Within Reason - #17 April 1st - Why I'm a Christian Now, with Stephen Woodford

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

Released on April 1st, this podcast details Alex's conversion to Christianity, a position he defends against the criticisms of Stephen Woodford (Rationality Rules). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of the Cosmic Christian podcast is brought to you by you. To support the podcast, please visit the links in the description. bit of news. This is going to explode. Okay. I just can't wait for it. Yeah, I'm excited. And hopefully by the end of it, you might join the team. We see. Like, miracles do happen, according

to Christians. According to our side of the fence. Welcome back. Yeah. Everybody to Welcome back. What am I talking about. Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Cosmic Christian podcast, a podcast dedicated to philosophical inquiry and the spreading

of the good news of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, because this is quite a new development, I haven't quite managed to get a graphic designer to make a logo for me. And even though Steve's the graphic design, I don't think he's particularly supportive of this move. So I've got something a bit makeshift that I've just made. I hope you don't mind if I just... No, no, you put it up. You go ahead, man. I'm entirely endorsing your transition here.

Yeah, I'm very excited about this. Yeah, goodfee, good for. So yeah, ladies gentlemen, there we go, that'll do, and everyone will see that? Good. Branding is the most important thing when it comes to this kind of stuff. Extremely important. Content always comes second for me. Yeah. Good. So yeah, for those who don't know, which is everybody except Steve, I recently converted to the good faith of Christianity. I realized that God exists. And I thought, hey, why not make another podcast? Well, hopefully by the end of it, just like our last podcast

together, I can put a thumbnail saying, we agree now. And you'll... Yeah, hopefully you can convert me, which will be, wow, be good stuff. So first of all, congratulations. Thanks. I mean, are you happy that you're going to heaven? Oh, I'm not. Man, that's the best part about all of it. Yeah, like, because that's like really, that's, that sells it, doesn't it? Like, I really want that, but, you know.

Yeah. But I'm going to hell and you're going to heaven, but, so we can't chill out like we planned in hell, so. No, no. It's all, okay, yeah, fair enough. Gonna be a bit of shame. Now, my first question, actually, is just, how are you going to deal with the new exposure?

Like, you are Christianity's new favorite toy. Like, you've, I've seen. it in the comments like people are saying he's a real smart atheist he's probably going to outgrow the atheist phase as they go there because they say I went for an atheist phase when I was you know a cool kid but now I've realized there is a god and it seems like you've went through that transition and now you come out the other way you're going to get invites to you know capturing Christianity and Justin Briley like you are you prepared for just how much this is going to change your life yeah you know I was sat reflecting in my bed

lonesome at night. And I thought to myself, what are the benefits of Christianity versus atheism? The only two options on the table, obviously. And I thought, gosh, well, they were more or less equal. And then I took a kind of Pascalian wager on the fact that if I were to convert to Christianity, the ad revenue alone that I would get from videos discussing my conversion would probably make it all worth it. It would, yeah. I remember this being expressed in terms of Matt De LaHunty. If Matt converted, then, you know, it would have been big news. But, well, he just stayed in the atheist phase, whereas you... I've outgrown it. Does it feel something like being born again, considering that you was Christian before?

Yeah, it's like being born again again. Oh, that's great. It's quite good fun. Yeah, yeah, that's good. So I just want to be crystal clear on this. This has nothing to do with it being April 1st, does it? Like, I mean, call me skeptical, but like that's, maybe I'm cynical. That's the way I'm looking at it.

But it's got nothing to do with that? April, is it really April 1st? It actually is. I didn't even know it. Okay, good. That's a strange coincidence, isn't it? Well, yeah, and coincidences like... Yeah.

But fair enough. But as my newfound faith teaches me, sometimes what appear to be coincidences can actually be miraculous. And I like to think that what's happened to me recently has been miraculous. So I thought it would be fun to do a podcast with you, Steve. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the conversion. Try to convince you of theism, of Christianity and see how far we get, given that I've now come to the truth and seen the light on this fine day of April 1st.

No, I totally understand. I mean, what's great is that you've been through the academy. You've had exposure to these wonderful theists, these wonderful lecturers. I imagine most of your lecturers are theists, if they're in that faculty, or is that not the case? My theology tutor was an atheist, the wonderful daughter, Catherine Southwood, a biblical scholar who actually gets quite annoyed when people presume that if you're studying theology, you're going to be religious. I nearly mentioned that in my interview, and she told me later that if I'd have done that,

I'd have really rubbed her up the wrong way. Alas, yes, I think a good place to start, Steve, is to run through some of the traditional arguments for God's existence and see what you make of them because I know you've engaged with them before, but, you know, I mean, we've got a bit of history, man. Well, there's two things. First of all, with you going through the Academy

and me just being this YouTuber, right? Frankly, this is a terrifying experience for me. I would sooner be in front of, you know, many apologists. Like, put Frank Turek in front of me. I'd have a better time. But this is, this is intimidating stuff. But, hey, if truth is the ultimate goal, then, right, let's have at it. Like, worst case scenario, I'm going to have to go home and go, you know what, that's good.

I'll have to look that up. Yeah, it's also possible that by the end of this podcast, I've, I've deconverted back into atheism. Oh, I'd love that. I'd really like that to happen mainly because it means I wouldn't have to change all my branding and whatnot. So if we can get there, that would be pretty fantastic. I'll do my best. Okay, so why don't we begin, Steve, with? Yeah, where you are?

The ontological argument Which I just stole from a pile over there Yes, I hope you don't mind The ontological argument is a good place to start I think Because it of course demonstrates the tautological truth Of God's existence I think the ontological argument can be surmised As saying that God exists

Is essentially a tautology It just means God means essentially the same thing as existence So why don't we take it back to Ansel Ansel Ansel is a good place to start Anselm of Canterbury, who wrote in the proselyonian that even the fool, even the fool, and that includes you, Steve.

It is me. Even the fool, the atheist fool of the Psalms, who says in his heart that there is no God, even the fool can recognize or can conceive of a maximally or a greatest conceivable being. By definition, it is possible to conceive of a greatest conceivable being, right? So you think Aquinas is wrong then? because when Aquinas says that you can't actually conceive of God, he's wrong. Yes, well, look, I'm not asking you to conceive of God, Steve.

Who mentioned God? Oh, so it's not God. I don't remember mentioning God. I mean, maybe you heard me say, I don't remember mentioning God. All I'm asking you to do is imagine the greatest conceivable being. Now, Aquinas is fine if he wants to say that you can't conceive of God. This is something that Descartes, I think, actually had a good line on when he was talking about shapes. He said, look, there's a difference between conceiving of something and

grasping something. And I can't remember which way around he used them. I think that was Guamelo. Well, maybe he talks about it too. But there's this distinction, this idea between if I asked you about like a 1,000-sided shape or a 1,012-sided shape, you understand what that means. You can conceive of such a shape. But it doesn't mean you can kind of grasp. It doesn't mean you can picture it in your head. It doesn't mean you can really like understand it and see it, but you can still know what it means and know enough about its nature to be able to actually do calculations and things with it. And when I'm asking you to conceive of a maximally conceivable being, I'm just asking you to conceive of it in that sense. And if you think that there's some

limitation on what you can conceive, then that's just the maximally conceivable being, right? Yes. So just imagine, if you will, humor me. The greatest conceivable being. You're doing it? I've got Sagan in my head. Okay, Sagan. Well, I think we can prove upon Carl Sagan a little bit. That's blasphemy. Firstly, we make him Christian. Yes, true. Secondly, we make him all powerful. Thirdly, we make him all loving and omniscient.

And then we've essentially reached God. So, you know, I don't know if you want to go down that. Well, I actually want to go back to where you're emphasizing on understanding versus actually having the concept. Okay. So I, if I'm not mistaken, I think Daniel Bonnevac and some others have spoken about it being in the context of Guanolo, but it's not, and I appreciate it that I'm not, pronouncing gullenlo in the way that many philosophers do which is just something i do i'm going

mispronounce names like it's the youtube career what can i say not access to the people that know how these things are pronounced but it's not his most famous um response the most famous response of course is the perfect island which we can't oh yes we can yes we can so you've got understanding of a concept but that doesn't mean that you actually conceive of it okay so another example would be because you've given some another example would be a square circle yeah it's like i understand that concept but I don't actually conceive it. Another concept would be that it's raining just outside, but it's also not raining outside. I understand that. The words make sense to me, but it's wrong to assume that therefore I have actually conceived it. And I'm wondering,

how do you know the maximally great being is not one of these square circles? But do they, do they actually make sense to you? So you say you can understand a square circle. So if you understand what a square circle is, what is it? How many signs does it have? Well, this is what I mean. I can understand the words. And then I think I've got the concept, right? So I think I've got the concept. But on analysis, it might be revealed that I don't. Okay.

Luckily, where it's such an example that's tangible, we can kind of assess it and realize this. When it comes to, like, raining and not raining, like, I'm using examples that are simple to try and communicate the point. Yes. But how do we know that the greatest conceivable being actually is something that we can conceive of? Because we can understand the words. I'm kind of putting it definitionally to you that the greatest conceivable. being, it's just whatever being it is that you are capable of conceiving of, right? So if there's something that you think you can conceive of but can't, we can work with that

for now and then if it transpires that we actually don't conceive of that, we'll just, you know, lower the, lower the boundary a little bit. But I would say for myself that if you say a square circle, I know what you mean in terms of what you're getting at, you're getting at a contradiction, but if I try to actually understand what is a square circle, what is something that has four sides and also one side, I, it, to me, it's just senseless. That's what, almost what makes it a contradiction is the fact that, no, you can understand what that is. And you can understand it being, you can understand it raining, and you can understand it not raining. But the idea of these two things happening at the same

time is something that I don't even think you can really understand what that means. So I think you can understand the concept, you can understand the words, and it can feel like you've got a good idea of it, but it's just that you actually don't. It's a bit like what William Lane Craig might do with actual infinites. We can conceive of them, but he thinks that actually know they're contradictory. I see. So I think it runs along those lines. I mean,

interest in time, we might want to switch up to the next objection or whatnot, but do you know, I must say I'm not surprised that an atheist like yourself is perfectly happy to allow contradictions. No, no, I don't know.

