Best Arguments for Atheism | Apologetics Live 0043

Housekeeping, Show Setup, and Waiting for Jeff Posey

Apologetics Live with Matt Slick and Andrew Rappaport, part of the Christian Podcast Community.

All right, welcome. We are live, Apologetics Live with you tonight. Hopefully answering your questions and challenges. And I'm solo right now, which is actually really concerning because the fellow who was supposed to come in and give his best arguments for atheism isn't here yet.

Yikes! That is Jeff. So we're going to have to wait till he gets in to hear what his best arguments for atheism were. But where's Matt Slick? So I got to give some updates, do some house cleaning to get us started.

Matt is, for folks who know, Matt was planning on moving some time ago and then he discovered that had he moved, where once he moves, his insurance starts completely over with a deductible. And that means that he, with his wife's condition, gets to start all over.

Not a good thing. And therefore he decided to hold off on the move until, well, until it starts getting cold in Idaho. And so he's, right now, got a lot going on. They're doing a lot with CARM. They're redoing a bunch of stuff.

And so right now he basically said he's not going to have time for a while to be doing anything beyond what he's got going on with CARM and with moving. He's hoping to move, I think it's October. So be praying for the Slicks as they look to move.

And I will say if there's anyone watching here on YouTube that just a couple things to note. One, go to apologeticslive .com to find out how to join, to get the links to join here. And that would be good.

If you have any questions. Also, let me give you a new YouTube channel for Striving for Eternity. If you go to bit .ly, that's B-I-T-L-Y .com slash Y-T-S-F-E. That stands for YouTube Striving for Eternity.

If you could go there and subscribe. We're setting up a new channel and just with everything going on with CARM, they're redoing the website and whatnot. And because of that, there's going to be, they're going to have some time where they're going to be changing websites and whatnot.

So we're going to move Apologetics Live. We wanted to eventually have it have its own home and that hasn't quite happened yet, but I think eventually it will. So we're going to probably move this over to the Striving for Eternity page.

We set up this new account for Striving for Eternity because we always had issues with the old one the way it was set up. It was set up years ago. And so if you could go to bit .ly, B-I-T-L-Y .com slash Y-T-S-F-E stands for YouTube Striving for Eternity.

Go there and subscribe to the new channel. We're going to be, that's where we're going to end up putting the Apologetics Live in the future for at least for a little while. So with that, some housekeeping stuff out of the way.

I don't know where Mr. Jeff is. I guess I'd say if anyone can go to the CARM page and make sure you can get in, let me know. I am noticing that it's not actually a link, so that would make it better. Let me fix that right now for any of you who are trying to get in instead of copying and pasting it.

Sorry about that. We had some problems with this page and that's why it looks a little different there. So folks are saying Matt is juggling too much. Yes, and that is why we're trying to solve that. And so I wonder if Jeff couldn't get in because it was a copy paste issue, but that is now a link there folks.

If you go to apologeticslive .com and go to the link there to join. So basically let's talk some things until Jeff or anyone else comes in and starts to start asking some questions. The title of this show was best arguments for atheism.

And that was a question that I asked last episode of Jeff. And if you haven't heard that you can always get apologetics live on podcast. Just search in any podcast catcher any app for podcast. Just search for apologetics live and you can go to last weeks and that was on with vocab Malone on black Hebrew Israelites and Jeff was in it early on and we started a discussion but because we had vocab in we couldn't finish that.

So he had said he'd come in this week. I'm hoping that he does. So that would be good. So what are some of the best arguments I've heard? I'll give what I've heard as the arguments and I'll give some of what I think he started saying.

Because he started to talk about things like contradictions in the Bible things like that. That usually is an argument that many people who have grown up in a Christian home that would usually they make those sort of arguments that there's contradictions in the Bible and typically what you end up finding is most of those people when you actually dig into the arguments they're making you end up discovering that they're actually not contradictions and and this is the thing we have to be aware of.

Okay, when you're making an argument against another person's position what you want to be able to do is be honest with their position. I know. I know it's a crazy idea being honest with someone else's view.

Well, the reality is if you can't be honest about someone's view if your position is one where it's you feel that you have to be dishonest about their view. Then what you end up seeing in that is the fact that you're dealing with someone who really is losing an argument.

