Transcription
I think you're telling me that way it's not possible to logically conclude that God exists.
Yeah, I think there I think that there are are ways that you can um come close.
Hobo, how's it going? You have to unmute yourself, Hobo.
Hey. Yep. Sorry, I just had to get my audio right because I had you on
Why am I hearing you from I'm hearing you from the wrong place. One sec. Okay, try again. Um, can you hear me now?
Yeah, I can hear you just fine. It was coming from my monitor for some reason. All right. How about
Oh, okay.
Welcome. Thank you for being here. Do you believe in a god?
Yes, I do. I'm a Christian.
Okay, that works. That makes it easy. Um, then we don't have to argue about what words mean. So, Hobo, I'm not a Christian. I don't believe in a God.
Mhm.
Um what would say what would you say is the best piece of evidence or the best argument or you know the best justification you can offer me that
Christianity is the correct ideology?
Absolutely. Um I have a few of them. Um but in order to understand like which one might work best for you, do you mind if I ask you one or two questions first? I don't really watch your stream or anything. So my first question would be like what is is your intention with the stream to come to a better understanding of uh what belief is for other people or is your intention for the stream to actually like be convinced of it. I don't mean that in like a negative way.
So so it's to actually be con like like look I mean um really this is more of a prompt to prompt discussions about you know religious tradition. I don't think that there's a god and somebody else will and then we'll have a have a debate, have an argument, whatever. But it is true. If somebody can offer me a good compelling argument, I want to know it because I want to know what I want to believe true things.
So, if you got something, I'm all ears.
Okay, cool. Um, okay. So, I think what I'll start with, because I I've listened for about like 30 minutes or so, I you seem to be to be more of a uh what's the the Roman word for it? I forgot, but more like a logical person. you want to uh see a consistent evidence base for it.
Yeah. Or maybe some philosophical argument or maybe some, you know, just something, right? Maybe some historical data, whatever it might be,
right? Okay. So, for the um historical data, I believe there's a lot of it. It would take me like a long time to go through the historical evidence of Christ. I think I think most historians would agree that he was a real person that existed. torical evidence for his resurrection is really the sticking point there. Um, and what that really heavily falls upon in most arguments is the 500 martyrs that died for that that kind of
sorry down.
Yeah, there were there were
sorry about that. I think the historical argument for Christ's resurrection comes down to the I think I believe it was 500 people died um for the faith after Christ um after the crucifixion of Christ to say that um he was resurrected that they were believers um and that they like they suffered horribly for that and so like one of two ways on it. I think um some people will come to the conclusion that they died in a a way that was they died for a belief that they at least held sincerely. Um and some people will come to the conclusion that they died um for other more like nefarious reasons. So I don't really want
Who are these 500 martyrs?
I I I don't personally like know all of their names or anything. I this is these these are a lot of things I've heard and I apologize. You know, I'm not a professional. I don't have like um a long it. So
I don't have a lot of notes on it, but I I do.
So I think that you're just mixing up two things. So I think it's like Paul says that there are 500 eyewitnesses
and then separately people say that the apostles were murdered,
but there weren't 500 apostles that were murdered.
You you're actually you're so right about that. I I did mix those up. I apologize. I I'm This is I am kind of a little bit nervous. Like I don't usually stream and do this kind of thing. So no, you're right. Yeah. Um, but actually what what the I I was also a very logical person when it came uh to belief in God. Like from 13 to 19 or so, I really struggle with this. And there are a couple things that make sense to me. I don't know if they'll make sense to you, but my my main one is the causality argument, which is I I think you already know it, right?
You know, yep. Basically, everything is caused by
be a little more specific. Go ahead.
Okay. So, everything is caused by something else. So, um
everything
uh yes, everything. So grass is grass growing is caused by rain you know which is caused by evaporation which is caused by the existence of water which is caused by some cosmic accident which is caused by the big bane which is caused by what? So like my my um
is is God caused by something?
That's exactly what I'm getting to. So my my contention is that God is the uncaused cause. He is something that exists. So then it's not true that everything is caused by something
if you if you if you uh yes in the in the
in the way that you're describing it that that semantically is true. But what I'm what I'm arguing is that it's just true. If your claim is that everything is caused by something of everything, right? But everything refers to everything that is in this realm. Right. I mean
Okay. So when you say everything, you don't mean what the word everything means.
Sure. I Yeah, let's say that.
Okay. So, you mean like stuff in the You mean stuff in the universe is caused?
Yes. Yeah. Everything except for God is caused. So, God is the uncaused caused.
So, could I just say that everything except the universe is caused?
You could say that, but it would be just as um we we could say I I'll just say ridiculous. I don't think it's ridiculous, but it would be just as ridiculous of a um of a belief to believe that the universe spontaneously existed as it would be to believe that God spontaneously existed.
Are you sure? Because the spontaneous existence business, if you think that the universe is not caused, then you could just say that the universe, you know, the universe exists and that's just that. It doesn't wasn't caused to exist. Similarly, you would say that God just exists and it wasn't caused to exist. But that's not the only part of the statement. The other part of the statement is that the universe, it's the universe versus God. Now, you and I both know that the universe exists,
right?
