 Everybody, today we're debating whether or not Christianity is rational and we are starting right now with Posh's opening statement. Thanks so much for being with us, Posh. The floor is all yours. Well, thank you for having me and thank you, Matt, for participating and being generous with your time, especially on such short notice. Pleasantry is a side. This is a debate on whether Christianity is rational and there are a couple of things we need to establish before we even engage in this debate and that would be what is rational? What is the standard for rationality? Because most of the times that I've engaged in this type of debate, not just with atheists but also with non-Eastern Orthodox Christians and with non-Christians in general, there's sort of an underlying materialism as presupposed neutrality and then we are told that we need to show why it is acceptable to deny materialism. But as any person who has asked me for advice on debating atheists, I've always said, I don't debate atheists, I debate materialists. Atheism in and of itself is a negation of theism, but it is also a propositional statement. That is the belief in materialism, naturalism, however you wish to dub it, or universal mechanistic materialism, which is my favorite way to phrase it. And I also find this then supposed as the rational position, which I deny immediately, mostly because in a materialistic worldview, you are sort of bound by the core precepts of it, such as there would be no room for epistemology in a purely mechanistic universe because mechanisms do not produce truth or falsity, they just operate. And that is it. It is similar to saying that a running car producing fumes is somehow producing epistemological product. And again, we should get into that a bit later. Secondly, I would like to say I defend the Eastern Orthodox position, not I cannot defend the Catholic position. If I could, I would be Catholic, same with Protestantism. I know that's, you know, a lot to throw at someone from religion that is not particularly well known in the West. But that is also something I'd like to mention, if we should get into finer details on how we view things, because we would, if I would disagree with a Protestant on satiriology, then that's going to be a different thing if Matt should argue that satiriology or, you know, substitutionary atonement is irrational or something. That's another thing. And what else is there to say? So I know that I am the one who claims that yes, it is, but as I stated in the beginning, there's going to have to be some back and forth, because I don't think that we accept one of the views here and as the neutral position and then try to fight as to whether my worldview can be justified in Matthew's worldview. So that's the back and forth that's going to be happening. And I'm looking forward to the challenges that are going to be presented to me. So that's all I have to say as the opening. And then the rest we will do in the discussion period. Thank you. You got to thank you very much for that opening and want to let you know folks, if it's your first time here at modern day debate, we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science, religion and politics. We hope you feel welcome, no matter what walk of life you're from. I'm your host, James Coons, and I want to let you know we have a lot of juicy debates coming up. For example, in fact, even today, as you can see at the bottom right of your screen, Daniel Hakikachu and Norea are going to be debating whether or not veiling in Muslim countries is good. So that is one you don't want to miss. Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss that debate and others like it coming up. With that, thanks very much for being with us, Matt. The floor is all yours as well. All right. Good morning. This is probably going to be the best and worst debate I've ever done at 11 a.m. Thank you so much for having me on. Nice to meet you, but eight minutes, nine minutes ago. I did a debate previously on modern day debates on whether or not Christianity is rational. And my opening here is going to be a little bit different. You can go back and watch the other one. That still stands. I talked a little bit about the difference between internal and external views of rationality, where you could have a system like a gaming system or whatever. And as long as everything is internally rational, you're fine. But that doesn't really do anything for us. As a matter of fact, I had a discussion or started to have a discussion with Alex Malpass about this because he disagreed with me on some subtle points. And we hope to get to those as well. But whether or not something is rational is independent from what its truth value is. At one point it was rational to believe that the sun orbited the earth. Now it is not the case. But it's not rational anymore, not because we've discovered the truth. It's because the position that reasoned towards that was met with new information and in order to maintain that view, one would have to ignore the new information. A rational view is one that provides an account that is the best explanation for all of the relevant information. A child might still reach the conclusion that the sun goes around the earth. But when discussing if a belief is rational, we don't do it from the standpoint of a specific individual. It's not up to what I believe or what Posh believes or what I think is rational, what Posh thinks is rational. But from the standpoint of humanity and humanity's understanding of the world as a collective, we use the knowledge of humans, not the knowledge of a human. Now, in addition to other things, I'm a magician. And so I have some ability to do that tricking people. I don't plan to do that today. I'm trying to be as plain as I can. But I've done magic for large audiences and small audiences. And when you hear people describe what they saw in a magic show after it's over, what they describe as almost always better than what was done or what could have been done. And in some cases, back when I was still a believer, it would bother me because I would do a magic trick for someone and then they would say, oh, you have demonic energy. And I'm like, no, no, no, it's just a card trick. Here, let me show you. And I would show them step by step exactly what I did. And now that person who prior to that explanation might have given the information that they had available to reasonably concluded that I was somehow possessed by demons. Once I show them the actual mechanism, they cannot continue to be considered rational if they maintain that view. And many of them did. Some of them would say, well, that's not what you did the last time. They're doing a post-talk rationalization, ignoring relevant information that's required to maintain that belief. It's not about what any of us individually are convinced of. It's about what any reasonable person, honestly and fairly addressing all of the available, relevant information should conclude. Christianity, as far as I can tell in all of its forms that we tend to discuss, is inextricably linked to claims of the supernatural. Yet the supernatural is untestable, unfalsifiable. There cannot currently be a rational belief in the supernatural. Evidence is lacking and opposing evidence is strong. And as long as that's the case, we're kind of done. Now, the supernatural may exist, but we can't currently, until somebody demonstrates a mechanism by which we can do so, have a rational belief that supports that conclusion. And I hear some people saying, ah, but what about my individual experience? I've been a Christian, I've been a Hindu, I've been a Muslim, and I've had these experiences and you can't deny them. And again, knowledge that we're appealing to when we talk about rationality is based on the knowledge of humanity as a collective, not just what you experience. If you really did, in fact, see an alien or get abducted, that doesn't become human knowledge until it's verified, even if your belief is rational and accurate. As a matter of fact, it could be accurate, you could have a true belief from an experience and it still might not be rational. Because direct experience is exactly what every audience member at a magic show. It's what every person sitting across from a con artist psychic has. They have direct experience of something. And then what they're missing is the other information that he actually explains it. They've reached a conclusion that to them feels rational based on the limited information, but is not, in fact, rational, given humanity's information. And in many cases, turns out to not be true. And a debate that I did with Seitan Bruggengeit years ago is, in addition to like showing video of like my greatest hits, he started by saying it is rational to believe that which is true, premise to it's true that God exists. Therefore, it's rational to believe that God exists. And he got me to focus on premise to that it's true that God exists. And that, by the way, is where most of us spend all of our time. But an audience member pointed out that his initial premise, premise one, it is true, is rational to believe that which is true, or is reasonable to believe that which is true, is actually false. Something may be true, but you may not have a rational warrant to accept that it's true. This is something that I knew, but in a debate, it's easy to get sidetracked. Don't do that here. This isn't about truth. It's about whether or not a belief is rationally justified. It's whether or not there's a sufficient warrant for someone to hold a view. Rational justification isn't merely, this is consistent with what I currently believe, it is this is consistent with the facts that are available. Otherwise, you can just declare anything rational by just sticking your head in the sand and avoiding evidence. In a big picture sense, not only is Christianity tied to the supernatural, which can't be demonstrated, if it can, I'm open to somebody doing that. But when you look at the broader story, you have an all-powerful being who exists beyond space and time creates everything billions of years ago, specifically because he wants to interact with human souls. But he could have created those human souls and interacted with them right away in whatever location he wanted to. But instead, he creates a universe and waits billions of years to introduce them to the universe. And that's the basics of the story. Ah, but Matt, I hear someone say, I believe the earth is six to 10,000 years old. Well, you're wrong. You're absurdly wrong. But Matt, the billions of your story is a big red herring. No, it's the truth. It's the model built upon an honest evaluation of all the facts. It's something that must be included in your evaluation, not merely dismissed. If you think the earth is young, you have a lot of scientific information to rebut before it would be rational to accept your position. And if your position is contingent on a young earth as opposed to an old earth, that's something you're going to have to explain. Christianity is only rational if you dismiss much of what humans have learned through the most reliable investigative methods ever. Science. Science is the single most consistently reliable path to an accurate understanding of the world. It doesn't make proclamations a truth. It doesn't say this is true. It doesn't assert certainty. It attempts to trend toward truth. You need to dismiss the age of the universe, the earth and the mechanical processes of physics that lead to chemistry and ultimately the diversity of life in order to accept many aspects of Christianity. You need to dismiss what we know about the brain both physically and psychologically in order to pretend that there's room for a soul. You need to dismiss what we know about evidence, the reliability of unreliability and unreliability of our senses as well as good investigative procedures and current knowledge in order to believe miracles. Christianity is only rational if you throw out most of what we know about how the world works and revert to a state of willful ignorance. And that isn't a rational act. Thanks. Thank you very much for that opening as well, Matt, and we're going to go into the open dialogue. But first, just want to let you know, folks, if you haven't checked it out yet, our podcast is available on every podcast, app, Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts, you name it, modern a debate is on all of them. Our podcasts are uploaded from the YouTube channel to the podcast within 48 hours of the debate being live. And hey, gotta tell you, it's ad free and it's music free. So if you don't like that intro music at the start, you can jump right into the debate with the modern day debate podcast. Check it out on your favorite podcast app right now. And with that, we'll jump into the open dialogue. Thank you very much, gentlemen. The floor is all yours. So Matthew, when you start, you say, would you agree with my characterization that you're a materialist? No, depending on, first of all, it's Matt, just to make it easier, Matthew, whatever. So I'm a methodological naturalist or methodological materialist. I'm not a philosophical materialist. I in no way assert that the material world is all that exists. I just do assert that the material world exists. And if there's more than that, it needs to be demonstrated. So you would say then that it is irrational to at least at this point believe that there is anything other than the material. Yes, I don't see a rational justification for anything believe it currently accepting anything beyond material. I don't know how you would test it or demonstrate that it's real or falsified, etc. Right. So let's go for a specific thing. We're evaluating rationality. That's I think that's the necessary prerequisite for then going to Christianity. So something like a biogenesis, something like the first protocell arising in nature without any, we would say, rational interference in the materialistic worldview. Yet we have absolutely no ability to demonstrate that has ever happened because it's not even in a laboratory where people who are given the components needed can't assemble them, let alone have that happen in nature. So even if it was a successful experiment, which would be a huge thing in science, we haven't got that nowhere close. So would you therefore say that it is irrational to believe in a biogenesis? So let me try to address this as clearly as I can. I don't believe that we have resolved the issue of a biogenesis. And so until such time as a biogenesis has been fully demonstrated, it would be irrational for someone to believe more than what we have demonstrated. For example, the Miller-Urie experiments, which do not necessarily match what we understand to be the early version of the earth still do demonstrate the possibility of forming proteins, et cetera. And so to suggest that because we haven't yet solved or been able to duplicate or replicate a biogenesis, that this somehow means a biogenesis didn't happen. I'm saying currently. Hang on. I'm saying just to conclude that that didn't happen would be a mistake. But to conclude that that is what happened before it's been demonstrated is also a mistake. Just to be sure that we're discussing Christianity in particular. I know that this might tie to it in an indirect way, but just to be sure we're headed that way. I hoped we were. But unfortunately, in Posh's