Belief in the existence of at least one deity
POPULARITY
10 episodes with theists
7 episodes with theists
5 episodes with theists
5 episodes with theists
5 episodes with theists
2 episodes with theists
3 episodes with theists
2 episodes with theists
2 episodes with theists
In today's episode of Truth Wanted, Objectively Dan and Kelley Laughlin revisit a discussion about photos on Mars before diving into the contrasting world of nostalgia and a light summary of a famous Allegedly Ian debate. Daniel in Canada, who called in last week as Jupiter 2, adds some context to the second photo he shared and thought it might be a reenactment, and stands by the claim with the first photo shared where a magnifying glass was used to look at the detail. Modern technology allows for us to go far past magnifying glasses to look at photos. How is NASA supposed to do anything if we can just come up with a conspiracy for everything they say? It is not a lie that our technology is more advanced than it was 20 years ago. Why would NASA keep these things from us? Sometimes we just have to admit that pareidolia is nothing more than pareidolia. Dee in IA is struck by how differently atheists and theists look at pivotal points in their life. Theists tend to use these times to glorify god. Dee explains how this is contrasted by Kelley who takes ownership of these things and is proud of how they changed him. At the end of the day, the theists are selling their product starting with the indoctrination of children. Dee is motivated today by the desire to alleviate suffering, another stark contrast to what motivates theists. Daisy in WA recommends some videos such as the debate between Jordan Peterson and Allegedly Ian where Jordan dodged a question regarding his faith. Dan would love to be hooked up as someone who will debate JP. When JP talks about this and denies it, we find it weird. Thank you for joining us this week! Ely Slack, our backup host joins us to close out the show and remind us of the question of the week: What is the least inappropriate introduction for door to door soul winning?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/truth-wanted--3195473/support.
In this episode, we chat with John about rules or rulings and how this can support new GMs. I talk about how I am increasing the challenge level of our campaign, and I have a real issue with Theist miracles! Welcome to Mythras Matters Season 1 episode 57—Rules, Rulings, and OP Theists!SHOW Links:Tapatalk Forums: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/designmechanism/Link to the Mythras Discord: https://discord.gg/mythras-469341944888164352A Bird in the Hand: https://thedesignmechanism.com/a-bird-in-the-hand-pdf/If you would like to contact the podcast, then email inwils@gmail.comIntro Music: The Epic Orchestral by AnorMusic☕ Become a RPG supporter (Ko-Fi) ➡➡ https://ko-fi.com/inwils
“Omnism is the respect of or belief in all religion.[1][2] Those who hold this belief are called omnists. In recent years, the term has been resurfacing due to the interest of modern-day self-described omnists who have rediscovered and begun to redefine the term. Omnism is similar to syncretism, the belief in a fusion of faiths in harmony.[3] However, it can also be seen as a way to accept the existence of various religions without believing in all that they profess to teach. Many omnists say that all religions contain truths, but that no one religion offers all that is truth. Contemporary usage has modified "belief in all religions" to refer more to an acceptance of the legitimacy of all religions. The Oxford English Dictionary elaborates that an omnist believes "in a single transcendent purpose or cause uniting all things or people". Omnists interpret this to mean that all religions contain varying elements of a common truth, that omnists are open to potential truths from all religions. The Oxford dictionary defines an omnist as "a person who believes in all faiths or creeds; a person who believes in a single transcendent purpose or cause uniting all things or people, or the members of a particular group of people".[4] Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury, considered the first Deist, argued that all religions were true.[5] In the poem All Religions are One, William Blake professed that every religion originated from God's revelation.[6] Henry Stubbe and other Socinians synthesized a form of Muhammadan Christianity.[7] Unitarian Universalism, which grew out of the Protestant Reformation,[8] practices Omnist beliefs.[9] Other notable interfaith organizations include the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples[10] and The Parliament of the World's Religions was the first organization with the goal to unite all religions.[11]” -Wikipedia. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/support
In today's episode of the Atheist Experience, Secular Rarity and Armin Navabi, question the universal theist answers and someone figured out that Jesus is the Devil, but not to worry, it is all in the mind because the experience is having us not believe that god is true because of cultural longevity. James in OH asks if the hosts think atheists have more questions than theists. Theists may have more answers, but many of those answers are wrong. Would you agree that having more answers is not necessarily correct? A lot of times, answers that are given on the non-religious side do not unravel more layers of questions. Why would you use the Bible as a method to demonstrate god? What would you do to prove that Abraham almost slaughtered his own son and that the Bible is a good source for this claim? What information has been given to you that makes the supernatural a viable option?John in CA claims that Jesus Christ is the Devil and quotes something that he calls a parable from The Book of Revelation to try and prove it. Why does this “parable” bring you to your conclusion? Is the Devil the good guy or the bad guy? Why is it that nobody else has figured this out? Why are you one of the few or the only one that has solved this puzzle?Mark in MN says that the proof of something is in a person's own mind. Accepting a belief is up to the individual, but that does not change the facts. What is your best evidence for god being real? Lets pray! God please provide us atheists proof of your existence! Amen! Okay now everyone get off your knees, you are released from the magical spells.Josh in MT says that Jesus awakened a truth about people's experience of the world. Most of the universe is not experiencing anything. Michael in CA says that it is important to believe in god because god has always been a part of human culture. Would this be a good justification for the conclusion if we used another word instead of god? Why would longevity make it reasonable to believe in god? If you believe in something, and good things happen because you believe this, would the good things happening justify believing it is true? What if it is a lie? Where is the tomb now? How easy do you think it was for fraudulent claims and lies to spread thousands of years ago?Thank you for tuning in and be as blasphemous as you need. Don't forget Atheist Day on March 23. Question of the week: Name a time that God unfairly blamed someone.
Calls on Muslim guest, Omar. Fire extinguisher to menorah! Deist Founders? CNN trans family propaganda. Ethan Crumbley sentencing. The Hake Report, Monday, December 18, 2023 AD TIME STAMPS * (0:00:00) Start/Topics* (0:01:50) Hey, guys! Mt. Baldy tee* (0:03:49) KEITH, IL: ADL on U's vs Kanye, Kyrie* (0:06:55) KEITH: Omar on occupied lands* (0:09:30) KEITH: Omar a pretend friend, Islam, Dems* (0:14:38) KEITH: Confederate flag at rally, Fed* (0:16:18) MARK, CA: Omar, Jesus is Muslim? Blasphemy* (0:18:51) MARK: Islam, Nat Soc: JB Stoner, NOI, infidels* (0:21:52) Don't hook your wagon to people you agree with* (0:23:53) Fire extinguisher to Menorah in Poland (Hard-Right)* (0:33:45) Deists? Theists? Christian founders? Liberals, Marxists distort history* (0:48:35) Shoplifter, old Jamaican man, stopped by man with camera (Muckraker) * (0:55:28) "Silent Night" - Phil Hahn, Steve Johnson (2005 or 2013, Songs of Christmas)* (0:59:15) Supers: Christ is King of Poland, look it up!* (1:00:47) FREDERICK: Bibi egg on his face after hostages killed by IDF* (1:05:10) FREDERICK: Trump bringing WWIII, yeah ok (Hake won!)* (1:08:34) CNN "Trans family" propaganda: Leaving Florida!* (1:23:35) Ethan Crumbley sentenced in emotional court (pics)* (1:34:03) Side note: Death Penalty sought by libs (Dylann Roof, Loretta Lynch)* (1:34:58) Crumbley: Thoughts, Mental health, Never fixed, Parents charged* (1:46:16) MAZE, OH: "Bro…" Christ's law, Man's body, man's choice* (1:54:56) Call tomorrow! Hake tries, fails to read last Supers* (1:56:36) "A Little Safety from Yourself" - Platelets (2004, All I Want for Christmas compilation, Lujo Records)BLOG https://www.thehakereport.com/blog/2023/12/18/the-hake-report-mon-12-18-23 PODCAST by HAKE SubstackLive M-F 9-11 AM PT (11-1 CT / 12-2 ET) Call-in 1-888-775-3773 – thehakereport.com VIDEO YouTube | Rumble* | Facebook | X | BitChute | Odysee* PODCAST Apple | Spotify | Castbox | Substack (RSS) *SUPER CHAT on asterisked above, or BuyMeACoffee | Streamlabs | Ko-fi SUPPORT HAKE Substack | SubscribeStar | Locals || SHOP Teespring ALSO SEE Hake News on The JLP Show | Appearances (other shows, etc.) JLP Network: JLP | Church | TFS | Hake | Nick | Joel Get full access to HAKE at thehakereport.substack.com/subscribe
“Religious persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or a group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations or their lack thereof. The tendency of societies or groups within societies to alienate or repress different subcultures is a recurrent theme in human history. Moreover, because a person's religion frequently determines their sense of morality, worldview, self-image, attitudes towards others, and overall personal identity to a significant extent, religious differences can be significant cultural, personal, and social factors. Religious persecution may be triggered by religious or antireligious bigotry (when members of a dominant group denigrate religions other than their own or religion itself where the irreligious are the dominant group) or it may be triggered by the state when it views a particular religious group as a threat to its interests or security. At a societal level, the dehumanization of a particular religious group may readily lead to acts of violence or other forms of persecution. Religious persecution may be the result of societal and/or governmental regulation. Governmental regulation refers to the laws which the government imposes in order to regulate a religion, and societal regulation is discrimination against citizens because they adhere to one or more religions.[1] In many countries, religious persecution has resulted in so much violence that it is considered a human rights problem.” Wikipedia Child me believes in guardian angels, archangels, angels, and the Christian definition of supernaturalism. Child me also believes that Jesus is number one in all areas of my life and life in general and child me is fixated on church fellowship, Kingdom Discipleship, and Bible abiding. Jesus is into Egalitarianism (the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.) Jesus is also into social equality, equality of outcome, equal opportunity, and social equity. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/support
I used all of these aspects of Christianity to help me overcome organized crime: “Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements[1]—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.[2][3] Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine,[4] sacredness,[5] faith,[6] and a supernatural being or beings.[7] Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, matrimonial and funerary services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, or public service. Religions have sacred histories and narratives, which may be preserved in sacred texts, symbols, and holy places, that primarily aim to give life meaning. Religions may contain symbolic tales that may attempt to explain the origin of life, the universe, and other phenomena.” “Jesus[d] (c. 6 to 4 BC – AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ,[e] Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader.[10] He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah (the Christ), that is prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was circumcised, was baptized by John the Baptist, began his own ministry, and was often referred to as "rabbi".[23] Jesus often debated with fellow Jews on how to best follow God, engaged in healings, taught in parables, and gathered followers. He was arrested in Jerusalem and tried by the Jewish authorities,[24] turned over to the Roman government, and crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea. After his death, his followers believed he rose from the dead, and the community they formed eventually became the early Christian Church.[25] Accounts of his teachings and life were initially conserved by oral transmission, which was the source of the written Gospels.[26].” I don't have a problem with adult language. Imagine as a child, balancing Jesus with adult language. I had to balance Jesus with verbal abuse and nonverbal abuse as a child. Lastly, as a child, I was forced to balance Jesus with each and every kind of crime that exists. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/support
The Sinner in the Mirror: Why Atheists Are Stereotyped as Immoral, Secular Humanism.org, By Phil Zuckerman, February/March 2023 https://secularhumanism.org/2022/11/the-sinner-in-the-mirror-why-atheists-are-stereotyped-as-immoral/ The Non-Prophets, Episode 22.34.4 featuring Cynthia McDonald , Phil the Skeptic Atheist, Jonathan Roudabush and Infidel64In public perception, a common misconception links secular individuals to immorality due to the assumption that without belief in a deity, morals are Not possible without a deity.Clarence Thomas, said “if your an atheist, what does an oath mean?” , Thomas, the impartial U.S. Supreme Court Justice, husband of a Christian-fascist insurrectionist.Recent research by Professor Will Gervais reveals this bias, impacting political and social interactions. Historical influence of religious authorities, complexity of morality, and projection contribute to this stereotype. Projection is when negative qualities are projected onto others, seen in stereotypes of Native Americans as savages and Black men as predators.This stereotype is flawed; empirical data indicates non-believers often advocate for empathy and justice. This raises questions about true sources of morality and who truly demonstrates it. Its interesting that we have reports from multiple religious organizations about sexual assault, grooming, financial impropriety and down right theft are still saying, atheists don't believe in god so they are not trustworthy.The article mentioned freewill and arguments about morality, but it misses the point. Christians aren't taking a serious philosophical position, just regurgitating what they're told on Sundays.They say morals come from the bible, but have no idea what it says. Traditional marriage? The bible sets a price for a rape victim to forcibly marry her rapist. Abortion? The bible has a recipe/potent for the priest to cause an abortion, but only to protect the man's rights.Christians deeply misunderstand what atheist means, they have been told repeated lies. Interestingly, projection might explain why the stereotype of atheists as immoral persists. Theists may project their moral shortcomings onto atheists to avoid self-examination. Ironically, non-religious people often hold more compassionate, just stances on issues like gun control, climate change, immigration, and healthcare.Theists feel God is the arbiter of morality and because of this it is objective not subjective, but there is no consensus on what any imagined god wills or wants with respect to moral questions. All human conclusions about God's assumed moral directives are nothing but interpretations reflecting the will, culture, worldview, or power of the humans doing the interpreting. Obedience to a god, defies self-moral reasoning. Their morality is usually based on threats of going to hell or heaven, which is abusive.If you're good because of god, then you are not good.#godless #humanist #agnosticatheist #atheist #antireligion
