Are you proud that claimed atheist, Alex O'Connor of Cosmic Skeptic rightfully asserts that those who claim no God exists has the burden of proof too?

[Cryptic-Game]

Alex J O'Connor

https://cosmicskeptic.com/about/

This is Alex J O'Connor, a claimed atheist from the United Kingdom. Cosmic Skeptic is his YouTube name. He is also a vegan advocate and think the Problem of Evil is a serious problem for theists.

Trent Horn

https://www.trenthorn.com/about/

This is Trent Horn, a Catholic apologist. He owns the Catholic Answers website and graduated his Baylor University and is from the United States and I assume Texas but not sure.

Please watch this epic 2 hour 6 minute video of Trent Horn vs Alex O'Connor by Matt Fradd!

Normally I don't agree at all with atheist claimers but do with Alex. He rightfully says that if you say God doesn't exist that you must meet the burden of proof that He doesn't exist, which he feels he can do but isn't his main goal. His goal is to critique theistic belief and not to just claim it is certain God doesn't exist. He feels if you can't meet that burden of proof, you don't have any justification to claim God doesn't exist but must take on the moniker that we don't have any evidence warranting belief in God is sufficient enough to believe in Him, although he must say that he could be wrong and that God still exists.

Whose side of the debate do you lean towards? Trent Horn is probably the top Catholic apologist on the web and isn't some push over that many think.

Are you proud that Alex O'Connor rightfully points this out about those claiming no God exists? They actually must provide evidence that He doesn't if they claim it. I must claim I am proud he admits this.

Please share your views! Also, my qurstion is not a rat race to give opinions to. Watch the freaking video and give opinion accordingly. If you comment shy of fully watching, then your answer is not one of major importance. You are not a know it all no matter if you think so. You need to learn these people's views or don't comment. That's rude and arrogant to not watch and to treat questions like a rat race to speed through them.

As an atheist claimer, I also hold that view

As an atheist claimer, I disagree with him on this

As a theistic claimer, I am proud Alex O'Connor can admit this

As a theistic claimer, I disagree with him though

[nightdrot]

Not sure that I am proud that he can admit that the burden of proof falls upon the atheist. However, if one claims to have a viewpoint rooted in science, then it is assumed that any hypothesis would have to be testable and have measurable results. Thus, Mr. O'Connor's argument logically follows.

From the theist side, as G. K. Chesterton wrote, “It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.”

The paradox is that the atheist is as extreme in his way as is the religious fanatic. Because the atheist sees evil in the world, he jumps to the conclusion that there must therefore be no God.

This presents two problems. First, if there is nothing but the impersonal forces of nature and the laws of physics, then there is no free will. Every thought, every action is predetermined by the intermix of molecular and physical reactions. Nothing can be other than what it is.

The problem then becomes that your belief that God does not exist is then also a simple biochemical molecular reaction. You came to the only conclusion that your physiological structure predetermined you would.

However, if that is true, then your conclusion is no more valid than the opposite conclusion. It was simply the luck of the draw of your brain's electro-chemical reactions and you end up in an intellectual hall of mirrors.

In that connection, atheism tends to premised on a rejection of the idea of God in the absence of proof of His benevolence. This leaves the atheist effectively rejecting only one vision of God - namely the Judeo-Christian version. In truth, there are other conceptions of God. (For example, the ancient Greeks believed that the gods were arbitrary and capricious.)

The second point is that if everything in the universe must have a beginning, then logically something must stand outside the universe to start the universe itself. Chesterton's point stands and is a reflection of Aquinas' view of God as the first cause of all things.

The funny part is that the atheist argues that the universe is more complex than religion. Yet their own explanation is, itself, an oversimplification. Order does not spontaneously come from chaos without something outside itself to impose order. Similarly, if all things existing must start, then something must exist outside of it to start it.

Yet the atheist's problem remains. That the order of existence came from chaos absent something to give it order. It just happened - with the caveat that we don't know how - but it happened within existence because existence is all there is.

That is a presumption - and a problem - for atheism.

[OddBeMe]

(Sigh) the atheist does not believe god exists. Not that “No god exists”. See the difference in negation?

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe Do explain - at least in terms of common usage.

[OddBeMe]

It’s the negation. Where the “no” is. There is NO god vs I do NOT believe in any gods. One is a claim, one isn’t.

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe One is an assertion, one is a belief. Both are an assertion that God does not exist. They both end you in the same place.

The atheist's bottom line is that a deity in some form does not exist. The particularities of the views of the atheist may vary - but the end point is the same. Suffice to say that an atheist that believes in God is an oxymoron - by whatever route he gets there.

