Hey guys! I really appreciate your response to the questions. I think I’m gonna answer back in video form at some point, but in case I don’t, here are the three most recent books I’ve read (and it’s funny that you named one of them): Nietzsche - Zarathustra (it was my second time reading it, and I found it boring... only because I had already been made familiar with most of the concepts that might be surprising when reading the book for the first time), Sartre - Nausea, and Oppy’s Arguing About God’s. The reason for Sartre and Nietzsche is that I’m working my way through a great books list.

@crusadeagainstignorance8309

3 жыл бұрын

sounds good! look forward to seeing a response if you get around to it. glad to see Oppy ‘s book on that list, it’s a great one!

@New_Essay_6416

3 жыл бұрын

Doing a live discussion rather than a video response might be more productive, no?

@crusadeagainstignorance8309

3 жыл бұрын

maybe so, i’d be game for that if Braxton is!

Philosophy > apologetics

Braxton asking “If you become an atheist, does that mean prostitutes are like the troops?” is lowkey the funniest moment in the video

@crusadeagainstignorance8309

3 жыл бұрын

yea that was pretty good 😂😂

@insertyoutubeusernamehere

3 жыл бұрын

@@crusadeagainstignorance8309 As a new subscriber, who I guess under your definitions would seem to be considered a 'new atheist' and someone who is admittingly pretty ignorant of philosophy, I am nonetheless intrigued by your seemingly casual dismissal of anything under your umbrella of 'new atheism', and 'lacktheism' as unserious and unworthy of consideration as a legitimate and tenable position. I've looked through your uploads but don't see any content outlining the basis for your apparent intellectual disdain for the Philistines, ignorami and otherwise unwashed of wisdom, who would seemingly remain forever doomed to remain unaware of the nature of their error. I'm certainly open to adopting any label which best describes my opinion or lack thereof on the likely existence of gods, dragons and King Arthur. I'd happy to be disabused of my ignorant mislabeling myself as an agonistic atheist. I've no doubt you have a fulsome quiver of arguments to draw from but what you've provided here comes across to me as a glib and calcified appeal to philosophical tradition. It is especially stark in contrast to an otherwise extremely charitable and open attitude towards ideas and interlocutors. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this or recommendations for further reading or videos on the 'folly of KZread lacktheism' and why agnostic atheism is 'not a real thing'

@Apanblod

3 жыл бұрын

@@insertyoutubeusernamehere It's elitist 'philosophical' (🧐) garbage at best. But it managed to make Braxton happy, so all's well that ends well, I guess.

@Bhuyakasha

2 жыл бұрын

@@insertyoutubeusernamehere Check out Majesty of Reason's video on new Atheism and its critics, it's great and exactly what you're looking for I think.

@DarkArcticTV

2 жыл бұрын

@@insertyoutubeusernamehere read graham oppy

Don’t belittle internet and KZread atheists.... And “new atheists “ is being used as an insult again... Dreadful

You guys don't like the term "agnostic atheist" but you are fine with Sam using "agnostic Christian"? I'm confused.

what books woud u guys recommend that debunk silly atheist arguments? THX n God bless....

I'm genuinely not sure what would it mean to say that "Christianity is true to my satisfaction." Does that mean historically true? If I were brought to believe that the attempted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham actually occurred, how would that change my judgement that this was a morally wrong act? Would Christianity being true entail that not only the facts of the bible are true but also the bible's characterization of those facts? If my conscience tells me that the god of the Canaanite conquest is engaged in a kind of ethnic cleansing, what kind of satisfactory Christian truth could override it? I think Graham Oppy got it right; there is no being out there worthy of worship.

@ethanm.2411

3 жыл бұрын

The truth of Christianity entails that there is a morally perfect God. So if the God of Christianity exists and he inspired the Bible, but there are some passages that seem morally problematic, then it must mean that your interpretation is mistaken.

@worldsalvatony5801

Жыл бұрын

He asked a man to kill babies. He also send a bear to kill boys because they called a man bald. Also He choosed a man to be saved from the destruction of a city because of his goodness, and that man offered his own daughters to be raped.

Hi Micah, I really loved this discussion, very enlightening. you mentioned that there are naturalistic models in which there are necessary beings. Can you clarify what you mean by “being”? I’m guessing it’s not some kind of disembodied mind or agent outside of time and space.

