 Welcome to Modern Day Debate. My name is Karissa and I'm going to be the host in Ma today. We're really excited about today's debate. It is on theism and whether or not it is true. So theism on trial. Super interesting debate. Everyone here who are debating are really cool people. So we're really excited to have them on. Thank you all for tuning in. If you do like debates, be sure to subscribe to the channel. We have a lot of debates coming up. So I'm going to actually let our debaters introduce themselves. If you do like any or all of the debaters, their links are going to be in the description below. So you can definitely check out more of their content. But I'm going to go ahead and let them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about their content. Maddox, I'll go ahead and start with you. What would people be able to find at your link? So of course I appreciate you hosting another debate. Hopefully this one will go well. We'll see. So my channel is called Logical Plausible Probable. I'm all about applying those principles to conclusions we reach about existence, science and just facets of life, primarily focus on the stupidity of atheism. And in this context tonight, agnosticism and evolutionary theory, things of that nature that don't actually reach rational conclusions. If you go beyond the service level talking points that are accepted by so many. Sounds good. Stratilities. What will people be able to find at your link? Hey everyone. I'm mostly on Twitter. You will find things about philosophy, pop culture, occasionally political theory and theism. Yeah, that's me. Very cool. All right. Ask yourself. What will people be able to find at your link? There's a lot of content on there about ethics, veganism, debates, analyses, stuff like that. Very cool. And last but not least, Troy, what will people be able to find at your link? He has a link? I'm not sure what link you have. I'm mostly on Discord though. People can find me there. But I like talking about all sorts of philosophical issues including religion, but in the analysis as well. It is worth noting though that you can look up Detroiters name and find some good debates with him just annihilating people like Jay Dyer, for example. Oh man, that sounds good. So definitely go check that out. So the format of tonight's debate is going to be 15 minute openings for each team followed up by an hour of open discussion and 30 minutes of question answers. So if you have a question, make sure to shoot it into the super chat so you will get a guaranteed read. And without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and let Maddox, I think, want to go ahead and kick his team off. You can go for it. Okay. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen of the debate jury for this trial tonight, you were supposedly going to be witnessing two hours of theism on trial. But apparently my opponents don't actually want to do that. They just want to pick holes and things. And I find this horribly ironic, since I thought they're going to be the prosecutors and they don't even know what they believe. So how they even have standing to be in this case and put us in the role of defense counsel. In any court of law, you would be required at a minimum to present a preponderance of evidence, if not go all the way to beyond reasonable doubt. But somehow in the mental quicksand that is the state of an agnostic mind, their inability to reach conclusions based on their own research and analysis is somehow considered a positive rather than indicative either of their cowardice regards to questions of existence or lack of the cognitive capacity to actually find conclusions. Now all this posturing and the desperate attempts to cling to some other outlier hypothetical explanation is nothing but an endeavor to accomplish the ultimate objective of all atheists and agnostics, which is to show so seeds of doubt and project their own rejection of absolute truth onto others. To show you this, you must consider what they will likely deny as reasonable evidence for God. So our universe had a beginning. This is accepted. All evidence shows anything which is material requires an external causation in order for the effect to be achieved. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that an external cause was required for the universe to come into being. Nothing about this point requires anything but logical thought and analysis of what is accepted to be true in all cases except the one which has the most relevance. How do we exist? The irony of this point is that our opponents love to use this conclusion to supposedly prove that Christians just believe in and theists just believe in magic and fairy tales, which is humorous given the fact if there is no independent agent outside of space and time then they ultimately must believe that we poofed into existence with no cause. And isn't that rather magical? This leads to the fine tuning of the universal constants which all must be in perfect alignment where the universe will implode or explode, not achieve the perfect grave expansion which enables it and therefore life to exist. But before we go further on that, let's just quickly look at what I would consider a macro view of additional reasonable arguments with emphasis on the plurality of those available rather than the singularity and contemplate if when we when looked at from the macro level they present a powerful and rational case for the existence of atheistic God. First we have the cosmological arguments which I was just diving into. Second we have the teleological argument, then we have to face the ontological argument, then the contingency argument, then we have the fine tuning argument, then we have the moral argument, and finally we have the argument of moral authority. Now these are just to name a few of the very substantive arguments that have been developed over the centuries and this is all before the gigantic issues which have arisen over the last 50 years in relation to abiogenesis and the dramatic need for intelligent agency prior to the existence of life as we know it. Now each of these concepts is worthy of its own debate but ironically in thousands of debates hundreds of books and who knows how many papers and individual conversations on these arguments in almost every case they end with agnostics claiming I don't know if this is 100% true, you can't prove it is 100% true, therefore I think you are 100% wrong. So let's go back into you know fine tuning, let's address like the fine tuning of our solar system for example. Well they argue that the universe is so big there must be other planets like Earth then completely ignore that without the other plants in our solar system with their specific orbits and specific mass is admitted by scientists that Earth would not be able to sustain life. This is before accounting for the fact that our Sun must be a specific must be a specific type of star of a specific size and predict a specific level of and type of radiation or life cannot exist. This means that just as the word describes our solar system is just that a system without the different parts working in synchronicity we cannot exist. But now before addressing our planet itself we must also remember that our perfectly balanced solar system must also be in a specific location in a specific type of galaxy or life cannot exist. Not only that without this perfect location we would not be able to observe the rest of the cosmos in the way that we do and as if this was not enough the technology which enables us to observe these things must exist at a specific time in the expansion of the universe in order for us to even observe it. To me these layers of specificity destroy all explanations which deny the existence of God. Now this leads me to a simple question for the audience and for my opponents and that is how does life exist without an intelligent designer not limited by the constraints of the universe. If I asked you about the source requirements for any piece of technology that contains coding logic gates programming nanomachines and exhibits temporal controls which defy simple cause and effect outcomes it insists they come into being without an intelligent age of being required. Would you think I was exhibiting rational thought or could even be taken seriously? I think not. How then given we know that all those elements are fundamental requirements for life to exist is it considered unreasonable to conclude that a creator must exist? I suggest that it is neither logical plausible or probable for us to even be able to have this debate about the exquisite design of our bodies and profound abilities enabled through our minds to consider these questions and that a worldview without theistic God as their source requires a suspension of rational thought. But no our opponents will do nothing but claim none of these prove God's existence individually therefore none of them should be considered for a macro view. The denial of God's existence being both the obvious and logically justified conclusion would be like an individual member of a jury arguing that when determining guilt or innocence each piece of evidence must only be considered individually not collectively. In addition to thousands of pieces of circumstantial evidence which should be completely ignored and no way used to support the core pieces of evidence presented then to itemally insist that nothing presented was evidence at all because in their opinion unless each piece of evidence could stand alone as 100% proof it should be 100% removed from discussion. Now in closing as you contemplate what we discussed tonight and what you've experienced throughout your life and as you progress towards a conclusion regarding your own existence you must analyze all these pieces of evidence and ask yourself is it more reasonable to conclude that a God must exist in order for you to exist or that you came into existence through random chance? From there if you conclude that there is no tremendous leap of faith required to believe in a God you must only rationally consider the evidence presented and determine which God is true not if there isn't one to choose from. But my final point is that ultimately the creator does not need my defense for his existence is obvious and I am humbled beyond the expression for the capacity of understanding granted to myself to all of us because if not for the mind given to me the same gift that all of you possess you just have to choose to use it I can never have hope to even gain a modicum of comprehension about my very existence nor even known to search for it. I yield. Thank you so much. Stratilities you can go ahead. Sure I have a little bit of a different act. Fundamentally the key question with theism is you can take three positions you can take the theist position which is to affirm that there is a God that there is an ultimate transcendent to divine reality that grounds all of existence you can affirm atheism which is that there is no such ultimate reality or you can withhold judgment which is the agnostic position of the agnostic position there are two two variations one is personal agnosticism that you personally are not making a judgment because you don't know which way to go or or something like that and that that's an honorable position I was a very serious agnostic of this sort for a multitude of years when I was a very very skeptic the other one is the claim or assertion that the truth of whether there is God or not cannot be known this is not a personal position and it's a philosophical one and thus requires a philosophical defense just as atheism and theism do fundamentally the acceptance or rejection of theism depends on two fundamental things one what type of reality you think that we live in and two what axioms you live your life by even if there even if there is not sufficient evidence to make a decision of whether or not there is God everyone has to eventually in their life determine what type of world system or metaphysical system they're going to live in accord with are you going to act as though the world is ordered towards goodness are you going to act as though it is chaos and your decisions are the final arbiter of what is good and able and depending on the view you take the world you will be a functional atheist or a functional theist even if you don't have an argument for what your position is thank you all right thank you so much um ask yourself if you want to go next or Troy either one it's doesn't matter to me Troy do you have anything you want to say or do you want me to go um I have a lot of things I want to say it's up to you though no go for it it's fine sure all right um first I just want to thank again on day to big for having me and us and our opponents for engaging this debate um um right so a couple arguments were made in um Maddox's