That's fine. What I want to talk about is if we take this greatest conceivable being, we can just grant for a moment that, you know, or putting what we've said to the side, just for now, to run the argument,

to at least get it to its conclusion. Sure. imagining the greatest conceivable being. Now, I think it's useful bit of terminology is that Anselm thinks that something can exist in multiple forms, something can exist only in the mind, something can exist in reality as well. So would this mean that if you describe something as,

let's just say that we're saying, the greatest conceivable Spider-Man, there's nothing in that that says that he must exist? No. Because all you're asking really is, what would be the greatest concept of Spider-Man in this realm of non-existence? right? Well, the greatest conceivable Spider-Man, for Anselm, would exist, but it would

exist in the mind. Yes. So he uses the term slightly differently to how we might use it, which is that like, if I say do unicorns exist, you'll want to say no. It's like, well, they kind of exist conceptually. That's what Ansel means by existing in the mind. So unicorns for Anselm do exist. It's just that they only exist in the mind rather than existing reality as well. Saying that, no, they do exist if I'm going to run the lines of Ansel. So this brings us, of course, to go on those more famous objection, which you're putting on the table, of course, which is the perfect island. And with the perfect

island, he's saying, look, you can apply this to the perfect island, because if you can think of, like, a wonderful island, it's got all the things that you want, but it doesn't exist. Then I can think of something greater, namely that, but it also exists. And what we're looking for is a symmetry

breaker between why is it okay for Ansel to do that with God, and not to do it with pizzas or islands. So, like, where where what's got you across the line on the sake of the audience because we I don't think we actually quite finish the argument so the objection might not make sense if they're not familiar

already the argument says imagine the greatest conceivable being that that being exists in the Anselmian sense exists in your mind because you're conceiving of it right it's the greatest conceivable thing and so it exists in your mind and then Anselm asks does that thing also exist in reality

does it exist in the real world if you say no then the thing you're thinking of the thing you're conceiving of can be improved upon. It can be made greater by imagining that it also exists in reality. So if you imagine something in the mind, which is the greatest conceivable being, and then I say, does that exist in reality? And you say, no, then you're not doing what I ask you to do,

because I ask you to imagine the greatest conceivable being. So if you're imagining something that only exists in your mind, you can improve upon it. You have to, by definition, imagine something that exists in reality. So by imagining the greatest conceivable being, you're imagining something necessarily that exists in. reality as well. And of course, the greatest conceivable being, you'll imagine it having, you know, maximal qualities, it will be powerful, it will be knowledgeable, it will be loving,

it will be moral, it will have all of these qualities. And so you're imagining something that's like maximally, perhaps, you know, to the highest extent as possible, powerful, that would be omnipotence. To the highest extent that's possible, knowledgeable, that's omniscience. Also, as only define the God as an unipotent. Well, I'm asking for the, for it to just have this thing, We're not talking about God. Again, I don't think I'm sorry. I don't know where it's God's coming from. I'm just talking about a being that you're conceiving of

that has the maximum conceivable amount of all the properties that you could ascribe to it in the abstract. So if I conceive of this being and I say to you, yeah, I've got the greatest conceivable being of what would be the most powerful being. Why is it that you say that it also must have existence? In reality. Yeah.

because a being that only exists in your mind is not as powerful as one that exists in reality, for instance. But if I'm thinking of the strongest concept, then it would be fine. I would assume you'd follow. Like the strongest possible, say, the greatest possible Spider-Man, why wouldn't you say the greatest possible Spider-Man must exist?

Well, this then is where we land at Gornelos. I don't think anybody really knows how to say his name. I don't think anyone knows how to say any of these old names. We just wrong with it, yeah, exactly. Funny if we were just pronouncing them all wrong. I think that's likely. And Selm, Descartes, maybe. So the parody objection that you've just put up is this argument.

Imagine the greatest conceivable being, and then if it exists only in the mind, it can be improved upon. So it must exist in reality. You ask about the greatest conceivable Spider-Man or the greatest conceivable pizza. Or is going to put it, the greatest conceivable island. So we imagine the grey, which one do you want to go with the spider? The pizza? Let's go, let's go Spider-Man. Let's go Spider-Man.

So we imagine, we'll run the same argument, imagine the greatest conceivable Spider-Man. Yeah. Now, what we have to distinguish between is Anselm is not asking us to imagine the greatest conceivable God or the greatest conceivable man or the greatest conceivable creator, but the greatest conceivable thing. So everything that exists, be it's Spider-Man pizzas, islands, gods, humans, whatever they are, they all fall within the category of thing. Yep.

greatest possible thing, then, you know, what you're looking at is, if this coffee cup is part of thingness, it is a thing, can it be improved upon as a thing? Well, maybe if we kind of turned it into a glass, by some definitions, it might be improved upon as a thing. It wouldn't be improved upon as a coffee cup, but it might be improved upon as a thing. So, we take something like Spider-Man. I'm actually not sure that's true, because they both exist. So define thing? A thing is something that's not logically impossible. So it doesn't have to exist? It doesn't have to exist in reality, no. So you're defining a thing as something that's not a contradiction? Pretty much, yeah. Okay. So I think is, maybe Anton wouldn't use the word thing there, but I think that's

what he's talking about when he says things can exist in the mind. See, like I would define a thing as something that exists objectively. Okay, well then you can, you can say it's a concept instead or something like that if you prefer. Okay, so you think a concept is. So we can, a concept would be something on your terminology that exists only in the mind. It's the thing that exists only in the mind. I like to think that unicorns, even though none exist in reality, are still things. A unicorn is the thing that exists in your mind, right? That's how I'm using the term. And so we say, okay, well, what about the maximally great Spider-Man? Well, first reason why this is disanalogous in my view is because we've gone from talking about the maximally great thing, just anything that exists,

to a specific subset of things, the greatest conceivable Spider-Man. So you're going to be limited in terms of the qualities that are going to make something a better Spider-Man. Whereas, like, becoming, let's say, I don't know, some people might argue that sacrificing your son, right, as Christianity teaches, makes you a greater thing or a greater God or whatever. It doesn't make you a better Spider-Man, right? It's not a great-making property of Spider-Man. Likewise, if you're talking about the greatest possible pizza,

I tell you something that does make Spider-Man greater. that he's actually a man. Yeah, well, we have something to say on that too. I mean, I'll go ahead and man is defined is something that's a thing that exists objectively. So if you have in your mind the idea of Spider-Man with all of these wonderful attributes, I can think of something greater

because I'm defining Spider-Man as a man as something that exists in reality. So if you fail to conceive of Spider-Man, if you try and conceive of Spider-Man and you say that he exists as a concept, you're just not, you're just not getting it, mate. That's not how I'm defining Spider-Man. That's because you're defining a man as something that exists in reality.

Yes. So Sherlock Holmes, is he a man? No. Well, I would say that surely he must be. No. Because you can talk about Sherlock Holmes as a man. You can talk about Sherlock Holmes's parents. You can talk about Sherlock Holmes's house and his car or whatever, you know?

So you've got James Bond. Yeah. You've got Sherlock Holmes, you know, in the spy area, let's say. We can talk about which one of those are greater without ever referencing them actually existing. It doesn't jump to that at all. You can give me the greatest concept of Sherlock, and then I can't improve on it by saying he exists in reality. Because I don't think that that's baked into the concept at all. I think you can have it completely in that realm.

I think Anselm, and this is, again, Gwanlo, Daniel Bonnevac, says that he just jumps from this to the other side. Descartes pointed this out as well. And I just, I don't see, like, it seems to me that if you want to play this game where you're going to define God as something that exists. And I can just do it of unicorns. Because if you had a, you know, or Spider-Man, we're still with Spider-Man. Like, that's, that's my response to that. Now, I am just touching on the time.

I've got one more response for you, but it depends on whether or not you want to get a few more on the table. Well, I'd like to get to the end of this particular objection. Sure. In particular, for instance, you said that you could define a unicorn as existing or something like this. It's not so much that. What I would say is that a unicorn has a horn.

It has a horn. What does that mean? It means it exists. must have the horn. You can have a horn in your mind, right? You can have a horn that doesn't exist. It's not how I'm defining it. So you're just defining a horn as something that has material existence. Yeah, it's part of the definition of the unicorn. Okay, in which case... Because if you can think, if you think of one that doesn't have that, then I can think of a greater unicorn. But you could say a greater unicorn is one that can exist in reality and the mind.

So one that only exists in the mind, a better unicorn is one that exists in the mind and reality. a unicorn that only exists in reality and not in the mind can be improved upon by existing in reality and in the mind so do you think God exists in the mind and reality in the mind and so I could so I could do the same with the unicorn I go yeah exists in the mind and in which case you would have to say that the unicorn does exist as a thing in the mind but this this is where I think that you've got a bait and switch going on with

Ansel because if you're going to if you're going to say that God has as part of his definition existence and then say you've conceived of it of God properly in your mind but he does exist, then you just haven't got the concept of God in your mind. I guess I'm not defining God as something that exists. And I haven't even got to God yet. No, no, no, you're not on God at all. You're just on this unembodied, unconscious entity with omnipotence, on the presence, on the benevolence.