opening, there was nothing. There was no argument, no evidence, no explanation of Christianity. There was a declaration that we need to define rational, but he didn't attempt to do it. There's been no discussion other than he's Eastern Orthodox and defends that. And he says he doesn't debate atheists. He debates materialists. So if I'm not a materialist, are we debating? Well, you sort of are practically as you've stated and I'm asking you so it is, would it currently be irrational to believe in such a thing? Would it currently be irrational to believe in what such a thing? A biogenesis, what we were talking about earlier. It would be irrational to believe that we have demonstrated a biogenesis. It would be irrational to conclude that that is in fact what happened. However, what are the competing options to suggest as what science is doing is to investigate whether or not we can demonstrate the likelihood of this happening. And in all cases, the likelihood of a materialistic solution to this issue is more probable and demonstrable than a supernatural one, because there's not a supernatural one to investigate or demonstrate at all. So anybody who says a biogenesis necessarily happened may not have a rational position. Right, because it would be contingent on that happening that you would be able to have that account of life existing on this planet. That's what I'm saying. But life on this planet isn't necessarily contingent upon a biogenesis. That's one of many possible explanations. All right, but that is the current model that we operate under. That is what is taught in schools, for example, at least what I was taught. So it is possible, you know, people who go for directed panspermia and things like that. But that's not my point. My point is, would you ever accept if I said, oh, we will find proof of angels, just give me enough time? Would I ever accept that? Sure. Go ahead. I'll give you as much time as you need to prove angels, just as like I'll give you at least a little while to get back to demonstrating that Christianity is rational instead of talking about a biogenesis. Well, that's my point is to establish what is rational and what isn't. So if I were to say, give me enough time, and I will prove everything from the Bible through the orthodox interpretation, and it would be rational for me to believe so. It is a justifiable current position. It's not rational for you to believe that eventually you'll solve every problem. No, that's not rational to believe. Well, that's what I'm tying into a specific, that's why I mentioned a biogenesis. I'm fully aware that this isn't that discussion. Well, I'm confused as to what this, what a biogenesis has to do with whether or not Christianity is rational. Well, if such a theory can be posed, and against all likelihood, so we have experiments, and since the Miller-Urey experiment, things have actually gone back, like with things like chiral-induced electron-spin coherence, we found out that monocirality is necessary from the start. But again, not to go into that, but things move away from such a conclusion. And yet it is still rational to believe it, because there is no way of falsifying it. So that is sort of the same position that I would be in through your critique, would it not? No, there is a way to falsify a biogenesis, and you actually believe in the falsification of it. And no, I believe that with what we currently have available, whatever might happen in the future, I think it is irrational to currently hold that as an explanation. You just asserted that a biogenesis isn't falsifiable. Now, there are a number of different models that have been presented. Some of them may or may not be falsifiable. But you believe that there, I think, don't get me wrong, since you haven't presented anything substantive about Christianity, don't you believe that there's a God that created everything, including life? Okay, so that would falsify a biogenesis. If a God demonstrated that it actually created life, everything living, that would falsify a biogenesis. And that's what you believe to be true. It would be nice if you could present the rational reasons for believing that, since that's what the debate is supposed to be. So just to be sure, do I understand Posh? Are you saying that, I don't know, just trying to steal man use so I'm not taking position here? Are you saying that since the Millerier experiment, things have gotten even more kind of complicated? Are you trying to make the say that things have gotten more even more complicated in the sense that we're kind of finding like, Oh, wow, it's actually more difficult to get to life from non-life than we thought? And are you saying that, and yet it's still rational to be, to believe that you can get life from non-life? And you're saying that, so therefore, for me as a Christian, namely for you as a Christian, if there are challenges to Christianity, like to where it like starts to look like, Oh, like maybe there's some doubts here, like we're at some uncertainties, then it can also be rational for a Christian to be a Christian, even when there are these like challenges that kind of like push it back or make it seem less plausible. Is that what you're saying? Basically, yes. That is why I'm trying to show that if we're going to then debate things like could angels exist, then if it is sufficient to believe that in the future it will be resolved, even as things move back from it, then anything can be considered rational. I'm saying the methodology by which we come to evaluate something as rational or irrational is therefore faulty or at least completely useless as we can't really do anything about it. And yes, I do believe in Genesis. I don't subscribe to the six 24 hour day models that didn't, the church fathers. That's why I say I'm Eastern Orthodox, because there are people who subscribe to six 24 hour days. And if someone came to tell me that I would have a scriptural argument even with them and a minuteical disagreements about that. So as far as I'm concerned, I don't see how that would show as Matt stated in his opening argument, he said, God is beyond time, yet he waited billions of years. Well, no, he didn't wait billions of years. He's outside of time. He's transcendent. So that's sort of bringing God back into time in order to make that critique. Are you suggesting that God can't operate within time? He can operate within time. So then I'm not bringing God back into it. I'm talking about it from two different perspectives. From the perspective of the universe, God waited billions of years to get to the very thing that was the purpose of all of this. You can claim all you want that God exists outside of time, so it's all instantaneously to him, but you can't demonstrate that. So are we going to get to a point, because I'm the only one that's tried to define rationality, are we going to get to a point where you talk about Christianity and how it's rational? Well, because I believe that the supernatural exists, that's going to be a problem, saying that belief in the material is also going to be a problem. And that belief in materialism, in materialism, that's what I meant to say. Yes, that's fair enough. So I also mentioned that because Christianity can actually justify the belief in free will and mind, that makes it rational because I believe that without an account for what a mind is or how one could have free will, then you cannot have evaluation of any type of data because, as I said in the opening, that we would all be rendered mechanisms or more accurately just epiphenomena. Are you suggesting that mechanisms cannot evaluate input and data? Depending on epistemological claims, they don't make epistemological claims, you calibrate instruments to get a reading of something, but that is something done by a mind. Well, it's done by a brain. Is your position that a brain can't function unless there's a supernatural mechanism to it behind it? I'm saying that if the brain is a mechanism, there is no mind and there is no evaluation, that the brain is just as a set of, I wouldn't say predetermined, but something that could be calculated if we had all the data about the mechanism, like you were a magician, you wouldn't say that when you shuffle a deck of cards that it's a random deck now. No, it's got an order that you're just not aware of that doesn't render it random, correct? I would say so, but I will say that there are different definitions and usages of the term random. I would agree with you that I think basically what we often describe as random is certainly a pattern that we may not be aware of or recognize, but what we mean by random, if the usage is a pattern that no individual could know or expect or predict or whatever else, then that is essentially, I mean, within computers you have pseudo random functions because you can't have a true random function, you may never be able to have a true random function, and yet still that conceptual ideal of random is what we're talking about, kind of like you're never going to have a perfect circle, but there's a conceptual circle and a definition. Yes, but the problem then is that you're going into transcendental and that is going to require a mind and a brain. Again, if it is a mechanism, a predetermined mechanism, all the outcomes are equal and are just a result of depending on how low you wish to go in evaluation where they want to call it just chemical or physical or whatever, but all of it is just there is no, because it would require supernatural explanations, no faculty to appraise information and compare it, it would just be input output, as much as an algorithm that you write out that gives results for 1 plus 1 equals 2, 3 plus 3 equals 6, but for 2 plus 2 equals 5, we could say that the results are untrue, but the algorithm either operates or it doesn't. It has no ability to self-regulate, it simply is either operates or it doesn't, if it's a dysfunctional algorithm, it will just crash, and that is what I'm saying, that if you don't have a mind as opposed to just brain operations, what you have is a functional mechanism until it stops functioning, but you do not have the ability to evaluate truth claims. Yeah, I don't know how you can demonstrate that assertion, especially in the face of that seems to be what brains do, and it seems that what you're doing is saying, this seems too complicated for natural functions, therefore I'm going to make an appeal to some supernatural causation, and that is a fallacious line of reasoning, the mere fact that you don't currently have an understanding of it, or that you might reject the best understanding of it, none of those justify leaping to the supernatural as an explanation, even if we were in a state where we had no idea how the brain worked, you wouldn't be warranted in saying, well, we can't come up with anything, therefore it must be supernatural causation, that is absolutely fallacious. You would need to demonstrate the supernatural causation, or the supernatural interaction that you're asserting. But what I'm appealing to is the impossibility of the contrary. I'm not saying you're asserting the impossibility of the contrary, you're not demonstrating it, you can sit here all day long and say brains can't do this without magic, but that doesn't mean you're right. No, no, no, my claim first of all has nothing to do with the complexity of the operations. I'm saying that a supercomputer can evaluate data, but it is merely processing it as opposed to going for, and of course a computer would be built with certain purposes in mind, again in mind by human beings, and then will execute those functions. And they are immensely complex, and both quantity and quality. So it has nothing to do with the complexity of it. What I'm saying is that a mechanism... And yet you just say that we're denying that this... So here's the thing, is it enough if a brain can detect light and darkness? And that's it. That's all it processes is light and darkness. And if it gets those wrong, it dies. Like if it's constantly moving towards the light, it stays alive, and if it goes to darkness, it dies. Is that too complex? Is that too much for a materialistic solution? Does that require supernatural intervention? No, that's not my point. What if it has a corrective mechanism where if it gets it wrong, it has a feedback loop that then adds this failure as something to check for or in the future. Does that require supernatural intervention? No. Okay. That's exactly what computers do. And it seems to be what the brain does. What does the brain do that could not be reduced to that corrective mechanism? That's... You see, you're bringing it back to your paradigm and saying it doesn't... Yes, because my paradigm exists in reality, and you're asserting something beyond reality that you need to demonstrate. Presupposing one's conclusion is not... I'm not presupposing you are asserting that mine is not possible. And I'm giving you an example, which you've already agreed to, is possible. And I'm asking you now a question of what does the mind do that doesn't fit into that model you've already agreed to? That it can make epistemological evaluations, not simply react to stimuli. If you're saying reaction to stimuli, let's say if a brain can react to dark or light, and it doesn't die wherever it goes. Because I don't think people who believe wrong things necessarily die, especially not when we get into the minutiae of certain systems. How are you going to determine anything? It's just going to be a brain floating around. There's no truth claim to it. This is... So, first of all, this debate is supposed to be, is Christianity rational? We've spent zero time on Christianity, and you've spent zero time on rational, because now you're getting to whether or not X is true, which truth is independent of whether or not it's rational. Now, my position is that what the brain is doing that you want to label epistemology is nothing more than an incredibly complicated loop of evaluation, that we have evolved to disguise the loopiness of the mechanisms. And you're asserting that this is impossible, and I want you to demonstrate it, but actually, I don't, because that doesn't demonstrate that Christianity is rational. Because even if we had no understanding at all of what the brain of the mind does, even if I'm entirely wrong about this being materialistic, which I'm open to it being more than materialistic if somebody can demonstrate it, but even if that's all wrong, that doesn't in any way demonstrate that Christianity is rational. Are we going to get to that today? Just for clarity sake, Posh, I was about to ask the same thing. In particular, how does this tie back to the original topic of is Christianity rational? Is it something like, are you trying to make the case that if there are arguments, or if there is evidence for theism more broadly, then Christianity is more probable? Is it that simple? I'm just confused on what it is, to be honest. What I'm trying to say is, if you're going to have a debate on what is rational, you're going to have to go for what is true to an extent, because of course, nothing can be exhaustively demonstrated as true outside of closed systems. That's a different topic altogether. What I'm saying is, if my system can account for mind and will as the ability to pass between information outside of the loops as he describes them, but even then, those would have been