We disagree on whether God exists. So, at least as far as the statement, the universe is uncaused, there is something about the universe being uncaused, which is more plausible than God being uncaused, because we're not even in agreement that God exists, but we are in agreement that the universe exists. I I can see what you're going where you're going with that, but I I think that that exists that argument exists outside of the argument of what caused what we're seeing because um we can agree that the universe exists, but what we don't agree on is how the universe uh came to be. I believe it came to be from a a divine state that that God himself created the universe. You believe that the universe itself was uh uncaused cause. But I I think that those are both an an equally um equally hard to accept from from a logical standpoint cuz you know science is always looking for the beginning, right? Like that's that's how we discover the big bang. We kept looking and looking for what was what was first. But
that's not like historically accurate. It's not it's just not the case that science is always looking for the beginning. Um but
I I think it that's not why the big bang was proposed. the big bang the big bang wasn't prop like historically this it's just not true um prior to the big bang being proposed the kind of mainstream view was that the universe existed forever um
interesting okay
and so it wasn't like they didn't know what the where the universe came from and then somebody came up with the big bang and now they like that's it's just not historically the case but more than that the point is is
the point is merely that
we're both proposing that something is uncaused
sure I'm proposing that the thing is uncaused is something that we both agree exists. You're proposing that there's something that's uncaused which we don't both agree that exists. We don't both agree that it exists. So intrinsically the claim that I'm making is going to be more plausible because it relies on something that we can we can confirm exists already. But the claim that you're making relies on, or rather the argument that you're presenting, what you're calling the argument from causation, is trying to be an argument for God's existence. So if you're trying to prove that God exists, you can't then also say that it's plausible that God already exists as part of the argument.
Well, okay, the thing is that well, and but it actually, it's supposed to be circular. I I don't think that that God's existence can really u live within the the the logic of our finite minds.
So it's not logical to there's no logical way to believe that God exists.
Yeah. Exactly. No, that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't think that there's a way to have enough evidence. I don't think there's a way to have enough uh logical arguments. I don't think there's a way to get there um through like in such a way that you could scientifically prove the existence of God. I don't think that's possible. I think you're telling me that it's not possible to logically conclude that God exists.
Yeah. I think that I think that there are are ways that you can um come close. I think that like the the argument for a causality is is I think is a good example. I think that um there's different things I I could propose to you. Like I I I I love Pascal's wager. I think it's actually fairly um succinct and sound, but I don't think that you can convince one person like one person's mind to believe in something if they need if they need hard evidence. I think what what I'm asking for hanging for hard hard evidence. I'm just asking for an argument.
Okay. What what I am what I'm arguing is that in in order for somebody to um take a like you could call it a leap of faith, right? But let's not even put faith in the divine, right? Like let's say you're trying to
uh delve into a brand new topic that you have no idea about or and that you for whatever reason you need to become good at. You have to take um it's sort of like this might be a funny example, but do you remember like Jake from Adventure Time? Did you ever watch that?
I watched it a little bit.
A little bit. Well, there's like this one episode where basically he says that um we all suck in the beginning and you have to have this sort of courage to be willing to suck at it in order to learn about it, right?
Sure. I agree with that. But that's different from a leap of faith.
I'm I'm getting there. I'm getting there.
Okay. Well, hopefully the plane is landing soon.
Sure. I think that that's that aligns somewhat with the the feeling that I the the the feeling of courage that it takes to to admit that we don't know everything and that we can't know everything like I I I believe it I I could be getting it wrong. It might be a Socrates or Aristotle one of them intelligent mind is to be able to hold two ideas in contradiction that are both they're both complimentary and contradictory to each other and hold them both as true. So that would that would indicate
there there's no way that like Socrates or Plato said that
it was it was one of them. I know that that's a that's a
So what's the quote? A sign of an intelligent mind is the ability to hold two views in contradiction.
Yeah. Or two arguments in your head.
To be clear, this is Fcott Fitzgerald who was an author uh or someone else's. Yeah. Apparently it's a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald. Um, and the idea is not believe that both of them are true,
but to
hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time.
Okay.
Not it's just hold them both in this at the same so I'll read the full quote. Um, before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation. The test of a first rate mind first rate intelligence is the ability sorry pop up is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted onto my early adult life when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the impossible come true. That's what the quote is. It's not about believing two contradictory things simultaneously. It's about it's about recognizing, you know, in his case, recognizing that things are hopeless, but still being determined to do otherwise.
Okay. Yeah. Well, see that that what what if the idea of of knowing everything or or being able to prove like anything is hopeless and and still being willing to continue otherwise. To me,
I wouldn't grant that. I think that we can know things.
Well, I think we can know things. I just don't think that we can prove everything. And I think
if your if your view is just that, and I'm not looking for proof of everything, like there are lots of things that we can't prove, but we can still know them. Like for example, I can't prove that my wife loves me, but I definitely know that my wife loves me.
Um So, I don't need I don't need proof. It's it's enough that I have plenty of evidence, right? It just sounds like you're saying that it is impossible for you to even give compelling evidence that God exists.
