approach to this, whereas you can't be omniscient and know that there are no gods at all. But all, if most, if not all, agnostics are denying most gods. I don't know what that has to do with tea in China. Well, I don't know why you confused local and global and I don't, I'm sorry, but you just throw this stuff around like a blender and then whatever comes out.  What does that have to do with anything? Gotta keep it short. I'm atheistic towards certain gods. I say, I believe certain gods don't exist. That's not atheism, that's atheistic. Okay, let's give Snake a quick chance to say what, your question, I think you asked, Steve, is what does that have to do with anything? What does it have to do with anything, Snake? Well, I was referring to the utility of it. It's better to make more, have more qualifiers and it's better to have a more honest epistemological approach. I don't think, I think that if you thought that way, you would adopt my schema. Have to keep moving. Rocks are agnostic. Thanks for your super chat. It said, why did Steve say that rocks are agnostic? I've never advocated rocks or agnostic atheism. When that came from, I had a hangout with a very dishonest lawyer out there. And I was using, I was an internal critique based upon his axioms, what would lead to. Bionic dance advocates that rocks are atheist. I've for years told her she's wrong on that, philosophically speaking. I think it's ludicrous to say rocks are atheist. And I tried to explain to this dishonest lawyer that, hey, to be agnostic, you must suspend judgment, which rocks cannot do, right? That is an active dispensational action, right? This is something that I have to actually consciously do. Rocks do not have the ability to do that. They could not be agnostic. They'll read, suspending judgment by Dr. Jane Friedman, New York University. All right, thanks so much. But he argued, well, logically so, this, this, and this, yes. And I said, look, in your schema, if you want to argue logically that rocks are agnostic, whatever. But that was not a debate. That was a hangout that I was just trying to explain to him the concept by which, by the way, Matt, Dr. Alex Malpass told him he's inept in the logic that he's wrong. Bert Poole told him he's absolutely wrong. And that dishonest lawyer had admitted to me that I was writing all this. And that the only reason why he continues with this, because he was told to fight me to the death on it. That's it. I have it in writing that he has actually said my logic is correct on this. Other people have been wrong on this. This was years ago, but he still continues on about it. Rocks are not atheist. Rocks are not agnostic. I have had a blog for years. And I've said the most we can say about a rock is that it's not theist because of a category. Because if you have one category, you have to have a compliment set. In the universal domain, you can restrict that universal domain to just people. But in the, what's called the UD in philosophy, when you have all of X, you have a UD, the universal domain, you have theist or not theist. Anything that's not in the safe theist must buy compliment set, be in the set of not theist. That was my argument to him. But yeah, rocks are not atheist or agnostic.  I do forgive me, Snake. But just because it was directed at Steve, I got to keep going. Gabrielle Kay, thanks for your super chat, said Steve wrote. Oh, Gabrielle Kay, they're coming after you, Steve. They said, Steve wrote a paper, LOL, dude.  Well, actually, I haven't written published papers, but I wrote papers in college. I mean, I've had four years of college, man.  No, but yeah, I mean, my blog is not published, but it's read by people that are published and they don't have a problem with logic. Not one expert has shown that my logic isn't correct. Gotcha. Thank you very much. Appreciate your super chat. From Dan Dan, who said, Steve, you still need to define the word anyway. They said, you need to define the word. I think they mean atheism. I've explained how I used the word. Gotcha. And has multiple definitions. This is my argument against American atheists and aren't raw. They say there's only one definition, only one correct definition. These are their words. I say that's incorrect. There's multiple definitions. I use the more sensual stricto. They use more sensual Lato. Everybody's happy, but they've argued, no, no, you can't Steve can't do that. Steve's wrong. This is their definition. This is their argument. They're prescribing usages, not me. Gotcha. And Superdore Energy strikes again. She says