predetermined. Again, if it's calculable, it is basically predetermined. If you have that system in mind, you are just going to be an outplay of this mechanism. However complex it gets, however simple or however complex, it's just going to be a mechanism. I believe that if you cannot account for it, this would include predeterministic systems of religion. You're not going to be able to make any type of claim because every belief or idea or thought that you have is simply this outworking of this mechanism. If we have, there is no ability to compare them. I'm a little bit confused when you say this mechanism. Do you mean the mechanism assuming maths worldview or your worldview? That's where I'm like sometimes there are words where I'm not sure if it's using, you're referring to who's system, things like that. That's where it's really difficult to follow. Any system that is predetermined has no truth claims and therefore cannot have rationality claims. By system, you mean like a worldview? Is that what you mean? Yes, basically. So that's what I'm saying. Christianity has the ability to account for it without an ability to account for it as this neutral position that he says he is assuming that we will find out what's rational within the current framework of what we have as scientific evidence, which is why I pointed to a scientific claim in the first place, as this would therefore color how we will see rationality. For me, Christianity is perfectly rational. But if someone requires a certain sets of evidence and then is inconsistent for being able to provide them and be consistent with how their particular worldview would play out, then I don't think that it's not even a debate we're having. It might as well be... I agree. It's not a debate we're having. I agree. Are the principles of logic, do they stop working if you can't demonstrate why they work? The principles of logic are, first of all, transcendental and require to be grounded. That's not what I asked. If you aren't able to show how identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle, that they are in violet and how they work, does that mean they don't work? I'm afraid I don't understand what you were asking. Well, your assertion is that, first of all, materialism reduces us to just being a mechanism. I'm fine with that. Prove that I'm not just a mechanism. But second of all, the mechanism, you claim if you can't offer an explanation for it, then you can't get to truth claims. But that's not true because we have no way to demonstrate the truth or reliability of the foundations of logic and yet logic continues to demonstrate its reliability. It's like my car still runs even if I don't know how or why it runs. There can be a black box in there and all you're doing is saying that, hey, my magic model can account for this. Well, so can anything that someone can invent that they just assert is the explanation for it. And instead of asserting it, you need to demonstrate it. So since the subject of the debate is, is Christianity rational? It would be very nice if you would tell us what you mean by Christianity and why it's rational. Because now we've been here for 40 minutes and we've talked about epistemology and mechanisms and mind and I've answered your questions. And yet, even throughout your opening, there wasn't a single argument, a single piece of evidence, no definition of Christianity, no definition of rationality. Why are we here? The point I was trying to make all the way to this point is that if we don't have a framework in which we operate, then you cannot have the question, is this rational? If you ask me, is Christianity rational from a materialistic viewpoint? No. Is materialism rational from a Christian world point viewpoint? No. So if that's how we're going to do it without finding how we're going to evaluate these things, that's why I said we might as well be barking at each other. There's no point to having the debate. When you say we don't know, you can operate a PC or a car or whatever without knowing how exactly it operates. What I'm saying is that unless you have justification for a mind or for the transcendental such as logic, you cannot know what it is once that is extrapolated back from this particular example that you've given and then going back into the universe. And what is rational or irrational cannot be determined unless you fulfill certain necessary antecedents to that. One of those is having the ability to do epistemology. You understand my point for why you need a certain level of the ability to make truth claims in order to be able to determine whether something is rational. Is it possible for something to be rational and not true? I don't see how that, I mean if you mean internally consistent then perhaps. Cool. So truth isn't tied necessarily to rationality. Rationality is the position of holding a view as I was talking about before that is consistent with the available information does not include exclude the things that are inconvenient for example. And if that you cannot evaluate whether the information is true can you then make a standard for what is rational and what is it? Sure I don't need to know whether or not the reality I experience is the ultimate reality. I don't have a solution to the problem of hard solipsism and not aware of anybody else that does. But whether or not the ultimate reality has some truth in it. I can talk about the reality I experience and as long as you and I agree that we share that reality are you in agreement that the reality that we experience the universe is billions of years old and as long as we can agree to that then we both have to look at the world and say oh that fact needs to be included in our estimation. Now for you it's probably not a problem because it seems that you've come up with a way to view Genesis where there's not a conflict or to view God whether where being timeless it's instantaneous to him so of course he can waste what would be billions of years on earth and make 99% of every species go extinct because they're not irrelevant and you know you don't have to worry about it but it doesn't make sense with the narrative. But the only thing that's required for communication is agreement on the terms and how they're going to be used and the only thing that's required for an epistemology is an agreement on the structure of the world. Where we're disagreeing is that you think that there is more to the world than the material world and I do not and so you would need to then demonstrate the how and why you reached the conclusion that there is more to the world than the material and what it is and how you know what it is. I'm not asserting that the material world is all there is. I'm saying the material world so far as we can tell is all that we have the ability to investigate and nobody has demonstrated anything beyond the material world and is that true? Even if there was something beyond the material world you would need to then demonstrate it and then you would need to demonstrate that that is tied to Christianity. I mean we're now almost 45 minutes into this and we're nowhere near Christianity or rational. Okay is it true that the world is billions of years old? As far as I can tell yes. So how does that affect whether it's rational or irrational because you say it doesn't need to be true to have a worldview like a young earth creationist view? Oh because a rational view would have some accounting for that piece of data and so there's a mountain of evidence that goes into suggesting that the universe is billions of years old and in order for someone to say no that's wrong they would need to have arguments against those individual bits of data or the data as a whole. Okay so you and I would definitely disagree on things like evolution. So let's say hypothetically I had proof that you couldn't get mammals through an evolution process. Hypothetically is that not sufficient to then toss out evolution? Well it's certainly sufficient. If you had evidence that you couldn't that mammals can't arrive by evolution then you would definitely have to toss out that portion of it at least but I would say that it probably would go to the whole foundation of it. Yes if you're able to falsify evolution go for it but once again even if you were able to falsify evolution that doesn't anyway demonstrate the truth of Christianity nor does it make Christianity rational which is the subject of this debate. Why won't we talk about Christianity and whether or not it's rational instead of whether or not you can which you can't falsify evolution? Well I certainly believe I could but that's you believe that you can falsify evolution why the hell are we wasting time here avoiding the subject of this debate why aren't you out getting a Nobel Prize for overturning the cornerstone of biology? Well just as much as people wouldn't thought it was Christian ridiculousness to believe in the Big Bang theory but that turned out differently but I did debate it and so that's a different point again I don't want to move into that. I bet. Snark is not a particularly useful tool especially when for 49 minutes now you've been avoiding the topic of this debate making assertions that you don't defend and now asserting that you can overturn the cornerstone of biology but you don't want to cool. No if you want to have a debate on evolution that's something we can schedule. I'm not the person you should be debating on evolution you should be taking it up with actual scientists but are we going to talk about Christianity rational because I'm bored to tears now. Well if I'm going to use the metric system which I do and use the imperial but we don't recognize the fact that one is metric the other is imperial we just left with the ciphers then we're not going to be able to compare our views of what is rational what is irrational what is sort of what I'm saying I could for example argue like the watchman fallacy or argument watchmaker argument sorry that if I would have to prove that it couldn't have arrived through a natural process. Yes and by the way that's what you're asserting you're asserting that the mind can't do this for material purposes you keep making assertions about what can't happen and your entire case is to say that your rational by virtue of the impossibility of the contrary but you never get close to even even attempting to demonstrate the impossibility of the contrary you just keep asserting it that's not how any of this works that's not how rationality works that's not how you convince people that's how you convince yourself that's not how you get to a point of irrational conclusion is just to say oh the that's impossible so it must be this okay prove that that's impossible well why are you making me approve it seems unfair that you're making me try to prove that it's impossible you're the one that made the case I didn't write your opening I didn't write any of your responses if you're going to come in and say it is impossible for a mind to come about by materialistic means and therefore it must be a supernatural thing you have to demonstrate that and then when you're done doing that that's when you can say and because it's a supernatural thing here's why it means that Christianity is rational but you're not doing any of that well what I am saying is if you define mind for example as brain functions of brain states or whatever then I'm saying that there's consequences to how they're coming to that conclusion and if you are going to accept the consequences of that conclusion you can't keep thing metaphysical things but then have only a physical account for and if you the same thing I said that if you have a determined system you are just going to come to conclusions that you were determined to come to whether that be Christianity or Islam or Buddhism or atheism you are not an actual thing you are this epiphenomenon what I'm saying is to act in such a way would be a performative contradiction to use a mind and then say oh I'm not using a mind it's just something that's happening it's froth on water that would be this just surface level phenomenon as we would have to conclude our mind is in your worldview but if you don't have to then ground back your views and say there might be the supernatural or there might be just the material I'm saying that if you are just in the material there are consequences with it there is baggage along that goes along with it and that is what part of what I'm trying to say that something is the impossibility of the contra I'm saying if it's just the material if it's just the natural you have no truth claims as actual truth claims you have no claims you have no you there is nothing it's it's all a mechanism playing out of all sorts of parts again the complexity is not the thing I'm appealing to I'm saying if you are going to have that you're not going to have the ability to make truth claims to any extent and therefore conclude what is rational or irrational in any way shape or form assuming what you're saying posh I think some people in the audience have asked why even granting that it was the case that materialism has this problem why would it be Christianity rather than other versions you could say of religion that are non-naturalist or non-materialist again well part of it is the pre-determinist problem I'm saying but I would then also say that if you have a transcendent deity which I believe is necessary for to actually have anything because if you have a God that is within time then you have a God that is either the God of Platonism and Aristotelianism and stuff like that that you he would be bound by time but then time is going to have to predate God so you're going to have something from nothing even in that system that's one way to remove things and I believe I mean a transcendent God could only be known through revelation because you cannot reliably just go to nature with natural theology and then try to argue back into the transcendent we Christians believe in the fullness of nature so if you it's like watching a totaled car and then not accounting for the fact that it's totaled and then make conclusions about the engineer who designed it or built it or whatever so that is going to start eliminating conclusions but ultimately we are going to have to go to belief system I think Matt agrees with me on this because even he as he said he has no answer for hard solipsism that's a fair thing to say but we operate with beliefs so now with those beliefs in mind I'm going to have to say that to believe in a material account to this point is going to have to you're going to have to throw out things like epistemology because that is as far as you can get to a mechanism it is a necessary part of your system and then if you're going to hold that system as the standard for what is ration you're going to break from what is going to be possible or considered rational again from a materialistic world viewpoint you're going to conclude that it's a rational to be a Christian or believe in basically anything supernatural and therefore if I just agree to the materialism being the standard I've basically said okay I'm going to show how supernatural is how to prove or rationalize the supernatural in a worldview where naturalism is the standard so I'm not going to grant that naturalism is a valid position to hold as a measuring stick against what is rational and what isn't we're near the time but I don't