 Hey everybody, tonight we're debating whether or not there is good evidence for God and we are starting right now. Ladies and gentlemen, thrilled to have you here for another epic debate, or in this case, discussion. As we are thrilled to welcome our guests, Matt Dillahunty and Dr. Kenny Rhodes. And before we go further though, I do want to mention, folks, I am so appreciative of you guys. That crazy intro video was made from Matterform, who is a supporter of neutral platforms for internet discourse. If you are interested in learning how he makes these graphics, such as the intro you just saw for this video, the behind the scenes is coming soon. And so I encourage you to check out his link in the description, as we are super thankful for his help. And with that, we know, folks, that you want to hear the debate, so we're going to give brief introductions and get right into it. So, in particular, starting with Matt Dillahunty, we're thrilled to have you back. Matt, thanks for being with us. Matt Dillahunty is an atheist activist and speaker and juggernaut of a debater, if I may say so, who is the current president of the atheist community of Austin. Oh, that's... I'm still on the board. It doesn't matter. I'm just not president now. I'll update the Wikipedia page myself right after this. Thanks for clarifying that, Matt. And then Dr. Kenny Rhodes, thrilled to have you as well. Dr. Rhodes holds an MDiv and a PhD in theology and specializes in the doctrine and existence of God, textual criticism, and the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas. We're thrilled to have you. Thanks so much, Dr. Rhodes, for being with us as well. Pleasure. Absolutely. So, with that, folks, we're going to jump right into it. Dr. Rhodes is going to have his opening statement. These are going to be just 12-minute flexible openings from each side, and then we're going right into open dialogue, followed by Q&A. So, with that, thank you very much. Dr. Rhodes, the floor is all yours. Yeah, my name is Kenny Rhodes. I've been a science teacher for 15... I'm sorry, wrong script. Let me back up. No, it's just a pleasure to be here. Pleasure to discuss this issue with Matt. Of course, he's infamous around the YouTubes, and so it is quite an honor to engage with him on this topic. Before I begin, I simply want to give a shout out to a good friend of mine, Gordon Kennedy, who is actually a huge Matt Dilla-Hunty fan. And while I do have his sympathies, he's rooting for Matt today. So, hey, Gordon. Well, I simply want to start off by saying that I know that Matt is an empiricist in a certain sense, thinks that we should have empirical evidence for all the things that we believe. I hope I'm not misrepresenting him. I want to approach this issue in a similar fashion in the sense that metaphysics is necessarily the first science or the first principles by which we can even understand the scientific method. And so when Aristotle had defined what metaphysics was all about, he said that it's a science which investigates being as being or being qua being. And it is looking at the nature of reality as a whole. When we look at nature as a reality as a whole, we can deduce some things about the nature of reality, and then by what is called remotion, simply walk back from the effect to the cause. And so the special sciences are those things that cut off a part of being, and then examine a part of being and the attributes or properties of a part of being. And for example, math, the mathematics sciences, they will deal with quantity. The physical science of courses, of course will deal with motion, and the biological sciences will deal with life. I want to quote at me, he saw him at this moment. And he says that to cut off a piece of being and to investigate the attributes of this part of being is a perfectly legitimate undertaking, but to invest any conceivable part of being with the attributes of being itself. And to investigate the attributes of the whole from the point of view of any one of its parts is to undertake a task whose very notion involves contradiction. And he goes on to mention the fact that today are within his own day. The error of the scientists was to simply try to answer the bigger questions by looking at the part, or trying to deduce from the issues of mechanism that of agency. And in as far as I can do all the investigation I want about the Model T. It is not a question that is going to answer the issue of agency, and he goes on and speaks about the fact that skepticism is actually a metaphysical disease. I don't mean to be rude to Matt in any way by suggesting that, but again, you cannot answer the issue of God or answer the issue of the bigger picture of reality by virtue of cutting off a part of what is, and then examining that and think that you can answer questions concerning the whole. When we examine reality, we see that reality is necessarily composite. We have parts human beings have parts we have parts such as substance and accidents, matter form, things of that sort. When we look at reality or being as being or the nature of what it is to be an existent being, we know that we are composite, and that necessarily as Plato says it takes us back to the one or unity necessarily grounds multiplicity. And by way of deduction by way of abduction we can look at the nature of reality and walk that back and say it must be grounded in that which is one that which is unity, and that which can ground all multiplicity. In fact, any existential reality necessarily must be grounded in existential absoluteness, and that is by definition what we call God. I want to answer a question that I've heard Matt ask many many times which God are you debating today. I want to help him clear up this issue, because when Muslims Jews Christians and even the ancient Greeks, when we speak of monotheism, we are speaking of the God who is in, and we're making a distinction ontologically speaking. In Christianity Judaism and the ancient Greek philosophers we all we are all referring to the only possible monotheistic being who was really outside of the category of being itself. He necessarily is existence himself we speak of God as simple, which simply means that his essence what it means for him to be is identical to existence and existence is identical to his essence. When we define things we define them according to essences and so I'm going to be necessarily bringing in and I can defend it as well that things have essences things have natures, and what a thing is, and that a thing is our distinct. And that is the greatest composition that we find in reality. What a thing is, and that a thing is, we can know what a thing is regardless of whether or not we know it exists. As a matter of fact said that existence is not a predicate. And that's actually the problem with and sounds ontological argument. It treats existence as if it was a predicate, but existence is actually that which causes essences to exist we might say that it put it into mystic terms it is the actus ascendee composed with an essence that brings something into existence. And I can know things simply by looking at what they are or contemplating what they are and I can define a unicorn, which there's nothing logically irrational about a unicorn existing, but what's wrong that essence of unicorn has not been composed with an act of existence therefore it doesn't exist dinosaurs. They, I wanted to do a poking joke at my young earth creationist friends but I won't dinosaurs they did exist, but they existed quite a long time ago, but they no longer exist. I can still define them according to the essence of what a dinosaur is, and to cite Boethius he says that which is, and what a thing is are distinct, not separated, but distinct, he said essay and it quite asked are distinct. So that is the direction I'm going tonight I'm sure we'll have an interesting discussion. I just want to conclude my opening statement with this necessarily, and I'm not defining God into existence but what I'm saying is is when we look at the fact that all that is is composed of what it is and that it is. I mean, necessarily can walk backward to the one who is essence and existence, and it is identical with one another, and logically you must have that. You have to have one that grounds all existence to give rise to all the multiplicity that we see in reality, and I'll conclude at that moment. I don't know how long I went but I've got four minutes left if you want them, but you got it no problem works and want to let you know folks we are thrilled to let you know for the first time about this juicy upcoming debate Islam on trial apostate prophet will be here with a surprise guest next month. You don't want to miss it folks so if you haven't yet hit that subscribe button so you can catch up you can say catch more juicy debates coming up and with that thanks so much for being with us again Matt the floor is all yours. Awesome I will try to take a similar amount of time, so that nobody says anything about unfair first of all thank you everybody for having me back and my apologies for the delay. I unfortunately got a really that like they listed it as atypical pneumonia, and I was over it inside of like 36 hours but they were. There's something to do with my heart that they were worried about and then they ran a whole bunch of EKG is it turns out my heart's just fine it was a bad reading or whatever. And so yeah I want to recover from the pneumonia so thanks everybody for your patience. I'm always glad when we get to actually define terms a little bit and there I've hosted the atheist experience for 16 years over 500 episodes I just found out last week. And quite often you'll have someone who says that they can't present our evidence for the existence of a God that. In fact, some of them argue that God would not give evidence, because if God gave evidence that would somehow violate your free will or in that's a problem. And so I'm thrilled that today we're going to at least here. What God can he's talking about what God. What the good reasons are for that and and how and why he thinks reasons are good. I, I don't think any is going to surprise anybody that we're probably not going to disagree on what counts as good reasons. And not the least of which is that if you begin and I wasn't offended at all if somebody says that skepticism is a metaphysical disease, it doesn't surprise me that someone would view skepticism as a metaphysical physical disease. If they're advocating for pitch positions that don't rise to the level of meeting the rigorous standards of skepticism it's like saying, Oh, well that's scientism you know you're only willing to accept whatever science is. That's a fine challenge to scientism from the people who have ideas that don't rise to the level of science. All skepticism is is I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible, and I'd like to use the method mechanisms available to do that which includes scientific inquiry and good standards of evidence. We've solved this problem of what counts of as good evidence in courtrooms and in science and I'll touch on that just a little bit later. I had a receipt sitting here from a dry cleaner I stopped off and dropped off 10 shirts today to be dry clean because evidently we're getting out from underneath the backstreet boys reunion tour or whatever we're supposed to call it so that nothing gets demonetized. But if I were to show you the receipt, what I didn't see if I would then say do you have a good reason to believe that I own shirts. Do you have a good reason to believe that I dropped them off at the cleaner do you have a good reason to be back on Tuesday. What are the other candidate explanations for this receipt that I have. Well, the truth is all of us I would hope would say of course I have good reason to believe that you have shirts and you dropped them off and they'll be ready on Tuesday that's what the receipt says. And we, we have good reason to believe that despite the fact that all of us know I could fake a receipt. Like you don't know I can you let me put Jack Brown cleaners on the top of something printed off on the computer. It's not like it's, it's, you know, it's difficult is trying to counterfeit money, I could make a receipt. And yet, still, even knowing that it could be fake, we're still reasonably assured that I probably dropped laundry off today. If for no other reason than it would seem absurd to try to fake receipt, but we could have done it. Maybe I did it just to make a point in the debate. How can we investigate it. Well, in fact we can. We can investigate and even though we know some things are fake we can figure out whether or not this one is we can go in and talk to the cleaners we can check video recordings we can check to make sure that the numbers match up and that they've got the clothing and all this other stuff. What we're trying to do is figure out, do I have a good reason to believe something. That's, that's the whole of life. Every time somebody comes up and it says a claim to you, you know, hey, I just got a new car yesterday. Do you do you sit there and go, oh, hang on, please provide evidence that you got a new car yesterday. Well, at most you're probably going to say hello show me the car. Well, it's not here right now they're doing some detailing on it. Does that mean you stop believing them. No. So it's not just about. Hey, I heard something. And oh no, no, I won't believe anything. A lot of people confuse skepticism with cynicism cynicism is the I won't believe anything. And skepticism is I will believe those things that are warranted. And if you look at fallacies. One of the most common ones is to say what other explanation is there. Isn't it either just chance or God. And when somebody asked prior to this why won't atheists just admit that they believe it's all chance. Well in some cases I believe chance is a perfectly acceptable explanation. In other cases, I don't think that chance is in fact a reasonable explanation because when I look at the universe, it doesn't operate by chance it operates according to the laws and rules of physics and chemistry. It's not chance. Is it chance that something happened perhaps but the right answer when somebody says why is there something rather than nothing for me is I don't know and if you think that's a dishonest answer if it's incredibly frustrating for you that there are people who are willing to admit that they don't know. I would just ask you I'm far more frustrated with the people who claim that they do know when they definitely don't. And there are people running around advocating for every God under the sun and some beyond it. Without knowing it. Now a lot of you probably heard this tired old claim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and in what that claim initially meant it's true but it's not quite true. The truth is all claims require pretty much the same evidence before they're reasonable, what's reasonable to accept them. The difference is that some claims from the instant they are made already benefit from all sorts of evidence and baggage out there if you say, Hey, I just dropped my clothes off at the laundry. Well, we have mountains of evidence that there are places where you can drop off the clothes and all the all the little elements are already there. If you say instead. Hey, last night I saw a ghost. Well, all we've got so far is that we know people report seeing things that they call ghost but what evidence do we have that you saw a ghost. So what do we mean when we're talking about trying to collect evidence to determine whether or not something's reasonable because I am someone who believes that there needs to be good evidence and I don't think that you can just start with some sort of description and work back and kind of argue that oh therefore there must be some sort of necessary being because somewhere along the lines, somebody injected things like being and necessary and didn't always justify. So, if you have a position that's not falsifiable as if there's no way to show it's wrong. That's a problem within testability. That is a problem within science within courtrooms with any number of issues where we're going to be evaluating evidence. What do we mean we say evidence. I tend to refer to as as the collection of facts associated with a situation or proposition or question, which must be evaluated and accounted for in determining whether an explanation is true. But good evidence is not merely an opinion. You can be of the opinion that flipping a coin is good evidence. You'd be wrong. It'd be a good way to make a decision. It might be better than, I don't know, rolling a dice, because now you're down to two. But it doesn't mean it's a good decision. And similarly, it's not like we should all vote on whether or not the earth is flat or whether or not a God exists or whether or not dinosaurs used to exist. Some claims by virtue of what we already know come with a mountain of evidence right off the bat such that while you could be wrong because you can always be wrong, it'd be unreasonable to strongly doubt the claim at his face. And so good evidence is that which can be replicated that is distinct that leads to one explanation and not multiple explanations with similar support. That is the good evidence that is better than anecdotal evidence testimony evidence. Here's what I think I experienced. Is it true that alien that an alien abduction happened after all there's nothing necessarily supernatural there is nothing that is necessarily going to violate the laws of physics. We know that we I mean we've traveled to the moon assuming you're, you know, not not a conspiracy theorist who's denying that as well. It's not outside the realm of possibility that perhaps if there was life elsewhere in the galaxy, maybe it gets here. I don't think it's been here yet. I don't see enough evidence for it. But it's not like it's magic. And