the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes, quote, if atheism is defined as a psychological state, then no proposition can count as a form of atheism because a proposition is not a psychological state. I think she's challenging you, Snake. Challenging me? Well, it's certainly not helping your case. It's, I think it's meant to be a challenge at you. Yeah, how do you answer that, Snake? If it's not a proposition, then it has to, then it can't be what Steve's saying it is. And it can't be, gods do not exist. I don't think you answered the question, man. I mean, I'll make it easy for him. Look, because I know what she's asking. She's absolutely right. If it's a psychological state, then you can't put a proposition to say that atheism is true or false. You can say atheism is true or false if you want to make it a proposition that God exists. But if all of a sudden you say, look, atheism is no longer a proposition. It's just a psychological state. There's no argument to be tested for that, right? That's why they don't have atheism as a psychological state normatively. It's a propositional state. It's what it's usually understood as because you can't test psychological states by augmentation. Shortly test propositions. That's it. What's that? And that's why- Let's give him a chance to respond now. I've got a hot date in two minutes. Well, see, this is the problem is because psychological states are, there's a whole spectrum of them and you can reject or not believe theism for the reasons that it doesn't have enough proof. It hasn't met the burden of proof or you can go further. Gotcha. There are many steps on the way to denying all gods. Next up, Nate Brody, thanks for your super chat. Says, Steve, do you lack belief in a God?  If you reject that you are a prescriptivist, you prescribe only one meaning. That's correct. Incorrect. I don't prescribe anybody else's usages. I'm allowed to take my, I'm allowed to have the usages I want to use myself. Prescriptivism is when I say you must use the usages I use. I don't, I've never done that. You don't use anybody's uses you want. They're prescribing it to me. By saying that I'm atheist, that is prescriptive behavior. They're saying I have to follow that weak condition prescription definition. If I don't, then, you know, I'm just being irrational to them, which is, to me is very dishonest, right? Because that is what I'm saying. I've been agnostic philosophically speaking. I'm not atheist or theist, right? That is my philosophical position to say otherwise is intellectually dishonest. Straight up, there's no, I don't think there's even a debate on that. That is pure dishonesty. I don't prescribe anybody else's label. I don't go around saying you're not a real atheist, you're agnostic. I've never done that anybody has ever said. I don't expect them to do it to me. Gotcha. And marooned dreams. Thanks for subscribing. Just saw that. Glad to have you here. Very excited. And next one, appreciate your super chat from our dearest friend. Dan Dan says, Snake was right in this debate. You got a fan out there, Snake. Yeah, how?  Says, mm, I want more daddy. Okay, gosh. Jason Bourne. Very honored to have you here. Thanks so much for your super chat. Says, Nate Brody refuted Steve. That's why he is scared. He never did. And I have, I have it in writing that he agreed with me all this from eight years ago. He just, the only reason he does this is because he's told to fight me on it. Gotcha. Nate Brody. And by the way, I also have comments I've left on his videos that he used to have saying how dishonest he was, how he edited, had false edits and he took me out of context willfully. Because I can tell you right now, I have never advocated the position that rocks are atheist. No, I've ever advocated the position that rocks are agnostic. I've done an internal critique about a hangout three years ago that he still, I guess, from what I understand puts it out there like Steve says rocks are agnostic.   