It's not God. But this is the beauty of it. I don't need to call it God, right? So the argument runs, look, if we take the pizza, for example. If it's not God, why have you given it omnipotence? Is it just? Because I'm just, I'm thinking about a maximally great being. So a being that has, or rather a greatest conceivable being, so I think that has,

I think that has the greatest conceivable amount of properties in the abstract. So power would be one example of something that it can have the greatest conceivable amount of, right? Yeah. I will give you the last word on this because I want to get another objection on because I know there was sensitive time. And if people want more of the Cosmic Christian podcast and they want me on, then I get to hop on and we can like really delve into this stuff. So this is, I don't know why you're laughing. Like this is really serious stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, come on. I wanted to say, let's take the pizza, because I think it's a clear example to get this point across. what are the things that make a pizza great? What are the great making properties of a pizza? Well, there's one problem, which is that pizzas can't have intrinsic maximum. So, like, if you say, well, I think that makes a pizza great is that it has cheese, right? It's like that you can always add more cheese. You can always make the pizza bigger.

You can make it bigger and bigger and bigger to no end, right? There's no, like, maximum. That's like one objection. Whereas, like, for something like the maximally conceivable being, it would just be like, whatever the most power I think can have, that's the top maximum. And that's what you give it. Oh, no. But it's actually a less interesting objection than the one we're already talking about, which is...

That's where I want to go. Okay, well, we can go there next then, right? Go for it. So allow me to finish this objection first. If we talk about this pizza and we say, okay, well, let's imagine the maximally conceivable pizza. You know, the greatest conceivable pizza. Okay. The greatest conceivable pizza is a category of thing.

We'll have specific great making properties. Cheesiness, roundness, you know, the amount of pepperoni. It's got something like this. It's got pineapple one, right? If you like, yeah. No, no, it does. It definitely does, if it's the greatest possible pizza. Okay, so this is, okay, so the problem you're getting at is that, like, there's no objective way to say what makes pizza greater.

Precisely. Which actually just means that you're not able, it's like conceptually incoherence, talk about a maximally great pizza, and so your objection doesn't work. And I don't think we can talk about a maximally great being. But when we're talking about great here, right? What I'm talking about is just has the, has more of the, like, just has more of any property you can ascribe to a thing in the abstract. what about mutually exclusive properties such as okay so you have in your mind let's say not God but like quite close to God right is that fair then I've got God but sorry not God quite close to God your concept of the greatest possible being would express his

omnibenevolence with pure justice so he will say look it's always an eye for an eye I'm never going to take a tooth for an eye like justice is enacted that That is what I'm always going to do. My concept of the greatest possible benevolent being is one, let's say, in contrast, that has maximal mercy. So I think that he shows mercy whenever he can. So it's not an eye for an eye. You have mutually exclusive concepts there,

and how do you cash this out? Have we just argued for polytheism? Or how is that going to manifest? Does God have these mutually exclusive properties? You've given up the law of non-contradiction? What's going down on that from? I think one potential way around that is to say that, like, there's kind of an epistemic problem here, which is that if we're looking for maximal morality within a being,

we don't know what the balance of justice to mercy would be in a maximally moral being. But we could say that there is a right answer to that. Let's say if there is such thing as objective morality, which obviously we haven't got there yet. Sorry, that means you can't conceive of it. Yes, you can, because like with the thousand-sided chase, you can just understand what it means to have a maximally moral being. You don't know whether that's going to cash out in terms of justice or mercy. You don't know what the balance is going to be.

But what I'm talking about is just whatever the right answer to that question is, is a property of that God. You might not be able to know exactly what that property is. But you know that whatever it is, it's going to have, did I say God? There I finally. Yeah, you did. You went there. You went there.

Finally, like that will be ascribed to that. Did that feel cathartic? I feel good. Yes. Yeah, good. Of course, there's going to be an epistemic problem here that we don't know whether it's going to be justice or mercy and what the balance is going to be between. the two. But if there is such thing as objective morality, which we can get to later, then,

but which at least you'll understand the Christian will accept, then there is a right answer to that question. And the maximal, maximally moral being will just have whatever the correct answer is to that question. Right. Yeah, I don't buy that. Okay. So if you've got like the thousand-sided dice, okay, you understand the concept. And fortunately, you can figure out whether or not there's a contradiction involved. But you don't, you don't, while you understand it, you don't actually conceive of it. Because you can't.

It's just too many, it's just with the apparatus that God gave us, right? It just doesn't allow us to compute in that way. Okay. Likewise, when we start thinking of a square circle. Now, well, it's slightly different here. You think of a square circle. You can conceive, you can understand it,

but you actually can't conceive of it. My point here is that you think you can conceive of the greatest possible being, right? It makes sense to you logically, but I would say that I'm not convinced that that's true. I actually think that Aquinas might be where to get off, which is on premise one. I'm not sure you can do that. There's a careful distinction that needs to be made here. You said you might not be able to conceive of the greatest possible being, which is true,

but you can conceive of the greatest conceivable being, which is what Anselm's asking you to do. And I think that's in the realm of fiction. But surely you can conceive of the greatest conceivable being. Yeah, but like I don't. But as we go back again, I don't know why he would not fall into the realm of Sherlock. I can think of the greatest possible Spider-Man. I don't need him to exist. Okay, so that's where I wanted to finish the earlier.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is let's take the pizza, only because it's kind of so different from a god that I think it's easier to make the point. And then if you don't think it applies to Spider-Man or Sherlock Holmes, we can do that too. But so a pizza is going to have certain, like, whatever you're saying, when you say a great, a maximally great pizza, or a greatest conceivable pizza, whatever those properties are that you think, makes it a greater pizza. Again, there'll be an epistemic problem here. If there's an objective truth to it, we don't know whether it will have pineapple on it or not, right? No, it will. Fine. Whatever you like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The great making properties of a pizza will not include existence in reality. It will. Because existing in reality might make it

like have more existence, might make it a greater thing, but it doesn't make it a greater pizza. Yes, it does. Because it still has all of the properties of a pizza when it exists in your mind. No, I disagree. Even it tasting nice. It tastes nice. It tastes nice. It could be nutritional, it could be cheesy, it can be round, it can be, you know, filled with pepperoni. Define. Define taste. Tasty just means like, okay, when eaten is pleasant. So you have to eat it? So it's got to exist?

Yeah, it exists. Okay, so the meat or exists. It exists. Oh, okay, so you eat it mentally. Yeah. And then you get the taste. So if you were to eat, never have eaten pizza, and then you eat it in the mind, you would actually get the taste of pizza. Here's how to put it into words, I think.

that the conceptual pizza is tasty in the same way that Sherlock Holmes's front door is black and the and also the God is all powerful no not quite I don't I don't think so yeah because like I think that's just a really cool superhero I don't think it has to exist

well we can pin down the subjection would you agree that Sherlock Holmes's front door is black no so what color is it it's like it's within a conceptual frame like to say that it is black is to say that he has a door and it's black. He doesn't have a door. Well, he does have a door.

No, see, I think that you're just, you're confused on the topic. Sherlock Holmes has a door. Sherlock Holmes has hands. This is where the bait and switch is happening. Define door. A door is some kind of, like, object on a hinge that allows you to enter a premises.

And does the hinge exist? In the mind, yes? Yeah, you see, like, so... It can also exist in reality. It can do. It can exist in reality. It can exist in the mind. But that's not a necessary.

property. No, it's not a necessary property of being a door. Yeah. So like the way you define it there, then yeah, you can say he's got a door. So Sherlock Holmes has a door. And so the objection might be something like, well, surely to make it a, like the greatest conceivable door, it would exist in reality. No, because you just said it doesn't necessarily have the property of existing. Which is, which is exactly my point, which is to say, if you're going to make the objection, yeah, you know, well, if you want to imagine the greatest conceivable door, surely that must exist in reality. No, because the properties of doorness can be kind of maxed out. inconceivability alone making that door exists in reality doesn't make it more of a door all it does is it makes it more of a thing right but if you define a door as something that exists in reality or you keep you have a component that already presupposes that then you are going to define it into existence this is where the unicorn and the spider man comes in sure so but but again this is why this objection might work to a different form with the ontological argument but anselms just he's not trying to say imagine a being that exists in reality it's not what he's doing. That's like the conclusion of his argument. What he's doing is just imagine the

greatest conceivable thing. But that's why he gets accused of begging the question, right? Because actually, I'm getting slightly confused with Descartes here. Because if you define God to have, if you define God as existing, even if you hide it in like he's got property X, but X is something that necessarily has existence as a property. Just begging the question. The first premise has done it. That's what that's what Descartes does. And I think he does beg the question in that respect. But I don't think that's what answer is. Or he's expressing something. that's completely trivial, which is like, yeah, if you conceive of God, then, okay, fine. Well, you're saying, again, let's kind of get rid of the God talk.

Let's just say greatest conceivable being. So let's follow the argument. We've got, imagine the greatest conceivable thing. Define being? I'd rather use the word thing, which I'd just define in the same way. I define them interchangeably here. So a being or a thing is just something that isn't logically contradictory. So the greatest conceivable thing, right?