Yes. But I Yes, but I think that there are better arguments to to convince somebody to to take a leap of faith rather than to try to give an argument for the existence of God. I think it's better to give arguments towards uh pushing someone to have a leap of faith that there would be a god and then to to operate with that.
Why is there faith required if you if there are arguments that lead you to believe it's true?
No, that's what I'm saying. There are no lo I'm trying to to say that there are no logical arguments that can like fully uh um not I don't maybe prove is the wrong word but there that there are no convincing logical arguments because there's always logic that can be used to go against those arguments as well. That's why I'm saying I think it's a better argument to like I I think that pass
for me in my conversion.
Sorry you cut out for a second. You think that way?
I'm sorry, my internet's not great. Um, I said I think that Pascal's wager was a better argument for me that led me to uh conversion of faith was the the cause of causality.
Pascal's wager is like horrible.
Well, why why do you think that? I think it's pretty clear
because it assumes that the only two options are atheism or Christianity.
No, I I don't Well, okay. you but you could use that Pascal's wager with like you could flip it and just
if there's more than one option suppose that so I if you allow for any poss any possible god to be the option and you have to compare all possible gods to atheism then Pascal's wager fails immediately
no it I think it just leads you to to be interested and dive into all the different religions
so suppose is it possible that there exists a god who only sends atheists to heaven? Is there any precedent for that or is that something like
that was my question I'm asking is it possible?
Um I would find it might be possible because I don't know everything but I would say that that's extremely unlikely.
Okay, maybe it's extremely unlikely, but it's still it's still possible. Maybe not plausible, but it's
possible. I think it has absolutely no precedent, but I mean that's fine if you want to make that argument.
I mean neither did Christianity before Jesus, right? But that doesn't in your view that doesn't make Christianity true or false. Um, so
anyway if this is possible then you have to you have to run the numbers on this um on this possibility. So if you do believe in a god then you go straight to the worst possible imaginable h imag imaginable hell. If you believe in any kind of god you go to the worst possible imaginable hell. And if you don't believe in god you go to the greatest possible heaven imaginable. That's what this uh that's what this possible god, we'll call it atheismo, does
so Pascal's wager would then seem to indicate that you should not believe in any god.
Yeah, it would seem to indicate that if you start with the presumption that if you're an atheist, you go to heaven. But that's I would I would Yeah, that is a possibility. But I also think it's it there's it's this is what I mean when when I when I talk about how logical arguments can't bring you to God because you're what you're doing nonsense.
Yeah. But you're Yeah. You're I I know what you're trying to do. What you're what it feels to me like you're doing is you're creating a presupposition that is just absolutely and my I'm not meaning to be rude but in my opinion it's asinine because there's no precedent for that throughout all of human history. So why would you start with a with a presupposition that's asinine then lead it to its logical end in order to disprove something that actually has a precedent?
Because Pascal's wager doesn't rely on whether or not there's a it Pascal's wager doesn't rely on the probability of a theistic claim being true. Pascal's wager all Pascal's wager is about is it's about analyzing the expected value for a certain belief. So regardless of how unlikely the the way that Pascal's wager functions is that regardless of how unlikely Christian how likely how unlikely I think Christianity is if believing in Christianity gives me more expected value than not believing in Christianity. If it gives me like unlimited expected value compared to not believing in Christianity then it is always better to believe in Christianity even if Christian even if I think Christianity is extremely unlikely. So all you have to do it It doesn't matter how unlikely you think atheismo is.
As long as the expected value that you get from not believing in any god is higher than the expected value that you would get from Christianity, then it's better that you don't believe in God.
I I Okay. Again, I see the argument you're making. I understand what you're saying, but I again I go back to atheismo um does not have any historical context. Atheismo did not exist. Atheismo did not uh relevant for But it but it is relevant because Pascal's wager is a is a is a logical argument being presented within the context of the real historical truth.
No, it's not. Pascal's wager is merely about analyzing the expected value.
Yeah. Um Okay. But it's about analyzing the expected value of of belief or non-belief in things that did or did not happen historically.
No, it doesn't involve
not something that just got made up today. Yeah, it does.
Pascal's wager is merely Christianity, right?
Yeah. So, that that was the mistake that Pascal made that he assumed that the only two options were Christianity and atheism. But that's the mistake. That's why the argument fails.
Yeah. I I don't I just don't see it that way. I'm I'm sorry. I just I just that you I just I don't see how you can come up with something that that like you literally just made up atheismo and then present an argument based on
I would say the exact same thing about Christianity by the way. You literally just made up.
But but it's it's a little bit different. Wouldn't you say it's intellectually dishonest to just say that people made up Christianity as as in like it came from nowhere. It was just I'm Yeah. Atheism didn't Atheism didn't come from nowhere either. It came from a series of philosophical discussions.
It didn't The idea didn't just pop out of nowhere.
Okay. Yeah, that's that's fair. But but also like okay, I I wouldn't say it's intellectually dishonest for somebody to be Islamic because Muhammad definitely existed. He was a real historical person. I don't think they're right, but I but I don't think that they just made that stuff up out of nowhere. Then let's let's examine the option. Let's examine that through Pascal's wager. So now there's three options. Let's just assume that there's only three options.
