 Hey everybody tonight we're debating what has a better moral foundation, theism or atheism and we are starting right now. With our our messianic Jewish guest Ken thrilled to have you he is going to give his 10-minute opening statement and the floor is all yours Ken. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you James and we did agree on 12 minutes by the way. Okay and I'm pleased to be speaking tonight with Skyler because he seems genuinely interested in tackling these issues which we both know are very complicated. So now at one point in my life I set about to think about the foundations that human history that we humans have claimed would be the best foundations for morality and I identified seven of them, two naturalistic, two and five theistic so I'd like to kind of review those for my opening. So the two naturalistic views, one would be that morality comes about from nature, it's founded in nature and yet all claims to naturally evolving morality can be logically disregarded since while there are maybe actions that help to ensure survival the desire for which is accidental on this view since nature is not a moral agent and there are no natural universal moral moral imperatives. I think it doesn't really work. Now this one I call semantic morality so it's morality the claim is morality can be tentatively grounded and human dictates but not ultimately because humans can make epistemic statements about morality but not provide an ontological premise since as this view presupposes the nature one we just covered there are no objective universal moral imperatives. So humans can without recourse to God declare certain actions moral or immoral even claiming that these are absolutes but these are ultimately ungrounded assertions they are semantic morality so we concoct useful and survival assisting concepts but these do not amount to universal moral imperatives. Also this morality is impotent and being established by humans who can only deal out justice if the evil doer is caught it is it's justice is restricted so on this view morality is based on majority rule and the fittest as it were and some questions upon there would be if something is good because a naturalist proclaims it to be good or does a naturalist proclaim something to be good because it is good. So now jumping to the theological options we start with dualism which is generally two co-equal gods and the key is that they're two separate and distinct beings and persons distinct one is constituted as being quote-unquote good and the other quote-unquote bad or evil but it's truly arbitrary since the subjective goodness of the one is measured against the subjective evil of the other and vice versa and would both claiming to be good and the other evil so viciously circular then there's strict monotheism so what's envisaged is one single being eternal being one person perfectly united not in the least bit divided and being alone in eternity relationship is not a part of its nature character or being so when this god creates beings it does not seek personal relationships with them but arbitrarily concocts morals for them such a god is capricious capricious as it is not bound by relationship and since morality is not interesting to its nature moral actions by this god are not guaranteed then we come to pantheon's polytheism and henotheism these of them have been conceived by one or two previously existing gods now whether the many gods are eternal or created by others they enjoy relationships with each other yet being distinct beings and persons they are not famous for conducting moral relationships with each other but are infamous for quarreling on this view the ancient gods somehow established a moral law which is then external to the subsequent gods and is a law to which these gods are subservient since they could enjoy relationships with other paranormal beings they're not generally interested in relationships with humans they consider humans to be play things right they manipulate our faiths or take human form and formicate with us but there's little if anything that in the way of ethical relationships and then to pantheism which essentially is a view that postulates that god is the creator and the creation so on this view gods creations are in reality extensions of god therefore on this view morality amounts to god dictating to god how god should treat god so that god is the script writer director or the actor the audience the critic and so it's again viciously circular and then we come to a trinitarian monotheism so in the bible we're dealing with our trinitarian monotheism i try you being one god one being and yet three persons uh being who exhibits characteristics of person each is god each is eternal each is distinct and yet each unified each is unified as the one god the godhead one co-eternal co-existing co-equal being consisting of three persons so this god is not alone in eternity is not in relationship to separate eternal beings and is in relationship and is in relationship to separate persons so what i mean is since each member of the trinity is eternal each has enjoyed enjoyed eternal relationships this god is not lacking relationship god enjoys a relation that is both unified in purpose and diverse amongst the persons morality is based best upon god's trinity and nature god's nature is relational benevolent eternal and free from conflict god enjoys relationships and encourages his creation to enjoy likewise relationships life consists of enjoying relationships with humans grounded upon the enjoyment of an eternal relationship with god and so the point being that that god's um so that morality or ethics and that's something we might have to discuss is the distinction ultimately proceeds for from god's very nature and essence because god is an eternally relational being and that ethic his being is free from conflict because god is one and yet and yet it is truly a diverse and interactive relationship because it's enjoyed among the three persons of the trinity so thus the trident god neither adheres to external nor constructs arbitrary ethics since they are an aspect of his very nature and with that i turn it over to you skyler thank you very much we will jump over to skyler's opening as well and so with that indeed skyler the floor is all yours yeah thank you once again for having me on james this fantastic uh so let's you know the title today is theism versus atheism which is a better moral foundation obviously i'm we are having a little bit of a technical difficulty as skyler is freezing and so we will wait for a moment but i want to remind you our guests are linked in the description folks and so while you're waiting you can click and hear skyler anyway but also yes we do want to say their get their links are in the description folks so for real skyler we we lost you for about five seconds so i was plugging your guys i was plugging your guys's links but now that we have you back the floor is all yours i'm sorry i'll be all right okay uh so when we're talking about morality really what the distinction between ken not going to be disgusting tonight is basically god made up morality is what i'd like to refer to it morality you get from the bible the karan uh the Torah other different religious sects and compared to what we as human beings what we create right my only basic argument is that we as humans we create moral systems right these moral systems are suggest subjective based on emotions opinions empathy everything is connected by our emotions and that's really all this comes down to now what's going to end up happening in this debate and this happens every time like i have a discussion about morality in general right is the usually the person who claims is objective morals uh will never be able to demonstrate they exist right and it's not an easy task especially based on you know their their moral foundation especially if they've rooted in some type of god um you know i i could go into the bible kind of stuff but that's it's really not really relevant to some degree it's not really that important to this debate because uh i don't know exactly what kind of bible stuff you accept i talked to all different types of christians you guys have all different types of perspectives on the bible some people you know believe god does some of the things that's articulated some people don't right some people believe that you know god was punishing nephilim instead of humans like there's all different types of beliefs out there um but when it comes to morality listen i'm open-minded i would love for someone to demonstrate there's objective morals i would love for there to be a god and that god to be the moral foundation i don't see any evidence for it and every time i ask for the evidence it never seems to get me anywhere uh you know the key to this you know what's better what's a better moral foundation i guess it just depends on the individual what do you think's better right this is this is an opinion this is a question about what your opinion is and i'll just say to the audience and as you're listening right you you at the end as you make that decision you think what is who's got the better opinion on a situation right i'll say also that you know oftentimes i'll hear arguments saying you can't have opinions you know you can't you can't tell people things are morally wrong you can't say things are morally wrong because your your morality is not really real it's not objectively real in the way that you talk about as a christian uh and there's there's nothing stopping me from saying expressing opinions moral opinions political opinions uh it's we human beings are free to do that there's no law of the universe that stops us right you may not like it there may be this part of you that's like oh that seems typical of critical since morals aren't real and somebody else might like this or might think this is moral and you don't can still express them in fact that's what we do in a society because in the society we make legal systems based on our morality the rules that we most want to live by based on our personal moral preferences but i think that's enough i i really more enjoy the discussion parts of this i didn't really write much for here so we can move on to the discussion you got it thanks very much gentlemen and we will indeed move into that open discussion and want to remind you folks if you have not yet hit that subscribe button right now and make sure you hit that bell notification with the little ringing symbol that way you do not miss some of the epic upcoming debates that we have going on at the bottom right of your screen i want to direct your attention dr freedman will be back tomorrow against dr burgess on capitalism versus socialism that's just one example of many epic debates to come and so like i said hit that subscribe button so you don't miss them live it's going to be a party and so with that thanks so much gentlemen the floor is all yours first of all i just wanted to say originally we were supposed to have the debate tomorrow st patrick's day so in that spirit let me do as we choose say and go lachayam everybody lachayam where do you want to start tonight my friend now what's interesting is even in our discussion before we started i did pick up on that james related the title of the debate twice and one time he used the word moral and the other time he used the word ethic so i think that would be an interesting way to start because the way i would put it is that you skylare are an exclusivist moral relativist where i'm also a moral relativist but i'm an ethical absolutist and so we really can't tackle that without getting into a little bit of semantics you know so i would call myself a moral subjectivist almost a motivist to where i believe they're almost just basically emotions so i'm kind of in between i'm not a moral it kind of falls on a moral relativism but not exactly well i was taking subjectivist and more relativist to be essentially the same thing i was just pointing out that it's exclusive it's the exclusive view that you have where i mean that's the position i hold yeah i mean is that what you mean but yeah okay so that's one issue that we need to i think get on the table right away uh is the distinction between morals and ethics or morality and ethics because things can get really confusing if we're meaning different things by those terms i guess what what i what's the over like so you were arguing with me what started this was arguing in the comments about me not being able to as a moral subjectivist not be able to give moral opinions oh i know no um i wouldn't tackle that i wouldn't say you could as i agree you can give an opinion about anything the question is whether the opinion is viable or cogent or not so yeah anybody can make sure any yeah well i guess i'm just waiting for what the point is here like what are you arguing i want to get to the