@crusadeagainstignorance8309

3 жыл бұрын

thank you im glad you liked it! and yes in this context “beings” could be anything, a quantum field, singularity, some part of material reality via Bede Rundle, etc.

@chad969

3 жыл бұрын

@@crusadeagainstignorance8309 Interesting, thanks! I'll have to read some of Oppy's work on this subject when I get some free time

A nice discussion. If you can get it so that Sam doesn't freeze on us, you'll have a very worthwhile product. Of course, you'll have to solve the timezone paradox: namely, that any time in the States between 9 am and 5 pm turns out to always be 2 am in New Zealand.

What 5 books would you recommend reading arguing for atheism?

@crusadeagainstignorance8309

3 жыл бұрын

for starters probably: 1. “Arguing for Atheism” by Robin Le Poidevin 2. “Dialogues on Natural Religon” by David Hume 3. “The Best Argument Against God” by Graham Oppy 4. “The Miracle of Theism” by John Mackie 5. “Is God the Best Explanation of Thing” a dialogue between Josh Rasmussen and Felipe Leon. Those are probably the best to start with, if you wanna go more advanced as far as in depth critiques of arguments, Graham Oppy has a book called “Arguing about Gods” and JH Sobel’s “Logic and Theism” are probably the best two ever written on the subject. I also always recommend Oppy’s book “Naturalism and Religion”

The problem with defining atheism as an active disbelief in god/gods is that it's not clear which god/gods is that referring to. Does an atheist need to actively disbelief in all possible conceptions of a god to be an atheist? If so, then there are no atheists because there are many gods the presumed atheist has probably never even heard of, so they can't actively disbelief in them just like someone who hasn't heard of the Christian god can't actively disbelieve in it. Instead, it's much more helpful to define it as someone who does not have a positive belief in any god/gods. I would be sympathetic to the stronger definition of atheism if there was one single definition of god we could all agree on. I imagine the reason that the philosophical tradition uses this definition of atheism is that they are all mostly talking about the same philosophical conception of a god. That is not the case among the common population, so it makes perfect sense that most non-theists simply define atheism as the lack of belief in any god/gods.

@josephpatterson2513

3 жыл бұрын

I think you make a good point.

Baes

Maybe two, or three of these ten questions were somewhat legitimate. I personally find the conflation of Christianity and politically conservative values to be the most amusing, especially in light of the current leader of the most numerous christian denomination, essentially being one step removed from the liberation theology. I can see the confusion tho, given that Jesus was basically a Bernie bro, whereas Paul was a crypto fascist, lol!

@blamtasticful

3 жыл бұрын

I’d love a “BTW Paul was a crypto-fascist” t-shirt 😂

@alexlarsen6413

3 жыл бұрын

@@blamtasticful Or: God is gay!

@alexlarsen6413

3 жыл бұрын

@@blamtasticful Lol...my comment about Jesus got deleted by youtube!

@blamtasticful

3 жыл бұрын

@@alexlarsen6413Apparently KZread supports rules against blasphemy smh

@worldsalvatony5801

Жыл бұрын

Jesus was not a liberal progresist.

I would also still love to see you and Joe specifically engage with the arguments for Christianity that argue for the resurrection like from Swinburne, Habermas, Licona, Craig, Loke, Miller and Wright. I think it has been sadly under addressed.

@donnadeau7619

3 жыл бұрын

These theologians who believe in the resurrection of Jesus suffer from the need to defend theology over the reality of nature. The more you deny reality, the more you will lose respect, it is that simple.

@blamtasticful

3 жыл бұрын

@@donnadeau7619 I mean Christians really defend this argument as an inference to the best explanation from the historical data and argue that alternative proposed explanations are less likely. I feel like it’s worth addressing the argument and it’s points as laid out to make explicit the main disagreements between intellectual Christians and non-Christian intellectuals.

@donnadeau7619

3 жыл бұрын

@@blamtasticful No No, A resurrection is not the best explanation from history", it is a 'theological'/emotional apology, and certainly not an intellectual one at that. The resurrection has religiously been about the theological consistency and priority of defending the faith, not the truth of reality and probable history. Intellectual Christian" ? Are you kidding me? Believing Theologians and christian in general have not been able to separate probable historical factors from theological inventions. So no, it is not worth a defense, much less respect.