introduction and I'd like to just first of all well I'll probably get some clarification on um the exact premises later I'm sure Isaac will have some questions about that and some other arguments were suggested but not made explicitly um I'll leave those aside um until and if they come up um so the first argument that was made was a sort of column style argument or sort of cosmological argument he said the universe has the beginning anything which begins to exist has an external cause and the conclusion therefore is that the universe has an external cause um I think this argument is problematic in at least three ways first um I don't think it's um uncontroversial that the universe had a beginning I'm not willing to grant that without further argument either scientific or philosophical second um I don't accept and personally but actually just deny the principle that anything which begins to exist has an external cause and so I would look for more justification for that principle and third even if all of this is granted and that I accept the conclusion that the universe has an external cause I would not accept that this cause can be reasonably identified with God right that there is a cause of the universe doesn't entail at least uh on its face that it's minded or that it's powerful or that it's um has any of the other attributes commonly attributed to God um so those are my three primary concerns with that argument as presented um second um the fine tuning argument was suggested but the premises were missing all all that was said was the constants of nature and so forth have to be in perfect alignment or near perfect alignment in order for life to exist but there was no inference from that to the existence of God provided um now of course I'm aware of how the standard inferences go and so I'll offer um some of my criticisms to the argument anyway um my main there's many issues with this argument but let's grant that the universe is fine tuned um that is to say the um combinations of of like physical parameters which are life permitting comprise a various a vanishingly small portion of all such possible combinations right I mean all else equal um there's many more ways for the units to be non-life permitting than to be life permitting and you can look at specific constants cosmological constant whatever certain um um well whatever parameters at least a half dozen or so that people typically point to um some some point to more but they might be useful um right the theist claims or the proponent of the fine-tuning argument at least claims that theism or the design hypothesis provides a better explanation for why our universe happens to be finely tuned in this way rather than not but um I don't see why this is the case um put it one way right you're going to offer an explanation of um why the universe is life permitting rather than not in terms of God's creative actions or and perhaps his intentions his desire or something like that um but if we ask well presumably a god could make any sort of universe he wants or why is it that he made a universe like this or why is it that he desired to have a universe with life um if he just chose a random then it's just a matter of chance and that's no better than a similar non theistic hypothesis if it's on the other hand if it's built into the theistic hypothesis that's god is disposed to create a universe that's life permitting um then it's either a man there could just be a matter of necessity that god would create a universe like this um well that's no better than an analogous non theistic hypothesis on which a life permitting universe is necessary and and whichever just like sort of probabilistic distribution you provide for um God's creative actions and how um likely he is to create a life permitting universe the exact same sort of hypothesis could be provided by the non theist without a god there in the first place um and so I mean if this point isn't clear we can explore it further but the idea is the theistic explanation offers no additional explanatory power in addition to any corresponding atheistic one and in other words they'll also come at an ontological cost you're also just pausing an additional entity um and so the point is well these atheism that is at least as good as theism that's affected fine-tuning with us in mind um there are of course other issues with fine-tuning but this is the one that I'm going to focus on here this is even granting that there is fine-tuning which I think we can just um then it was also mentioned that there is fine-tuning of the planet or solar system um this is another argument that was presented without the sort of additional premises needed to infer God it was just all he stated was something to the effect of the sun and the solar system has to satisfy certain criteria for life to exist on earth and that's it I didn't hear any sort of inference from that too therefore it's designed by God um now I could imagine some inferences you might make but um I don't see why this is a good argument first of all because it's not the same sort of reply that was given to fine-tuning is applicable here as well um but if you already have a universe that's life permitting right um then life will arise should it arise wherever it can arise um and so it's not surprising that we find ourselves in one of those places where life can arise is sort of uncontroversial anthropic reason I would say um and so I don't think there's anything more to address on that um what other arguments were made let me just see here what's our timer at Carissa uh you're still at 8 40 cool yeah I'll just go a couple more minutes and then if you want to go um oh I have barely anything to say I just want to see you're right yeah um let's see oh yes there was some argument or at least claim made about a worldview without God would require the suspension of rational thought um this just seems to me a basis claim I'm not going to address it unless it further arguments made maybe it's some sort of argument from reason like C.S. Lewis style I don't know if we can explore that if that's where you have in mind but I'm not going to address it or make an assumptions about your argument um some claim about how our view of the world was made about how our view of the world is between God and and random chance I don't see any reason to think this is a true dichotomy but again no argument was made there so I'm not going to go further um another statement was made this that God's existence is just obvious again not an argument not granted um and then finally uh Andrew made a point about the positions we can hold on on theism of course I agree the theist affirms that there is a God the atheist denies and the agnostic withholds judgment and sometimes you have more fine-grained versions of of these positions sometimes the agnostic things you can't know for example or some of them suggest the whole judgment um that's all fine not an argument though and but then he said well for Andrew's sake we may want to clarify which variety of agnostic we are which is the the first variety yeah yeah with whole judgment because at least by my lights I've not um become aware of a good reason to think that there is a God or that there is none um that's the basic idea um I just want to say the other thing that he said was that it's something too defective at some point um we all have to make a choice about which picture of the world is correct or or how we're going to live our life right um as a sort of functional atheist or functional these we're going to live as if God exists or as if God doesn't exist um first of all I don't I mean I could grant this it just seems irrelevant to the bait but second of all I don't see why I would grant it um I could go my entire life questioning whether it's whether God exists or not um you might say that okay if you don't go to church or pray or actively believe and got an endpoint we'll just call you a functional atheist all right whatever that doesn't seem to um there's no skin off my back I was so what you can call me a functional atheist but I'm still an agnostic and it's not an argument for the um Isaac if you wanted to yeah um well I mean you've you've hit all of the well I mean it's it's hard to hit everything from an opening statement they can be lengthy obviously but yeah I mean you've hit a lot of the major points so I think all I'll say is just a the point of process really so um yeah I mean I would I'm just curious to hear um what the argument is I understand there's a lot of arguments here so um maybe if you guys would pick like the argument that you think is because any of these obviously can become the entire debate right like some of these like the column like there's whole debates out there series of debates on a single premise of that argument right so obviously it'll be kind of a bit of a like a shit storm if we're um trying to keep all of these on the table like I assume everyone agrees with that but I think what would be best um is yeah if you just chose the argument that you think is strongest or if you think that there's a range of them that are strongest maybe just randomly select one from that range and then uh yeah just give us some you know premises and a conclusion obviously you know it doesn't have to be formal we can you know kind of work towards something formal if it's not there already or if the inference isn't clear and then we can just uh you know just explore it in good faith and see where we get great and with that we'll go ahead into open discussion so go for it well sure I'll go um I have a few uh points to make first is actually on the approach of agnosticism that uh Troy especially seems to be making he specifically continues to ask for more justification for each premise presented by Maddox he has also asked for more detailed definitions of God uh and pointed out that the conclusion even if the Kalim argument is sound isn't necessarily what God is and several points where he says I don't see why this is the case uh the the fundamental issue with this approach to skepticism as opposed to a search for defeaters or provide being defeaters for arguments is they can be raised against literally any argument um the ancient Peronian skeptics actually thought this was one of the weaker forms of skepticism and recommended being able to know arguments on either sides of the issue instead and and the the issue is by using this mechanism you're not actually necessarily coming to the truth right because a key part of human judgment is actually your will you can always will yourself to increase your skepticism and the questions of things or say that you don't understand or or or increase the level of understanding you need before you have confidence um there was also a point that that Troy gave about how basically the fine-tuning argument is in satisfactory because it's plausible that the world that provides for life or intelligent life could emerge from random processes and and I'm just going to give an analogy to show show pardon did I make a mistake well that wasn't my claim but you can finish it after well in the interest of just being reasonable like if we mischaracterize your position feel free to cut us off and we'll do the same just no point addressing because the other guy doesn't hold so I don't just give him whatever the clarification is I'm gonna interject here real quick the so Troy your entire response and the multiple assertions that we just didn't go far enough in the arguments and such you literally fulfilled what I talked about would be your response and is the standard response of agnostics any this but especially agnostics in the context of these types of conversations and it's like you even admitted you understand the expansion of the argument we've got a 15 minute opening statement and your counterpoint is oh we didn't really dive into it deep enough when while simultaneously recognizing per your own admission that you understand what the argument is so I'm not really sure how that makes any sense whatsoever in terms of a supposed counter to what was being presented it's a couple of things yeah so before before we do all that it seemed like Andrew didn't get to it seemed like he was trying to raise a point there what what and you you cut in to correct something why don't you correct just keep it on track why don't you correctly correct and then let him continue his point at some point I want to get back to that that meta point you made about skepticism which I think is very interesting but the point about fine-tuning I was not saying that it's plausible that the fact that the universe is life- permitting came as a result of just random chance I wasn't claiming that was a plausible account I was just saying that it's no worse than the analogous theistic explanation right you could say you could have this non-theistic