argument yeah yes what i argued is that as far as i know in the history of ideas humans have proposed seven top uh claimants to foundations for morality and i just discredited six and left one but again let me maybe just discredit six you just gave a quick like one sentence line to dismiss them and then moved on that wasn't really we even argued we could go through them why don't we go through them and we can argue the merits of them i think that again let me let's just discuss the the words let's just get semantics semantic for a moment all right okay so just explain what you need to tell me and i'll listen to it okay so technically okay on a technical level morality refers to the mores and that merely describes whatever it happens to be that people are doing so you could look at any culture whatsoever and and when once you observe what they're doing well that's their morality it's their mores so on the on the technical level what morality is subjective tentative relativistic intrinsic that's what it is on the technical level you agree with my position that's what i said a moment ago we're both moral relativists but you're an exclusivist moral relativist aren't we having a discussion about morality in god here like the moral foundation versus atheism versus theism you're a theist right yes you don't believe morality is rooted in god's nature i just finished arguing that yes i know that's why i'm confused because that would be objective that's not subjective right so the i gotta finish my definition which is then when we talk about ethics on a technical level it refers to the ethos and the ethos prescribes what people should and shouldn't do and that's what's absolute it's extrinsic and it's objective and it's universal see but my point isn't really that we're should be forced to use the word mores versus ethos because some people refer to what i just defined as ethics they'll call it absolute morals or universal morals and so that's the difference between you and me that's what i was saying you're an exclusivistic moral relativist where i'm a moral relativist but i'm an ethical absolutist because i can see that there's there's two levels there's the level of your ethics your ethics come from god is what you're telling me right yes but can you demonstrate that well i think um a good demonstration would be that that humans throughout history regardless of chronology geography or theology or like thereof have always agreed on the ethical level on the level of the ethos what ethics are you talking about specifically and who are you talking about everybody's agreed with them yeah as far as i know okay i haven't spoken to every single human being who's existed but no but where were you even getting this information that every human beings have fault this these particular ethics that you're talking about and what are these ethics yeah so uh i'll give you actually i'll give you a parochial example something that's really accessible to all of us okay okay but this is an example of one of them right yes okay beautiful so we've all seen in the news that people are tearing down statues right and why is that it's because they consider the people depicted in the statues to be villainous right yes i think there's it's more complicated than that but that's you know that's a simplistic way of saying sure and but but why were the statues erected in the first place because there's a different group of people who considered the people depicted in the statues to be heroic right yes are you you talking about like the confederate statues in the country are you aware when the confederate statues went up when they went up yeah do you know the time period when they went up why they went up well there's i mean there's so many of them that it there's no one else yeah well it was doing the civil rights era this was a way of these cities be able to put their thumbs up basically it's civil rights activists this wasn't something that was historical or about history this was a way of saying f you to people who wanted to segregate their schools and segregate their cities but so yes that's the reason they wanted to take those statues down is because they were done for those particular reasons and of course these were slave owners right so but like I said that we could go ahead we're gonna say well my point is um that's an example of conflict it's moral conflict you have one side saying hey this person's heroic you have the other side saying no that person's villainous they're in conflict that's a moral that's what we do with the bible all the time being my co-host but we never show about that yeah that's a moral conflict it's on the moral level they're disagreeing see but my point is can you notice how they're actually agreeing well that's what i'm asking what is the ethic you're talking about because i haven't heard it yet so the point is both sides would agree that heroism is to be praised but villainy is to be condemned that's at the ethical level and then you get above at the moral level and that's where the disagreement takes place i don't know i think you have uh heroism kind of becoming a thing especially in specific time periods uh and depending on like movies entertainment i mean it's how the stories are kind of built i mean i write screenplays but this is how they're they're based on the hero story basically exactly yeah but that's not like so basically now we've claimed an ethic now you're saying uh hero heroism i can never say the word right uh some words i can never say uh but uh you're saying that is an ethic that ethic comes from god and i'm trying now how do we know that well because there doesn't seem to be a another option for how all he is well it's not it's the opposite it's you say it doesn't seem to be another way to do it just because you can't see another way to do it doesn't mean it's possible how have you excluded the other ways of this coming about even if i grant it let's just say grant it for the sake of the argument let's say that that is some kind of universal norm ethic how how would i uh how would i know that comes from god well see i'm not claiming uh i'm not jumping to a conclusion based on what i don't know i'm jumping to a conclusion based on what i do know that's what i'm saying it's my observation of the history of human ideas well i mean it's your opinion like you mean this is your opinion as opposed to what well i mean to an objective as opposed to a tablet wearing god wrote with his own finger i mean well i mean it's you know well it would depend on like what you're trying to prove right like for instance to if someone was came to me all of a sudden was like hey skylar i had your baby and i was like that's ridiculous like i'd go and get a dna test i could prove that the thing's not my child so depending on what level of thing you're claiming here right if you're gonna claim that there are these ethics that come from god and i don't know where does he talk to you are you getting him from a book are you a bible believing christian right i don't know where you're pulling these ethics from where you're getting it right now you're just saying this is what i see this is an ethic i can't i don't know where to go from there well what i'm saying is that when we observe that at the ethical level all humans in all times and all places have agreed then that makes it objective and absolute and universal and if if i don't know if you want to throw out a claim that it's a result of a happy long series of accidents then that would be something that wouldn't seem to work that's my i just don't know i would just say i don't know the answer to the question i don't know how everything came to be but then i got a conclusion in there and say when you don't like you have no way to know if every culture was like this i would bet you i wonder we could easily probably find this out if we had some type of scholar history here i'm sure we can find cultures that weren't just based on that what's these other ethics so we'll give me another one what's another one of these ethics and where did you learn them from that's what i want to know so what are the ethics worth yeah okay there's something i'm not really understanding yeah is why are you arguing with me well i wanted to debate the topic that we had here but it seems like like like originally what i was saying to you every the comment you've made to me before is i don't have the right to be able to express opinions as a most objective i already stated that's not what i stated that's not the comment i made nor would i what was the comment you made yeah what i stated is that yet you have disqualified yourself from ever condemning anything so let's argue that how have i disqualified myself from ever condemning by by taking the same thing i just said condemning more well no no no no no no it is the same go ahead go ahead though how so why can i condemn because the premise that you provided to us here tonight right cannot result in you condemning something ontologically all you can do is give us your personal subjective opinion du jour about it that's what condemning is an immoral no no it's not actually where are you getting your definition of condemning here for example do you have a favorite ice cream no where's your definition of condemning coming from if it doesn't match that i'd like to know well okay so okay go on because i just showed against once again you say my definition is wrong but you're like oh well i don't know where my definition comes from i mean it's clearly what it's clearly what i articulate isn't your exact wording but is the same thing you used to work condemning i said saying something's wrong or telling somebody they're wrong oh no you're i'm sorry you're focusing on the wrong portion of the statement i was not claiming you cannot make a statement that you can't voice an opinion i was just saying that it's invalid it's not cogent that's what i stated up front okay and how is it not cogent okay so when we talk about ethical systems we talk about condemnation we're talking about stating that an action in and of itself ontologically in its nature in essence is actually wrong or evil or bad or whatever you want to turn where are you getting this from what's this something you can't do is this your opinion or is this an actual philosophy book are you saying that if i quoted a philosophy yeah no i yeah let me let me explain this why is what i find with theists that when i talk to you guys and debate you when i actually ask for your stuff you don't ever have it right and and i when it's people that i trust with it and i'm not saying you're being dishonest or lying or anything like that um what i'm saying is is that no well it would it may not matter to you it would matter to me because i don't if i knew you were purposely lying in this conversation i would end the conversation but why is that there's nothing there's nothing absolutely wrong with lying it's just your your personal preference because i me as a person i can choose to interact with the people that i want to interact with and if i feel that if i feel that people are lying and dishonest people i don't i can choose not to interact with you but why is that what's why is that why because i can go based on my emotions my opinion same reason i go and vote right why do i vote against hardcore conservatives well they should you shouldn't vote based on emotions and based on what your opinion that i shouldn't based on my emotions like what rules is that set in place well have you have you ever had the the experience where you feel how have you ever had the experience where you feel a certain way about something so it leads you to a conclusion but then your feelings change so your conclusions change it's not only emotions that i vote on but it's the same idea it's yes you have emotions and opinions that's what subjective morality is their opinions i vote on my opinions and politics which is why one year you could vote one way and the next year the other because there's no foundation that's the point well i mean you technically as a christian you could do the same thing i don't know if you call yourself christianus theist but as a theist you could do the same thing i don't know what's stopping you but my point is that you know you've had the experience that your feelings change so your conclusions change so then that's not true feelings changing feelings when you're talking about a mode you're talking about two different things you're confusing terms no because you told me that your uh your moral conclusions are based on feelings and i'm pointing out that your feelings change then your moral conclusions will change such as they have throughout your life they have they have actually i'll give you that i'll give you an example yeah but there's nothing wrong with that that's why we as human beings do things for instance when i was a christian i believed