Islam, Christianity, or atheism. Now, if you're an atheist, you go to hell. If you are an if you're an atheist and either Christianity or Islam is true, you go to hell. If you are a Christian
and Islam is true, you go to hell. If you are a Muslim and Christianity is true, you go to hell.
Right? And um so in either case it seems it so doing that analysis you come to the conclusion that in fact Pascal's wager doesn't tell you what to believe. It doesn't tell you that you should believe in
Yeah. No Jesus.
You did you you were the one contending that it was
you made the you made the claim that Pascal's wager was convincing to you. But Pascal's wager fails even if you just hang on. You said yeah I said Pascal's wager was convincing to me. I never said it would convinced me to follow Christinc to believe it convinced me to believe in a god to have a faith and then how many gods through study
it convinced me to have one. So in my
what if you believe in what but what if Hinduism is true? If Hinduism is true and you're a Christian so I looked into that
Hindu hell is really bad by the way
like it's it's like unimaginably bad.
Okay, this is what I'm saying. Pascow's wager convinced me to have a faith to look into the idea of believing in God to believe that there is something because of the the consequences being so dire. So in my search for for faith I came
consequences are dire for everybody.
Okay fine but in my in my search for faith I I I I I was doing Zen Buddhism meditation for like six or eight months when I was in my senior year of high school. just I I went through a bunch of different things and when what I came to was uh listening to more educated people talk about the historical uh evidence for for a Christ and then for the uh evidence for the resurrection I came to the idea that Christ was the answer because in my opinion and which is which is you know I'm not a scholar I don't have a degree but in my opinion through my search I found that most religions point to Christ like a lot of like the Buddhists would say that he was um a a spiritual leader in some sense. I don't know if they called him a Buddha, but they said he's a spiritual leader. Islam considers him to be a prophet. Um, like uh Christianity obviously believes that he was the Messiah. Now, Jews specifically deny him as the Messiah. So all these different religions are pointing to Christ. And so that told me that there might So the vast majority of religions don't think that Jesus uh is the son of God.
Yeah, I understand that. There's only one that does obviously,
right? So they they all disagree with Jesus. I mean like look the thing is is that these religions will often refer to refer to Jesus if they came afterwards because Jesus was clearly an influential figure. The question is not whether Jesus was influential. The question is whether or not Jesus was the son of God. Right.
Right. But don't you think there is some amount of significance to the fact that he was incredibly influential across cultures across religions?
No, not particularly. uh the reason he was influential. The reason he was influential is because of the Roman Empire.
The the Roman Empire should be the like the reason that he was not influential. Nothing about Christ's character points to him being uh some like demagogue like like everything about him was extremely humble. So there there's no there's no reason for other than so like the the reason that Christ was influential is because everything about the Jewish faith pointed towards something and that something ended up being someone. Yeah, it did. There were there
I mean if you ask Jews, they'll disagree with you.
That's not so it's it's just not true.
Modern day Jewism, but you have to understand modern day Judaism, excuse me, I misspoke. modern day Judaism would would also ancient Judaism if you look at like the tomud it's it's there is significant
disagree the first the first Christians were Jews who saw and could see through that the prophecies were pointing to Christ as a messiah see the modern day a messiah will come
we don't really have evidence that that's what they believed
we have evidence that that's what the you know the perhaps the second or third generation of Christians believed
well well we have evidence by by the basically by the what am I trying to say labor
by the turn of the century we we have like we have like Christians believing this we don't really know what was going on in the very very like like the very first generation of the people who followed Jesus
we we have we have Christian symbols dating back to when the Jews were hiding um or not the Jews excuse me when when Christians who previously were Jews were hiding in like the catacombs of Rome we have um the fish symbol right the the Christian fish right refers I actually don't know what the history of that is. Um
well that it's a Christian symbol and and it was and it was discovered in the catacombs of Rome.
It's called the ichthus. Um
so the first appearances of the ichthus in Christian art and literature dates to the second century. So no we don't have any evidence of this appearing amongst the first followers of Jesus.
Okay. Well
this this would be like a hundred years after. But look, um the the point that I'm getting at is merely that there are um of course religious traditions that view Jesus as significant because he was significant in so far as the Roman church or sorry the uh the Roman Empire converted to Christianity a few centuries later and the Roman Empire also conquered basically all of the known world. So these ideas were influential because the Roman Empire made them influential.
Right. But is it not significant to you at all that one man entered entered a historical scene, convinced a vast number of people to follow his religion and then the largest empire on earth adopted that religion. How does that how is that not significant?
He didn't convince a large number of people to follow him.
At least somewhat true.
He didn't convince a large number of people to follow him. That's the issue. No, he was alive. No, he didn't.
Well, okay. The Okay. His his being, his death, his resurre
the people who the people who worshiped him convinced people to believe convinced mostly non-Jews to believe in to believe in him to believe in this religion. It wasn't Jesus that did this.
And I mean, this is how spread.
So, you're arguing that that you're arguing that people would believe his followers and not him. No, it's just historically the case that not very many people were he didn't have that many followers. He had some he had, you know, yeah, you know, you're right following in zero AD like
Yeah, there is easy.