it's not like it's identical to a ghost story. There are tons of book stories and testimonies about ghosts, gods, goblins and aliens. What has actually been confirmed because if we have some sort of experience and we are trying to say, here's the best explanation for why we had this experience or why I felt this. We need to make a list of candidate explanations and you don't get to include something in a candidate explanation until there's evidence for it until there's good reason to think that's the case. And so if you say, hey, I saw, you know, this dot moving in the sky last night. What are the candidate explanations. Well, we know that there are satellites and planes. Those are candidate explanations, something else flying when we will perhaps say unidentified or an unknown object that's moving around. But do we get to say, Oh, one of the candidate explanations is that there's Oh, sorry, I was trying to stay on the nine minutes. One of the candidate explanations doesn't instantly become there's an alien spaceship up there. I mean we can propose that but until we have good reason to consider it amongst the candidate explanations, it would be a mistake to include it. You would need some extra evidence to show why this should be counted amongst the candidate explanations. Try walking into a courtroom and suggesting that God told you to break the speed limit or that you he told you to bomb a clinic. The courts won't accept that and they shouldn't and there's good reasons why they shouldn't. Similarly, if you walk into a science test or a process and you say, Oh, no, no, no, no, actually that's done by angels. Well, that doesn't get to be included in science doesn't mean it's not true. But it doesn't get to be included because we don't yet have good reason to think that it should be included. And then we have the whole thing, you know, I realize that that Dr. Rhodes addresses which God who's God and in this context where he talking about essence essentially trying to describe that they're all the same. But if there is in fact good reason to believe there's a God, then that means think of other things that we have good reason to believe. You have good reason to believe that cars exist that people buy cars that people buy new cars that people buy used cars all of those things I have good reason for. Do you have reason to believe that I have family that I have people who care about me. Maybe I have a girlfriend and you don't know where she lives in another state and I never have to produce her. But if you suspect that there's something going on if in fact there was good evidence for a God. That means that it's now just a matter of fact. It is a de facto reasoned position that yeah, this is just true. Just like letting go of a pen it falls down in this particular space obviously is not going to happen elsewhere. And so if that's the case, where's God? Because if there's good reason to believe that there's a God, then what could possibly be the good reason to prevent God from showing up right here right now and saying I don't know what's wrong with Matt. I don't know what's wrong with these atheists. I don't know what's wrong with the people in the world. I have already provided good evidence, but here I am. Let's settle it so that we can get on about the business of what I would like you to do and living and enjoy your life. There's no reason for God to keep playing this game of hide and seek if in fact there's good evidence for him being around. I don't know what the answer is. I know it frustrates people every time I say I don't know. But if we're not seeing this obvious thing, this thing which I don't know if I don't know, I don't want to put words in his mouth. I don't know if Dr. Rhodes thinks this is obvious or if it's just reasonable. But if in fact it's reasonable to any intelligent person and there's sufficient evidence to warrant this, why wouldn't God just show up and say, yep, you guys got the right answer. I don't know why we keep debating it. Let's get on with life. You got to thank you very much, Matt, for that opening statement and want to let you know, folks, if it's your first time here at Modern Aid Debate, we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science, religion, and politics. And we hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you are from. Thanks for being with us. And with that, thanks Matt and Kenny for being with us. The floor is all yours for that open dialogue. Yeah, I'm just ready to have a good discussion at this point. So I hope Matt's also into that. Sounds like he is. I'm all in. All right. I just want to make a response to one of the things that you just said. When it comes to existence itself, as Shakespeare quipped to be or not to be that is the question. And this is an issue that some people grasp the sublimity of it. Others don't. And there's no rhyme or reason as to why. But I often ponder my existence and the miracle, quote unquote, that that is that existence itself screams for an explanation. So when I am talking about the existence of God, I am looking at it in the realm of mathematical proof, so to speak. Because when we just look at reality, we know that the one who brought it into existence is necessarily not confined by its parameters. God is being transcendent and also imminent. So to look for God by the scientific method is to commit a category mistake it. God is not going to be able to be put in the scientific lab or put in a beaker and then try to determine what he is and what he's like he is the very ground of existence itself and I and if I could illustrate it like this. Conceptually conceptually we can think of existence. There's no limit to what can be. And let's consider existence, a vast infinite ocean that can be participated in infinitely. If something is wet, we know that it participated in that which is wet by nature which is water. I look out and I see that there are things that share the same kind of existence that I have. And when I say existence I mean a rock to trees to myself and other people. There necessarily must be a ground for that existence that all that I see participates, so to speak, in this wetness, or in existence itself and existence is a qualitative. We don't call it a quantitative but a qualitative infinite it can be participated in so to speak, infinitely whiteness can be participated in by any number of things. And so it's on that level that I am arguing for the existence of God and saying that there's absolute logical necessity for one to ground all that is that existential absoluteness must ground all becoming. Absolute being must ground any becoming anything of that sort that we see exists. We know that existence. There's no existential law of inertia. Things come into existence what the scholastic is called generation and corruption and so when we see things coming to be and passing away we know that to be nothing in this created order has existence in and of itself. And so we look to one who has those attributes and the Greeks the Muslims the Christians the Jews. They all came to the same conclusion concerning classical theism that there must be this one who grounds all reality and I am going to probably not tonight but I do believe that I can take the ontological God that Muslims Jews and Christians and the Greeks believed in come into the world of theology, but on the basis of the one must ground all multiplicity or unity necessarily is first and grounds multiplicity. And so that gives me some natural evidence for the Trinitarian God that God the nature of God himself he must be this perfect unity, but also diversity within his nature and that gives reason for what we see in reality, answering that ancient problem of the one in the many. And so that's how I would argue for the Christian God and say that there's a distinction between ontology and theology. We're all talking about the same monotheistic God but when we switch to the world of theology. That's when these distinctions necessarily take place. I didn't anticipate saying so much there so I apologize. No, I got pretty good notes and I think. So, I mean you and I already know where we have some basic differences about our epistemology as do the other people that are out there but also there's differences in language. And, and I'm sorry you're robotic there I didn't hear that. I'm sorry. There's also differences in language in and how we not only phrase things, but in what questions we're talking about I took pretty decent notes right here because I'll begin with where you started existence screams for an explanation. And to me, and I want to make sure I'm understanding you. And that provided we're speaking metaphorically that when we look at at all that is, it would be very nice and we would be, we would be very comforted if we had an explanation for how and why all that is is all that is. But it's not. When we look at that, you use the word miracle and I'm fine with miracle in a colloquial sense along that lines. Oh this is incredibly extraordinary we don't know. We followed it up by saying we know the one who brought it into existence well, and you follow that up by saying to begin looking for God, the difference here is that I'm not looking for God. And I think that's a mistake. I'm looking for whatever the explanation for existence is and if the explanation for existence turns out to be a God, I'm fine with that. The problem is that if you set your sights to a we're going to find this God oh this is what the ancient Greeks thought this is what these people thought this what these people thought. And then you talked about for, you know, if something is what we know it's come into vicinity or interaction with a wet property water. And you tried to start an analogy to extend that to be something about existence to say it requires any grounding. I don't see the evidence that any sort of thing that would qualify as a grounding for existence is necessarily an agent. I don't see why the physical and chemical laws, the physical facts about the universe that the only things that we can actually investigate we can't go back beyond the plank time we can't go outside of this. It seems to me that this, this field of classical theism, which you're going to encompass with all the various gods and then you get to the Trinity. How do you know that you're not just seeing what you want to see, because I don't see the evidence either for a Trinity, for God for a being for required grounding in its in the sense of any sort of agents, all that we have and all that we see is the world. And it seems that when you say, there must be an absolute being. Where's the evidence of that. Are you asking for empirical evidence for that. I would go with anything I would love for there to be empirical evidence to show for any of this but if you're just looking at it saying oh we're inferring this from the fact that there's something there must have been something that started it. I find that to not be a reasonable course of action, because while we would have to say, there needs to be some explanation. Like if if there's a if there's a bunch of burnt wood out in the backyard. You and I would agree there need there is some explanation there is something some series of events that led to what we found. And if someone were to say, Oh, this occurred because of something extra dimensional. Something that we can't interact with something that we can't get physical evidence from. I would think we would probably both reject that. Why is it that we don't both reject it. When we get to the big question, something that we cannot actually investigate beyond living in our heads. Well, let's push your analogy to to the issue of God. If I see that things exist, and they don't have existence in and of themselves. Let's call that burnt wood. In the same way that you and I can look at that burnt wood and say it must have been heat. There's no other rational explanations for it. In the same way we can look and see existence being shared by the multiplicity of beings and say there must be existence itself. That has, you know, burnt itself into these existent beings to kind of push your analogy so it's not necessarily implies. Oh, yes, we're based we're basing on the laws of logic. No, that's not how it works. The reason we know that burnt wood is burnt wood is because we have evidence of wood burning we've seen it before during and after we have mountains of actual empirical evidence. And that's what makes our conclusion that the best explanation that is that this would burn through some natural means that the thing that makes that the best explanation the reason we have good reason to believe that is because we have actual evidence for it. You can't argue by analogy that there is something that is existence or something that is essence and therefore requires a grounding. That's the evidence for essence, because if essence as you said in your opening, if there's an essence of a unicorn and a unicorn doesn't exist, and an essence of a dinosaur and a dinosaur doesn't exist now and an essence of me and I still exist. Then you're basically saying essence is not in any way tied to facts about reality, because a unicorn isn't a factor of reality. Let me try to explain myself better because I may not have explained this best way. When we look at reality we see that what a thing is. And that it is our distinct. I got that. Okay, so when I see that an essence has been co joined with the act of existing and now is. I know that there must be someone who put that together or something I'll just say that for the sake of what we're talking about must have put that together for there to be composed things in the world there must be one that composed it. So when I to use that analogy. If I see burnt wood. You're saying that would is the evidence why I'm looking at you and I'm saying you are the evidence. Because you don't have existence in and of yourself that you are the evidence that your existence is participated in in the same way that that would when it was hot participated in the heat of the fire that's my argument. So, on the one hand, you've constructed a circular argument, because when you say there must have been someone who yeah that's why I said something in order to clarify that or to get it out of the realm of. Sure, but if we just go back, rather than digging in on the circular rather we if we just go back to the difference between what is and that is, let's see if we can sort that out. What is me, I am a collection of chemicals in a particular pattern in a particular location at a particular time. If we got really reductivist about it we could go down to atoms and stuff like that but that is is it's still a function of that because let's say the difference between me and a unicorn. Is that I am here in someplace in time and a unicorn is not here at this place in time as far as we know. And so now then the only difference between an extant thing and a non extant thing is whether or not it occupies a space in time as long as we're long talking about you know things that exist in a material realm. We set aside abstracts like does to exist. If we're going to talk about to let's at least, you know, hold up a door number for whatever because we're talking about this thing. And so it seems that that when we push back on this, the response from those people were advocating for God is that well God doesn't exist in the material realm so it's a mistake for you to try to to to put him in a box like that. And the question then is, I don't know what it means to say doesn't exist in the material world, because that's true for a unicorn as well. Right. So, if you were to let's let's look at the example of a human human being. Would you say that human beings are just their parts chemistry. Are you a reductionist. Are they just their parts when we're talking about the physical thing. Yeah. I don't see anything that's more than the physical things. And we're seeing is physical things in action and patterns in action. Do you do you believe that there is such a thing as a human nature. The essence of being human, which would be what we call a secondary substance and then the primary substance is the individual substance. No, what I think we're talking about with human nature which I have no problem with these things you know is colloquialism so even the human spirit or the human spirit of adventure well there's not a spirit there's not a spirit of adventure and there's no human nature all we're doing is taking and packaging and describing here's what human beings do. But that and what makes you what makes you you. But what they do doesn't exist. They exist their actions exist but this this is an abstraction this is us describing it like we would describe to like how many fingers am I holding up to well that's this is a representation in the physical world so what if we're going to describe this accurately, we would describe matters, you know extended digits on a finger and in order to convey a concept of a quantity. And so we can look at that and say, Oh, what's Matt doing. Well, he's describing to, but that is the abstraction that doesn't exist as a thing. We know scientifically that humans I think go through an entire change up of matter every seven years or something like that so what what makes you you when all your parts have been changed out. Yeah, this is the ship of these years. Yeah, I don't want to get bogged down too much in this but you know is there a form there, you know, no I'm saying I don't want to because I find it very interesting and I love it but we would bore the heck out of a number of people here if it started in. And so, for me the solution to the Prometheus is that the definition of what the ship is changes as each thing changes in much the same way that it is an ephemeral at this instant, this is the definition of me. If I lop off a finger the instant that finger is lopped off the definition