And basically the ontological argument runs that, well, that thing must exist in reality as well as the mind. You object that, well, what about a parody of another thing, like a door or a pizza or a Spider-Man? The maximally great door must exist in reality too, right? No, because it's not more of a door by making it exist in reality. But let me just finish the objection here. I'll run it to its conclusion. Then I'll give you the final word. So the objection runs like this. There's a difference between something being a greater door in regards to Dorness and being a greater door in regards to thingness. So there's a Latin word called quah, which I like to use. So like something can be greater quar door or greater quare thing. So take a door that exists in your mind only and then take another door, door two, which exists in the mind and in reality. The door that only exists in your mind, sorry, the door too, the one that exists in reality as well, is not a greater door than the one that only exists in the mind because existing in reality. doesn't make it a greater door, but it does make it a greater thing, because if you're talking

about the greatest possible thing, you're maxing out not just the qualities of being a door, but of just properties in general, which would include existence in reality. So, door two is greater than door one, but it's not a greater door, it's a greater thing. So what the objection does, I think, is actually leads us back to Anselm's conclusion, which is, okay, so the greatest conceivable door, qua door, exists in the mind. Does it need to exist in reality? No. Well, how do we make it exist in reality?

Well, maybe we say that a door that exists in reality as well is a greater thing, qua thing, rather than quad door. But now you're talking about improving the thing that exists in your mind, qua thing. And the door that exists in reality is a better door qua thing. But how can we make it a better thing? Because now we're just talking about thingness. Well, we can improve upon the door, again, not qua thing, but qua door,

by giving that door maximal power, by giving that door maximal knowledge, by giving it maximal ethics, exists kind of stuff. And then where do you end up? You end up in the same place Anselm ended up. So you're either talking about the greatest possible door as a door, in which case the parody doesn't work. It doesn't need to exist in reality. It can exist only in the mind. Or you say, no, the door must exist in reality as well, because that makes a greater thing. But then you're not talking about the greatest possible door anymore. You're talking about the greatest possible thing, and that would lead you right to the big GOD.

Okay. What do you think? I think we're going to repeat the same ground. But hopefully I can do it from a different angle. So, door. Door. And then you've got this greatest thing. You want to say that the thing has omnipotence, omnipresence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence. Yeah, the greatest conceivable thing without that. You're saying that the thing has these, right?

Door, what does it have? Hinge, made of wood, right? The whole argument is whether or not it has, it has existence, right? That's what's being expressed in reality, just to be clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. does it have that? If you define either the being or the door as something that has existence as part of its definition or something that's baked in as a presupposition or as an implicit premise, then it does follow that the greatest possible version of that does exist in reality.

Whereas if you don't have that baked in, as you were saying, then you can have it so the greatest possible door doesn't necessarily have to have existence, the greatest possible Sherlock doesn't have to have necessary existence. I, I, I would say the door, if you've, if you've got a concept of a door, and it's just some concept in your mind, it's not got, it's not something that exists. I don't think you can see enough of a door. That's the move that I see being done. I think the thing, just as you chose some attributes for what you wanted to give God, sorry, not God, whatever it might be, right? I think that you, you have to choose these attributes for what you're going to give door. And I don't, I'm, I mean,

Maybe the audience can let us know, we can go again. So as my friend, as my friend Bill once said. Final word to you, then we'll move on. My friend Bill, um, uh, known more popularly as William Lane Craig, of course. Yeah. What you're doing, Steve is you're demonstrating the intellectual price tag. Yeah. Of atheism.

Which to me is that. Manifold mistakes. In order to, in order to reject this, this objection to your objection, right? Which is my way of getting around it from the Anselmian perspective, which is like, look, A door can exist only in the mind and still be the greatest possible door. It can be improved upon as a thing by making it exist in reality. But you can make it a better thing then by, you know, making it God, essentially.

You're saying, well, the way around that is to say that when you're imagining a door that only exists in your mind, you're not imagining a door. You're welcome to do that, but it commits you to the view that, for instance, you have to say that Sherlock Holmes doesn't have hands. Sherlock Holmes doesn't have a door. And I understand the intuition that he doesn't because you're like, well, he's kind of a fictional character. so he doesn't literally have a door. But there's no price. I think it still makes sense conceptually to say that if I were to say that

like Sherlock Holmes like is not a man. This was this was the ploy. I just wanted to talk about like the definition of what makes something a man. Yeah, yeah. Well, you've now got into the Christian like, you know, like, I'm really trying on the Christian hat. Yeah, well, you really want to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good. If I were to say Sherlock Holmes doesn't have hands, I think I'd be mistaken. I think that would be incorrect, whereas that would imply that, okay, so if it's incorrect that Sherlock Holmes doesn't have hands, that means Sherlock Holmes has hands,

and that means that that would be a true statement, whereas you would have to say that that's not a true statement, right? Sherlock Holmes doesn't have hands. I'd say you're confusing the map for the place, basically. That's an interesting way of putting. Yeah, it's just coming down to you're like, yeah. But I think we're going to traverse the same ground.

This is actually, but that's gone quite full circle. And I think we've done quite well there. I'll be interested to see in the comments what you will make of it. Yeah. You large atheist audience of mine, at least for now. They will convert. They will. Do you reckon this time next year, April 1st again, of course,

do you think that you can probably convert about 50% of them? Maybe. By then at the very least, by the next time. Yeah, and I want to see at least, at least 42 interviews of you done with different Christians, okay? Like, if you don't do that, I'll actually be very unhappy. I'm very excited for this time next year on April 1st when you'll see the first episode of the Cosmic Carnist podcast.

Oh, yes, that's going to be. I'm arguing against sort of vegan sophisms. That's going to be fun too. Maybe you can come on for that as well. They're such hypocrites, aren't they? I can't believe it. Like, when they eat tomatoes, they've got to kill things. You kill animals, right?

Yeah. And also, I find that if you just put your fingers in your ears and you ignore actually the ethos that are expressing and pretend they're making something else. I mean, that's what I do as an atheist, of course. I straw man all these arguments. It's not that we can have rational disagreement. That's going to end up with me in hell.

No, no, no. Actually, what it is is that I'm a pretty nasty individual. Probably deserve hell anyway. Definitely. Well, we all deserve hell. I deserve hell. Jesus deserves. Do you make sure that you... No, Jesus doesn't deserve hell.

No, no, no, no. But he took it anyway for you. Yeah, I mean, like, he didn't really die though, did he? Well, he did. I mean, what's a sacrifice if you don't really get sacrifice? Well, bear in mind, Steve, that when Jesus was up upon that tree, he did not just suffer the physical excruciation and crucifixion, but also the moral weight of every single human being's sin.

Is Jesus God? Yes. What, how do you conceive of God actually something? suffering, like an omnipotent being, if you can conceive of an omnipotent being that can suffer, I can think of one that's a bit stronger, you know, namely one that can't suffer. So what's going on? I think that's all we have time for. Thank you all for watching today's today's episode.

Okay, we can talk about the train of see if you like, because I was going to say, it's loads, it's my, I'm going to throw it over to you to you. I've had a, I've had a hair shot at presenting an argument in favor of, in favor of the Christian worldview, or at least a broad theism. But yes, Jesus' sacrifice was a real one. And as I believe C.S. Lewis said, he died as much for you individually. Individually, as if you had been the only person alive. I'm so ungrateful.

I'm just not using my mind right. Of course not. I'm just incredibly biased. The gates of hell are locked from the inside. They really are. And like, I mean, yeah. You've got the key, Steve. I've got the key.

I don't know what it is. I use my mind to think about this more than most people. And like, despite, you know, people wanting to say that, you know, I'm strong man or whatever it might be. no, I'm really trying, but maybe I'm just so made. As Blaise Pascal put it, I'm just so made for hell. Like, that's where I'm going and, yeah. I'm glad you said it.

Yeah, I did say it. And it's just like, I'm really glad that an all-powerful loving God created me in such a way. Yeah, isn't it a fascinating divine mystery that somehow a person as, you know, well human as yourself deserves suffering in hell? But of course, you know, I take the annihilationist position of hell. I don't believe that there's a physical place called hell. Yeah. I think that a... Oh, so you're not going to define hell as a...

It doesn't have, it's not a thing. No, I think hell is just separation from God. Oh, I see. You're going to annihilationism. Hell is not a place. Yeah, I'm an annihilationist. I think God is, God is the ground of all being, right? As the contingency argument says, God is like every, all thingness, like physical matter and stuff. It's all contingently resting upon a necessary being.

So everything that exists exists because God is its ground. So if you choose separation from God by rejecting his message in his son, which I do. Yeah, yeah. Then you reject God. And if God is the basis of everything that is, then what you end up in is a place of non-existence. Rather than a hell, I think you end up just dying and not existing,

not inheriting eternal life because nothing can exist separate from God. So you don't need to worry too much. I mean, I will miss you. No, no, no, I appreciate that. But I'm sure after, you know, I'll probably forget about you up to at least, you know, 100,000 years. I would think so. Yeah, because actually, if you've suffered at all,

it's not really heaven, is it? So you really probably shouldn't suffer? That's right. Yeah. So necessarily, I must also kind of, think that you deserve hell. Yeah, you'll see, you'll see that as you go up there and you go, no, actually, fair enough, he is condemned.

And, like, rightfully so. So, you know, goodbye, Steve. Yeah, you don't, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I've got a question for you, good sir. Please. Offer a few questions your way, okay, because you, you, you text me, well, down in Portsmouth, which is lovely, and you were like, listen, Steve, I'm a Christian now, do you want to chat about, like, do you want to chat about all these arguments?

I don't want you laughing. Sorry. Yeah, stop it. So you said, look, Steve, do you want to come talk about these things? Like, you can have maybe two days to prepare. I'm going to throw out all of these great arguments imbued from what I've learned in the academy against your YouTube knowledge. And I thought, that's a great idea.