homosexuality was a moral right when i left christianity i realized the only reason i thought it was a morals because i read it in a 2000 year old book right i left it i never had those emotional connections to it again at that so that's a way of humans grow but there's all you're doing is saying hey if if morality is subjective you can change your morality yeah what that's how reality works i mean i don't know what your point is unless you can demonstrate your ethics come from god then all you have is an empty claim that you can't demonstrate well but why is it incumbent upon me to uh demonstrate that you don't have to but that's kind of why we're here to debate if you didn't want to debate you know if you don't want to debate morality why'd you show up i think you're now i think you're feeling uncomfortable because this isn't exactly how the comment section goes when you debate people in the comments man is i can ask questions back so are you going to demonstrate that these ethics come from god and where did you get the ethics come from god did you get it from the bible well now the question was why should i it weighs it incumbent upon me to provide demonstrations and you said it's not you don't have to i can't force you to do anything there's no law in the universe that will make you uh demonstrate your claims but listen if for the audience's sake and you know i feel they might want to hear your all your claims demonstrated if you want to avoid it you know that never looks good in the end my man okay so let's pause for just a moment because what's happened here is at least look skyler i'll give you this much you're up front you're blunt and you make yourself understood this is purely about however you feel at any given moment you have absolutely no foundations for logic truth or ethics and uh all right there we go all right let's debate that go ahead let's demonstrate that why should i when you admitted it all right so you you've given up you've given up i have a foundation i said i don't know where everything comes from is that what you mean that when i you say i don't have a foundation well is that your whole point has been that this is about skyler's feelings and opinions no no no no no you don't know no no no on on morality we're talking about a singular topic here okay so now you just said that i can't with my worldview that i can't have rationality reason basically pre-supping me so demonstrate it well prove that i can't have rationality and reason um i didn't claim that my my claim is a bit more subtle subtle uh you can have those things but you can't ground them so you can use them but they're not because that means what does that mean you can't you what you can't ground them what does that mean it means it's always going to go back to the same thing because it's based on your feelings so that's why you can't wait a minute i wait a minute i can't ground what what did you say reason no no what do you know what i'm asking what are you saying what is the claim you were making against me you're saying that i can't ground these things now you didn't actually say what the what does it mean to ground something are you saying give an account is that what you're basically saying no it's uh they're okay so their ontology once they come in upon what they're founded not just using them i can pick up a hammer and use it but i didn't build that hammer it was already there sure okay so you're saying hey this is already there i'm going to pick it up and use it sure you can sure you can but when we're talking about the the foundations for morality we're talking about once they came where did that come from that's what we're talking about and you're saying it's our feelings no no what what i'm saying is i don't know completely where all morality comes from what i do know uh is that you haven't demonstrated this morality that you're claiming right you keep saying there's this morality there's this morality or ethics whatever word you want to use it's fine but you can't demonstrate it right you're avoiding it at every cost and like unless you can demonstrate this claim i'm just going to dismiss it because i don't know what we're arguing about at this point and if you want to run away from theism you don't want to talk about theism that's fine uh it's just i i don't i don't get it you never answer me where did the ad did you get from the bible the ethics did you get them from the bible i stated that very clearly in my opening that they proceed forth from god's very nature and essence ontologically that is where they come from how do you know that where do you get that information from various places so one of them is like i have the original idea the original idea you got for it where did that come from it doesn't come from the is it from the bible uh the bible would be a major part of uh laying it out so the way i would put it is that the the spirit of the law is the parchment upon which the letter of the law is written so that's what i was saying before is that there's two levels that we're talking about the ethical level and the moral level the one is absolutely the other one is not why do you got treatment so unethical i'm not trying to understand like i do your own standard of ethical your own your own ethical standard why would god treat women so horribly the bible by making them plunder for spoils of war and things along that nature but i'm not sure what would drive you to uh imply that there's something wrong with that even if it's true no i'm just asking from your worldview but just a question i didn't imply anything was wrong with it just a question is there is there something ethically wrong with taking women and children as plunder well if if we're gonna make specific it's a yes or no question man you don't have to run away from it you should be able to say yes it's unethical to take women and children's plunder it's real easy upon me to false false for false dichotomy so let me just point a couple things out okay because you you want to bring up the bible which is fine so we're talking about theism yeah well what we're finding the bible is that both men and women are created in god's image women had the right to own their own land they received inheritance they were prophetesses they were slaves they were bog sold to men they were disciples concubines they were deaconesses they were teachers they worked and owned their own businesses can you give me one example of a marriage that was consensual in the bible they were present at the day of pentecost books of the bible are named after women and women were the first at the empty tomb while the male apostles were hiding in fear you could sell your daughter to get out of debt in the bible but there's nothing wrong with that right i'm asking you is there something wrong with that silence right you know when you can't answer serious moral questions if you can't say it's morally wrong to say women and children as plunder and i didn't say it was in the bible i just asked you a question right but you knew it was in the bible and you knew you'd get in trouble if you said yes right so like just be genuine with your answers and honest okay that's what i'm asking for if it's yes if it's a yes you can explain if it's a no you can explain but don't sit there and pretend like you're not going to answer the question that's what you did okay so it's not going to work out well for us if you are playing mind reader okay that is just definitely not going to work so let's not going to work if you don't answer my questions either but i'm trying to get answer my questions let's just take it one step at a time don't play mind reader my question that you just stepped over is why are you implying these things are problems when on your view they're not let me explain um so in my view my worldview is uh i view that human especially children of women i have they have they have value right i have empathy in my heart uh that wants to me to make sure that they're protected and i want good things these personally i just like that good things happen to people and bad things don't right um so that's the reasons why i have problems when you say hey uh it's ethical in certain situations to take women and children's plunder because you're enslaving them uh enacting cruelty um and being very violent towards them so yeah i'm gonna say yeah that's the problems i have but you really need to talk about things being bad and good but on your worldview there's no such thing it's just you don't understand moral subjectivity then if you say that to me because i have a moral system where things are right or wrong by definition i have a today today yeah that's how morality works right you demonstrate hold on okay can you demonstrate morality works something different than this um absolute morality of course okay demonstrate that it exists yeah demonstrate that exist well i already gave the example of things that uh all humans seem to agree on well yeah she seemed under your opinion to agree on that's not a very strong argument well i gave the sources for do we do we have a source for it or something like that's that's accessible to all of us at least living in first world countries with televisions because we saw this happen and we can see okay they are agreeing about something how could they agree when they also disagree and then that shows us that there's a level at which we are applying our relativistic subjective standards but then there's a deeper level in which we cannot get away from agreeing because that we're created in god's image and his ethos is front loaded into us right like it's absolutely you would say it's absolutely immoral to take women and children's plunder right um is like is it absolutely under your moral system absolutely wrong to take women and children and plunder it is okay there are times where i'm sorry it is absolutely wrong so god orders people to do absolutely immoral things no i'm what i'm talking about is time chronologically based statements okay so is it right now yes but it wasn't immoral back then right because there are what you're just trying to make a point about my morality being different in different time periods is if that was a good point and now you're just telling me your morality is different in different time points but see that's why i explain oh it's just a hypocrite it's just obviously that's why i stated out the outset that i'm viewing this from two different levels where you only have the one so your contradictory view you're viewing it from two contradictory levels well what do you mean are you implying there's a problem with a contradiction yes i can believe contradictions are invalid as nothing to do with morality no but it also has no foundation in your worldview okay demonstrate that has no foundation in my worldview well you're claiming you've claimed it multiple times now demonstrate it you're a or walk away man you're applying you're um implying that adhere is to logic is some sort of universal imperative right am i implying that how did i imply that ken that was the question no that was no no i'm asking you from your worldview ken you're not keep you're not following no i am following the ask me you can ask me another question if you need to ask me the question i'll ask you the same question please are you implying that adherence to logic is a universal imperative a universal imperative what do you mean by universal imperative a thing that all humans must do how well do the must they do how i don't understand how you're using it in the sentence because how humans what they must do in what sense of logic are you talking about well so you claimed that i was contradicting myself but i'm asking upon what premise you come to that conclusion and what you do while you say two different contradictory statements so what if yet well well i mean if you don't believe in contradictions are valid that's fine i mean i can't help you tell you i do but i mean if in order to debate me you just have to do silly arguments like you can't say contradictions are invalid you you think that's a reasonable debate style ken this precept works for you well humans have invested a tremendous amount of time in debating these things yes of course it's valid well i don't know i don't but i think your approach here is poor and i don't think that you're you're able to but that's your subjective opinion oh it is yeah no that's deaf i'm glad you recognize what we're seeing here is regardless of the issue whether we're talking about logic or we're talking about morality no we are going to be the same it's going to be that this is how skylar feels at this very moment and that's the end of it just like how your morality works where it could be moral in one time period to take women and children and plunder and then in another time period it's not immoral right i bet you'd say the same thing about like the other stuff like slavery