[OddBeMe]

You’re having real trouble with this...

[OddBeMe]

Jar of jellybeans... is total number even or odd?

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe Not my concern or my point. The fact is that there is a jar of jellybeans. For purposes of this discussion, the modalities are less important than the simple statement of the case.

[OddBeMe]

Answer the question. It’s a fact that the number is odd or even.

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe Yup, and we were discussing the jar - not what was in the jar.

[OddBeMe]

(Sigh) do you know where I’m going? Is that why you’re being evasive?

[OddBeMe]

The number of jellybeans is either even or odd. If you don’t believe it’s even, does that mean it’s odd? No. It’s just I don’t know. I don’t believe either way.

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe Yes, but that not relevant to the discussion at hand. At any rate, there is a difference between an atheist and an agnostic. You seem to be describing the latter. Though, that said, the idea of an atheist on faith is, I must admit, an innovation.

[OddBeMe]

It is relevant. You either believe or you don’t believe. Because I don’t believe doesn’t mean I believe NO god exists.

If you don’t believe it’s even that doesn’t mean you believe it’s odd.

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe Yes, you either believe or you don't believe or you are not sure. You then get into a discussion of the merits of the case for and against belief.

An atheism that does not believe because it does not believe is little different from a faith that believes because it believes. The Christian believes because they weigh certain evidence - the merits of which you may dispute or not. The atheist does not believe in God because he views that same - or similar - body of evidence and does not find it compelling.

Either way, left only with the bald assertion there is nothing to discuss. I believe because I believe. I don't because I don't. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

[nightdrot]

As to your sentence: "Because I don’t believe doesn’t mean I believe NO god exists." So now you ARE an atheist who believes God might exist? A God MIGHT exist out there?

As I say, I think that they call that an agnostic, but be that as it may, you are the first atheist I have ever met who believes in God. An atheist being a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings. That makes you kind of unique.

[OddBeMe]

You need to read up on agnostics Vs atheist. I am an agnostic atheist. I don’t know but I don’t believe. There’s no middle ground in belief. If you aren’t sure you don’t believe.

[OddBeMe]

I DONT believe the jellybeans are even AND I’m not sure either way.

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe You are the one who is unclear. All I can gather is that you are making semantic distinctions that in practice do not amount to concrete differences.

Of course you can believe but harbor doubts. People - especially in the religious realm - do it all the time. See, as an example, the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta. A believer if ever there was one who spoke of "the dark night of the soul." Those doubts that, in spite of her faith, she harbored.

You are living in a tidy world of black and white abstractions. The world operates in the shades of gray.

[OddBeMe]

No, I just hate people defining their god into existence. You can’t provide proof so you say it’s in the “grey”.

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe How do you NOT define God into existence. "Definition" here constituting some sense of his nature and rationale explaining His existence and why one thinks so - or not.

Really, sir, I do not mean to offend, but at this point I sense from you here more sematic games rather than any epistemological analysis.

[OddBeMe]

I’m really not. Defining it in existence refers to not being to able to point to something but rather using stupid reasons like “you can’t disprove”...

[OddBeMe]

But either way, God can’t be proven or disproven. So there’s no reason to beleive it exists.

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe That is why we have a faith/reason distinction. However, it is more complicated than that. You cannot prove that love exists, so you look to indications that it exists. It is, at an irreducible level, an act of faith.

Further, you neglect the limits of reason as well. To repeat, “It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.”

May I strongly recommend that you spend some time with Aristotle, Aquinas and Augustine. You stand on the shoulders of giants, but you are not apt to notice if all you do is look down at your own shoes.

[OddBeMe]

Looking for evidence isn’t faith. I believe my wife loves me because of her actions. God hasn’t done a thing since video cameras were invented, quelle surprise.

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe Wrong!! It is a central tenet of some Christian denominations - especially the Roman catholic Church - that if our reason was perfect wit would confirm our faith. It is therefore obligatory to seek truth and evidence.

Indeed, that is how Christendom gave birth the Age of Reason. One of the driving tenets of Christianity was that man was obliged to explore the universe - physical and moral - in order to glimpse the truth of God.

Indeed, Galileo got in trouble because the SCIENCE of his time assumed that because man was the center of God's creation that Earth must be the center of the universe. It was an argument of Faith against Reason, but of the application of reason in the quest to discern the truth of faith.
The Church got that one wrong - as it belatedly admitted. It too literally interpreted its understanding of man's centrality to God's creation - but the underlying assumption remains that man explores the universe as an imperative to discerning the truth of Faith.