want to cut off Matt in case he has anything to add we are close to when we normally go into the Q and a maybe a little bit earlier but that's why I want to say Matt if you had any in additional points you want to make or any responses you want to make before we do the Q and a well at the end of this is there a closing remark or should I just make it now and do the Q and a now would be a great opportunity because we won't have closings after the Q and a sure posh's core is that he begins by believing that reasoning isn't possible without a God he now has a hammer against materialism and so every problem he sees is a nail but he just asserts that it's not possible to reason without God he doesn't demonstrate it he doesn't attempt to and all of that is completely secondary to the subject of this debate which is Christianity rational because he wants to say that Christianity is rational because it can offer an account for rationality and reasoning and yet so can any other potential magical solution to a problem that in philosophy does not have a solution he's essentially claiming to have solved the problem that philosophers have been toiling over which is grounding reason in grounding reality and in the same way that he's arrogantly assumed that he's done this he's arrogantly assumed that he can falsify evolution and yet is wasting our time here instead of going out and doing it and changing the world this is laughable and I'll take questions we're going to jump into the Q and a posh if you had any additional I can give you the same amount of time if you'd like otherwise if you're wanting to skip the closing statement you can as well I'll be very brief my entire point in the opening that I gave and for then continuing the debate the debate onwards is that I will not grant naturalism as this standard for rationality as I've already said that is why I wanted to get into what would be considered rational if all that is necessary for things to be rational is to have an enclosed system as Matt says I can just do that and if I if that was all we took I could just come here give you the the basics the statements of the bible and then said there you go it's rational no if we're going to have to engage also in epistemology and as this type of thing that we have to integrate these truth claims into the system then we're going to have to have that part of the discussion as well and if I accept what I believe to be an improper measurement or standard then there's that's not something that's going to happen as it cannot play out in a debate when we're using different measurements 10 seconds left and that's fair enough let's go to questions we'll jump into the q&a want to say folks thanks so much for your questions because we have limited time with the speakers today we're going to go with superjets five dollars or more we'll be read this one coming in front first from contrarian 420 says posh is it rational to say that god is both transcendent and accurately conceived by christianity aren't christian concepts of god ultimately limited the christian concepts of god so he wants to say he is both transcendent and can you read that part they said is it rational to say that god is both transcendent and accurately conceived by christianity so in eastern orthodoxy when we say conceived we have the apophasis as the approach so apophatic approach we sort of say what he isn't we don't make affirmative statements on the essence of god we have what is revealed to us a lot of it is unlogical it's not the direct correlation to what he actually is because he is transcendent and that is a different thing to to saying that if christianity has this the correct conception of it and i mentioned that god can transcendent god can only be known through revelations and that is where we're going to have to go into presuppositionalism and how we evaluate all of these things so limited i don't know what limited would mean what god is is one thing how he reveals himself to us in a manner that we can through analogy conceive of a way to interact with him that is a different type of question so if you have a god like in the god of Aristotle who keeps producing the inverse of him and he becomes this absolutely divine and absolutely divine simplicity that we get also in Catholicism but in Aristotle that you cannot know anything of him because he has to be pure and simple and that's through logical necessity that you cannot ever interact with that deity and it is not the personal deity this one from pro debate says i'm wondering if posh thinks that jesus rose from the dead and what quote unquote rational or i think they might mean rationality he has to support this or rationale maybe they mean this this seems central to christianity being quote unquote rational yes so this is sort of like a pathway engagement where okay if we believe that god created the universe such an act would not be particularly difficult for him so do people resurrect if materialism is true no but if god exists can he raise people from the dead yes that is the internal coherence that we're talking about and therefore it would be rational in that extent and why i tried reaching over into materialism so we have this back and forth available to us you got this one coming in from do appreciate it melody kate says so posh christians are just always right about their god regardless of facts and science um well i i don't that is a very vague question because i don't know depending on what the reason i gave a scientific example is that it is a necessary prerequisite to even have the idea of evolution but it is in no way demonstrated even in the optimal conditions even with someone actively trying to to achieve that result and against all that we know of thermodynamics you know to get a massive increase in both energy and entropy you're going to that is something that goes against everything we know as i said of thermodynamics so that is counted as a fact in practice when we discuss how life came to be and how we as humans came to be but at the same time i'm saying is it a fact because we don't even have the ability to show that it could happen in optimal conditions i'm supposed to accept that it happened somewhere in nature so what is a fact is going to have to come through that lens if people want to go into all particular things into particular things that's a question to ask but if you're going to simply give me a claim that is a scientific claim but not a scientific conclusion but one of the theories and claim it as a fact then no so that is what i'm saying uh i gave what i tried to do before we get into specificities of christianity you got it hi i'm gerbert says posh is there anything that would make christianity clearly irrational to you when based on the acceptance of your god's ability it seems any explanation that follows could be arguably rational what would have to happen to make god the christian god untrue well i'm not sure um there are i do not know a reason what would have to happen because there's a certain time and place that we believe we are currently in the entire biblical how should we call timeline and therefore i i would i wouldn't know of a particular reason that would make me do it but i suppose that there could be one i just don't know one of the top of my head and what was the second part uh limited when based on the acceptance of your god's ability it seems any explanation that follows could be arguably rational i think they're saying no matter what can be found yes yes yes i understand what he means but that's going to have to be an interplay of the orthodox understanding of god and then the uh what what is a particular thing that is presented i i i as i said i can't think of a particular thing because there's not a reason to believe you know like saying oh uh uh uh diseased killed people not god to us that is not this uh uh a claim that is consistent with us we we believe god can uh do things through a very materialistic way it doesn't mean that god goes down and you know starts hitting people to kill them so uh if you want to give a specific example of what shows god to be wrong like as i said it's never been a teaching of the orthodox church that six days creation and i'm talking about like saints from like the fourth century some of our greatest saints and beyond saint augustin they don't hold to six-day creation so uh that's not something i came up with uh because it was inconvenient that's something that in the west unfortunately you have a modernists versus post-modernists fighting out what the bible means and we reject uh there's a reason i mean it's from orthodox and not Catholic or Protestant you've got to thank you very much chris g says posh after hearing all of what matt has said during this debate would you summarize your best argument that counters as much of his counter namely matt's counter points as possible and in other words what are the biggest things from let's say matt's opening or the open dialogue that matt has said that you would want to directly address and what would you say i'm saying that he's sort of presented an unfalsifiable thesis himself and that uh if people can believe in the scientific process will at some point discover an explanation for things like a biogenesis i say okay but is it irrational to believe in it now currently like while you're exploring maybe you believe you might find something out but to hold it as true which would be a necessary as i said prerequisite for belief in evolution life has to start somehow uh and if you are it's rational to believe that i wanted to see then okay what if that unexplained and currently inexplicable process that is the necessary necessary prerequisite if you can explain if you can hold that ration then i can make all sorts of claims and just say we'll figure it out in the future that is what i was trying to get to unfortunately we didn't break from from trying to establish a standard this one from made by jim bob says matt is the question of whether christianity is rational or not dependent on the mechanism in which we evaluate truth claims well to some extent the mechanism that evaluates truth claims is the same one that we're going to use for rationality um the problem here is what posh has done is i mean if you listen to him a transcendental god can only be understood through revelation and so he's denying that my worldview because it can't account for foundations of reason according to him um epistemology just isn't even possible and so he's throwing out um essentially the best epistemology because when when people who are methodological naturalists engage to try to discover what the truth is or what's reasonable they go to the data and the evidence they don't go to internal revelation it's not been privately revealed to me that chromosome this chromosome here is uh or the fusion of this chromosome uh is because of evolution it wasn't that wasn't privately revealed his model which is why that he's eastern orthodox and not catholic it's because it's all about private revelation he has when he has no way to tell a catholic that they're wrong and a catholic has no way to tell him this he's wrong this is a protective defensive mechanism to say that oh my epistemology is rooted in direct revelation from god which means i can't ever be wrong but if i if you and i get different revelations there is no resolution for this there is no appeal to anything external this is part of the problem this is why spectral evidence isn't allowed in court and this is why when i'm talking about this and i'm talking i defined what i meant by rationality um and how it wasn't necessarily tied to truth that at one time it was rational to think the the sun went around the earth and now that's no longer rational because there are additional pieces of information that have to be included in his view those additional pieces of information are divine revelation and it's all predicated on the notion that oh the natural world isn't all there is well if the natural world isn't all there is you should be able to demonstrate that otherwise if you begin with the natural world exists definitely we are at least in agreement there if you're not in agreement that the natural world exists i don't know what to do with you but if we're in agreement the natural world exists now we want to say is there more than the natural world what mechanism what reliable mechanism can you use to demonstrate the truth that there's something beyond the natural world. Because if you appeal to your private special revelation as the proof of that, you have no grounding at all. You have tossed out everything about reason and rationality and reinvented it in such a way that you can't be wrong. That is the ultimate, unfalsifiable delusion. Okay, I will be very brief. But Matt, you yourself said you have no answer for heart solipsism. Which isn't a response to anything I just said. Yes, but because you appeal to the natural world. No, I didn't. Does the natural world exist, Posh? Does the natural world exist? I'm asking you. Does the natural world exist? I believe so, yes. I believe so too. You believe there's more to the natural world. I don't. So you need to demonstrate it. How can you demonstrate it other than private revelation? Yes, but if you have no solution for heart solipsism, you cannot, outside of belief, you cannot have even the natural world exist. No, you don't get to assert that both you have a solution and that if you don't have a solution, you don't get to participate. You no longer get to participate in debates with me. From your worldview, again. No, not from my worldview, from an assertion. When this debate's over, you no longer get to participate in debates with me. This one. I don't saw them as when nice. Thunderstorm says no man-made system is created 100% rational, including science. I'm not sure what the who this is for. I think that's a mistake, though, because science isn't asserting, first of all, science is a collection of things, not the scientific method. There are a variety of scientific methods and logic isn't asserting that the system is perfect. Humans applying logic and humans doing science are certainly prone to making mistakes. We are all prone to making mistakes. I'm not aware of anybody who would assert that science is perfect because that's ridiculous. Logic and its foundation appears to be perfectly inviolate. Whether you're talking about it in the sense of set theory in a single Venn diagram with a single circle or however else you want to do identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle. It appears to be true. It appears to be inviolate to the point where I'm not even aware of theologians who accept the notion that God could violate logic. Every theologian I've ever interacted with, as far as I can tell, because we don't all talk about it, would accept that God is as bound by logic as everything is, that God can't make a square circle or God can't make a married bachelor or God can't make something what it is and not what it is in the same way at the same time. That's as close to perfection as you've got. This one coming in from Ali P says to Posh, if the most important start of this debate for you was to define quote-unquote rational, why didn't you start with using one or two sentences to define it? If we are going to define rationality as a type of internal coherence, I wanted to know if that is what is