All right, and so if you're going to challenge my view, that's fine. Just don't misrepresent it, right? I would try to do the same with yours. That's what how we should do things. And that's the issue that we end up seeing is what we want to be able to do is challenge people rightly interpreting what they're saying.

Okay, this is a dilemma that you'll see very often is people don't want to do that. They want to misrepresent like I was just looking up. I was just look trying to look up that on the new YouTube channel.

We already got comments from from professing atheists already challenging and it's an interesting thing that you end up seeing when you have people that are challenging in that way when you're going to misrepresent of you.

Let me give you one that I just got on Twitter on my latest rap report daily podcast that we did. We dropped an episode. I think it was this morning or yesterday. I forget which and it was dealing with a topic that I guess what got everyone upset or got them motivated was the podcast itself.

The episode itself is if suicide is wrong. Why did Jesus do it? And the argument I'm making and I'll just actually I'll just click on it and read what what I had said. It's less than two minutes. It's a daily podcast.

But if suicide is wrong, why did Jesus do it? If suicide is is wrong, right people argue make the argument that that why did you why did God commit cosmic suicide? This is an argument that we have from some new atheists that they make this claim that Jesus was taking his own life on the cross as a suicide attempt.

That might be the case. If Jesus was created purely in the image of God not actually God what you end up seeing here is a category error that what suicide actually is and why it's wrong. The reason that suicide is wrong is that it is taking of a life even your own because you're made in the image of God God would say that we do not murder.

We don't that includes taking of our own life. That's an act of murder. However, what Jesus did on the cross was not an act of murder. He gave his life. Remember he was on the cross given enough time.

He would have died anyway from natural circumstances. How he did not take his own life or sorry. He could not take his own life if he was purely a man because he was hanging on the cross his hands extended out his feet are are nailed in there's no way he could actually do anything to take his own life unless of course and here's the irony.

He actually is who he says he was God Almighty. So the argument that he took his own life that he committed suicide when he was nailed to a cross. He didn't nail himself to the cross, right? He was nailed to the cross.

Therefore the only way he could take his own life and that could actually be seen as suicide would be if he gave up his spirit. In other words, he is can control of what no man can control in other words that he's God.

And so that's what you end up seeing there is that here the irony of this is that this their argument actually proves the thing they want to dispute that Jesus is God. Now the area where everyone kept giving issue is that I said that Jesus is made in the image of man and people said well, isn't he is it, you know, he made in the image of God now.

I'm taking that out of the book of Genesis. Okay in Genesis were created in the image of God. What does it mean back in Genesis when God says let us make man in our image. It means that we have we're made special different than any other animal.

We're not an animal. We're created in his image. We have certain attributes that are communicated to us that are not communicated to animals such as things like ability to reason intelligence things like emotions things like a consciousness being self-aware being God consciousness being aware of God.

And so what you end up seeing is that I'm using it in that sense. Now what they do is they jump to the passages in the New Testament where the image that Jesus is in the image of God referring to Jesus as God.

Well, that's the whole thing there, you know, they're trying to dispute there. So Jesus can't be in the way. I'm using the term in the image of God. If he has all the attributes of deity if he has all the attributes of deity.

Then he has the attributes that human that are communicated to human beings and he also has the ones that are not communicated to human beings. So he has them all that's what you end up seeing there. That's what I how I was using it.

Now when you use the term image and you're going to compare to the way I used it referring to the Old Testament. You're going to compare it to the way it's used in the New Testament and say they're the same you have a logical fallacy a fallacy of equivocation fallacy of equivocation is when we take something say something like the word image give it has two different meanings and because the word is the same we then apply it and change the meaning for it.

Now. I wasn't saying that Jesus is not the image of God the way the New Testament refers to it. I was referring to it in the Old Testament sense when we are made in the image of God. And so basically what we end up seeing there is that it's two different uses and so I'm not you know saying he's not God.

In fact, the irony in the arguments that people said is they're trying to say that I'm claiming Jesus is not God because they're misusing the term in fact, and you could go on on strivingforeternity .org do a search on if if suicide is wrong.