@blamtasticful

3 жыл бұрын

@@donnadeau7619 your opinion doesn’t answer the case that has been made in the literature so mere dismissal is not an actual refutation of the case made by Bible scholars and professional philosophers. Just because I agree that it doesn’t seem to be the best explanation isn’t an adequate response to academic arguments.

@blamtasticful

3 жыл бұрын

It also seems from your comment that you think Christians can’t be intellectuals so I doubt if you are the best one to respond to this issue....

I always took "lack of belief in god" to mean "I don't believe in god, but I don't think god can't exist". It relates to confidence. This is different than all the counter-examples given (electrons have no cognitive abilities so no confidence at all, babies don't have confidence about god as far we can tell, adults don't believe in santa claus with a very high degree of confidence for many factors, so aren't likely to say "I lack a belief in santa"). Better counter examples of "lack of belief" could be: I lack a belief currently in Planet 9, but I certainly don't think it's impossible and would be thrilled by its discovery. I lack a belief that if I flip a coin that it will land on heads, but it's obviously possible. This doesn't entail to me that I'm confident of the counter belief (Planet 9 does not exist, I will flip tails). Isn't that all that "lack of belief in god" is saying?

With regard to the question of "What would it take?". The more that gets added into the notion of God that we're looking for possible evidence for, the more difficult it becomes to imagine what that evidence might look like. Many non-theists, myself included, find it easier to contemplate some kind of ecumenical, minimal theism than to accept a full-on, conservative, evangelical God with all it's religious-social-political baggage. One intuition which precludes me from being a Christian of a certain type is the Problem of Worship. Succinctly stated; 1. God is entitled to our worship and we humans have a complete and overriding obligated to render it. 2. Humans ought to have freedom of conscience. We are morally obligated to respect the autonomy of our fellow autonomous creatures and vice versa. 3. These two premises seem incompatible. See Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse; Philosophy 15:Episode 66; kzread.info/dash/bejne/qGWowaOjl7K2lqw.html What do you guys think?

Ótimo vídeo

Question 3 highlights the primacy of social facade in southern American fundamentalist evangelicals. It is impossible for them to imagine being in the out group of their social circle. What will pastor Smith and elder Johnson think when they see the atheist family at the meat and three on Sunday afternoon? The horror! Yes, that's mockery. But the "appearance" concern is mock worthy. For Question 7: if Christianity is true, it seems like a trivial prediction would be to identify the evidence one would need to convert. Conversion is a central goal of Christianity, evangelicals specifically, and it seems they have no way of identifying how to best do it. In 20 years Amazon figured out how to predict purchasing trends of billions of people, but the sum of all Christian knowledge over thousands of years can't figure out how to predict the evidentiary requirements for belief of their core tenets? Yeesh. Given the total lack of predictive power in that regard (and, frankly, all others), the very existence of the question feels like a defeater to the claim. I like Braxton and I appreciate him putting himself out there like this and being vulnerable to mass criticism. That's a tough thing to do.

So you're not an atheist, (if you were the question wouldn't arise) you believe ,or suspect, a god,who can make you suffer for eternity, or give you this great heaven stuff, exists, but decide to 'pretend' he doesn't to be able to 'sin' for the short time you are around, makes sense.

I am gonna call out the idea that people who define atheism as a lack of belief are somehow not serious. Isn’t that a rather unsubstantiated judgment? It’s basically stating that only formal academic philosophers are relevant. Did Antony Flew not start the idea of strong atheism and weak atheism? And can we imagine saying anything so insulting as stating that Christians aren’t serious Christians unless they are engaging in philosophy at an acceptable academic threshold? I would say that that part of the video is an unfortunate overstatement by those engaging in academic philosophy and denying an actual existing social group and its right to determine their identities as individuals in that group. I apologize if that is harsh but this seems very problematic.

@vincentiormetti3048

3 жыл бұрын

"denying an actual existing social group and its right to determine their identities as individuals in that group." Sounds like an overstatement, no one is telling new atheists how they should identify. But it's unhelpful phrasing terms like atheism and theism in ways that refers to psychological states and not propositions, what new atheists are doing is taking a word with an enormous amount of history and literature surrounding it already, and then changing it so that it no longer refers to ontology at all. It's unnecessary at best, detrimental at worst and it's only natural people would push back on convoluting terms. I wouldn't go so far as to say people who take this definition aren't serious though.

