Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m your
host, InaneDragon!
And tonight, we’re looking at a video that
many, many, many people have already addressed.
Which is entirely intentional on my part.
It’s part of my point that at least ten
other atheists have responded to this video
before I touched it.
We’re looking at Stephany Thomason’s “Eleven
Questions Atheists Cannot Answer”, making
this at least the eleventh time an atheist
has answered her questions.
As I’ve said, many atheists have answered
these questions, thus proving Stephany wrong.
Worse still, she knew answers to all of these
questions already exist.
She’s attempted to refute them on her blog.
So I have to ask, and this is directed at
Stephany directly, when did Jesus say you
should lie when presenting apologetics on
his behalf?
Isn’t that a sin?
Seriously, ladies and gentlemen, there are
entire books written on many of the topics
Stephany treats as unanswerable by atheists.
And these books were, if it weren’t already
clear, written by atheists.
Some questions, I’ll be glossing over here,
other than to point to decent sources for
quick answers.
When they come up, I’ll explain why I’m
giving them short shrift.
I’m not going to address these here because
they’re at least an entire video in their
own right.
However, the Godless Wolf provides a decent
crib notes version of why these questions
are easy to answer.
However, I do want to point out that these
questions are poorly asked.
Stephany, you’re assuming an absolutely
uncritical reading of the gospels and Acts.
We have strong reason to read these books
critically as they are explicitly propaganda
pieces, not objective historical documents.
Worse, you fail to explain that you are really
asking why Christianity grew in the face of
constant persecution prior to 313.
And this is such a bad thing because you not
only try to hide this aspect of the question
so you can “gotcha” people who don’t
address it, but because Christianity demonstrably
wasn’t facing constant persecution prior
to 313.
Before the mid third century, persecution
was sporadic and entirely localized.
To the point that Pliny the Younger had no
idea what to do with Christians and the emperor
could think of no precedent upon which he
should rely.
And this was after Nero’s persecution in
Rome.
Even after the first imperial decrees against
Christianity, enforcement of these decrees
was sporadic and inconsistent.
The fact is that while oppression did happen
and martyrs were made, it was nowhere near
so severe as to impede the growth of the first
evangelical religion that demanded allegiance
to a single god.
For an authoritative read on this era in Christian
history, I recommend people read Bart Erhman’s
“The Triumph of Christianity”.
Bart, by the way, is an atheist who answered
questions one and two with academic rigor
and thorough research before Stephany made
this video.
So you lied, Stephany.
You already knew these questions had been
answered, you merely reject those answers
because you uncritically accept the gospel
accounts and the book of Acts.
There are many good hypotheses addressing
this topic.
However, here I want to get on Stephany’s
case about something she’s clearly uncomfortable
with.
What is wrong with admitting ignorance, Stephany?
Why is “I don’t know” such a frightening
phrase to you that you laughed and accused
Matt Dillahunty of distancing himself from
Chariots of Fire over the use of the phrase
“I Don’t know”?
Honestly, other than asserting “god did
it”, you can not answer this question any
better than Sean Carroll, an atheist cosmologist,
can answer it.
And asserting “god did it” when it is
more accurate to admit ignorance is fallacious
reasoning, commonly referred to as a “god
of the gaps”.
You don’t want to cram your god into a gap,
because we will eventually close it and your
god will be forced to vanish as a result.
It depends entirely on what you mean by “spiritual”.
But, because genetic and cultural co-evolution
for cooperation coupled with a predisposition
to recognize intent behind any change in environment
favored belief in supernatural entities and
powers of varied forms, we expect humans to
believe in gods and form religions.
At least, that’s the best answer we have
courtesy of atheists John Haidt and E. O Wilson,
as they explain in their books “The Righteous
Mind” and “Darwin’s Cathedral”, respectively.
There are many other answers, and almost all
of them make more sense if there is no god
than if there is a god.
Only confirmation bias and your desire for
there to be a god allow you to pretend that
these answers aren’t out there, and aren’t
credible.
Because I know you’re aware of the answers.
Again, we find you to be lying right out of
the gate, Stephany.
You knew these questions could be answered
trivially, is it any surprise that I’m the
eleventh person to answer your questions?
Current best answer?
Consciousness, as we commonly use it, is an
emergent property of the innumerable interactions
of the neurons in your brain.
Again, this is a case where you’re cramming
your god into gaps in our scientific knowledge.
And again, this is a case where we know people
have answered this question before with alacrity,
you just don’t like their answers.
In this case it’s Sam Harris & Daniel Dennett
in more than a few different books.
Now, I’ll grant that what I’ve read of
both leaves me unsatisfied, but it doesn’t
make their answers necessarily wrong.
Just, perhaps, incomplete.
Or, maybe I want consciousness to do too much
work and I’m wrong in my expectations.
As a running theme, that seems to be the trap
you fall into yourself, Stephany.
Beyond the musings of Harris and Dennett,
there are a number of research programs into
consciousness that I’ll link in the description
below.
Not one of them has come to the conclusion
“therefore god” or even “therefore souls”.
Another case of a poorly worded question.
Our “sixth sense”, technically, is what
psychologists call proprioception.
It’s our awareness of our bodily position,
even in absence of feedback from the other
five senses.
Proprioception is what enables you to touch
a body part you can’t see.
For example, close your eyes and touch your
nose with your right hand.
How’d you manage to do that?
Because proprioception enables you to recognize
the relative locations of your right hand
and your nose, as well as the movement necessary
to lead the one to the other.
Of course, we’re well aware that this isn’t
what you mean by a “sixth sense”.
You want to fantasize about ESP, out of body
experiences, and so much more.
Well, some of this arises from sub-conscious
awareness as several of your respondents have
already pointed out.
And some of it is made up bullshit that has
been repeatedly debunked by the likes of James
Randi or Penn & Teller’s Bullshit!
Television show.
Sorry, Stephany, but a basic understanding
of the world would demonstrate that atheists
don’t need to explain supernatural powers,
you have to prove they actually exist first.
This is 
the question that made me want to respond
to your video.
Because here, you’re either wildly misinformed
about what’s going on, quote mining like
the devil, or both.
For example, when you say “MIT and Stanford
Physicists”, what you should say is “an
MIT and two Stanford physicists”.
Because the physics departments, generally,
at either MIT or Stanford do not say this
at all.
Furthermore, you’re misrepresenting their
paper.
When they discuss how our universe had to
overcome near miraculous odds to exist, they
are presupposing just one of several cosmologies
that are currently under examination.
Worse for you, the cosmology they’re examining
asserts that all possible universes will necessarily
exist.
Including ours.
In other words, while the odds are “near
miraculous” that our universe would exist
if there were only one universe, their own
model that creates these odds also assumes
that all possible universes, including ours,
must exist.
So it is, in effect, an argument against your
position, not for it.
Since you have, to all intents and purposes,
asked the same question twice to pad your
resume, I’ll group them together for you.
And this is one where absolutely every single
atheist to have answered this video has done
well enough that there is no point in me responding
again.
Viewers could pretty much choose any of the
videos in the playlist and get a solid, comprehensive,
explanation of this.
If you want a more academic take on it, check
out The Red Queen by Matt Ridley, The Evolution
of God, by Robert Wright, Guns Germs and Steel
by Jared Diamond, The Moral Landscape by Sam
Harris, The Better Angels of Our Nature by
Steven Pinker, and The Righteous Mind by John
Haidt.
All of these and hundreds more offer up answers,
explanations, and in depth discussions about
the origin and nature of human morality.
Some blend of many of these ideas is likely
going to eventually emerge as the consensus
position of psychology and biology in offering
a comprehensive explanation of why we have
morals and why we can be moral even without
a God glaring down at us in our imaginations.
That you ignore all of this in choosing to
claim atheists can’t answer your questions,
Stephany, makes you incredibly dishonest.
You have either never done any research on
your own or willfully ignore everything that
disagrees with your personal viewpoint.
We, as a collective, have no greater purpose.
And how wonderful is that?
If some celestial dictator told you the meaning
of your life, you’re just a puppet on a
string.
As a free agent in the world, bound only by
the limits of physics, chemistry, and biology,
you can shape your own purpose.
The notion of a greater purpose is toxic.
This utopian ideal of a collective goal or
purpose is the parent of fascism, communism,
and every theocratic dictatorship we’ve
ever seen.
Fuck that.
I’d much rather we remain free to decide
our own route through life.
And, in actual practice, so do you.
How can I read your mind like that?
Simple, I’ve never once seen you advocate
for executing every person who doesn’t live
the life you think God demands of them.
You are not a radical sociopath, you recognize
the value of plurality at its core even if
you try to deny it by pushing your narrow
Christian morals onto others by advocating
against legal marijuana, the morality of non-traditional
relationships, and all the rest.
None of it are you willing to impose with
the death penalty.
Good on you, you’re better than your religion.
Because there is no god.
Evil is our word.
It describes things that harm humans and nature.
At least, on those occasions when we value
nature.
Evil is the label we put on all the shit your
god would be responsible for that never should
have happened.
Natural evils like Katrina, the volcanic eruption
in Hawaii, the Tsunamis that ravage the Phillipines.
Blights and droughts in already-starving Africa.
Cancer.
All of these are things for which your God
would be to blame.
Evil makes perfect sense if there is no god.
But theodicy only works by neutering God.
There are an infinite number of ways God could
have stopped Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and the
Un Family if he existed.
And all without violating their free will
or anyone else’s.
Because he’s god, with all logically possible
power at his fingertips.
So their existence is proof that your loving
God doesn’t exist.
How dare you try to flip this question around,
when your God is supposed to care about our
world?
His absence in opposing evil is proof that
Jesus is a lie.
Don’t try to give us this pathetic crap
about it being “part of God’s plan”
or “he works in mysterious ways”.
Horse shit.
No loving God needs to give children or animals
cancer to work his will.
And your own Bible has God asserting that
humans have the same understanding of good
and evil as he does, in Genesis chapter 3,
verse 22.
To say I can’t judge your God is to spit
in his own face.
So, the obvious answer is, evil exists because
we live in a universe lacking any benevolent
powerful entities that transcend time and
space.
This is part of why I am an atheist, and makes
me wonder just what you were smoking to include
this as your eleventh question.
Even if it’s really your 9th, since questions
1 and 2 and questions 8 and 9 are basically
the same damned question.
And, as with every other question, you sit
there smuggly pretending atheists can’t
answer this, even when in this particular
case the answer was first formulated before
the new testament was written.
You cannot be ignorant of these answers and
therefore you must be dishonest.
Stephany, get real.
Become a servant to truth instead of a musty
book.
Even if it still leads you to a god, I’d
at least be able to respect you.
I’m InaneDragon & if you’ve enjoyed this
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As do you, for listening this long.
Thank you all, and have a good night.