of Matt becomes Matt minus this particular finger and if the finger comes back on, if I get a tattoo, then the definition of me changed. When that tattoo to include that, and so that's the thing, I don't get into the transporter problem but quite possibly the solution to ship a thesis the transport problem, all of this is to address continuity, because time is just change. And you're trying to look back at this point in time and say why isn't it still this and the answer is because it's not now it's this it's moving the definition of me is moving with me in time. So, so you, you would define a human being as being different at every moment of their existence, much like Heraclitus would say everything is flux everything is becoming. You never step in the same river twice therefore everything's being and are everything's becoming and nothing is actual being is there something that unifies a human being that makes a human a human. And I think what you pointed out to me is just that which is an accidental aspect of what a human being is. We might say that, you know, matter with our bones meat. Those are in a general sense what a human being is when we define a human being a rational animal that is composed of matter. But when we describe say a finger or something that that's an accidental aspect of what a human being is your particular signet matter that's been instantiated. When we look at what a human is see if what you're saying is true then that means somebody who goes to prison for committing a crime because they're changing moment by moment you've got somebody who's paying the price for a crime that this person now, you know, 10 minutes later even is a different person. So there's there has to be some continuity to what a human is. So just because are you suggesting that that kind of a radical change or are you kind of, I mean, because you can define things at whatever scope you want, we can define it at this. It's a standpoint of humans we can stand, you know, narrow it down based on sub qualities down to this. But the thing you're talking about for example that somebody who's in prison who's now a different person. The question is, is the person 10 minutes later, substantively different with respect to the thing that they're going that they're incarcerated for, if in fact, if so when. And I would say no, would you agree. Well it depends I think it's on a case by case basis for example let's say that someone went out and it shot a whole bunch of people. And it turns out that the reason they did it was because they had a brain tumor that was pressing on their amygdala, and we arrest them we try them we put them in prison and then we do the study we find the brain tumor. And then we go in we have surgery we completely remove the brain tumor. And now, while that is the same agent, because that's the level of discretion that we apply here. Is that person still likely to cause or enact or take that action ever again. And I would say that if the evidence shows no, why are you keeping them in jail. And how long should you keep them in jail, and shouldn't keeping someone in jail be something about protecting other members of society protecting them for themselves, trying to discourage recidivism. And so here's somebody who slaughtered four or five people, and it wasn't because of anything about their specific character that remains, but was absolutely the process of a chemical process in their brain that is now gone. Why should we keep them in jail. Right and I don't I don't mean to get bogged down in this at all but that's not what I'm talking about at all I'm talking about. What makes Matt Matt, what makes a human human there necessarily must be an essence that gives continuity as the changes going on this is the one in the mini. I'd love a definition of the essence like the first thing I wrote down when you're talking is what what exactly do you mean by essence because you and I am not, I'm not meaning this insulting anyway. You, this is what I meant when I said we were going to use language in different way because you're talking about, oh, there's an essence of existence I have no idea what that is, and I haven't yet got a description of it now, other than it seems to be some ineffable. It's the thing that makes humans human. It's the thing that makes existent things exist. Well, those are both topologies that don't add anything edifying at all. I might be, I might not be communicating this, because I'm not saying there's an essence of existence. I'm saying that what makes a dodo bird a dodo bird. We define things by their essences that that is what we do a definition is a description of what a thing is that a thing is also distinct. Like if you asked if you asked if you asked three people to define a dodo bird. What would they say that you think is essence. That's it that you want to look at the definition how we define a particular thing. We define them according to their essence or their nature. I'm asking for some kind of example because you said that twice now and I still don't know what it means just because just because people will ignorantly give different definitions of the thing doesn't make the fact that we have defined something like this. And we define it. I don't mean to repeat myself by what it is like the dictionary definition of what a human being is. Okay, so first of all dictionaries are prescripted dictionaries are prescriptive they're descriptive we language we use and dictionaries just describe how we use language but if you like for example I can pull up on Wikipedia. The dodo is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of moratorium east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. So those closest genetic relative was also extinct. Rodriguez solitaire that what they're doing here when they're defining dodo is describing things about it. It's not a complete definition, but what about that is essence and how would we know the essence of a dodo versus the essence of something else. It's what a thing is. I, I don't know. So human being. Well, there's a number of different. Rational animal, you know, let's just say that rational animal. I don't why would I why would I define human being as a rational animal do you not think there are other potentially rational animals that aren't human. Well that is the standard definition of a human being is a rational animal. That's all that's one that's one description of a human being. But I would argue that there are other primates and dolphins and others that would count as rational animals that are. That's kind of irrelevant to what what I'm trying to say I mean we're defining. When we define it. We're defining it from what it is. We may not have a complete definition of something but that doesn't negate the fact that there is a something there's a nature of something. No, that you're saying the description is the description that the fact that you're describing something doesn't mean that what it is is some sort of essence that needs an explanation. Please. So like for example we define dodo it's an extinct flightless bird let's ignore the extinct thing and pretend like it was still here because we were describing it. What does it mean to say flightless bird well those are words that we use that have particular usages about the type of animal we're talking about and what its capabilities are, but that doesn't mean that that's the essence of the dodo. I really, I really think you're not getting what I'm saying. I know I'm not. A standard philosophical truth this is, this is not something I'm making up whatsoever. We define things by what they are their essence we don't have a complete explanation the scientific method, we go out and we examine things, and we look at their characteristics and their properties and we put a definition to it I mean that's, that's the way that he is all about we define things, things, what makes me different from you and what makes a human being different from, you know, a rock is what it is. It's nature it's essence what it is. I agree that when that's not different from you, and both of us different from Iraq gets down to what we are, but I don't see anything that you can point to that qualifies as essence these are all physical aspects of each of us. The things that are different between me and you and between the rock are all physical things that we can describe and identify and detect what we're wearing that is essence. It's not a thing. It's not what it is an explanation is essence is our package description of those qualities, not the qualities and nature is what we look at and then we define what that thing is put down the definition. I think we're going down a rabbit hole here. What I am saying is that because that is distinct because what a thing is and that a thing is this is distinct. I know. Spiritualism is something that most most atheists, a lot of thinkers today think is not a part of reality, you know, very reductionist these days. You know, we even with evolutionary theory with they they define things. They, I think is clodistics I think has is a fallacious from the beginning, because it defines something by what it's made of eukaryotic, for example, and say that we all share in that but the principle is the same. The unity and the diversity and the fact that when we are looking for, sorry, we're looking for the explanation of ourselves. We know that we are composed of parts, there must be one who has put those parts together that is the core of my argument. Okay, which is based on the laws of logic. So, so first of all, you just seemed to suggest and I want to make sure I'm understanding this right that you're opposed to scientific classification of creatures by their biological facts. I think I think that clodistics is not the full answer that I just by way of, well, I mean, at least we're pointing at least the science, they're pointing to specific detectable identifiable properties. And yet you're willing to point to other properties and call them essence. What I'm well what I'm saying is that how is how is your career, how is whether or not something is your characteristic, not a part of its nature. Because it's what it's made of. It's its matter, not its form. So whether or not something is eukaryotic is not its nature. But it's just the thing that you can't describe that makes me me is my nature. But eukaryotic is definitely not it. That's what we're made of right. That's matter. That's like trying to define a house by saying it's wood, and then saying it's this it shares a common ancestor with the bench. I don't want to get into evolution at all but what I'm, I was just trying to point out by way of illustration that the loss of the concept of essences has put a lot of what passes today, committing some logical fallacies by not understanding that there is a true essence and form behind what is in order to have any kind of continuity through time there must be that which is existing and identifying what a thing is through time. Now time happens to be part of our part of our nature as we are temporal beings. We're trying to simply illustrate by way of other information that essences are real though. That's how we define things we don't define things by what they're made of. Sure, we do it all the time. We do it we do it all the time and a eukaryote is just an organism who sells have a nucleus so why is it a problem to say that the nature of eukaryotic cells is that they have a nucleus. It's going to be part of what they are, as in part of what a human being is, is that we are made of bone and skin and blood. It's part of it. But there's also that immaterial aspect that form, for example, if I'm going to make a statue, whether I do it by the negation of the material there or if I put it in some sort of form and for metal in there. I'm not necessarily putting a form to that matter I'm making a matter form composition that requires a composer, one who is putting that matter form together. If we choose to allow to statute, necessarily, I am bringing form to that statue. What I'm saying is is that looking at what something is made of is not the full picture it's just the matter. Where's the essence to form now these are there is no essence or form. That's that's my point there is no essence before you have you have utterly failed to point to anything that counts as essence or form and the thing is if we were to describe cells. If we were going to describe cells as eukaryotic that is not about what they're made of it is an abstract description of how they are put together. These are the types of cells that have a nucleus it doesn't tell you how wide they are how big they are doesn't tell you what's in the nucleus it doesn't tell you what it's made of it doesn't tell you what genetics are in there. I am a description an abstract description of the structure, just as saying, I am a reasoning being is an abstract description of what this meat sack does. But to say that me and a plant, we are in the same clade because we're made of eukaryotic cells as a fallacy. No, it's the matter. It's called set theory. It's called set theory. At this level, you are in the same bucket as a plant at this level. Plants are now outside and you're in with other animals at this level you're in with only primates at this level you're in with all humans at this level you're in with only people from you know, a descent of in Eurasia or Europe or wherever else, it all depends on what resolution you're looking at it. I understand the rest of it. I'm not my my only point was is that pointing out that because I'm made of eukaryotic cells, and something else is made that there's some sort of cladistic family there is to negate the existence of an essence or a form. What makes a thing a thing. It doesn't what what makes that if there isn't if there is an essence or a form you should be able to demonstrate that no matter how people have labeled cells. Well I can demonstrate it very easily. I can take a form, and I can take that form, what form, what's a form and build a house. What's a form is the essence of a thing. It's what makes you keep defining what it is exact same word you keep saying the same words over again. What is the essence because you're not quite getting it that's why I'm trying to get it when I ask you what a form is and you say it's the essence of a thing if you just keep saying the same words over and over again. How can anybody get a form or an essence or a nature is the definition of what a thing is. It's a definition then which means distinct from existence itself. It is a definition that doesn't exist which means it's not a function of the person or the entity or the thing that you're describing at all. It is something that you're putting on to it. That's what definitions are definitions are abstract descriptions real language. They're not real. They're not real. If every mind it's words. We made words up. You're a nominalist then. The only thing that actually exists are the words that we put to them. No, I didn't. The words don't exist. The words are the abstract concepts. No, they are the abstractions. When you say they're just words. You're suggesting that you're a nominalist that there is no real thing behind those words. Is there a real human being behind the definition of Matt a human being. Also, he is an individual who has these particular characteristics. Yes, I would describe or define you. There is a place. There is a place and a label. The label is just something we make up. If we call this the United States of America, we have made up a place. It is a word. It is a concept. It does not exist. It does not need to exist. But the thing that it's pointing to this particular block of land established with the government, etc. That thing exists and can be demonstrated. Just hear the rest of Matt. Just to be sure, was that the end of your sentence Matt? I couldn't tell. I don't quite understand what you're saying because there is a reality behind the words that I'm using. If you say the United States, there is a place called the United States. Correct. But the word United States is something we made up. It has no meaning and it has no existence. The word, the concept lives in a brain. And we could have called it the Blah, blah, blah, blah. We could be living in the Blah, blah, blah. Yes, that is the thing. So the thing exists, not the word. I'm not saying the word exists. You did because you literally said form, essence, and nature are the definition. But definitions, our descriptions that we place onto things, they are not essences of the things. That's not what I'm saying. It's not what I'm saying. We are describing the essence by giving it a nature. Or we're describing the nature by giving it a definition. I have no problem at all. There's a reality there that we are looking at and examining and writing down a definition. I'm not saying the definition in and of itself, the word, we can call it whatever you want. You could call it what you're googly googly, whatever. I'm talking about what's behind, what that language signifies. Me too. Me too. And when we begin to describe, for example, let's define this pen. All of the things that we can say about this pen, what writings on it, what color it is, what size it is, what kind of ink it is, how full it is, where it is, at what angle it is, what temperature it is. All of those things are physical properties of this. What is it that is not physical that you say is the essence of this pen? Penness. We describe it as a writing utensil. No, no, no. Writing utensil is a description we put onto what this is used for. That is not an essence of the thing. And when I ask you what is it about this pen, if you say penness, that is not even remotely a response that adds anything of substance. What is God like? God like. What is life? Life. What is existence? Existence. What is the essence? I'm asking for something that teaches us what you