Listen on: * Spotify* Apple Podcasts* Google PodcastsNote: the core discussion on ethics begins at 7:58 and moves into philosophy of language at ~1:12:19Daniel's stuff:* AI X-risk podcast * The Filan Cabined podcast* Personal website and blogBlurb and bulleted summary from ClongThis wide-ranging conversation between Daniel and Aaron touches on movies, business drama, philosophy of language, ethics and legal theory. The two debate major ethical concepts like utilitarianism and moral realism. Thought experiments around rational beings choosing to undergo suffering feature prominently. meandering tangents explore the semantics of names and references.* Aaron asserts that total utilitarianism does not imply that any amount of suffering can be morally justified by creating more happiness. His argument is that the affirmative case for this offsetting ability has not been clearly made.* He proposes a thought experiment - if offered to experience the suffering of all factory farmed animals in exchange for unlimited happiness, even a perfectly rational being would refuse. This indicates there are some levels of suffering not offsettable.* Aaron links this to experiences like hunger where you realize suffering can be worse than you appreciate normally. This causes his intuition some suffering can't be outweighed.* Daniel disagrees, believing with the right probabilities and magnitudes of suffering versus happiness, rational beings would take that gamble.* For example, Daniel thinks the atomic bombing of Japan could be offset by reducing more suffering. Aaron is less sure given the pain inflicted.* Daniel also proposes offsets for animal farming, but Aaron doesn't think factory farming harm is offsettable by any amount of enjoyment of meat.* They discuss definitions of rationality and whether evolution pressures against suicide impact the rationality of not killing oneself.* Aaron ties his argument to siding with what a perfectly rational being would choose to experience, not necessarily what they would prefer.* They debate whether hypothetical aliens pursuing "schmorality" could point to a concept truly analogous to human morality. Aaron believes not.Transcript(Very imperfect)AARONO'how's, it going it's going all right.DANIELYeah, I just so yesterday I saw Barbie and today I saw Oppenheimer, so it's good to oh, cool. That cultural.AARONNice, nice.DANIELDo you have takes? Yeah, I thought it was all right. It was a decent view of Oppenheimer as a person. It was like a how? I don't know. I feel like the public can tend to be taken in by this physicist figures you get this with quotes, right? Like, the guy was just very good at having fun with journalists, and now we get these amazing nuggets of wisdom from Einstein. I don't know. I think that guy was just having good I don't know. The thing that I'm coming away from is I thought I only watched Barbie because it was coming out on the same day as Oppenheimer, right? Like, otherwise it wouldn't have occurred to me to watch it. I was like, yeah, whatever. Barbie is, like, along for the ride, and Oppenheimer is going to be amazing, but in like, maybe Oppenheimer was a bit better than Barbie, but I'm not even sure of that, actually.AARONYeah, I've been seeing people say that on Twitter. I haven't seen either, but I've been seeing several people say that I'm following, say, like, Barbie was exceptional. And also that kind of makes sense because I'm following all these EA people who are probably care more about the subject matter for the latter one. So it's like, I kind of believe that Barbie is, like, aesthetically better or something. That's my take. Right.DANIELGuess. Well, if you haven't seen them, I guess I don't want to spoil them for you. They're trying to do different things aesthetically. Right. Like, I'm not quite sure I'd want to say one is aesthetically better. Probably in some ways, I think Barbie probably has more aesthetic blunders than Oppenheimer does. Okay. But yeah, I don't know if you haven't seen it, I feel like I don't want to spoil it for you.AARONOkay. No, that's fine. This isn't supposed to be like probably isn't the most important the most interesting thing we could be talking about is that the bar?DANIELOh, jeez.AARONOh, no, that's a terrible bar. That was like an overstatement. That would be a very high bar. It would also be, like, kind of paralyzing. I don't know. Actually know what that would be, honestly. Probably some social juicy gossip thing. Not that we necessarily have any.DANIELYeah, I think your interestingness. Yeah, I think I don't have the know, the closest to gossip thing I saw was like, do you see this bit of Carolyn Elson's diaries and letters to SBF that was leaked to the.AARONNo, I don't. Was this like today or recently? How recently?DANIELThis was like a few days ago.AARONI've been seeing her face on Twitter, but I don't actually think I know anything about this. And no, I would not have.DANIELBackground of who she is and stuff.AARONYeah, hold on. Let the audience know that I am on a beach family vacation against my will. Just kidding. Not against my will. And I have to text my sister back. Okay, there we go. I mean, I broadly know the FTX story. I know that she was wait, I'm like literally blanking on the Alameda.DANIELThat's the name of research.AARONOkay. Yeah. So she was CEO, right? Yeah. Or like some sort of like I think I know the basics.DANIELThe like, she was one of the OG Stanford EA people and was around.AARONYeah, that's like a generation. Not an actual generation, like an EA generation. Which is what, like six years or.DANIELLike the I don't know, I've noticed like, in the there's like I feel like there's this gap between pre COVID people and post COVID people. No one left their house. Partly people moved away, but also you were inside for a while and never saw anyone in person. So it felt like, oh, there's like this crop of new people or something. Whereas in previous years, there'd be some number of new people per year and they'd get gradually integrated in. Anyway, all that is to say that, I don't know, I think SBF's side of the legal battle leaked some documents to The New York Times, which were honestly just like her saying, like, oh, I feel very stressed and I don't like my job, and I'm sort of glad that the thing is blown up now. I don't know. It honestly wasn't that salacious. But I think that's, like, the way I get in the loop on gossip like some of the New York Times.AARONAnd I eventually I love how it's funny that this particular piece of gossip is, like, running through the most famous and prestigious news organization in the world. Or, like, one of them or something. Yeah. Instead of just being like, oh, yeah, these two people are dating, or whatever. Anyway, okay, I will maybe check that out.DANIELYeah, I mean, honestly, it's not even that interesting.AARONThe whole thing is pretty I am pretty. This is maybe bad, but I can't wait to watch the Michael Lewis documentary, pseudo documentary or whatever.DANIELYeah, it'll be good to read the book. Yeah, it's very surreal. I don't know. I was watching Oppenheimer. Right. And I have to admit, part of what I'm thinking is be if humanity survives, there's going to be this style movie about open AI, presumably, right? And I'm like, oh, man, it'll be amazing to see my friend group depicted on film. But that is going to happen. It's just going to be about FTX and about how they're all criminals. So that's not great.AARONYeah, actually, everybody dunks on crypto now, and it's like low status now or whatever. I still think it's really cool. I never had more than maybe $2,000 or whatever, which is not a trivial I mean, it's not a large amount of my money either, but it's not like, nothing. But I don't know, if it wasn't for all the cultural baggage, I feel like I would be a crypto bro or I would be predisposed to being a crypto bro or something.DANIELYeah. I should say I was like joking about the greedy crypto people who want their money to not be stolen. I currently have a Monero sticker on the back of my a big I don't know, I'm a fan of the crypto space. It seems cool. Yeah. I guess especially the bit that is less about running weird scams. The bit that's running weird scams I'm less of a fan of.AARONYeah. Yes. I'm also anti scam. Right, thank you. Okay, so I think that thing that we were talking about last time we talked, which is like the thing I think we actually both know stuff about instead of just like, repeating New York Times articles is my nuanced ethics takes and why you think about talk about that and then we can just also branch off from there.DANIELYeah, we can talk about that.AARONMaybe see where that did. I luckily I have a split screen up, so I can pull up things. Maybe this is kind of like egotistical or something to center my particular view, but you've definitely given me some of the better pushback or whatever that I haven't gotten that much feedback of any kind, I guess, but it's still interesting to hear your take. So basically my ethical position or the thing that I think is true is that which I think is not the default view. I think most people think this is wrong is that total utilitarianism does not imply that for some amount of suffering that could be created there exists some other extremely large arbitrarily, large amount of happiness that could also be created which would morally justify the former. Basically.DANIELSo you think that even under total utilitarianism there can be big amounts of suffering such that there's no way to morally tip the calculus. However much pleasure you can create, it's just not going to outweigh the fact that you inflicted that much suffering on some people.AARONYeah, and I'd highlight the word inflicted if something's already there and you can't do anything about it, that's kind of neither here nor there as it pertains to your actions or something. So it's really about you increasing, you creating suffering that wouldn't have otherwise been created. Yeah. It's also been a couple of months since I've thought about this in extreme detail, although I thought about it quite a bit. Yeah.DANIELMaybe I should say my contrary view, I guess, when you say that, I don't know, does total utilitarianism imply something or not? I'm like, well, presumably it depends on what we mean by total utilitarianism. Right. So setting that aside, I think that thesis is probably false. I think that yeah. You can offset great amounts of suffering with great amounts of pleasure, even for arbitrary amounts of suffering.AARONOkay. I do think that position is like the much more common and even, I'd say default view. Do you agree with that? It's sort of like the implicit position of people who are of self described total utilitarians who haven't thought a ton about this particular question.DANIELYeah, I think it's probably the implicit default. I think it's the implicit default in ethical theory or something. I think that in practice, when you're being a utilitarian, I don't know, normally, if you're trying to be a utilitarian and you see yourself inflicting a large amount of suffering, I don't know. I do think there's some instinct to be like, is there any way we can get around this?AARONYeah, for sure. And to be clear, I don't think this would look like a thought experiment. I think what it looks like in practice and also I will throw in caveats as I see necessary, but I think what it looks like in practice is like, spreading either wild animals or humans or even sentient digital life through the universe. That's in a non as risky way, but that's still just maybe like, say, making the earth, making multiple copies of humanity or something like that. That would be an example that's probably not like an example of what an example of creating suffering would be. For example, just creating another duplicate of earth. Okay.DANIELAnything that would be like so much suffering that we shouldn't even the pleasures of earth outweighs.AARONNot necessarily, which is kind of a cop out. But my inclination is that if you include wild animals, the answer is yes, that creating another earth especially. Yeah, but I'm much more committed to some amount. It's like some amount than this particular time and place in human industry is like that or whatever.DANIELOkay, can I get a feel of some other concrete cases to see?AARONYeah.DANIELSo one example that's on my mind is, like, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right? So the standard case for this is, like, yeah, what? A hundred OD thousand people died? Like, quite terrible, quite awful. And a lot of them died, I guess a lot of them were sort of some people were sort of instantly vaporized, but a lot of people died in extremely painful ways. But the countercase is like, well, the alternative to that would have been like, an incredibly grueling land invasion of Japan, where many more people would have died or know regardless of what the actual alternatives were. If you think about the atomic bombings, do you think that's like the kind of infliction of suffering where there's just not an offsetting amount of pleasure that could make that okay?AARONMy intuition is no, that it is offsettable, but I would also emphasize that given the actual historical contingencies, the alternative, the implicit case for the bombing includes reducing suffering elsewhere rather than merely creating happiness. There can definitely be two bad choices that you have to make or something. And my claim doesn't really pertain to that, at least not directly.DANIELRight. Sorry. But when you said you thought your answer was no, you think you can't offset that with pleasure?AARONMy intuition is that you can, but I know very little about how painful those deaths were and how long they lasted.DANIELYeah, so the non offset so it's like, further out than atomic bombing.AARONThat's my guess, but I'm like.DANIELOkay, sure, that's your guess. You're not super confident. That's fine. I guess another thing would be, like, the animal farming system. So, as you're aware, tons of animals get kept in farms for humans to eat, by many count. Many of them live extremely horrible lives. Is there some amount that humans could enjoy meat such that that would be okay?AARONNo. So the only reason I'm hesitating is because, like, the question is, like, what the actual alternative is here, but, like, if it's like, if it's, like, people enjoy, like, a meat a normal amount and there's no basically the answer is no. Although, like, what I would actually endorse doing depends on what the alternative is.DANIELOkay, but you think that factory farming is so bad that it's not offsettable by pleasure.AARONYeah, that's right. I'm somewhat maybe more confident than the atomic bombing case, but again, I don't know what it's like to be a factory farm pig. I wouldn't say I'm, like, 99% sure. Probably more than 70% or something. Or 70%, like, conditional on me being right about this thesis, I guess something like that, which I'm like. Yeah, okay. I don't know. Some percent, maybe, not probably not 99% sure, but also more than 60. Probably more than 70% sure or something.DANIELAll right. Yeah. So I guess maybe can you tell us a little bit about why you would believe that there's some threshold that you like where you can no longer compensate by permitting pleasure?AARONYes. Let me run through my argument and sort of a motivation, and the motivation actually is sort of more a direct answer to what you just said. So the actual argument that I have and I have a blog post about this that I'll link, it was part of an EA forum post also that you'll also link in the show description is that the affirmative default case doesn't seem to actually be made anywhere. That's not the complete argument, but it's a core piece of it, which is that it seems to be, like, the default received view, which doesn't mean it's wrong, but does mean that we should be skeptical. If you accept that I'm right, that the affirmative case hasn't been made, we can talk about that. Then you should default to some other heuristic. And the heuristic that I assert and sort of argue, but kind of just assert is a good heuristic is. Okay. Is you do the following thought experiment. If I was a maximally or perfectly rational being, would I personally choose to undergo this amount of suffering in compensation or not compensation, exchange for later undergoing or earlier undergoing some arbitrarily large amount of happiness. And I personally have the intuition that there are events or things that certainly conceivable states and almost certainly possible states that I could be in such that even as a rational being, like as a maximum rational being, I would choose to just disappear and not exist rather than undergo both of these things.DANIELOkay.AARONYeah.DANIELWhy do you think that?AARONYeah, so good question. I think the answer comes at a couple of different levels. So there's a question of why I'm saying it and why I'm saying it is because I'm pretty sure this is the answer I would actually give if actually given if Credibly offered this option. But that just pushes the question back. Okay, why do I feel that.DANIELEven what option are we talking about here? There exists a thing such that for.AARONAll pleasures, basically, for example, let's just run with the fact, the assumption that a genie God descends. And I think it's credible, and he offers that I can live the life of every factory, farmed animal in exchange for whatever I want for any amount of time or something like that. Literally, I don't have to give the answer now. It can just be like an arbitrarily good state for an arbitrarily long period of time.DANIELOh, yeah.AARONAnd not only would I say the words no, I don't want to do that, I think that the words no, I don't want to do that, are selfishly in a non pejorative sense. Correct. And then there's a question of why do I have that intuition? And now I'm introspecting, which is maybe not super reliable. I think part of my intuition that I can kind of maybe sort of access via introspection just comes from basically, I'm very fortunate to not have had a mostly relatively comfortable life, like as a Westerner with access to painkillers, living in the 21st century. Even still, there have definitely been times when I've been suffered, at least not in a relative sense, but just like, in an absolute sense to me, in a pretty bad way. And one example I can give was just like, I was on a backpacking trip, and this is the example I give in another blog post I can link. I was on a backpacking trip, and we didn't have enough food, and I was basically very hungry for like five days. And I actually think that this is a good and I'm rambling on, but I'll finish up. I think it's illustrative. I think there's some level of suffering where you're still able to do at least for me, I'm still able to do something like reasoning and intentionally storing memories. One of the memories I tried to intentionally codify via language or something was like, yeah, this is really bad, this really sucks, or something like, that what.DANIELSucked about it, you were just like, really hungry yeah.AARONFor five days.DANIELOkay. And you codified the thought, like, feeling of this hunger I'm feeling, this really sucks.AARONSomething like that. Right. I could probably explicate it more, but that's basically okay. Actually, hold on. All right. Let me add so not just it really sucks, but it sucks in a way that I can't normally appreciate, so I don't normally have access to how bad it sucks. I don't want to forget about this later or something.DANIELYeah. The fact that there are pains that are really bad where you don't normally appreciate how bad they are, it's not clear how that implies non offset ability.AARONRight, I agree. It doesn't.DANIELOkay.AARONI do think that's causally responsible for my intuition that I lend link to a heuristic that I then argue does constitute an argument in the absence of other arguments for offset ability.DANIELYeah. Okay. So that causes this intuition, and then you give some arguments, and the argument is like, you think that if a genie offered you to live liable factory farmed animals in exchange for whatever you wanted, you wouldn't go for that.AARONYes. And furthermore, I also wouldn't go for it if I was much more rational.DANIELIf you were rational, yeah. Okay. Yeah. What do I think about this? One thing I think is that the I think the case of live experience this suffering and then experience this pleasure, to me, I think that this is kind of the wrong way to go about this. Because the thing about experiencing suffering is that