too is that moral in one time period and not moral in another well that more of your relative morality i think we both know that that's an enormous topic and i'm not interested in throwing out some one-liners you already accused me of that so let me listen we have scholarly research that backs that there is so much biblical slavery that goes on i mean this is very well documented this is even an argument at this point oh there is and that's why when you get into those discussions you recognize that it's complicated and when you use the word slavery it's nice and juicy uh but you know for you know who my co-host is right so you know who my co-host is right of the scholar fiction show do you know who that is i'm sorry my co-host of the scholarly fiction show is dr josh bowen the guy who wrote the book on slavery yes who also jumps to conclusions i didn't mention his name i'm sure he does i'm sure he does you know it's just like all these empty claims that you keep making yeah but it doesn't matter on your worldview right oh it does it does well no it matters to scholar fiction at this very moment and that's just yeah yeah my opinion might change that's how opinions work they change exactly so let's keep talking maybe so but but hold on that's what i'm so confused like are you are you saying that's a bad thing what that that opinions change that morals change well i would go into um no no yes or no man do you view it as a bad thing the problem is like dude this is what i'm talking about you start going into something else i asked you a direct question right and you be framed it like it was a bad thing and then i'm like i then i'm getting hesitation on you're gonna be yes or no well because i always want to make sure i'm not being cornered into a false dichotomy so i have to think about whether it was one or not but that's on my worldview on your worldview false dichotomies don't matter right so is it uh bad opinions change i want to make sure i i answered you because so you said you said it is bad that they change no that's what i was about to answer well that's what i was waiting for you yeah i don't i don't okay so this is obviously a little contentious i don't want to jump over the questions you're asking i just want to take the time to kind of dig into them a little bit before getting to the to the reply that's that's fine get ahead yes so thanks for hearing you though i can hear you uh oh talk i can hear you thanks geiler is getting a glass of water and so oh you want to remind you folks if you have not yet folks i would highly encourage you if you have not yet i am so encouraged that so many people have found apparently modern day debate the podcast has been useful as we've been seeing increases in the downloads every month and so that is exciting want to remind you that we are on podcast and so hey i pull out your phone right now if you're not already on it and pull up your favorite podcast app and find us as we've been like i said just really encourage that that's actually been useful to people great for drives to work or you know long trips driving whatever it is so thanks geiler glad to have you back and we'll kick it back over to you guys so it was um in my court to answer uh of course it's not wrong to change your opinions as long as they adhere to the ethos because that's absolute so now i had a question if i may please so your whole point has been that it's primarily based on your feelings but is it true i don't know what you're talking what are you saying what is based on my feelings really anything uh no then no then that's then that's not correct okay truth logic or ethics not based on emotion so now you're i didn't say never said these were made no i said i said emotion morality is based on emotion and moral subjectiveness i wasn't talking about the laws of logic being based on emotion oh no no but your application of them i mean how do you what do you mean so let me just get to the question then now that you ironed that out and that was helpful yeah okay so your point in this debate which is about the foundations of moralities that they're founded on your emotions but on your worldview is it true or false that on your worldview emotions are the accidental byproduct of random biochemical neural reactions i don't know i don't know i don't know where everything comes from in all right so i'll do this oh well that's great because then i can keep saying the same thing as you hey i don't know either and what are we discussing then you don't have to i mean it's fine i'm just being honest i don't know where everything comes from you you're the one making claims about the universe and god and stuff okay if you want to run away from those things you don't want to debate them i'm just being honest would you rather me not be honest with you well not because on my worldview on dishonesties absolutely unethical except when god has his spirits like tricky if you don't know where it comes from i just want then instead of asking you i'll just tell you on your worldview feelings are the accidental byproducts of random biochemical neural reaction no i don't know no then the accidental brain that was have hazarded together when life accidentally came into being on an accidental earth in an accidental universe i mean so okay okay so you're having these experiences you're telling me my worldview i appreciate it right it's not cogent it is not viable i don't i don't accept your analysis of my worldview let's make an argument that's fine you can we make an argument or we just gonna try to just tell me your opinion this whole debate it's just based on your opinion you don't have to accept it but that's why i asked you ahead of time and then when you said you didn't know that's when i thought i would explain it if you what i'm saying no no no that's your claim that's not exactly what i believe all i said is i don't know where everything comes from i knew what you did it comes from that's what i that is what i but that is what i said because these questions you're asking you're about the beginnings of the universe right where do how why is reality the way that it is is basically the question that you're asking being simple terms right and then you're expecting me to be able to account for how reality functions and why it functions and why it's exactly this way right and then when you say god did it and i'm like can you demonstrate that you're just like let's go back to you skylers so girl i don't like if you could demonstrate any of these claims we can have an argument bro but like right now you're you're basically just saying that you can account for something without demonstration i didn't go full-blown cosmogony i don't mind doing that but i also wouldn't expect you to answer like a like an expert cosmogonist i mean if you want to go to the origins of the universe that's fine on your view it's accidental isn't it i don't know okay maybe maybe we're created by something yeah i'm open i was a deist for quite a bit of time and so that's the issue is when i try to understand what found what are the premises upon which you jump into your conclusions they all seem to be i don't know let me just talk about my conclusion no no the problem is you don't want to debate the topic you want to talk epistemology what's the topic of the debate theism versus atheism which has a better moral foundation now how have you argued your moral foundation is better this this evening i've you done that by starting out with the seven best options humans have concocted as far as i know i mean the best options according to your opinion according to what i can see about the history of ideas okay i don't know how did you do research i mean how did you do research for this was there are others i would actually love to know about them i'm not even claiming that there aren't others i'm just saying that that's what the conclusion that i've come to so if the reply is that we can reject that objective absolute moral ethics are extent and evidence by the way that people comport themselves because i like the option that it's based on my feelings then no that argument doesn't work for you you can't like saying that this is kind of what sj argued before saying that like people do you view if you view that you can look at people and determine whether morals are objective right that's not that's not the way you can do it right because if you just depends on what time period you go to at one time period slavery is going to be moral for our these people right maybe not the people who are enslaved let me ask you something this doesn't work for you yeah let me just ask you something are you claiming that uh say when the Egyptians enslave my people are you claiming that they did that didn't ever happen that sounds like another debate um yeah okay there's no evidence of it but okay the egypt the jews being captured in egypt is no no one takes that seriously let's revise that so we don't get sidetracked it don't matter you could say the same thing it's fine go ahead keep going okay i'll take the principle are you saying that when the egyptians enslave my people the egyptians were thinking and saying to themselves slavery is so bad and horribly evil that we're going to do it to to that nation or were they saying hey slavery is a good thing it's going to benefit us let's enslave that nation i i think they were probably pragmatic and thought hey this will they need to get stuff built and it's cheap labor yeah i thought it was morally correct to exploit people exactly i i agree completely now do you see the point no they were talking that they were justifying their actions saying that it was a good motive that's what they had to do before doing it and that's my point that's the absolute objective extrinsic universal ethos working within them that had them justify their actions just like anyone else who has ever done anything wrong will first sit down and determine i have a good reason for doing this yes well this is why in the bible you have all these stories about you know humans committing genocide against children and all types of women right because they justify it in different ways they'll say that it's justified and first thing they'll say it's justified for what you know the amalekites did this you know to the Israelites when they were leaving Egypt right like for every story there's some kind of justification for it i argue so like a thing like executing babies isn't absolutely wrong under your moral view an ethical thing because god literally has human beings execute babies in the bible all this stuff that you literally i could list all these heinous things and you would have to say that this is an absolute ethic basically because god doesn't i would agree that i think there's two things that definitely separate us from the animals one is that we justify our actions and two is fashion faux pas but that's another issue but i think that we might have just very quickly jump right over my point which is that you can see that they have to justify their actions before committing them they didn't say hey we're so happy being evil and doing bad that that's what the well some of them did there were some people in history that enjoyed doing awful what i would call awful and evil things to people but see uh then the justification would be actually the justification would be that it's because of for their own enjoyment so it's still a good it's just opposed to like god and revenge in the bible where he kills children and women because of revenge for what people generations did years beforehand like wouldn't you say that's unjust is the to hurt people that haven't committed the sin they're being punished for but i'm afraid that we're just plowing right through the point which is i know you don't want to deal with what i'm saying and you're gonna you're going to avoid it again like every other point i mean about bible well go ahead what's the point you want to make man that's frustrating i just love what i wish you would deal with what i say but i guess i'm not gonna get that from you well that's hyperbolic obviously and there's no reason we can't get to it but i keep saying it's hyperbolic the statement you just made so my point is that you can see that regardless people are constantly having to deal with the fact that they have this absolute ethos within them and then you have to twist it and turn it any which way to justify what they're doing and that's the this isn't a debate this is just an assertion and unless you can demonstrate this with any kind of evidence or any kind of documentation to prove this like this isn't a debate you're just claim these are just claims about humans and this is what you're saying they do i i don't know what you want me to do with this man well you agreed for one to what you just finished agreeing that we justify our actions to turn any evil we think we want to do into a good