Why did Jesus do it or just you could just go for it's strivingforeternity .org slash RAPP dash daily dash 0389. That's the episode. But as you see in there, I ended up saying there that he is God. I made it very clear that he that we're made in the image of God.

Is different than him being God. I made that clear in the in the post and in the podcast. So I find it interesting that people want to argue that I'm saying Jesus isn't God when I directly said he was you see and this is what you end up having.

So this is where you find most of your people who want to say that atheism is is got a good argument because they say the Bible has contradictions most often. They're doing things like that. They're doing things where they are doing logical fallacies to a lot of times.

It's an error like that a fallacy of equivocation. It's when you're going to see they do people do a lot. How else do they do it? You'll see it and bring up the issue of slavery slavery is wrong. What do they mean when they say slavery is wrong.

They're referring to a slavery. That's was thousands of years after the Bible a slavery where people were kidnapped brought over from Africa to here to to America and they ended up being slaves. They had buyers.

They were property. That's not what you see in the slavery of the Bible in the Bible. You see that it is wrong. God says you do not kidnap a person. We see that they weren't treated as property because if your animal ran away and goes to your neighbor's house the this God's Scriptures God's Word says you return that animal to its owner.

But if your slave runs away to the neighbor, you don't return the slave why he's not property. Another thing they would say is well, it's not, you know, slavery. It's you don't have any any rights actually.

No, the Bible made it clear that that slaves did have rights slaves don't get paid. It's actually no in the Bible. They got a half day's wage. So what you end up seeing is a fallacy of equivocation. What they do is they take the word slavery that has a meaning in American culture that's different than the culture of the Bible and then they try to attribute it there.

And so that's often what you see now. I wish Jeff came in so that we could discuss this more. I should actually try to send him a message maybe here and find out where he's at because it's kind of a boring show with me arguing his arguments without him.

So and if anyone else wants to come in ask any questions tonight. So because we have nobody in right now. So anyone that wants can go to apologetics live .com. Click the link to participate and come on in and I will be happy to answer whatever questions I can.

I'll try to answer whatever questions you ask, but otherwise it's going to be me giving more. Well, what I think are bad arguments for atheism. I wouldn't be the best one to give good or the best arguments for atheism.

Okay, he says 10 minutes. So I have to fill 10 minutes of air. All right, so I don't know if he's maybe he's watching taking notes and going. Okay. Now I know what he's going to say, but some other arguments that people make for God or against God is kind of interesting.

You'll often sometimes you'll get people that will say that the God of the Bible is, you know, a moral monster. He's indicative and all these other things which first precludes they if they're arguing that God is somehow evil first off.

They're acknowledging he exists because they're saying he's evil now. They'll try to say well, no, he can't exist because that God would be evil. But where do we get the idea of evil from see when we talk about good and evil that itself requires God there has to be a standard and so that would I guess argue for let me grab this I would argue for For God again, let me let me I don't know if our Catholic friends are watching a lot of times.

They are somebody decided to send me some Roman Catholic material and this is interesting that someone sent this to me someone that's arguing for Catholicism going to hold this up and I mean see if you can read this.

And so what it says is outside the Catholic Church. There is absolutely no salvation. This is by my brother Peter Diamond. And so very lengthy if you could see very look at the print on this by the way.

I mean, this is that small print when you look at it from how big the thing is. So this is a long letter that was sent to me both sides arguing which kind of interesting arguing that you cannot be saved outside of the Roman Catholic Church.

I love this. You know why because that's actually good Roman Catholic doctrine that many Roman Catholics don't want to argue. They don't want to believe and so, you know what we end up seeing someone's asking is there an electronic copy of what do we believe not yet?

I got to get it on Kindle. I have not gotten around to that yet. I know it's been out for like almost a year and a half and I still don't have it on Kindle. I need to but if you want to get a copy of what do we believe you can certainly go to the striving for Eternity website to the store there and pick up a copy at striving for Eternity dot o-r-g and you can go to the store and pick up your own copy.

It'll be a hard copy but you can still pick it up. So this is good Roman Catholic theology. All right, this thing that was sent because that is the position that the Roman Catholic Church takes. You cannot be saved in Roman Catholicism outside of the Roman Catholic Church.