mean. I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying, but without that pen in front of us, if I said pen, you would know what I'm talking about, right? Yes. Do you know why? Right. Right. Yes, because there is a real reality behind what a pen is. No. Because you and I speak the same language and we each have a concept in our head that is similar, similar, but not identical. Concepts. When you say pen in English and I hear it, we are communicating information. We are not presenting the essence of a pen. We are using language to trigger something in my head the same as what's been triggered or as close as we can get to the thing that's been triggered in your head. There's not an essence that we're identifying. We are using a description. This is the way I would submit the answer to that. Somebody came up with the concept of a pen, a writing utensil or whatever. Same way, let's put it back on to human beings. Conceptually, there was an essence of what a human being is. Now I'm saying that essence exists apart from a human being. I'm not a realist in the sense of there are platonic forms out there, but there is really a human nature that resides in you and me that we mutually share that is distinct from us, not separated from us, but distinct from us. All that we see, the multiplicity of what is, because there is no existing principle or property within human beings, we have it contingently. We have it accidentally. Again, we must look to something that has existence in and of itself and that has been popularly defined as God. I'm not saying that penness exists outside of an individual pen, but I'm saying that that is a real reality that conceptually we identify and human beings created a pen. If we push that back to human beings, there is a nature that you have and I have that we share in common. We are both human beings. We share in that that is the unifying aspect of what we are now as individuals there is still a substance there by which we make predications. I'm saying that because there are essences in this world. It's the same composition matter and form essence existence. These things are synonymous a form and essence or a nature those words are all synonymous. What a thing is. That it exists are distinct. There must be one that has given an act of existence to what we see in reality in order to ground that reality. That's that's my argument. I think we got bogged down on some of this particular stuff that probably boring other people real bad. The problem is, is that the question was, is there good reason to believe in a God. And as far as I can tell you think the good reason for to believe in God is that there must be something that serves as the essence grounder. But there is some. I don't think you're quite getting my argument here. I don't know, but I might not be communicating it as well as I can. I've recently said several times tonight that there must be the thing that there's a difference between what is and that is, and that there must be a thing that brings into being that is that serves as the grounding for that is not not well. In any case, here, this was supposed to be this was supposed to be this was supposed to be a debate about whether or not there's good evidence for the existence of God, and whatever it is that Kenny is saying is good evidence for the existence of God. I'm submitting. Am I going to finish. Good. Yeah, sorry about that. I mean interrupt. This is how it gets to essence. And for the last 45 minutes or more, I've been trying to get to any sort of definition of understanding what essence is that isn't a bald assertion, or a tautology, and I defy anyone to show anything here that isn't either a bald assertion that there's something that there's some nature distinct from us there's some essence distinct from us that is humanness that is pennness that isn't merely a description of what we are and what we do. There's a multiplicity of books out there that you can grab. Yeah, but I came to debate. And if you can't answer the question, what am I supposed to do. I don't think you're understanding my answers. What's the problem. Okay, then it's my fault, not yours. No, I'm just not I can bear the blame of not communicating it accurately. But that's why I've been repeating myself. This is not repeating is not educating repeating is not edifying. I didn't say I didn't say it was. I said, because my perception is you're not getting the argument is why I've been repeating myself. I'm not. Okay, but with what I would like to get back to getting it and you know repeating doesn't help. Why the hell would you repeat if you know somebody's not getting it. Because that helps with with people when you repeat something. Eventually just said repeating doesn't help and you know it didn't help. Alright, alright, whatever. What's next. There may be a way in which maybe using a different analogy Kenny might move it in a direction that kind of brings about new ideas or perspectives on this particular argument. Otherwise, maybe even moving into a different argument is okay to we do have a bit before the Q&A yet. Yeah, I, I, I don't know that there's really anything to move on. I mean, do you have any evidence for God. I'm trying to give you logical proofs for God. And I think it's it's quite logically necessary that if we look at reality and it's composed, there must be one who composed it. What do you mean one? What do you mean one who composed it? First of all, how do you know the reality is composed? And how do you know that there's a composer? And what is it? What do you know about that composer? Asserting that something is so is not answering the question of how why why is it every time that you say something and I ask you for clarification. You claim you just told me. Because I did. I did. Okay, I defy. So literally, there was nothing out of your mouth, other than an assertion that if something is that that reality is composed, and there must have been one who composed it. I asked, how do you know it is composed, because that's a very particular because we look at ourselves we have parts. That's not how you tell if something is composed because no, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. You can say no, it's not. Individual part put together necessarily means. Hold on one second. How will we do this once I just want to jump in just because in terms of explaining how it, namely, because they're in parts together, how that leads to it being composed will give you a chance to do that, Kenny. And then we'll give Matt a chance to respond, because I think there is a mass wanting more detail on why that follows. You don't get to call something. A car is made of cars made of parts. Somebody must have put those parts together. I am a composer. I don't know why this is is is. Can I? I understand. Can I? Yeah. I agree with you that cars are put together. Now, how do you know that a cell was put together by someone? I don't know that we're even talking about that. I'm talking about human beings. I mean, if you want to, because cells are parts, even the scientists will tell you that there was something that preceded the sale. Reason tells us even in the Big Bang that we must go back to a singularity. So you're now confusing whether or not there was a first cause or whether or not there was a first state or whether or not there was a change with whether or not something is composed. Composition. Composition. Yes, you are. Let me finish. Composition. If you don't want to hear it, Kenny, I guess we can just go on to questions because let's go on to let's go on to questions. Okay. Then Kenny doesn't want to hear it. But I'm going to say it anyway, because I came here to do work. In order to say that something is composed. That implies that there is an intentional action, a goal in bringing this out. That is true, I would say for a car. And we know that that's true because we know about how cars are designed to build manufactured, etc. So when you see a car, you know it's put together a bunch of different things. A human being, on the other hand, does not have the same evidence or track record or surrounding understanding that we have for a car. It's very weird to say that human beings were composed in the way that cars were composed. And when you say that a car is composed, we can find mountains of evidence for that. But when you say that a human being is composed, you are just inferring and not actually providing evidence. How do you tell the difference between something that is composed, and something that is not composed, if you believe that there's a God who composed everything. Because now you are walking around in a universe of composed things on a beach of composed things scattered with composed things, and you're picking up this composed thing and claiming it's different. And that this is evidence of God, whereas a car is not evidence of God, or as evidence of agency. And the entire reality, the entire reality itself, creation itself has parts. Even the universe, unity and diversity unified in the fact we call it a universe, but time, space, matter, energy, a composition. There must be a ground, something, someone that has put the universe together because it's composed of parts. That which this is a almost a self evident principle. Okay, can I ask one question? Sure. Is there anything composed of parts that wasn't put together by an agent? No, because it's an irrational. So, which atheism is irrational because it necessarily requires such absurdities. That makes your entire argument circular because there is, you're basically saying there is no possibility that anything ever occurred other than being composed by God. So you're assuming the very thing that you're trying to demonstrate and not actually demonstrating. No, I'm looking at composition and saying there must be one who composed it or something that composed it, who is one? No, I would, I'm fine with the notion that there is an explanation for how something comprised of different parts came together. I'm not fine with you assuming that it is an agent necessarily. You have to demonstrate that. Well, if we had time, I would. But we're trying to get past the principle. I thought that's why we were here. Well, we're getting past the principle. We're having a hard time getting to a definition. I don't know how much time you needed to demonstrate that every, you know, it's like, you and I look at two different things and you say, they're both designed and I say, well, this one's clearly designed by human beings. We don't know what the explanation for this one is. That's not really my argument either. It's just the fact that reality is not most play dough spoke of the fact that don't care unity grounds multiplicity. You can you can quote as many people as you want and make as many assertions as you want. We came here for evidence for God. I was giving you an argument for God. I'm not going to be able to give you empirical evidence because it's a category mistake. You cannot describe the whole by the part. We can go to questions and answer their James. I think we've come to pass in that sense. We will jump into the Q and a want to let you know what was our guest or linked in the description. Highly encourage you. You can hear plenty more where that came from. And thank you very much for your first question. This one coming in from Dustin Ellerby says, where did God get his data to create or even exist? And what mechanism does God use to create complex life when God has no parts? Dr. Rose. Again, I'm arguing for the logical necessity. That one is first and it grounds all multiplicity. This is classic theism. When you begin to look into what properties are what this one must be. It takes us back to the Christian God. Who is the ground of all things perfect unity and diversity within his very nature. You got it. Thank you very much. And this one coming in from Ozzie and thank you very much says, why must there be an ultimate reason for human existence? Dr. Rhodes, the answer should be self evident if there is a God who wants us to know the meaning. Read that one more time. They said, why must there be an ultimate reason for human existence? The answer should be self evident if there is a God who wants us to know that meaning. It's logically necessary that the universe has an explanation. This one coming in from Amy Newman. Thanks so much says after show up my channel and question for Dr. Kenny said, is this God conscious? If so, why? It's called the principle of proportionate causality. You can't give what you don't have. Gotcha. This one from Don Fulman. Appreciate it says for both of you. If quote, I think therefore I am is logical is quote. I was nothing before I could think and I'll be nothing after I die just as logical. I guess I'll go first as a Thomas. The statement is backwards. I think therefore I am it's actually I am therefore I think my be my existence is self evident. It's a self evident undeniable truth that I exist. And based on that, I am myself the law of identity law non contradiction. You can trace that all the way back through law of causality law principle I should say principle, just just for clarity, all the way back to analogy principle the analogy that all reality is grounded in a necessary being. Yeah, and I would say and I don't mean this to be insulting, but I could back this up. If we're able to dig in on it, that it's clear Dr. Rhodes does not understand the cogito because you can't just reverse it and say I am therefore I think is how it should be because what Descartes was trying to do was demonstrate how at a minimum one can be assured of everyone's own existence. And I think it was Thomas Hobbes that pointed out that that's still predicated on the primacy of reason. But now we're four questions in and all we hear is that it's logically necessary for every single question, except for the consciousness which is you can't bring something into that you don't have is literally the only answer he's given logically necessary. I wasn't negating that statement there I was just simply putting in and domestic terms. This one coming in from Daniel Baker appreciate it said for both Matt and Kenny, if you discovered your position was wrong. How would that affect your daily life? Matt, could you handle living with God and Kenny, could you handle living without God? So if it turns out there was a God I'd be interested to know that doesn't mean I would worship that God or review that God, but I would certainly believe that that God exists. And so that's one of the reasons why I don't understand why God seems to just be playing hide and seek, because he could clearly reveal himself or herself or themselves or whatever to all of us without question. To the point where we don't need to have these discussion debates and could also provide some information so that maybe we know what essence is or what is or isn't logically necessary. But what I live depends on who that God is as to whether or not I'd want to spend any time with him just like I could believe there was a king or a president and not necessarily like that one or want to stay around them. I can't do anything to stop a God from doing whatever it wants with me. And so I just have to rest assured that I am at least morally superior to anybody who would punish me for being sincere and honest. And Kenny, how about you? I would probably seek just like every person who doesn't believe in God to live the best life that I can if there was no God. You got it in me by Jim. I wouldn't live any different than Matt or anybody else. You know, I try to do good to my neighbor and everything else because those things are, you know, good. And I like that. I wonder, and maybe we can talk about this another time. I wonder which things you and I actually do or don't agree are good. But I would agree with you that we're all trying to, you know, I just don't understand why it's not enough to for people to consistently try to do good in the way that you and I both would. I like that. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I am very sympathetic to atheism. I've gone through periods of my life, three major periods where I almost lost faith. So I do understand atheists. I don't think they're wicked people or depraved or degenerates like a lot of people like a lot of my rabid fundamentalist Christian brothers and sisters do. I have a great relationship with my friend who's a huge Matt fan. So, you know, we try to do good, do good to our fellow neighbor and, you know, I just, I'm not a pro. Yeah, I mean, I'm not at odds with Matt or any other atheists. I have good friends that are. Gotcha. And this one coming in from do appreciate your question from Mark Reed says, Dr Kenny, it seems you speak like the essence quote unquote of something is separate than the thing itself. How would you demonstrate that an essence exists independently? That is simply the fact that we can do this by analogy human beings we when we drop architectural plans. We have the form of something the essence of what that thing is, and it takes an agent to bring that thing into existence. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying they're separated. I'm saying that that essence is seen in the instantiation of of what that thing is. It's distinct. It's not separate. But it's still a part of what something is to be and not to be are distinct and what a thing isn't that a thing is are are just distinct as well. You got it. And this one coming in from Brandy Beckett. Thanks so much said Dr Rhodes is my invisible floating dragon part of this ocean of existence. And if not, then why right there is an essence that doesn't have an in a existence in the world that has a virtual existence. And it can't be living because God has not given it an active existence, but it still has existence because he can point it out. And I assume that the words that he's saying are actually corresponding to a concept. Thank you very much for this question coming or coming in from made by Jim Bob says Matt any argument against God can be invalidated when used against truth. That's what they say. I don't get it. I don't know what they mean, but I would I would argue that I tend to go with a correspondence view truth. The truth is that which comports the reality and so somebody can demonstrate the truth of a proposition. Then I think they're right. I just think what happens quite often. And here I would say is that one person is convinced that something is true and is not capable of demonstrating that it is true or that it's reasonable to believe that it's true. And so yeah, Got you. And then this one coming in from Jonathan Lane says Dr. Rhodes if God is what defines something's essence apart from human definitions, then how is God distinguishable from the universe as we experience it? If God isn't distinguishable. What's the point? I'm not understanding the question. Could you maybe read that again? You bet they say if God is what defines something's essence apart from human definitions, then how is God distinguishable from the universe as we experience it? Gosh, I don't even know how to answer that one. I don't I would have to have more information to get at what what they're trying to ask. Yeah, I don't I don't think I can give that a good answer. I know how to answer from Dr. Rhodes perspective, but I don't think I should do that. God is the thing that gives essence to the universe as well. He's he's drawn a category line where it doesn't match with what you've said. Well, he gives existence to the world. Right. But the questioner was asking how God is distinct from the universe and the thing that you should have answered to be consistent is that God is distinct in the universe because God gives existence to the universe and does not give existence to himself. Good answer. This one coming in from Nick says to format. Would you be up for an exhibition boxing match for any atheist charity versus cosmic skeptic? That's the first question. And then I have no interest in boxing matches. If we wanted to do something else to raise money for something, I would. I don't feel the need to beat other people even mildly for fun. I'd rather do something better. This one from Nick as well says, are you related to Robert Anton Wilson? Your thoughts on him, Matt? I have no idea. Gotcha. And no thoughts. You got it. And thanks, conservative non-believer. Appreciate your super chat says fun times. I couldn't agree more. And Tracy Evans says, Kenny used wiggly words such as essence and form. And then he said, don't bring it up if you can't define and defend it. Kenny will give you a chance to defend yourself against that. What are your thoughts? I'll pass. Gotcha. And Marcos Laurenti says, as a fellow atheist, I'm glad to see Matt at least humble himself and not call the other person names and at least listen to them out. I was there. I was there. I was where Matt was 30 years ago. Don't let anger be you. What was the first sentence of that? He said, as a fellow atheist, I'm glad to see Matt at least humble himself and not call the other person names. I don't think they're referring to Kenny. I think that I don't know what they're referring though. So, okay, let me hit this super quick. Don't do the I was where you were. I'm better than you. Don't do that as an atheist. Don't do that as a Christian. It would be absolutely vile for me to show up and say, Kenny, I used to be where you were and I found my way out. And it would be absolutely vile for Dr. Rhodes to look at me and go, I used to share your concerns, but I found my way out to put yourself as the bigger person. Yes, I didn't call anybody, anybody names and I didn't get particularly upset today, but there's also nothing wrong with being having an impassioned plea for something. So rather than worrying about, oh, I'm so glad somebody acted so much better. Let's focus on, can we argue better? Can we present evidence for things? I don't want the theists name calling and smacking people around in chat. I don't want the atheists doing it. I'd like to be able to have a discussion if we get somewhere cool. If we don't, at least we tried and maybe we'll know how to do it better next time. You got it. I wholeheartedly agree with Matt there, you know, being passionate, nothing wrong with that at all. No matter how much Kenny and I argued tonight, I'm sure that we could go hang out sometime. People seem to think that like, ooh, it came to verbal blows. All of a sudden now we're at war. No, we're not at war. Heck, we probably would have played for the same softball team at one point till I tore my arm. We might be able to play music together too. I can show you a few things. James, I'm sorry. You got it. Jake 4D, thanks sir. Your question says, this essence is essence is Deepak Chopra. They said, Dr. Rhodes, you are adding words, let's see, behind it. I don't understand this. They say, please stop using necessary without justification. So I'll give you a chance to respond to that. I'm guessing you have a thought on that, Dr. Rhodes. No, it seemed like more of a comment, so I'll just let it pass as that. Got you. Daniel Rathburn says has. Let's see. Well, we'll entertain it because it is interesting. I think as long as we don't go too far down the rabbit hole. They asked, when does the ship of Theseus lose its essence and become a new ship or no longer? Never. Never. And I would agree because the ship of Theseus doesn't have any essence. Nothing does. Juicy. At least we've made it right on the conclusion. Can't lose something you never had. You got it. And then Oflameo says there is good evidence for deities. Like there is good evidence for round earth. And I think they mean, they told me they meant a globe earth. It is all deniable, a description for who we are and what we do is your answer for the deity question. I got nothing. Sounds like a comment. I'm confused by that as well. Thank you for your question says, Dr. Rhodes, if using the quote to or the essences to describe a thing. Does God rely on these essences for us to describe God as all good, omniscient, powerful, etc. I'm not sure. It kind of sound like they're trying to figure out how. From logical necessity, you got to the God of classical theism and that you can look up. I think that is what I think that's what the question was asking to. Okay. I don't want to get bogged down in it, but same thing as what I said, I what we see is composed of parts. And there is a logical in implication, for example. Here's another principle that self evident and undeniable, the poor accidents necessarily implies the per se, meaning that if there is a the accident of tallness. It must necessarily be in a per se a substance. So if I see existence as an accidental feature of reality that nothing within reality has existence in and of itself. That means that existence is accidental. It implies necessarily logically that there is a per se existence there something someone. And this one coming in appreciate your question. Snack nasaceous. Appreciate it says this tomisic stuff is presuppositional apologetics and they say abstractions are not a third state of reality. And that there is no penness. We'll give you a chance to respond to that Dr. Rhodes. The reason why I said what I said right at the beginning is I said I'm starting with the nature of reality and created being and then deducing and by abduction by a way of emotion going back to what is necessary to account for what we see in existence. Jump in with two things. First of all, please stop calling everybody a presuppositionalist just because you don't understand it. Please, atheists, please, please, please, please, please stop doing that. Not everybody who says something that is philosophical and and and it is analytic as opposed to synthetic is necessarily a presuppositionalist. I appreciate that because I repudiate presuppositional politics. I mean that they have good reasons and you can go after that. I would point out one of the things that came just said is that he started with a created being. And I do the same thing except I just start with a being and try to figure out whether or not it's created because if you start by believing that the being is created, you're going to find a creator. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I should have said existent being. Yeah, that's right with that one. Got it and Dustin LRB. Thanks for your question said describing something that doesn't exist in reality doesn't make it exist. Has anyone ever seen a God create anything? No. So why think that's the case? Dr. Rhodes. I don't know like the illustration that I used earlier. I don't need to see the one who started the fire in the wood to know that there is a reason why that would caught on fire. Something started it. Yeah, the difference is that have to be a person. But yeah, the difference is you're you're reaching a conclusion that it's a person. Not necessarily the fire but with everything else. And that's the point is that maybe that fire was started by a person maybe it was started by a bolt of lightning. And maybe it started by something else that we don't know or understand. And so when I look at the universe and say what is the explanation for everything? My beginning point is I don't know. And when we look around we gradually learn more and more and we build up good explanations for the things we know. It's not like, you know, you may have objections to whether or not we categorize things by clades, but it's not like we're wrong about whether or not there's a cell with a nucleus and it's not like we're wrong about whether or not you know the this is the way biology by and large works. Whereas once upon a time we didn't have a germ theory of disease we had spirits and you know this is this was people's explanation for things. What happens is as we find good reasons for believing stuff, the gods vanish. The gods ability to interact with us and the evidence for the gods is directly is inversely proportional with our ability to communicate and discover the truth about reality. Miracles decline just as videotape starts climbing up, you know, above beyond it's just, but that's me preaching, not just answering the question. What I would just, what I would just simply add is that I can know though rationally and necessarily that whatever started that fire had heat either virtually eminently or formally. I can know that for certain. One more time. I think that whatever started that fire that that agency had the ability to start that fire either virtually eminently or formally. I mean that just simply means I don't have to. My only problem was that you my only promise that you put the word agency in there which is not I didn't use agency as capital a so to speak but I would consider natural law some sort of, you know, unintelligible agency, something that is causing something else in a certain sense. We'll jump into the next one. Thank you very much for your question coming in from distro physicist says there's a rock and a tree stump in my garden. I thought about using them as furniture for tomorrow's lunch. Do they already have an essence of furniture. If yes, who and at what point connected that essence and being for Dr. Rhodes. Well, he once he would put it in the form of some sort of furniture, then he would be creating the essence of a chair or whatever it is. He's bringing form to the matter. You got it. And this one coming in from n o x d says Kenny this the the design car consisting of parts is a false analogy fallacy. The car has parts. It's designed. The universe has parts. Thus, it's designed. I think they're attempting to paraphrase you they say what about a particle with no parts. Is it designed a particle with no parts. We see a lot of particles coming together to produce what we see in reality. That would be a simple thing but it still exists within space and time and that would be the composition at that point, not necessarily a simple essence in that sense. Technically speaking. I'm saying the composition isn't just a button saying with a bunch of parts but a part put into space and time is a composition. No, I'm saying the composition is time and space you can't have a particle without space and time. So, I swear, literally what I just asked. Well, maybe I didn't hear exactly what you said there. Yeah, let's go on and let's Matt wants to say something. I'm good. You got this one coming in from Caleb Alamond. Thank you said if quote, you can't give what you don't have unquote. Does this mean God has black hole Ness or the essence of it black holes and law of gravity Ness. You can't give what you don't have. You must have it either formally eminently or virtually. It would take too much time to explain exactly what all of that is. For example if I punch somebody I don't have to have a black eye myself to give them a black eye. So that means that I have that in a sense. Eminently or formally or I forgot the other one I said but it's just the ability to bring about a certain effect in that sense. You got it and thank you. If you can't if you can't give what you don't have. Does that include hope and inspiration. Talking about causality at that point. Just food for thought. Gotcha and this one coming in from and new bus. Let me know if I'm pronouncing this right. They say a new business patron says Kenny if or it was unclear to me why the Hebrew God is the true God. Why are you so certain when there are plenty of monotheistic religions and even some that predate Judaism such as such as Zoroastrians. That would take a long time but it's just based on monotheism. Then we get into the realm of theology we would need to ask the question, you know, did this God reveal himself. A lot would go into it, but I have tried the best that I can to be rational in the steps that I've made so that I have good reasons just like Matt totally agree with him. I want to believe as many true things as I can I don't want to have good reasons for believing that. So there is a reason why I would start where I do. I'd actually start with the self evident nature of my own existence trace that back to God and then ask questions and see if God has revealed himself. How do you tell by the way, like if you ask questions to see if God revealed himself. I swear. I promise you Kenny I swear. I'm not this isn't some trick or anything else. I've been asking the same question for ages, even back when I was a believer. People say, I asked God for real himself. How do you know when that's happened. I think for just looking at outside evidence. I would just see where there would be evidence for this God to break into space and time. I do believe that miracles or the historical report of those miracles I hold that the biblical documents are good historical biblical documents before I attribute to them inspiration or the fact that they've come from God but I look at them as historic documents and then simply go from there. See if there's good evidence for the fact that predictive prophecy came true. I would ask questions of origin meaning morality destiny seeing if you know this revelation had explanatory scope and power. There would be those types of questions. We'll jump to the next one. Suzy. Did you have something you wanted to add, Matt? I didn't want to. No, I'm good. Thanks. You got it. Suzy says this is for Matt. Not a question, but please take a bow. I thought you had a really logical presentation. Got a fan out there, Matt. Well, thanks. One more quick thing I can do. Thank you. I'll take a bow just for the person who enjoyed it, but I don't look at debates as when loose things. I don't look at them as WWE events. Granted, they are theater, so maybe taking a bow isn't outlandish in theater. I appreciate the support. But really, all I want is I want to learn something. I want all of us to learn something. And so if anybody learned anything cool, I did my job. And if you didn't, well, all right, that's your fault because Kenny and I tried. Yeah, I just add to that that I don't even really like the notion of a debate because it seems like there's an opponent, somebody you're trying to crush. I like discussion and I came into this just wanting to have a good chat. You got it and appreciate that about both of you guys. It's been a pleasant, you could say, opportunity to listen for all of us, including myself and Geo. Thank you very much for your questions as for Matt. If reality is reductively one single thing, what attributes do you think would best describe the ontological primitive of reality? Yeah, I think that since the question began with if it's reductive and if we're reductivist, then it is only you never can get to the full understanding. question began with if it's reductive and ever reductivist then it is only you never can get to the full understanding maybe when you got to the smallest particles available but if you had for example the position and spin and everything all the facts known about every particle then that would be as descriptive as you could possibly get of the ontology of the universe you have anywhere near that but that that is I don't know what else there would be because that would describe their motion their interaction all of it you got it and this one from Toby says dear Dr. Rhodes when God gave meaning to the essence of life was the Almighty let's see I don't understand the rest of it so I'm that one I might have come back to sorry about that Toby but let me we might be able to get that later Daniel Baker says Matt can skepticism hold us back if we dismiss something if there is no proof won't that stop us seeking new ways and technologies to find proof oh gosh no so first of all skepticism doesn't say anything about anything negative about exploration it's an absolutely encouraging of all that all it says is that the time to be convinced of something is after there's sufficient evidence for