yeah but that that evil is relative to the person what somebody thinks is evil is completely different than others there's been cultures i mean i mean this is the thing you're trying to you're trying to say that throughout all of human history these whether seven ethics i believe what you said uh there have always been a bro i you're you're back and forth man you said didn't explain it again what are these things that exist are the ethics are the morals you said they come from god explain i just want to point out there's times where you claim i'm refusing to answer things and it's because you're not actually following the argument step by step at this point you a better job articulating it we're it's not going through you got to find a way to articulate it better we're at the stage where we both recognized that human beings always have to justify their actions when they want to do something bad because they know it's wrong i don't i don't agree that all well i agree that human beings do do that i do agree that human beings do not all human beings do that okay then i need an example as to when they don't do that somebody who's mentally handicapped might do something that would be considered inappropriate to some and they have no control over it but um that is one of the complicated issues but they would still be doing it because they found some kind of benefit in it not necessarily if they're very mentally handicapped i mean one you know i wasn't gonna say i work with but uh let's say a volunteered in some situations where we've seen i mean kids will hit each other and stuff like that but they don't realize what they're doing in along that line so no they're not accountable but i hate you know under christianity everyone's guilty right like as soon as you're born we're all punishable by death we can all die and be killed by god well the thing is um on an on an atheist worldview um let's see let's not deal with what i said and flip it over to the 80s again go ahead my man well if you think back to just the the previous statement i made i responded directly to it so just constantly stating that i'm avoiding an issue it doesn't mean i'm avoiding it right that's just an an opinion based on emotions but incidentally i mean um the thing is on on an atheist worldview because you keep coming up with with examples of evil pain and suffering right but um on a on an atheist worldview these actually are beneficial to our evolution as many top atheists have argued even some of them arguing that rape was beneficial to evolution and so there's no the bible supports rape so that's another thing the bible does you don't want to talk about that do you well not if you're using it as a smoke and mirrors let's let's look over here everybody no no i'm just i'm showing how your morality is inconsistent theist moral foundation is one big contradiction right because god apparently you're you're you're complaining about rape here but then i'm gonna be able to go to the bible and show you where god told you you can go capture women virgin women and force them to marry you and then you're gonna have to admit and then you're gonna have to admit that you can't say that's ontologically wrong nor is it illogical to be kind of oh no i yeah i can't say that it's objectively wrong but i can point out that that is a contradiction unless you're saying it's moral for god to order people to rape people and if that's where you want to go my man you can go ahead but if if you think the only the argument that you have against me is just saying well your morals aren't really real skylar like that's not an argument that's just reality and unless you can demonstrate your morals are really really real like well do it if you can't then you just have an empty claim and you're just telling me about your morality that you can't demonstrate but is it true false that on your view worldview our reality is accidental and there i don't know if that reality is accidental you see that didn't i tell you that earlier that that's what that is so convenient about your position is that you think i'm being dishonest um what i'm saying is what's convenient about your position is why are you saying it's convenient i mean what is it a tactic to say it's dishonest or is it just the truth and you find it convenient because it doesn't work against what you're saying the rest of my sentence was going to elucidate why i thought it was want to make sure because you you wander off a lot and other things that aren't the question let's give them a chance to all right you're right you're right i mean it's convenient because whenever you paint yourself into a corner you just throw up your hands and say well i don't know and then well that's it and that's my point been all along you don't know you just have feelings that are based on accidental biochemical reactions period and you prove can do you can you prove your knowledge this claims that you're making because if you can't you're a hypocrite you're complaining about me not be able to prove something and saying i don't know but then on the other hand you're saying hey i have an answer for this but you can't demonstrate it so can you demonstrate it or are you just going to keep making the claim and saying my honest answer if i don't know the convenient answer that makes you feel uncomfortable right uh can you demonstrate this this stuff you're claiming if not kick rocks man because it's seriously like this isn't a debate if you're just making up the assertions well let me take a step back because the debate is the foundations for moral and your ultimate answer is i don't know so therefore you have no argument you have no no no no no you see the problem is you keep switching our conversation about morality and then ultimate knowledge about our universe you keep bringing up the epistemology aspect of how we know things the world and that wasn't the debate time and that's what we keep getting you keep mixing up the terms so no one said that so go ahead it's going to correct you that isn't what was said well ultimately your answer to the debate title question is that you don't know but you think it's feelings okay there it is all right what what's the question atheism or or theism which provides a better foundation for yeah okay so you do you remember my opening where i said this will always this will always be an opinion debate because there is no op there is no objective standard to measure which one has the better moral foundation you remember that part of my opening when i said that and my counter argument has been various examples of how the ethos level of this discussion is absolute over and over again so for example do you have a favorite flavor of ice cream yeah strawberry strawberry okay so that's subjective right your your preference your opinion is that strawberry is the best right yeah yeah that that is an opinion yeah but what is absolute is that flavor exists that's one level and then which when you choose is the other level great see just just show that morality that exist and we're good the bait's over i lose right show me the morality she's like i'm showing you the ice cream my man where's the room can you show me you have it no numerous times just simply appealing to what you said was most people in my opinion have followed these morals is not an argument that's that's basically an opinion it's not even educated opinion yeah so let's let's say that i grant you that that's fair enough for just momentarily um and you're asking me how i can prove that absolute or universal morals what i call absolute ethics um is real okay how on earth would i be able to do that except to give you these numerous examples of how all humans agree on certain things well the problem is you haven't okay let's just take your claim right your first ones that your your the argument you're making is all these humans believe x and it's been the same through all out history okay you haven't demonstrated that premise right you've just said this is what i've seen this is what i think right can you demonstrate that premise or no i have various times you just seem to want to know what how is it demonstrating it by simply saying that in my view this is what you literally said in your view from what you've seen all people have found follow these ethos right how is that how is that like how is that demonstrating anything well for one i don't have a problem admitting that i'm not omniscient i don't have a problem with that right i don't know remember that i don't know um so in a way yeah of course all i can do is tell you what my observations what else could i do you want me to produce tablets that i mean do like when people prove things right like you can do you can write a paper on it right show us your use the scientific method demonstrate what you're claiming is true listen if you can't do it that's fine just say you can't that's fine but if you say you can't i don't need to take you seriously and numerous examples and it's your opinion that i haven't so unfortunately because you're imposing your worldview onto this debate you're saying all we have is opinions and you're destroying debate when it comes to morality listen i'm happy for the audience to judge this debate man i think it's not going to go well for you so it's fine that's why i do these just so other people could see my opponent's worldviews this is i mean this is um yeah well i guess that's that's an interesting observation because i think that what we've seen is that your worldview has no premise for anything all you have is um chemical byproducts that you call feelings okay this is an empty claim but it but how could it be when you have no premise upon which to determine that it's an empty claim to determine for to determine what what i just said that you what how do you determine that it's invalid to make an empty claim well just because you feel like contradictions are invalid let me give you an example let me give you a quick let me let me demonstrate a truth that i can know right like for instance i know that i'm not your god that's a fact i'm not your god right that's a fact i just demonstrate that i know facts and i can reason the logic so you have no argument but my argument there would be that you can employ logic as you could pick up a tool and use it but you're begging borrowing and stealing from my worldview that doesn't come from your worldview but you can't demonstrate your worldview to be true now can you well for one okay oh no no no yeah go back to my system because you can't admit that you can't demonstrate your worldview to be the case well well of course i can okay demonstrate it to be the case demonstrate the morals are objective it's like with that we've we've been over this it's like a broken record you don't like maybe maybe we should go to q&a because i don't think this is really cool i think that you don't like the fact that i'm able to provide you examples of um all humans in different cultures in different times always agree on the same basic basic level name what you said there's seven of them how many of them are there it sounds like you're gonna have to go back and listen to now i just want to i'm asking you man how many are there i would imagine it's virtually innumerable i mean i don't know how to quantify them okay and you got all this information from the bible no i got it from studying history thinking logic philosophy uh the history of ideas on either so many avenues from name seven name seven of them we got two already we'll go with your two that you already said so name five more should be easy i don't know where you're getting this from but so for instance no no listen man this audience this is the tell right when you can't like literally list off the thing you're arguing for and claiming exist this is the tell come on man this is the tell when i'm asked a question i begin my reply and he interrupts me to tell me go ahead tell me the five go ahead come on give me five things you are interrupting him again let's let's hear um i'm just going to state this for the sake of the audience because obviously skylar has no premise upon which to demand that i provide evidence for anything see we're avoiding the question you're avoiding the question you're talking about me in my in my espistology instead of dealing with what i just said it's the way we know you're dodging it come on five what are the five things give me five you interrupted my statement to claim i'm dodging let's talk more about the things that are happening in a debate besides debating all right man come on bro this is it just doesn't seem like you're interested in back and forth dialogue you go into other topics for almost an hour now and it's been painful extremely painful for me to be frank with you but pain is just your emotions right and don't change don't worry about it hopefully hopefully after the show i won't be in pain going