And you know because of that what you end up seeing is a lot of people will how can I I don't want to I don't want to say this in a way that might be disrespectful to folks. But I think that there's a lot of people who are either that believe in Roman Catholicism and either are ignorant to what Roman Catholicism teaches.

That's one option or they understand what Roman Catholicism properly teaches and they either don't want to believe it's true or they know it's not palatable. So they don't want to say what it actually believes.

In other words, the point being is what you end up seeing is that Roman Catholicism is going to say that if outside of the Roman Catholic Church, you cannot be saved and that's not very palatable. And so it's it's no different than the the folks who want to argue for who want to argue for Christianity without mentioning hell.

It's the same thing you you have people who are watering down that what the true message is for the sake of trying to make it more palatable. So, all right. So we have in my our friend Jeff here. Can you hear us?

Oh, he's getting his coffee, right? He's getting he's getting caffeinated for yeah, give me just a second. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to I'll put you off for a second there. You get some coffee. We'll give him some time.

He must need the caffeine to stay up and do this show. All right. Let's see if you there Jeff. I'm here. How's everybody doing? Good good. I'm glad to have you in with us. I'm glad that we can maybe finish up our conversation.

We only got started last week. I was trying to give the best arguments that I that I've heard from folks and trying to argue for you and I think you could do a better job arguing for yourself. How's that sound?

Sure. We got some good feedback Jeff from our short discussion that you and I had people thought it was very respectful. And I think some people were a little bit surprised that a someone that professes to be an atheist and someone that's a Christian could actually have a discussion where we disagree and yet be cordial to one another.

It's crazy idea for some. Yeah, it is. So but I am glad that you came back in. So so I want I'll start off. I want to let you start off actually with you know, where we left off. I wanted to give a chance and for folks who are watching.

Let me just give a I want to give you a chance to make your argument. Here's the thing folks for for some folks. I know there's people who when a someone who has a different view is speaking. They want to give answers.

They want to just shout over them. Find me do that with with Jeff. I'm going to try to be respectful to him and let him give give his his answers and speak. And the reason is because that's how we have cordial conversations and show respect to one another.

So, you know, I know that some people kind of want to hear their side, you know, argue over the other. I'm going to try not to do that. And I think I could be wrong, but I think Jeff won't do that to me.

We'll see. I try not but so I just because I do know I'm trying to Jeff. I do know that some people are going to be like, oh, you let him talk too long. I want you to be able to make your arguments clearly.

I want to be able to interject just for clarity if I need to and then we could go back and forth. Does that sound good? Sure. Yeah, no problem. So this is a discussion not a debate for folks. So so make make your arguments.

Let's let's see if we can interact with them. I I know last time you said you had some notes so we can go through them.

Moral Foundations, Conscience, and the Source of Right and Wrong

Yeah. So last week the first thing I brought up was the the moral conflict between myself and what I read in the Bible and I want to be clear that that doesn't prove that there is no God logically. You can't prove that there is no God but it does tell me that there's a problem between my my comprehension and some concept of God if that makes sense, especially when I hear people say that God is the foundation of morality.

Then I I really have to reject that because I do have a sense of right and wrong and that is in really stark contrast to a lot of the stuff I see in the Bible. So that leads me to think that either either there is no God or if there is a God he's not interested in in that might be the wrong way to say it, but there's there's a problem there.

Okay.

So let me start with the first one because I think this will be the I think there's going to be a lot that would be built off with the first part. You said is you were saying that you have a consciousness, right?

And that and that gives you that that is you have a sense of what's right and wrong, correct? The conscience. Yes. Okay, so your conscience when you do wrong you get a guilty feeling, correct? Right, right.

So just for folks to understand where I want to make sure we're a lot of times people are not using the same terminology when they speak and I would just want to make sure for clarity's sake we're using the terms in the same way.

So as we look at that, okay, the question is not whether you have a conscience, but where would your where does your conscience come from? Like if we're just pure material matter, right? There is no immaterial part of us.

There is no God. Where would we get a sense of right and wrong from in the first place? That's the question.