meant on the opposing side by rational. To me, you're going to have to start with presuppositions and see how they play out. And if you are going to have to violate them in order to come to the conclusion to protect the initials, then you're going to have internal contradictions. So for me, if you want to have a rational system, it is the one that can account for the world around you. I would agree with what Matt said, and I should have, and that's a fair critique. I sort of started immediately with trying to establish from his worldview what would be rational because that's what I want to argue. So, yes, fair enough, I should have given the definition myself, but at the same time, I think if we have different standards, we cannot just bash them together and then pretend like we're discussing the same thing. This one coming in from LMK says this could be avoided if keywords in the topic were defined and agreed upon by the participants before the debate. Torch says, Posh, could God birth a unicorn from a horse? They say in parentheses, the horn must have healing properties. If yes, to believe in God is to believe in unicorns. Do you believe in unicorns, Posh? No. In fact, what you will find that horses being born, they don't have hooves because, in fact, that would cause a lot of damage during birth. But if people who ask, can God do this or can God do that, it is because they inhabit a certain reality that God established in a certain way. To say if God could create things differently, sure. But that is now in the realm of hypothetical of what God can and cannot do, and it's sort of like trying to define infinity. You cannot define infinity except for an endless set of finite things. So it's similar to can God create a rock so heavy he can't lift it? And would someone accept the answer, the endless and infinite growth of a rock and the endless ability of God to lift it? Or would it have to be finalized because then we're not talking about a transcendent God? So that is this pulling back the transcendent into the material and the natural and then trying to compare them. That's not how it's going to work. But could God create a unicorn from a horse? Yes, absolutely. The horn has to have healing properties. Of course, if you have the omnipotent God, sure. Does that mean that he did it? No. So that's not why I say it's like believing in unicorns, the fact that God could do it. Could God have created a universe with different sets of a different type of logic? Yes, but that is not the universe we live in. So from our perspective, we're going to inhabit this world and then explore it and have certain strictures that are applied to finite beings. I think it's strange that you said infinity can't be defined and then you went on to define it. And infinity does have a definition when I think what you meant is infinity isn't quantifiable. The infinitude itself, it's just that I mean it as an endless, we don't stop counting. Sure, that's the definition. I think what you meant is that it's not quantifiable. Yes, fair enough. Fair enough. I was being more colloquial. This one from Tanner H says, Posh, what is more likely? The creator of the universe revealed himself to the pre-science age people or that pre-science age peasants came up with some mythology to try and explain their surroundings. Thanks. What is more rational? Did he say rational or likely? What is more likely? That is sort of a question that can't be answered like what is more likely sort of like similar to Occam's razor. It's not a foolproof methodology. Sure, you could say one or the other that's sort of the decimion approach to what is religion that people saw these events and then sort of ascribe it to entities etc etc. What is more likely when we're talking about past events doesn't necessarily need to happen. I can't think of a proper example, but if someone flipped 10 coins in a row and got the same, what is it, head or tails, got tail 10 times in a row? Is it more likely that he lied telling people that he did it or that he actually did it? Well, if he did it, it doesn't matter in evaluation what is more likely. You got it. It does matter what's more likely and what's more probable and that goes to rationality. For example, this is something I've done many many times. If all 1500 people who were watching were sitting here and I said, okay, everybody flip a coin and if you got heads, flip it again and if you got heads, flip it again and if you got heads, we would with an audience this side, we would easily get at least one person who will have honestly flipped heads 10 times in a row. That's the way the math works out. This is an example I've done in magic shows and other people have as well to demonstrate this. When the caller is asking you what's more likely, all they're saying is what is it more rational to believe is the likely conclusion based on all the available evidence. The thing is, if you don't have or you are ignoring some of the available evidence, then your conclusion about what's more likely or what's more probable or what is possible, what is rational, may not be accurate. That was the whole point. But that is not what I was addressing. I was saying if someone did actually do it. Of course, you haven't been addressing the topic all day. Indeed. You addressed what I said. What I said is if someone actually did it, so it is an example where somebody did it. If someone actually did it, I gave an example of post factor. Does the likelihood of that happening determine whether it did happen or not? This one coming in from do appreciate your question. A call to reason says, Posh, why do you rely on a theistic understanding of mind and pretend that creates a problem for naturalism? Nothing about mind defies brain explanations. I said mechanisms do not produce epistemology. That is my point. Any belief if it is calculated in the future, what would happen? If you reduce it to let's say an atomic level, it's just interactions of atoms. There's nothing that is true or false about it. It just is. It's matter and energy. All of it is something that can be calculated. If you have sufficient knowledge, granted we don't, that is also something I mentioned. So if you are just going to reduce everything to these interactions, where is the truth or falsity of that? So there is nothing affecting you. Sorry, I think we're done. So the debate is Christianity rational, which isn't necessarily tied to truth. But when you say that if minds are essentially just mechanisms, then there's no truth there. That is actually false because truth is a comparison of things. So as long as a mind can hold a concept about reality, and there's a reality to compare it to, then the truth value of that concept exists independent of whether or not that mind came about by purely mechanistic means, whether or not it was designed by a designer. None of those things are relevant to whether or not what it does produces truth and reliability. You're asserting that it can't do that without a God, but you haven't demonstrated that. And as a matter of convenience, rather than demonstrating it, you're just going to keep asserting that in a naturalistic universe that can't happen, which is absolutely false and dishonest. Because as long as a brain can hold a concept and it can map to something in reality, then it has a truth value. And if we can evaluate it and do that comparison, then we have a truth value. And I said that you cannot have truth values if that is the case. I'll give a different example. If you mentioned the thing, let's say you have a sensor for light and you program it to say when it detects light to say light is off and when it doesn't detect light to say light is off. So you programmed it to give the false response. What makes it false? Because it's not consistent with the reality. That's what I just explained is that the concept in the brain is about reality and you compare the concept in the brain to reality to determine its truth value. I don't know why this is hard, but if you programmed it to give an answer that is the opposite of that, then it is false with respect to reality. But it is the mechanism itself. You are again giving me the mind. I'm saying you would be that sensor. Every brain would be that type of sensor. You don't know what it's programmed to react to properly or improperly. So yes, somebody could have a brain that is entirely programmed to run backwards to give false words true and true words false. But that reliability is still a truth value which is borne out by comparing it to reality. And because we have the sensors that allow us to compare our internal model with the external model, both this is the reason why science uses independent confirmation and peer review, because that exists we are now able to refine our model and change that. None of that, none of that supports your assertion that it's impossible without a God. This one coming in from, do appreciate your question. Humanist reformation says, is it rational to say David Quresh is not the Son of God when he gets his words wrong, but Jesus is when he gets his words wrong. They say Deuteronomy 18 20 through 22 warns us of people like David Quresh and Jesus. I think that's for you, Posh. David Quresh? I can read it again if you'd like. He probably doesn't know who David Quresh is. Oh, okay, gotcha. David Quresh. Okay, the fact that Jesus was and is the Son of God and someone claiming to be the Son of God, that's again something that you would have to compare. There is no neutral position from which you can compare it again. If Jesus is the Son of God, does that mean that no one else could claim to be the Son of God? It's again, this myth of neutrality keeps coming back up. This is a myth of neutrality. I actually agree with you. This is just preposterous. The fact that someone might be the Son of God doesn't mean somebody else can't claim to be. That is a complete non-sequitur thing. I'm in agreement with Posh there until he says about the neutrality thing. That's irrelevant. Somebody could be Napoleon and everybody else who claims to be Napoleon is wrong. That's an absurd position. You got it? This one coming in from, do you appreciate it? Hi, I'm Gerbert. It says, Matt, what evidence would make Christianity rational today in your view based off your opening arguments? Do you believe at one time in history Christianity was more rational than it is today? It's difficult to say something more rational because it's hard to quantify. I don't think it ever reached a point of truly being rational. I think by the time Christianity rose and gained its popularity, I think there were things that we understood that were in conflict, things about reality that were in conflict with it, but certainly it was less irrational at some point in the past. With regard to the first part of the question of what would it take to make Christianity rational, I would say, A, you'd have to start by defining Christianity and its facets and then showing how those facets are compatible with the knowledge of what we know around the world. What we've learned over these years to say Christianity is consistent with these things and is not in conflict with these things. That would be the beginning of how to demonstrate that it's rational. Now, people ask me before, what would change your mind? They're talking about whether or not I think it's true. I've said before I don't know, but if there is a God, a God would know exactly what it would take to change my mind and would be capable of presenting it. I think that the argument from Divine Hiddenness is a strong indication that gods don't exist. In particular, gods with particular characteristics which would include the Christian God don't exist. Offering counters to Divine Hiddenness moves it a little closer towards rationality, I would say, but if we're going to sit here and Pasha is going to say that he's not going to accept any discussion of rationality that doesn't include his acceptance of the supernatural, then definitely we're not going to get anywhere because the supernatural needs to be demonstrated and accepted before it gets to be included in a case on rationality. Something that it didn't do either. You got it, this one coming in from. Do appreciate your question. Honest Abe says, Matt, how can you be so extremely patient with someone? Let's see. I'm not. They say who won't debate the topic. Also Pasha, your microphone is up. You sound muffled. I'm not sure what. I don't know if Pasha's using the microphone. I'm not using this one. It doesn't sound muffled to me. With regard to the patients, I don't know that I am. At different times, I'm more or less patient. It is certainly frustrating if we're, you know, oh, hey, in 24 hours with no discussion of definitions and no discussion of format will you debate is Christianity rational? Yes. And then I show up and I'm the only one that's mentioned Christianity or rationality other than assertions about it. I'm not here. No offense to Pasha. I'm not here for him. I'm here to give my view on what I think and why in the hopes that it helps somebody out. And so, you know, I'm going to lose my patience more. I've already told him I'm not going to debate him again. That's not a patient response. That is, and I'm fed up response. So you don't don't just because I was more patient today than you might have been. Don't go putting me on a pedestal because I'm as frustrated as anybody else. This one is Christians are backsliding atheist says a popular lie will never be the truth. God believe equals adults playing pretend or want to say folks, whether it be claiming that atheism is adults playing pretend or theism, whatever it is, we're looking for more meaningful questions than that. Honest Dave, thanks for your question says, let's see, we got that one. Shampoo says, Matt, if theists were wrong for not basing their worldview strictly on empiricism, how come leftist such as useful, such as I think they mean you, they say useful, throw science out the window? Let's see, we're looking for something that's on topic. Yeah, that's not a topic, but it's really so this is this is the problem with people who desperately want to shoehorn their pet issue into something that's irrelevant. If if you read that read that whole question, it starts with if theists aren't basing their view on this, then why is it that leftists are throwing out science is first of all, leftists like me aren't throwing out science. You're the one throwing out science and I know exactly what you're leading up to. Feel free to call into one of my mini shows and I will be happy to school your ass on this. But also if you can't put an argument together that begins with a and leads to something that's even in the alphabet, like if you go from a to bicycle, you're just way out of your depth here. Theists can and do many of them use sound reasoning for many things. I'm sure that there are plenty of things that posh believes and accepts for the exact same reasons that I do. It's just that for the God things and for foundational things, he goes beyond that. And I just want a justification for going beyond that. This one coming in from do appreciate it. Franco true. Hello says Yippee. Another debate. Appreciate your enthusiasm. Eddie Dean says posh. Is it rational to believe that the world was populated through incest? Both Adam and Eve and Noah's family would have had to have used incest in order to