hopefully we are going to go into the q and a soon so want to give you a reminder folks oh actually this is the first time i've announced it amy newman i have updated the description box so in addition to our guest links which are there in the description box including if you were listening via our podcast you can find our guest links there as well now and also want to let you know amy newman's after show is linked in the description now as well and so i know that you guys are probably wanting this to last forever but would it be okay if we jump into the q and a in a minute or two yes i just find it uh not very helpful that a tactic is that when i'm in the middle of replying he jumps in the claim i'm not replying and that's a good way to get me to not reply because now you just made it so i have no more time well it's just a waste of time when you're talking about something that's not the question i asked you when you start talking about my epistemology which wasn't the question i asked you right you felt that you need to tell the audience for a tenth time uh your assertion about how i can't account for anything whatever but you you don't have to answer it's okay the audience will just judge for you for what you're i made it clear that that was just a premise for me answering uh just because i wanted to speak to the audience about it even though you have no premise for it but just interrupting my answer to claim i'm not answering uh anyone can see through that my new friend skyler all right uh my dearest friends skyler and ken we are thrilled to jump into these questions for you guys and we do appreciate you guys just for being with us and we want to let you know folks modern day debate i forgot to mention at the start we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science religion and politics and we want to let you know folks you no matter what walk of life you are from we hope you really do feel welcome we're glad you're here christian atheist agnostic you name it folks we are glad that you're with us and so thanks so much for your question this one coming in from ghost light ask question for skyler how can you claim that the old testament events are evil if you are a moral anti-realist you well that's already i'll leave it at that go ahead skyler no that's good enough i get the question uh so we usually typically that's not what we do so me and my show i don't just say look at this big mini evil god of the old testament bible that's not what we do what we do is we show moral contradictions uh you know a lot of times christians will argue that god is the moral foundation we didn't get to talk about the bible to which ken didn't want to do it uh but uh what we'll do is we'll show how this is supposedly part of god's nature and it's a contradiction it's like god loves children but he executes them god loves women but he has them raped in certain situations so that's what we do that's that's that's what we do we show contradictions in the bible but i'm not making more adjustments we're gonna jump into this yes so in other words whenever skyler points to the bible and it sounds as if he's saying that something is wrong he he is not he cannot claim that anything written in the bible is wrong or evil or bad he's just pointing out a contradiction and yet he has no premise upon which to claim that a contradiction is uh cogent because he has no system whereby to premise logic to him it's just an accident yeah i just this is just all empty assertion next question it's yeah this isn't part of the debate but i'm just saying it's just empty assertions here from i'm trying to count next up oh sorry yeah go no not to go well he didn't provide a premise for all right we do have to go to the next one next up frame 92 thank you for your question or comment said under his clause raw men raw men and then majelin said this the issue is that god's nature and being is a completely arbitrary concept which is also by definition also always moral it's just gibberish can what do you think do you i'm not sure how a being's being is arbitrary i mean i i don't even understand how that's an issue gosh and majelin also says the second issue is that if you don't accept the bible in its entirety you have become the moral authority not the bible yeah it confuses me but no yeah dave gar thanks for your uh super jet that for the for the after show thanks for introducing me to intermittent fasting have so much more energy now i'm so glad to hear that i'm like a really big intermittent fasting guy i love it uh kenthoven cpa okay we're not reading that majelin thanks for your question said ken knows he has no more foundation for morals than skylar he is also afraid to give an example of a moral from god because it will be baseless well for one i do intermittent fasting uh while i'm sleeping for sure gotcha okay i'm sorry that was like a two-part question would you break it up into the two parts yes they said ken knows and i always put a little bit of spit on these just for kicks he's mind reading by the way i'll do it to skylar as well but they say ken knows he has no moral foundation than compared to skylar he is also afraid to give an example of a moral from god because it will be baseless okay so for one uh you sure if atheism is true i'm on the same boat of skylar and we're just lost in moral relativism may the fit is win yeah absolutely no question about it uh atheism is a universal acid that corrupts everything touches obviously as to my example again maybe listen to the debate again because i've listed several examples and pointed out that as far as i can know all humans have always agreed on them we've been through this gotcha it's like a skylar tactic it's denying what has been denying that something that happened didn't happen or the problem is you're just claiming that this is the case and you haven't demonstrated to be the case you're just claiming that these are things that people have found ethical throughout all of history you haven't demonstrated that's the problem that's why they're saying this to you but not only did i but you agreed and then i asked you how else could i do it and you don't know you have an idea that's not how that worked that yes it did gotcha next up this one coming in from chris gammon appreciate it says ken saying i don't know where everything comes from does not mean that everything happened by accident or is random and i think you know that um my statement was that um the ultimate answer uh an atheist will have to any question is that it just happened it it's a happenstance a coincidence a chance it's an accident accidents causing accidents causing accidents don't lead to universal or premises not universal imperatives either next up this one coming in from ando x d thanks for your super chat said ken since your basis of morality is god my question is this how did you determine god is good is the way you determined this subjective please don't respond with a claim well what i argued in my introduction is that ethics proceeds forth from god's very nature and essence in that essence is unified so it's conflict free because god is one and yet it's diverse amongst the persons of the godhead so it's a true and dynamic relationship that is benevolent based on that gotcha and thanks for your question will steward who has challenged he has thrown his hat into the ring he says he wants a piece of you skyler and he also says skyler who is the author of your morality and what authority do you have to impose that morality on others well i'm the author of my morality uh you know i i do kind of impose it on my children a little bit i guess i do teach them what i find to be morally right and wrong uh but i don't i don't really try to impose it on others i do vote though i will vote for people who respect lgbtq community and that care about immigrants and things like that so yeah i do in the sense of voting but that's what i would say but i would be happy to debate just contact james make this happen you know what's interesting skyler is that i too am a dad and i learned more theology just by becoming a dad than i have any other possible way but the ultimate answer to that question is that uh no skyler just has feelings and he cannot impose on them on anybody nor use them to condemn anybody oh i can condemn people all day long my man you just say i can't next up this one coming in from ando xd striking again lightning is struck twice he says can the bible says that god is unchanging therefore what he deems good 3000 years ago is good today why do you say quote it was okay back then but not now because i've come consistently discussed the two levels so god being unchanging is at the foundation the old fond level uh and then what he like okay let's just make it easy let's just simplify this skyler and i both know that you'll give your kids a certain amount of certain rules and as they get older you change them and then they get older and you change them uh because you're you're kind of dealing with them on the level that they're that they're able to handle so that doesn't mean we've changed that means they've changed and that means that we can see they have more responsibility in common sense now we can allow them to do different things so that that has no bearing on us it has a bearing on them you know unless you commit adultery and then you're dead if you're a disobedient child then you're dead if you're gay you're dead if you are a man that was addressed you're dead yeah so this is all from you know this is the god's this god's moral commands to kill gay people and all you think so and in the context of the bible hey can you it's the question just answer the question man uh so listen well apparently there's nothing wrong with your world hold on hold on one second one second so wait a minute and there's nothing wrong under your worldview about it so okay so um basically i've got you guys on mute i've got you guys on mute uh i hate to do that but just because hi i do i understand right i might have misunderstood so i i've been wrong before but did you did you ask ken a question or like i didn't remember well he's just elephant hurling so he knows that there's no way to deal with those issues right now so okay next question i'm just saying well no he's but my thing is he's just saying that like he's saying well they're not really a moral under your worldview but these things are perfectly moral under his because his god does them so like to say like as a point a scholar you you can't say this is wrong but you can't say it's wrong either why are you being a hypocrite about these issues and you can't say you can't say slavery is absolutely wrong you can't say child execution is not absolutely wrong you can't say god commanded soldiers the rape women isn't absolutely wrong so drop it bro you don't you don't actually accept that gap orders people to do it it does matter i'm sorry listen okay if under your worldview you don't care if women get raped that's up to you if you don't care that babies are executed that's up to you it does matter to me and i'd appreciate if you stop lying to the audience and say it doesn't mean anything we can keep going you just genuine because the question originally targets ken i gotta give him the last word and we're going to move the next one from amy so ken if you want the last word on that i'll give you the last word since the uh super chat was originally targeting you i mean even members of the audience have already expressed that they see that's what you're doing you're listing things that you can't say are wrong and you can't say that they're a contradiction you can say them you can't say they're wrong either uh but see i'm i wouldn't but see yeah but it was moral in that time period it was what i said it was moral i don't think it's such a hypocrisy it is morals are relative to time period you guys are energetic women and children plunder well maybe discredit yourself for complaining about that i did promise ken the last word i do because it like i said the objection was to him and so i don't want to gain a lot of work okay god jay me newman says running an after show after the debate question for ken don't you think it's immoral and a viral uh oh no no hold on let me okay question for ken don't you think it's immoral and a violation of free will to drown an entire planet of people i was not laughing at the question i was laughing at something unrelated but go ahead not if there's a justifiable reason for doing so next up there's no reason to kill babies no justified reason to kill babies back please please let him answer why it's justifiable to kill babies help babies we should say we'll know that the problem here is you're you're simplifying this too much we both agree i'm sure that if a mother's life is in danger then it's unethical to stand by and do you know i said healthy baby i didn't hear the either because uh yeah the