account of how the universe came about by random chance and you could have a theistic one right God just chose to create some universe around or you could have the theistic account from which God is disposed to create the universe with life but then you could have an analogous non-theistic account that gives you the same result but so let me restate it in my own words so that I'm sure that I understand your point you you believe that there is an equal footing of plausibility between theistic and non-theistic explanations of the life- granting universe well Lisa has been presented right no no argument has been presented to think that the theistic explanation offers additional explanatory power or is more plausible for other reasons okay so okay so so it's about explanatory power is your is your primary point so what it comes down to is typically when people make the sort of fine tuning argument it's the look at probabilities right what is the likelihood that we observe the fine tuning given that the universe was designed and what is the likelihood that we'd have that same data given that it wasn't designed they'll say that the ratio of those two things is incredibly high prior on the design hypothesis not incredibly low and so when we conditionalize on the evidence we have warrant to believe in the design hypothesis and what I'm questioning is those conditional probabilities that the the expectation of fine tuning given theism and non-theism um and that just goes okay sure sure so so let me attempt again because this is very important to the point I was making uh the there there are two possibilities right well there are three possibilities right the universe came by chance by necessity or by design right yeah I part of my point is that those that's actually in a sense not really a trichotomy right design itself is itself going to be either a matter of chance or necessity as well and that was really the whole point of my response no it can be it can be it can be uh it can be by choice right right but but what that chooses itself can be a matter of necessity or a chance that God chooses to create a life for me no no it's it can be by choice yeah I just don't see that this is a genuine alternative right if we ask what are the chances let's just get to my midpoint Troy this is my turn okay you are literally rejecting one of it with no basis right and you're just rejecting it instead of answering the the argument and this is the fundamental thing that that I sure sorry I just I just I didn't I didn't mean to cut off but um just since we're clearly focusing in on the fine tuning argument can we just make sure we're on the same page about what the argument's premises and conclusion are I assume I assume we are but would you be able to just give it as premises and conclusions so we're clear on that Andrew well first of all I am not agreeing to focus on the fine tuning argument I'm more interested in the meta points of agnosticism as a system for finding truth personal sorry yeah just let me say something we're not we're not going to force you under the fine tuning then let let's just hone hey google shut up sorry let's just uh let's sorry let's just select something to hone in on though you do you want to have a conversation about I don't know what you mean by the meta points but is that what you'd like to kind of zero in on so Troy uh let's first summarize Troy's point so that's understood and then I'll I'll continue on on my point okay um but I don't think so so this is part of the problem that I'm a bit worried about here so you guys are the ones who are actually making a claim here right so we do want to be clear about what exactly the argument is and then we're happy to analyze from there so I'm just can we just get the argument with my claim agnosticism it's not an effective way to avoid error fine truth okay that's my claim but I mean I assume like you you said you have like math and CS degree so I don't I don't want to you know belabor the point if you obviously know this shit but can we get like an argument though instead of the claim just with like premises and a conclusion because the claim is the conclusion sure yeah sure so well fundamentally the the the point that I was making earlier on is the approach of agnosticism of continually asking questions and continually doubting things and rejecting a trichotomy as false without giving that the feeder can be done to anything and that is thus not a effective way for finding in truth or error because it can be used for anything now I think I think we're gonna you can try but I mean I just I think we're gonna run into a problem here because I tend to irritate people with this but it really it really is like a sticking point for me I need to understand what the inference is that you're making can we just get like premises and a conclusion sure the give me a sorry I'm not trying to be obnoxious about if you want to make some points you know what you're thinking why you're thinking about what position you want to take this ladies and gentlemen is the standard move by ask yourself he's gonna try and get to a argument he's gonna try to get something he can attempt to nitpick into nuance and suspend all plausibility in terms of his counterpoints and somehow be able to argue that nothing that is presented can possibly lead to a rational conclusion based on the ponderance of the evidence or you do this in all of your debates and it's obviously you guys are attempting to do this again in this context so that's all we're getting going to get down to whatever position is ultimately taken this is why I made the entire point of opening statement that you will try and nitpick a microcosm rather than look at the macro so as a agnostic and so one who's and two people who supposedly have considered this do you guys actually look at things from the big picture and look from it from multiple arguments or do you only hyper focus on one and unless it can by itself prove or disprove God's existence you dismiss them so quickly if you want I think that you fall into a bit of a trap by addressing it without actually getting a clarity on what the argument is I know Andrew is playing fair I just asked you a direct macro question so just to just to well we'll know right there's a problem with that framing which is if you can find there's a framing problem but I can let ask yourself finish and then you can respond yeah so just to just to be clear no the reason that the question isn't being answered is because you're making a claim right we're expecting an argument for the claim if you believe it there's nothing additional you should have I just asked you was not a claim I asked you a direct question about your position can I please clarify the straw man so I didn't say that what you just asked was a claim right questions aren't claims the claim why are you acting like a claim when I asked a clarification question the claim I'm talking about pretty simple dude can you answer can you clarify your position you're asking me to clarify all of my positions it seems it seems like you don't want to allow me to speak so to be dancing around and answer the question dude I'll answer it sorry to to be clear what I referred to as your claim is the claim that you're making by being affirmative on this debate which is the claim that God exists I didn't call the question yeah I'm sure I'm sure that you can manage to listen and deal with a critique instead of trying to over talk is this your strategy why don't we get into the arguments okay please stay quiet for 10 minutes please stop being evasive so just to be clear the point what I referred to as your claim is the claim that one makes by taking the affirmative in a debate like this which is that God exists I was not I repeat was not as your straw man suggested referring to the question that you just asked as a claim further what I said about the question was that it need not be answered because since you are making a claim presumably you have a justification for it that's independent of whether I can answer some question or not now finally I'll just wrap up by saying I think Maddox is a bit of a little bitch but this other guy Andrew seems very reasonable and fair and he seemed actually interested in providing an argument so you know Troy and I are very good faith if you want to I don't know if you've had time to think up premises and a conclusion but if you want to give us something rough and if it's not quite together yet we can help reach something formal together obviously we're happy to do that yeah we'd be interested to hear it and same goes to you Maddox if you actually want to make an argument since I just got called a bitch I'm going to respond to that so again are you going to answer my question no the clarification question which I asked no so you're going to refuse to answer questions for clarification what insist that's correct I answer all of your questions I'll answer your question no that's not that's not what I said I mean that's kind of the position that you're you're you're taking no in terms of actual outcome you're very difficult to talk to you that's not I literally kept my mouth shut for 10 minutes I'll let you guys go back and forth and get to nothing that is not what I said what I'd like is just an argument for the position right and Troy I know you want to say something but it's okay don't you think don't you think that it's worth getting because the thing is if you reply before they give an argument right it's going to turn into a cascade they'll have something to say to that well and it's never going to get clear why don't we just like is it really that hard why don't we just clarify what the argument is and then talk about the argument well I took it that he had a sort of sort of meta question about your approaches and what might convince us right the question was something like do you require from us an argument which by itself conclusively shows that God exists or would you be okay with I don't know maybe a cumulative case that together is sufficient to show that God exists and if that's the question that you meant if the answer is of course yes I'm good but the cumulative case I don't require that you know fine-tuning be enough to show that God exists in order to accept it as a good argument and might move maybe some evidence which with other arguments are sufficient to one belief in God but I'm objecting to that here okay was that the question that you had asked is that fair or did I misunderstand I'm literally falling asleep with these responses let's continue some real good tracking there buddy Andrew why don't you guys all you guys do is dance around I don't actually answer any questions or allow this thing to progress we're trying to have a good faith conversation so it takes an hour for you guys to come right okay so you're the guy that's dropping insults I'm the asshole okay I got it makes sense sorry Andrew why don't you proceed not until you apologize for Maddox I will not apologize to Maddox if that's the end of the debate that's okay but I would be interested to hear what the argument is um really I don't feel like my time is worth dealing with someone who is so disrespectful um okay so is there anyone who wants to make an argument for the position or are we just calling it there I'm good I'm happy to talk about some of the approaches that I've seen you've used would you like to hear about that not even remotely I'd like an argument and I took it I took it that it sounded like you were playing fair at the start but now it sounds like we're gonna deal with some bullshit right like if you have an argument we'd love to hear it there are a few things I wanted to address but especially about the agnosis isn't thing but um we can talk about that if you're down and you know what Andrew let's let's let's let's make a formal argument okay so um is it reasonable to conclude that arbitrary data value assignment for a prescriptive information data set can come into existence without the prior action of an intelligent agent that is a question that's not an argument another failure by Maddox I can ask a question I can ask a question and you have an argument we're happy if you have an argument we're happy to hear the argument so you can actually answer questions if you think that your position is justified it is so independent of my answer to some random question right what's the just so you refuse to answer questions wait wait wait wait that's absolutely we're expecting a very interesting point uh asked you said that it's going to stand regardless of the questions you ask right but when you are able to ask questions it seems as though you lack confidence in it and the thing is you don't have a position of philosophical agnosticism but personal agnosticism so if we're going to be compelling or convincing to you we're going