procreate. Well, you're not going to get away from incest in any start of any population. Unfortunately. But yes, why would it be irrational unless you believe that with the starting genetics and of course this would include providence that you're not going to get you're going to get sufficient depletion in the quality of human that it would render the entire population incapable of functioning. So you're going to have to get incestuous to a large degree in any model. This one from Bob says our Islam contemporary Judaism Mormonism and posh's view of Christianity equally rational because they share views of the same God posh. We don't share the same view of God. No, this was never the case. That's why I also said I'm Eastern Orthodox. I couldn't defend Calvinism, for example. It just simply doesn't work with the system that we have in mind. So when Matt said we and the Catholics cannot convince each other, that's completely untrue because we would, for example, keep comparing giving historical comparisons. So we Eastern Orthodox would say, okay, where do you get this view of the Pope is the bishop of all bishops. He controls the entire church. He can do this or that something that they dogmatized in the first Vatican Council. But then when we go back to the first millennium, why we were still one church, we don't see that happen. And that is our argument against the papacy. Why? Because we believe that Christ through his apostles established church. And then as things move on, they maintain the deposit of faith. So if we can show in history that one departed from that, either them with claiming, making the claims that about the Bishop of Rome or us denying them, then we can have discussions where we point one or the other to our respective churches. Yeah, except I was just accused of saying something that was absolutely not true, and then you demonstrated that it absolutely is true, because Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have different beliefs that are rooted in different revelation. And if you could convince them, you would have to appeal to revelation and convince them that your revelation is right and theirs is wrong. That was the point. There's a reason there are over a thousand denominations that all identify as Christian. It's because your epistemology is grossly flawed. No, the fact that someone departs from a system does not mean that the system itself is wrong. Yeah, that's hashtagged. No, but you will get a solar scriptora, which is the idea that you get the Bible. That's not an appeal to revelation. So the scriptora is not an appeal to revelation. It is an assertion that the scripture is a revelation, but this hasn't been revealed to you. Scripture wasn't revealed to you. Scripture existed, and you accept that it was revealed to the authors. Yes, but I'm saying if you're going to then take the Bible and use it in a way that it wasn't used for 1500 years and then start breaking up into all these denominations, that does not mean that you have no ground. Your epistemology is based on, you said, a transcended God can only be understood through revelation. So you can point to Scripture all you want, but Scripture isn't necessarily revelation. And that's just an assertion that it was a revelation to somebody. But the modern version of Scripture you have isn't the same as what it used to be, and you have no way of saying to someone who says, I got a new revelation from God that they're wrong other than to assert your revelation. This is the problem with your epistemology. There is no external confirmation. It is all, I have a personal relationship with the risen Christ and screw you if yours isn't the same. Okay, so when Islam, for example, makes the claim to be a continuation of Judaism and Christianity, we can point them to how they're not. And that's how we show inconsistency within their claims. That is how we do things. This is a major point in even, of course, Abraham. You haven't shown that you're right. You've shown that you disagree. That's the point. And you haven't shown that you're more rational. You've shown, in the same way that you will not accept epistemology that does not accept your foundations, you want to reject the Muslim epistemology because it has something that adds to yours. You've added to reality in order to have your Eastern Orthodox and the Muslims have added to your reality in order to have Islam. And yet somehow you still don't see that fatal flaw in your epistemology. You haven't convinced any Muslims that they're wrong. You've just convinced yourself and that's not rationality. That's delusion. This one coming in from, do appreciate your question. Prim Oroz says, Matt, do you have a standard of quote, the good? And are you a scientist? No, I'm not a scientist and standards of good depend on on the subject. You'd have to evaluate generally. From a moral standpoint, that which, you know, adds to the betterment of our as Sam Harris would describe it well being, but prior to Sam doing that, I gave a lecture about what we would generally view as good, we can be wrong about what it is. But if you and I agree on a standard, much like with a chess game, once we agree on what the rules are and what the goals are, we can evaluate moves as to whether or not they're better than other moves. And we can do that objectively. It's not my opinion, whether or not this is a good move or a bad move. This move is a good move or a bad move objectively with respect to the goal. And as long as we agree on the goal, we're there. And so if you want to know what the standard was good for good would be, it would depend on what subject we're talking about and what the goal is. But no, I'm not a scientist. You got it. And I want to remind you folks, or I should say say it for the first time, we are not able to take any more new questions. So please don't submit any more new questions. We got to wrap up before the end of the hour. This one from Jay Mixon says, why is God quote unquote, not hypothetical? I think that's for you, Posh. Why is God not hypothetical? That's what they asked. Correct. I know. Because a hypothesis needs to be falsifiable and the God proposition is not falsifiable. So it doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis. But I think I think you met hypothetical in the colloquial sense. And that's because people genuinely believe that God exists. But likewise, if you limit things to naturalism, it is impossible to prove supernaturalism because the only proof you accept are naturalistic. Oh, see, what you just said is, if you begin with naturalism, you can't prove supernaturalism. So how can you prove supernaturalism? Well, you can have, I'm saying if there's something that naturalism cannot account for, then you are going to have to abandon. How do you know that naturalism hasn't accounted, can't account for it versus naturalism hasn't accounted for it yet? That's exactly my point I was trying to make throughout the debate. If you can just say hasn't accounted for it yet, then there is basically no limit to what you can believe. No, no, no, no. It's not an assertion that it will. You're claiming that it can't. And that's what you have to demonstrate that you don't and you never even attempt to. You're asserting that naturalism cannot explain this. You even just did it a second ago. You said if you begin with naturalism, you cannot demonstrate supernaturalism. And yet when the question is how do you demonstrate supernaturalism, you don't have an answer. But supernaturalism is then what you wouldn't define it as supernatural anymore. You would have to integrate it and therefore you're going to eliminate the entire category. Yes, the category isn't eliminate. No, no, no. The category isn't eliminated permanently. The category is eliminated until such time as it can be demonstrated, just like I'm going to eliminate the magic category and the fantasy category and the bullshit category, because that's what we're supposed to do. We hold those categories off as you don't get to appeal to these until they have demonstrated veracity. And you are saying that if you begin with naturalism, you can't demonstrate in the other one. Well, that's too bad. It's not the fault of naturalism or sound epistemology that it doesn't include bullshit. This one coming in. It's not just rhetoric. It's epistemology. And if yours wasn't so fundamentally broken, you would understand that. This one from s though land says posh is talking about violation. His presentation is an assault on our time. Those turning and hoping to listen. Let's see, are the ones being violated today? You have a critic posh. This one coming in from made by Jim Bob says Matt, did science tell you it's the most reliable method? No, science didn't tell me anything. Science isn't a thing or person that can tell me anything. The scientific methods have been the single most consistently reliable methods of accurately modeling the earth. Nobody had to tell me that nobody told me that science didn't tell me that it is demonstrated in the same way that breathing air has been demonstrated the most effective use of my lungs as opposed to breathing smoke. This one coming in from do appreciate it. Quilo. It says if personal revelation rationalizes one's belief in God, why is it irrational for one to lack belief without said revelation? So personal revelation, we don't just go for personal revelation. We go for also a coherency model. So that's again why I said about Islam, that if it claims to be a continuation of something and then isn't a continuation of something, it isn't in line, it breaks fundamental precepts of it, then you're going to have to you would reject that private revelation. Also, it is, of course, faith that plays a part in this as much as faith as a belief, and as much as someone who can't refute what's it called in hard solipsism, also has to function on faith. You cannot fully exclude it. And I believe we agreed on that that you have to have a certain level of belief in it. But it isn't this idea that any private revelation is sufficient outside of this system that is going to be established, like in Christianity, if someone shows up right now and says, oh, actually Jesus was a woman, then that would be inconsistent with the previous revelations. You got it. This one coming in front of you. Appreciate it. So the first revelation, the first revelation is the one that's right and the ones that come after are inconsistent with it. And that's not a flawed epistemology. The first revelation is the right one. Okay. I'm talking about internal coherence. Brett Boy says, Posh, you don't reckon it's wiser to accept a biogenesis is possible. It shouldn't be fully accepted with only partial evidence over asserting that God has created something. Well, what would then be wiser if currently we do not have the ability to demonstrate it even in the most optimal of circumstances and breaking even certain rules that would have to be followed to get it through a prebiotically relevant manner. Then I would just reject that as part of this mechanism. If we are talking about this is the watchmaker thing, if you're just going to keep relying on the ability that in nature we can find pieces of metal, therefore, the watch, isn't it wiser to accept that the watch occurred naturally? This is what I'm talking about, just accepting naturalistic evidence, admitting naturalistic evidence. You're going to preclude any ability of invoking an agent, but that is the entire conundrum around that thought experiment. You've got this one coming in front. Do appreciate your question. The overgiver says question to Posh, would showing incoherencies within the biblical narrative undermine the necessity of God to ground rationality? The necessity of God. Well, if you showed internal incoherence in the Bible, that would be enough to show that if that the biblical God is not the true God. So to ground rationality, that's a different thing, because again, I don't reject the idea that you could have different conceptions of God, but you would still be in relation to naturalism, then it doesn't exclude the other. This one from Sarah Kuchenauer says, to Posh, deer are born without antlers. So by your logic, did I just prove the existence of unicorns? I didn't see how that is any way a sequitur. So no, I defy that horses do not have a horn. Someone made a meme. What do you believe is a more rational thing to believe unicorns? So basically a horse with a horn on its forehead or a giraffe, if you've never seen either. If you were in some, you were living somewhere completely inaccessible to the existence of a giraffe and someone says, oh, I saw this giant animal that looks like tapestry and has this enormous neck and giant harp that needs to pump the blood up and things like that. People would rather believe in a unicorn as in a horse with a horn like the way a deer could develop antlers than a giraffe. That does not mean that you don't have giraffes. You got it. This is, appreciate your question, made by Jim Bob. This is a last, well not last one, but at least one of the last one we can fit in before we have to close out any new questions. Matt, did the scientific method prove that the scientific method is the most reliable method? No. No. First of all, as I said at the beginning, there is no the scientific method. And you didn't use the scientific method to prove the scientific method. What happens here is that we begin with identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle, the foundations of logical reasoning. From there, we then begin to construct logic, logical arguments, logical syllogisms with major premises, minor premises, and connecting terms. And Aristotle and his band of merry logicians went through and demonstrated of all the possible syllogistic forms which are actually valid in structure, which means that if there are true premises, you get a true conclusion. From there, we build on to that by actually engaging in logical argument to evaluate things. And then we enter into a realm where we begin to talk about what's probabilistically true. And science is an inferential process, looks at the world and says, here's all the available facts. I'm going to construct a hypothesis about these observations that is testable and falsifiable, put it to the test, submit it to peers for peer review, and it's going to sit here as the best current explanation for these facts until a new one comes along. Its reliability is in its ability to continually provide useful, non-devastating results from its findings. It is as close to a finding of truth as any other system could possibly get. It's actually more reliable there. Its reliability is demonstrable and it's not science that demonstrates that, it's logical reasoning, which is demonstrated reliability by the presuppositions that logic is reliable. If you think logic isn't reliable, you can go out and earn a Nobel Prize in demonstrating that you falsified the unfalsifiable in the same way that Posh can get one for falsifying evolution, but you won't and neither will he. Slum Mackenzie says Posh, if you feel that your beliefs are rationally justified, then what is the purpose and value of faith? Faith? Well, it would depend on how, so there's a difference in interpreting faith, for example, between us and people who subscribe to the idea that faith is just beliefs. We do not hold that definition of faith. We define