So that's, that's ludicrous. Gotcha. Thanks for your super chat from Nate Brody. He says weak atheist equals necessary, not sufficient. And then in parentheses he says refuted. How's that refuted? Snake agreed that the, Snake even agreed that the sufficient condition for positive atheism is the belief. So negative atheism is necessary, but not sufficient to be strong atheism. That's, Snake agreed with that. I don't think that he disagreed, did he? Right? Snake, you agreed with that? That you have to lack belief in a God in order to believe that there are no gods. It's a necessary condition, but not sufficient in positive atheism. Yeah, cause there's more criteria to positive atheism. That's my hope. There you go. I hold to the stricter case in which case the sufficiency isn't there for me to be an atheist. There you go. I'm not an atheist. Thank you, finally. There are two cases of it though. But I'm not taking the positive case. I've taken the stricter case. I've got to give the last word to Steve just cause he was targeted at him. Christina Rain, thanks for your super chat says, Steve does one plus one equal two. I believe so. Yes. Gotcha, thanks. Frustrated atheist, thanks for your super chat says, I can talk about this. I hold no gods exist. Okay. Thanks for your super chat. Club says, Steve is Snake back from 20 years in the future. Gotcha. Same haircut. Okay. Thanks for your super chat. Rocks are agnostic. I mean, imagine Snake. Steve is like in the YouTube community. He's like the, he's like the Fabio of philosophy of religion in the YouTube community. Look at him. Do you want to look like that? Oh. Okay, just purposely making it cringe. Okay, thanks for your super chat from putting you guys on the spot. I really enjoy you guys though. Rocks are agnostic strikes again. They're out to get you, Steve. And they say, we saw the video. We saw what you said, Steve. The only dishonest person here is you. I've literally explained it. I have to hang out on my channel. You're going to watch it in its entirety. Gotcha. I mean, this is what I'm saying. When you dishonestly take people into context, this is what happens. And by the way, people have watched me for years. Anyone ask any of them. I've never advocated that rocks are atheists. I actually have said numerous times to be atheist, you have the belief that gods exist in sufficiency and to be agnostic. The sufficient condition is having to evaluate it and then suspend judgment on it. If you don't know about the proposition, grandma calls that innocent. These have been my positions for five, six, seven years, give or take. So when you dishonestly edit something and to make it sound like I was taking something out of context, when I was doing internal critique based upon what this person was saying, that's just dishonesty.  Rocks don't do that. There you go. I mean, there you go. I mean, that's my position. Period. They're just wrong. Well, if I would say, if I could weigh in real quick that if a rock is an atheist, a rock is also an agnostic, but if a rock is not an agnostic, then they're also not atheists. They're also atheists at this point. I mean, it's just, if you have with atheism, you have with atheism. You can't have one. If you accept with the atheism, you accept with theism. So a rock, again, internal critique of yours would be an atheist, agnostic and a theist. There you go. That's my whole, one of my whole proofs of that too. If you accept these weak conditions, this is the implications of it. We must accept myself. I don't accept myself. You must keep moving. Marabino, thank you for your super chat said, quote, language is our B. And evidently, so is Steve McCray, unquote, Matt Dillahunty 2020. Oh snap. Did that really happen? What happened? Wait, what happened 2020? Nevermind. All right, next super chat. Matt Dillahunty has never shown that I'm wrong. He won't produce any logical argument. Okay, keep it in mind. His friend does. Yep. Okay, gotcha. Thanks so much. I always worry, because whenever somebody else's name comes up, I'm like, that's how we almost lost Hovind forever. You did lose Hovind forever. We might have. Yeah. Because I let Professor Dave talk about him when he wasn't here. Yeah, he won't come back to my channel years. We've already, I've just reached. Listen, Steve, it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen to me. Go for it. Keep the faith, Steven. Okay, next up. Thank you, man. Thanks for your super chat. Gabriel Kay says he said he wrote a paper many times. What's a paper now? Ugh, eye, paper, agh. Welcome to the brave new age of the internet. I've never written a published paper ever. I've written papers in college. Got a big difference there. Philip, thanks for your super chat says, Steve to clarify, did you claim, quote, if you label someone else as an atheist, you are a prescriptivist. I don't see the logical entailment there. Yeah, I let people label themselves. They want to call themselves atheists. But here's the thing, if they call them an atheist and they don't have a position on the proposition, logically speaking, that is called agnostic on the proposition. That's not a label. That's just a term in logic. I don't have a belief in a way is logically agnostic on that proposition. That's logic, right? But you don't have to accept that label. They can call themselves atheists. I've never said they can't. Gotcha. And thanks for your super chat just came in. Got another from, we've got stupid whore energy, but first, Carmel Krunk, thanks for your super chat says, when will Steve make a decision on God's existence? I used to be a theist though, who knows? Gotcha.  