@blamtasticful

3 жыл бұрын

@@vincentiormetti3048 Language purists has been saying that for centuries even though we know that language naturally changes over time. It’s like saying that the term gay should only mean happy given its historical usage before referring to homosexuals. Social groups have taken terms to novelly describe themselves forever. It’s like saying that rights were never referred to as civil rights that apply exactly the same across races and sexes so the term redefines what has historically been meant by the term rights. Or heck the term Christian always used to refer to Eastern Orthodoxy and the church under the authority of the Bishop at Rome. Therefore Referring to Protestants as Christians is an unhelpful and confusing redefinition of the term. In cultures language use changes over time as do the meaning of terms and it is an unwinnable battle to try and prevent this.

@New_Essay_6416

3 жыл бұрын

Kind of agree. I understand the reason they’re critical of it, but one the one hand who cares and on the other academic definitions are important but they’re not the only thing that matters

@anzov1n

3 жыл бұрын

I can't help but feel that some of these guys live in a particular academic bubble where terms have calcified into specific and esoteric definitions. To some degree we are all agnostic about most things, many people colloquially shorten "agnostic lack of belief in gods because of a complete lack of justification or evidence that practically expresses itself as a positive claim that they do not exist" to "atheism." This is perfectly fine because philosophers of religion do not determine how language is used. Also what about all the 1000s of other god claims? Is an atheist, who hasnt even heard of them, also "not serious" when they claim they lack belief? What about more deistic-type god claims, which are even less falsifiable, is an atheist automatically required to commit to a positive claim of non-existence? Imagine spending over an hour "seriously" responding to another sloppy christian video while dismissing large groups of people over a definition of a single word.

That guy in the red shirt needs to sort out his lighting.

@crusadeagainstignorance8309

3 жыл бұрын

yea that’s me... agreed 😂😂

Tom jumped schooled the guy at the bottom Sad

Boa tarde

Can Sam go into more detail about the degree to which he is agnostic about the existence of fairies and leprechauns? As well as that of Zeus, Odin, and Huitzilopochtli (the Aztec god who demands the sacrifice of still-beating human hearts)? An error that this type of panel makes is engaging in debate about the abstract god of classical theism--which has little connection to the prayer-answering, miracle-working god(s) that most religious people actively worship. Such as the narcissistic, genocidal, totalitarian god of the Bible, who raises people from the dead and changes the molecular structure of liquids. The absurdity of these beliefs are the ones that the new atheists concentrate on exposing. Professional philosophers share many of the informal objections the New ATheists make to theism, but phrase it in more philosophically professional jargon. Dawkins' "Who created god?" is echoed by real philosophers who charge theists with special pleading in arbitrarily exempting their god from infinite regress merely by defining him as being exempt from infinite regress. Same with the professional philosophers who reject the necessary vs contingent distinction which classical theism depends on.

@bds8715

3 жыл бұрын

I would like to see an example of a professional philosopher who "rejects the necessary vs contingent distinction," as well as an example of a philosopher who "merely defines God as being exempt from infinite regress."

@blamtasticful

3 жыл бұрын

@@bds8715 Well to be fair if God is necessary and isn’t exempt from infinite regress than those who hold that causal infinitism is impossible do have a legitimate problem. Not saying that this is what most theistic philosophers actually hold, but it comes up often enough in pop apologetics.

@jordancox8802

3 жыл бұрын

What a silly post

@ramigilneas9274

3 жыл бұрын

Its always just a lot of nonsensical word games. And it seems that the philosophical professional jargon is necessary to hide all of the obvious flaws and logical fallacies in the arguments for the existence of gods. Apparently you can simply define your god to have all of the attributes that he needs to be an explanation for anything and everything without demonstrating that he actually has any of those attributes or if having those attributes is even possible.😂

@bds8715

3 жыл бұрын

@@ramigilneas9274 I also like to define all the things I disagree with as word games rather than demonstrate it as such 😂 sadly, my such defining is also just word games 😞

With no evidence. Simple as that

These are kids . Indoctrinated s bias

lol. Of course some philosophers reject the commonsense notion of atheism as simply being a lack of belief in gods. Their metier depends on rejecting the obvious and sinking into the same non-productive wool-gathering that has led theistic philosophy almost nowhere in the last two thousand years.