Again, strongly urge you to read Aquinas in particular. I do not mean to offend but you do not appear to be well versed on this issue.

[nightdrot]

P. S. Just as an interesting aside. You may note that Vatican City has one of the world's most renowned Astronomical observatories. So seriously does it take the idea of the ultimate compatibility of faith and reason.

The Roman Catholic, Orthodox and some mainline Protestant churches - especially the Anglican/Episcopal and Presbyterian - place a strong emphasis on exploring the universe as the mean to affirming faith. The fundamentalist/evangelical churches - with some exceptions - take the opposite view.

The latter believe that as man's reason is corrupted by Original Sin, and therefore man is totally depraved, that the exercise of man's reason is unreliable. It may therefore, when it leads to conclusions incompatible with a literal reading of the Bible, defers to the latter. Hence the tendency among the fundamentalist Christians to argue, for example, that the Earth literally was made in 6 days and that scientific analysis to the contrary is not to be relied upon as it is derived from man's corrupted reason.

The irony here is that your arguments end up coming out of the fundamentalist/evangelical intellectual tradition.

[nightdrot]

Type O:

This sentence: "It was an argument of Faith against Reason, but of the application of reason in the quest to discern the truth of faith."

Should read: "It was NOT an argument of Faith against Reason, but of the application of reason in the quest to discern the truth of faith."

[OddBeMe]

You can’t confirm faith. It’s belief without evidence which is stupid.

[nightdrot]

@OddBeMe Well, clearly you have not read Aquinas. Clearly you did not understand the history and intellectual pedigree that I just outlined.

It is more nuanced than you seem to be able to grasp. That said, my sense we have run out the string on this discussion - and I don't expect that you will be picking up Aristotle or Aquinas any time soon.

[nightdrot]

Funny thing, though, I just have to add. For a convinced atheist you would have made a splendid fundamentalist Christian.

Now THAT is a fascinating insight!

[Astarlessnightsky]

I am all for providing data to explain and back up any claims and theories (or your basic opinion), but you can never ever pove the non-existence of something. You can only (attempt) disprove any other theory.

[Cryptic-Game]

So that means we can never know if something doesn't exist.

[t-8900]

you can't prove or disprove God. You can only debate the philosophical and scientific points because that's all we have to go on. It's a lost cause lol. People just need to live with the fact people hold to different things and move on.

[Cryptic-Game]

It is still true though that 1 of these is true: either God exists or God doesn't exist

[t-8900]

yes but unless he reveals himself or makes himself known to us its all really quite pointless to speculate one way or the other. Just continue living life.

[OddBeMe]

@Cryptic-Game Yes, that’s true. And because we’ll never know either way, there’s no justification to believe either way.

[Deathraider]

I don’t believe in a god, but I don’t assert I know there is no god. I don’t believe in a god rather because there’s an absence of an evidence. For example, could fairies exist? Perhaps, but there has not been a well documented observation of fairies. It wouldn’t be rational to believe there are any fairies. Should we claim we know there are no fairies? Of course not, it’s possible, but it wouldn’t be rational to believe fairies exist without justification.

[Cryptic-Game]

The potential consequences comes into play too. If fairies did exist, it wouldn't matter, as our eternity isn't at risk. If God existed though, it could potentially risk our eternity, as there is a chance there could be an afterlife of Hell that would be vital to avoid if we could.

[Deathraider]

Is it just as rational then to believe in god as to believe in malicious fairies (fairies which will harm you if you don’t believe in them)?

Nay. A claim isn’t given further justification by saying the lack of belief in said claim will lead to harm. A claim is valid with evidence supporting that claim. If a chance of a terrible afterlife is what you want to avoid, why not believe the greek gods as well? The greek gods were known for their brutal punishment for some of the most trivial things. Or any of the other countless religions? Does the fact that these religion claim good fortune if you believe and bad things if you don’t, make them any more right?

[OddBeMe]

It’s a positive claim so... yeah. Most atheists just say “I don’t believe in any gods.” Which isn’t a positive claim and therefore needs no proof.

[Cryptic-Game]

Did you watch the 2 hour 6 video debate though?

Alex is 21 and Trent is 35 or 36.

[OddBeMe]

Sure I’ve seen it. Is it supposed to be a “gotcha”? No one can prove god does or doesn’t exist. Therefore no one is justified in believing god does or doesn’t exist.

[Cryptic-Game]

I don't think either of these men are the gotcha type men in debating God's existence or non existence.