to have to know what axioms you already hold no that's just a what I want to look I mean I've been I've been clear let's let's just see if we can get on the same page or not can we get an argument from you guys or can we not get an argument from you guys that's all I want to know it sounded like Maddox wanted to give an argument a second ago but then he failed and asked a question Andrew I take an argument if you give an argument I'll give an argument what an argument why do you expect me to give an argument for agnosticism because you want me an argument right and yeah because you're making a claim obviously we're not making a claim if we're sitting here not holding a belief right a belief's a propositional attitude the proposition sorry the proposition god exists is not something that we're saying we believe or believe to be false right you believe it to be true so we're looking for the argument for that proposition okay what are you going to give me an exchange for the argument I don't I don't know why you'd even ask something like that do you have an argument or not yeah why is this why is this so difficult I mean I don't I don't understand can we just hear the argument can we just hear the argument not unless you give something an exchange okay well I'm not planning on giving you anything so if you don't want to make an argument for the position when you're making a claim I think I would just leave it there Troy I really have heard you not to humor this I really think that we ought not humor this and ought insist on an actual argument and then I was just standard agnostic idiots who don't sorry can we get the ability to make actual dialogue they want to they want to dive into finish what he's saying here and then we'll go back to you for a while but all right all this is ladies and gentlemen I'm not talking to you ask yourself I'm going to the audience so again audience we have exactly what I predicted in my opening statement which is two uh slow boys who have the inability to actually reach a conclusion for themselves they do not have the co jones to actually have back and forth dialogue they want to look at something they can potentially nitpick and say oh doesn't equal p therefore I can come up with some outlier hypothetical that completely debunks your point without looking at whether or not from they're just asking for more information and acting as though that this is a reason not to believe the claim um let's can can we please just be clear so will will you present an argument or not that's all I want to know depends on your behavior fundamental okay uh all right can we get an answer to the question how old are you why why would anyone see this is just such a waste of time we came here we came here for a serious discussion we came here hoping to actually work is it that much really we'd like to hear an argument and then have a conversation and didn't have any real understanding of the real world uh it's just infuriating you're just sitting there not arguing I mean look you're just sitting there not arguing what is the argument so I think we're kind of it seems to me like we're kind of at an impasse where yeah of course we're at a fucking impasse because we're sitting here trying to have a good faith conversation and we can't get a fucking argument out of these guys to do any analysis on of course we're at a fucking impasse we want to have how many formally structured arguments we want to have a proper how many formal arguments completely structured you claim zero arguments represented how many did I name I named seven I named seven formally recognized arguments okay okay which one do you want to go after what okay great thank you I formed I mentioned seven so pick one let's go hello hello great now if you want to select whichever you think you select you select boy as I said earlier as I said earlier as I select there's seven to choose from go just pop in really fast Maddox would you would you be able to just reiterate any one of your arguments so that wait no no no no but there's a problem when you say any one right what we want is give us the strongest one as I said earlier give us I said pick one or or if no you wanted arguments I'm now forcing you to pick or or if multiple arguments are equally strong in your view then just select it here we go ladies gentlemen nitpick nitpick nitpick he doesn't actually have the balls to actually attack any individual one of them he wanted to actually pick one I'm literally giving you opportunity to pick one no I don't the whole reason I don't want to pick one is because because you don't have the balls actually make any decision is the important I'm making about an agnostic the one that is the strongest in your mind acting like you have some sort of high ground you're a coward that you think is the strongest or if a few of them are tied for strongest then select it random between those we want the strongest one that's why we're asking you to pick the one that you think is strongest instead of picking for you it is not complicated now which do you think is the strongest or if some of them are tied for strongest just select it random between those yeah I'm happy to select one or do you have one in mind well let's just let's let's just make sure does he wait does he think that they are equally strong because we want the strongest case right we want the strongest case we don't want it later to be oh well I wasn't giving my main argument right which is which is the strongest or if some of them are tied select one from the subset of arguments that are tied for strongest my personal one is life uh Andrew which one do you like to go uh what do you mean by strongest do you mean the one most compelling to me or more one that I think is most compelling to you I think I would mean most compelling to you just the one that you think is yeah oh yes I would talk about you sorry sorry direct he's breaking up I think I think you're saying direct apprehension some apprehension or something direct apprehension that is the most powerful ground I analytic in its clarity to me okay so do we want to go with I didn't hear which no we heard you direct apprehension of god although it's not clear if that's an argument but now if um do we want to go with uh what I forget what Maddox said but with the argument he put forward or do we want to go with when Andrew put forward I mean we're we're happy again and sorry if it got heated I just can't stand the dodging but if we're gonna have stop here we go again here we go again here we go we're trying to have a proper conversation idiot yeah here we go dude here we go man little man hello let's let's just get clear are you 21 are you almost we almost got there you brain dead fucking moron we're gonna discuss and now you're fucking it all up okay so do we want to go with okay whatever it was that Maddox I'm not there's not an argument that's a question do we want to go with the argument sorry do we want to go with the argument that Maddox had mentioned or do we want to go with the one Andrew had mentioned we would love to zero in and have a proper conversation about an argument I mean it's up to you guys which would you like to go with Andrew I'm I think I'm done with this man it's bitching out there's no other way so it's not a clock yeah run away run away we could go to questions run away Maddox we can have any I would I would I would vastly prefer if if we could have a proper conversation about an argument right this is just if you go to questions it's just them kind of you know they never had to defend anything to actually have dialogue at all you're just rambling about me no you don't have to have dialogue as I predicted and by the way I predicted this before okay do we want to go with Maddox argument oh I'm gonna look at this nuanced little thing we're trying to get to the stage of actually talking about an argument why you know why do you even have you don't even have to win the talk over battle with me you're in another dimension buddy existence what we want is just clarity if we're talking about your argument or Andrew's and then let's get right into it so do we want to go with your argument or do we want to go with Andrew's argument you guys choose it's your it's your presenting the argument no you're the ones that are maybe maybe Andrew will do it Andrew would you would you rather we select in on Maddox's point or you want to talk about your point do you have any preference my preference my preference is for everyone to as best as they're able to control their passions and not swear at each other so another non-answer it's just it's infuriating to deal with this look I haven't done we want to talk I'm very curious do you want to talk about Maddox argument or do we want to talk about Andrew's argument go ahead and talk about my okay so yeah sure just give us promises and a conclusion for the direct apprehension argument very well direct apprehension is the ground the the best argument that I know of is the argument from contingency which in very short form is there exists at least one contingent object if there exists one contingent object there is God therefore there is God that is the very short form of the contingency argument now I know Troy has been waiting to get in here but I very much wanted to just get a clear argument so we're talking about the contingency argument I'll let you take off Troy give me one second okay I guess I'll take the opportunity to get some water then the biggest waste of time all right my apologies um yeah there's a few things um we could discuss at this point I kind of did want to go back to the meta point about the agnostic approach and how Andrew said please don't tell me you're gonna undo all of the progress that took me like 20 minutes to make there well finally got a clear argument all right if you want to go for the that approach I'm sure we can do that I'm fine I wanted to address the claim that was just laughable about agnosticism um that is in some sense just like some sort of skepticism or something preronian skepticism or otherwise um that's not what is right the agnostic need not be a skeptic either in the academic sense or the sort of methodological sense um they just sure you can withhold judgment irrationally that's true well it's your claim that the withholding of judgment is irrational but that's on you to demonstrate there are circumstances where it is ration well you know I mean obviously I mean in this case right you my withholding oh no as I said in my opening and remark it can be an honorable position and it's one that I held for many years of course but you're saying that um for me to hold it now is irrational no I have no idea of your epistemic state so I can't make that right okay well then I don't see what issue you have with agnosticism as a position itself um then we can oh I don't I don't have an issue with it as a position I fear that it's misused as a canard by people who want to reject the is a more religion um who are not earnestly agnostic oh well then I'm I hope that you accept that I am earnestly agnostic and that we can just honestly debate the arguments and so we can proceed from there no I'm happy to assume that all right good so um where were we going where we did you want to discuss your direct apprehension argument or did we want to go back to the column he clarified he clarified that he doesn't take direct apprehension to be an argument and he thinks the correct me if I'm wrong Andrew but he thinks the strongest argument is the contingency argument right correct that's one that I find the most clear okay um do you want to state it explicitly sure there exists at least one contingent object if there is at least one contingent object there is god therefore there is god um so contingent here are you using in the sense of dependence or in the sense that it might have not existed like logically speaking um that its existence is not part of its own essence oh okay I I don't um well I don't okay well that's a whole of a kind of worms I don't um accept that whole metaphysics but before getting into that I want to ask why we would grant that the existence of something that is contingent or that doesn't exist necessarily um entails that there is something that exists necessarily is it sort of a lie but sure sure something more optimistic sure so let's go ahead and look at the two possibilities right or the the possibilities uh one is that there are no uh uh there are no um necessary existence right so the the issue there and well what will go the the the way that I look look at it right the whole of all objects itself uh must be either necessary or contingent right so the the key thing there is if that itself is necessary that would imply that each one of the components are necessary and we already said that the component we're looking at it is contingent so we