it's not just we don't live in this totally dualistic world where suffering just affects only your immaterial mind or something in a way where afterwards you could just be the same. In the real world, suffering actually affects you. Right. Perhaps indelibly. I think instead, maybe the thing I'd want to say is suppose you're offered a gamble, right, where there's like a 1% chance that you're going to have to undergo excruciating suffering and a 99% chance that you get extremely awesome pleasures or something.AARONYeah.DANIELAnd this is meant to model a situation in which you do some action in which one person is going to undergo really bad suffering and 99 other people are going to undergo really great pleasure. And to me, I guess my intuition is that for any bad thing, you could make the probability small enough and you can make the rest of the probability mass good enough that I want to do that. I feel like that's worth it for me. And now it feels a little bit unsatisfying that we're just going that we're both drilling down to, like, well, this is the choice I would make, and then maybe you can disagree that it's the choice you would make. But yeah, I guess about the gambling case, what do you think about that? Let's say it's literally a one in a million chance that you would have to undergo, let's say, the life of one factory farmed animal.AARONYeah.DANIELOr is that not enough? Do you want it to be like, more?AARONWell, I guess it would have to be like one of the worst factory farmed animals. Life, I think would make that like.DANIELYeah, okay, let's say it's like, maybe literally one in a billion chance.AARONFirst of all, I do agree that these are basically isomorphic or morally equivalent, or if anything, time ordering in my example does mess things up a little bit, I'll be happy to reverse them or say that instead compare one person to 1000 people. So, yeah, you can make the probability small enough that my intuition changes. Yeah. So in fact, 1%, I'm very like, no, definitely not doing that. One in a million. I'm like, I don't know, kind of 50 50. I don't have a strong intuition either way. 100 trillion. I have the intuition. You know what? That's just not going to happen. That's my first order intuition. I do think that considering the case where you live, one being lives both lives, or you have, say, one being undergoing the suffering and then like 100 trillion undergoing the pleasure makes small probabilities more if you agree that they're sort of isomorphic makes them more complete or something like that, or complete more real in some. Not tangible is not the right word, but more right.DANIELYou're less tempted to round it to zero.AARONYeah. And so I tend to think that I trust my intuitions more about reasoning. Okay, there's one person undergoing suffering and like 100 trillion undergoing happiness as it pertains to the question of offset ability more than I trust my intuitions about small probabilities.DANIELI guess that's strange because that strikes me as strange because I feel like you're regularly in situations where you make choices that have some probability of causing you quite bad suffering, but a large probability of being fun. Like going to the beach. There could be a shark there. I guess this is maybe against your will, but you can go to a restaurant, maybe get food poisoning, but how often are you like, oh man, if I flip this switch, one person will be poisoned, but 99 people will?AARONWell, then you'd have to think that, okay, staying home would actually be safer for some reason, which I don't affirmatively think is true, but this actually does work out for the question of whether you should kill yourself. And there hopefully this doesn't get censored by Apple or whatever, so nobody do that. But there I just think that my lizard brain or there's enough evolutionary pressure to not trust that I would be rational when it comes to the question of whether to avoid a small chance of suffering by unaliving myself, as they say on TikTok.DANIELHang on, evolution is pressured. So there's some evolutionary pressure to make sure you really don't want to kill yourself, but you think that's like, irrational.AARONI haven't actually given this a ton of thought. It gets hard when you loop in altruism and yeah, the question also there's like some chance that of sentient's after death, there's not literally zero or something like that. Yeah, I guess those are kind of cop outs. So I don't know, I feel like it certainly could be. And I agree this is sort of like a strike against my argument or something. I can set up a situation you have no potential to improve the lives of others, and you can be absolutely sure that you're not going to experience any sentience after death. And then I feel like my argument does kind of imply that, yeah, that's like the rational thing to do. I wouldn't do it. Right. So I agree. This is like a strike against me.DANIELYeah. I guess I just want to make two points. So the first point I want to make is just methodologically. If we're talking about which are you likely to be more rational about gambles of small risks, small probabilities of risk versus large rewards as opposed to situations where you can do a thing that affects a large number of people one way and a small number of people another way? I think the gambles are more like decisions that you make a bunch and you should be rational about and then just the second thing in terms of like, I don't know, I took you to be making some sort of argument along the lines of there's evolutionary pressure to want to not kill yourself. Therefore, that's like a debunking explanation. The fact that there was evolutionary pressure to not kill ourselves means that our instinct that we shouldn't kill ourselves is irrational. Whereas I would tend to look at it and say the fact that there was very strong evolutionary pressure to not kill ourselves is an explanation of why I don't want to kill myself. And I see that as affirming the choice to not kill myself, actually.AARONWell, I just want to say I don't think it's an affirmative argument that it is irrational. I think it opens up the question. I think it means it's more plausible that for other I guess not even necessarily for other reasons, but it just makes it more plausible that it is irrational. Well.DANIELYeah, I take exactly the opposite view. Okay. I think that if I'm thinking about, like, oh, what do I really want? If I consider my true preferences, do I really want to kill myself or something? And then I learn that, oh, evolution has shaped me to not kill myself, I think the inference I should make is like, oh, I guess probably the way evolution did that is that it made it such that my true desires are to not kill myself.AARONYeah. So one thing is I just don't think preferences have any intrinsic value. So I don't know, we might just like I guess I should ask, do you agree with that or disagree with.DANIELThat do I think preferences have intrinsic value? No, but so no, but I think like, the whole game here is like, what do I prefer? Or like, what would I prefer if I understood things really clearly?AARONYes. And this is something I didn't really highlight or maybe I didn't say it at all, is that I forget if I really argue it or kind of just assert it, but I at least assert that the answer to hedonic utilitarian. What you should do under hedonic utilitarianism is maybe not identical to, but exactly the same as what a rational agent would do or what a rational agent would prefer if they were to experience everything that this agent would cause. Or something like that. And so these should give you the exact same answers is something I believe sure. Because I do think preferences are like we're built to understand or sort of intuit and reason about our own preferences.DANIELKind of, yeah. But broadly, I guess the point I'm making at a high level is just like if we're talking about what's ethical or what's good or whatever, I take this to ultimately be a question about what should I understand myself as preferring? Or to the extent that it's not a question of that, then it's like, I don't know, then I'm a bit less interested in the exercise.AARONYeah. It's not ideal that I appeal to this fake and that fake ideally rational being or something. But here's a reason you might think it's more worth thinking about this. Maybe you've heard about I think Tomasic makes an argument about yeah. At least in principle, you can have a pig that's in extreme pain but really doesn't want to be killed still or doesn't want to be taken out of its suffering or whatever, true ultimate preference or whatever. And so at least I think this is pretty convincing evidence that you can have where that's just like, wrong about what would be good for it, you know what I mean?DANIELYeah, sorry, I'm not talking about preference versus hedonic utilitarianism or anything. I'm talking about what do I want or what do I want for living things or something. That's what I'm talking about.AARONYeah. That language elicits preferences to me and I guess the analogous but the idea.DANIELIs that the answer to what I want for living things could be like hedonic utilitarianism, if you see what I mean.AARONOr it could be by that do you mean what hedonic utilitarianism prescribes?DANIELYeah, it could be that what I want is that just whatever maximizes beings pleasure no matter what they want.AARONYeah. Okay. Yeah, so I agree with that.DANIELYeah. So anyway, heading back just to the suicide case right. If I learn that evolution has shaped me to not want to kill myself, then that makes me think that I'm being rational in my choice to not kill myself.AARONWhy?DANIELBecause being rational is something like optimally achieving your goals. And I'm a little bit like I sort of roughly know the results of killing myself, right? There might be some question about like, but what are my goals? And if I learned that evolution has shaped my goals such that I would hate killing myself right, then I'm like, oh, I guess killing myself probably ranks really low on the list of states ordered by how much I like them.AARONYeah, I guess then it seems like you have two mutually incompatible goals. Like, one is staying alive and one is hedonic utilitarianism and then you have to choose which of these predominates or whatever.DANIELYeah, well, I think that to the extent that evolution is shaping me to not want to commit suicide, it looks like the not killing myself one is winning. I think it's evidence. I don't think it's conclusive. Right. Because there could be multiple things going on. But I take evolutionary explanations for why somebody would want X. I think that's evidence that they are rational in pursuing X rather than evidence that they are irrational in pursuing X.AARONSometimes that's true, but not always. Yeah, there's a lot in general it is. Yeah. But I feel like moral anti realistic, we can also get into that. Are going to not think this is like woo or Joe Carl Smith says when he's like making fun of moralists I don't know, in a tongue in cheek way. In one of his posts arguing for explicating his stance on antirealism basically says moral realists want to say that evolution is not sensitive to moral reasons and therefore evolutionary arguments. Actually, I don't want to quote him from memory. I'll just assert that evolution is sensitive to a lot of things, but one of them is not moral reasons and therefore evolutionary arguments are not a good evidence or are not good evidence when it comes to purely, maybe not even purely, but philosophical claims or object level moral claims, I guess, yeah, they can be evidenced by something, but not that.DANIELYeah, I think that's wrong because I think that evolution why do I think it's wrong? I think it's wrong because what are we talking about when we talk about morality? We're talking about some logical object that's like the completion of a bunch of intuitions we have. Right. And those I haven't thought about intuitions are the product of evolution. The reason we care about morality at all is because of evolution under the standard theory that evolution is the reason our brains are the way they are.AARONYeah, I think this is a very strange coincidence and I am kind of weirded out by this, but yes, I.DANIELDon'T think it's a coincidence or like not a coincidence.AARONSo it's not a coincidence like conditional honor, evolutionary history. It is like no extremely lucky or something that we like, of course we'd find it earthlings wound up with morality and stuff. Well, of course you would.DANIELWait. Have you read the metafic sequence by Elizar? Yudkowski.AARONI don't think so. And I respect Elias a ton, except I think he's really wrong about ethics and meta ethics in a lot of like I don't even know if I but I have not, so I'm not really giving them full time.DANIELOkay. I don't know. I basically take this from my understanding of the meta ethics sequence, which I recommend people read, but I don't think it's a coincidence. I don't think we got lucky. I think it's a coincidence. There are some species that get evolved, right, and they end up caring about schmorality, right?AARONYeah.DANIELAnd there are some species that get evolved, right? And they end up caring about the prime numbers or whatever, and we evolved and we ended up caring about morality. And it's not like a total so, okay, partly I'm just like, yeah, each one of them is really glad they didn't turn out to be the other things. The ones that care about two of.AARONThem are wrong, but two of them are wrong.DANIELWell, they're morally wrong. Two of them do morally wrong things all the time. Right?AARONI want to say that I hate when people say that. Sorry. So what I am saying is that you can call those by different names, but if I'm understanding this argument right, they all think that they're getting at the same core concept, which is like, no, what should we do in some okay, so does schmorality have any sort of normativity?DANIELNo, it has schmormativity.AARONOkay, well, I don't know what schmormativity is.DANIELYou know how normativity I feel like that's good. Schmormativity is about promoting the schmud.AARONOkay, so it sounds like that's just normativity, except it's normativity about different propositions. That's what it sounds like.DANIELWell, basically, I don't know, instead of these schmalians wait, no, they're aliens. They're not shmalians. They're aliens. They just do a bunch of schmud things, right? They engage in projects, they try and figure out what the schmud is. They pursue a schmud and then they look at humans, they're like, oh, these humans are doing morally good things. That's horrible. I'm so glad that we pursue the schmood instead.AARONYeah, I don't know if it's incoherent. I don't think they're being incoherent. Your description of a hypothetical let's just take for granted whatever in the thought experiment is in fact happening. I think your description is not correct. And the reason it's not correct is because there is like, what's a good analogy? So when it comes to abstract concepts in general, it is very possible for okay, I feel like it's hard to explain directly, but here an analogy, is you can have two different people who have very different conceptions of justice, but fundamentally are earnestly trying to get at the same thing. Maybe justice isn't well defined or isn't like, actually, I should probably have come up with a good example here. But you know what? I'm happy to change the word for what I use as morality or whatever, but it has the same core meaning, which is like, okay, really, what should you do at the end of the day?DANIELYeah.AARONWhat should you do?DANIELWhereas they care about morality, which is what they should do, which is a different thing. They have strong desires to do what they should do.AARONI don't think it is coherent to say that there are multiple meanings of the word should or multiple kinds. Yeah.DANIELNo, there aren't.AARONSorry. There aren't multiple meanings of the word should. Fine.DANIELThere's just a different word, which is schmood, which means something different, and that's what their desires are pegged to.AARONI don't think it's coherent, given what you've already the entire picture, I think, is incoherent. Given everything else besides the word schmoud, it is incoherent to assert that there is something broadly not analogous, like maybe isomorphic to normativity or, like, the word should. Yeah. There is only what's yeah. I feel like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be able to verbalize it super well. I do. Yeah. Can you take something can you pick.DANIELA sentence that I said that was wrong or that was incoherent?AARONWell, it's all wrong because these aliens don't exist.DANIELThe aliens existed.AARONOkay, well, then we're debating, like, I actually don't know. It depends. You're asserting something about their culture and psychology, and then the question is, like, are you right or wrong about that? If we just take for granted that you're right, then you're right. All right. I'm saying no, you can't be sure. So conditional on being right, you're right. Then there's a question of, like, okay, what is the probability? So, like, conditional on aliens with something broad, are you willing to accept this phrase, like, something broadly analogous to morality? Is that okay?DANIELYeah, sure.AARONOkay. So if we accept that there's aliens with something broadly analogous to morality, then you want to say that they can have not only a different word, but truly a pointer to a different concept. And I think that's false.DANIELSo you think that in conceptual space, there's morality and that there's, like, nothing near it for miles.AARONThe study, like yeah, basically. At least when we're talking about, like, the like, at the at the pre conclusion stage. So, like, before you get to the point where you're like, oh, yeah, I'm certain that, like, the answer is just that we need, like, we need to make as many tennis balls as possible or whatever the general thing of, like, okay, broadly, what is the right thing to do? What should I do? Would it be good for me to do this cluster of things yeah. Is, like, miles from everything else.DANIELOkay. I think there's something true to that. I think I agree with that in some ways and on others, my other response is I think it's not a total coincidence that humans ended up caring about morality. I think if you look at these evolutionary arguments for why humans would be motivated to pursue morality. They rely on very high level facts. Like, there