Okay, man. I'm Can you come on? Let's not I'm just saying at at the beginning of the Christian count like in Jesus's time, it's not really easy to reach the vast number of people. They literally could only talk to as many people as could gather around in a circle and hear them. So, of course, he didn't convince a large number of people when he was alive. The story of his existence, the story of his death, his crucifixion, his resurrection was propagated throughout a large population. And then that story became belief.
It's the story.
Yeah, I mean,
it's not him.
That's him. He is the He is the story. What are we talking about?
Look. Okay. Do you understand that the story about someone can be different from the person themselves?
Yeah.
Okay. That's the claim I'm making. Obviously, the story was influential.
So, you're just you're just arguing that everyone's wrong. Like the the story wasn't how
stories stories can be exaggerated.
Okay. So, so you just you So, are you are you arguing that most of history as we know it is exaggerated then? Because I mean there are less historical documents that prove that Alexander the Great existed than there are that Christ existed.
I don't think that's true.
You can Google that.
Yeah. Okay. Um Okay. If we go look at So um there is one uh Yeah. Okay. So most primary sources written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander are lost, but a few inscriptions and fragments survived. So, we actually do have some inscriptions and fragments about Alexander the Great.
Hold on, please. I'm in the middle of a sentence.
A few inscriptions and fragments survive from people who knew him personally.
These are contemporary sources, sources that were written at the same time that Alexander the Great was alive.
We have we have a few. We we don't we don't have like full written documents, but we do have a few that um that are like fragments and inscriptions about Alexander the Great that that were written down at the same time as Alexander the Great being alive. We don't have any of that for Jesus.
We have nothing no contemporary sources for Jesus whatsoever.
We No, no, no. We have we have no we have no hard proof that the gospels written by the disciples did come from that time because we don't have original source documentation. That's not the same as we don't
we do have original source documentation for Alexander the Great.
Okay. But we we don't necessarily Okay. We have we have evidence. Um, I forget I I don't know who wrote it down, but I know that there was a uh I think a scholar in ancient times that wrote about a man named Christ or Christ Jesus being crucified under Pontius Pilate. And this was completely outside of a religious context.
You're referring to um Josephus. Josephus wrote in his antiquities of the Jews. He wrote like 60 years after Jesus died that there was this Jesus figure. So this is not contemporary with Jesus.
In antiquity, that's not a very long time in antiquity.
So, so to be clear, you made the claim that we have more sources for Jesus existing than we do for Alexander the Great. It's not true. We have contemporary sources that survived from Alexander the Great's time, primary sources written by people who actually knew Alexander. We have nothing like that for Jesus.
Okay. All right. I
This is just one of those things that people say that they never actually look into.
All right. I could be wrong about that. I'm sorry if I brought that up. And
it's fine. I mean, like, you're it's okay to like not know something. I'm I'm just saying like this is,
you know, something that's worth checking out because like we have there is so much historioggraphy that we have for Alexander Gray, like overwhelming amounts, including
primary sources. Um,
yeah, that's that that's fine. I I think I think that you you you're you're right about that. My fault, but I think we're getting what what what I was initially just trying to part u not partake what I was initially trying to give to you was was my experience of of coming to Christ through a logical what I what I think is a logical way. I I went through Pascal's wager and decided that it must be possible that a god exists. It must be at least possible that a god exists. Then I explored different religions. I saw that That's That's not what Pascal's wager is about.
Pascal's wager is not about
I'm just I'm just trying to give you my experience. I'm not trying to to like buff up Pascal's wager. I'm just trying to give you my experience cuz I I I don't think I don't think it's really It might be possible, but I think it's incredibly unlikely for somebody to get on the stream with you and convince you like on stream that Christ is is the answer. But I think that people will likely plant seeds and that maybe potentially in time you might come to a faith. Maybe it's not Christian. Maybe it's something else.
But yeah, but that's all true. I would hope so. Yeah. Yeah. And that's fine. And maybe you can do research into these arguments and and see them presented in a better way than I can give you. But I I was just saying that I I came to it through Pascal's wager, the causality argument and I looked into different religions. I saw that they pointed to Christ. I studied history. I looked at the history of Christ and I I came to believe that it was it was reasonable, possible, etc. And so that
have you looked into the arguments against those arguments?
Yeah, I've looked into some of them. I mean, I I I saw a um I I would encourage you to watch uh a film called um what was it called? It was like a lawyer. It was a what what is it? What do you think I'm going to say?
Uh there's there's a Oh god, I can't think of the name either. I would have recognized it if you said it. Um
is it Case for Christ?
Yeah, it's that one. Don't say that one.
I Why not? What's wrong?
Because it's terrible.
Okay. Whoops. I don't know, man. It seems like it seems like all the evidence that you that that is presented to you is terrible. I mean, honestly, it seems like you have
Well, that's that's because apologetics tend to tend to make bad arguments. Like Pascal's wager, if you if you even like if you examine what Pascal wrote, Pascal never made the claim that it was even possible to logically conclude that God exists. Pascal's wager is about what it's logical to believe
based off of. So, so Pascal's wager is not Pascal's wager. It like the the structure of the argument for Pascal's that is Pascal's wager is it is impossible to get you to believe that it is possible that God exists. That's not what Pascal's wager is about.