it as faithfulness, but if you're going to say that you don't have to believe in anything, then you're making a claim that, again, you cannot justify as much as, again, with hard solipsism. You have to have a certain level of faith in the ability to even do any of these things, otherwise you would have to abandon the entire ability to reason at all. That's the purpose of faith. If you mean in that sense, that's because otherwise you would just be stagnant. If you think that's something that you can execute properly, then okay. But if you mean faithfulness, as in faithfulness, that is going to come into then all the things that Christianity teaches, like being made in the image of God, which is a thing that is more purpose-driven. So you have the duty to be faithful to God by praying fast in almsgiving, love thy neighbor, and all of that. This one from ProDebate says, to Matt, if we look at the internal consistency of Posh's view, couldn't God allow a world without incest by having women get spontaneously pregnant? Sure. You got it. This one from Ed Gibson says, so Posh, why is it rational to believe in Yahweh over Zeus? What methodology would you use to prove the existence of one over the other? Well, first of all, they're not even in the same category. Zeus is someone who, even in the Greek system, would be more on the level of an angel in the Christian system. No one claims reality was created by Zeus. He's got a grandfather, the first in Kronos, the latter in Uronos, and things like that. So it's not even the same level that we would be discussing these things. When we say Yahweh, Yahweh does claim to be the creator of all things that are, the name Yahweh actually, although mostly translated, is that I am who causes things to be. That is actually the proper translation of it. So that's why when people say, oh, you, why is Odin not the same thing? Is it more reasonable to reject Odin? Well, Odin did not claim to create things ex nihilo. In fact, most paganism is to subscribe to the eternal matter model. So I would reject Zeus because he would be a created being, not a transcendental being. This one from Tanner H says, more probable that God revealed himself 2000 years ago, which we have n equals zero, in other words, population or sample equals zero examples of ever happening, or that people made up a mythology, which parentheses, which we have many examples of people doing, please pick one. I think that's for you, Posh. Yes, and like with the coin flip example, the fact that something did happen, then if people want to deny it afterwards, that's not the same thing as proving that it didn't happen, but that would become, you know, proving the negative. And you're left with this probabilistic thinking, which is insufficient to make a decisive claim. So the question was, which of these is more probable? And your answer was, one of them actually happened, and you're denying it. Well, that's really convenient of you to assert, but that doesn't answer the question from the standpoint of someone who is looking at the world and engaging and interacting with someone like you, who claims X happened, and they say, what's more probable that X happened or that somebody did something else? Can you answer that question? Again, if you can have the probability of getting 10 coin flips with the same result. So the answer is no, you won't answer that question. That does not mean, again, that it didn't happen. If something did happen in history. That wasn't part of the question. Nobody's asserting that it didn't happen. They're asking you a question about which one is more probable, which you're refusing to answer because you know that the right answer is that it's more probable that somebody made up a religion. That doesn't mean that the one that actually, that you think actually happened is false, but you thinking that it actually happened doesn't mean it's true either. Instead of going defensive and defending against something nobody asserted in that question, why don't you ever address the subject at hand? Is Christianity rational? Which one is more probable? And I know why. It's because you would have to then actually defend something and you won't. No, what I'm saying is, is it much more likely that someone lied about getting the 10 coin flips in a row? Or is it that it happened? Yes, it's more likely they lied. It's more likely they lied. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Correct. Nobody said it did. But if you want to go that, if you claim that that's happened, you have to demonstrate it. You don't get to just assert that, well, you can't prove it didn't, which is what you're doing. That is fallacious. No, I'm saying that's not how I engage with the particular event. We know how you don't engage with the particulars. It plays out with certain things, like all the way through the prophets and then the establishment of the church and all the way to today. Yes, nobody asked you anything at all about the prophets or the church today in that question, but you keep on avoiding the subject because you're an expert at it. This one coming in from the last one, Dragan in the West says, Posh, how do you feel about all the tacked-on bits of Christianity that came out of the Roman Empire and Greco-Roman philosophy? Greco-Roman philosophy. No, if people want to have a theological discussion about that. No, the tacked-on as in certain practices that were Christianized, that was never a thing that was not supposed to happen. I don't know. It's like people who say, oh, celebrating Christmas is pagan. If that is what the person means, the practices are baptized and are established because the church is the new Israel and as Gentiles are being brought in, they're not being turned into what the Jews were. They're being created as this new subset of Israel as in, which is what we get in Acts 15, why the Gentiles who convert don't need to follow all the laws that are found in the Torah. So that is one thing just about practices. As far as Greco-Roman philosophy, we have all debates between the Hellenics and the early Church Fathers, especially the Cappadocian Fathers. So no, there isn't something that seeps in that is foreign. It might be a perspective, but nothing that is inconsistent with the Christian worldview from the get-go. You got it. We've got to wrap up, folks. So we do want to say thanks so much for watching. We appreciate you being here, folks, no matter whether you be a Christian, atheist, or one of the many, many creatures in between. We're glad that you're here. And I want to say a huge thank you to our guests, Posh and Matt. It's been a true pleasure to have you here at this debate. Thanks, James. Thanks, Posh. Thanks, everybody who watched. Thank you, everybody. I'll be back in just a moment, folks, for a post-credits scene letting you know about upcoming debates. If you haven't yet, hit that like button. We appreciate that support and I'll be back in just a moment. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for being with us. Want to say, if it's your first time here at Modern Day Debate, as I mentioned, I'm your host, James Coons. We are a neutral platform and our vision is to provide a level playing field so that everybody can make their case on a neutral platform. And that is Modern Day Debate. We want to say, we hope you feel welcome, whether you be atheist, Christian, you name it. Want to say in the live chat, want to encourage you to not do personal tax. So for example, calling people a clown, the real top G, I hate to call you out, but I do want to mention, we are wanting to say, don't worry, you're not banned, but I am giving you a little timeout just so you realize that, likewise, we don't want you to attack Posh personally either. So I do want to say, in terms of, hey, so-and-so as a clown or whatever it is, we do want to say, hey, we really do want to encourage you. Please attack the arguments instead of the person. Because I know you're like, why, James? I thought you were all about free speech. And it's like, listen, we are all about free speech in the sense that we want people to be able to make their case for Christianity or atheism or whatever it is that they want to make their case for. But we do want to say at the same time, when people are trying to, just really trying, I'm going to get under their skin, I'm going to really, I'm going to call their mother this or it's like, you guys, because no joke, I've seen people actually make reference to people's parents as in, in terms of their insults and I'm like, serious, like just chill. So I want to say, we do appreciate it. Attack the arguments with all of the tenacity and fierceness as you can. That's a good thing. We appreciate that. But the personal attacks we want to encourage you, we want to redirect you as I think you'll get more value. And frankly, everybody listening will get more value out of listening to that. I want to say, we appreciate you being here. We want to say thanks for being with us. I want to say hello to you in the old chat. Khalifa Hamza, thanks for being with us. Marianne Grand-Brughheim, thanks for being here, as well as, thank you very much, Bertie Numnuts. Well, this is like the utera. 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That's why, one of the reasons why we want to encourage people to attack the arguments instead of the person. But also want to encourage you, if you haven't yet hit that like, we're at 387 likes. If we can get to 500 likes, I will show you my, if you guys have ever seen, some of you have seen the 12 inch by 12 inch subway restaurant tattoo that I have on my back. I'm not joking. I will take my blazer off and make sure you have to see this tattoo. It's not a joke. If we can get to 500 likes, we're 113 away, but we also have about 13. What is it? Let me see how many live viewers we have right now. We have 1060 people so we could easily get to 500 likes. And believe me, my dear friends, I want to say one other thing I want to mention. Today, in three hours, you can see at the bottom right of your screen, it's going to be a big debate for real. Let me put this in the description box because that way you have it handy because you don't want to miss this debate. Daniel Hukikachu and Norea are going to be debating whether or not the veiling of Muslim women in Muslim countries. In other words, countries that have where women are wearing the veil, covering themselves completely, whether or not that is good for women or not. So you don't want to miss this. It's going to be a juicy controversial debate. I'm excited for it. Believe me, you're going to enjoy it. I'm going to put that link to that debate in the old live chat right now so you can check it out. It already has 80 likes. So that's a really good sign. In terms of having 80 likes before a debate even starts, I'm like, wow, that's a lot. I didn't realize that people are hyping over that. So what I want to say, do encourage you to check that debate out. And then today's debate at 3 p.m. Let's see, 3 p.m. Let me put that technically it's 5 p.m. Eastern. So it's 3 p.m. For me, it's 5 p.m. for you guys. Or at least a lot of you guys. So I want to say we do appreciate you being here. Full body, unibrow says, did the debate already happen? Yes, the debate did already happen. Let me do it really quick. I want to grab my pre-workout because I do have to get ready for a quick workout I'm about to do. And I want to have a little more zip in me. We're at 434 likes. So we're only about 65 away from being at 500. And in which case, like I said, I will show you this tattoo. It's 12 inches high and 12 inches wide. It is a monstrous tattoo. I'm not making this up. Let me pull up. Amazing. My dear friends, we are so close. Once we get to 450 likes, we're only 14 likes away from 450. I'll take the blazer off just so you know that I'm serious. But I want to say, Fenton Mully, good to see you in the old live chat. TV makes them do it. Glad to have you here. I see you there in the old live chat. And then, Gigi, thanks for dropping in says, would you add new tattoos for more likes? You know what? The only thing I'd get another tattoo for is if it was Chipotle. No joke. If it was Chipotle, and they said, hey, we'll give you Chipotle for life. Although I've got to tell you, I heard there was like this thing where if you use the app, this is like months ago. If you use the Chipotle app, they gave like 100 people Chipotle for a year. But when I say Chipotle for a year, it's really only Chipotle one time per week. So don't get me wrong. I'd be grateful for it if I got that randomly given to you. Who could complain? But I've got to say one thing is, if I got Chipotle for life and it was in the value of let's say $50,000 toward Chipotle, I would get a Chipotle tattoo probably on my chest. I know it'd be so painful, but I would, if I, especially if I didn't have to camp out for it, because this first, the tattoo on my back, I had to camp out for it. I slept outside for two nights in Las Vegas to be first in line. No joke. If you guys not know it, did you guys think I'm making the story up? It's true. But this one coming in from TV makes them do it says, yes, love you, buddy. Thanks for your support. We appreciate that as well as TJ five seven. This is, I logged in for three seconds just to hit the like button. Thank you, TJ 57. We got to 454. So the blazer is coming off. I'm going to show you this tattoo and you're going to be like, amazing, because you're going to be like James, you weren't kidding. You actually got a subway restaurant tattoo. Of course I did. You guys want to say we're excited about the future here at modern day debate. And by that, I mean, not just the future in the sense of this debate that you can see at the bottom right of your screen, Muslim versus feminist who it's going to be a lively one. You don't want to miss it. My dear friends, that's going to be a big one, but we're also excited about the future in the long term. We are virtually like it's so close to being confirmed. We haven't put in the, we haven't put the money down yet for the venue, but we are going to have modern day debate debate con. It's going to be, we're going to split the days up. So there's going to be a religion day in April in particular Saturday, April 22nd. And then there's going to be, and that you can actually take to the bank. Like I've got to put that out in an announcement. It's going to be in the Dallas, Fort Worth area. We're still getting the details on the venue, but I do want to say it's going to be huge. We're really excited about that. And we've got to say, good to see you Wilmar on the whole live chat. Mr. White, glad you came by. Let me just drink this coffee. We're at 457 likes. We're so close to 500 folks. Come on, bear, you know, let's do it. Let's get there. I want to say thank you for your support. I like that. And we want to say in addition. So you've seen at the bottom right of your screen, if you didn't see this earlier, I should share this at the very start of the debate. I want to share this too in particular. On the bottom right of your screen, I'm about to pull this up. Modern day debate does have a podcast. Did you know that? I want to direct you to the podcast. Pull out your phone and check out your favorite podcast app right now and find modern day debate and hit that subscribe button or follow us with your podcast app because that way you'll get