Sure. Yeah, and that's a good question. From from from what I know my best impression of it is that it's it comes from two different places. First. There's a biological instinct. That's just hardwired into all of us because we're a social species and and there's been some science to show that other social animals also have this basic instinct for what we might call pseudo morality or quasi proto morality would be a good way to say it, you know, they cooperate, they share, they protect each other.

I'm thinking of chimpanzees, horses, dogs, other social animals and and being social animals. We have that same instinct, but then on top of that biological instinct, our cultures build a structure of sophisticated and detailed rules and customs and traditions and and they program that into us from birth from childhood.

And and so that's that's where morality comes from and that explains why you can have slightly different moralities and slightly different societies. But at the same time everyone on Earth pretty much does have the same basic set of right and wrongs.

Okay, so I don't I don't think you answered the question, but I don't think you realized it. So let me ask you a different way, right? So for and first off, I think let's let's let me address the issue with animals that I would see.

I would look at animals and the question is do they actually have a sense of right and wrong or do we put our sense of right and wrong onto them? In other words, you have vampire bats. I love to use that this example vampire bats and and penguins the in the Arctic.

There's some with both of those groups of animals. There is a vampire bats. For example, they go out. They not to get anyone too grossed out, but they fly out. They maybe get a you know, they get they feed on blood, right?

So they they go and find a cow. They drink the blood one of the things of vampire bats. They go back to the cave. They huddle together and they share the blood with one another and if any of the bats don't share all the other bats push them out of the the basically the group and he goes off on his own and either is by himself or you know dies because he doesn't have enough food better examples often the penguins because what you see in the in the penguins is you know, the male penguin sit there with an egg on their feet and they all have to huddle together to to stay warm and if any of them don't move out they basically rotate around so they go from the outside of the circle they move their way in and then they move their way back out so that they're they warm up together and then they come back out and that's literally how they spend their day and if any of them don't continue moving back out the other penguins push them out of the of the circle and they freeze and die now we look at that and we're attributing that to morality.

But yet there's those penguins did not sit there and get together and discuss it. I would say that's instinct that we think is morality, but you don't see them setting up a court system or things like that.

Like we would you don't see them the the penguin that that doesn't doesn't do that. You don't see guilt, you know, it's it's they have an instinct. So I guess what I would I would I would say is that I think that we're attributing human factors or human behavior onto animals.

That'd be my answer for that. I don't know if you want to address that before we get to the question of what the of me reasking the question.

Yeah, just quickly. Um, well, you're you're right. That is an instinct and that's exactly the instinct. I'm talking about and know they they don't establish courts and laws because they're they're just not as sophisticated about it as we are.

But the the foundation of it in both cases is that biological instinct. We just take it a step further because we have society and civilization and culture. We we do have we do add on courts and laws and customs and traditions.

Okay, and I think that's that's different than a morality though.

Okay, I I don't see the difference. I believe that actually that actually is morality that that explains where morality comes from. Our our instinct, our sense for right and wrong. That's what that is.

So you say it's it's instinct, correct?

Just purely instinct, not purely instinct. Instinct plus culture. Okay, my my instinct to be a social animal plus the culture that my my parents and society, you know, programmed me with instructed me with indoctrinated me with, you know, growing up.

Those two things to get there are morality.

Okay. So then the animals the examples that we looked at don't have the the cultural instinct. So that wouldn't be morality by your definition. They just have that instinct without the culture.

So that was being around some some of the higher ones do have some some very very basic what you might call culture, you know, chimpanzees and bonobos do do things that we might call culture, but it's it's a very primitive form.

Yeah, I I would again, I think that what it is us attributing things, you know, putting human behavior onto them, but the issue is where do we get this? And I guess Jason Manning, where did it. I'll put his question up is how do you get consciousness from biochemical reactions?

And then his other question was what biochemical reaction specifically produce a conscience and that's really what I'm getting to. It's that conscience that part that you want to say is instinct plus culture that cultural part.

That is your your argument would have to be it's biochemical.

Correct the the instinctive part of it. Well, maybe even the at a certain level. Yeah, the cultural is too. But how is that biochemical? You'd have to ask a neurologist or a neuroscientist for that.

Okay, if that was it. Okay. So let me ask you this. Do you think we should carry that thinking out to and keep consistent with it as a definition of morality?