If so, why not leave it at that and live your best life? Leave it at not having arguments? I mean, I do have arguments. It depends on the God. That's why I'm saying that walking atheism to disbelief in all gods is a little ridiculous because it just depends on what God we're talking about. Okay, real quick. So you're saying that atheists that hold the belief that our God's are ridiculous? No, I'm saying that it's ridiculous to say that only those who believe all gods are false or cannot exist, only they are atheists. No, but that wasn't my question. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. If a person believes our God's, you think that's justifiable? Could be, depends on the argument. If the argument is that there are no good arguments for any gods, then... Do you hold the belief that our God's? Let's keep it short and pithy. Let's give them a chance to answer then we'll go to the next one. Okay. I don't think that there are any arguments for... That's not my question. I don't know why people dodge to my questions. These are simple questions. Do you hold the belief that our God's our God? Yes or no? I am afraid we have to keep moving. I just want people to notice the dodges that go on in these things. Next up is the same thing. Meribs. Meribino, thanks for your super chat who said, thanks James. Appreciate that, Meribino. Thanks for your support. Really do appreciate it. Caleb, thanks for your super chat who said enjoy your date tonight, James. No fornicating. I appreciate that. We're talking on the phone. Or going on a video or it didn't happen. Dinner with a friend. Evidence, evidence. Dinner alone. We have friends. Dinner with the Sears Magazine. Okay. Nate Brody, do you guys get that joke from, do you know what show that's from? This is a Simpsons reference. Nate Brody, thanks for your super chat. Uh-oh, Steve, said video will refute. Steve will be out tomorrow. Yeah, people can make as many videos as they want. As long as you can show the logic is wrong, go for it. But he's been wrong on his logic. He had scope errors. He had misunderstandings of double negations and things of that nature. Malpass it and Booh has numerous videos exposing him as somebody who doesn't understand logic very well. That's fine. Look, I've always held the position that rocks are not atheist or agnostic. If people want to look at something that I said three years ago when I was doing an internal critique and misrepresent it, go nuts.  My position is rocks are not agnostic, nor are they atheist. There you go. If you want to lie about it and say that otherwise, go ahead, what's it going to do to me? Doesn't change my logic. Doesn't change my argument. Next up. If you want to be dishonest, make as many videos as you want. Because I know why they make these videos. They do it for clicks. They've told me they do it for clicks. They've said the only reason we're doing this is because people want us to fight to the death. Their words, go nuts. Make a thousand videos. I don't care. I don't watch any of them. I mean, people that watch me don't care. We must keep moving. Maynard saves thanks for your super chat. Said get a new shirt, Steve. This shirt. Yeah, it's a tremendous shirt. People are saying it's the best. Okay. Learning with Sooj, thanks for your super chat. Steve. Oh, Steve. Steve, Steve, Steve. You're looking serious. Okay. They say I just wanted to support the stream, James. Also, please check out the recent videos by Nate Brody and explain the dishonesty if you can. Don't worry to drag me into it, but thank you. Don't watch everything you want to watch. Then come back and show me the logic is wrong. That's all I've said. If you think the logic is wrong, write it down. Let's evaluate it and go from there. I'm not, this nonsense of these drama videos saying, well, you know, Steve said this three years ago when I clearly was doing an internal critique based upon what he said. And I've always said for years, never otherwise about atheism and agnosticism. Oh, that's whatever. Thanks for your super chat. Gabrielle Kay, who said clown, you referred to your blog as a paper. Done. I corrected that. Yeah, it was a misspeak. I'm allowed to do that. It was a