are a bunch of humans around. There's not one human who's, like, a billion times more powerful than everyone else. We have language. We talk through things. We reason. We need to make decisions. We need to cooperate in certain ways to produce stuff. And it's not about the fact that we're bipedal or something. So in that sense, I think it's not a total coincidence that we ended up caring about morality. And so in some sense, I think because that's true, you could maybe say you couldn't slightly tweak our species that it cared about something other than morality, which is kind of like saying that there's nothing that close to morality in concept space.AARONBut I think I misspoke earlier what I should have said is that it's very weird that we care about that most people at least partially care about suffering and happiness. I think that's just a true statement. Sorry, that is the weird thing. Why is it weird? The weird thing is that it happens to be correct, even though I only.DANIELHave what do you mean it's correct?AARONNow we have to get okay, so this is going into moral realism. I think moral realism is true, at least.DANIELSorry, what do you mean by moral realism? Wait, different by moral realism?AARONYes. So I actually have sort of a weak version of moral realism, which is, like, not that normative statements are true, but that there is, like, an objective. So if you can rank hypothetical states of the world in an ordinal way such that one is objectively better than another.DANIELYes. Okay. I agree with that, by the way. I think that's true. Okay.AARONIt sounds like you're a moral realist.DANIELYeah, I am.AARONOkay. Oh, really? Okay. I don't know. I thought you weren't. Okay, cool.DANIELLots of people in my reference class aren't. I think most Bay Area rationalists are not moral realists, but I am.AARONOkay. Maybe I was confused. Okay, that's weird. Okay. Sorry about that. Wait, so what do I mean by it happens to be true? It's like it happens to coincide with yeah, sorry, go ahead.DANIELYou said it happens to be correct that we care about morality or that we care about suffering and pleasure and something and stuff.AARONMaybe that wasn't the ideal terminology it happens to so, like, it's not morally correct? The caring about it isn't the morally correct thing. It seems sort of like the caring is instrumentally useful in promoting what happens to be legitimately good or something. Or, like legitimately good or something like that.DANIELBut but I think, like so the aliens could say a similar thing, right? They could say, like, oh, hey, we've noticed that we all care about schmurality. We all really care about promoting Schmeasure and avoiding Schmuffering. Right? And they'd say, like, they'd say, like, yeah, what's? What's wrong?AARONI feel like it's not maybe I'm just missing something, but at least to me, it's like, only adding to the confusion to talk about two different concepts of morality rather than just like, okay, this alien thinks that you should tile the universe paperclips, or something like that, or even that more reasonably, more plausibly. Justice is like that. Yeah. I guess this gets back to there's only one concept anywhere near that vicinity in concept space or something. Maybe we disagree about that. Yeah.DANIELOkay. If I said paperclips instead of schmorality, would you be happy?AARONYes.DANIELI mean, cool, okay, for doing the.AARONMorally correct thing and making me happy.DANIELI strive to. But take the paperclipper species, right? What they do is they notice, like, hey, we really care about making paperclips, right? And, hey, the fact that we care about making paperclips, that's instrumentally useful in making sure that we end up making a bunch of paperclips, right? Isn't that an amazing coincidence that we ended up caring our desires were structured in this correct way that ends up with us making a bunch of paperclips. Is that like, oh, no, total coincidence. That's just what you cared about.AARONYou left at the part where they assert that they're correct about this. That's the weird thing.DANIELWhat proposition are they correct about?AARONOr sorry, I don't think they're correct implicitly.DANIELWhat proposition do they claim they're correct about?AARONThey claim that the world in which there is many paperclips is better than the world in which there is fewer paperclips.DANIELOh, no, they just think it's more paperclipy. They don't think it's better. They don't care about goodness. They care about paperclips.AARONSo it sounds like we're not talking about anything remotely like morality, then, because I could say, yeah, morality, morality. It's pretty airy. It's a lot of air in here. I don't know, maybe I'm just confused.DANIELNo, what I'm saying is, so you're like, oh, it's like this total coincidence that humans we got so lucky. It's so weird that humans ended up caring about morality, and it's like, well, we had to care about something, right? Like anything we don't care about.AARONOh, wow, sorry, I misspoke earlier. And I think that's generating some confusion. I think it's a weird coincidence that we care about happiness and suffering.DANIELHappiness and suffering, sorry. Yeah, but mutatus mutantus, I think you want to say that's like a weird coincidence. And I'm like, well, we had to care about something.AARONYeah, but it could have been like, I don't know, could it have been otherwise, right? At least conceivably it could have been otherwise.DANIELYeah, the paperclip guys, they're like, conceivably, we could have ended up caring about pleasure and suffering. I'm so glad we avoided that.AARONYeah, but they're wrong and we're right.DANIELRight about what?AARONAnd then maybe I don't agree. Maybe this isn't the point you're making. I'm sort of saying that in a blunt way to emphasize it. I feel like people should be skeptical when I say, like okay, I have good reason to think that even though we're in a very similar epistemic position, I have reason to believe that we're right and not the aliens. Right. That's like a hard case to make, but I do think it's true.DANIELThere's no proposition that the aliens and us disagree on yes.AARONThe intrinsic value of pleasure and happiness.DANIELYeah, no, they don't care about value. They care about schmalu, which is just.AARONLike, how much paperclips there is. I don't think that's coherent. I don't think they can care about value.DANIELOkay.AARONThey can, but only insofar as it's a pointer to the exact same not exact, but like, basically the same concept as our value.DANIELSo do you reject the orthogonality thesis?AARONNo.DANIELOkay. I think that is super intelligent.AARONYeah.DANIELSo I take the orthogonality thesis to mean that really smart agents can be motivated by approximately any desires. Does that sound right to you?AARONYeah.DANIELSo what if the desire is like, produce a ton of paperclips?AARONYeah, it can do that descriptively. It's not morally good.DANIELOh, no, it's not morally good at all. They're not trying to be morally good. They're just trying to produce a bunch of paperclips.AARONOkay, in that case, we don't disagree. Yeah, I agree. This is like a conceivable state of the world.DANIELYeah. But what I'm trying to say is when you say it's weird that we got lucky the reason you think it's weird is that you're one of the humans who cares about pleasure and suffering. Whereas if you were one of the aliens who cared about paperclips. The analogous shmarin instead of Aaron would be saying, like, oh, it's crazy that we care about paperclips, because that actually causes us to make a ton of paperclips.AARONDo they intrinsically care about paperclips or is it a means of cement?DANIELIntrinsically, like, same as in the Orphogonality thesis.AARONDo they experience happiness because of the paperclips or is it more of a functional intrinsic value?DANIELI think they probably experience happiness when they create paperclips, but they're not motivated by the happiness. They're motivated by like, they're happy because they succeeded at their goal of making tons of paperclips. If they can make tons of paperclips but not be happy about it, they'd be like, yeah, we should do that. Sorry. No, they wouldn't. They'd say, like, we should do that and then they would do it.AARONWould your case still work if we just pretended that they're not sentient?DANIELYeah, sure.AARONOkay. I think this makes it cleaner for both sides. Yeah, in that case, yes. So I think the thing that I reject is that there's an analog term that's anything like morality in their universe. They can use a different word, but it's pointing to the same concept.DANIELWhen you say anything like morality. So the shared concepts sorry, the shared properties between morality and paperclip promotion is just that you have a species that is dedicated to promoting it.AARONI disagree. I think morality is about goodness and badness.DANIELYes, that's right.AARONOkay. And I think it is totally conceivable. Not even conceivable. So humans wait, what's a good example? In some sense I intrinsically seem to value about regular. I don't know if this is a good example. Let's run with it intrinsically value like regulating my heartbeat. It happens to be true that this is conducive to my happiness and at least local non suffering. But even if it weren't, my brain stem would still try really hard to keep my heart beating or something like that. I reject that there's any way in which promoting heart beatingness is an intrinsic moral or schmoral value or even that could be it could be hypothesized as one but it is not in fact one or something like that.DANIELOkay.AARONLikewise, these aliens could claim that making paperclips is intrinsically good. They could also just make them and not make that claim. And those are two very different things.DANIELThey don't claim it's good. They don't think it's good.AARONThey think it's claim it schmud.DANIELWhich they prefer. Yeah, they prefer.AARONDon't. I think that is also incoherent. I think there is like one concept in that space because wait, I feel like also this is just like at some point it has to cash out in the real world. Right? Unless we're talking about really speculative not even physics.DANIELWhat I mean is they just spend all of their time promoting paperclips and then you send them a copy of Jeremy Bentham's collected writings, they read it and they're like all right, cool. And then they just keep on making paperclips because that's what they want to do.AARONYeah. So descriptively.DANIELSure.AARONBut they never claim that. It's like we haven't even introduced objectivity to this example. So did they ever claim that it's objectively the right thing to do?DANIELNo, they claim that it's objectively the paperclipy thing to do.AARONI agree with that. It is the paperclippy thing to do.DANIELYeah, they're right about stuff. Yeah.AARONSo they're right about that. They're just not a right. So I do think this all comes back down to the question of whether there's analogous concepts in near ish morality that an alien species might point at. Because if there's not, then the paperclippiness is just like a totally radically different type of thing.DANIELBut why does it like when did I say that they were closely analogous? This is what I don't understand.AARONSo it seems to be insinuated by the closeness of the word semantic.DANIELOh yeah, whatever. When I was making it a similar sounding word, all I meant to say is that they talk about it plays a similar role in their culture as morality plays in our culture. Sorry. In terms of their motivations, I should say. Oh, yeah.AARONI think there's plenty of human cultures that are getting at morality. Yeah. So I think especially historically, plenty of human cultures that are getting at the same core concept of morality but just are wrong about it.DANIELYeah, I think that's right.AARONFundamentalist religious communities or whatever, you can't just appeal to like, oh, we're like they have some sort of weird it's kind of similar but very different thing called morality.DANIELAlthough, I don't know, I actually think that okay, backing up. All I'm saying is that beings have to care about something, and we ended up caring about morality. And I don't think, like I don't know, I don't think that's super surprising or coincidental or whatever. A side point I want to make is that I think if you get super into being religious, you might actually start referring to a different concept by morality. How familiar are you with classical theism?AARONThat's not a term that I recognize, although I took a couple of theology classes, so maybe more of them if I hadn't done that.DANIELYeah, so classical theism, it's a view about the nature of God, which is that I'm going to do a bad job of describing it. Yeah, I'm not a classical theist, so you shouldn't take classical theist doctrine from me. But it's basically that God is like sort of God's the being whose attributes are like his existence or something like that. It's weird. But anyway, there's like some school of philosophical where they're like, yeah, there's this transcendent thing called God. We can know God exists from first principles and in particular their account of goodness. So how do you get around the Euphyro dilemma, right? Instead of something like divine command theory, what they say is that when we talk about things being good, good just refers to the nature of God. And if you really internalize that, then I think you might end up referring to something different than actual goodness. Although I think it's probably there's no such being as God in the article. Theist sense.AARONYeah. So they argue what we mean by good is this other.DANIELConcept. They would say that when everyone talks about good, what they actually mean is pertaining to the divine nature, but we just didn't really know that we meant that the same way that when we talked about water, we always meant H 20, but we didn't used to know that.AARONI'm actually not sure if this is I'm very unconfident, but I kind of want to bite the bullet and say, like, okay, fine, in that case, yeah, I'm talking about the divine nature, but we just have radically different understandings of what the divine nature is.DANIELYou think you're talking about the divine nature.AARONRight?DANIELWhy do you think that?AARONSorry, I think I very slightly was not quite pedantic enough. Sorry, bad cell phone or whatever. Once again, not very confident at all.DANIELBut.AARONThink think that I'm willing to I'm so I think that I'm referring to the divine nature, but what I mean by the divine nature is that which these fundamentalist people are referring to. So I want to get around the term and say like, okay, whatever these fundamentalists are referring to, I am also referring to them.DANIELYeah, I should say classical theism is not slightly a different when people say fundamentalists, they often mean like a different corner of Christian space than classical theists. Classical. Theists think like Ed Fesser esoteric Catholics or something. Yeah, they're super into it.AARONOkay, anyway yes, just to put it all together, I think that when I say morality, I am referring to the same thing that these people are referring to by the divine nature. That's what it took me like five minutes to actually say.DANIELOh yeah, so I don't think you are. So when they refer to the divine nature, what they at least think they mean is they think that the divine is sort of defined by the fact that its existence is logically necessary. Its existence is in some sense attributes it couldn't conceivably not have its various attributes. The fact that it is like the primary cause of the world and sustainer of all things. And I just really doubt that the nature of that thing is what you mean by morality.AARONNo, those are properties that they assert, but I feel like tell me if I'm wrong. But my guess is that if one such person were to just suddenly come to believe that actually all of that's right. Except it's not actually logically necessary that the divine nature exists. It happens to be true, but it's not logically necessary. They would still be sort of pointing to the same concept. And I just think, yeah, it's like that, except all those lists of properties are wrong.DANIELI think if that were true, then classical theism would be false.AARONOkay.DANIELSo maybe in fact you're referring to the same thing that they actually mean by the divine nature, but what they think they mean is this classical theistic thing. Right. And it seems plausible to me that some people get into it enough that what they actually are trying to get at when they say good is different than what normal people are trying to get at when they say good.AARONYeah, I don't think that's true. Okay, let's set aside the word morality because especially I feel like in circles that we're in, it has a strong connotation with a sort of like modern ish analytics philosophy, maybe like some other things that are in that category.DANIELYour video is worsen, but your sound is back.AARONOkay, well, okay, I'll just keep talking. All right, so you have the divine nature and morality and maybe other things that are like those two things but still apart from them. So in that class of things and then there's the question of like, okay, maybe everybody necessarily anybody who thinks that there's any true statements about something broadly in their vicinity of goodness in the idea space is pointing to the meta level of that or whichever one of those is truly correct or something. This is pretty speculative. I have not thought about this. I'm not super confident.DANIELYeah, I think I broadly believe this, but I think this is right about most people when they talk. But you could imagine even with utilitarianism, right? Imagine somebody getting super into the weeds of utilitarianism. They lived utilitarianism twenty four, seven. And then maybe at some point they just substitute in utilitarianism for morality. Now when they say morality, they actually just mean utilitarianism and they're just discarding the latter of the broad concepts and intuitions behind them. Such a person might just I don't know, I think that's the kind of thing that can happen. And then you might just want a.AARONDifferent thing by the word. I don't know if it's a bad thing, but I feel like I do this when I say, oh, x is moral to do or morally good to do. It's like, what's the real semantic relationship between that and it's correct on utilitarianism to do? I feel like they're not defined as the same, but they happen to be the same or something. Now we're just