Well right now, I don't see any reason why not. Do you have anything specific in mind or yeah, sure.

The thing that if we have that then you can never put anyone in jail because you can. Well because morality isn't something wrong to the person.

It makes everything subjective. Does it not? Well, yeah, but you can still enforce subjective rules who can society can society.

So who gets to decide those rules? Is it who's ever in control?

No, no, it's it's it's more it's more organic than that. It's not it's not I wouldn't say never but it's it's it's rarely a point where you know, you have some King or Emperor in control who just decides that does happen in in in cases, but but no, it's more it's more natural than that.

It's just something that emerges from human society. Is this shared belief and shared culture about what's right.

And wrong, but how does it emerge as I'm trying to get to with this. Like so you're saying in some cases an Emperor can decide and that makes it moral.

Right? Well, I mean if those those Emperors who decided things that were in line with what humans generally believe are remembered as good Emperors and and those like Nero or Caligula who who were stepped beyond the the instinct and cultural component.

We remember those as bad leaders bad Emperors.

So then if I'm going to follow that through you would you think that what Hitler did? In killing 11 million people 6 million Jews was he wrong?

Put that in a in a certain framework. I mean you can put that within the the culture of the Nazi Party in Germany and and within that framework. It absolutely was not wrong. But the the greater global culture at the time decided that it absolutely was wrong and I say decided that's not the right word to use their realized might be a better word realize that it was wrong.

And so you if you're asking me for my opinion will remember the the culture and society that I'm from the culture and society that programmed me with my morality, you know here in the United States in the late 20th century, then that's my morality and I'm going to look at Hitler and say that was wrong.

Yeah, because this is this is the argument that the Nazis made during the Nuremberg trials. They said what we did our culture has accepted it. This is how morality is defined. Therefore their argument was it was actually immoral for the United States or anyone else to come in and do anything in reaction because they're not doing anything that's wrong.

That's their their morality. So so we end up forcing our our morality on others essentially. Yes. So then doesn't that make mean that might makes right if we forced our our morality on them, then we're the ones with the power.

We win. We're right.

Would that be fair to say? Well, it might is a is a tool of what's right. I mean, you can't you can't change that biological instinct and changing culture can happen but takes eons of time. So but but yeah might might is a tool of of right.

Okay, and so therefore and and I'm going to qualify this. I believe that rape is wrong. But if you take that argument, we no longer have an argument against rape because between those two individuals who's ever stronger they have the might if might makes right makes it moral then a rapist can't be immoral in that culture of those two people.

Right because he's he's just forcing his culture his cultural morality on the other or she's stronger which I always like when that happens and someone should sure I actually watched a video when I was in college.

This is this is before the days of of you know, YouTube and whatnot. But if this was on YouTube now be a private go viral, but I was friends with some of the police officers and they showed me this video.

They caught on on camera in the parking lot at my University girls, you know, two girls walk to a truck one girl walks off comes back the she went to go get some books while she's gone. There's three guys that come up who basically was as was discovered later.

They wanted to to sexually abuse her, you know, they want to rape her they pulled a knife on her. She walks away from the the truck and I would say it was probably like 45 seconds maybe more but it was really short period of time that she dismantled these guys.

I mean just completely beat them to smithereens excellent, which was just great to watch the police found out who she was they wanted to know she pressed charges. They had they had it on tape and she said she didn't want to press charges and you know, but the police didn't want to just leave it there.

The officer said we leave it there. It's like so what you do. So what they did was they found out where these guys the bar that these guys would always be drinking in two sergeants came in really really loud and approached the guys in the bar and said, hey, by the way, we just want to let you know that girl that beat you guys up the other day doesn't want to press charges.

That's awesome. They were walking out there people go that was a girl. I thought you said it was five guys, you know, so it was like they take take the bragging rights away as well. It was great. But side note, right?

But the thing is in that situation. She was stronger. She we would say therefore she was morally right or if they got away with it in that culture small culture. They would be morally right. Therefore.

We really can't say I would argue we can't say that that it's wrong then.

Not in any absolute objective sense. No.

Well see but once you give up that absolutely objective sense because this is the argument that was made in Nuremberg. I don't know how much you may have studied about Nazi Germany and a little bit. Yeah.