misspeak. Gotcha. I did it once in this debate, yes. Thanks so much. And that's why you correct things when you make errors unlike other people that don't. They're coming after you, Steve. But you know what? I appreciate your patience. Oh, this is fine. This is cakewalk to me, dude. I mean, I've done this for eight years, man. This is child's play. Next up, Woody, thanks for your super sticker. Don't see those very often. They said, the sticker says, wait for it. Next up, thanks for your super chat. XXILD says, why won't Steve debate Nate if he's so wrong? Because I'll never talk to him ever again. Simple as that. I mean, he has a good argument. Hey, somebody else will run it, but I won't never talk to that particular person ever in my life again for very specific personal reasons due to harm to me and my friends and my loved ones. Not going to ever talk to him. And he's not the only one. There's other people I would never discuss anything with ever again. I've been there, done that. I have three hangouts with him years ago. He's dishonest as can be. He manipulates, he absolutely lies. I don't bother with any of that. Plus he's harmed my friends and me. You can take that in a video. Put this clip in a video if he wants to. I stand by this, but that's the reason why I will not talk to certain people. He's one of them. Well, then this super chat, this next one might, you might appreciate this one. That's from Jason Bourne. Thanks for your super chat. Says, Steve is wrong. Debate Nader shot up. Never going to happen. Well, again, look, I don't have to, I can debate whoever I want. If the people are dishonest, and I don't think that they're honest in their lockers or that I personally have issues with, I'm not going to ever talk to them. I have no reason to. I don't have to give people reasons why I won't associate with certain people. And I won't associate with him. I won't be in the same room with him. I won't talk to him and I'm not the only one. There are many people that left this community and left him for these reasons. So don't ever try to get me to debate somebody that I do want to have to be even in the same room with. I find him vile. I find him to be disingenuous. I find him to be dishonest. You guys can think he's honest. I don't care. Knock yourself out. Watch his stuff, but don't put it on me. I will never debate somebody that I will not be comfortable enough to speak with ever again. And I swear to my God, my child, I'm not going to talk to certain people. You know, on the head of my child, certain people I will always, for the rest of my life, never talk to again. That's how vile I think they are. He's one of them. Gotcha. Is that kind of, does that answer the question to me? Am I being, you know, like too vague here? I'm going to be persecuted by these. You probably won't debate them. I got that. You think so? Yeah. Balams asked, thanks for your super chat. They got my reference. They said, James is going to Ugo Girls in Victoria's Secret Catalog. Don't we all do that? Most is lack was being interrogated by the police in the Simpsons. Dude, you don't need to blow our ear drums out. Steve, this is important. Most is lack was being, you're right, I'm actually clipping a little bit maybe, but okay, hold on. Now I can yell. I've turned it down a little bit. Most is lack was being, and he was being, you know, it's a Simpsons. All right, next one. Thanks for your super chat. Just came in fresh off the Hey, where are you going? This is embarrassing. You're over clipping. Nobody clips better than I do. Okay. Thanks for your super chat from. Hold on. Oh, I'm so fast. Whoa, this is, let's see. Okay. So Jason Bourne, thanks for your super chat. Said, oh, you got to turn that down.  I know I'm telling you, your audio is like 30 dB higher than it should be. I know you're right. I don't know what it is. Oh, there you go. I'll just talk like this. Sorry guys, you're right. I've like tried to turn my volume down. Steve telling the truth. I know it was weird, right?  Steve kicks puppies. I think OBS like adjusted for my turning down the volume or something, but we got a new one. Jason Bourne, oh geez, come on, Jason. They said Nate got 300 subs today. So apparently Nate is getting some attention over at his channel. That's all he wants, all he wants is subs. He'll, yeah, he'll, that's all he cares about. I don't care about the subs. Let's see. I want to be right. I want to be in line with the literature. I want to educate.  