How could that go wrong? So I found a little bit of actually trying to throw some questions your way. And here's one, okay? Alex, be honest with me. Did you give up naturalism? Because you're just tired of all the sex and parties. Is that, was that like you just wanted not to sin? Yes, I had a brief intermediary period.

I mean, look, it's all very overrated, you know. When you've had as much partying and sex as I have, Steve, you realize that it's all very overrated. A lot of studies actually seem to show that Christians are more sexually satisfied than atheists because committing yourself truly to one person and waiting until marriage actually brings you significantly more fulfillment when you realize what sex is really about, which is love. And you'll link that empirical data, yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I'll put it down in the dobley-doo. Excellent, yeah, yeah. There's an, in Augustine's confessions, there's, he recounts how because he, you know, he wasn't born a Christian, well, debatable. Yeah. He converted Christianity, and there was a period before he was Christian, where he started to think that Christianity might be true.

And so he prayed to God, he said, God, please help me to give up my lustful desires, to give up, you know, the earthly pleasures, to give up sex and money and all this kind of stuff. But not yet, because I'm enjoying it. much. He wanted, and I was in a similar boat, you know. But, but you realize that, you know, a theologically dedicated life is far more, far more awe-inspiring and fulfilling than any kind of vacuous, mindless, carnal pleasures. It's materialism, isn't it? It's just, it's gone haywire. You know, like as a Christian, you probably really like capitalism, but you're quite happily poo on materialism and yeah. Well, people say, you know, atheists just want to sin. And I think it's

true. Christians want to sin as well. Everybody wants to sin every now and again. You want to commit sins every day. So saying atheists just want to sin isn't untrue. Everybody likes to sin according to the Christian definition of sin. People like to have casual sex. People like to, you know, eat shellfish. People like to, tattoos. People like tattoos. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I nearly got, was it Leviticus 1912, 1918, tattooed onto my arm just for the irony. Yeah, that would have been annihilationism though. You would have. At least my left arm would have made it into that. That's true actually, yeah, because then we got a topic of, you know, whether or not you are a hole will pass and like maybe your left arm. And like if you touch yourself with your right

arm, maybe that's gone. Right. That's what's happening. And maybe another part of your body as well. Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, so look, atheists do just want sin, but so to Christians. And so the question is how do we respond to this desire we have within us to do things that we all know somewhere deep down are wrong. Well, one option is to just throw off morality and allow yourself to indulge in them. The other is to say, no, listen to your intuitions and accept the saving grace of Christ our Lord. Yeah, like, so obviously atheists struggle with this. as well and I think like I think the best way to deal with these kind of issues is say I wronged you right stole from you stole your guitar and whatnot okay now you're sure you'd be very upset about that

but rather than replacing your guitar or you know like saying to you earnestly I'm sorry like I don't know what came over me and I regret that I can actually just ignore you let you get on with your life and I can just pray and I just feel like that's such an easier path to redemption it's not embarrassing, you know, I don't actually have to take too much on for myself because I made amends with God, quite frankly, who the hell are you? I don't need to make, you know, amends with you. So, like, I can see the appeal there. Yeah.

So I've got a second question for you, because that was just a preliminary. I would just say in response to that, if I may, that to make amends with God, to repent of your sin requires genuine recognition of wrongdoing. And it is, in order to actually repent, God, God can see your thoughts, man. Like, he knows if you're really sorry. And so the question is, if you stole my guitar and took it away and knew I was upset, but then we're genuinely sorry for it. You might think, well, I can just say sorry to God and not bother with this Alex guy.

But if you were genuinely sorry, if you really did regret what you did, I think you would want to come and say sorry to me because you being willing to just be like, oh, he can suffer on his own really is an indication that you're not truly sorry at all, which means God wouldn't accept your apology either. Well, you know, I guess I could say that actually I think that in the grand scheme of things that all is going to be set right, all as well as for. in his wonderful poem. And that is that God will rectify this.

Like, he knows the conditions that we're under. He knows that people are going to suffer. It's part of the feodicy, right? And so he's going to correct it. And if God knows that I'm genuinely sorry, then that's sufficient. Sure. But, I mean, like, we can have, like, Christian, you know, debates here on our takes on this.

But I think, you know, I'm more interested in hearing your next question. Yeah, absolutely. So my next question would be. you've pushed a lot on veganism recently okay and I mean it's a dreadful religion it's really corroded your mind like you used to be rational and logical that's probably

you haven't been had B12 have you that makes so much sense that's how you've turned to Christianity because you accept the religion of veganism and then before you know it you're accepting every religion under the sun lack there's going to be a direct correlation between lack of protein and theism yeah yeah and that explains why they're obsessed with the man image

right because the lack of in that fundamental category. Yeah, even though meat eaters on average have more vitamin deficiencies than vegans do. No, I don't, I don't know. That's not a thing. That's part of the propaganda

that you're expressing. Anyway, you're detracting from my question, man. Sorry, I'm not really appreciative. No, no, no, no. It's the veganism, you just can't help it. So, animal suffering. Before we existed, we had billions. You always existed, Steve.

Even before you were formed in the womb, God knew you. Okay, that's really nice. Before you existed in... Have I existed forever? Before you existed in reality. Okay. Oh, as poor as a thing. Yeah.

So I existed not as a thing. Well, that feels like homes exists. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, so animal suffering. Before we're born, yeah. There is billions and billions of years of evolution. Well, yeah, billions.

And we, I mean, evolution is a wonderful process. It's incredibly elegant. But it is, it is, to borrow a line from Sam Harris, Like, the process itself causes suffering on a scope and scale that would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath. And yet you believe, I assume, because you accept evolution, that God put this into action. Quite right. So my question would be, how is it that you square all the suffering that we see around us when, because you can't even blame it on human sin? Because we don't exist at that point, right?

I'm talking before humans, because that tends to be how Christians respond. They tend to go, we can do it because of sin. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Before we existed, because then they have to bite the bullet of going, actually I'm a creationist. But most respect for Christians don't do that. Well, it may still be, because you have to remember that for God, we're talking about an atemporal being. So although human beings only started to evolve a few million years ago, and animals have been evolving for about 4.5 billion, if the reason that animals suffer is because we live in a fallen world and we live in a fallen world because of Adam's sin,

whatever this Adam might be in an evolutionary picture. I believe William Lane Craig has a book coming out soon on the historical Adam. He does. Then you could still say that even though human beings didn't temporally exist yet, because God is atemporal, he knows that man sins, that's why we're in a fallen world, and so all of those animals are suffering for that reason. That's not a the odyssey I would use.

I was just going to say, does that mean that he knows all of the future then? Yes, God knows all the future. So he has an actual infinite in his head? No, because the timeline. of the universe isn't going to go on forever because at some point it's going to come to an end at the final judgment. Well, he knows all of heaven as well, which is forever. Yes, but that's a more complicated subject because, you know, we don't know if heaven

kind of operates in the same temporal quality of living existence. We don't know if it's going to be kind of like one day, then the next, then the next, or a minute, then the next, and the next, you might kind of experience atemporal existence or something like that. So, possibly, there might be a, so you'd still have the infinite set. Well, you'd have a, you'd have a potential infinite rather than an actual infinite. No, it'd have to be actual if God's conceiving a fit. If God can conceive of the future, such as Adam, it follows that he can conceive before the future steps. I think

there are two ways around this. The first is to say that heaven essentially exists atemporally. So in the way that God exists a temporally, just curious, you're any other examples of anything existing at temporally? No. Okay, carry on. No, I don't. Because time is, well, perhaps the singularity before the Big Bang. Or singularity at the, at the middle of black holes. I'm not a physicist. So just just hypotheses, basically. If time is... I don't know where kind of thing. Time is a, well, I think that's what you think, Steve.

Of course. Out of nowhere for no reason. For no reason, indeed. I think that if time is a quality of the universe, as Einstein showed, and that it can be affected, so the more mass something has, it kind of slows down time, then if you have a point of infinite density, perhaps, you've got essentially a timeless thing. So maybe that

would be... So you think general relativity is correct? Well, I couldn't say that with certainty. It seems to be the best description that we have so far of the universal laws. Okay, well, it would put you at odds with, like, our best physicists because basically we know that Sean Carroll, Roger Penrose, they basically express that we know that Einstein's theory does not work.

Fine, but it's not compatible with quantum mechanics, for instance. But they wouldn't deny, for instance, the time-waping effects of mass or something like that. Yeah, that we experience within this area. But it's a part of everything, yeah. Yeah, it's a peripheral point anyway. I mean, even... But if you were to use it to apply to the Grand Cosmos,

that would be fallacious. Yeah, I think so too. But if, I mean, even if there were no other example of a timeless thing, I also can't think of another example. of an omnipotent thing. I think that would be contradictory, but I don't think that's special pleading because that's not part of an argument. But, okay, so where were we?

God exists atemporally. So your objection that, well, God must know an actual infinite if he knows all the future. Two ways around that. The first is to say that in heaven you exist essentially atemporally in the same way that God does. So there is no infinite future. But even you don't need time in order to have an actual

infinite. That's true, but heaven wouldn't be necessarily an actual infinite if it were. If there's any If there's a set of any type, so you said that you would, you know, you experience it as if it's like time, but it's not time, well, you still have an infinite set that he can see the future off. Maybe you don't experience it as time. And like, where's Morriston and a couple others of Alex Malpass and Joe Schmidt? Like, they've emphasized very much that the potential infinite presupposes the actual infinite. Yeah, I like that argument.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually something that I put to my friend Bill as well. Yeah. in a previous podcast episode available by the link in the description. Beautiful. I think the other way around it is William and Craig, his way around it was to say that at creation, God actually entered time. So God is now not a timeless being.