notifications. And hey, I mean, that's convenient because one, there's no ads. So if you don't like YouTube ads, for example, that's one reason maybe you're like, I'm not worried about ads. If you don't like the intro music, hey, that's another reason the podcast jumps right into it. There's no music that you have to skip through. And not only that, but it's convenient because you can listen to it wherever you are. It doesn't matter if you are on the train and you go through a tunnel, you lose your Wi-Fi, your data or whatever, you will still be able to hear your podcast because you've downloaded the episode beforehand. Piece of cake. So I'm going to say it's pretty cool that way. It saves on your data. That's pretty cool too. So a lot of good reasons to check out that podcast. We're at 474. We're pretty close to having 500 likes, my friends. Let me just drink this. That was amazing. I've got to say the real top GIC out there on the old live chat. Thanks for coming by as well as John Darwin. We're glad that you're with us. Thanks for being here. And ACHC. Thanks for dropping in. Amazing. Let me get a little more pre-workout here. I mean, you can never have too much pre-workout. I'm just kidding. You can. But I want to say Flat Sabbaths is James is either a tight end or MLB. Middle linebacker? Man, I was actually a nose tackle a long time ago for real. Do you believe me? I used to be in college. I'm not joking. So right now I'm about 215, 220. When I was in college and I played and I was at my heaviest weight, I'm not exaggerating. I was 270 pounds. Isn't that crazy? It's always huge. I'll try to see if I can find some pictures. But I was a pretty chunky guy for a while and let me get a spoon. Oh, let me just pull out. I do have to go in a little bit because I've got to save a little bit of my energy for that stream later today. But don't worry. I'm going to be here until we get to 500 likes. That's for sure. Is, I killed Earl. Good to see you there in the old live chat. Thanks for being a member. We do have channel memberships, folks. If you didn't know that, you can use these amazing emoticons. You can call people a soy boy. You can also say amazing with the modern day debate emoticon. What do we call people soy joy? What is this? Soy boy? It's soy joy. That was a Freudian slip because I get so much joy from using the term soy boy because it is funny. It's purely meant for laughs. We don't really have anything against soy or soy boys who enjoy soy. We want to let people know it's not like some sort of... That's terrific. It's not some sort of macho culture. We are very... You remember when I used to wear my glasses when I would stream metrosexual James? We're like, I don't know if we're metrosexual anymore. I mean, but I always like, okay, good. I thought the connection went out. Zero. Good to see you there. Thanks for coming by as well as Mojo. Thanks for coming by. I says, do you want to show my painting in the next debate? I worked on that for four days. I appreciate that. I have that and let me pull it up right now just so I remember to show it because I really do appreciate you taking the time and so thank you for sending that. I'm sorry that I've been slow on the email. It's just been super busy. I'm a little behind. Jeremy Nolan has been a member for two months and just renewed. Thanks for renewing your membership. Seriously, Jeremy, that means a lot and says I love modern day debate. Thanks for that. That means more than you know. Brian Stevens says, let's get 500 likes and get Subway. That's funny. I haven't had Subway for at least a week. Amanda says, hit that like so James will take off his clothes. It's true. I will show you this tattoo. You won't regret it. You guys have to see this tattoo. This one comes from Amanda says, absolutely love modern day debate. Seriously, I appreciate that. That really does mean a lot. And then Brian Stevens, thanks for your member chat. Member for 19 months as well. Thanks for your membership. Amanda and Brian says Subway Rocks. Thanks for that, Brian. V. Thomas says, James has worked his way through all the townsfolk. What does that mean? But reload says 13 more likes. Thanks for that reload. We appreciate it. And then ACHC says, James, you got to get Frank Turk to debate Matt Rocks. That'd be a juicy debate for sure. And this one coming in from Level Earth says Jesse Lee Peterson. Amazing is what Jesse Lee Peterson says. This one coming in from Dark Matter. Glad to have you here as well as, I like that taste. Hannah Anderson, good to see you. Thanks for dropping in. Destiny's Crack Dealer. Thanks for dropping in. Bola Dean. Thanks for dropping in. Reload. Glad you're here. Klontarf. Thanks for coming by. Says I benched 50 pieces. I don't know what that means either. Like 50. I don't know. Flat Sabbath says I benched 250 once. Then V. Thomas says, James was a player. Oh yeah, like a football player back in the day. Reload 22 more. Oh, that's right. Thanks for your support. Reload. Kevin Howell, good to see you there as well as Amanda says, I'm impressed you know what tight end and middle linebackers stand for. I'm telling you, I used to play, yeah, I played football for, it was through all of middle school, all of high school, and then all of college. So it was a total of from like 12 years old until I was like 24. So that was a big part of my life. That was like a huge transition when I stopped and graduated. But yeah, I used to play for University of Minnesota Duluth. Anybody who follows college football, especially Division two? Anybody out there? If you knew if you're anyway level or it's good to see you there. I am happy that you're here as well as kilo alpha tango. Thanks for dropping in M nine I supreme. Glad you're with us. 489 likes only. What is that 11 more? You guys were really close. We're also really close. This is crazy. And I'm super grateful. Want to say thanks for all of your support, you guys in every way of which you guys give us a million different ways of supporting modern debate. One way we want to say we appreciate you supporting modern debate is through sharing these debates. So if you're watching right now, which there's about let me see what let me update the live chat is there's probably there's at least hundreds. There's like 800 892 people watching right now is I'm guessing that a lot of you have friends like in real life that you know from work or wherever church or atheist club, whatever you want to call the places you hang out as well as book clubs. I don't know as online you have groups that you're a part of like a Facebook group a discord group. If you know of a friend or friends like a group online or whatever it might be that enjoys topics like this I do want to encourage you it helps a ton just the grassroots just the organic sharing this video with them if you share this debate with them and say hey I don't know if you knew about this debate platform but it's fully neutral. They want to give everybody a fair shot and they really are because you know there are debate platforms out there that you might not be as comfortable with like let's say for example you're like well I like that they host debates but then they put out other videos that are arguing the case for Islam or Christianity or or atheism or whatever it is and so you're like I don't know if I really identify with it is you know I would encourage you watch debates anywhere it's good to watch debates but at the same time if you're like yeah but I mean I feel like modern day debate that's something that it's like okay like I I feel like I can fit there or maybe you're even like I don't really even take a firm stance so modern day debate I feel like being neutral is like ideally for you know ideal for me where I fit best there is that we at least want people to feel welcome so no matter what walk of life you're from and so we want to encourage you do hit that share button and share this link to this debate with a group and say hey I don't know if you guys have known about this but his channel does a pretty good job at being fair they want to give everybody a fair shot and like I said we hope you feel like we've treated you fairly if you're an atheist or a Christian or a Muslim so much pre-workout goodness let's see 495 we're almost there my dear friends we are so close we're five likes away you have to see this because you guys think I'm joking you're like are you like James but really do you have a tattoo that's that big and it's my only tattoo is my first tattoo if we have if we get just five more likes we've what have we come we've come like 165 or what was that 113 that's a lot we are so close and I want to say today's or I should say this afternoon's debate it's going to be so gigantic and so juicy I'm pumped for it you guys I hope you can make it it's going to be a lot of fun I'm going to see let me see two seconds what was it going to do is I'm going to put the cover on my pre-workout okay I'm going to put this back two seconds we only have three more likes to go Rob ski in the chat says so I've got to put away my salts and my vitamins here exercise I've also got to do my laundry today let's see here reload good to see you says last one prim or us has hit it we're at 503 likes all right here we go you guys thought I was kidding but I'm serious you guys have to see this tattoo have you not seen this really who in chat let me know if you've seen it already say yes or just put a one and if you have not if you're like no no James I haven't seen this tattoo before put the number two because I'm curious because a lot of it I'm like I wonder how many people have actually seen this before okay here it goes ready so I think it's hard to see there you go okay it says so it says subway series let's see it's hard for me because the oh the blue the green screen keeps picking up on me so on the tattoo I mean so it's a if I remember right I haven't looked at it for a while it says like subway 2022 and then it has the word series there so that is it it is a huge tattoo wow there's so many twos and chats you guys haven't seen it oh it's the it's the real deal but I've got to tell you it took four and a half hours it was in Las Vegas have you ever googled it you've got to type in you've got to type in subway for life tattoo James and then you'll see so one I think you could say the main reason I did this is because our modern day debate conference debate con we host this conference and this is a way that we can fund the conference lunches for the rest of my life which is the coolest thing ever that's I that is like frankly the reason that I did it is I said hey I want to be able to cover the conference cost of lunch for the speakers and for those that get the VIP this tattoo allowed that in addition to other reasons so want to say it's the real deal google it if you type in subway for life tattoo and you put in the word James you'll see the story but want to say thanks for all your support thanks for all those likes we're at 510 now thanks for your positivity you guys we love it thanks for all of your support I am pumped you guys I want to say we're excited about the future we have a lot of big things coming up for the future my dear friends take risks take your best shot go for it in life that's what we're doing here at modern day debate we have many things we can improve on we're going to keep improving them but join us while we are small our story is just beginning at modern day debate we're excited about the future we have big things coming as we continue to fulfill the vision of providing a neutral platform so that everybody can make their case on a level playing field that's what we're doing at modern day debate youtube deserves a better class of debate channel and we're going to give it to them through modern day debate we believe in our values so in addition to our vision which we want to say everybody will agree on that no matter what walk of life you're from whether you be atheist christian muslim you name it everybody agrees that hey it's a good thing if everybody gets a fair platform everybody can agree on that everybody can buy in to that vision and that's why we're so excited about it that's why we're passionate about it we have so many people that are helping modern day debate atheists muslim christians all of us together because we're committed to that vision join us as we are just beginning this is only the start of our story and as I said our values are these in particular we care about freedom that our guests were free from their first breath they should be able to say what they want and they'll be able to say what they want on modern day debate as we want to allow people to make their case we are going to let a thousand flowers bloom let the chips fall where they may we want freedom of speech that's what we're going to do here at modern day debate and the second value because a lot of people say oh james what if there are dangerous views because frankly we do host dangerous views and people that are controversial some people that are like oh james i don't know about that is we believe that the competition of ideas allows it such that the best ideas will win out its natural selection of ideas in particular the cream will rise to the top we believe the best arguments are going to win and so our second value of competition is going to make it so that when you have freedom and competition together you don't have to worry about those controversial views being platformed or those controversial people being platformed because the best arguments are going to win out anyway baby that's the truth that's what's going to happen and that's why we're excited here at modern day debate is all of those views that you think are dangerous or controversial good they'll be exposed sunlight is the best disinfectant we are going to inoculate people against these allegedly dangerous ideas and there are even ideas that i would say yeah there are some dangerous ideas and it's good when people hear those ideas and then they hear the response or the refutation of ideas that's what's best because you're basically giving them an idea vaccine you could say you're basically helping people to be immune to those ideas when they see them refuted before being exposed to them in some other case where they maybe don't have the answers so debates are good in that way is that they give people answers to or you could say rebuttals to those controversial ideas out there so i want to say thank you guys for all of your support my dear friends we appreciate it thanks for being behind us for pushing us forward you guys make this channel great thanks for all of your support thanks for all of your likes we're at 518 now amazing we'll see you later today as we have that juicy debate as i said it's at the bottom right of your screen daniel versus norea it's going to be amazing muslim versus feminist you don't want to miss it and then as i mentioned modern day debate is a podcast available you should find us right now find us right now on your favorite podcast app whether it be apple podcast or spotify google pocketcast you name it we highly encourage you if you haven't yet give us a try on your favorite podcast app click follow or subscribe and that way you'll get notifications and then you'll have that convenient convenient extra resource want to say thanks for all of your support we love you guys and we'll see you at the next one