It's just, these people that have hate bonus for me, they're never going to learn anything. They're not the people that watch my stuff. People that watch my stuff want to learn. They want to learn the topic. I guarantee it. Nobody's ever said, hey, look, you want to learn a little bit about philosophy? Go to these other people. Nobody's ever said that. I think is that they don't understand the topic very well. Guys, I'm starting to edit and make these like more. What's the word I'm looking for?  And I usually wouldn't read these many mean super chats to a guest, but I mean, it's Steve. I doesn't bother. Merbino.  Merbino, thanks for your super chat. Said, I'm on fire with quotes, better show both sides. Quote, I've been doing this for eight years. This is child play from Steve on dodging. That's pretty easy. Gotcha. Thanks for your super chat from Carmel Crunk. Thanks for your support. Said, can Steve ever forgive Nate? No. Steve, he's right there in the live chat. I will never forgive certain people for what they've done, ever. Stuart Bunn, appreciate your super chat, Stuart. Why won't Steve debate Unirock? Same thing, same reason as the other one. Gotcha. And just let me just quick check in case any other ones came in otherwise. You do have love to have the trolls over here, don't you? We've got the hate boner they have that they have to use my name in videos all the time. And yet, all I've ever asked for is, where's the logical proof? Here you go. Where is it? I don't see it. Show us. Not existent. I don't want to use these BS games. Well, look at this video here and this. Where's the logic? Show me the logic wrong. I mean, here's the people that actually have said they've had scope errors and that Malpass had to point out to these people, hey, look. Your logic is wrong. They admitted their logic is wrong. And now they're saying, oh, well, they're using the same argument they used three years ago that Malpass pointed out and Bert Poe pointed out they were wrong and they've admitted they were wrong. I have it. But of course, they're using this for clickbait. I get it. Have fun. Make 1,000 videos about me. Use my name. I'm thrilled that you do. I just I'm not going to be I'm not around that crowd. I have nothing to do with them.  I don't care. I have my own people that subscribe to me and they want to learn these topics and they want to learn them to where they understand them. And I have the guests come on that know these topics like Landon, Kurt Null. Watch what you want to watch. I don't care. Don't chop this up and use it to your advantage. I'm sure of that. But the people that one person that learned something from this, that's the person I'm talking to. Wait, hold on. I'm so sorry, everybody. I forgot that like OBS is doing weird stuff to my audio. And so I was yelling again. I'm so sorry. Everybody in the like 99% of the live chat is like, stop my ears. OK, I'm going to be really careful. OK, so thanks for your super chat. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks for your patience. Very embarrassing. OK, so we got that from Jason Bourne. Thanks for your super chat who said, you would debate Word in the convicted R. No. OK, Maynard saves. Thanks for your super chat said, grow up, Steve. Sure you don't want to ask chess first. I'm confused. What does that mean? I don't know what that means. Must be an inside joke. I love inside jokes. I do too when I get them. I'm part of one. Yeah, I don't get it. Do you guys get that reference? It was Michael Scott. OK, let's see. I think we, let me see if any other new ones came in. Let's see.    Give me one sec. I've got to read the rest. No, OK. The strength of philosophy is when it exposes that you're being irrational. What is Snake's response to the category errors? Well, I don't see any category errors. I think the category errors emerge from certain definitions. But again, that's kind of why I started with the definitions. I would love to discuss the implications of that. We don't have time. Gotcha. Thank you. I'd go on Steve's channel or whatever. Sure. Gotcha. Thanks for your super chat from our dearest friend, Gabriel Kay, who says, Snake, you're very patient. It truly is admirable. Next up, Steve's face. Next up, thanks for your super chat from Christina Rain, who says, Steve, nobody can show your logic is wrong. Because if they disagree with you, you block them, right? Which is weird because half the people that come on my channel disagree with me. And I foster disagreements. Logic is logic. I mean, if you think the logic is wrong, write it up. Anybody can use it. I'll take it. And I'll get some logisticians who analyze it. How difficult is that? Logic is logic. It's objective. I don't block people that disagree with me. I block people that I dislike, that I think are bio-reprehensible, immoral people. Those people I don't want to have around. But if they have a good argument, anybody can use it. Have them do the logic. Somebody that I don't find to be morally reprehensible can come on my channel and we'll talk about it. I don't find Snake morally reprehensible. I haven't blocked him. He disagrees with me. So that clearly negates that narrative.  