it it is it is setting up methods so that you don't get conned by a Nigerian scam artist or you don't get you know conned into this or you don't waste your time on this but scientific exploration is absolutely part and parcel of what skeptics do and love and care about and exploring what it does is it says hey here's three people who are putting forward potential cures for cancer and one of them involves rubbing a rabbit hood on your knee and the other one involves some chemicals that have shown some some you know likelihood in other studies and the other one is prayer which study are we going to spend the most money on doesn't mean we shouldn't investigate others but if there's been a demonstration of efficacy towards one particular channel we move that direction the question I guess becomes how many times does somebody something have to fail before we stop putting money at it and stop and skeptics aren't cynics it's not saying oh no no that failed if you look at the James Randy educational foundation and what they've done over and over although they're not currently doing it now is testing people to see if they can do paranormal things anybody who says they can do something paranormal we will establish a test protocol that everyone will agree to and they will be able to demonstrate that they can do what they can do so you get a dowser out there and you put them to a test and then they fail they failed every single time nobody's ever passed the preliminary test does that mean dowsing is BS no it just means no one has yet demonstrated that they can do what they claim to do it may be the case that you can never show that something is bunk or false especially if it's not falsifiable but you get to a point where you say we need something new before we're going to expend resources on that we have a pandemic we have climate crisis we have all sorts of things and we have to decide how best to use our limited resources and somebody comes up and says hey I want a million dollars to study prayer well they need to go to the Templeton Foundation who's already done that study and show that prayer works at the best at the rate of chance and worse if people know they're being prayed for you got it and thank you very much for your question this one coming in from Ference Alice says believers love using words like essence soul spirit aura in their mind and they say that it's to bridge the natural with something otherly concepts that's it nothing more give you a chance to respond to that if you'd like Dr. Rhodes you know just out of habit sometimes it's very natural for me to use the language that I'm used to I try to accommodate the best I can and when I find myself slipping in an assumption without any evidence I'll try to back it up just like I did with you know calling it some one or something so sometimes it's just hard not to use terms you're so used to using once you feel like you have sufficient evidence for the use of those terms you got it and thank you very much for this question from Seth Nessmith says Kenny can you show the empirical evidence associated with the steps taken from a namely a creator is necessary to be the Christian God exists how have you excluded all other illogical possibilities I couldn't give any empirical evidence because that's only looking at the nature of reality and taking apart and trying to explain everything by examining that part to be honest my brain is kind of shut down I suffered a slight either heat stroke or severe heat exhaustion yesterday so my energy levels are kind of low so no worries at all this one coming in from Roger Bernaki thank you so much says dr. Rhodes what would make you stop believing in God is there anything that could occur in your life that would change your mind please use a specific example I was pretty close to that probably about 8 9 maybe 10 years ago I thought I turned that off sorry evil and suffering is particularly vexing to me and I went through a time that was really really horrible a lot of things happened personally a lot of things happened in my family was kind of like the book the problem of pain by CS Lewis where he said that he thought that God wasn't who we thought he was and it troubled him and that's kind of the experience that I went through when I was very very young I went through a similar experience when I heard some of the arguments for evolution and us you know trying to suggest that you know looking at how things work somehow does away with agency so typically I think just the normal things that most people struggle with I have struggled with to philosophically I believe that's what had saved apart from the individual experience of God and with no explanation whatsoever I really felt his presence I can't give any empirical evidence for that and the healing of my heart and a better understanding that just because I projected a certain understanding on who he was doesn't mean that that's who he was so without getting to transparent that's been my experience of coming close to losing my faith evil and suffering which it's probably fairly common you got it thank you very much for your question coming in from Chloe McClain thanks for your super sticker and then this one from and always he says thanks James and both debaters really enjoyed this question for both Matt what rank are you on chess.com blitz yeah that question it's hard to answer because it depends in bullet I'm right around a thousand in blitz I'm probably closer to 11-1200 and in classical I might be closer to 14-1500 but it doesn't matter because I pretty much only play bullet and so yeah we'll just say right around a you got it this one I came in right at the time in the pre show where Matt was talking about doing logical puzzles and stuff like that my wife can do those things she's really really good so I really have a lot of respect for people who can you know do the chess play chess and do those kinds of things because I'm I'm a musician so I'm in this and not only my musician but I'm a jazz fusion drummer so my mind goes off into the abstract and the polyrhythmic kinds of things so when you need some things like that like chess it's like just not for me but I have a lot of those guys who smells notes it I have I have a weird relationship with time it really is strange you got it they have a question for you as well dr. Rosie say I want to know why you think the essence of human beings must come from a god you get the easy one again there must be an act of ascending there must be an act of of being or an act of existence that is composed with what a thing is its form its essence its nature in order to bring it into existence same thing happens with human beings George Lucas came up with that concept and we can speak of essence and form as a concept before any kind of an instantiation so that's the the necessity of bringing that together is where I put the evidence the logical evidence for God you got it and thank you very much for this question it's coming in from James Bellewart says to Matt who or what created the laws of nature well I don't see any reason to think that's a who but I also don't necessarily know that these are things that are created they are as far as I can tell descriptive and that they are for identity non-contradiction excluded middle as far as we can tell they are true even if they're even nothing exists they are true in the absence of anything and so all they are our descriptions of truths and it's it's it seems to me to be a mistake to say why is something true as if it somebody had to make it true rather than it would also be the same as saying kind of like what created God if God is viewed as this thing that did not have a creator that always existed and in fact is as Dr. Rosen point out is a necessary being then I don't see why there's any problem at all thinking that these laws are necessary the problem is we have to assume they're true to try to prove them false and so you can never get out of that loop so we have to presuppose the foundations of logic and that's a problem but as far as I can tell there's no solution to it and this is the problem that the presuppositionalists go with because they want to assert that they have found a solution to it so asking who or what created the laws of logic is is like saying why is bachelor you got it in this one thank you very much for your question coming in from distro physicist again says the rock in the stump that they were referring to wanting to use as a kind of table for lunch tomorrow said the rock in the stump already have the shape I could use as a chair and a table is a further action needed to turn them into furniture Dr. Rhodes great oh I think they were asking I think they were asking is a further action needed to turn them into furniture in addition to does their essence already include a piece of furniture a rock in a tree well you can certainly use it as that if you want I'm not saying that if you sit on something it becomes a chair that's not that's not the argument there oh if I say if I say take a seat and motion over to a rock you know evidently the rock has does it have the essence of a seat or are you inferring that the rock can be a seat because you've seen other rocks used in that way and that it's not a function of the rock so much as a function of us saying hey we're going to sit down I would say that there's a certain aspect that it could accidentally be used as a seat but that's not going to change what it is but again where we have to distinguish matter and form when I put matter together or use a rock and a piece of wood or whatever and I put it together to form a chair that is what that form now that is what it becomes because I have formed that matter as a chair you got it and we just because you intended to be a chair what if I use it for firewood do I change the essence no but you have misused it you have misdirected what its intended purposes because because you're the one that determines what it's what's intended purposes no I think it's common sense if you take a chair from your kitchen what is a chair what does a chair even look like I mean you can make a chair look like anything you're assuming that there's a chair I've seen hundreds and thousands of chairs they all look different you can make an abstract art thing and have somebody go what is that and they say oh that's a chair oh well now it makes sense it's a chair but it didn't it wasn't intuitively obvious a chair it didn't have anything about it that was chair essence again that's not my argument okay this one coming in from Hank says Hank says Dr. Rose how do we get from God's goodness to him feigning death for 36 hours to forgive us for sins that he made us inherit you robot it on me there but from what I heard that is a involved theological question that like I said I don't want to go off into too much minutiae and we don't have too many more questions so like feel free to kind of go deep on it because we like I said in the q&a list that I have here I could like I said my my brain is kind of because I've uh exhausted today let's see this one coming in from James librado says hey guys just throwing out a reading suggestion for really strong logical argumentation for a creator andrew lox god and the ultimate or sorry andrew lock andrew lox god and ultimate origins a novel cosmological argument matt in particular they said they recommended to what do you think matt are you you plan on reading it i'll be honest probably not but not because i'm not interested but because there's 10 books sitting down there waiting for me to get to that i don't know if i'm gonna get to this year um i'd rather sit down have somebody explain to me why it's a particular book that i should spend time on because five minutes spent digging in on why this book as opposed to some other book plus evidently i have to read the bible again despite having read it countless times you got it i have the same issue namely just too many books to read before i can get to any recommendations but with that folks we are going to come back with a post credit scene in just a moment as folks we are absolutely thrilled we are beyond thrilled if you have not seen already at the bottom right of your screen folks we are super excited apostate prophet will be joining us for a debate islam on trial next month you don't want to miss it folks it's going to be a blast and so do hit that subscribe button if you haven't already this is going to be a great one and you don't want to miss it with that matt and dr kenny it's been a true pleasure to host you guys thanks so much for being with us tonight thanks for having absolutely so much pleasure 100% and i will be back in just a moment folks with upcoming debates just like the one i had just mentioned so stick around for that and thanks everybody keep sifting out reasonable from the unreasonable be right back i'm thrilled to have you here want to say i do appreciate you so much for all of your support oh you know what i normally i would have read this during the stream so i hope you can forgive me folks i am going to read out now everybody who we want to say thank you too and i'm so sorry i forgot i was supposed to read this before normally i do it while the debaters are still here and so i'm so sorry if you if you did 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nav josh wainer andrew kroll eric tweet ferron salles saw you in the chat as well and then sunday worship bob saddler invisible ninja pete barube berry berry byron hager chris gammon as well as nicolai bibbock and timothy foster thanks so much for your support as well and don't worry there are more folks as i want to say thank you so much for everybody who had contributed to this crowd fund including michael burr tau teemo michael e cruce jack hanzaker burt maize oh gosh have i not put this in the right order bear with me folks uh let's see that's right we've got that and then two seconds it's my first day you think that second page is loading and other people that i want to say thank you to javin e michael thank you very much as well as diane smith and bubblegum gun and amanda foster those annoying vegans brian and anna thank you so much as well as hallis frazier paul steven c haasfield andrick andrick ho phobe as well as paul robinson alex duboy and nate jones thank you so much for all of your support oh and john farrandino thanks so much and yves simard thank you as well and wilmar castrow andrew g stefan michael r burtro burto and kazaam kedgeworth converse contender john maddox invisible ninja mark reid teemo thank you so much all of you for your huge support as we are thrilled about the future folks and so thank you for that last minute super chat that just came in from william curt thank you so much oh and that's right we do have more super chats to read and so i do want to mention that so namely so william curt let's see said christian bring up all the historical evidence he wants and it will just be denied because not it's not scientific evidence this is foremost a philosophical debate about science not history well i'm so sorry that the the speakers are gone to uh basically they didn't get to maybe hear that because they're uh because it came in kind of late but do appreciate your support of the channel and so but thanks so much everybody for being with us as well as i see you there in the old chat hannah anderson riley s good to see you we're moderators great job we do appreciate all of your hard work and then general balzac thanks for letting me know that it's okay to read the names after i appreciate it because i i was like oh gosh i forgot it's been you guys it's been a long day since like 6 30 i've been just trying to get a ton of stuff done today including prepping for this event but also stuff around the house that i had been behind on and stuff i've been i'm supposed to study for comprehensive exams right now and i have to hammer it out tomorrow i really do because i can't get behind on it and i can still make up for it tomorrow but i've got a hammer at it and so but anyway thank you very much and xd said that this was exciting thanks james thank you endo appreciate that and haxed you're right i'm so sorry because i remember you did give oh gosh let me see why i didn't see you hold on because you're right and i'm wondering i'm like how did it not show up and haxed that's weird so you're not on the second page but the second page i think let me check on this well maybe in haxed did you sign up for the i thought you sent it for the coffee mug right then why would it not show because it shows yeah if i were to search this name but let me find you if you're on the first page because i i know i've sorted this like and i'm wondering i'm like that is weird well are you not under the name haxed let me know but yeah it's weird that it's not showing for me but i do remember you made a contribution and it was a sizable one and so i do want to say in haxed thank you seriously for your support along with anthony and i think i had missed so want to say thank you so much seriously we appreciate it thanks for your patience folks william curt thanks very much for your second super chat said we have to have we have to have a philosophy debate first before we get to historical reasoning if the atheist is a materialist then all evidence will be ignored well that's juicy i uh like i said that i don't know you might you might be earlier in the debate maybe you hadn't realized that you're behind as the speakers are not here but matter of form said i still think you stream your dissertation when you get to there thank you for that matter form that's a funny idea and it is actually kind of a juicy idea oh you're right in haxed gosh we did it via paypal which means there's probably somebody uh oh my gosh there might be somebody else i'm so sorry in haxed and i but in haxed i'm adding you to the list right now sheets because i and i know that i told you that