He's a timed being. That has some implications as to like divine full knowledge and free will. But he essentially, and I'd imagine that if you imagine a version of heaven that's like a new earth, so kind of earth is reformed and the heaven basically exists within the universe we already have, it's just ultimately. destroyed and reborn, then you have, sure, a potential infinite number of days that human beings are experiencing, but also God is experiencing too. So God becomes a timed being. But I think we can discuss this more if you like. Well, you know, how do you know

when you're talking to a vegan? You won't actually talk about veganism. So please get back to the to the vegan comment, right? How do you know when someone has a nut allergy? Don't worry, they'll tell you. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. It's true. I think, uh, okay, so animal suffering. Yeah, yeah, big problem. big, big problem, which by the way, if you think it is such a big problem, then I only have to ask you, Steve, why it is that, I mean, if you're going to point the finger at God and say, how could he possibly be so evil as to force these animals to undergo the suffering that they do, billions of them, then, well, I mean, Mr. Vegetarian, I could point

the finger at you and say, well, how can you call yourself a moral being, still consuming? Well, we'll expand upon this in the video that's coming on my channel. That's right. Another video on Steve's own channel. Where I've converted to paganism. So, yes, they continue. Animal suffering. There are a few ways to get around it. I mean, one idea is the Neo-Cartesian view, which is that, like, animals either don't suffer at all or suffer in a way that's much less morally significant. This is the line that someone, again, William and Craig takes this line. C.S. Lewis has flirted with this view.

There are some more, like, other contemporary thinkers who do the same thing. I think the idea that animals don't feel pain at all, that they're just mechanistic is vacuous. It's ridiculous. Okay. I think that they do, or at least we have no good reason to think that they don't, and we should give them the benefit of the doubt. So Richard Swinburne's response to this is not the path you're going to take? I don't think so, no. Okay, cool.

I think what I would rather do is enter the discussion with a discussion of the problem of evil more generally. So one way around all forms of the problem of evil is that of skeptical theism, which is the idea that let's just suppose that I could give you absolutely no explanation of why it is that God allowed all of these. animals to suffer in the way that they did for billions of years to bring about human existence. We don't know. This is true in many human contexts. Sure, there are theodices to explain human suffering, but it seems like this particular instance of suffering, it seems impossible to confidently explain why God would allow that to take place. But the question is

this, if there were an explanation for all of this suffering, if there were a reason, I'd rather say, that all of the suffering somehow had to take place or was justified in being allowed to take place. It doesn't follow that we should expect to be able to understand what that reason is. Yes. Right. And so it's at least conceivably possible that God does have perfectly good justification for all of the suffering that he's invigilated. And that when we cry out to understand why it's being allowed to take place, God is simply in a position of not being able to explain it to us, much like, you know, the classic example of the dentist, the child being taken to the dentist. You can't explain.

to the child because it's too young to understand why they have to undergo the suffering, but you know that it's worth it. Maybe one day when the child gets older, you'll be able to explain to them and they'll understand why they needed to go to the dentist. And maybe one day when we inherit eternal glory, we'll finally understand. Sorry, yeah, we the Christian. Yeah, you're the Christian. Yeah. I just never understand it. Yeah. Never. You'll have to take that to the grave with you, unfortunately. Yeah. I think that that's one way around it. And I think there's some biblical support for this, specifically in the book of Job. when, you know, Job is met with with intangible amounts of suffering.

His family, his workers, they're all dying. His livestock is destroyed. Like his whole life goes terribly wrong. And at one moment, he does go to God and say, look, I mean, why, God, why are you allowing this to happen? And what does God say in response? Who is this that darkeneth counsel with words without knowledge? Who is this that that wants to come and ask.

me this explanation having absolutely no understanding of the way the universe works where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who are you? And this obviously takes quite a quite an authoritative tone. It's almost quite scary. You can imagine a voice like that out of the whirlwind being quite often. But if we take kind of, I guess it doesn't try to me as the most wise for instance.

It might not be the most loving but then sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind or harsh. And that would fall into me not really knowing you know, like why that path would be taken. Yeah. And maybe it's like if God knows that you you're not going to be able to understand the justifications he has. If you come to him and say,

why is the suffering taking place and he's like, ah, well, look, listen here, kid, man. Like, there are just certain things you won't understand. Maybe that's not going to, if he comes to you and says, you know, you can't be asking this and says it with a bit more authoritative tone, it kind of puts you off the question in such a way as to say, well, this is obviously very important. You know, I, okay, fair enough, God.

Maybe this just isn't something that I should be engaged in. But the point of that message that God gives to Job there, I think can be potentially interpreted as saying, like, you could never hope to understand. God doesn't say something like, what are you talking about? There's no justification. Why are you saying that I need a justification? He's saying, why do you need to know what the justification is? And why do you expect to be able to understand it? You don't know about the universe.

You darkeneth counsel. You weren't there when I laid the foundations of the earth. You don't have sufficient understanding. God isn't saying there is no justification, or I don't need a justification. I think that he's potentially implying, well, look, yeah, I haven't have an explanation, but how could you hope to understand it? And if that is the case, then maybe I have no answer for you, Steve. Maybe I don't know why all of these animals are allowed to suffer, but...

Sounds a bit like faith. It is, yeah, but it doesn't have to be, because you could say, for instance, if you have separate arguments, like the ontological argument, the cosmological arguments, these kind of things, which establish necessarily the existence of a perfectly moral being, then you know, by definition, because a maximally powerful, benevolent being exists, that whatever he allows to happen must have sufficient moral warrant. Now, on its own, if I go to the problem of evil and I say, well, there is an explanation for the suffering, or rather a justification for this suffering, but we'll never know what it is, then that seems a little

lukewarm. It seems like, okay, like, well, then how could you possibly, what you're just, you're just saying, well, like, I don't have an answer for your objective. but I'm just going to assume that there is an explanation. Well, I'm not assuming that there's an explanation for the suffering. I'm deducing that from separate set of arguments that say that there exists a perfectly moral God, which means there must be an explanation for all evil. So the external reason to have your justification in God, and then because of the God that you've justified,

you have a reason to be able to say, listen, we shouldn't actually have an answer necessarily. Necessarily. What it means is that the separate arguments that are moral God exists prove that where there is suffering and apparent evil, there is a justification for it. Yeah. That's a separate question as to whether we should know what that justification is. So I think that we can establish from separate arguments that whatever suffering exists has a justification. So when you say, why do all these animals suffer?

There is a justification for that. I'm committed to that view as a Christian. But you want to, you seem to be asking kind of, well, why then? What is that justification? What I'm saying is, I don't know. But I wouldn't expect to know. I wouldn't expect to understand such a complicated and mystery that it expands across billions of years. Okay, let me throw you a little, a few objections, right?

So if you have an all-powerful God, then I think that God could convince me of, like, why there is such gross suffering. And if you had an all-loving God, then you already would have convinced me. Now, fair enough, there may be some logical impossibilities going on there. And so, you know, but going back to that conceivability, it seems perfectly conceivable to me. Just as God can show me his existence through, say, the ontological argument or the calam or whatever it is, he should be able to show me, at least give me a grip on why this grotesque suffering exists. And like, if you're thinking of a being that doesn't do that, this is where my intuition is telling me, then I don't think you're thinking of the greatest possible being, because I think the greatest possible being.

And this relates back to what we were saying on your life. logical argument between can you actually conceive as the greatest possible being? Because this epistemic barrier really falls into the throw here. Yeah. So skeptical theism, at least the way I presented it, would commit me to the view that there's something impossible or something that contradicts something that God needs in fully explaining to us why suffering exists. Because if God could explain the suffering to us,

in a way that didn't upset other important projects, didn't upset human free will, didn't involve logical contradictions, didn't involve explanations that no human being is capable of understanding by their metaphysical design, then he should provide that explanation. I agree with you.

Yeah, because just to really cross those teas, it sounds like when you're talking about the ontological argument, you want to say we can conceive of God, and that's how we know it exists. And then when you want to talk about suffering, you want to basically say divine hiddenness. We can't actually conceive of God. And that's why we have this.

And basically what I've seen from interacting with a lot of theists over the time is that they give you an answer over here in order to deal with this. And they'll almost just forget that they, you said about William Lane Craig, committing himself ontologically to things. They kind of forget about that

when they come and deal with this over here. And I'm just like, I'm not sure they're compatible in that sense. One potential, I mean, you could maybe run a version of the ontological argument that, again, if that's being run as like the first argument

in the chain of thought, then you could maybe kind of reject the moral element here. You could say that like the maximally conceivable being isn't maximally moral or something like that. You'd use maybe a separate argument to say that God is maximally moral or that God is perfectly moral. There might be something else that you can use to justify that, in which case the inconceivability of, you know, perfect moral justification would be solved that way. Another way might be to say that like with the kind of, like we were discussing earlier about justice versus mercy and saying that, well, we might not know what the

distinction is there, but we know that there is a correct answer and we just, when we conceive of a maximally great God, we're just saying whatever the correct answer is, that God has it. We can say a similar thing here. Well, my point is that actually you know, because your idea of what would be the right level isn't the same as mine. That's why I'm saying that it actually gives you into this polytheistic kind of position. Like, I've met people that are hell-bent on justice. And like, mercy is weakness and it's not right. It's immoral, in fact. And I've met people that have basically said that justice can be immoral. Yeah. So you have that mix. But that's still just an heistemic problem, right?