talking about how people use words.DANIELYeah, they're definitely going to happen to be the same in the case that utilitarianism is like the right theory of morality. But you could imagine that. You could imagine even in the case where utilitarianism was the wrong theory, you might still just mean utilitarianism by the word good because you just forgot the intuitions from which you were building theory of morality and you're just like, okay, look, I'm just going to talk about utilitarianism now.AARONYeah, I think this is like, yeah, this could happen. I feel like this is a cop out and like a non answer, but I feel like getting into the weeds of the philosophy of language and what people mean by concepts and words and true the true nature of concepts. It's just not actually that useful. Or maybe it's just not as interesting to me as I'm glad that somebody thought about that ever.DANIELI think this can happen, though. I think this is actually a practical concern. Right. Okay. Utilitarianism might be wrong, right? Does that strike you as right? Yeah, I think it's possible for you to use language in such a way that if utilitarianism were wrong, what that would mean is that in ordinary language, goodness, the good thing to do is not always the utilitarian thing to do, right? Yes, but I think it's possible to get down an ideological rabbit hole. This is not specific to utilitarianism. Right. I think this can happen to tons of things where when you say goodness, you just mean utilitarianism and you don't have a word for what everyone else meant by goodness, then I think that's really hard to recover from. And I think that's the kind of thing that can conceivably happen and maybe sometimes actually happens.AARONYeah, I guess as an empirical matter and like an empirical psychological matter and yes. Do people's brains ever operate this way? Yes. I don't really know where that leaves that leaves us. Maybe we should move on to a different topic or whatever.DANIELCan I just say one more thing?AARONYeah, totally.DANIELFirst, I should just give this broad disclaimer that I'm not a philosopher and I don't really know what I'm talking about. But the second thing is that particular final point. I was sort of inspired by a paper I read. I think it's called, like, do Christians and Muslims worship the same god? Which is actually a paper about the philosophy of naming and what it means for proper names to refer to the same thing. And it's pretty interesting, and it has a footnote about why you would want to discourage blasphemy, which is sort of about this. Anyway.AARONNo, I personally don't find this super interesting. I can sort of see how somebody would and I also think it's potentially important, but I think it's maybe yeah.DANIELActually it's actually kind of funny. Can I tell you a thing that I'm a little bit confused about?AARONYeah, sure.DANIELSo philosophers just there's this branch of philosophy that's the philosophy of language, and in particular the philosophy of right. Like, what does it mean when we say a word refers to something in the real world? And some subsection of this is the philosophy of proper names. Right. So when I say Aaron is going to the like, what do I mean by know who is like, if it turned out that these interactions that I'd been having with an online like, all of them were faked, but there was a real human named Bergman, would that count as making that send is true or whatever? Anyway, there's some philosophy on this topic, and apparently we didn't need it to build a really smart AI. No AI person has studied this. Essentially, these theories are not really baked into the way we do AI these days.AARONWhat do you think that implies or suggests?DANIELI think it's a bit confusing. I think naively, you might have thought that AIS would have to refer to things, and naively, you might have thought that in order for us to make that happen, we would have had to understand the philosophy of reference or of naming, at least on some sort of basic level. But apparently we just didn't have to. Apparently we could just like I don't have that.AARONIn fact, just hearing your description, my initial intuition is like, man, this does not matter for anything.DANIELOkay. Can I try and convince you that it should matter? Yeah, tell me how I fail to convince you.AARONYeah, all right.DANIELHumans are pretty smart, right? We're like the prototypical smart thing. How are humans smart? I think one of the main ingredients of that is that we have language. Right?AARONYes. Oh, and by the way, this gets to the unpublished episode with Nathan Barnard.DANIELComing out an UN I think I've seen an episode with him.AARONOh, yeah. This is the second one because he's.DANIELBeen very oh, exciting. All right, well well, maybe all this will be superseded by this unpublished episode.AARONI don't think so. We'll see.DANIELBut okay, we have language, right. Why is language useful? Well, I think it's probably useful in part because it refers to stuff. When I say stuff, I'm talking about the real world, right?AARONYes.DANIELNow, you might think that in order to build a machine that was smart and wielded the language usefully, it would also have to have language. We would have to build it such that its language referred to the real world. Right. And you might further think that in order to build something that use languages that actually succeeds at doing reference, we would have to understand what reference was.AARONYes. I don't think that's right. Because insofar as we can get what we call useful is language in, language out without any direct interaction, without the AIS directly manipulating the world, or maybe not directly, but without using language understanders or beings that do have this reference property, that's what their language means to them, then this would be right. But because we have Chat GPT, what the use comes from is like giving language to humans, and the humans have reference to the real world. But if the humans you need some connection to your reference, but it doesn't have to be at every level or something like that.DANIELOkay, so do you think that suppose we had something that was like Chat GPT, but we gave it access to some robot limbs and it could pick up mice. Maybe it could pick up apples and throw the apples into the power furnace powering its data center. We give it these limbs and these actuators sort of analogous to how humans interact with the world. Do you think in order to make a thing like that that worked, we would need to understand the philosophy of reference?AARONNo. I'm not sure why.DANIELI also don't know why.AARONOkay, well, evolution didn't understand the philosophy of reference. I don't know what that tells us.DANIELI actually think this is, like, my lead answer of, like, we're just making AIS by just randomly tweaking them until they work. That's my rough summary of Scastic gradient descent. In some sense, this does not require you to have a strong sense of how to implement your AIS. Maybe that's why we don't need to.AARONUnderstand philosophy or the SDD process is doing the philosophy. In some sense, that's kind of how I think about it or how I think about it now. I guess during the SDD process, you're, like, tweaking basically the algorithm, and at the end of the day, probably in order to, say, pick up marbles or something, reference to a particular marble or the concept of marble, not only the concept, but both the concept
YOU can join the conversation at SurprisingGod.com! Episode 10 YouTube Channel: Surprising God Dan's books: Confident Humility The Training of KX12 Send Questions To: Twitter: @SurprisingGodFacebook: SurprisingGod Twitter: @thatdankent
Why did early modern philosophers posit legions of blissful aliens to help solve the problem of evil? Is life essentially terrestrial? Does SETI count as a scientific enterprise? If Martians could talk, would we ever be able to understand them? Join Megan and Frank as they philosophize about our friends from the final frontier!-----------------------Hosts' Websites:Megan J Fritts (google.com)Frank J. Cabrera - Research (google.com)Email: philosophyonthefringes@gmail.com-----------------------Bibliography:Defense Department announces new UFO task force - CBS NewsKukla, A. (2001). ETI: On the prospects and pursuitworthiness of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence - ScienceDirect Plutarch • On the Face in the Moon (Part 1 of 4) (uchicago.edu)Lucretius - On the Nature of Things by Lucretius (mit.edu)Pearce, K. - Space Aliens and Skeptical Theism (blog.kennypearce.net)Draper, P. (1989) Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists on JSTORCrowe, M. (2017). William and John Herschel's Quest for Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life | SpringerLinkFantastically Wrong: Why the Guy Who Discovered Uranus Thought There's Life on the Sun | WIREDThere Is Only One Other Planet In Our Galaxy That Could Be Earth-Like, Say Scientists (forbes.com)Rare Earth hypothesis: Why we might really be alone in the universe | Astronomy.comPseudoscience and the Demarcation Problem | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (utm.edu)Frank Cabrera, String Theory, Non-Empirical Theory Assessment, and the Context of Pursuit - PhilPapersA More Parsimonious Explanation for UFO Abduction on JSTOR75 Years Ago, 'War Of The Worlds' Started A Panic. Or Did It? : The Two-Way : NPRWhitmore, J. (1995). Religious Dimensions of the UFO Abductee Experience ("UFO abductions seem to be primarily an American phenomenon; although several important cases have been reported outside the U.S., some argue that abductions are mainly confined to this country.", p. 81)-----------------------Cover Artwork by Logan Fritts-------------------------Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/simon-folwar/neon-signsLicense code: CWK7B5OYQTUXZOER
Theists, in fact, have far better and more interesting questions (and answers) than atheists do! In a time so influenced by the myth of the incompatibility of science and religion/faith and reason, it's time we do our part to show just how complementary they truly are. Few are doing more than Dr. Stephen Barr in this regard, and I urge you to share this interview with as many people as possible! LINKS/RESOURCES: – Society of Catholic Scientists (PLEASE SHARE THIS SITE!!!): https://catholicscientists.org – Stratford Caldecott's incredible book “Beauty for Truth's Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education”: https://a.co/d/aXH64iE – Pope St. John Paul II's 1998 encyclical letter “Fides et Ratio” (On the Relationship Between Faith & Reason): https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html – Good, far more detailed and responsible overview of the Galileo affair than you've probably ever heard before (and there are LOTS of other in depth resources that you might want to check out): https://youtu.be/cjLUoIhEoLQ ================== To find more faith-enriching content than you'll know what to do with and to contact Mike Creavey, be sure to visit https://thegraciousguest.org
Hi everyone. So I wanted to talk about agnostics. Because we do encounter agnostics a lot. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this is because there is a whole lot of kind of misguided enthusiasm for soft religiosity going on. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. Think about what agnostics mean when they say that they're agnostic about the existence of God. You can be agnostic about many things, by the way, if you're undecided about something you're agnostic about it. But agnosticism in general in the philosophic sense means not knowing whether God exists or not. So when someone says the rational position is agnostic, it is a little disingenuous because there are a lot of things in life that you can be agnostic about. Do you know for sure that there aren't invisible space dragons orbiting mercury right now? No. Are you agnostic about it? Are you going to say that until I find out definitively that there are no invisible space dragons orbiting mercury right now. I will continue to think that I don't know if there are invisible space dragons orbiting, mercury right now. Right? So when someone says this about God proposition for which there is no evidence. Are they not automatically saying that they are leaning a little bit towards the possibility that it might be true? I think very little is said about agnostics actually leaning towards religion. When someone says they're agnostic, they're not actually, you know that they're not actually in the center. They're not actually equidistant from both ends. They are actually closer to the side that says that something like God is real. They're leaning towards the probability or the possibility that God exists. And because they don't have evidence because there can't be any evidence maybe, they like to say that they're agnostics. I find this, the reason I'm talking about this is because there are a lot of people who try to hide their religiosity behind a facade of agnosticism or doubt. A few days ago on my livestream, someone came and said, it's okay. It's good to say that you don't know. It's good to say that you have no idea whether God exists or not. That is the beginning of true knowledge. And this person was absolutely sure... he was very happy that I was saying that I don't know. But this person was absolutely sure that God exists and said that he had experienced God. So when it comes to acknowledging and appreciating doubt, or agnosticism, these people are extremely okay with it. Yeah, you have all the doubt in the world. You who are on the side that thinks that we should not believe things without evidence, you should have doubt. I on the other hand have absolute certainty about the fact that the completely illogical claim I'm making about reality is absolutely true. And these will also be the people who will say that agnostic atheism is not an actual position, which it is, it is an actual philosophic position. Agnostic atheism means I don't know, therefore I do not believe it is a full circle there. No holes in it. If I don't know something, why would I believe in it? Agnosticism only makes sense -at least from my perspective- when it leads to lack of belief. If agnosticism is just agnosticism it is I think veiled religiosity. It is veiled theism. It is a kind of noncommittal belief. If that makes any sense. That's just what I wanted to talk about. Thanks.
L057 The Scariest Verse Ever For Open Theists by Christopher Fisher
In this special episode, Credo launches a new series called The Credo Alliance, which brings together today's best theologians to unite around classical Christianity, collaborating for the sake of renewal in the church today. In this first episode, Credo Fellows Fred Sanders, J.V. Fesko, Scott Swain and Matthew Barrett share their stories, explaining how they… Download Audio
Greetings, Twenty-Siders! The party just stopped a summoning circle and now it's time to clear out a dungeon! This is what happens when your DM has a ton of stuff and you went right to the boss instead… Enjoy the Adventure…
Restless reacts to Leyton Flowers giving his opinion on if open theists should have been excommunicated from the SBC. Restless invites Leyton Flowers on the show to explain when he stopped being a Calvinist. And takes opportunity to say no Open Theism. Restless Holiday Merch Drop is Here Join the Patreon if you want more of us every week! You can follow this podcast all over the internet. twitter, instagram. or facebook Or email us at restlesspodcasting@gmail.com
Deism may sound a lot like theism, and while they're etymologically the same, the belief systems are more nuanced. In this episode, we deep dive into Deist belief and its rise to popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries. We explain the core belief of the initial creator, but he's not around anymore—kind of like the dad that left for a pack of smokes. The Enlightenment made deism a popular belief system as people looked to logic, reason, science, and observation to explain the world around them, rather than revelation. Deist philosophers believe in a God that created the universe, but they also believe in science to explain how things work. If you're an American history buff, we also talk about the founding fathers and their religious beliefs. While we don't have great records for all of them, it's clear that some were Deists, most notably Thomas Jefferson and his book The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, aka The Jefferson Bible.That's right, Deism is a spectrum, and we talk about the different deism types and how they overlap with other faith groups. Support us at Patreon and SpreadshopJoin the Community on DiscordLearn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram
“A brand new mercy every day More of Your love every day More of Your help every day New determination every day A new reason for living every day A new dine of life every day To show forth Your wonders every day To stand in Your presence every day To tell of all Your mercy every day After day Forever faithful towards me And You're always providing for me (can you help me sing?) Great is Your mercy towards me Great is Your grace.” --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/support
Welcome back to the show! In today's episode of the Atheist Experience, Forrest Valkai is joined by Christy Powell!First up is Damien from WA who wants advice on how to explain to their family that they don't enjoy the religious inquiries and love, and that their non-belief is not an attack on them.Jay from IA asks why Atheists feel the need to talk about their non-belief and tell others God doesn't exist all the time. The answer varies from atheist to atheist based on their own experiences. But don't worry, the call doesn't stop there so be sure to keep watching and listening?Next is Bear from WA who is presenting personal testimony about how they experienced problems with their life, but that these problems resolved themselves after seeking out God.Eric from WI is calling to tell Atheists that God doesn't send them to hell, but that we send ourselves. Theists have had 12 years to make the choice to revise and rehabilitate this argument before calling in again, but they haven't.Next is Nicole from Armenia who is wondering if the Bible is a good guide for having successful relationships & marriage?Teo from Croatia wants to talk about how its ridiculous that people judge people who have not read the bible or believe in a God in ways they wouldn't judge others.