have a contradiction so the whole of exists the whole of all the existing things can't all be uh necessary in itself similarly if we look at it and say that it's all contingent that implies that there must be something outside of the existence of all those objects which itself is necessary so uh basically if we go down both horns we either end up with a contradiction or a pointer to the to an ultimate reality that is beyond the the contingent objects that we know okay a few points this is basically just like when it's in cosmological argument right you have this big conjunction big conjunction of contingent facts right or at least you see off yeah right um I don't even want to get on to the set theoretic objections and it's not gonna stop that um well I love set theory so that would be great yeah well there's some objections that the number of contingent facts is in a sense too large to be in a set but I don't we can just grant that there is a set or that it can be represented in some other way it's not important um my main two criticisms of this argument are sorry I'm not gonna right um my my two main issues are one this uh assumes a principal sufficient reason that I do not accept or at least I'm not I'm not convinced oh okay and second um they've been granting it well wait just let them get his other point point across first and second I could grant the whole argument is without some of the other arguments um that there is some necessary fact or some necessary entity that this fact is about um and it doesn't seem to me that we get too seasoned um and so uh more work would have to be shown done to show that this necessary thing or this necessary fact involves or entails the existence of a God so the pushback to be clear just make sure I'm tracking you well you're pushing back and saying you're not convinced of the PSR and additionally it's not clear that even if the argument from contingency goes through we actually reach the proposition that God exists right right sure um so my response to that is if you reject the PSR then you can't cabin uh actual brute facts and so searching for an explanation for any state of affairs is in some sense a fool's errand because for every state of affairs including there is a God it might be the case that there just isn't any explanation for it um and at that point it makes it a little confusing why you think that looking for valid arguments is going to prove something because you are asserting that it is possible for the state of affairs to have no explanation yeah so two things um I don't think so that I could think that the PSR is false just because I think that there's one unexplained contingent fact um that doesn't mean uh or entail that I think that any matter that I look into scientifically philosophically whatever um is likely to have no explanation um that's not at all entail um for example sure sure but but the issue is is you can't cabin that one fact right there's no criterion that you're able to use to determine what does and does not have a possible explanation it might be the fact that you think that everything has an explanation except this one but that that actual belief itself doesn't have an explanation for example it could very well um alter your own epistemology because you are claiming that this is logically possible so uh can I just ask question here uh just what do you mean by uh cabin what's that term mean uh it means to constrain it constrain it to one domain basically constrain it what what would it mean to constrain a fact to one domain sorry I just don't understand what's being said there sure so the principle of sufficient reason says that everything has an explanation right if you reject the principle of sufficient uh reason and you're saying that not everything has an explanation but there is no mechanism for you to determine what doesn't does not have that an explanation and so any state of affairs can have no explanation that's what it means to not be cabined that that that that lack of explanation is not isolated to one factor or one domain of facts so does does cabining there refer to like kind of like special pleading for which facts have explanations like is that kind of what you're getting at these have explanations and I'm not giving any account of why uh sorry repeat that in different words I didn't track it also just ask Troy before I do that for you are you following the language of cabining I don't know if that's standard language I've never yeah so there's this there's a standard response from like a proofs and others you know and defense of the psr that um you can't you can't have a sort of restricted psr because um well for a variety of reasons but it you can't have cabining refers then to just saying the psr right that applies to a subset of the set of facts is a certain domain of facts or would that be fair Andrew I just want I want to make sure I know what the words in your argument yes yes it refers to saying the psr applies to a proper subset of facts correct okay sorry now I got you please please continue right so um one concern there that I could grant but doesn't seem to be particularly problematic is that there's an epistemological issue right um it would be difficult to show that um the psr is true only for this domain um but that's an epistemological fact it could be true all the same that is it is applicable in that domain and um so what I mean that doesn't seem to be so well but that that's our fundamental action here right that we're trying to have a discussion to determine whether or not there's an argument for God that's plausible right and if you're in order to defeat the argument claiming that some things don't have explanations then you are in some sense giving up the game and saying that well you're not able to give an argument for God but it could be that I should believe in God with no explanation and that that that's actually a requirement and so that's the issue that you're going to run into if you reject the psr the issue that sorry could you repeat that that it may be right to accept that God exists with no requirement and no yeah yeah because basically what you're looking at it it sort of implicitly is uh and and maybe i'm wrong in this is that if you find an argument that is sufficiently compelling you will believe in God right let's take that to be a tautologist yeah but by rejecting the psr you're stating that it could be the case that you should believe in God even if there is no argument I'm not granting I mean if if the could there is functioning as a sort of epistemic right um I'm well I guess I would grant that in the most extreme skeptical sense right um but I mean um for practical purposes I'm not right I think that if I am to rationally believe in God it is on the basis of reasons and evidence right but you're also rejecting the psr which is skeptical of its truth that's the point okay but but skepticism can be willful I mean the uh you can be skeptical of the the law of non-contradiction you can be skeptical of your own ability to know truth so that that say a universal defeater it's a verbal sword so if you're using that to defeat the argument for God then then you should have a to be consistent at least you should have a similar amount of skepticism to your own senses or your own ability to use logic yeah I don't see why that follows right that I'm skeptical of this claim this principle doesn't seem to me require that to be skeptical of those other things um well no but you're not required to be rational either okay so yeah well but then when you're giving up the game right because you claimed earlier on that you wanted to believe in God based on rational tendencies and if you're like well I don't have to be I don't have to accept these other things and I agree you don't have to but to do so you have to do it in an inconsistent and irrational manner right so I if you're claiming that my rejection or at least skepticism of the the psr is itself irrational or inappropriate or inconsistent with my other beliefs then feel free to show how that's the case sure okay uh yeah so you reject the psr but you believe that the only rational way to believe in God or the rational way to believe in God is through arguments right sure okay so if the psr is true that means that some things are true without explanation right if the psr is false then some yes if that's the case what if God does the psr is false God exists and there is no argument for God then I wouldn't be able to rationally believe in God but uh but that that means that rationality doesn't find truth well it means that um there are certain things outside of our epistemic grasp sure so in that case why are you looking for arguments well because people claim that it's in it is within our epistemic grasp that's why we're listening to you right those people don't reject the psr but it doesn't make a difference if they do unless they think that the psr being false entails that they can't or at least don't have that there isn't any argument well if the psr exists if God if the psr is false then that is on the table that is a live option right but presumably we're not none of us are taking it to be likely I think that if God exists um probably at least in principle we could have arguments for God people claim that there are arguments and I'm willing to consider them but that would mean that you're not if it turns no and if it turns out that there aren't or can't be any good arguments for God which by the way could be true even if the psr is true um then you just we can't rationally believe that God exists I don't see what relevance does to the discussion or to the psr but that that that's very interesting definition of rationality right because that means that we can't rationally believe in logical axioms either because there are no arguments for them so right they're accepted a priority so so it's interesting to me that you're defining rationality as such a narrow ability to basically find things through argument right and if you're truly an agnostic searching for God perhaps it's the wrong tool I'm not using agnosticism as a tool but if you're talking about rationality as a tool I'm talking about rationality just in broad strokes I'm just talking about um you know coming to conclusions on the basis of reasons right um well in broad terms right but that's not exactly what you're talking about right because you reject the psr I'm at least skeptical of the psr but I don't see why that's inconsistent with that approach so uh well we'll use an example how how how do you believe in the logical axioms right well the tools I use in logic and do they find truth do they find truth they're useful tools for deriving truth conclusions yeah okay so um then the question is uh so the the key question is are you using a broad enough approach to find out about God by only using that tool set what what tools I don't I'm not I'm confused um rationality to conclusions right your question is something is this what you're getting at like oh I'm only taking a limited number of things granted right in my whatever foundations whatever and maybe those things I'm taking for granted aren't enough to get to God right by argument sure or or or even the things are taken for granted might be false right and if they're false then it won't be reaching true conclusions right that's fine um as far as it goes so so so well here how's it fine because then you can't actually validly criticize our proofs because your tool set isn't sufficient for finding errors so two things first um if my sort of most basic beliefs right or foundational beliefs I'm not a foundation but doesn't my most basic beliefs foundation beliefs are false um then in some sense this debate may not be possible right we can't you may not be able to convince me of the false set of those because I don't those are just my precisely right precisely that that that isn't just a general issue with um debates between people with fundamentally different views um and I think there's a lot to discuss there I think that's part of what you're getting at about the early point about skepticism um but I'm not convinced that that's a serious issue here right when we're discussing like the column the modal ontological the moral argument whatever else the you know um the genetic code and its magic uh notions of information whatever else you want to talk about I don't think it seems that we have enough common ground that we can reasonably debate the premises I could be convinced of things being true or false um it doesn't seem right differences and most foundational beliefs is going to restrict progress in that regard but it actually does because we came to the psr that that I used in my argument which you were skeptical of or weren't willing to hold as true in this context and that that if not a foundational belief it's like a pivot