Someone's going to be wrong there. If there is an objective morality, it's simply the case that someone is wrong. Yeah, they're not, they could be wrong on their morals. They can't be wrong on whether or not something's justice or mercy. No, but like the question at hand would be like, what is that balance? So if you want to say he's got maximum justice, which is a component of benevolence? Well, is it though? Like, is justice a component of benevolence? Or can these be separated? There is an interesting question here if we're going to maximize all properties, does that include maximizing, like, redness and blueness? Does that maximize, does that mean, is your God red?

Mercy. Well, this is the thing. I would say, one's turquist. Because I would say, like, there are certain properties that you can subscribe to kind of abstract. Wait, so God's a thing that doesn't have color, whereas every other thing has color. Is that? I guess everything that exists in reality, that's kind of big enough to be seen, has

color. So God's not big enough to be. seen. No, everything that exists in, sorry, yeah, no, correct. When I say in reality there, I misspoke. I mean, anything that exists kind of in the universe within creation is big enough to be seen. That's interesting. Yeah. Everything we know that exists is material. Yeah. So God's material. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. No, that's not, that's not what I'm saying at all, because I don't think material is, being material is a great making property, as long as things can exist in reality without being material. It's a thing property. Uh, yes, I suppose so. I mean, Jesus was

So maybe God does have a material aspect. I don't know. Right. We're getting slightly off base and it's my fault. So let's take this response to its conclusion. I'm going to basically apply, reduct you, see how you respond. We've got a situation here. Okay. Someone walks in the office and they just start stealing your stuff. Why would you try and prevent that? How do you not know that that's actually what God wants? That is a wonderful question. Yeah. Why, why, you know, why be upset about what's happening in Ukraine. Like, surely, maybe that's for

the best, you know, like, as Voltaire said, it all is for the best. Like, that earthquake hit in Lisbon, you know, the centre of the church at that time, causing untold devastation, they shouldn't have cleared up the debris, really. In fact, clearing up the debris may have been an act of defiance, because

this position commits you to say, no, like, that's totally fine. So, why are you not paralyzed in that sense? I think that's a wonderful objection. Potentially, the best objection to skeptical theism that exists, right? If we're going to say, as Christians,

that, sure, evil can exist, and there might be a justification for it, and you just aren't going to know that there's a justification. When things like, when someone comes in and steals, you might say, well, how do you know that that's wrong? How do you know that that isn't one of the kind of evils that is like somehow beneficial or necessary or whatever?

And so by trying to interfere with it, you know, you're doing something against God. To say that that's wrong, to say that you have good reason to interfere, is to say that you understand that there is no justification for that. But the sceptical theist wants to say that you won't know if there's justification for a moral act or not. And sometimes you'll commit to the view that all evils do have justification.

You just don't know what it is, so you should just let it be. There is an answer to this. I don't think you'll like it. No. And it's revelation, which is because I'm not just a skeptical theist, Steve. I'm a Christian skeptical theor. So that's another ontological price you've paid. But fair enough.

Because you're going to want a separate, So let's say, for instance, if I put the skeptical theism case against your objection to a loving God, and for now we just had to say, well, yeah, I guess you would just have to let the person tell because you don't know. There's a problem. How do we solve that? Well, then maybe we'll move on to another argument. We'll talk about which God exists and which scripture is true. And once we've done that, and we put the whole thing together, we get a coherent worldview.

So if Christianity is true, we have divine revelation, which says that, for instance, thou shalt not steal. Okay. Now, and you're saying that's an act of stealing. So I think what's happening here is somebody, whereas God can't provide an explanation for why certain evils exist, it exists. He can provide you the knowledge that certain things are such that he's okay with them and certain things are such that he's not. So because God never kind of talked about the suffering of animals in the wild and didn't, you know, think it was important to try and prevent it or something like that, maybe that's one of the kinds of evils. that has an explanation that we just don't know about. Maybe thievery doesn't have a justification.

Now, God still can't explain why that's justified or not justified. We're still not capable of understanding it, but because it is wrong, because it's been revealed, do not. Even if God can't explain why it's wrong, he'll at least want to let us know that it's wrong. So he'll tell us, don't steal. And we might say, well, why?

What's wrong with stealing? And he might say, well, you're not going to be able to understand that. In the same way, you won't be able to understand why it's okay for evolution to kill billions of animals. Sure. But I'm telling you that the evolution thing is fine and the stealing thing is not. The explanation is a separate question.

So if someone comes in here and tries to steal, I can interfere and say, you shouldn't do that because I know it's wrong, not because I can justify why it's wrong from first principles, but because I can justify why God exists, why the Christian God is the right God, why the Bible reveals his message and that that commands people not to steal.

And so he shouldn't be stealing. That's the way I think you get around that problem. Revelation response. Okay, so where does it say, say thou should not have slaves. Thank you for watching everybody. That's all we have time for. Yet again. Yeah, yeah, no, I understood.

The slavery question is an important one that I think can be responded to. Not to dodge a question. I just want to say one more thing on. You're going to buy some more ontology over here and ignore that it's not. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. I wanted to say on the skeptical theorism point, because you were saying a maximally loving God would let me know why the suffering is taking place. At least my intuition would say that if you, it would do a better job than what we actually see.

Let's say that if it were the case, for some reason, maybe because it somehow contradicts human free will, maybe because human beings aren't metaphysically. Yes. Maybe human beings aren't metaphysically capable of understanding it. For whatever reason, God cannot explain why your life seems to be abounded with suffering. It's like, well, okay, what could a loving God do in order to kind of try to get across that he is a loving God if he can't explain your suffering?

Well, he can let you know that he loves you, right? He can send down his son to suffer in order that you see that even if you can't understand why all the suffering is taking place Yeah, you know that God gets it you know that he's suffered too. It's not it's not like he's sitting above it all But that's I think I don't get it. You're all you're all suffering and I'm sitting above it saying oh, this is fine and you know what's going on here? You're not very loving. Yeah God is coming down to earth suffering with us in order to to show us that yes, I understand suffering is important and I'm I'm suffering with you. I understand that this is a terrible thing and just just just just so You're saying an omnipotent being is suffering. Yes.

Okay. Because, of course, we'd need to... Again, my intuition tells me I can now think of a stronger being than you. We'd need to get into a kind of... Well, wouldn't you say that an omnipotent being, a being that has no capability for suffering is not as great as being a capability, but nothing can do it. So he can conceive of it, but there's nothing that can make him suffer. Yeah, but that might be improved upon in the sense that having...

It's like Omega Chad. Having an experience of suffering, having gone through... suffering. He's got that without having to experience it. Well, you can't have the, I think that's a contradiction. You can't have an experience of suffering without experiencing the suffering. You could have like an illusory one. You could like implant a false memory, but you can't actually have the experience of the suffering without suffering. So you think God couldn't do that? Because if you're going to go for like you don't understand God, it sounds like you actually do understand these things now. And now you commit yourself to a position where you do really understand these

things. And so with these questions, you can give me straight answers. But with this one, it's just hands are up. I think the only thing that you can say about God. with certainty is that logical contradictions are impossible for him and about him yeah yeah well for any they're just impossible but what if he just wants you to think that like it's because it's actually no they can happen it's just you're a feeble mortal being and and for the same reason he hides say the suffering he's also going to hide um hide that fact if we're going to throw out logical consistency of this kind of stuff like yeah you're right you could potentially do that um Descartes considers the question of what if god made

or the evil, I know, I think he does attribute it to God. Why doesn't God make him go wrong every time he adds two and two to get four? Maybe it's actually five and he just goes wrong every time. Descartes's response was that would make God a deceiver. But you could also say that like maybe, okay, that that's fair and that might undermine a lot of the arguments I'm putting forward. But it also undermines this very conversation. Like we should just, we should just pack up and go home because everything we're saying is reliant upon logical rules that we're both ascribing to. And if they're potentially false, then then why are we bothering in the first?

place, you know. But the thing is, is that I've got reasons to believe in say the law of non-contradiction, but your reason to believe in it is nested in God. And you've just said that God can do these things. I don't think it's nested in God. Sorry, my view as a naturalist of the law of non-contradiction is going to be straight, whereas yours is going to go through the prism of God. As it goes through the prism of God, you have all of these epistemic questions coming up about how he could rephrase this in certain ways to be able to come across for you. it seems like it's a unique problem for you and not for me it's possible that it i'm there's a lot of confusing language going on here is it possible it's possible that maybe god can't do that and it's not a problem to say that there are things god can't do yeah like god god can't do god can't perform logical contradictions is usually um a kind of a line that some theists take uh others will say that um i'm indebted to my to my friend maximally great philosophy the youtube channel which i'll also link in the description well i'll do it if he actually manages to make another video anytime soon after me having so generously gifted him

some viewers and subscribers and then he repaid them by not making any more content but having spoken to him he's of the opinion that maybe that's for the best by the way maybe that is like for the best maybe that's what god wants maximumly great philosophy from him is just to keep quiet it's just to keep quiet and smile and like that's that's what it is yeah yeah well this is what you get, Ryan. Like, you probably shouldn't make that judgment, mate, because you don't know what God doesn't. Yeah, that's right.

Because there isn't, there isn't like, don't have slaves, don't murder, maximally great philosophy won't publish. I think that even if we can't understand it, there is very good justification as to why Ryan shouldn't make any more videos. Actually, I think I can understand why you wouldn't make any more videos. There's very good reason for that.