healthy yeah well the thing is like we're not talking about babies that we're gonna die we're talking about healthy babies in the old testament but you know see but you can't say there's something ontology but you can't say you can't say there's nothing wrong with it either because god drowns babies god you're a hypocrite so let's see but it doesn't matter on here what i know but you're just a hypocrite though by definition you're my hypocrite next up we're i'm sorry that you're a hypocrite oh boy all right st. Alfredo's arabia says skyler is you say it's okay to change morals why say changing his morals is not okay i think they're saying why are you saying yes i know okay well the reason why wouldn't be okay is because it's a they believe god is unchanging and the morality is rooted in his nature take something like lying god like he used earlier lying isn't something that is always immoral no matter what situation so there's not a time where it would be moral for well would you let me finish and maybe i'll you'll hear the part you want to hear right so the thing is is so when you talk about morality and god's foundation right he can never lie because that would go against his nature but for some reason executing children commanding soldiers to take virgin women doesn't go against god's nature that's why we're talking about if he's talking about morals change that means god's moral nature changes that's why we're bringing up the contradictions of why it would be invalid so the question was just yet again pinpointing the fact that this is well what i do want to forgive me just so we don't go too long i i do want to give uh skyler the last word on that although there is an extra part to it um skyler they also asked uh they said it might be part of the original question they said or an argument you've ever used against christianity if they've done what's okay um i just don't understand that um so sorry sigif radio um maybe you're saying that i can't i never mind go ahead well take a stab at it we'll give him a shot i don't you might think is he saying that uh like uh i can't say that something's morally wrong once again it's just he's saying well if if that's their morality it's the bible's morality how are they wrong if that's just their opinion um that's basically i think what he's getting at you got it and human beings can express opinions how it works thank you very much xia rafa for your question said ken can you condemn anything even if ethical dichotomy between heroism and villainy existed objectively you still use subjective morals to judge who's a hero and who's a villain well of course i use subjective morals given my technical definition at the beginning of this debate so that's no point against me my point has been that there's these two levels so my subjective level decision is based on the absolute that's been my point skyler only has the subjective level i have both and i use the word to inform the other one so that's why when you get to issues such as well look at what god did it isn't that terrible but god's actions on this level are based on his nature at this level got you and this next question in are coming in from sj thomas in skyler's old friend we you guys have been friends forever as j says justification proves we have a godly conscience yes okay okay yeah i get that's your client that's the claim that's evidence now but unless you guys can articulate how that works we did and you agreed that that's what people do no next up that's okay it's on record now sj with the combo she comes back with another says skyler just admitted only a quote mentally handicapped person would not try to justify bad actions that proves ken's point we have a god-given conscience thank god i uh no my conscience is very different from the god of the bible next up steven steen pro life for instance he's not your twin brother steven steen is in the chat he says atheists have the same moral foundation as christians they just pretend the moral foundation doesn't exist checkmate ken so atheists the moral foundation of the truly existing triumph god wait this is this is there there i can't i i gotta get like i gotta let skyler respond to that one they were they're challenging skyler no say it one more time for me my man i'm sorry atheists have the same moral foundation as christians they just pretend the moral foundation thank you james james thank you for rectifying that i definitely i i i did a dyslexic flip on the meaning of that oh you got it no problem i i feel like this this works the same way the opposite i feel like that we're all moral subjectivists and what we have is the christian claim i agree this is why this is why well i mean i'm just if any point in this debate besides just appealing to something you think about people do like it would have been an argument for objective morals it would have been fantastic but all i got from you was hey i think all these people had the same ethic throughout history without any demonstration and i asked how else i could do it and you didn't have anything so it is true that we're all moral subjectivists but i appreciate your service all right i'm sorry james all right you guys band for life thanks to your super sticker appreciate your support and mr lightning 20 says you can buy your slaves from the heathens that surrounds you parentheses leviticus how is endorsing slavery morally superior to secular opposition to slavery well i'm not sure why they're characterizing opposition to slavery being strictly secular that's that's definitely a myopic view next up that's because leviticus 25 supports slavery that's what they're saying it's literally what the bible says it does you can have child slaves that's where leviticus 25 is articulating like you're just not going to deal with that part to them you're going to ignore that part of the question oh okay that part of the question so if you compare the laws regarding treatments of slaves then uh they would have been quite pleased to go work for a Hebrew in those days then for people who would have the better kind of slavery basically they were the nice slavery people is what you're saying well what i'm saying is to remind you that you can't pretend this matters to you because on the ethical level i know let's change the topic let's not talk about slavery let's go back to let's go back to talking about skyler and what my address sir that's okay man so um ken i'll give you the last but if you can try to respond to this question per se ken i'll give you the last word and then we gotta go to the next question so this is like the slavery one or well i suppose technically well the slavery would be what the person was asking you're not ken all right go ahead ken if you want to wait for ken not to die well no the the the answer was just looking at the cultural context and it's not good enough to just throw out a platitude about it you'd have to do some serious thinking about the cultural context that's what i'm talking about gotcha what was the culture in show thank you for your question said ken is it ever acceptable among humans in any period of human history to ever plunder children and women plunder children and women you know um you know the parts of the bible yeah i'll just take it as is because this is not generally the way i would choose to do things based on uh generic one-liners but um the problem with somebody who complains see the the problem is that this is based on jumping through here we go not dealing with the text again well dodge questions like the plague bro like i'm diving with dodge corona like why don't you deal with the question what was asked man it becomes so disingenuous when you when it's so billy billy the officer dodging but see the problem is i don't think that you're used to actually thinking through these issues systematically step by step yeah no i do a whole show with a with an actual scholar on the bible no i don't do any study on my channel with my scholar co-host nuff we don't we don't ever have scholars who come on the channel your show i'm talking about this right you just deal with the question the guy asked about the last word ken and then we've got to go to the next one oh we're still on this okay we'll be the last word on this ken otherwise we'll go to the next one yeah oh yes well the the issue is one of um ethical justification period i guess god's next up shame the skeptic says skyler's strong point was calling out his moral question being met with an epistemological answer good job calling the dodge next up will stewart says if you are the author and admit you can't impose morality on others due to the lack of authority how is that a stronger or better foundation than theism which holds a god as authoritative judge with consequences well you know it wouldn't i guess it wouldn't be so bad if like the god was an actual decent god like a good god these things that i would imagine most christians actually articulate but the bible doesn't articulate that guy we have a jealous god who executes children tells men they can take women and children as plunder condone slavery yeah no i'm not if you like if you think that's a good idea it's like having a dictator basically an addict who says if you don't love me chow chow and joy hell for all eternity our annihilation depending on the kind christ you are this is shockingly myopic and i'm sure anybody who knows the bible can see that but the question was about getting away with it and skyler's view guarantees that no matter what you do you will ultimately get away with it and in your view people who do nothing will not get away with it and they'll get they'll go to all hell for simply not believing in your god so i mean we could do these tit for tat things yeah that's incoherent yeah i'm sure that's do you believe people need to have believe that jesus christ died for their sins in order for there to be salvation well based on a world view where ethics are are actual shut the fuck up jesus christ hey all right please mind your manners i just you know what dude i mean a bag of something's waiting right here for you to go to the next one i don't dodge some bag of dicks go eat them all right if you can't be honest if you can't all right hold on as you steal has a question says can i'll debate you or anyone on the atheistic morality versus biblical morality because we have a better argument by far as you showed here can oh sure let me know when and where gotcha and this one comes in from charles in solo says god is the ultimate mystery how can you answer any mystery with another mystery no person knows the mind of god do you know what god wants well we do we do know the mind of god because it's been revealed to us gotcha and then let's see pardon my delay folks and thank you very much for your question this one coming in from um endo xd says skyler how would you seriously respond to someone who says god killing babies is okay because the bible says that they go to heaven well um maybe well let let me say this well if that's true right we could have a lot more people saved if god would just take them out as babies right like in fact like by that logic i said this before like hey if women who abort babies you just saving your children right because they get to go right to heaven right if they're born and they live throughout their life now i'm pro life folks i'm gonna be you know i just want you to know i'm not arguing for this but by this logic that these folks are making like literally a woman who's had more abortions than you know maybe you can count is probably save more life than somebody's priest out there so think about that by that logic that's where you get see next one from cider and port says ken why are you incapable of answering a question and skyler don't worry when you ask me questions on monday i'll answer yeah anybody who rewatches the debate will see that these are just empty claims and the fact that somebody actually wants to engage the issue at a slightly deeper level than the matter in which atheists have become accustomed is accused of not answering the question because we're actually engaging it in a more holistic form which you know skyler obviously doesn't like which is why he'll cut me off anytime i wanted to actually dig into the issues you waste time you don't answer the questions why cut you off it's annoying you don't know that i'm actually injured because well i can tell by the first 30 seconds of your sentence that you're not talking about anything that is related to the question you talk about me personally instead of dealing with the question over and over again it's okay man it's just who you are it is okay on your world view i guess it is i'm gonna deal with it i have to but i won't ever debate you again i will never engage again because i'm glad that i've shown the audience the type of person you are and how weak your arguments are i love it towards what end my