Yeah.
So, it just makes me wonder like how did you how did you use Pascal's wager to come to the conclusion that it's possible that God exists?
Okay. be because if Pascal is arguing for the I I would phrase it as Pascal is arguing for like the the strength of belief, right? Or or like to to get somebody to believe, right? To to believe is is is to have faith. Like there there is Pascal's wager. There's no crossing that it's possible that God exists.
Logic.
Pascal's wager begins by assuming that Christianity is true.
It assumes that it is possible that God exists.
Yeah. or or more specifically that Christianity is true.
Okay.
that Pascal assumes that Christianity is possible to begin with and then it goes, is it reasonable to believe in it?
We're saying we're saying the word possible. We're not saying it is. We're saying it's possible.
You made the claim that Pascal's wager convinced you that it's possible,
but Pascal's wager assumes it's possible.
Okay, fine. I I I don't see what the what you're arguing. What what I'm getting at is that it sounds like the way that you came to believe is completely unreasonable.
I don't believe that. I'm sorry. I don't think that I'm an unreasonable person. I mean, I might not have all the facts. I might not have all the correct arguments, but I don't think I'm unreasonable.
So, how do you conclude that it's possible that God that uh Christianity is true? How did you come to that conclusion?
Well, um through study, through through uh a per I mean obviously a personal conviction is part of it. Um,
I thought you said Pascal's Wager got you there.
Well, Pascal's wager was a tool that I used in the in the early stages of my uh search for divine truth. But I'm not saying like I I rest my entire faith on Pascal's wager.
So, Pascal's wager wasn't the thing that got you to believe that it's possible that uh Christianity is true. P Pascal's wager was a tool that helped me to open my mind to the possibility that Christianity uh or no, excuse me, you're I'm getting me a little confused here. Pascal's wager was a tool I used to open my mind to the possibility that God exists because of um the dire consequences of not believing that a god exists. So, it opened your mind to the possibility that God exists.
Yeah, it it it ba basically I would say it it well I mean it like it kind of scared me if I'm honest, right? Like if if I'm sitting in, you know, I was just a teenager sitting in my room playing video games [ __ ] doing nothing. Um and so sort of wasting my life away, right? And so I heard this argument that said, "Hey, um, you know, if there's only really four possibilities, uh, if if it is if it is true that Christianity exists, then there's only four possibilities. So if that if that's true, maybe try believing in it. And otherwise, there's going to be some pretty dire consequences." I said, "That might be true." So maybe I don't know everything.
That's only the case. It's possible that Christianity is true.
Yes. But why would you why would you even contend that it's not possible that's Christianity?
Well, look, I'm not saying that I'm not saying that you have to believe that it's like impossible or whatever or that's where you have to start. But it's I keep asking you this question and explaining why this is uh like Pascal's wager doesn't help you and then you just keep asserting that Pascal's wager is how you got there. Like surely you surely surely Christianity has to be possible in order for Pascal's wager to make any sense, right? If it's not possible, then there's no concern over what if it's true because it's not possible, right? So, you have to assume that it's possible. And then I ask you how Pascal's wager is involved here. And you say, "Oh, well, Pascal's wager helped me believe that it's possible."
Okay. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. But but but you but what you're also contending that like if it's not possible, then there's no reason to even think about Pascal's wager, right? Yeah.
If if Christianity is not Okay, that's great. But how can you know? Like I think that's arrogant. I think it's just arrogant to to contend that that that a a major world religion that billions of people follow is just absolutely there's no possible way that that can be true without at least studying it and trying. I think that's an area.
I mean to say that I to say that I'm not familiar with Christianity is a little bit of a stretch. Um and I'm not even here that you weren't familiar with it. I was talking about myself as a teenager, right? Like I'm sitting there in my room thinking I don't know anything about this, right? So how can I how can I just sit here and contend that it's not possible?
I should at least get
you can I'm not saying that it's it's it's unreasonable to just be like yeah like if I don't know anything like it's it's at least like possible that I could be wrong and maybe it is maybe Christianity is right. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that, and maybe this was just like a miscommunication or something, but it sounded like you said that what got you to believe that Christianity was possible was Pascal's wager,
but it seems like you already believed that Christianity was possible. You were just looking for a reason to think that it's true.
Yeah, that that I'm sorry.
Pascal's wager Pascal's wager gets you to a reason to believe something is true
once you once you agree that it's possible. That's that's the that's kind of the point of Pascal Swager.
Yeah. But I I agreed that a lot of things were possible because I felt like it was arrogant to contend that uh almost anything was impossible because I had no idea. I was, you know, I'm what what could a teenager possibly contend is impossible other than like the blatantly obvious,
you know, like you know, can't flap their arms and fly kind of [ __ ]
So, let's let's say that you are you're a teenager. You don't know much. So, you think that Christianity is possible, but so is Islam. So is Shintoism. shows Buddhism, so is Hindu, Hinduism, so is Judaism, so is Orash. All these things are possible. And then you go to Pascal's wage and you're like, okay, well, if any one of these are true, then like and I don't believe then I'm screwed. So, let's believe at le let's let's think that at least one of them is true. Fine. And then you go to the causality argument and that doesn't rule out anything because all of the all of these kind of major belief systems, they're all going to have some sort of explanation for where the universe came from, right? Um, so then how do you go from you know there is some explanation for the universe
to that explanation is Jesus and Jesus resurrected from the resurrected after he was killed and uh so on and so forth. What's the how do you go from there is some explanation for the universe to Christianity?