Last time in the boat. Yeah, I take speaking with a friend, by the way. Where were we? Just last time in the boat for this, right? You were just saying that it could be possible for God to do X, right? Oh, so yeah, what I was saying was... But the whole thing here is just like off the table for me

because you're talking about what's possible for God and yet when it comes to the animal suffering, you want to say that you don't know what's possible for God. Okay, what I was trying to do is make a distinction between saying if there are things that aren't logically impossible, then yeah, we don't know if God can do them on. We don't know if God is doing them. We don't know if he has justification.

But if something's logically contradictory, then we know that God can't do it. You said, well, how do you know that you have the right perception of what's logically possible? And I would say that So the response that Ryan has given me when we've spoken about logic is he said that logical contradictions

just aren't things. It's not like they're kind of they're things that God can't do. Why does he believe that? They're just not things. Because they have no reference. They're like even conceptually, like a square circle.

But why does he believe that? Why does he believe that? Why do you believe that? I see what you're getting at but I think, well, you'd have to ask him why he believes that. Sure. I see what you're driving at,

which is like maybe the reason why you think that's the case. We're going through the prism of God. I think it's just because like... If that's like a window where all our knowledge has to pass through, it's... Yeah. Well, okay. Yeah, maybe that...

Because we've actually kind of had this discussion before about whether we can reject the laws of logic. And we basically had this argument. Have I convinced you of Islam yet? No, not quite. Okay, all right. That's next April 1st. Okay, all right.

I think, okay. I've got to wrap this one up. I don't want to get, yeah, let's not get lost on the weeds here. I think that if we're willing to grant that we can, can accept that God can't do the logically impossible, which is what you're quarreling with. And again, this is a good place, I think, to put a pin in this argument, because this would be the point of contention. I think if we can confidently say God can't do logical contradictions, then I can say that whereas there might be an explanation

for, there might be an explanation for all of the suffering in the animal kingdom, and we just, we just can't know it. That doesn't mean I can't know anything about God, because I can know that God can't do logical contradictions. So anytime you try to describe something to him that would be logically contradictory, I can say, no, no, that can't be true of God. And you might say, oh, so now you can conceive of what God can and can't do only when we're talking about logical possibility. Okay. Whereas if God, if we can't know with certainty that God has to also preclude logical impossibility, then you're quite right. But then I think if we if we do that,

although you're right that your conception of logical consistency doesn't run through God, the prism of God, you'd still have to respond to an objection as to how you know the laws of logic are true. But rather than opening up that discussion, we've actually had that discussion a few years ago in a rather nice garden. Yes, we did. Objectively good. Yeah.

Objectively maximally great. In like 2017, 2018 or something like that. I'll leave a link to that. You about half your age now, weren't you? Yeah. And an atheist. Back when I used to be an atheist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's, I'll leave that in the description down below because we talked about logical possibility and from an atheistic perspective I was arguing that the laws of logic we must accept them as true you were arguing that we could potentially deny them so that's the same conversation we're having now which we've already had so we can we can have it there we've only actually I mean I actually think that's that's maybe a good place to wrap up only because of the time constraint yeah I would have been nice to maybe talk to you about the calum contingency yeah argument more on the problem of evil divine hiddenness but we can go on for

hours and hours so maybe next April 1st we can we can revisit the situation. I think that would be absolutely marvelous. But as I told you, I'm probably going to be pagan by then. Yeah. That would be even more interesting. Very interesting. I think that's been good, though, because we've done the most important argument for God's existence, the ontological, which shows that God exists as a tautology.

To say God doesn't exist is to say a being that necessarily exists doesn't exist, which is contradiction. So, you know, come on, get with it. Imagine believe in Spider-Man with man in the definition doesn't exist. Like, that was just crazy. Imagine thinking that Sherlock Holmes isn't a man. Oh, yeah, I mean. Nobody, please, nobody clicked that, please.

Don't take that out of context. You know what I meant by that. You know full well what I meant by that. Look, yes. So I think we should, we should wrap it up here. I think this has been a good conversation. No, definitely, yeah. It's been great.

I think what we've essentially done is shown much like, and this was what I liked so much about the conversation I have with Craig, who I'll mention again for a fourth time now. You got a, you know. It's just like a sugar that. he he he basically that conversation what I like so much is that I think his position is perfectly consistent at least on the service level as deep as we went he everything he said was perfectly consistent I also think everything I said was consistent we've talked about mereological nihilism and stuff and Craig said to me well yeah like you can believe that if you want but just be aware of what it commits you to so yeah you can reject the ontological argument in the way that we've that in the way that you've done it but it might commit you to the view that Sherlock Holmes isn't a man or that his front door isn't black yeah I can I can you know, accept the sceptical theism as a way to get around

the problem of evil, but maybe that commits me to views about like not being able to ascribe certain moral properties to God or at least... Well, I would actually say it commits you to epistemic collapse. I think that just when you get that, when you take

that position, all of your arguments because it's all relying on logic and reason and rationality. I think it completely rebuts. That of course is a more serious subjection, but I guess it'll be up the audience to decide whether they think that that fits and if they want to hear this conversation revisited because if we get a lot of questions and stuff of people really wanting us to continue and maybe we can just revisit it in future but I guess apart from that I don't know if there's

anything else you want to want to say or add in wrapping up I just want to say good luck with the campaign yeah just really sell God like really really big him up because you You know, you compete with some fierce religions out there. They think, like, their gods are better. But yours is better. Yours is the maximum great. Maximus makes, max will be great. So, yeah.

And then just really, I guess the final thing I would say is going back to what you're saying about Craig, where you went, look, my view is consistent. Craig is consistent. Yeah, but you're going to hell. Well, you was. But you're not anymore. Yeah, I was. Or you're going to be annihilators.

You know, Steve, to be honest with you, mate, like, we've had the discussion today. And I've got to say, you've talked me out of it. Oh, fair enough. Oh, okay. All right. take this down is it down all right and when I play the intro yeah sorry when I play the outro yeah podcast I'm gonna revert it to the Cosmic Skeptic podcast so if you're a little confused as to why this came up under the Cosmic Skeptic

podcast it's because look when this podcast began I thought you know Cosmic Christianity will do the trick but Steve you talked me out of it congratulations so good so back to Cosmic Skeptic yeah good means I don't have to rebrand it means I don't have to bear graphic designer as well yeah cosmic skeptic means you're a global skeptic so yeah exactly that's one reason why we William Lane Craig nearly, that's what, six times I've mentioned him now. Yeah, yeah. He nearly didn't come on the podcast because I was called Cosmic Skeptic

and he thought that I was this like, you know, erronean skeptic and he thought we'd get nowhere. It was only when, like, he was told that I wasn't that. That's like saying, I'm not going to really have a conversation with him because his website's called Reasonable Faith and that's nonsense. Yeah, well, I'm out, I'm out. I think, I think if my name did actually indicate that I was a skeptic of everything of the universe, like, fair enough, I can see why he wouldn't think you'd get very far.

I didn't know this until he did a podcast episode talking about our conversation and he mentioned that at the beginning and I didn't realize how close I'd come. But yeah, I'm glad to be back in the cosmic skeptic skin. It feels a bit more more comfortable. Thank you for... You're going to go back to all that sex and parties? Yeah, yeah, good, good. That was quite a strong... That was a strong argument. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, on this wonderful April 1st, I mean, wouldn't it be magical if somebody watched this kind of 11 p.m. on April 1st and now that I'm back to Cosmic Skeptic. Just by coincidence, it's now April 6th. How does that happen? What can we say? Really, really strange, isn't it? Well, God works in mysterious ways, and if you think there's an issue, whether it's not,

it's just God intends for you to, you can't really explain it. You're a small being and you can't really explain it properly. Yeah, well, I try to say when a Christian puts an objection to me that I can't respond to, like God works in mysterious ways, and so do I. Yeah. With that said, thank you all for watching. Please do if you like the content, and I promise that it's going to be back to a skeptical atheism. He means veganism.

If you like veganism, too, then please do consider supporting the podcast and the channel on patreon.com forward slash cosmic skeptic. Do consider becoming a supporter on Patreon. It helps keep the channel afloat. And also gives you access, early access to videos, as well as the ability to vote on video topics, as well as every now and again, I do a private live stream, Q&As, that kind of stuff. So if you really like the content, please do consider it. Steve's channel is rationality rules.

And thank you again for coming on. I'll leave a link in the description again. And he also has a Patreon, which you can support as well, if you like. We can do one of these as well if you want. Oh, yeah, please. And just know that I'm going to rebrand to Pagan Rules next year. And I hope that you're not going to show them this video before April 1st. He said that you're going to give them, you know, prior content.

You don't want that. Can you imagine the confusion if I like accidentally, if I upload this, but like in a different time zone, it's like not even April 1st. Yeah, what on earth is this. You've got Australians going. Yeah, going, hold on. Sorry. Who, like Ken Hammond, have a field day, right?

But with that said, thank you all for watching. I really do appreciate you taking the time to spend an hour and a half with us. Go and watch the sister video that we're making on Steve's channel, which won't be me as Cosmic. Christian, now that I'm Cosmic Skeptic again, we'll be talking. We're having a conversation as Cosmic Skeptic and Rationality Rules. On Steve Channel, link in the description as well, whenever it comes out. But with that said, as always, I've been your host, Alex O'Connor.

Today's guest has been Stephen Woodford of the YouTube channel, nationality rules. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. Follow us on various social medias. Support us on Patreon. Gosh, that's a lot of sentences. I said wrap up, didn't I? It's like, get this out, dude. Just let them leave. I'm still not even there. They probably already left already. I mean, for the like two people who are still left over. Thanks. And I'll see you in the next one. And another thing. Thank you.