I think he may not understand the concepts that well. But I don't think he's an ethical person. I've got him to know him now. He's welcome on my channel. Bring it. I mean, if he could take an argument, a logical argument that somebody else that I will not ever have anything to do with and it's a logical argument and he wants to run it, bring it on. Got you. I don't understand why people think I fear that. I don't. I want that. That's what I look forward to on my channel. Thank you. And thanks for your super chat from SoulDog69 says, Steve could take a steaming crap and have it criticized and taken out of context. These clowns are hilarious. It does happen. That's probably not too far from the truth. Oh, yeah. Look, I've had a group of haters for, like, what? Four decades, four years now. Four decades, four years, three, four years. I mean, how long has it been since I left this group? There was a group that we left.  We left those people because we recognized that we didn't want to be around them. Whatever the reasons are relevant. But I didn't want to be around them. They've followed me around ever since. They'll continue to follow around in perpetuity for another four or 10 years, whatever. They'll make tons of videos about me. Knock yourself out. Hasn't affected me. Gotcha.  Go ahead. I'm flattered by it. Must keep moving. Josiah Hansen, thanks for your super chat, said unnecessary logical proof that could show his logic wrong could fit on a single tweet. You could make your case before he could block anyway. Looks like you've got a defender out there, Steve. And then Mr. Slaughter, thanks for your super chat, says Steve has never lied. Just ask him. Yeah, I could tell you right now, if you could find a lie that I've done on air, go ahead. I challenge you on that. I've been utterly consistent from day one. Everything I've said about the non-secretary show I've been consistent about, everything I've said about my arguments to be consistent. You think I've lied, go nuts. But I got to tell you, the people out there that are criticizing me, we have shown that they've lied demonstrably so. And we've shown that disingenuous and dishonest and they're interlocutors in having a conversation. If you want to be honest and have a conversation, that's fine. I've had these people on my channel before, right? OK, next. So yeah, go ahead, knock yourself out.  I think they call you Steve, Mick Liar. OK, thanks for your super chat. Mr. Slaughter, I love you, Steve. I appreciate you being so patient. Steve, I don't know if I've ever thrown as much poop at one of our guests via the super chats. I'm vicariously throwing poop at you. Hey, buddy, do you write? I have no idea how cathartic this is. Yes, buddy, do you? Mr. Slaughter, thanks for your super chat, says, confirmation bias thy name is Steve. Confirmation bias has nothing to do with logic. If the logic is right, if the logic is right, if the logic is wrong, the logic is wrong. Show me the logic. And then. That's not like a T-Jump quote, huh? I kind of was channel T-Jump there a little bit. Steven, your son, Thomas, is not here to defend himself. Maynard saves things. That was an insult. I'm just teasing. Maynard saves things for your super chat. They were the one that said, Steve has never lied, just ask him. And then we just had a final super chat, I think just came in. Nate Brody said, stop lying about me, Steve. You were desperate. Yeah, that's not a lie. Look, believe what you want. I don't care. I want nothing to do with the guy. He could use my name, 1,000 videos, say whatever the hell he wants. I don't care. I don't want to have anything to do with him at all, ever. Got you. Ever. He just, as long as he stays away from me and never hanging out with me, he's welcome to do anything or say anything he wants. I don't care. I don't watch his stuff. Go watch his stuff. Believe him. I don't care. It doesn't affect me and the people that I love, the people that I love, the people that I cherish, you know, people like Chesh, Reds, and especially Sweetheath, and that's all that my consideration cares about. That's it.  