The Non-Prophets, Episode 21.43 airing Sunday, October 23, 2022 featuring Jason Sherwood, Helen Green, Richard Firth-Godbehere and Augusthe time to take back The Non-Prophets is now! No longer will the gay frogs, or some kind of media, or billion dollar judgments stop us from bringing you the news and topics of the day from a skeptical humanist perspective. Especially since there are settlements and closures that can help us heal from history. This week I get to lead an amazing panel of Helen Green, Professor Doctor Richard Firth-Godbehere, and August. This episode was so packed we hardly were able to end it properly! Let's get into it.First, we start in our own backyard of Austin Texas. Where friend of the show and shouty conspiracy broadcaster is ordered to pay nearly a billion dollars in damages to the victims and families of the sandy hook school shooting. Will this get appealed? Will he show up to that appeal? Does he have any appeal? It's hard to say. The good news is he can always start over by going back to the Austin Public Access station.Next up we head over to the Equal Rights state. Awesome, that means only good things coming out of Wyoming right? A ranch for troubled teens… Oh no. Closes following abuse allegations. Oh come on! Seems this ranch is little more than a work camp designed to use impossible working conditions and violence to keep teen girls in line. Oh so it can get worse! Well fine they are closed down at the very least that has to be a step in the right direction. Except the state didn't shut them down. This one's a rollercoaster.Whew, well maybe we can take a little look back. Let's see Salem Witch Trials! Dang it! For this we explore what happened in those days and how the media has turned it into a running joke. Us Non-Prophets are not laughing though. We take a hard look at our history so that we can stand and say never again on our watch will we let this happen again. We won't stand by while others minimalize the idea of a “witch hunt”Finally this week we talk about Vatican II and the rise of Atheism. At the Vatican sees it at least. Many a strawman will be talked about. We will also see the basis of theist apologetics that persisted for decades. With so many generalizations and misunderstandings, it's amazing Atheists and Theists can talk together at all.Segment 1: Alex Jones must pay Sandy Hook families nearly $1 billion for hoax claims, jury says Rueters/ By Jack Queen and Jacqueline Thomsen/ October 12, 2022 https://reut.rs/3TrKMDl$1B judgment against Alex Jones not the final word / AP News/ DAVE COLLINS, MICHAEL HILL and JAKE BLEIBERG/ October 14, 2022 https://bit.ly/3eWiMcaSegment 2: Wyoming ranch for troubled teens closes following abuse allegations NBC News/ By Tyler Kingkade / October 6, 2022 https://nbcnews.to/3D05N1fSegment 3: Looking Back - Community at its absolute worst': revisiting the horror of the Salem witch trials/ The Guardian/ Veronica Esposito/ October 5, 2022 https://bit.ly/3gwAHGTThe Witches of Salem/ The New Yorker/ Stacy Schiff/ August 31, 2015 https://bit.ly/3z4DZHBSegment 4: Vatican II and the Rise of Atheism/ The National Catholic Register/ Stephen Bullivant/ October 13, 2022 https://bit.ly/3VSeJ1eDon't like ads? Consider becoming a patron for commercial-free episodes: http://tiny.cc/patreonnp We welcome your comments on the thread for this show. ► http://tiny.cc/fbnp► Contact us with questions or news stories at: nonprophets@atheist-community.org
Welcome back to the show! In today's episode of the Atheist Experience, Forrest Valkai is joined by Dave Warnock!Charles from TX is calling to claim that Revelations 17:5 is the reason for all of the evil done in the name of Catholicism.Next is David from Australia who after decades of indoctrination is hit head on with the prospect of the religion not be true, or worse manipulative. The caller is struggling with pushing past their fear of hell from their lifetime of it being used as a tool to keep them in line.Luke from CA has a five premise argument to make God exist in our world. You could use this argument to make any literally any fantasy character exist in our world...doesn't mean they do.Believer in God (BIG) from WA isn't convinced that Atheists are actually real and those who claim to be Atheist are actually pretending Theists. They believe this because polygraphs.Diana from KS doesn't believe that Atheists cannot judge morality because they lack an objective moral standard. Appealing to an authoritarian moral framework can be nice because its easy to judge right from wrong, but it doesn't necessarily align with what might actually be right and what might be wrong in specific situations, especially if no justification is given or justification in the form of faith based threats of punishment.Ruben from TX doesn't think it is okay for Atheists to use the Old Testament, specifically verses regarding slavery to argue against modern Christians because apparently slavery was okay back then.Finally, Kyle from OH views the world as a complex puzzle, and if the pieces weren't placed in the perfect order and location, then life wouldn't exist. Therefore there must have been a creator because there needs to be an intelligence capable of solving said puzzle, but only here, not Venus.
Welcome back to the show! In today's episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by Jim Barrows!Mr. Warlights from AK starts off the show by accusing Matt of secretly believing in spirits because Matt is just a normal human like the rest of us, and regular humans all believe in spirits. You know, as opposed to all of the not regular humans who don't?Next is Isaiah from Korea who is calling to talk about the parental reaction to deconversion, or not sharing the religion of their parents, and why some parents react so harshly compared to others.Kevin from CA is convinced that a God exists because they encountered portal spirits who showed them a plane of existence that mirrors our own reality.JB from CO calls in to present problems they see with any reliance on naturalism regarding answering questions about our perceived reality.Next up is Jeremy from Fl who asks our hosts if a coincidence would ever be enough to convince our hosts that there is a god or supernatural power controlling the universe.Darius from CA claims to have an argument that will prove that no one really believes that a God exists. Care to explain how you managed to get into every person's head?Paul from PA doesn't understand why Atheists get to ask Theists for evidence supporting their beliefs, but Theists can't do the same for Atheists. Effectively, why don't Atheists have a burden of proof?Chris from Sweden proposes the Hitchens razor, “what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence,” and attempts to nullify it with a weird example of Matt questioning his mother about who his father is.Phillip from PA asks how someone would be able to discern the universe of some cosmic being sending you a message, or just something fabricated by your own mind.
Is the intellectual tradition of theism evidence in favor of it? What about the atheistic tradition? ... Does atheism sap your moral motivation? Do Christians even believe in ultimate justice? ... Do contingency arguments succeed? What does it mean for something to be necessary? Leave a voicemail at (734) 707-1940 (I'm only taking 3-4 calls per episode, so if you've already left one and haven't heard it yet, don't worry) YouTube Twitter @waldenpod @OnPanpsychism Patreon.com/waldenpod linktr.ee/emersongreen
If you can, please consider donating to my paypal/patreon to keep these debates and conversations going To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/TJump To donate to my PayPal (thank you): https://www.paypal.me/TomJump CashApp: $TjumpsChair Youtube Membership Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHXrvsK33VUEcpa4Ar0c0Sg/join Sponsor: Don Fullman, Skeptics of Middle Georgia https://www.facebook.com/groups/591799015097830/?ref=share TJump merch: https://linktr.ee/TJump.Merch (Mugs) https://www.etsy.com/shop/CustomLaserShop?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=626272860§ion_id=34163225 (Shirts) https://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n:7141123011,p_4:TJump+Merch&ref=bl_sl_s_ap_web_7141123011 TJump NFT's: https://opensea.io/collection/tjump -----------------------------------------CONNECT------------------------------------------ SOCIAL LINKS: Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tjump Discord: https://discord.io/tjump Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TJump_ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tom.jump.982 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tjump_/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tjumpschair Tictok: @tjumpschair TJump Gaming: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE6PnoL9QDYnkiUvykmlLQQ ----------------------------------------CONTACT------------------------------------------- Business email: tejump@comcast.net ---------------------------------------- Further Goals ------------------------------------- Publish my book on epistemology and morality Publish academic papers on solving problems in these fields Become President of the United States Solve world's biggest problems World domination #Atheism #Secularism #Humanism
Today's ID the Future continues the conversation between neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and neurotheologian Andrew Newberg. In this second and concluding part of their discussion, they further explore what experiments using brain scans reveal about how the brain is affected by meditation and mystical experiences, including near-death experiences. Also, what parts of the brain light up, and what parts go dormant, when someone is “speaking in tongues,” and how does someone who has this experience describe it, and does that description mesh with or clash with what turns up on the brain scans? Tune in to hear Newberg's answer to this and other issues related to the mind-brain problem and the mystical. This interview is posted here by permission of Mind Read More › Source
In this episode, I call for more restrictions on those worshipping orders of theists, see whether the power of shadowing is worth investing time in and give you a freebie! Welcome to Mythras Matters Season 1 Episode 39 - Dedicated Theists and Waring Vampires.SHOW LINKS:Magnitude and Intensity ➡➡ https://youtu.be/gHefChGHuRM
In today's episode of the Atheist Experience, Matt Dillahunty is joined by JMike!First up is John from CA who says that there are multiple pathways to reaching the truth about God's existence, and that a pathway available to one person might not be accessible to another.Next up is Dean from CA who believes that science doesn't require methodological naturalism, but does require philosophical naturalism. So scientists get to use unmeasurable supernatural phenomenon to create new theories? Seems legit.Questioning Theist from WA finds the host's arguements for God relatively convincing, but doesn't think their credible due to the caller's disagreements with the host's other positions. So if we both agree that the sun causes skin cancer, but you don't like my position on a women's rights to bodily autonomy, therefore you won't be a pro-sunscreener like me? Wut?Next up is Brandon from WA who claims that the time doesn't exist in the subconscious, and uses the perceived time before death as evidence of this.Serge from Australia is calling to ask why Atheists are asking for evidence and why Theists would want to present any. Why do beliefs require evidence?Next is Jonah from TN who is wondering if our host's think that this show and other like it have opened the floodgates for the online platforming of evangelicals or presups like Darth Dawkins?Next up is Mike from WA asks if naturalists have proven the natural origin of life. As the caller doesn't believe in naturalism, they conclude that Theists must have proven it by default.Next is David from TX is calling to argue that differences in epistemology allow for different standards of acceptable evidence and arguement. I mean sure, but that doesn't mean they should be accepted or be convincing.Tom from the UK is calling to present an arguement that can somehow disprove every God, Theist or Deist, regardless of their respective properties.Seth from CA from is calling to say that porn has perpetuated a bad perception of women, and therefore God exists? How did we get here?
"1) Atheists Believe Everything Came From Nothing Many theists believe there was once nothing, and then there was something—the universe—created by their god. And so they ask, “But if there is no god then how can something come from nothing?” This question has been asked for thousands of years, but now Quantum physics has provided a basis for some atheists, such as Lawrence Krauss, to indeed believe the universe comes from “nothing.” But Krauss doesn't speak for all atheists and he speaks of a very different kind of “nothing,” the kind where virtual particles are created from borrowed energy inside a vacuum. This is not even remotely close to what theists mean by the term “nothing.” When asked about the universe, most atheists simply stop somewhere along the lines of “the evidence suggests the universe began expanding approximately 13.77 billion years ago.” Beyond that I'm fine with “I don't know.” I don't need to know. I do not believe the universe came from “nothing” in the way theists use the word or in the way Krauss uses the word. I don‘t think there's enough evidence to reach a conclusion yet and I‘m fine with that. I've never met an atheist who believed everything comes from “nothing “in the way theists use the word and in my experience, only a minority subscribe to the theory Krauss puts forward. Theists may believe the universe sprang from nothing, but they then have the burden of proving there was ever “nothing” and that “something” requires any gods at all. 2) Atheists Have No Morals Humans are social beings, and as such we have morals. Some theists say atheists have no reason to be moral since we don't believe in a god to instruct or punish us. This claim seems rather disingenuous when one considers that most theists who say this wouldn't become immoral deviants overnight if they suddenly stopped believing in a god. Studies have shown our morals are a product of multiple factors. The Milgram experiment shows authority plays a major role. The Stanford prison experiment showed the same, but also displayed the role of social hierarchy. The “good or evil” puppet test for babies suggests we are all born with a basic sense of fairness, justice, and unfortunately, bigotry. Human morality is too complex to be explained by religion or lack of it. Millions of atheists across the globe live moral lives every day. Some don't. Neither do some believers. There are atheist charities and atheist criminals. There are religious charities and religious hate groups. Religious people and atheists can both behave morally or immorally because of—or wholly independent of—their religious beliefs. One doesn't necessarily lead to the other. Studies have shown the basis of human morality is present even before we're exposed to religion." --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/support
Having determined what the unborn is, we turn to the question of value. Do the unborn have moral value? What gives humans value? Is value objective and intrinsic, or subjective and intrinsic. Theists argue for the former, whereas non-theists the latter. Theists believe value is inherent to being human, whereas non-theists argue that it is based on humans' ability to exhibit certain functions. Virtually everyone agrees that born have value. If you are going to maintain that the unborn lack that same value, you must demonstrate some morally significant difference between the born and the unborn. There are only four differences between the born and unborn, and none of those differences are morally significant. It follows, then, that the unborn are just as valuable as the born. All humans, both born and unborn, have a right to life.
It is laugh or cry —the tragedy of humansin hormonal rage.* * *This is one I did not want to have to write. But owing to the resurgence of mass shootings — emerging to fill the gap, now that the COVID pandemic has cut us some slack — I feel I would be remiss to continue along the lines of treating less controversial dimensions of design thinking, Zen, and the reality we face. Perhaps because I have recently re-watched some old videos of George Carlin and Richard Pryor, I am subject to irresistible flashes of standup routines parodying relentless social issues, in that half-awake, half-asleep state of awareness known as hypnogogic or hypnopompic, depending on whether you are retreating from, or returning to, full consciousness, reminiscent of the old Taoist Zhuang Zhou's famous saying:I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?Butterflies, of course, are known for flitting from flower to flower, gathering nectar I suppose, but at the same time, distributing pollen for the reproductive needs of the plants in question, the flowers being their genitalia. A very public case of in flagrante delicto, usually considered an act of wrongdoing. Which brings up another quote, from the Precepts of Zen Buddhism as currently received in ceremony:Honor the body; do not engage in sexual misconductWhich, in turn, begs the question of which kind of sexual behaviors amount to misconduct, and which do not. A tellingly large portion of religious, philosophical and ideological beliefs is devoted to making the cultural norms on this question as explicit as possible, with variations from culture to culture, loosely construed as “values.” One need look no further than the animal kingdom, particularly that of the insect world, to find that, as far as Nature is concerned, anything goes, basically, and not to even mention the plant kingdom. If a human being were to emulate or imitate any one of thousands of behaviors found in the fecund orgy going on out there, they would be driven out of society with no mercy. Marquis de Sade, move over.This discussion inevitably moves into treacherous territory, skating on the thin ice covering theistic beliefs in the creation of humankind, and God's divine intervention from the get-go in our daily affairs, no pun. Theists, please forgive me in advance — I mean no disrespect — but as a designer I have to give license to an interpretation of Intelligent Design from a perspective embracing human frailty and folly. I find myself — or rather my unchained, dreamy unconscious — imagining the “design arguments” familiar from struggles with problem definition and solution in professional design circles, only the kind that must have arisen from time to time on “God's Design Committee.” Any one experienced in a design-build organization at any scale will tell you that teams of specialists typically actualize the output of the conceptual Genius, who himself is far too busy with bigger things to be bothered with the details.I suppose it would be theologically proper to speak of God's “angels” discussing these ideas in process, probably a committee of elders and perhaps some creative youngsters. Delegated the task of detailing the nuts and bolts of God's vision — as sentient beings evolve through the inevitable developmental stages, from the earliest glimmerings as single-celled organisms through ever-more complex forms, until finally arriving at the absolute apogee of all creation — thee and me, in all our homeliness.A few perhaps impertinent questions naturally arise as to how, exactly, this might have transpired. Of particular relevance to the current topic would be those surrounding the reproductive design of the only being “made in God's own image,” after all, and the lively debate that must have taken place amongst those responsible for final design intent — form, features and styling — and implementation. Surely there must have been some competing opinions as to best potential solutions.For example — and this pivots toward the issue of violence and its possible root causes, so buckle up (or conversely, loosen your belt) — the cultural meme against masturbation. Not a historian, so not sure how widespread this prohibition has been in the development of civilization (using the term loosely), but certainly grew up in the inhibitory climate of the 1950s, myself.As an aside, by the fourth grade, I could already draw pretty well, and had initiated a comic strip about our family's pet fox terrier, a couple of years earlier. My best friend in middle school brought what was called an “eight-pager” in those days, a primitive form of pornographic comic book featuring Betty Boop and Dick Tracy, which he had obtained from his older brother. I decided to try my hand at drawing naked women, and turned out to be pretty good at it, minus the details, of course, of which I was blissfully ignorant. When one of my sketches came to the attention of the teacher, she demanded to know who was the ringleader. All my friends in the classroom pointed at me. My first betrayal. Busted at 10 for running a porn ring.From a personal perspective, the intervening scope creep in porn — from the cartoon book I was exposed to, to the advent of Playboy Magazine, culminating in the cascade of virtual information overload available online today — is breathtaking. Whether this is having a majorly negative or positive impact on today's youth, I am not sure. In one sense, it is better to know, than to have to imagine, the gross details of “bumping uglies,” as a Hollywood film so charmingly put it. In another sense, a bit of mystery does not hurt. Ignorance is not necessarily bliss, in all cases.From a religio-theistic perspective — if I may be permitted the coinage — sexual exploration and giving in to our desires is not given much cover. From an early age we are admonished to not — as my beer-drinking, tobacco-chewing, Jehovah's Witness maternal grandmother put it so delicately — “go around acting like dogs.” In every other respect, of course, we virtually worship the dog, which, spelled backwards, is… never mind. Dog has buddha-nature. Let it go at that.But back to the committee: if God really didn't want us to play with ourselves, why did S/he make our hands come out exactly where our genitals are located? They — the latter, that is — could have been located in the middle of our back, where they would be virtually unreachable. Which would lend new meaning to the song, “Back-to-back; belly-to-belly; well I don't give a damn ‘cause I done that already.” I can remember from the tender age of six or so becoming aroused simply by sleeping on my belly. To this day I cannot see how that situation was somehow my fault.I could go on. But to return to the main thrust of the dreamworld: When the assignment hit the desks of the co-chairs (Heaven must be highly organized), they would have called the committee together for some initial brainstorming, perhaps with some high-level aspirational direction from the Big Guy himself. The team had just successfully completed the exhaustive establishment of all manner of mammals around the world, and were basking in the glow of that accomplishment. So when considering this next task — the ultimate challenge of the top-of-the-line model of sentient beings, a cut above all other animals, requiring a breakthrough yet to be determined — what did they do? Like most design teams in that situation, they played it safe. Landing on a small refinement of the latest in that series, with some tweaking, that turns out to be what we cavalierly call the “hairless ape.” A caveat — no slur intended on other innocent bipeds, who would likely regard some of our behavior as unforgivable, or at least unconscionable. One of Buddha's honorifics is translated “honored among bipeds.” Not making this up.So when it came to the reproductive system of a species designed for eternal life in Heaven if not on Earth, what did they come up with? Mammal is a mammal is a mammal. I think it likely that at least one of the committee members, perhaps a few of the younger and less jaded, might have objected. “You're telling me that this, our highest achievement, will have one with an innie and one with an outie — and have to stick the outie into the innie in order to reproduce? That's disgusting.” “Yeah, that's just another mammal, man!” “Why can't we do something nice and clean, like we did with that amoeba. Just split in half, clean break down the middle. No muss, no fuss.”Well, we can't blame them. Maybe the obiter dictum came down that He Who Shall Not Be Ignored wanted it that way. Just wanted to make things a little more challenging for his only begotten. Like that just-another-ape thing. Give the old ego something to work on. Just spit-balling here.Someone capable of thinking ahead would offer, “Well, then, for something this intelligent, we are going to have to make that feel really good. Otherwise you're going to get pushback. Have to stuff a lot of nerve endings in there, maybe sacrifice some in the back. Where, remember, I was the one who suggested we put the reproductive junk in the first place.” Some ideas die hard.So the tragedy of what we see happening today may have had comic cosmic beginnings. Nonetheless, it is necessary to take a sober look at where this particular madness is coming from. This constitutes a real exercise in problem definition. Which is our only hope of finding a solution.When we look at the mass murders now taking place weekly, like some kind of insane competition — and the parallel phenomenon of so-called suicide-bombers (some would say homicide-bombers) from a different culture — an eerie commonality emerges. One theory I came across in what passes for cool and collected scrutiny today is that these incidents are largely the brainchild of young men, probably “incels” — involuntary celibates — a term coined relatively recently. Which suggests that the prevailing witches' brew of seductive and restrictive cultural conditions may not have obtained in the past. Of course, a mere couple of centuries or so ago, no one person could have so casually pulled together the means of mass murder and destruction on offer, and on demand, today. Violent repression leads to violent expression.Speculation on the pathology of the madness, meaning its true causes, abounds. In ancient times, in one particular city-state in early Greece, the local overlord decided it would be a good idea to parade all nubile young women through the streets, nearly naked. Purportedly in order that the young men could see what ladies look like under their clothes, to remove some of the mystery, and relieve the urge, to that degree. Young men, in turn, apparently competed naked in sporting competitions, presumably with young women permitted to watch. The important thing was who won the game, after all. Nowadays maybe scantily-clad cheerleaders represent the vestigial remains of those traditions.Speaking of scantily-clad: “Quora Digest.” This site pops up on my email daily, maybe more than once. Under the guise of featuring factoids of general interest, including a heavy obsession with Beatlemania and Nazi stories, the lead item always has something to do with photos of youngish female celebrities: wardrobe failures, T&A, boobs and butts, beaver shots, et cetera. Soft porn. Rarely is the subject of the feature male nudity, and never their accidentally exposed parts.With this kind of “infotainment” readily available today, in our hyper-sexualized media and culture, even to those most sheltered by parental controls, it is no wonder that the youth are obsessed with sex. Boys in full hormonal rage are confronted with images of nearly-naked women on all fronts, and the harder porn message is that they all want it, bad. But when they turn to their own immediate circle, they are met with rejection, ridicule and scorn. Their personal reality is badly out of sync with their perceived social reality. One definition of madness.It reminds me of an incident a good friend in college once related. He was a lifeguard on the beaches of New York in his high-school days, when one day a little girl, maybe five years old, came running up to him wrapped in a towel. Suddenly she flung open the towel, revealing her stark naked body, shouting “No shame! No shame!” then ran off to accost her next convert.I, too, wish we could all walk around naked, with notable exceptions. If the Emperor literally has no clothes, you could literally not un-see that. I had a friend in Chicago who, with his two girlfriends after his first marriage ended, were nudists. He was well-endowed, worked as a trainer in a gym, and was always encouraging everyone to get naked, asserting that if you did, you would not have much more to hide. I knew him well enough to know that he still had plenty to hide, fully starkers, though I did not tell him so. There's more to that story, but I will leave you wanting more.Suppression and repression are defined as pretty much synonymous in the dictionary, so I do not know which would be more appropriate to define the attitude toward sexuality, and its public presentation, in the context under consideration. Currently parents are up in arms over teaching critical race theory, the racial replacement conspiracy, and sexuality, in schools. I think these are all facets of one private problem. And that the violence we are witness to all too frequently is its public manifestation. Like most maladies, it is not going to get any better on its own. The question is, What to do? First, define it.The reemergence of conservative ideology and values in countries dominated by Islamic extremists appears to be another example of this same syndrome. The cultural imperative may be the opposite — women required to go full burqa in public, accompanied by a male 24/7, et cetera, only serves to exacerbate the situation they are trying to control. Hiding the body may inflame the hormonal dysplasia afflicting the young men of the society. The proposed solution to the problem is different, but like the televangelist caught with the prostitute, making something absolutely evil is to make it absolutely irresistible. Especially if it feels good. Addiction occurs because the drugs work.Bodhidharma, the great sage credited with brining Zen Buddhism to China, is reputed to have encouraged fellow monks to watch animals fight, in order to learn how to defend themselves without weapons against armed opponents, by whom they were frequently attacked. Religious jealousy and animus are not recent phenomena. This was one of the origins of the martial arts, according to the story. But he did not suggest that they observe animals for instruction in the romantic arts as well. Monks were mostly celibate, if you accept the historicity of the written record. Likewise, we are not going to go there. I leave to your imagination what kind of Kama Sutra might have emerged.The disconnect between the social and personal worlds revealed by these mass killings, or even individual suicide, is a universal condition shared by all who have reached their maturity. Meditation is the direct way to resolve all such seeming contradictions. In this context, masturbation is not wrong, but meditation is better. Those who would argue that any waste of sperm is an abomination should consider the amount of semen in a typical ejaculation, estimated in the hundreds of millions. What are the odds that any but the most minuscule percentage will ever impregnate an egg? Do the math.Buddha himself is said to have lived a life of dissipation and self-gratification under the care of his family, who wanted him to inherit leadership of the Shakya clan, rather than take up the life of an itinerant religious leader, as had been prophesied. He is said to have become so “refined” — we would say “jaded” — that he no longer desired anything. This disaffection, along with his reputed estrangement from the intense suffering he witnessed, led to his leaving home on a quest for salvation, the beginning of Buddhism.But Buddha's ultimate insight became the basis for the Middle Way, the instruction that the extremes of self-gratification and self-mortification were equally “unworthy and unprofitable,” and the Eightfold Path, completing the triangle of findings, conclusions and recommendations that any worthwhile research study must produce, in order to be useful to oneself or others. For him, and for innumerable followers of the Zen way, these teachings stand as a most comprehensive definition of the fundamental problem of existence. They also offer a universal solution. The only thing is to get on with it.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell
In today's episode, I identify a new group of people that I will call the new classical theists. They are like new atheists in that they have a lot of strong rhetoric, but very little by way of cogent arguments. First, I offer a brief discussion on models of God. Then I consider different claims from people like Edward Feser, Thomas Weinandy, Gerald Bray, and Matthew Barrett. I articulate their arguments against neoclassical theism. I explain why their arguments are not solid critiques of neoclassical theism. One of the major problems is that nothing they say remotely resembles neoclassical theism or any serious model of God. Credits Host: R.T. Mullins (PhD, University of St Andrews) is a senior fellow at the Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki. Scientific Adviser and Show Manager: Ema Sani (PhD, University of Glasgow) is a postdoctoral fellow in biology at the University of Edinburgh. Music by Rockandmetal_domination – Raising-questions. We Butter the Bread with Butter--Jump n' Run. Burn it Down--Kill Their Idols. rtmullins.com Support the Show: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=66431474 https://ko-fi.com/rtmullins
In today's episode of Talk Heathen, we have Kenneth Leonard joined by Forrest Valkai who will fire away questions for theists to ponder.First caller is Nicholas from MO who is expressing the benefits of believing and how it makes him happy. He also believes that god's morality is the basis for existence and if there is a god, then we should be afraid of him. He talks about the Bible being old and the apostles dying for their beliefs.Consider the questions the hosts ask the caller: How much do you care about whether or not your beliefs are true? What happens when someone believes that blowing people up in a market makes themselves happy? Do people dying for beliefs make the claims true? If we are only talking about utility, can conflicting beliefs both be true at the same time? When is it time to believe a claim? What does the age of a book have to do with whether it's contents are true? How do you know that the religion you picked is the right one? You must have evidence that god exists in the first place. Just because something is useful, does not make it true. If you can show us evidence that your claims are true, then we will have to come with you.Rex in SC who has some questions about the possibilities of living in a future simulation. He is asking if it is reasonable to believe this hypothetical. We need to be careful with the terms we use and distinguish between reasonable, probable and possible. This whole idea hinges on the word, “if”. The one thing we can prove for sure is that we exist.Michael in CA is next who helps out the homeless by providing needed services in different areas, and he does this without god. The reason is to help people, and not because of god or religion. Be a good person because it is the right thing to do, not because someone is telling you to do it. What goes through your head when someone tells you that you can't be good without a god? The idea that a fear of hell needs to be there for people to do good is just absurd. You don't have to believe anything that is not true before you go out and be a good person.Ruth in CA has some comments about the belief of people healing faster when they believe and that her atheist body heals just as fast as others who have faith. She also makes the connection between debating science deniers and debating Flat Earthers. Forrest mentions that in these situations, there is value to the entire conversation being published so that others can benefit. This discussion turned to the popular question theists love: If we came from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys? Because we did not evolve from monkeys. People who ask this think that monkeys are less evolved than humans and there is a hierarchy of existence.Thank you everyone for tuning in to today's show! Theists please call in and be prepared to answer questions! Thank you to all the essential workers for continuing to show up and all that you do. See you next week!