word showing that an accidentally existing ape isn't up to your standards the more people that i can move away from the kind of dangerous beliefs that you guys have as christians that are unrational the better the world's going to be in my opinion you don't have to agree with that opinion it's fine but you know what i love to just show what christians believe and you've done a great job uh representing what what even what i was showing that youtube christians credit yourself time and time again and the audience can see it that's why they keep saying the same thing to you next up is says skyler fiction one see you saturday and majelin says ken can you give any example of anything that is absolutely right or wrong based on the mind of god sure murder is wrong god james let's see the jim taker says i would love to see ken debate matt delente on morality but i don't think we'll see matt here anymore yeah we don't know um i haven't talked to matt since the debate no hard feelings it's just been busy but um someone was to reach out to him uh be more than glad let's see best in show says james please insist on a ray from ken ray like the character in star wars a ray from ken um is that abbreviation for reply i don't know they said is it ever acceptable among humans in any no i already read that say will steward thanks for your question said skyler's on endo's question skyler on endo's question if god shows grace on the baby and holds the murder accountable for their murder how is that immoral well in the bible the people that are murdering the children are god's people that he's commanding the murder of the children first say no 15 i mean it's just literally through saw i this is all there i mean this is all through the josh will conquest to uh where you examples of just children being slayed uh it's god telling these saying these people are guilty of something uh and worthy enough of having soldiers going to execute them so that's a question for the theist you know they can explain why it's moral to execute children and at the end of that at the end of any such statement you have to throw in and by the way there's nothing ontologically wrong with that so i don't know why i'm complaining about it i mean you can think there's nothing ontologically wrong with that right you do you think i don't know wait a minute do you think that you think there's something ontologically wrong with executing babies do you think it's ontologically wrong the premise oh dodge the question my man okay rocks bro you don't answer questions you dodge and then you just you just turn it back everybody knows that you say that whenever it's weak it's weak debate skills bro weak front everybody you said it 50 you literally said it 50 times to the audience it's not new it's not original it's not entertaining we skyler we do have to like ken talk sometimes too so uh but sometimes majelin said ken what is murder murder is the unjustified taking of an innocent life gotcha and i think that maybe yet like i had one or two others come in but yeah say Samuel little home thanks for your question said do onto others as you'd have them do onto you and i'm quote a man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line could morality be summed up in quote unquote design biblically well ultimately what we could say is part of the foundation for epistemic ethics is the same as it is for the scientific method which is the the the few that a rational creator created a rational creation and populated it with rational beings who could thereby rationally discern it and so that's why when we could see a crooked line we can refer to it as such because we do have an idea of a straight line whereas skyler's offering us is just a bunch of squiggly lines period i'm going to give skyler the last word on this one because it was actually a question for i think skyler yeah i mean listen when when my opponent can demonstrate any of his claims at all i'll take him seriously right he's going to constantly just uh yeah it's it's okay man you don't want to debate again we watch it a few times i don't think it's going to be a problem yeah i mean the audience is constantly talking about how much you dodge every question and debate um it's so apparent that you don't want to talk about the bible and morality and you dodge around the questions because you feel a sense of shame for it right because if you felt like you're again well yeah i mean you it's not even worth it to ask you because it's obvious how by your actions by your actions you claim me to other people's actions you're paying yourself into a corner again so your response yeah didn't pay myself a new corner just simply pointing out that you have not demonstrated a single claim and your only argument tonight is to say i claim something i can't demonstrate you say i don't know to something therefore i guess there's a problem you think i don't know i've been through this it has next up thanks for your question will steward strikes again he says skyler is warfare murder my question was about murder yeah well i mean that's that was that's the point right even in war today we don't justify killing children right that would be considered a war crime so why is it that god would commit a war crime against children in the old testament right this is the if you folks who think that god is all loving and loves children can't see the contradiction in him who loves people and and then having people violently kill children well let them finish i know it's funny it's it's really funny don't get it it's like you it's like you have a you made a bed and you refuse to sleep in it it's amazing to watch this i know you don't believe in contradictions that's okay you don't have to i know you don't believe it's immoral to kill children or execute children that's fine but that's your worldview you can just live with it man i don't have to share your worldview next up the gellin says ken this is for you they say ken how do you justify the murder of children what is the justification uh i just stated that i don't justify the murder of children murder is unjustified and unjustified how do you justify the flood next up the example that was given we have many we have many questions uh Gregory bao zhikian thank you for being with us let me know if i pronounced it right sorry if i didn't and they said gregory said ken is a professional dodge artist and well actually folks i do want to remind you if you could do me a favor and uh where we do one of i should not have read that sorry i didn't really process it we we want to one thing we're trying to do here at moderated debate is we want to try to help uh redirect criticisms toward the arguments rather than the people and you'll notice that in the live chat but they said on another uh separate part they said skylar has an indefensible position on morality is nobody's friend they said to to both what is the value of well-being and morality asking the value of well-being and morality depends on the moral position one of the moral worldview is i guess um i love my good on atheism well well-being is not only subjective it's uh just the preference for it's an accident i mean you can have a preference i guess for accidents but it's in cogent but if you can't demonstrate what you're claiming it's not real man can you demonstrate any of this subjective morals nothing no no you can't so basically you're just complaining about another worldview when you can't prove that your own is the case well you why are you why are you inconsistent why are you whining and complaining you don't have a worldview you're just denying reality migellan says migellan says ken so god never murdered any children in the bible question mark stop dodging the question uh they say it's fascinating how when someone doesn't like an answer they just use the term dodge so uh the answer's no gotcha and thank you guys for all of your questions let's see uh what we were going to do is i have in just a few minutes i'll be back for a post credit scene about upcoming debates in fact one of them stars skylar fiction who you are seeing right above me it's kind of like the basically he will be on next monday that will be in a juicy controversial debate with rib and that's namely it's going to be skylar as of now it's going to be skylar teaming up with k against rib and crafty kila so that should be always going to be a juicy one so we are excited for that one but i'll let you know about those other upcoming debates in that post credit scene in just a moment but one last thank you to our guests who are linked in the description folks want to let you know that and so thank you skylar and ken it was something tonight thank you in turn james you're the host i can boast the most roast thank you okay so we'll be right back everybody thanks again to our guests we love these guys we appreciate them so thanks everybody we'll be back in just a moment stick around well that was certainly juicy folks really we do appreciate you i can't stay for long but i just wanted to quick stop in and say thank you guys for being here jordan a thanks for being with us jg gram t norman baits kill gore trout cj cardillo let's see bible burner it's uh it's like uh you get what's the word i'm looking for uh what's the uh the token troll yes uh but handsome rick thanks for being with us sky out zane thunder glad you're here and louis guiles thanks for being with us phil kayo good to see you again paul nordall glad you're here fox sushi glad to be with glad to be with you glad you're here darth revan good to see you and haxt average joe levin and bolly nacks good to see you sj thomas and thanks so much for coming by and sj thomas and says skylar fighting for the unborn yes skylar will be in the pro life position for that debate that's going to be a juicy one but yes you guys we were excited in this debate whoo dr david d freedman legendary economist coming back tomorrow he's going to have an epic debate with dr ben burges you don't want to miss that folks so hit that subscribe button if you haven't already and yeah we are honestly so pumped about the future and so oh that's right cider imports is call me steven not rib sorry man thanks for letting me know about that i am a little slow as you know but yeah hannah and hannah anderson good to see you jungle jargon good to see you i like dad jokes everyone's are welcome says hi james how's it going buddy i hope you're doing well jan thilia baggins good to see you says thanks for the debate james it was certainly dot dot dot interesting that was interesting indeed and so yeah oh man i love just hanging out with you guys want to say thank you for all of your support i cannot hang for too long but i did just want to get to say oh in addition other huge debates coming up you guys we have a lot of epic debates coming up this friday a controversial figure will make his return after quite a while that's coming up this friday i don't want to give away too many details but i can tell you yes in in addition to tomorrow's debate which would be epic then there will be i pretty sure a debate will happen saturday i won't be able to moderate it i'm going to be at a wedding which is really exciting and so we hope you make that debate though i've got to confirm i can't remember who who's in that one though but yeah i can tell you we're working on a lot of really fun debates and so gack good to see you win burna thanks for being here lori haze thanks for being with us appreciate you and thanks for hanging with us and yes we are really excited though lions den thanks for being with us shadow griffin glad you're here travis pratt pumped to have you thanks for your kind words paul nordall says thanks for another interesting debate thanks for your kind words my dear friend he said this channel has helped me through this covid situation i'm so encouraged you hear that you have no idea how much that cheers me up seriously that makes me feel really happy so it means a lot vinny anderson good to see you again as well daniel casmer glad to be with you glad you're here buddy and so yes thanks everybody keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable and i'm excited to see you tomorrow we just have a lot of debates this weekend and they're going to be epic and so anyway thanks everybody for all of your love and support just want to let you know appreciate you thanks for all of your encouragement and just just being awesome for real i just enjoy this so much and so thanks for kind words and your support top pot too thanks uh so thanks for moderating james great job as always thanks for your kind words and it's my pleasure it's honestly it's so much fun to be with you guys and so thank you guys for your kindness that really does mean a lot and as mentioned we will see you hopefully tomorrow it's going to be epic so keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable take care everybody