Well well through a couple different ways in no particular order. Uh, one I I mean I would say the fruits of of people's labors sort of pointed me to what would be uh more morally correct. I I I saw Christians acting in a way that I would instinctively find to be more morally correct than
Yeah, I I would um
I mean you were in high school so you had taken like history class, right?
Yeah, I took history. Are you going to talk about the Crusades or can I move on to the other things? I was going to talk about I was just going to bring up the Inquisition
and then like you know the way that um the Inquisition obviously bad
saying that everything first off I'm anti- athoritarian. Okay. I don't think I think that most most things that the authority does in the name of Christ are probably wrong. Okay. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about individual Christians that that I would meet in person. I think
I mean like individual peoples of all faiths tend to be good.
Yes. But I but I but I I could feel that there was something wrong about like okay um maybe the the current modern evolution of the of the Latter-day Saints doesn't do this anymore. But Mormons having more than one wife. I thought that that was just despicable. It didn't make
What about Christianity Christians owning slaves? I think that's despicable.
Yeah, I would agree. I don't think the Bible argues that you should own slaves.
Not that you can own slaves.
It, it, it would. Yes, speaking to a certain people at a certain time.
So, can Jews own slaves?
Uh, according to their religion, they can. I, I, I think so. I, I'm not. According to Christianity, too, right?
No, I don't. No, not according to Christianity. The arguments against slavery were definitely from a Christian perspective.
The arguments for Christianity were also from a Christian perspective.
Uh, well, sure, but that doesn't mean that they're right. Just because the two things exist doesn't mean that... So, it doesn't seem like Christianity was the deciding factor here. Look, so it seems like anytime that you interact with, like, a normal person on a normal day, they're going to be a decent person. Like, the odd... like, most people are decent. I, I think that this is probably true. And it just so happens that most of the people that you're going to interact with, if you sound like you're American or at least Canadian, most people you interact with are going to be Christian because that's the world that we live in in the West.
But you know, I, I went to Nepal for my brother's wedding a year and ago.
I also, to be fair, I also live in Houston, which is an incredibly diverse city. Yeah, diverse. It's, it's diverse as far as, perhaps, ethnicity, but I don't think it's diverse in terms of religion.
I mean, do you, do you, where do you live?
I live in Phoenix, um, which is also pretty homogeneous.
Houston, I can tell you, there's a lot of different religions here. Like, there's...
So, I just pulled up the data.
...mosques and stuff like that.
72% of people in Houston are Christian.
Uh, 21% are unaffiliated; 2% are Muslim, 1% are Jewish, 1% is Buddhist, half a percent is Hindu, and one and a half percent are other faiths. So, the non... the other... the people who hold other religions make up less than 5% of Houston.
Well, sure, but also Houston's a massive area. I mean, most of that... that... that... those statistics probably come from...
So, 95% of people are either going to be a... 95% of the people that you meet in Houston are either going to be atheist or Christian.
Okay. Well, that's fine statistically, but my personal experience is, I've met a lot of Muslims, a lot of Jews, a lot of Hindus.
And are you saying that Muslims and Jews were like worse people than the Christians that you've met?
No, I don't think that they're less decent people. I think that their morality is, is less appealing to me on a fundamental level. I don't think that their morality is correct. That doesn't mean that they're indecent people. They're not... that they're not sincere, or they're not worthy of...
How do you evaluate the quality of their morality, except through their actions?
I... excuse me. Sorry, say that again.
How are you evaluating the quality of the individual's morality?
Um, that's a good question. Um, I basic... Well, okay. So, let me, let me say this.
I mean, somehow you're doing it, right?
Well, sure. Let, let me tell you how I came to not really... it... I not accept the Mormon theology and morality. Okay. My... my ex-wife was a Mormon, and then she converted to Catholicism. So, all of her family was, was Mormon, and we would, um, go over to their house, and I would ask them all kinds of questions about their theology, about the different, like, levels of heaven and stuff that they had, and, um, how the... the church went from being called Mormons to being called Latter... Oh, where'd you go?
I found them to be very... I'm sorry. Can you hear me?
No, you're good. I can hear you.
Okay. Um, so, and anyway, through their explaining their theology to me, I found it to be interesting. I found them to be speaking sincerely. I didn't find them to be bad people, but I just fundamentally disagreed with their theology because it, it just didn't...
I thought we were talking about morality.
Yeah. Well, the theology is sort of intrinsically tied into morality, right? The theology is more like the story about... like, it's like an understanding of how God works and what God is, and the relationship between God and man, and these kinds of things. Morality is... I mean, if you're a religious person, real... uh, morality often comes from God, but that's...
But, you know, just because...