i'd add you to the the list but i'm going to add you to the list right now to be sure that i send you that mug as i totally appreciate your support seriously and so that's embarrassing on my part for not being more organized so let me just add right now because i'm not risking forgetting and your paypal okay so i will look you up via paypal and so do appreciate all of your support though folks you guys this saturday or not this saturday it's like a habit now this debate islam on trial is going to be a juicy one we were really excited about it and so want to say hi matter form thank you so much for making the intro video matter form is linked in the description want to encourage you folks if you haven't checked out matter forms channel what are you waiting for you'd be crazy not to and then pete barube my pleasure thank you and thank you for your kind words right yes love you as well and foxpopulite says great job tonight james thanks for the awesome debate i appreciate that so much seriously you have no idea it means more than you know and so i i uh oh i just unplugged i just unplugged the computer so if all of a sudden the stream kills um it means i said goodbye because i only have one right now i only have one power cord here because i forgot one at the house that's embarrassing but yeah i can tell it's lagging oh it'll speed up bear with me i can tell the twitch chat is slow though but want to say in the old twitch chat good to see you brooksbarrow as well as e end in end in lip thanks for dropping by as well as ozzy in good to see you and a mystery 33 and sienna 2002 alley cat glad to have you here alley cat 1969 as well as kane malice thanks for dropping in pumped you are with us and catching up on the twitch chat many people in the twitch chat which is exciting folks if you didn't know we do have a twitch channel at modern day debate so if you did not know that i will throw that in case you prefer maybe you like watching on twitch instead of on youtube want to let you know about that and so i am pinning that to the top of the chat in case you have a preference for twitch be my guest also though if you didn't know modern day debate has a podcast well folks oh my gosh you're missing out what do you do what are you waiting for folks you can find modern day debate on every podcast test me because you may be like really because i use a really obscure one that nobody knows about or uses you can still find us all you have to do is pull up your favorite podcast app search for us and you will find modern day debate and we are now working on getting our all debates up onto the podcast within a day of the debates happening so for example this debate we plan on it being up on the podcast by tomorrow at noon so really cool stuff and we're excited about that so we do appreciate it folks i'm so encouraged at man modern day debate the podcast people have really been using which i'm encouraged by as i'm like i was like people really using this like it's worth uploading so i still upload them and so i hope that that's useful for you as you can listen to modern day debate on the go and we're at 449 likes folks we have to get to 500 believe me we can get there we really can we've got 669 people watching right now you might be like well then isn't it easy to just get 669 likes well no a lot of them are using the bathroom other miscellaneous things so we're just shooting for 500 baby steps just like in what about bob one of my favorite movies but thanks so much for your support dan are appreciate that like and yeah you guys i am thrilled want to read through some of these super chats as i know you guys might have been like james you didn't read my super chat bro as weed tonight sometimes just to kind of keep super chats lower or i should say questions lower during the q and a we don't want to have too many toward the debaters are here answering for questions for like three hours or something so we have asked in certain debates we'll ask like hey you know throw in a 10 and we'll read it on air otherwise we'll read it in the post credit scene bronze eagle productions i'm gonna start doing that right now thanks for your thumbs up appreciate your support via super chat and richard jacob's thank you even though matt's not here i will say once in a while matt actually pops in the chat no joke and so he may actually hear this but richard jacob says love you matt good job and chloe mcclain says keep up the skepticism and your advocacy matt thank you for helping me through my own journey and then charles in solo thanks for your question said please say quote essence of effervescence five times fast thanks and this one thank you very much jamey rustle says god did it quote-unquote can matt please steelman dr rhodes please and thank you and then marcus agrippa says who composed the composer of cells humans and then bro canna says kenny how do you know a cell was put together by a person or creator then some of these actually did read on on here already i didn't realize but john mac brides says from matt is actually peer perian from atheist experience single and open to dating a handsome 30 year old guy you mean brian stevens i'm kidding but thanks for that super chat friend and then this one coming in from daniel baker let's see okay i definitely asked that one toby i was confused by uh let's see matt powell's pterodactyl message deleted hey i don't know and then marcus agrippa thanks for your super chat i don't know if it's meant to be a super sticker or what but thank you very much as well this one coming in from bubblegum gun says matt del hunty versus nephilim free please matt i've already asked matt i don't think it's gonna happen maybe it'll change his mind who knows but i doubt it the batman let's see thanks for your super chat and then thanks for your super chat band for life appreciate your super sticker and thanks very much from daniel baker i think i read it let's see yep amy newman thanks for your and amy newman if you have the link um the of the after show i can put it in the old description and then jonathan lane thanks for your super chat as well as azian said why must it be an ultimate reason for human existence the answer should be oh we read that one for sure and then flea flicker 34 thanks for your super chat as well as dustin let's see and then and oh xd says thanks for hosting these fun debates james i always have a good time see you tomorrow oh that's right that was from last night and then we had two from today's uh stream from nathan thompson which nathan thompson it wasn't live i i re-streamed or i premiered the debate with tom jump and nathan thompson this morning and i think some people didn't realize i put in the title not live but sometimes people don't miss they don't see it so let me know if you were one of those people if you didn't get a super chat read and we can pay it forward so to speak so i'll read your question you can just put it in as a normal chat and a future debate and i can then read it as a super chat as we really do appreciate you guys supporting the channel that way and then floyd visser good to see you and then kk and jj evans parentheses kk thanks for coming by we're glad you're here as well as human girl glad you came by and christa fur thanks for dropping in as well as ha samuel little home and i love seeing all the regulars all the usual suspects in here do appreciate it azi and thanks for your super chat says i proved call l is god using the column on youtube lol i've not seen that yet that sounds juicy but let's see my dear friends upcoming debates this is actually going to be a really busy week of debates i want to let you know that you maybe don't know that you're like is it really what it is and i'm working on there's one of them where we've got a european guest perspective philosophy is hoping to come on and i was like oh bro i gotta like find a way that i can host it because it's hard for me to host during the day but it might be a converse contender might do it it's going to be what's better to leave behind an idea namely like what's your legacy while you're on earth and when you die is it better to have left a child behind namely like offspring or an idea that influences the world so interesting azi and thank you very much as matt d versus flat flatter day earth that's funny yeah flatter day saint that would be a juicy one no doubt about it that'd be interesting and then uh huh samuel lulahom says herman hasers and ethanial jensen part two the first was hosted on non-secretary show hey i'd love to do it um i don't know if it's gonna like work i think i reached out to herman maize like a year ago i don't think he was up to it but maybe i mean i i will give it a shot and then ryan secord says modern day debate how does one go about getting a live debate on this channel uh so basically if you email me at modern day debate at gmail.com uh it sends an auto response it should where it gives us it gives you like the like the things that we require and that doesn't guarantee it to be honest it just gives you the necessary conditions it's not sufficient one would be for example like we you have to use your camera we're getting we we're getting more strict about that uh we prefer that for sure that they have debate experience we don't want it to be a person's first time that we want to be able to see a debate they've done on another channel so that they can send the link even then still no guarantee uh depends on their topic sometimes i'm not trying to be mean but there are just some topics where i'm like i mean i love i love your enthusiasm and i appreciate you sharing the idea i just don't know if our audience is going to go for it and a lot of people don't know like if we put out a you know some topics people will actually unsubscribe so we have yeah so it's like i've got to be picky and i've also got to be picky about people and and so uh we frankly we've got a lot of people asking uh to come on right now which is a good challenge to have i can't host everybody because they also don't have unlimited time i've got my phd that i'm working on so like for me i've got a study for comprehensive exams i've got to do my research papers that i'm trying to put through right uh this summer and so it's really busy so i can't make any promises and even with the other mods they're oftentimes really busy they've got kids so i mean they're extra busy so it's a challenge but it at least lets you know the starting points joe valley thanks for coming by so james only you're going to debate somebody i have old debates on this channel if you want to check them out one of them being like against august berkshire i don't know if you guys have ever seen that that's an old debate but it was an in-person debate and it was a fun one because i really do love august he's a good friend i appreciate him and the other thing though is let me see how much battery i've got left here i'm running low 21 minutes okay i can i can work with that the other thing is um i can't debate i i shouldn't debate anymore in the near future because um maybe after i get tenure and i'm not even a professor yet so that's it might be a while the reason is it just gives me a lot of protection where if i'm on the internet debating these ideas and now that modern day debate is growing um it's like people may know about it and it just might in the academic world it might be dangerous for me getting a job later so might be a while being a moderator one of the reasons i started modern day debate is being a moderator gives me some sort of immunity so even though no joke one of the professors in my own department reported my channel to the chair and that was before we even hosted controversial stuff that was even before we started politics debates uh but she reported it and tried to get me in trouble and most of the people back then it was just creation evolution so they were kind of like they're like i don't really see this as a big deal and so you could say that other professors defended me which i was really thankful for uh but the point is now especially with controversial debates on here it's something that it's like it's a little bit more risky given that the channel is a little bit more of a black sheep of uh according to some people maybe um but let's see luis giles thanks so much for your kind words says i'm lucky all i got to do is go to work that's good and i appreciate that that is a good thing to have and carlos e says i really like the intro of modernity debates show thanks carlos and huge credit to matterform who's linked in the description and who made it i love that intro seriously doesn't it look epic and andrew rouse thanks so much for your super chat said why do i keep missing these and coming at the end uh james how far away are you from finishing your phd can you style yourself phd abd i'm not abd yet so i've got a comprehensive exam and then that's this uh the plan is i planned it for uh november 19th so that is this fall then i've got an e comp that i'm supposed to be working and that just it's an empirical comprehensive project it's just a basically another study and once i finish those i will be in the abd category so if i crush the e comp really quickly it means i could be abd by the end of this year so six months from now but um to be all but dissertation frankly is probably going to take me a little bit longer than that because it's a very like an empirically rigorous program and i like that don't get me wrong like they put us through the ringer uh we do have to work a lot um so that i do like and and i'm saying it's a good thing though it's a quality program it's a really respected program so void viscer says you're not a pepper so you don't have backup power a backup only goes in reverse i don't know what that means human girl says that's unfair i agree it's it's but to be fair um the chair and and everybody else was actually kind of like i don't see why it's a problem that james is like a moderator like they so i'm really glad that they are actually kind of they didn't have a problem with it so i'm glad it's only like it's few and far between that are like triggered by it now it may be a higher percentage to be triggered by it because we have debates on things like critical race theory but i i still think that so far i haven't had anybody bring it up again since then and that was like year and a half ago could it have been longer no i think it was a year and a half ago yeah yeah it was oh man that was it was it that was stressful though i remember it was like i was on the trip i was down in texas on our texas debate tour like recently after i found out this person reported the channel and i was like geez like i was like i was pretty stressful i was pretty bothered but we're gonna make it folks believe me no matter what roadblocks are put in our way we are going to crush them we are going to keep going forward folks no matter how many roadblocks we are absolutely determined to provide a neutral platform to provide a level playing field for everybody to make their case to the world no matter what walk of life they are from folks gay straight black white christian atheist muslim you name it republican democrat we are glad you are here no matter who you are and we want to give everybody their first shot to make their case and then matter form says glad you liked it that would be an understatement i'm telling you that intro is seriously so cool and seriously matter form if we could talk about like we should talk more about like because i was like i love that intro and i'm like if we could do something like that um but we'll talk more i'll let me make sure i don't forget and then um i won't forget believe me and then in hack says the intro looks great i completely agree all over cat wall says i guess it all depends on the idea and the child the child what do you mean i don't like in star wars mandalorian the child or what do you mean uh christopher says may the essence be with you and then k k h k k one two three says what's abd it means all but dissertation means you've got everything done except the dissertation and that's the last keystone project that you hammer out uh if you can hammer it out and then what is truth says james great work on the channel most definitely a lot of work thanks for your support what is true seriously that means more than you know gabriel reels says how was the debate it was phenomenal really deep really fun and so brooks have a says great job tonight thanks so much brook and thanks moderators you did a great job seriously appreciate it i'm so glad that we've got matt coming on again i really do appreciate matt i think i told you i met matt in person uh you guys have seen the in-person debate um so you you knew that i really enjoyed spending time with matt just a really pleasant fellow and so like we're glad to have matt on and and kenny as well i don't get me wrong um kenny as well i was glad to have him both on it so church of entropy says thanks for your kind words appreciate that and then matter form says yeah we'll catch up no doubt pancake destiny said you should invite your professor's debate deep platform or debate ha that's funny i'm sure that'll go over a while andrew rouse says james is just the coolest you don't have 100% thank you for your kind words seriously i do appreciate that andrew that means a lot and then thanks gabriel reel that is like super encouraging said james is a completely different level with is on is at a completely different level with his neutrality congrats thanks gabriel reel that is like super encouraging to hear seriously you have no idea it means so much i'm super encouraged by that and so for real that is just i'm like so happy to hear you say that is that's what we're shooting for and then amanda says 28 likes until we're to 500 likes come on let's do this let's do it folks we can totally get 500 likes you guys you'd be crazy not to it's gonna be