belief that that affects a lot of your other epistemic network I'm not sure that it does right again I gave an example it could be my view that there's one well it does because it allows you to uh by being skeptical of it allows you to be skeptical of uh my argument from contingency well since I affirm it I necessarily have to uh uh accept the the conclusions of it that's that that's I'm only skeptical of the of the argument because I'm skeptical of the premise it's not as though like I'm because I'm skeptical of the psr I'm also just skeptical are you sure about that something more foundational about the argument are you sure about that right because as far as I know well the the way that belief networks work and it's really fascinating part of human psychology is that we're always able to sacrifice a less important belief to maintain a more important and and this comes from our ability to adapt and learn but if you have too much importance on say being skeptical of the psr then it might lead you to make the wrong sorts of decisions of what you're skeptical well I'm I'm not I don't play particularly high importance on being skeptical of psr I mean I'm just not convinced sure and there's certain problems right but there's there's almost certainly other beliefs that you're very uh have strong importance on which allow the psr to flip or be more or less skeptical depending on the circumstance um I don't know this is going to be a irrelevant psychological fact um maybe but but it's entirely relevant because you and ask are personal agnostics right and so the psychology of belief is foundational to the the entire strategy that you and I should take this discussion I'm not contesting the um what we believe is going to be relevant to the discussion and how we believe things whatever um it just seems to be a not central though right I mean oh it's haven't we kind of gone off the rails though because I thought the idea was we get the contingency argument and then the pushback was twofold that he's not convinced of the psr and even if the argument goes through the conclusion isn't that god exists but why are we not talking now about what the argument is to accept the psr why why are we not there should like I mean but let me ask Troy for a second Troy do you not also think that's where we should be or is there something that I'm missing here well I think he's been trying to give something in that direction um but then we've gone off the rails into something more about our psychology of belief which yeah like is is there like an argument for accepting the psr well I think it seems something that I like denying it or at least being even being skeptical of it maybe undermines the whole project or knowledge or something else like that yes I mean fundamentally this is the issue right is that if you're becoming skeptical of the psr and don't insert it important it's a good indicator to me that something is changing in your belief network to protect some stronger beliefs wait but that seems like some psychology thing like what's what's the actual reason to accept the psr it's true you worry but that's just repeating right we're looking for the reason that would accept that proposition that it's true sure the reason that you would accept it as true is that you have the correct combination of the discursive reason and ability to perceive truth that you would accept it right and so this is the fundamental question is what do I need to do to change your belief network so that it's functioning properly and that's that's more psychology though the reason we have to accept it is that there are reasons that we can have to accept I get just repeating the claim that there are reasons to accept yeah well I think I think because I've been sitting here kind of quietly listening for a while and it just I kind of was wasn't sure it was even tracking for a while they would be totally honest but I'm just I'm just trying to assess where we're at right and it just looks like it looks like you give the contingency argument Troy pushes back on the psr and another point we'll forget that for a second and then there doesn't appear to be an argument for the psr like could we just request premises and a conclusion again where the conclusion is the psr is true well but that's what the entire cabineting thing was about right is that if you are skeptical of the psr then looking for arguments to accept things is much narrower in its ability to find truth and in that case why are we even can I try it so would it be like a modus would it be like modus tollens basically like if you reject the psr then our ability to find truth is narrowed whatever exactly that means it's not the case that our ability to find truth is narrowed there for the psr is true is that the argument fundamentally yes okay sorry I mean I well I don't I don't see much point in rehashing I already I think provided a good response to the the consequence of denying the psr at least being skeptical of psr I don't think it involves a substantial narrowing in our ability to find truth right I could think that the psr is false just because there's a so contingent factor explained and it's it's worth considering it's it's also worth considering what exactly I as I said when I tried to state the argument it's a bit ambiguous what narrowing of our ability to find truth means like is that just supposed to mean there be this sorry just just to be clear does that just mean like of the set of propositions the amount whose truth value it's logically possible to find out is reduced is that what it means for there to be a narrowing of what truth we can find specifically I'm referring to the ability of argument and a discursive reason to find truth so sorry I just to be clear though if if you say our ability to find truth is narrowed if we if there's a big set of propositions out there is the idea the amount whose truth value where it's logically possible to discover is reduced is that what it means for there to be a narrowing of our ability to find truth yes through discursive reasoning yes well well sorry that's that's weird I don't really know exactly what that is so if the psr reasoning is the type of reasoning that you do from axioms or premises to conclusions through logic okay so the the argument what it's really saying is if the psr is false then the set of propositions whose truth value we can discover through inference is reduced it's not the case that the set of propositions whose truth value we can discover through inference is reduced therefore the psr is true is that fair yes that that that that seems fair to me and what are what are you offering in response to that Troy I'm like I'm not tracking exactly what you're saying to him so um well first I guess along with you would still be looking for a little bit more clarity on what it's meant by what you said our ability to find truth is limited um I think because I'm familiar with some of the other stuff right like yeah it seems like he's saying yeah it's just there's a set of propositions out there and the amount whose truth value we can like get correct I guess through inference is reduced it's smaller than it would be in a possible world where the psr is true like I think that's the idea so I mean I guess I'll repeat it for the third time um this isn't I don't see why we would accept this right like look I could hold that the psr is false or at least I think that it might not be true because there's one or just some small number of um contingent fact or facts that have no explanation maybe I think that the universe itself has some brute contingent right um but I might think that everything else right all the other facts that we explore or try to find explanations to are not uh brute that they do have explanations why does this I mean sure this is a slight narrowing in the things that we could know I mean there's there's no nothing to know about why the universe exists for example but it's not going to undermine much um it's like everything else is sure sure available to be explained that and also isn't there an assumption here that um the the things are knowable given that we're able to make inferences right couldn't it be the case that regardless of whether we're able to make inferences are not the same quantity of things would be knowable I mean I want to throw it off though we can I don't want to go down that road yeah I just want to jump in real fast I'm really sorry I just want to be respectful of everyone's time um and it is getting to be a little bit late we still have to go through questions so if we do want to go ahead and wrap up this point and then we can go on to questions is if everyone's all right with that sure like we're getting into this yeah I'll just make one quick point um Andrew you asked for a reason to be skeptical of the PSR um well beyond just you know standard reasons to be skeptical of anything right now being coming to the truth I think one reason to be at least dubious of it is is is the consequence of modal collapse right I don't think um at least certain versions of the PSR where explanations have to be entailing um entail modal collapse right everything in terms of every fact turns out to be a necessary fact there's no continue that's at all and um that's a consequence yeah I don't I don't find that compelling it's implausible right well when you say you don't find it compelling do you think is because modal collapse isn't concerning or that you think it doesn't entail modal collapse um I don't think that frankly modal collapse is coherent wait but that wasn't a direct answer though are you a necessitarian or do you think that there's a way to accept the PSR without ending up at necessitarianism um fundamentally I think that necessitarianism is uh a semantic issue rather than an ontological one sorry I don't mean to be rude but like do do you are you a necessitarian or do you think there's a way to accept the PSR without getting committed to necessitarianism it depends on what you mean by necessitarianism fundamentally um then everything is true every true fact is necessarily true I'd assume you'd give the same framing there Troy correct I mean we may want to qualify what are we talking about logical necessity or some metaphysics or something else but that's yeah the modality right right yeah and that's the fundamental thing right is I end up uh dividing up the modalities differently than than modern metaphysicians do you well that's that's fine though Andrew like if you're a necessitarian then you know say so and specify the modality you're talking about metaphysical possibility talking about logical pot sorry let me give an easy example without I mean do you think it's um that you could have not um entered this debate I definitely could not have well from what perspective well and wait wait you said wait but earlier he said with fine tuning he invoked will having an impact on the outcome right is that not could you could people will other now we don't want to get into a big free will thing but do you do you take it oh you don't like that Troy I mean it seems it seems like if you're invoking that you're suggesting that things uh no I I made that noise because I was reminded of that point earlier about um when I said that design is not a genuine alternative to chance and necessity and that was never really resolved we can come back to that because I don't want to go to off the rails on to free will just seem like an example that would be against necessitarianism because if you can will otherwise then sorry uh since we're running low on time please pick one last question you want me to answer well so I'd ask the same sorry Troy I'd ask the same question I asked a few times there which is are you a necessitarian so do you so here's here's it's kind of like a little series of questions like firstly are you a necessitarian or do you think that there's a way to accept the PSR without ending up at necessitarianism and you know if so specify what kind of because presumably there's ways you can do that if you weaken the PSR enough right specify what kind of PSR you're using then we have to see if it still works with your contingency argument but then on the other hand if you are a necessitarian specify what modality you're referring to you're talking about logical possibility and metaphysical possibility whatever so are you a necessitarian or not and then there's a follow-up on either pathway if you are a necessitarian then what kind what modality are you using if you're not then how do you get from how do you accept the PSR without ending up at necessitarianism well this is probably not going to be satisfactory to anyone in this right now but fundamentally I'm an epistemological necessitarian that certain facts become necessarily true in the in the contingent reality depending basically on your perspective