As long as they're not be affected by these people, I don't care. Thank you. Bent. Hovind. No relation. Thanks for your super chat. And bullionator. Can I like that? Said Steve is an agnostic in perpetuity. Next up. Make change one day. Who knows? I think, let's see. I think that was it. So thanks so much, everybody, for your questions. Brian Stevens, did you have a question? You usually have a question. Did I miss it? But I want to say, folks, reminder, I have put the links of our guests in the description box. So that way, if you're like, I have a hankering for more, more, please, you can get more. There's plenty more where that came from at their links below. And I want to say, thanks so much, folks, just for hanging out with us. It's always fun, and it's fun because of you, folks. We really do appreciate that. And then someone said that a super chat came from Bent Hovind. I thought I read that one, though. Did I miss it? Yeah, this is the perpetuity one. Yeah, that's perpetuity one. So yes, do really appreciate you, folks. Want to let you know whether it be Christian, atheist, agnostic, or one of the many strange creatures in between, we hope you feel welcome here, no matter what side of the position you're on. So with that, I want to say a huge thanks to our guests for being with us, spending their time with us. A lot of channels would love to have them. And also, thanks for letting them take a little bit of heat from peeps in the live chat. And by the way, bringing on, I do hangouts all the time. I talk about these things. If you've got a good argument, do you want to disagree with me? Come on. You're not going to be blocked for disagreeing with me. Nobody gets blocked for disagreeing. You get blocked for being not a good person. That's why I block people, or just people that are just dishonest. But if you think I'm wrong, I don't care who you are. As long as you're not a dishonest and a lockerer, come on down. Snake's more than welcome. Anybody else? I thrive on disagreement. My whole channel is about people disagreeing. So why would I block people for disagreeing? That's what my channel is for, to have disagreements.  I bring it. Gotcha. Thanks for your super chat. Man, you guys in the live chat are nasty. Not all of you. 99% of you are proud. Oh, that's why that's what I'm saying. But some of you are talking about weird stuff in the live chat. I know. And then Excalibur's triggered again. Thanks for your super chat.  Block me. Will you? I don't have any trolls have money too. You get trolls too? Well, nobody's got trolls. Like I got trolls, dude. I have the best trolls, man. I know all the best roles.  They merely because we have the audacity to leave them years ago. Appreciate that. Thanks for your super chat. Helios 575 says all the people hating on Steve, they lack integrity and want to drag Steve down to his level because they know what they look that they look pathetic in comparison. And that's the and that's the type of people that subscribe to my channel. They recognize this, right? And if they don't, that's fine too. I mean, people can watch anything they want. Go watch their channels by all means. I have nothing in the fear by anything they have to say. I just hope those people that watch them stuff are intellectually honest enough to come to my channel and ask me about it and let's have a discussion. I mean, that's all I asked. Thanks for your super chat. Marabino appreciate it. Marabino said quotes, quote, if you can find a lie I've done on air, go ahead. I'll challenge you on that. Go ahead, that's great. They said Steve as he eyes the block button. Okay, let's fly. Gotcha. Thanks. So appreciate it folks. Really fun. I really do enjoy it. Kakarot, thanks for your super chat who said to Steve, Nephilim free or Brody? I would rather have a discussion with Nephilim free by far. I mean, we're not even, that's not even, now I don't want to debate Nephi, but I mean, Nephi came in right now. I wouldn't care. I'd be like, knock yourself out. Nephi's been on my channel numerous times. Gotcha. Nephi, I have nothing personal against Nephi whatsoever. I'm the one that helped Nephi get back on the internet. He couldn't figure out how to stream. I'm the one that showed him how to stream. I have nothing personally against Nephi. All right, we got it. Steve invented the internet, everybody. We got the story. So thanks. We appreciate it. It's always fun. I'm so apologetic for that. I will never live that down. We do appreciate you being here folks. So with that, we hope you have a great night. Keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable.