Shadowing Practice: Every Argument For Atheism - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
A new, fast -growing Christian YouTube channel, RedeemedZoomer, put out a video promisingly called All Atheist Arguments Answered in 10 Minutes.
2
Let's see how he does.
3
Atheists have a lot of arguments, but they never really think of anything new that the church hasn't had answers to for the past 2 ,000 years.
4
So let's answer them.
5
Religion causes wars.
6
Well, actually, only 7 % of all human wars were caused by religion.
7
And if you remove Islamic wars, that number drops down to 3%.
8
Right off the bat, this isn't really an argument for atheism, just for the idea that religion is harmful.
9
Even if religion caused no wars at all, that's no actual evidence that any religion is true.
10
Still, even if religion only causes 7 % of wars, isn't it a problem that it causes any wars?
11
The claim is not that religion causes all wars, or even most wars, just that it sometimes causes wars.
12
I mean, to use a crude example, as far as I'm aware, National Socialism only ever caused one war.
13
One out of the thousands that we have documented.
14
But of course, even if the vast majority of wars were started for other reasons, it's still a problem that this caused a war at all.
15
Not a perfect analogy, but you get what I'm saying.
16
And it's worth asking, wherever there is a totally non -religious conflict, do you think that such a conflict would be calmed or exacerbated if we were to introduce religious conviction?
17
Perhaps only the correct religion would make things better.
18
That's fine, you can hold that position, but then even a believer can accept that many religions do often cause conflicts, or at least make them worse.
19
A lot of evil has been done in the name of religion.
20
This is true, but the most murderous people in human history have been atheists.
21
This doesn't mean religion is true, it just means you can't use that as an argument against it.
22
I just want to point out that whilst religious violence is motivated by religious beliefs, atheist violence is rarely motivated by atheism.
23
It's at best permitted by someone's atheism, but then religious violence is also permitted by the person's religious beliefs, as well as being encouraged by them.
24
But okay, on the Hitler thing, look, I don't know what his religious views really were.
25
Some say he was a Catholic, the religion he was baptised into and confirmed in.
26
He did also write in Mein Kampf that, quote, in standing guard against the Jew, I am doing the handiwork of the Lord.
27
Not a particularly atheist statement.
28
But then Hitler was probably quite good at, well, lying, and perhaps the belief of some even to this day
29
that he was a convicted theist is just a testament to the strength of his propagandic efforts.
30
But if he was lying, and didn't actually believe in God,
31
then it's worth asking why he would think that lying about being religious would make his fascist campaign more successful.
32
Whatever his own views personally were, he had every Nazi soldier wear belt buckles inscribed with the words, God mit uns, God with us.
33
Clearly, even if he was personally an atheist, Hitler recognized that belief in a creator God can give people the confidence to do all kinds of evil.
34
If you were born somewhere else, you wouldn't be a Christian.
35
Okay, and if you were born somewhere else, you wouldn't be an atheist.
36
Everyone's beliefs are shaped by their context.
37
Well, this just misses the point.
38
Sure, all beliefs are shaped by their geography, but atheists don't claim that there's a God supervising the world who proactively wants everyone to believe in him.
39
If such a God did exist, would we really expect him to reveal himself more strongly and reliably to, say, Americans than to Indonesians?
40
It seems incredibly unlikely and unfair that your chances of being saved, of coming to know the true God,
41
could be determined by where you happen to be born.
42
If atheism is true, however, it's no surprise that where you're born shapes your religious beliefs, because that's what we think religious beliefs are,
43
products of local mythology or political dominance.
44
So yeah, if I was born in Indonesia, I'd probably be a Muslim.
45
But whilst that's exactly what we'd expect if there is no universal God supervising everything, and it's all just a product of local mythology,
46
it's nothing like what we'd expect if there were a real universal God.
47
By the way, I call this the genetic fallacy fallacy.
48
How do you know which religion is true?
49
Well, everyone, religious or not, has faith in a certain worldview.
50
It's just that some worldviews are called religions and some are secular.
51
But everyone has to ask the question of which worldview best explains the world.
52
Nothing to add here.
53
Yes, every worldview should be justified.
54
There's no scientific proof that God exists.
55
Well, by definition, science can only prove things inside the natural world.
56
And by definition, God is something outside the natural world.
57
So science can neither prove nor disprove God.
58
That's fine if you want to say that science has nothing to say about God, but you've just undercut a great deal of natural theology.
59
You're disagreeing with everybody who tries to prove God's existence with the fine -tuning argument, or the Big Bang in the Kalam cosmological argument,
60
irreducible complexity, arguments about the genetic code, indeed, even the historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus.
61
These just automatically cannot work in establishing God's existence since material investigations can't bear on the supernatural.
62
Well, this is fortuitous.
63
Literally, as I was recording this video, Redeemed Zoomer released a new video called All Arguments for God Explained in 10 Minutes.
64
Now, given that he's just said that science can never bear on the supernatural and can't prove or disprove God's existence, just take a listen to this.
65
Things in nature, like the human cell or the ecosystem of the world, are very complex and they work like a machine.
66
Now, Darwinian evolution can explain why that is, but there's also things Darwinian evolution can't explain, like the four constants of the universe.
67
There are physical constants, like the gravitational constant and the electron charge, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force, that are perfectly fine -tuned,
68
such that if they were even the slightest bit different, the entire universe would immediately collapse in on itself.
69
Sounds pretty, I don't know, scientific, doesn't it?
70
So it seems like when an atheist is arguing that science disproves God.
71
No, no, science and religion are totally separate, non -overlapping magisteria.
72
But when it comes to proving God's existence, hey, look at these finely tuned constants.
73
Isn't that amazing?
74
There's no evidence of anything supernatural.
75
Well, that's just not accurate.
76
There are medically documented cases of people with demonic possessions speaking in languages they don't know, for example, and people with near -death experiences getting information they never had access to.
77
Okay, medically documented cases of people with demonic possession sounds awesome.
78
I would love to take a look at that, you know, medical documentation.
79
I get the feeling you're not going to provide any, are you?
80
Fear not, we do have one source that was flashed on screen, a book by Richard Gallagher called Demonic Foes.
81
So, okay, I bought the book.
82
I only skimmed through a couple of chapters, but I did also watch a few of Dr. Gallagher's interviews.
83
In the book, he talks about some of his experiences with people he believes were demonically possessed, including a woman he calls Julia.
84
Evidence for demonic possession consists principally in people like Julia having special powers.
85
One night, Dr Gallagher heard his normally peaceful cats screeching and fighting with each other.
86
And the next day, he meets a woman he calls Julia, who says, How'd you like those cats last night?
87
Weird, for sure, but not quite yet the medical documentation that we're seeking.
88
So then, what other special powers did Julia have?
89
Well, Dr Gallagher writes in the Washington Post of how she knew things that she couldn't have known naturally, including exactly how his mother had died years ago.
90
But also, get this, she could tell some people their secret weaknesses, such as undue pride.
91
Okay, but how about this?
92
Julia, during various exorcisms, was suddenly able to speak fluent Latin out of nowhere.
93
We're not told what she said, of course, but it happened.
94
And, if you can believe it, in one ceremony she actually levitated out of her chair, literally floating in the air for half an hour.
95
Atheists cannot explain that one.
96
But we don't have to take Dr Gallagher's word for this.
97
Oh no, actually we can't, because he didn't see this himself.
98
But we can just accept that the people who did see her levitate and told him about it were super trustworthy.
99
We'll just have to take his word about somebody else's word.
100
That's not to say that I can prove she wasn't possessed, or that Dr Gallagher's priests were mistaken or lying, but this book, which is the only citation Redeemed Zuma provided,
101
hardly fulfills my evidential expectations.
102
But here's the thing, even if you could provide some kind of actual medical evidence for demonic possession,
103
didn't you literally just say that science can never prove anything supernatural?
104
Maybe you just think this wouldn't count as scientific evidence, but if there can't be any scientific documentation of demonic possession,
105
then what kind of evidence are you talking about here?
106
Anecdotes?
107
Testimony?
108
It's just not doing it for me.
109
Of course, people are always making claims about the way that things occurred, and today, information is released faster than it can be verified,
110
and on the internet, manipulative algorithms can often reinforce our own confirmation biases, which is why platforms like Ground News are more essential than ever.
111
I think that what they're doing is really important, and not just because they've been a longtime sponsor of this channel.
112
Did you know that religious people may have coped better than atheists with the Covid pandemic?
113
If you only read left -wing sources, you might not.
114
Ground News shows me that this story only has coverage in centre or right -leaning outlets.
115
And I can compare the headlines.
116
One right -leaning source says religious communities coped better during Covid -19 pandemic.
117
Studies show.
118
Whereas the centrist BBC writes that Cambridge University studies claim that religion may have helped during Covid.
119
The story is that religious communities coped better with the pandemic, but whereas one source implies that we know this is because they're religious,
120
the other leaves a bit more room for ambiguity.
121
In today's complex information environment, Ground News stands out as an invaluable tool to help traverse the intricacies of news reporting.
122
It ensures that we're all equipped for more insightful, informed conversations about pivotal contemporary issues.
123
To explore this resource, visit ground .news forward slash alexoc and get access for under a dollar a month.
124
Or use my link to get a 30 % discount on their Vantage subscription.
125
Back to the video.
126
The Bible has contradictions.
127
Okay, you think you've found an apparent contradiction that the church hasn't known about for 2 ,000 years?
128
Every apparent contradiction can be explained by understanding just a little bit of theology.
129
Every contradiction?
130
All of them?
131
Look, you're right, I wouldn't claim to have discovered some new contradiction that nobody has noticed before.
132
I would just say that the proposed solutions to many of them seem to be, shall we say, theologically motivated.
133
The one contradiction that you flashed on screen is probably the least troublesome contradiction that you could possibly have chosen.
134
So, how about, for instance, 1.
135
Matthew and Luke give different genealogies for Jesus' lineage.
136
Matthew says that Jacob is Joseph's father, whilst Luke says that Heli is Joseph's father.
137
Some people claim that Luke is actually giving Mary's lineage, while Matthew is giving Joseph's.
138
Heli is Mary's father, it's just recorded as Joseph's father, because Joseph was Heli's son -in -law.
139
Augustine's solution to this problem was to suggest that Joseph was actually adopted, so Jacob is his biological father, while Heli is his adopted father.
140
And sure, these are both possible, but are they really the most natural interpretation of the text if you're not already motivated to harmonize the accounts?
141
It's not impossible to reconcile them in this kind of way, but doesn't the need to do so at least slightly lower your credence in the 2.
142
The date of Jesus' crucifixion.
143
Was it after the Passover, as the Synoptic Gospels claim, or the eve of the Passover, as John's Gospel claims?
144
My friend and biblical scholar John Nelson just wrote an article on this contradiction.
145
He's a Christian who used to think it could be reconciled, but changed his mind.
146
I'll link it down below.
147
His new substack, BehindTheGospels .com, is well worth subscribing to if you're into this kind of thing.
148
3. In John's Gospel, after finding Jesus' tomb empty, Mary Magdalene runs to Simon Peter and John and says,
149
they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have put him.
150
Strange thing for her to say if, as Matthew records, an angel appeared to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, telling her exactly where Jesus had gone,
151
and then Jesus himself appeared to her when she was on the way to the disciples.
152
Why would she then have said to the disciples, we do not know where they have taken the Lord.
153
Four, Jesus is sending out his disciples to teach.
154
In Mark, he tells them, take nothing for the journey except a staff.
155
In Luke, he tells them, take nothing for the journey, no staff.
156
So, do they take a staff or not?
157
In Barnabas Ahern's essay, Staff or No Staff, he suggests that there are two types of staff that Jesus is talking about in either account.
158
He points out that Augustine distinguished between a real staff in Matthew's gospel and a metaphorical staff in Mark's gospel.
159
I mean, sure, if you absolutely need the accounts to harmonize, you can suggest all kinds of reasons for this apparent contradiction.
160
But wouldn't it be easier to just say that, yeah, the accounts are different?
161
Because, look, who the hell cares about small contradictions?
162
If these documents are truly historical accounts, we'd expect them to have minor differences as people try to accurately remember events and remember them slightly differently.
163
If two witnesses in a court case give a story that perfectly matches up in every single detail, that's actually cause for suspicion.
164
It's evidence that they've made up the story and rehearsed it.
165
So I don't see contradictions like this as a big problem, but you want to claim that there are no contradictions to be found at all.
166
And I'm sorry, but I'm just not convinced that these kinds of explanations cut the mustard seed.
167
The Gospels were anonymous.
168
Okay, anonymous doesn't mean we have no idea who wrote them.
169
It just means the names of the authors aren't signed in the text itself.
170
But we literally have writings from church fathers who knew the apostles
171
and can verify that they indeed wrote the books named after them.
172
Okay, the consensus of New Testament scholars seems to be
173
that we don't have sufficient evidence for the traditional authorship of the Gospels.
174
But what was it
175
that you just said? we literally have writings from church fathers who can verify the traditional authorship of the Gospels?
176
You've shown a picture on screen of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who, look, I don't know very much about, but I think you've basically just lied about him?
177
We only know anything about him at all via his letters and tradition.
178
Tradition which states he was a disciple of John, but with very patchy evidence.
179
Some of Ignatius's followers wrote an account of his martyrdom that says he was a disciple of John.
180
So, sure, maybe Ignatius knew John.
181
But where the hell have you gotten this idea that Ignatius can verify John's authorship of the fourth gospel?
182
Even in the letters Ignatius allegedly wrote to John, now recognized to be forgeries anyway, we don't have any clear endorsement from Ignatius of the idea that John wrote this gospel.
183
It seems that Ignatius' epistles were influenced by the theology of John's gospel, so he probably read it, but that's a far cry from making any commentary about his authorship.
184
For the record, church patristics is really not my area.
185
I don't know very much here, so don't look to me for advice on this.
186
I actually reached out to one of my old theology tutors to see
187
if he could help me figure out what I might be missing, but look, I might just be missing something here.
188
I'm genuinely interested in seeing where redeemed Zuma has gotten this evidence that Ignatius can confirm that John wrote the fourth gospel.
189
So if you're watching this, RZ, RZ, let me know.
190
The gospels misquote Jesus.
191
Now it's true
192
that a lot of secular scholars think the gospels are a mix of real quotes from the historical Jesus
193
and fake quotes added by the church.
194
Wait, hold on.
195
It's true that some secular scholars think this?
196
What other kind of scholars do you want?
197
Religiously motivated ones?
198
Secular just means not affected by religion, which any scholar should be in regards to their scholarship, even if they're a Christian.
199
Maybe you meant to say atheist instead of secular?
200
I'm not sure.
201
But, I mean, imagine if I was making a video about climate change and I said something like, well, yeah, sure, some researchers who aren't funded by oil will say that climate change is real.
202
That's kind of what it sounds like here.
203
Now, it's true
204
that a lot of secular scholars think the Gospels are a mix of real quotes from the historical Jesus
205
and fake quotes added by the Church, but none of them can agree on which quotes are legit and which are not, so we can discard their opinions.
206
Because scholars can't agree on which quotes of Jesus are legitimate, we can throw out their skepticism?
207
What?
208
The whole argument is precisely that scholars can't agree on which quotes of Jesus are authentic.
209
That's the whole problem.
210
Do you really think that this lack of consensus about which quotes are authentic is a problem not with the quotes, but with the scholars?
211
Come on.
212
Hey, here's a fun exercise.
213
Try, without rewinding this video, to write down the exact contents of my previous sentence.
214
I mean it, pause the video, write down the last sentence I just said, word for word, and then compare it to what I actually said.
215
I bet you can't remember it accurately, at least not perfectly.
216
And yet, you heard me say it mere seconds ago.
217
Now consider that even the most conservative estimates placed the authorship of the Gospels at least decades after Jesus' death.
218
And yet we're supposed to believe that they never misquote Jesus?
219
Jesus never claimed to be God.
220
Yes, he did.
221
He didn't say, I am God, worship me, but he showed
222
that he was God in many places in all four Gospels by doing things that only God can do.
223
It's true that he didn't walk around before his resurrection claiming to be God
224
because he wanted people to figure it out themselves.
225
That's why he kept saying, who do you say that I am?
226
However, after his resurrection, people figured out that he was God and Jesus congratulated them.
227
That's why he kept saying, who do you say I am?
228
Doesn't he say that just, like, once?
229
More subtle hyperbole, perhaps.
230
Anyway, did Jesus claim to be God?
231
I have a whole podcast about this with Bart Ehrman.
232
It's a really interesting one, if you don't mind a bit of self -promo.
233
But the long and short of it is that Jesus definitely seems to claim to be God in John's gospel,
234
but maybe not so much in the synoptics but you've just put some examples on the screen from the Synoptic Gospels, so let's take a look at one of them.
235
You've identified forgiving sins as something that only God can do.
236
I wouldn't be so sure.
237
Take a look at John chapter 20 verse 21 onwards.
238
Jesus is speaking here to his disciples after the resurrection.
239
Again, Jesus said, peace be with you.
240
As the father has sent me, I am sending you.
241
And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.
242
If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven.
243
If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
244
So the apostles had the power to forgive sins.
245
This is clearly the gospel showing that the apostles are all God, right?
246
Because forgiving sins is something that only God can do.
247
Obviously not.
248
Maybe you'll say something like, well, they could forgive sins because Jesus gave them that power, but it's still Jesus's power, really.
249
But take notice.
250
Jesus said to them, as the father has sent me, I am sending you.
251
So if Jesus sending the disciples to forgive sins doesn't make them gods, then the father sending Jesus to forgive sins doesn't make him God either.
252
I could go on for ages about this, but watch my podcast with Bart Ehrman instead.
253
The later one of the gospels was written, the more divine it makes Jesus seem, so we can extrapolate that Jesus was originally a human figure who got made more divine over time.
254
All right, maybe some gospels emphasize Jesus's divinity more than others, but what about Paul's letters that fully confess the divinity of Jesus and were also written before any of the Gospels?
255
So that breaks your pattern.
256
Yeah, sure.
257
If the claim is about whether the authors of the Gospels thought Jesus was divine, I have no problem saying that the earliest Gospel,
258
Mark, seems to imply that Jesus is God from the very first chapter.
259
The more interesting point, however, is not that later Gospels make Jesus more divine, but that they provide more evidence for his divinity as time goes on.
260
The earliest copies of Mark contain no post -resurrection appearances, Matthew and Luke contain some post -resurrection appearances,
261
and John then contains even more.
262
So the later the source, the more records of these kinds of appearances, which, after all, are the principal proof of Jesus's resurrection,
263
which in turn is the principal proof of his divinity.
264
Now, sure, Paul still upsets this pattern, writing that 500 people saw the risen Christ, but this is in a different category of evidence.
265
The Gospels are, according to you at least, eyewitness accounts of a physically resurrected man.
266
Paul, however, tells us of a vision that he had of a bright light, never meeting a fleshy Jesus himself.
267
And as for the 500 that he talks about, this is Paul telling us that he's heard that some other unnamed people saw the risen Jesus.
268
That's not to say it didn't happen, just that it can't be considered on the same level as the allegedly eyewitness accounts provided by the Gospels,
269
which do get more and more detailed and fanciful the later they were written.
270
The Bible supports slavery.
271
No, it doesn't.
272
Just because there's slavery in the Bible doesn't mean the Bible supports it.
273
There are some Old Testament verses that could be interpreted as condoning slavery, but Jesus himself said that the Old Testament made accommodations to people's sinful state.
274
Some Old Testament verses could be interpreted as condoning slavery.
275
Seriously.
276
There's just no way that anybody who reads the Hebrew Bible can seriously defend this.
277
Genuinely, this is the most untenable position in the entire video, if you ask me.
278
Once again, I have a whole podcast about this, this time with Joshua Bowen.
279
It's over an hour and a half of detailed descriptions of exactly how the Bible supports slavery.
280
But just to take some examples.
281
Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished, that is probably by death, if the slave dies as a direct result,
282
but then not to be punished with death if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
283
Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you.
284
From them you may buy slaves.
285
I suppose this could be interpreted as the Old Testament endorsing slavery.
286
You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you
287
and members of their clans born in your country and they will become your property.
288
You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
289
Sure, maybe this could be interpreted as the Old Testament endorsing slavery, but of course the New Testament does away with all of this.
290
In the Old Testament, God, despite completely prohibiting all kinds of practices, including imaginary crimes like witchcraft,
291
obviously couldn't abolish slavery for whatever reason.
292
But the New Testament solved this problem with verses such as 1 Peter 2 .18.
293
Slaves, in reverent fear of God, submit yourself to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
294
Oh.
295
Okay, now Peter does say that this is because it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering,
296
implying that it's unjust for slave owners to be cruel to their slaves, which is great, but it does still say they should submit nonetheless,
297
and certainly seems to at least accept the practice of slavery in general.
298
Paul, in Ephesians, also legitimises the practice of slavery.
299
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
300
Again, Paul does then go on to say that masters should also treat their slaves in the same respectful way, since the father doesn't favour the master over the slave,
301
which is great and progressive for the time, perhaps.
302
But it still recognizes the earthly practice of slavery and doesn't take the opportunity to condemn the practice in principle.
303
Now, for what it's worth, maybe the kind of slavery described here, where masters are good to their slaves and perhaps good for their slaves,
304
is nowhere near as bad as the kind of slavery that comes to mind from, say, American history.
305
Maybe this kind of slavery is actually perfectly moral.
306
But to say that the Bible didn't condone and legitimise it at all is simply untrue.
307
Some people like to point to a verse in Galatians, where Paul writes that in Christ there is neither slave nor free.
308
But he's clearly talking here about the relevance of either status to salvation, not the existence of the practice on earth.
309
I mean, in the very next words, he says, nor is there male and female.
310
But I never see Christians using this verse to justify biblically motivated gender abolitionism
311
and also slave owners in the American South had slave Bibles for their slaves to read
312
but it omitted a lot of the real Bible so
313
if the Bible actually did support slave read this wouldn't have been necessary well the fact
314
that the so -called slave Bible could exist at all is a problem this text isn't framed
315
so much as a censored Bible with bits taken out but rather a collection of select texts from the Bible.
316
Just like how you might have a collection of Bible verses for use in overcoming grief
317
or something that omits a great deal of chapters, this was a Bible created for the express purpose of reading to slaves in the West Indies.
318
But why would you be able to use any of a Bible, which I'm told doesn't condone slavery, to, you know, promote and maintain slavery?
319
The parts that aren't in the slave Bible include the Exodus story, the Psalms, and Revelation, which certainly contain themes of freedom, particularly in the Exodus, of course.
320
But these omissions do not in any way count against the fact that elsewhere in the Bible,
321
there are much more specific verses that definitely condone and legislate slavery.
322
Christianity supported slavery.
323
Well, sure, some Christians did, but all human civilizations have had slavery.
324
Christian civilization was the first one to abolish it on moral grounds.
325
Sure, many societies condone slavery throughout history, but you claim that your tradition is the correct one, with access to the will of the God of the universe.
326
Yes, Aristotle condoned slavery, but his politics is not thought to be a divinely authored text.
327
Why did it take so long, literally over a thousand years, for Christian society to abolish slavery, if it was so obviously against God's will the whole time?
328
The fact that you're against slavery is due to Christian influence.
329
Also, most organizations fighting modern -day slavery are Christian.
330
Okay, to say that I today am against slavery due to exclusively Christian influence is laughable.
331
I know this whole Western ethics are all secretly Christian idea is popular at the moment,
332
but you show me exactly where in your Bible I can find justification for abolishing slavery.
333
I will show you just as many examples, and probably more, of it justifying the exact opposite and doing so much more specifically.
334
Yes, Christians today may condemn slavery, but if we turned back the clock, got in a time machine, and went and visited Europe in a time before abolition,
335
and we tried to abolish slavery, where is the first place that the locals would turn, and plausibly so, to defend it as an institution?
336
I think it goes without saying.
337
God killed tons of people in the Bible.
338
Well, it's actually way more than that.
339
God numbers everyone's days.
340
He's the giver of life so he can take it, especially if people sin.
341
It's a hell of a response to the problem of natural evil.
342
Why does God allow millions of people to die in earthquakes or tsunamis or indeed kill them himself on purpose?
343
Because he can.
344
He has the right to kill you.
345
So why not?
346
There isn't much I can say to challenge this.
347
Maybe this is just god's right i don't know atheist countries are more prosperous yes it's true
348
that northern european countries are very prosperous and very secular
349
but correlation doesn't equal causation it's not like atheism causes prosperity it's
350
that prosperity causes atheism because
351
when people have comfortable lives they don't feel a need to depend on god
352
but why are these particular countries
353
so prosperous in the first place they may be secular now
354
but they're rooted in generations and generations of protestant christianity
355
if you want an example of a country that's atheist and not rooted in Christianity, look at communist China.
356
Yeah, I don't much like this kind of argument.
357
For a start, I don't even really know how you can measure a nation's prosperity without presupposing a bunch of worldview assumptions.
358
I suppose it's also impossible to say how much a country's prior religion is relevant to its current religion and prosperity level.
359
I mean, sure, communist China grew out of non -Christian society, but communist Russia grew out of an Orthodox Christian society.
360
But anyway, even if religious societies are more prosperous, this only tells us that belief in God is socially beneficial, not that God actually exists.
361
Still something atheists bring up all the time, of course, so I completely understand why it's worth including this, but just bear that in mind.
362
There's 4 ,000 gods that people believe in and you're atheist to 3 ,999 of them.
363
I just go one god further.
364
Okay, this isn't the gotcha that you think it is
365
because the question of whether some sort of god exists is fundamentally different from the question of
366
which religion is right about god yeah i agree with this it's a bad argument
367
if it is an argument i do find
368
that it's a useful tool for helping people to understand what it's like to not believe in god
369
but it certainly doesn't function as an actual argument against any god
370
if god created everything then who created god well god is
371
defined as the uncaused causer everyone knows there needs to be
372
a first cause at the beginning of the chain of all events in the universe, and it makes a lot more sense for that first cause to be a personal god who caused things for a reason,
373
rather than some random impersonal force.
374
Yeah, everybody knows that.
375
Right?
376
Sure, first cause arguments are powerful and interesting.
377
I've already discussed them ad nauseam, but briefly, I suppose I'd agree that if they are successful in establishing a first cause,
378
it wouldn't really make sense to ask what caused that cause.
379
Giving it attributes of traditional theism, however, is of course a separate question.
380
Science disproves God.
381
Well, actually, the church invented modern science.
382
All the founders of the scientific revolution deeply believed in God.
383
And medieval theologians laid the groundwork for modern science by saying the world was governed by an intelligent creator.
384
That means we can understand the world with our intelligence.
385
And studying God led to studying the world because the world is God's creation.
386
I've talked about this before, too.
387
Sure, the founding fathers of science were religious.
388
But who wasn't back then?
389
And even if they weren't religious, we'd never know about it, since even expressing unorthodox cosmology,
390
let alone atheism, was enough to get Galileo put under house arrest in Tuscany for the rest of his life.
391
But more importantly, suppose for a second that it were the case that science completely disproves religion.
392
I'm obviously not saying that it does, but if it did, then of course the founding fathers of science would have been religious,
393
because they hadn't yet invented the scientific method that would go on to disprove religion.
394
It's like saying, isn't it interesting that the Wright brothers, who invented the aeroplane that supposedly went on to produce the Boeing 747 jet,
395
didn't themselves own a Boeing 747 jet?
396
Doesn't that tell us something?
397
And look, it may be true that early scientists were inspired by their theism.
398
You say that the church invented modern science, a dubious claim perhaps, but I'll just grant it.
399
If so, so what?
400
Just because science originated with religious thinkers, that doesn't make it impossible for science to have gone on to then undermine religion.
401
Protestantism grew out of Catholicism, for example.
402
That doesn't mean that it can't undermine it.
403
God is just used to fill in the gaps of things that science can't explain yet.
404
Well, actually, God is the reason for everything, even things that science can explain.
405
It's not one or the other.
406
It's not like everything's explained by either science or God, and the more science can explain, the less God can explain.
407
Really, science can explain almost everything, but God is still behind it all, because science explains the how, and God explains the why.
408
I agree that this is how a theist should respond to the God of the Gap's objection.
409
Even if something is explained by science, the whole scientific enterprise as a whole, and the existence of scientific laws at all, might still rely on a divine cause.
410
But historically speaking, people have used God in this way
411
and said that there are things that cannot be explained by science and use this as evidence for God's existence.
412
Still, I think we're in agreement here that scientific explanations and divine agency can coexist peacefully.
413
If God is good, why can't he destroy all evil?
414
Well, he eventually will.
415
Why can't he do it now?
416
Because he'd have to destroy you.
417
Okay, I totally get the Christian idea that human beings are corrupted and evil.
418
Of course, all of us constantly fall short, even of our own moral standards.
419
Fine, so destroying evil requires destroying us.
420
But you've just said that God will one day destroy all evil.
421
He just can't do it now, because that would mean destroying humans.
422
But what will change so that one day he can destroy evil without destroying humans?
423
And why can't that happen now?
424
As far as I was aware, the thing that allows human beings to escape being justly destroyed for their sin is the sacrifice of Jesus,
425
which happened a good couple of thousand years ago now.
426
So what is God waiting for to destroy evil?
427
Perhaps you're talking about the second coming of Christ, judgment day, but then what changes about the world between now
428
and then that God is suddenly able to destroy evil without destroying humans?
429
Why does God let any bad things happen?
430
Because we deserve it.
431
Well, look, I appreciate how blunt this is.
432
I was expecting some kind of theodicy.
433
Evil exists because it's soul -building, or because of free will, or because of heavenly compensation.
434
But no, we just deserve it.
435
Well, fine, but I just want to bring that home for a minute.
436
This week, about five children in the UK alone will die from cancer.
437
The most common type of cancer in children is leukemia.
438
I know you wouldn't say this to their face, redeemed Zuma, but when a parent asks why on earth this has happened to their child,
439
you think that the in -fact -correct response is, well, they deserve it.
440
Look, I can't disprove that they do deserve it.
441
Maybe humanity is just so corrupted by original sin or whatever that we do deserve pediatric cancer.
442
But even if we do, why do some people get what they deserve and not others?
443
It's not just that people suffer at all, in other words, but that they do so seemingly randomly and arbitrarily, sometimes by accident of birth or genetics.
444
Lucky for the rest of us, I guess.
445
Well, animals don't sin, so why do they suffer?
446
Well, the Bible says all things will be restored, so if God is good, we can assume that they'll be compensated.
447
Right, so animals will be compensated in the afterlife because they don't deserve to suffer.
448
But those children who died of cancer shouldn't be compensated, of course, you know the ones who do deserve it.
449
Luckily, Jesus paid the price for those kids, and they'll get to inherit eternal life anyway, even though they deserve to be destroyed.
450
But for some reason, that sacrifice only gets rid of the punishment they deserve in the invisible next life.
451
Not in this one.
452
In this one, they get cancer.
453
You know, because they deserve it.
454
Animals suffer in this world too, for some reason that you haven't even attempted to explain, but that's also fine because God will pay them off, probably.
455
How do you know that God isn't evil instead?
456
Well, because evil is not a thing the way good is.
457
Just like cold is just a lack of heat, and dark is just a lack of light, evil is just a lack of good.
458
And for good to be objective, it needs to come from God.
459
So a God who is objectively evil is logically impossible.
460
Yeah, sure.
461
If you think that evil is just a privation of good, then I guess there can't exist a maximally evil being.
462
I suppose I'm just unconvinced by that analysis of what good and evil are.
463
But maybe you're convinced of it.
464
I know that it's a popular view.
465
One reason it strikes me as unintuitive is because if I imagine two possible worlds, one in which nothing at all exists and one in which a bunch of suffering exists,
466
if evil is just a privation of good, then since they both contain no good, we'd have to say that they're about as bad as each other.
467
That might not be correct under this view, I don't know, but it just doesn't seem like a good way to capture what we think is evil about suffering.
468
But anyway, I'm an ethical emotivist, so of course I'm going to understand these terms differently to you.
469
Can God make a rock he can't lift?
470
Well, you're just asking if God can contradict himself, like can God lie, or can God change, or can God make another God?
471
And the answer to all those things is no. God being all -powerful means he can do anything to things outside himself.
472
It doesn't mean that he can do anything to himself or that he can contradict himself.
473
Yeah, I think I agree with this explanation.
474
If omnipotence just means the ability to do all logically possible things, then God can be omnipotent even if he can't create a rock too heavy for him to lift.
475
Or a friend of mine puts it like this.
476
Yes, God can do all things, but logical contradictions aren't things.
477
They literally have no referent, even conceptually.
478
Still, I think
479
that there are other better paradoxes take this one about omniscience
480
does god know all true propositions most theists would say yes
481
but if so that would mean
482
that whenever he knows a proposition p he must also then know the true proposition god knows
483
that p but this creates a new true proposition it's true
484
that god knows that god knows that p
485
but this creates a new true proposition and so on to infinity so if god knows all true propositions, he must know an actually infinite number of things.
486
Many philosophers think that actual infinites are impossible, and so this causes a problem.
487
Okay, we can respond to this by saying that God doesn't think in terms of true propositions, but rather in a single undivided intuition.
488
There might be other responses too, but at any rate, I think a much more interesting paradox than the stone -so -heavy -he -can't -lift thing.
489
Why did God let evil exist at all, so he could be glorified in defeating it.
490
Triumph over evil is a greater good than evil having just never existed.
491
I'm not convinced by this.
492
The way that I've put it before is like this.
493
Martin Luther King is widely considered to be a good man.
494
Why?
495
Because he overcame the evils of racism.
496
Are we glad to find ourselves in a world with racism so that we can have the good of overcoming it?
497
Wouldn't you rather do without the racism
498
and without the need to overcome it? triumph over evil is only good insofar as it overcomes something evil.
499
Without the evil to start with, the desire to create it just to overcome it seems really strange.
500
It's like saying that we should be very glad of the existence of cancer, because without it, we wouldn't have the good of cancer research and chemotherapy.
501
These things are undoubtedly good, and they couldn't exist were it not for cancer.
502
Would we invent the latter to permit the glory of the former?
503
It sounds to me like you're saying this is what God does.
504
Religion is just wishful thinking.
505
Well, if that were true, then the Bible wouldn't be all about how much we all suck.
506
Well, not if Nietzsche's right, for a start.
507
Think about this.
508
For a great many people throughout history, who Nietzsche calls the slave class, they've been simply unable to avoid being weak, servile, and submissive.
509
This is just their position in life, and there's no hope of changing it.
510
The so -called slave morality concept imagines that to deal with this sorry state,
511
people began to turn their helpless condition into a virtue and began to take the things that they desired but couldn't get, like strength and dominance and wealth,
512
etc., and condemned them as evil.
513
And this is a kind of wishful thinking.
514
I mean, imagine that you're poor and oppressed and there's no hope of changing your condition.
515
What would wishful thinking look like?
516
Sure, you could just wish to become rich tomorrow
517
but that's not going to happen
518
so this wouldn't be an effective strategy to help you feel better however
519
if instead you develop a worldview that trains you to wish to be poor to wish be servile and submissive,
520
and teaches you to no longer want wealth and strength, that these things are immoral, well, this is a much more effective strategy of getting what you want.
521
You change your wants.
522
I don't even need riches in life because my riches await me in heaven.
523
This is the kind of wishful thinking that might be involved in Christianity.
524
The same goes for what redeemed Zuma is talking about here, our fallen state more generally, that we all suck, as he puts it.
525
Sure, we all do immoral things all the time.
526
And so it's consoling to think that this is recognized by God and that all will be made right and forgiven.
527
Again, I'm not saying that this is the case, that it's all wishful thinking, but this rebuttal that wishful thinking can't look like this, I think is wrong.
528
Psychology explains why you believe in God. So what?
529
If God is real, we should expect there to be some psychological or social benefit to believing in him.
530
Again, I more or less agree with this.
531
Spiritual experiences can be explained by brain chemicals.
532
Well, romantic experiences can also be explained by brain chemicals, but that doesn't mean your wife isn't real.
533
So spiritual experiences being explained by brain chemicals doesn't mean that God isn't real.
534
Again, I agree, because any experience of the brain, whether natural or not in origin, will be describable in terms of brain chemicals.
535
But a better argument is not about what's happening in the brain, but rather what caused the activity in the brain.
536
Sure, love just being chemicals in my brain doesn't prove that my wife doesn't exist.
537
But if no experience that I've ever had of my wife was caused by something in the natural world,
538
would you think that my wife must be some supernatural entity that my brain is intercepting?
539
Or would you think that maybe she doesn't exist and that my brain has invented her?
540
Well, drug trips show that spiritual experiences are from the brain.
541
Well, people who have had both drug trips and near -death experiences say that they're completely different categories of feeling.
542
Sure, but people who take LSD and DMT will tell you that they're totally different experiences too.
543
The point about drugs is just that the brain can sometimes experience inexplicable
544
and ineffable things without necessarily indicating the involvement of anything beyond the materials of the brain.
545
The story of Jesus was copied from the story of Horus or some other ancient character.
546
Okay, dude, that's a Reddit atheist -level myth.
547
Even atheist scholars know that that's silly.
548
Agreed.
549
Faith is the opposite of logic and reason.
550
No, it's not.
551
Faith just means trust.
552
Anytime you eat food, you're having faith that it's not poisoned, even if you can't scientifically prove it.
553
If you're married, you have faith that your wife loves you, even if you can't scientifically prove that.
554
And if you tried to scientifically prove it, she'd probably get very mad at you because it would mean you didn't trust her.
555
Yeah, but the thing is, I either have sufficient reason to trust something, or I don't.
556
With food, for example, if I'm served a meal at a restaurant, sure, I trust that it's not going to poison me.
557
But I know that my country has strict food laws, and that the restaurant has a huge interest in protecting my safety, and that poisonings are rare.
558
But if I travel abroad to some places, for example, I won't trust the tap water.
559
And with the wife example, I get what you're saying, but imagine if I gave my wife no evidence that I loved her, like nothing at all.
560
And then when she said she was questioning the marriage, I just said, you've got to have faith, baby.
561
I think I'd be getting divorced.
562
Evolution proves God didn't create the world.
563
Well, not necessarily.
564
God often works through natural processes in the Bible.
565
And for all of church history, there have been prominent Christian theologians who have had a more metaphorical interpretation of Genesis, even well over a thousand years before Darwin existed.
566
Of course, this is true, but I don't know anyone who claims that evolution proves God didn't make the world except outside of the strict context,
567
I suppose, of arguing with a biblical literalist.
568
But then you've just implied that you agree that evolution disproves the biblical literalist interpretation.
569
Christianity only spread because of military conquest.
570
Well, eventually they did do military conquest, but for the first 300 years of Christianity, it was illegal, and it took over the Roman Empire despite that because of how popular it became.
571
Again, I'm happy to broadly agree.
572
At least early Christianity was not some kind of violent conquest.
573
Constantine invented what we now know of as Christianity.
574
Again, Reddit atheist level myth, atheists can do better than that.
575
Listen to an actual scholar.
576
I suppose Redeemed Zuma is just throwing out a few of
577
the less tenable arguments at the end here in case people support them.
578
Again, yeah, I don't think that Constantine invented modern Christianity.
579
If Christianity is true, why are there so many denominations of it?
580
Well, yeah, there are a lot of denominations, but the things they agree on are a lot more significant than the things they disagree on.
581
You know, people often say this about different religions altogether.
582
I hear them say things like, you know, all religions really just agree on the main stuff.
583
I think they often underestimate just how different they are.
584
But sure, the existence of denominations is not incompatible with the truth of Christianity.
585
However, I do wonder why God allows so many honest truth seekers to go wrong, to get the wrong interpretation of his words,
586
especially in places where a person's denomination is predictable based on their parents or community's denomination.
587
But that just takes us back to the divine hiddenness argument from earlier.
588
There's no evidence for Jesus outside the Bible.
589
Well, that's not true.
590
There's the ancient Jewish historian Josephus who wrote about Jesus, and he's one of the reasons why even secular scholars know Jesus historically existed.
591
Yes, there are indeed non -biblical sources that point to Jesus' existence.
592
However, it is worth noticing something about the passage from Josephus that you've just put on screen.
593
Josephus certainly removes doubt about the existence of Jesus, but the authenticity of a fair bit of this particular passage is under dispute by scholars,
594
principally because Josephus, a Jew, refers here to Jesus as the Messiah, or Christ, and says that he rose from the dead, and that he may not have been just a man.
595
Strange things for a Jew to say, and thus some believe that these passages are later Christian editions.
596
If, however, Josephus did write these words, then they clearly weren't enough even to convince him of Jesus' divinity,
597
since he remained Jewish, and so it probably shouldn't convince us either.
598
But on the point of Jesus' mere existence, Yes, I agree.
599
I think we can believe it.
600
You really think God made billions of galaxies with billions of
601
stars in each of them just to have a personal relationship with you?
602
Yes.
603
That's sweet, of course, but sounds a little, I don't know, wishful?
604
Let me know what you think.
605
I've been Alex O 'Connor.
606
Subscribe if you want to.
607
I'll see you in the next one.
📺 Same Channel
C12
God is a Delusion | Oxford Union Speech - Alex O'Connor
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C15
Why the Monarchy Should Have Died With the Queen
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
This is Why I Don't Believe in God
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B2Is Trump Using Christianity For His Own Benefit? - Rhett McLaughlin
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
✨ Recommend Video
C14
76 sentences
Make AI Believe in God to Keep Humans Safe, Scientist Argues
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
283 sentences
Cocky MAGA Kid Can't DEFEND Trump's Actions and RUNS AWAY
Business EnglishDaily ConversationHigh School Students
C16
39 sentences
Why We Should Refuse to Get Into Arguments
British AccentBusiness EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B23
138 sentences
This Is What Anti-Muslim Propaganda Looks Like Today
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
200 sentences
This Is Exactly Why I'm an Atheist
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C19
49 sentences
Does God exist? Science does not have an answer.
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C17
138 sentences
The Internet is Worse Than Ever – Now What?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
197 sentences
Trust in God’s Plan - Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
43 sentences
everyone must watch
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
194 sentences
How to Tell What’s Real Online
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C170
66 sentences
What science can’t answer, according to physicist Jim Al-Khalili | Big Think
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2708 sentences
No Fear | Ajahn Brahm | 20-05-2011
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Every Argument For Atheism”. This video has 607 sentences and 8662 words to shadow. The speech runs for 46:23. The speaker talks fast, about 187 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| slavery noun | /ˈsleɪvəɹi/ | An institution or social practice of owning human beings as property, especially for use as forced laborers. |
| gospel noun | /ˈɡɑspəl/ | The first section of the Christian New Testament scripture, comprising the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, concerned with the birth, ministry, passion… |
| slave noun | /sleɪv/ | A person who is held in servitude as the property of another person, and whose labor (and often also whose body and life) is subject to the owner's volition… |
| atheist noun | /ˈeɪ.θi.ɪst/ | A person who does not believe in deities or gods. |
| scholar noun | /ˈskɑlɚ/ | A student; one who studies at school or college, typically having a scholarship. |
| forgive verb | /fɚˈɡɪv/ | To pardon (someone); to waive any negative feeling towards or desire for punishment or retribution against. |
| testament noun | /ˈtɛs.tə.mənt/ | A solemn, authentic instrument in writing, by which a person declares his or her will as to disposal of his or her inheritance (estate and effects) after his… |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
| secular adjective | /ˈsɛkjʊlə/ | Not specifically religious; lay or civil, as opposed to clerical. |
| sin noun | /ˈsɪn/ | A violation of divine will or religious law. |
| verse noun | /ˈvɝs/ | A poetic form with regular meter and a fixed rhyme scheme. |
| divine adjective | /dɪˈvaɪn/ | Of or pertaining to a god. |
| proposition noun | /ˌpɹɑpəˈzɪʃən/ | The act of offering (an idea) for consideration. |
| resurrection noun | /ɹɛzəˈɹɛkʃən/ | The act of arising from the dead and becoming alive again. |
| invent verb | /ɪnˈvɛnt/ | To design a new process or mechanism. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| grow out of verb | To emerge from (something); to take a particular shape as a result of (something); to come to exist from (an origin). | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| point out verb | To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body. | |
| throw out verb | /ˈθɹəʊ ˌaʊt/ | To discard; to dispense with something; to throw away. |
| write down verb | To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something. | |
| bear up verb | To sail close to the wind. | |
| bring up verb | To mention. | |
| do away with verb | To abolish; to put an end to; to eliminate. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- How do you know which religion is true?
- Sounds pretty, I don't know, scientific, doesn't it?
- I get the feeling you're not going to provide any, are you?
- What other kind of scholars do you want?
- Doesn't that tell us something?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If such a God did exist, would we · if I was born in Indonesia, I'd probably · if they weren't religious, we'd never |
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to think · used to fill |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have documented · has been done · have been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were caused · were started · would be calmed |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 206 contractions and reduced forms, such as doesn't, can't, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: atheist /ˈeɪ.θi.ɪst/, theology /θiˈɒ.lə.d͡ʒi/, myth /mɪθ/, authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/, mythology /mɪˈθɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: proposition /ˌpɹɑpəˈzɪʃən/, resurrection /ɹɛzəˈɹɛkʃən/, evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/, possession /pəˈzɛʃn̩/, interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: proposition /ˌpɹɑpəˈzɪʃən/, resurrection /ɹɛzəˈɹɛkʃən/, evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/, supernatural /ˌsu.pəɹˈnæ.tʃə.ɹəl/, interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like slavery, gospel, slave.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.