...like, you mentioned morality, and now it sounds like you're going to say that, "Well, their heaven doesn't make sense..."
...or, you know, the way that they proselytize doesn't make sense to me." Like...
Okay. I, I was just trying to tell you, like, I, I was trying to wrap my brain around how I assess somebody's morality, me...
And I was, I was getting into a... I was trying to get somewhere with that. Sort of trying to tell you the story to myself, think a little bit about how I would assess somebody's morality. I, I was just saying that I maybe I was rambling a little bit, but what I'm getting at is that they were telling me about the Mormon practices, the Mormon, I guess you could call it, doctrine, right? About, you know, their... their... their doctrine would say, "You can't have caffeine," um, "no sex before marriage," other things like that that directly pertain to the moral actions of a person, right?
Now, some of their... some of their morality was absolutely convincing to me and made, made perfect sense and just instinctively. And then some of it didn't. And what I came... what I came to eventually was, um, like actually more recently, in the past two years or so, um, I, I'd been a Christian for a while, but I eventually came to the, oh, what's the word, denomination of Reformed Presbyterianism. So, that's where I landed eventually.
But I, I'm saying that, like, I, I... how, how I evaluate the morality of another person, I just... I, I guess to me, it feels instinctive. And as a religious person, I would define that instinctive feeling towards knowing what is true and what isn't as, like, divine inspiration or, um, divine direction. So, there's not really like an... I don't want to say objective, but there's not really like a rigorous or standard way that you can use to evaluate the morality and figure out which one's correct.
Yeah, I, I think that's fair to say. I don't, I don't even think that that's something we can do. Um, like I was trying to... like, this is another thing that I don't think we can really do logically. Like, I, I think that it really does come from God.
But look, of course, I evaluate morality in a way that aligns with my belief, and my belief would say that morality comes from God. So, how could I, how could I say that I'm evaluating somebody else's morality on the basis of my own understanding when, of course, I'm not? I'm evaluating it on the morality that, that is given to me by God.
Did you grow up in Houston?
Yeah, pretty much. I'm...
Okay.
So, look, there, there's two, there's two directions that we can go here. One, it sounded like earlier you were talking about the fruits of the morality of the people, and now we're just talking about, like, your, like, kind of instinctive feelings about how you're evaluating somebody's morality.
How else would I evaluate the fruits of their morality?
You could, like, you could examine, like, the consequences of their actions based off of that they take, based off of their... their... the implied morality of their religious tradition or whatever. But what it sounds like is more likely to be the case... this, this sounds more likely is that...
...as far as religious affiliation goes, Protestantism is the most common one in Houston.
And so it just seems like that you are going to be raised in an environment where that is the norm. And so your instincts are going to align with it. It doesn't seem like this has anything to do with whether it's true or not.
I mean, I'm, I'm not, I'm not against that as a logical argument. I just don't think that that... I just don't think that that's true. I, I think...
It is true that Protestantism is the norm. It's also true that children are very easily influenced by their surroundings.
I don't think that's true. You're just... okay. I, I, I'm, I'm saying that I don't think that that is the fundamental underlying truth for why I am a Christian. I think that those are influences that existed in my life, but I don't think that those are fundamental... fundamental... that's... that... that... that's the whole unfettered truth. That makes sense. So, what I'm...
It seems like that, like, do you under... why do you think that mus... why, why do you think that...
...people in Saudi Arabia are overwhelmingly Muslim?
Is that like a trick question? Like, they're... well, they're their... their surroundings. Like, I'm not, again, I'm not, I'm not debating, I'm not, I'm not trying to say that that's not a good argument. I just am saying that I don't think that's true for me.
But here's the thing. They would say the exact same thing as you're saying. They would say, "Well, you know, my moral instincts that were brought, that were given to me by God, let me evaluate the quality of the morality and the fruits of the people around me." And it just seemed like, you know, this... the... the... the ethics that I was given, that God put on my heart, were more closely aligned with the ethics of Islam.
They would say the exact same thing that you're saying, but it would get them to the opposite conclusion.
Okay? So, it can't be that that line of reasoning is correct, if you're able to use that same line of reasoning to come to the opposite conclusion.
Okay, that's... I mean, that's a solid point. I, I, I don't really have a contention against that. I, I've just... I, I, I can only speak from my personal experience. And my personal experience isn't that, um, like I was raised in the church, and, um, that I even had a large amount of people that I interacted with. Sure, like people on the street or at the store were probably Christian. I never really spoke to people in public about my faith.
I did a lot of my own seeking through just my own research, through the internet, and choosing different churches to go to. Um, I mean, I, I went to Catholic mass many times. I went to the synagogue once or twice with... I mean, like, I, I've been, I've been around. I'm not saying that, like, I, I, I, I just don't think that the environmental argument applies in a deep, meaningful way to me, and that, that... I, I, I understand if you think that's not a good argument, but I'm... that's still what my contention is. I just, I think that's my personal experience.
Okay. I mean, like, it's... well, I'm not here to tell you that your personal experience is wrong. Well, maybe I am. Um, this is to say, it's probably... we're probably at an impasse here, so I'm going to let you go. But thank you for being here.
No. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate you.
Take care.