right so a necessarily true fact to an infinite observer might not be the same for a individual observer right who is finite I don't know if that made sense what just what is it whether some fact is necessary or not is at least in part a matter of perspective but it's also not clear I still am not clear if he is affirming necessity like are all facts necessarily well it sounds like he's it sounds like he's what does this have to do with the conversation of theism of the debate what it what it has to do is that yeah I can walk you through it what it has to do is the argument was a contingency argument contingency arguments assume the PSR PSR is often going to entail necessitarianism unless you weaken the PSR so Andrews either got to be committed to necessitarianism or if he's not then we have to understand what PSR he's actually using to avoid that commitment and whether that PSR when considered in the context of his contingency argument can still get him to his conclusion I assume you'd agree with all that Troy yeah yeah all right well if you if ask yourself in Troy if you guys want to kind of wrap this up we can go into the question and answer since the Christians did start off you guys can end end it and then we can get to questions if that's good with everyone well we are particularly closings or you want to do we're doing questions first well she wants closings first sorry I didn't mean to cut you off men are speaking for women again this is it just seemed to keep oppressing Chris that's really bad I called her I called her Hunter's wife when I first met her sorry um yeah okay so um look if in terms of closing we're very friendly agnostics as much as we as much as I may yell so you guys can have I don't care if you want the last word frankly but I would just give basically what I just said so it took it took a little while to kind of come around get a clear picture I was not in all honesty following some of the back and forth between Andrew and Troy but I think I have a picture of where it's at so from my perspective this is what it looks like okay it looks like we ask the theist what's the strongest argument you have um for God's existence the response we got at least from Andrew I don't want to commit Maddox to his view but from Andrew we seem to get the response that it's a contingency argument so contingency arguments assume PSR so we ask do you accept necessitarianism because strong PSRs lead you to necessitarianism right so if he accepts necessitarianism then there's kind of a further question of like what do you mean by necessitarianism what modality are you using are you saying that all propositions have the truth value they have you know that's logically necessary that they do are you saying it's metaphysically necessary and then that'll open up a whole can of worms about whether metaphysical necessity makes any sense and then um on the other hand if he thinks that he can accept the PSR without getting to necessitarianism then there's the question of all right well what um what kind of construal of the PSR are you using and since obviously it's going to be a weakened PSR if it's not getting you to necessitarianism well then is that PSR when considered in the context of his contingency argument still going to actually get him to the conclusion that he wants to get to so that that's what I'd say I don't know if you want to add some shit in there Troy right uh that's all good um I think there were some other concerns about the PSR that I think um not explored fully but I think I gave some reasonable responses to and of course well turned this this argument ended up dominating quite a bit of the discussion but let's not forget that there were arguments presented in the beginning that um I responded to as well which themselves were not explored at significant length but the column as well uh the column fine-tuning um I presented some of my concerns to um some other arguments were mentioned but not um elaborated fully um the fine-tuning of the solar system the ontological argument uh moral argument um the argument from light for a genetic code um other stuff to that effect um those weren't really made in any detail so we didn't end up discussing those but um and there were some meta points brought up in discussion as well some um about agnosticism itself a point of skepticism point about um just general epistemological approaches um that again important topics that we didn't have the time to discover uh discuss at much depth and a little bit off track a bit too meta for the discussion in my opinion but um we didn't have time to get into a lot of that and finally um yeah I'll just say just and some I don't I think my response is to the arguments that were made were appropriate and fair and that um a strong case for theism was not made I think that's a fair assessment of uh the discussion but the discussion isn't complete and much was left unexplored but all right well yeah we are gonna have to get to um questions here um don't these guys get a closing though yeah to normally it's just like a a point so um you know what Troy if you want to go ahead and say something go for it I know that I feel really bad I know Maddox has to be out by 11 um so Maddox or uh Troy I was saying we have to wrap up this portion of it but gotcha gotcha Troy um Maddox if you if you want to say something typically we'll have the um the people who started um I guess the people who did not start first and so um well they just did closing statements right I know so typically it's not even if we don't even do closing statements we just like wrap up on the point so you know what um Troy um Maddox if you have anything do you mean Andrew you keep saying Troy do you mean Andrew yes I'm sorry Andrew correct again here I have I have one sentence for everyone listening and who participated may that which grounds your existence do the very best for you my thank you all right Maddox do you have anything I don't think I'd take from this is uh and everybody's talking about it's and chatting me keep my mouth shut it's because the um my opponents have been talking about how we didn't present any arguments but that is not what we said I'm talking I'm talking and that was too blatant a straw man to allow well you can let me finish this is like a clarify position but we did not say that we talked about an argument for the last hour but sorry whatever go ahead so ask yourself do you have the capacity to actually keep your mouth shut when other people talk go for it Maddox thanks buddy I appreciate that so the point I was making why I've kept my mouth shut for the last 20 minutes was and Troy actually made this point about how we didn't get into arguments and the point I was going with all that is the position was also taken that they weren't expanded upon even though in theory people with at least on the surface level the depth of philosophical knowledge that you all have know what the roots of all those arguments are and they're already well established so then to want to go into this never ending uh rabbit hole of figuring out exactly which uh position is taken on all these sub points uh how do you actually expect to have real substantive dialogue in the overall question of whether theism is reasonable whether there is evidence for it if you won't even actually get into presentation of the evidence in that supports the top level arguments logical arguments that are already well established and that's the entire point that I was trying to make earlier when I kept getting interrupted by ask yourself specifically when you're refused to answer a question about for a clarification question in relation to evidence but then we're told that we don't present any evidence when the agnostics refused to actually even want to listen to the evidence so anyway that's all I have to say um congratulations guys on embodying what I predicted would happen and uh I'm gonna have an after show if anyone wants to come we can actually have some real conversation rather than a bunch of myopic crap interruptions from uh not you Troy you're actually pretty good ask yourself uh immature little boys uh you know getting into discussing the uh the details of the argument I get last word bro I get last word ready all right yeah let's go for it all right first question is actually for Maddox they say um I'd love to know Maddox's view of Alden's argument from necessary number let's talk about an after show all right um next question is from Nia Noir they say Judaism and Christianity was Christianity created out of the Jewish religion um I'll give a very controversial take which is that both uh modern rabbinical Judaism and Christianity arose out of the religious Milo of the first century Palestine um next question is from Lehman he says at the theists of human if humanity ceased to exist does God still exist yes yes all right imagine a theist who would say no to that question that'd be something new right if the theistic God exists before the formation of the universe and therefore before the formation of humans then why would it be remotely plausible or logical to conclude that if we didn't exist the entity which created us would not that makes no sense gotcha next one is from soldier of science he says as an atheist it is difficult to take seriously anyone who labels themselves an agnostic everyone here is an agnostic I don't really understand that let me I think I know what's that mean so probably what he means is when he talks about being an atheist he just probably using the lack of belief definition right I mean he's an atheist because he lacks belief in God or cause um but that's not how we're using it I think I'm taking atheism as a positive position right that there are no gods and agnosticism as like the um uncommitted right the yeah holding judgment and and I'll add in that I don't I don't care about really that like language debate if someone just labels yeah like if someone uses atheist for in the lack of belief definition that's fine my personal preference for uh the kind of like threefold like atheist is God doesn't exist theism is you know God exists and then agnosticism is not having either belief um I just I just think that's useful because then you have the whole scheme you don't have this like overlap going on which you get if you use the lack of belief but yeah it's not like there's an error happening if someone uses that term they can if they want to that it's just linguistic practice I'm glad we agree what a what a nice what a nice moment all right next question is from the fitness ministry they say matics and straight as a christian you guys are not having a good faith discussion present an argument and discuss it stop focusing on irrelevant details at this point in the debate I will say go on record and say I think overall that was far more true of of matics than Andrew I think a lot of the conversation from my perspective was good faith from Andrew well that discussion the cosmological argument was okay I don't think yeah once we got into the arguments is great frankly in my opinion my answer to that question or that position is chore you're welcome to come to the after show and have a conversation ask yourself you can but you'll probably unmute most of the time cool thanks all right next one is from Philip he says matics can you explain what what is cowardly about saying I don't know why would I take a position on something that I have no argument for either way well if you're going to take the position that all of the evidence and arguments that people do make and that huge portions of people conclude is correct and then claim that even though always people can form a conclusion and they just can't that somehow our conclusions are not worthy of consideration and can be just dismissed without actually questioning whether or not they are actually doing true analysis have the capacity to or are just consciously refusing to do true in-depth reasoning beyond the myopic uh well it's are you taking the position that agnosticism generally is cowardly are you just a are you in agreement with Andrew that you could be a completely you know noble agnostic you think all agnostics are cowardly is that like universally I think the majority of modern agnostics uh yes okay majority it's not yeah not all so there is noble agnosticism on your view I mean yeah but I honestly I think with the level of access to knowledge that we have now if you take the time to go and use your IQ above the level of force gump you can come to reasonable conclusions I will derive to the access to knowledge is there it's up to you to go and actually access it but there are like philosophers who commit their lives to working in philosophy religion right and most philosophers don't actually go beyond the hypothetical and they're kind of coward like you guys did tonight all you guys wanted to