epic hit that like button you won't regret it and then human girl says break out the hand grenades i couldn't agree more and then reservoir says i thought you already had a bd at least that's what usman said that's funny usman polio boy and then lockberry says let's be real all that college and you're gonna make 10 times more money as a youtube professional lol that's funny i don't know you never know i mean i always tell myself i love modern day debate and at the same time um i don't know it's hard to tell uh one is that like whether or not it keeps growing uh whether or not the podcast keeps growing like i would love to do this full time to be honest but it's not at a point where i could do that uh yet so maybe someday i mean it would be epic and then floyd viscer and then but to be honest so the school isn't i never really went to school and same thing with modern day debate neither of them are things where i was like oh yeah like for the money um both of them have always just been like the intrinsic joy uh first because i actually really do enjoy school like i i like the challenge i like the rigor uh it is put me through the mill like it's been rough sometimes a lot of the time with a phd but it is definitely it's helped me grow it's been fun it met a lot of people exposed a lot of ideas that's been awesome and so i am thankful for that and then let's see here catching up with the chat ej thanks for coming by i said which school does the professor who reported you work for that i cannot i don't want to i don't want to out them or dox them in anything i know you're not asking me to dox them but i don't want to even come close to doxing them because i i just want to let it go into the past but andrew rowis says james thanks for your kind of words and then matter form let's see human girls as i haven't seen it ej we're glad you're here though for real and louis presciato we're glad you're here as well who said the intro is amazing whoa baby believe me that's funny that's good uh that's a very good impression and then freeran says is james the high powered mutant never once considered for mass production fear and loathing in las vegas that's funny you're a funny guy and then someday like lord willing the plan is dr james who knows but reverend arrow says can't wait for another in-person debate at the aca i'm going to ask matt if we can do it in august that is the plan for real because remember we did a stretch goal back in january and the stretch goal for that was we were trying to basically raise funds such that we wanted to make a trip down to a atheist experience studio and again have it be live and we do want to still have that happen so it would not be a crowdfund event because we've already got those stretch fund goals funds and so that's something that any additional cost all fork out and i really do want to make that happen so uh i gotta find out what who matt would be happy to debate but that'd be cool and then general ball is that good to see you just don't make a man blush and then thanks for your kind words riley said we all respect you and want to do right by you and your vision for your md that that seriously means a lot i do appreciate that riley and so that's why we try it seriously means a lot i i really do and i hope everybody feels welcome it's so important for me that everybody gets their fair shot like i i just don't want atheists or christians or uh agnostics you know whatever i don't want anybody be like man i always feel like the debater on that side gets kind of uh the short end of the stick i i want it such that people at modern so that people are kind of like out there and they're like hey i can trust modern day debate will give us a fair shake i'm maybe i'm a democrat i'm a republican i'm a christian i'm an atheist whatever it is i hope that they're like hey all right yeah like i'll go there that's really important for me and i will admit that like i have biases and i the the trick to being able to try to fight against your biases is to first acknowledge you have them uh so i i have to say it's like i've got confirmation bias i mean everybody has confirmation bias so i've got to be realistic about having that and that's a form of bias so it's like i can't say that i'm like bias free so the goal though is to fight against the bias enough such that everybody's like hey we get a fair shake there and resa what agor said you could contact the guy who does jim cornet's artwork for his podcast clips that they really capture the essence of each topic would be cool for modern day debate too it would be we should actually i should no joke ask if they would do one for me and we'll see how many people at modern day debate recognize like hey is that thumbnail like was that the same as from jim cornet's uh show and then christa force as james was has mad ever changed the way you think so how it's a great question um let's see without like taking any like position or being biased i've always enjoyed listening to mat debate um you could say so but i don't want to elaborate uh i would say i'm i'm like roughly the same and i i actually a lot of you guys don't know that or maybe you do know i think i've mentioned before well anyway long story short um i don't want to elaborate too much but i've always been thankful to have mad on and then fair on salas let's see um floyd viscer says rich dad uh read rich dad poor dad be educated interesting tell me more uh floyd viscer i just started reading rich dad poor dad and i would say oh this is something i've always wanted thanks for your super chat rich coy says great program and excellent moderating thank you for the great program seriously that means a lot thank you rich seriously i'm really encouraged by that that means just more than you know serious i'm pumped um that puts an extra spring in my step and guy cd one thanks for coming by we're glad you're here as well as h jasper e thanks for dropping in and then uh basically yeah i always want to give my my opinion on education because i think education it's like one of those things i'm in the middle on i don't i really don't like i have no idea what rich dad poor dad says but what i don't like is sometimes people are like oh education is like just dumb it's just all useless to go to college and i'm like like honestly that's it's about what it sounds like for some people what they say and i'm like yeah i don't it's like it seems a little bit too far uh likewise i don't actually like it when people are like oh everybody should go to college like no not necessarily that's definitely i think a lot of people like nah like they'd be happier and financially better off and more importantly just the quality of their life would be better because i think a lot of people think too much like every it's like all my students when i teach general psych all the students think that like going to college is about getting a good job after and i'm like not just that i mean i hope they do get a good job and maybe and statistically it is correlated with that though there's a lot of interesting debates on terms of whether or not it's the education uh but nonetheless uh for me i'm like it's a lot more than that but anyway jimmy thanks for coming by said ap returning that right i'm pumped i'm stoked to have ap back it's gonna be a lot of fun and then human girl said i remember the boxing ring bell at the start of your old videos ding ding ding that's right i used to love that i i seriously love that so that was really fun and then megan satanist thanks for your kind where it said awesome debate james tonight james it was totally worth the wait i completely agree i am really thrilled about it and so we're getting close to 49 000 subs which is exciting folks if you haven't yet hit that subscribe button as i anticipate maybe by the end of the month well maybe i i don't know maybe july 4th maybe even july 10th i think we're gonna get pretty close and so i'm pumped about it i've already got one idea for something that we can announce during i'm gonna do like a 50 000 subscriber thank you stream and that's the thing for me i'm like i if we're gonna talk about numbers like in terms of like modern day debate is at 50 000 i'm like to me that message by itself don't get me wrong i'm excited about the vision but i want it to be about you like i'm like i want it to be like a thank you stream and so as well as maybe some announcements about like cool things that we're trying to do to improve the channel and take it new directions and try new things but i really i am pumped about it and so i'm thrilled to try to fulfill this vision that we have folks and it's something that we can be united in no matter what walk of life we are from brenda good to see you as well and west miles glad you came by as well as is it derogh mckinney let me know if i pronounced it right thanks for coming by and then chats moving fast oliver catwell says sorry earlier you asked if it was better to leave behind an idea or a child oh you're right okay i see what you're saying thank you oliver said i think you said a child is the answer now i get it i was like wait i was like why are you saying a child i didn't know i was referring to that title that's so funny thanks for letting me know above that oliver i was like wait what is he like i was a baffled but brook javis is so close to 500 likes folks we are so close right 489 likes by my count i haven't refreshed the page yet but folks we're gonna make it we're gonna get to 500 and so you guys might be good to see you woody says love you james love you too woody thanks for dropping in and then let's see jimmy says your bias is going to be tested with the islam on trial debate with ap i i would guess it will be it's gonna be juicy so you guys i'm pumped about that brook javis says when will we have the one on one zoom with you thanks for asking i'm so sorry i'm slow about getting that organized and scheduled and i promise i'll reach out asap and by asap i mean like i'd like to tomorrow monday at the latest okay i'm so sorry that i like i think that i i said as long as it's before june and the original indiegogo like description but i i still wanted to have gotten the ball rolling on that earlier and i've been i think i told you i've been moving so things have been like that's definitely been taking a lot of time so i'm behind but thank you so much brook for your support seriously and general balls acts has also awesome update to the intro outro outro i agree isn't it epic looking i'm so excited about that and so guy cd one says hey i got called out i usually listen on spotify at work that's funny and i'm glad that are you talking about modern day debate on spotify because i am so excited you guys that the podcast is being used by so many people we like folks what is your favorite podcast app whatever it is we're on there and this debate with matt and dr roads will be on the podcast tomorrow we are absolutely excited for that and so it's going to be epic you guys then let's see church of entropy talking smack in the old live chat uh good to see you and then andrew crowl good to see you as well as nathan that's right i got to say hi to you before we're glad you're here nathan and then darah draug says it's irish pronounced darah oh darah mckinney thank you for letting me know that darah seriously i'm like oh that's interesting i like learning about that thomas mcarthur oh from scotland says hi james still on night shift from scotland we're so glad you made it thomas you're a hard worker you're staying up late doing those graveyard shifts that's awesome good for you and then floyd visscher says to be uh that uh floyd visscher says robert kawasaki says to be an entrepreneur and not be educated to be a good citizen but control your own destiny and income not be paid poorly by others says to be an entrepreneur and not be educated that's interesting i mean i think for a lot of people it's a good way to go but the thing is it's like at least in our current system if you want to be a doctor if your heart is set on being a pediatrician you want to be a kid's doctor if you want to be a lawyer if you want to be an engineer like a chemical engineer whatever it is that you know turns your crank man you're gonna have to you know there's just no way around it at least in the us maybe it's different somewhere else and so now maybe you're like yeah i don't care if i'm those things well then i am like that's certainly one less reason but there are some ways in which i'd be like it's just smart you know like there are some people it just has to be the case um you got me you put a quarter in me it just has to be the case that for some people education is a great idea i'll give you a several examples one somebody has their heart set on being a pediatrician you want to be a doctor for kids they think it'd be super meaningful and for some reason it's like for them it's just by far the most meaningful thing the other thing is so i mean that's the thing is it's like education is not just for the purpose of getting a job or making money not saying that that's what Kawasaki says but i am saying that it's what a lot of people say i think and i would say the other thing is i do think there's personal growth now you could have personal growth like pushing yourself to do that much intellectual work outside of school yeah you definitely could like there are people that are self-taught that's a real thing and we i think there are people here at the channel even that sometimes you can see it's like that person has read a ton on their own and the other thing is two seconds refreshing my brain oh the in a lot of cases the finances because some people are like i'm not going to go to school and like rack up a gigantic amount of debt and don't get me wrong i would say there are there is such a thing as bad school debt where i would say yeah it could be bad that you get that debt so i agree with you and i don't i don't know if i'd have the same voice but i would say like yeah i get where you're coming from but at the same time like there are some things where it's like if you become a medical doctor and if you're decent even decent with money not to mention good with it you're gonna pay that off really fast and like there are a lot of jobs in which a college education can be really useful so i mean in other words my answer is like should you go to college it depends i don't know like the but i think the certainly the answer is not no it's dumb or yes everyone should go that's just like nah i don't go for that i that's something i'd be willing to have a debate on that's something i'd be i think would be really fun it's not controversial so i think it could be like it could be fun um and and not too risky so i and then i have like a middle ground position i think it's like yeah anyway hannah anderson says i say we get to 50 000 by middle of july yeah it has slowed down in the last few days it could be middle of july we were averaging like a hundred a day and we might jump back up to a hundred a day for like maybe a week but even then a hundred a day of new people would only get us to for a week yeah um still could easily be mid july so but guy cd one says yesterday i watched modern day debate on spotify oh that's epic andrew krull says six to go germania it's 10 54 p.m there wow you guys are late night peeps andrew krull says james i'm a self trained software and hardware engineer that is epic hey like i said i think it's possible i think there are a lot of jobs though just to be sure like andrew krull would you concede that there are a lot of jobs that it's like if you don't get if you don't get a college education you you just won't be able to do the job like medical doctors i'm pretty sure dentists lawyers a lot of the professional you could say professional type jobs that especially require licensure it's it's hard to see how you could go through and get those jobs without um going through the educational process but hey good for you i don't deny that there are some even types of engineering that people can do uh and i have a buddy for example like learn code uh and so uh i don't know what his exact title would be but i would totally concede there are self-taught people or autodidacts like a boss that sadly i have to go but thanks james for another amazing debate you're the goat of moderators thanks for your kind words seriously that is super encouraging appreciate that and then citron ass is my uh oldest kid has an advanced degree and is happy that's really cool i'm glad to hear about that and then ross thatcher said how's the profits rolling in guys let's see but you said you spelled it profits as i don't know if it was like meant to be a joke you said you spelled it profits as in like a person who foresees the future um i don't know if it was on purpose i think i think there's supposed to be a pun but i can't tell but jeff huff thanks for coming by i said welp seems like matt let's see i don't want to read anything that would be uh partisan but patrick mchenry good to see you as well as christopher and then i got to check out soon because my battery is low folks and soon the stream will actually i found out that sometimes the computer that i stream on if i don't have the power cord in for some reason it sometimes it seems it's a peer to do if sometimes just all of a sudden just shut off and i don't know why but germania says i missed this one but i've rewinded it and so i'm watching it now oh good to know thanks for letting me know that germania ah thank you guys for all of your support i love you guys seriously we're excited about the future a lot of epic stuff coming up and so keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable appreciate you and we will see you next time everybody thank you very much i'm going to show you that epic intro again matter form thank you very much oh hold on two seconds oh that's not it okay that's embarrassing here we go