Today we have JMike and Kenneth Leonard who show mastery of tackling caller's questions with Talk Heathen.First we have Billie in IN who wants to know how she can be in her job yet still be true to her values. She encounters people who say their religion makes them feel good and she is asked to promote prayer. The same set of skills apply to people regardless of their religion. If you see someone who is relying on their religion, we want to emphasize that life skills are not dependent on religion. Focus on giving people the skill sets they need to be successful.Next is Chuck from IL that wants to know about cave paintings showing dinosaurs. Discovering drawings in a cave before people had knowledge does not prove the Bible. Not only do we need to prove drawings relation to reality, but we also can't attribute them to any particular religion. Creationists are forced into not being honest. They buy into it because they need it to be true by starting from the conclusion and working their way backwards. Theists see a world that is consistent with their god because they do not understand how to do the work of thinking.Colton in IN who has managed to get out of religion, but believes there are aspects of the human mind that are in need of a higher power. The hosts work through the following questions with the caller: Does it matter that a person's beliefs are true? Why wouldn't logic and reason be superior to what actually helped you get out of religion? How do you differentiate between a deity and your imagination? You are more capable than you think you are and do not need the magic feather.Tomas in Argentina wants to understand the religious perspective better. Everybody is susceptible to believing nonsense. Try to have a principle of charity when reading where people are coming from. The more you read about decision making and belief, the more you can emphasize.Gene in TX has a challenge with a friend who is trying to convince him that god exists and that god is his go to guy. The friend is not open to listening to his perspective. How is the relationship beneficial? If someone calls you out of the blue to talk about god, it sounds like you need to figure out if he is okay and what is going on. Don't turn it into a lecture. Focus on why they accept this and what methodology was used.Will in CO had an awkward experience with someone from Billy Graham's organization trying to preach to him as they were helping with the horrific incident of his house burning down. They used a real fire to try and save you from a fictional fire. It would be worth it to set clear boundaries. It is like the service that is being performed is being held ransom for conversion. It is opportunistic to take people at their weakest moment. There are secular groups that do an excellent job with organizing and can help out with situations like this.Thank you for tuning in and we will see you next week!
Greetings Heathens! In today's episode of Talk Heathen, Kenneth Leonard is joined by Secular Rarity. Should be a good show, thanks for joining us today!Let's get to calls! Laura in the UK would love to know a couple arguments against a Deistic God and how she can better approach this conundrum. How do you formulate these arguments about a God that abandons their creation? Questioning this epistemology by way of investigating would be a good first step.No Contradictions in Canada is up next, he claims the word of God doesn't have contradictions, especially and specifically written in the Bible. Then goes on to say that the reporting of God's Word is rife with errors due to human error. How do we know what is “written by God” and what is reported by people? (Spoiler alert, the Bible is full of contradictions and written by people.) Interesting goalpost move there… If there are contingencies for the written word of God in scripture, adding more after the fact isn't logical.Jeff in Ohio is wanting to defend that the Bible doesn't have contradictions and instead is the written down word of the human condition. He seems to cling more to the literary alliteration versus the literal “truth” of it. Interesting, if everything points to the human condition, then how best do we find meaning or truth, the definition of reality and our place in it. Reality is what it is and that's what matters, says Kenneth. Truth is what is consistent with reality and reality is what it is. Good points Kenneth.Ozzie in the UK is asking how to approach or open up to religious family members in the US and how to deal with being among the religious as an Atheist. Great question Ozzie, Secular Rarity has a great way to talk about it. Yay Atheist Day on March 23rd!Ruth in California is calling in wanting to talk about Atheists and Theists getting married, dogs and cats living together... MASS HYSTERIA! Kidding, she talks about how her parents married and one is an atheist and one is a theist. She wanted to really emphasize that people with opposite views can live together peacefully. Great point Ruth! We definitely agree!That's our show for this week, please continue to be safe in your area, wear your mask, and please please PLEASE get vaccinated if you can. The world is better with you in it. See you next week!
If you can, please consider donating to my paypal/patreon to keep these debates and conversations going To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/TJump To donate to my PayPal (thank you): https://www.paypal.me/TomJump CashApp: $TjumpsChair Youtube Membership Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHXrvsK33VUEcpa4Ar0c0Sg/join Sponsor: Don Fullman, Skeptics of Middle Georgia https://www.facebook.com/groups/591799015097830/?ref=share TJump merch: https://linktr.ee/TJump.Merch (Mugs) https://www.etsy.com/shop/CustomLaserShop?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=626272860§ion_id=34163225 (Shirts) https://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n:7141123011,p_4:TJump+Merch&ref=bl_sl_s_ap_web_7141123011 -----------------------------------------CONNECT------------------------------------------ My Website: tomjump.org SOCIAL LINKS: Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tjump Discord: discord.io/tjump Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TJump_ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tom.jump.982 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tjump_/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tjumpschair Tictok: @tjumpschair TJump Gaming: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE6PnoL9QDYnkiUvykmlLQQ ----------------------------------------CONTACT------------------------------------------- Business email: tejump@comcast.net ---------------------------------------- Further Goals ------------------------------------- Publish my book on epistemology and morality Publish academic papers on solving problems in these fields Become President of the United States Solve world's biggest problems World domination #Atheism #Secularism #Humanism
The existence of God is a contentious topic in today's discourse. Theists propose arguments to prove God's existence whereas atheists counter those arguments with their criticisms and the cycle continues to go back and forth. In today's podcast, we are joined by Shaykh Hamza Karamali who will prove the existence of God by utilizing a version of the contingency argument. In a simple manner, Shaykh Hamza teaches our audience the fundamentals of the argument and how to counter popular criticisms of this argument.Timestamps:0:00 Intro2:50 Abu Hanifa vs Atheist8:25 Who Designed the Designer?28:04 Is the Universe Dependent?38:21 Why Can't a Dependent Thing Rely on a Dependent?54:01 What Does "Everything is Dependent" Entail? 57:58 Is Time Contingent?1:03:12 What is a Necessary Being?1:07:54 From Necessity to Allah1:17:33 Can Science Prove God's Existence?1:20:39 Fallacy of Composition1:30:59 Conclusion
Intelligent Design was a movement created in the 1980s to argue that a designer must exist because the universe is finely tuned. Advocates for this movement included Christians, Muslims, Agnostics, and even Atheists. Theists, including Muslims, have wholeheartedly accepted this movement to prove the existence of God; however, adopting this position comes with its weaknesses. In this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Shoaib Ahmed Malik to discuss the origins of Intelligent Design, the premises of its argument, and why Muslims should prefer the contingency argument over Intelligent Design.For more information about Intelligent Design, please see Chapters 6 and 7 in Dr. Shoaib's book, "Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazali and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm."*Disclaimer: We believe the universe is finely tuned. Our criticism is against the Intelligent Design movement. Timestamps: 0:00 Intro3:54 What is Intelligent Design?8:31 Intelligent Design Argument15:34 Contingency & Design34:07 Why Muslims following Intelligent Design is problematic52:08 Philosophy of Science1:01:07 Advice for Students Learning Islam and Science1:12:49 Conclusion
Atheists don't believe in God. Agnostics don't know if God exists. Theists believe in God. What do Apatheists believe? In short, they simply do not care to answer the question of God's existence. How can you share the gospel with someone who doesn't care?As Western culture becomes increasingly indifferent to questions of faith, diverted by secularism, comfort, and distraction, Christians today encounter many people who don't so much doubt the existence of a God, but are more or less apathetic about God. For maybe the first time in human history, many apatheistic individuals today are too busy to bother with pondering the existence of God. Kyle Beshears joins Hank Hanegraaff to discuss his book Apatheism: How We Share When They Don't Care, the origins of apatheism, how it has grown to epidemic levels in society today and most importantly, how Christians might impact the indifference of apatheists and impact them with gospel truth.For more information on how to receive Apatheism: How We Share When They Don't Care for your partnering gift please click here. https://www.equip.org/product/cri-resource-apatheism-how-we-share-when-they-dont-care-hup/Topics discussed include: What is apatheism? both a belief and a feeling towards theism (5:45); what are the conditions under which apatheism flourishes in a society? (7:00); how attempts at evangelism made Kyle Beshears aware of apatheism (10:25); Christians increasingly being influenced by the culture and experiencing apathesm as well (14:45); the importance of apologetics (21:15); similarities between apatheism and practical atheism (25:15); how our post-truth culture relates to apatheism (27:40); the continued impact of the enlightenment on the growth of apatheism (32:35); what is “appiness”? (35:35); are we too comfortable to care about God? (39:00); is the Bible still relevant today? (43:20); what is the difference between joy and happiness? (49:25); why the problems with the prosperity Gospel (55:20); how a failure to embrace spiritual disciplines can lead to apatheism in our lives (57:30); Apatheism: How We Share When They Don't Care—the key to evangelism in our modern apatheistic environment (1:04:30); the impact that scientific materialism has had on our culture and belief in God (1:12:30); truth claims in a pluralistic society (1:16:55); do we need to repent of our sins of distraction? (1:23:05). Listen to Hank's podcast and follow Hank off the grid where he is joined by some of the brightest minds discussing topics you care about. Get equipped to be a cultural change agent.Archived episodes are on our Website and available at the additional channels listed below.You can help spread the word about Hank Unplugged by giving us a rating and review from the other channels we are listed on.
Theists are faced with a puzzle. If God's foreknows that I will do something before I do it, then is it the case that I must do that thing? And If I must do that thing, am I really free? In this interview, Dr. Taylor Cyr (pronounced "seer") joins me to discuss various solutions to this puzzle. He is a philosophy professor at Samford University. For more information, check out his website linked below. https://taylorwcyr.com/ Please consider supporting me on patreon. Go to https://www.patreon.com/theanalyticchristian For more resources on Christian philosophy & theology check out my website. https://www.theanalyticchristian.com
LINKS TO GUESTS:Sal: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnPAmVCX0ZuTn8ffEXsi38ADetroyer: https://twitter.com/detroyerdiscordPogan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9YMiMt9w0EulPP8oQOzgPQCA Catholic: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiQKvTAUpLcGOc6aTNZNHhQhttps://discord.com/invite/hsfGVSke4hLink to our guest moderator, Praise: https://www.youtube.com/user/PraiseJesusTheChristLink to Amy's after-show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12LPqBso-as________________________________________________________OUR CHANNEL & HOW TO SUPPORT ITMy name is James Kunz and I'm a PhD student in psychology in Colorado, US. In my own academic journey, many academics (though not all) have become closed to controversial people or topics being debated/discussed. Thus, my goal is to provide a non-partisan and truly-tolerant debate platform that welcomes everyone. If this resonates with you personally, consider supporting our neutral platform in one of the following ways:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ModernDayDebatePayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/ModernDayDebateOR support us by using our Amazon portal link: https://www.amazon.com/shop/modern-daydebate ________________________________________________________________________________OUR SOCIAL MEDIATwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/moderndaydebateDiscord: https://discord.gg/Qp7VtZ2Twitter: https://twitter.com/ModernDayDebate (@ModernDayDebate)Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ModernDayDebate______________________________________________________________________________________DISCLAIMER The views shared by guests on Modern-Day Debate are not necessarily representative of the views of Modern-Day Debate, James, or any university he has or has had any affiliation with. This includes our debate podcast
This episode is all about the crazy thins that theists say to atheists... and how we deal with it...
Prius free Trump Caravan Christopher: "I start off slow and move into fast." James: "I start off slow and I stay slow." "I like Creme de Mint on my ice-cream." Christopher cheats on James (coffee) Before the sun comes out and kills everyone James is so thoughtful that he wakes up before his alarm goes off so he doesn't disturb the rest of his household MacApline's Creepy high schools James is too dead to have COVID Christopher pranks his friends into thinking the train hit him James doesn't trust his brain Free will is an illusion Christopher smells his way through life Christopher listens to lights Brains, brains, brains Mixed up To Sail Beyond the Sunset and I Will Fear No Evil Where is the thinker of your thoughts Souls are an evolutionary advantage Monsters with blue eyes (blue eye mutation is 6000 years old) Dominant & Recessive gene theory Generational pressure influences which genes get expressed (Epigenetics) The lack of proof is not proof Theists and antitheists are both silly Christopher sings at the ghost The ghosts at San Carlos Hotel love Christopher Everything from the exploration of consciousness to dragon eyeballs
In this Episode, Vidhaan talks about the following: 1) Free Will, another made up fiction? 2)Role of fiction 3)What made Humans dominate all species on Earth? 4)Age of Theists, 5) Age of Humanism 6) Age of Dataism 7) Humans are hackable 8) Immortality Project 9)Good News 10) Bad News. This is an episode filled with cinematic music and effects to keep you gripped and leave you craving for more. Enjoy the Episode! The above episode is my thought process triggered after reading the works of Yuval Noah Harari. His works and vision are mind blowing. Read 'Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari' now : https://amzn.to/2U5W3fG Listen the book on Audible with a free book through this link: https://amzn.to/3lhqETt Happy Learning. Keep thriving! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the20sshow/message
Quoting From Their Holy Book 2) You're Going to Burn in Hell 3) You Can't Prove God Doesn't Exist 4) Everything is Subjective So Nothing You Say Matters This one usually comes up in discussions on morality. Just because someone says morality is subjective does not mean everything else is. Sometimes it comes up when someone acknowledges perspective plays a role in how observations may be interpreted. But that doesn't mean everything is subjective either. Flailing straw men around doesn't help an argument. It just looks like you're throwing a fit. 5) I'm Not Religious. I Have a Personal Relationship With God 6) Who Created the Universe, the Earth and the First People? 7) Why Are There Still Monkeys? 8) I'll Pray For You 9) You Can See God in Everything Europeans thought they saw God in everything back in the 14th century. When the bubonic plague broke out, they figured God must be pretty pissed off so they went and started the Inquisition. Theists tend to talk about fluffier things when saying this though, like bunnies and flowers. Atheists see beauty in the world too, but we don't need to attribute that to a god. 10) You Can't See Air, But You Know It's There, Just Like God Believe it or not This one is actually taught in Islamic elementary schools. Sorry kids, but when you grow up and you're still using the same arguments from elementary, that means you haven't progressed any. We can detect and measure air. We can detect and measure the contents of air. http://www.atheistrepublic.com/blog/lee-m/ten-stupid-things-theists-say Is Atheism a LACK of Belief in God or a BELIEF that there is no God? Romans 1:20-23 says the following pertaining to atheism and the atheists suppression of belief in God: For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man — and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore atheists not only suppress the existence of God in their lives but through the theory of evolution they have replaced God with the worship of animals and worship of themselves. The theories of evolution is what has become the atheist's religion. Therefore atheism cannot be defined as a LACK of belief because the atheist simply CHOOSES to SUPPRESS his belief in God. Atheism is a CHOICE. It is a belief system. If God Exists Would You Become A Christian? How Do You Determine What's Right & What's Wrong? How Do You Deal With Guilt & Sin in Your Life? Do You Act According To What You Believe or According To What You Lack In Belief? Can You Prove HOW the Universe Was Created? Can You Prove That God Does Not Exist? You might live in the bible belt if… If there is a church for every 4 people and 2 in the mall if your local public high school invites an area church to hold a mandatory evangelistic meeting on campus in the middle of the school day If, when you move to a new area, the first thing they ask you is “where do you work?” The second question, without fail is: “where do you go to church?” If they play only Christian music at your doctor's office. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theadamparadox/support
@aigkenham discusses his latest project. @roryshiner, @mpjensen and @jarrodmckenna join me to talk about their faith and what we as atheists share in common.
@jmhoweth, @BobTompkins93 and @RyanPullin come on to interview me about atheism. @francosoup and @atheistblobfish work on getting Ralene reinstated at Living Waters.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