do was go through this equals p or not p versus actually looking at the macro view of the different pieces of evidence not where they're not it fits inside of your restricted logic logic the arguments on their own terms yeah we I like analyzing the actual arguments and the logic hate like making fun of like logical nomenclature pretty cringe from some no I'm actually all about logic I'm saying that in kind of what's your problem with us exploring and if you're going to try and have a macro level about our existence have to fit into a couple sentences then that's just a very very small minded position of people who are too cowardly to look at things from the big picture yeah I mean that's just not a position anyone here took but whatever if you want to continue this position you took that you have to be able to sum up what was it sum up like our existence in a sentence or something was what was it you said it's obviously not in my house that's ridiculous let's go do it come on let's continue sounds pretty retarded but you know okay no okay next question is from David he says ask yourself do you believe every human man woman in child has the universal basic right to not be raped murdered tortured or otherwise exploited yes or no and be so kind as to explain your answer afterwards um well I guess it probably depends how we construe a right so if if that is meant if right is meant there as something that is like inviolable like can never be trumped then no I think that there are circumstances where doing one of those horrible actions might be necessary for you know some some construal of the greater good right like you know the uh you know like war child who's like fit forced to rape his sister or his parents will be like decapitated before him like orphaning him and his siblings or like I mean I'm not going to say that that's like wrong right so if right if right supposed to be cashed out like that in that kind of a strong way then I probably don't believe I definitely don't believe in that kind of thing I can come up with stronger examples like you know you have to kill someone or like a planet explodes like obviously you should kill that person um you'd be pretty evil not to as far as I'm concerned but you know if it's a weaker thing like you know just just like there's a very strong consideration that we give to like not raping people then like obviously I accept that yeah gotcha so it depends on the strength of of what you mean by right is the answer gosh gosh the next one is actually from Maddox he says when this dumpster fire gets done after show will kick off in less than 10 minutes look for the link the great flaming straw man I'm picturing what's that film with Nicholas Cage when they burn the gigantic straw effigy that's like how I'm picturing the Maddox after show oh I know it all right was that wicker man yes wicker man yes next one is from Igor Zanteno he says Maddox can you fine-tune your beliefs into arguments next time or are you too much of a babbling buffoon oh my I hope you never have kids now I do want to clear up a straw man around whether Maddox gave arguments we acknowledged multiple times that arguments were mentioned in the initial statement some of them weren't given in a very like refined way they're kind of just alluded to we're more than happy to acknowledge that the problem was getting Maddox to hone in on a specific argument for discussion and if you do want a psychological take now that we're kind of through the debate portion I think that this like logic me not not to you number one and hey look if you want to answer one of mine I'll let you do it but just let me finish this this is my this is my question directed at me okay so the point that you're going to speak after then sure yeah okay whatever the point that you're making I've already addressed multiple times and maybe you weren't listening um do you know as the in-depth philosophers that you are do you know what the column argument is like the recognized one I'm very asking us or the person yeah no I'm asking you yeah of course okay so if I'm and the other seven that I referenced from a macro view um are you familiar with all of them yes you don't see the obvious problem that's about to come up here Maddox uh we went and then we went into you wanting me to reframe the arguments that are already established we didn't ask for a reframe you we just asked to be clear about what framing you're using no I specifically started asking questions about it and presenting evidence in favor of you then kept insisting that I create an argument which I'm like I've already mentioned the arguments reframe implies changing the argument right and the obvious problem restates said restate okay sure yes if if yeah so so you're gonna so you want to sit there and get into minutiae rather than wait no no but dialogue so anyway just just one thing I want to make it's continuous I want to make the statement I was making before he came in which it's his question fine fair enough but I want to say yeah so maybe you should interrupt next time huh yeah well I don't I didn't initially interrupt you I just started talking but yeah it wasn't your turn yeah that's called interruption okay okay well inter I think you need to cut someone off to it but but you know whatever okay um so just one or two things there so the obvious problem with what he just said is like yeah we can be familiar with the standard way that the column or any of the you know typical like God arguments are created like you know ontological I'm not gonna list them off but often people have their own kind of like proprietary interpretation like in fact even speaking about contingency arguments we got in it with Muhammad Hijab who's like prominent like a you know Islamic apologist a little while ago Jack and I and he didn't understand that there was a commitment to the PSR in the contingency argument right so that's literally the argument that was run today and someone has a different construal of it so the fact that there is kind of a typical form of the argument does not mean it's not worth clarifying exactly when I asked so when I started asking you clarification questions and presenting additional explanation of my position what I was saying you demanded that I hold on I wasn't doing that I literally said I was I was not doing that one second ask yourself if you want to wrap up yeah I'll be I'll be quick so I'll give you the last words since this is your question totally awesome that's that sounds good to me so yeah I was just saying the fact that there's a standard construal it doesn't mean that's not worth clarifying and the specifically the reason that I like to clarify is because often if you don't clarify what the argument is and you show some huge problem the person will say well that was never the construal I was working with in the first place so it's just good to clarify off the get go and then just what I was saying originally before Maddox came in fairly whatever it's his question that's fine is I think that you know Maddox he keeps saying I don't remember exactly what I was getting at but it was something like this right he keeps saying you know he gets mad at the logical minutia he thinks that it's so unreasonable for us to ask him to clarify arguments and you know hating on logic whether it's like all of that or he said he doesn't hate on logic but sure seems seems like it to me but all of that if you want a psychological take for me it seems to indicate someone who is worried about being pressed really clearly about exactly what they're saying because they have a sense that it might end up somewhere where they can't really justify their position so that's just speculation but that's how it strikes me that's funny because uh I think actually getting beyond the minutia that I was referring to that's where you're a coward let's continue getting beyond the I mean like once something gets once something gets clarified and then goes into the actual deep like exposition of why the last hour the evidence for now there was a bunch of back and forth where it got clarified and we talked about it in detail no in context of which things are what think what's plausible and like hey this here's what it is here is what the evidence shows and here is what is actually constitutes evidence and what is your position what is your position on whether or not it is evidence for or against God that is it being the requirement for existence that's what I'm talking about and that's what you're afraid to actually address I disagree about whatever next one is from Shal Thomas they say the only place on the planet where you will find proof for God is through this video one two three four five proof of God I've seen this question this question before nobody else has this information next one is also from Maddox he says as predicted these agnostics do nothing but try to limit all discussion to rigid prop logic so boring that's a huge straw man okay so that's clearly directed at us so I mean why don't we why don't we reply to that so no that's that that's a that's a massive straw man by limit to to prop logic or whatever you just said if you play back this discussion right because this is this is a move that is often made because we often like people in my circle we take the approach of trying to get clarity on what the arguments are so often there's the straw man we need we need to name this fallacy frankly of trying to suggest that the other person is only satisfied if you have this rigid formalization of your argument right and the idea is you would be playing unfairly because lots of people just don't know logic so even if they have like reasonable enough thoughts you're just kind of fucking them over by putting this barrier to entry on the conversation so they can't like all of that is all wrapped up in one big annoying fallacy again the obvious problem if you just go back in this conversation and play what I said you know I think you'll catch me saying and we're not insisting it has to be formal this how I always say it right just roughly speaking premises and a conclusion we can help formalized if there's any trouble with that all we want is to understand roughly speaking and we're happy to adjust as necessary till we accurately capture the inference roughly speaking what premises you're starting from and what conclusion you're getting to you don't have to give a rigid formalization we can take it and work with it together to achieve a form that is valid assuming the inference is ambiguous it's not ambiguous we don't even need to do that so it's a huge straw man all right uh next one is from um helianthus they say at ask yourself do you ever commit actions that you know are immoral and if so does being vegan um ameliorate i'm not familiar ameliorate ameliorate those actions in some way just correcting chrissy yet again male supremacy just dawning here yeah so um do well i'm not sure that that's actually possible given my understanding of what wrong means so like i take right and wrong to just refer to our desires now that's not a thesis about public language it's just about how i use the words but what you're gonna say something trey sound like you're about to shit on me for what i'm saying right here no no no okay here inhale freaked me out so yeah um so when i hear you know like when i say i did x and x is wrong right like i take wrong to mean against my desires but i don't know that it's possible that i ever take an action that i don't desire i don't that doesn't seem to make sense to me but if we took some other construal maybe like you know actions that i after the fact end up reflecting on and then at that later point it's no longer my preference to do the thing that was my preference at the time and then that happens sure what was there a second part to that something about veganism i didn't catch the end yeah they said if so does being vegan ameliorate those actions in some way um i don't say i don't know what actions they're talking like maybe they mean like does being vegan help make up for like the support that i gave towards the holocaust before i was vegan um i mean i don't know that it make if that's what you mean i don't know that it makes up for it it's just not contributing anymore um does it make like i make up as such weird language like sure it like offsets how much suffering you cause if you you know stop in one domain or something i don't fucking really know what they're getting at sorry if i can't answer that i will okay well that is actually all for questions tonight so um i want to thank all of you guys for for coming on and taking your time out of your busy day um definitely tune in next week for the dino debate that's gonna be super interesting um but in the meantime we keep on separating the reasonable from the unreasonable and have a wonderful rest of your night