Comparing Evidence for God vs. Werewolves

for whatever reason my kids have become preoccupied with the concept of werewolves lately and so whenever there's a full moon they'll start talking about it and asking questions about it incessantly I think to be reassured there's no actual danger to them and just this morning my youngest daughter came into my bedroom and started asking me about it again so again I started to reassure her that there's no such thing as werewolves and as I was explaining this to her I found myself thinking and reasoning in a way that reminded me of many contemporary popular atheists because after all I can't prove that werewolves don't exist and just because I've never seen one that doesn't prove the point either there are plenty of things that I've never seen before that apparently exist I've never seen a black hole for example and I've been told that those exist I've never seen Australia and as unlikely as a place like that is apparently it exists and like I said many popular contemporary atheists like Richard Dawkins will use a similar kind of reasoning to justify their own atheism they'll say that you can't prove that something doesn't exist but since they haven't seen any good evidence for the existence of God just like I haven't seen any existence or evidence for the existence of a werewolf that they are withholding belief so since I can sympathize this line of reasoning insofar as werewolves are concerned I thought I would consider whether this same approach works for the question of God [Music] the first thing I would say is that it's not true to say that you can't prove that something doesn't exist you absolutely can prove that something exists so if you've said that before then I would encourage you to stop using that as a way to try and shift the burden of proof for example you can prove that there's no such thing as a squared circle because it's a contradiction and that's one of the easiest ways to prove that something doesn't exist if its existence would contradict something that we know to be true then we can be confident that it doesn't exist getting closer to the question of God if someone claimed to you that a Supreme Being named Zeus lived in a decadent palace at the summit of Mount Olympus then you would only have to climb the summit yourself to see if that was true but something like werewolves are a little bit more complicated because there doesn't appear to be anything that explicitly contradicts their existence or potential existence again the reason that I don't believe in them is because I've never seen one and so there doesn't appear to be any good evidence to support the claim that they do exist but does this same approach hold up for the question of God the first problem is is that I have never met anybody who claims that werewolves do exist but I've met countless people who believe that God exists not only that it's well documented that the overwhelming majority of people alive believe that there is some sort of God that exists and it's not just like a slight majority it's a massive huge margin majority especially if you account for past generations not only that but this belief extends to some of the most distinguished thinkers the world has ever known including heavyweights of that intellectual discipline that many atheists exalt as the pinnacle of reason that is science figures like Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton who are all considered to be like pillars of modern science and all of them were convinced theists if you want to learn more about theists who were prolific scientists in filled who made huge contributions to that that deposit of knowledge then you should go look up the articles on Wikipedia about lay Catholic scientists or better yet there's an article about Catholic clergy scientists which is even more extensive and that doesn't even address the whole range of people that believe in God and are scientifically literate it only addresses just the the small range of people who are Catholic so if there was a quantity and a quality of people that extensive all claiming that they had examined the evidence for the existence of werewolves and that they concluded that they do in fact exist I think I would have to change my tune it would be a kind of unrivaled arrogance for me to persist in my agnosticism under the suspicion that I'm smarter than they are but that doesn't close the case either there are many impressive thinkers who have examined the evidence and come out with the opposite conclusion the atheistic conclusion my only point is this this is a kind of evidence that werewolves and Flying Spaghetti Monster errs don't enjoy because there there is nobody out there who is convinced that they actually do exist next I would point out that the question of God's existence isn't the kind of thing that you can climb up to the top of Mount Olympus to resolve because God unlike werewolves or potential werewolves isn't part of the natural universe God as proposed by all the monotheistic faiths exists outside and apart from the universe God created the natural universe so looking for him within the universe and concluding that he doesn't exist because you don't find him there is about as rational as scanning the pages of a book looking for the author there and then when you don't find him there concluding that there must not have been an author instead assuming that all we have left is the book we would have to use logic to consider the possibility that there was an author as in could something like this happen on its own does its existence explain itself or do we need to find some other explanation for its existence is it rational and ordered and intelligible does it seem to trace its origin to an intelligent mind now I admit that using philosophy and logic to examine the question will not erase reasonable doubt I think that there are good arguments for atheism as well as good arguments for theism but there will always be room for reasonable doubt on both sides of that equation like a hypothesis the answer can't be riddled out without experiment and for people that are scientifically inclined this should be exactly what you want to hear an untested hypothesis cannot stand neglected so what does that experiment look like well the most popular form of theism in the world is Christianity which says that if you knock the door will be open to you if you seek you will find it says that you cannot know God intimately without following Jesus and if that's the criterion that is laid at your feet you can't say that it's not true without attempting the experiment that is following Jesus like if someone said to you that they discovered a technique to help you jump significantly higher and all you have to do is follow this set of steps every day for 10 days and you looked at that and and said it doesn't work based on nothing more than an informed guess without actually attempting the steps well then you haven't actually addressed the claim even if you're right the claim is that if you do those steps it will produce a specific effect the data acquired from the experiment whether or not you can jump higher at the end is the evidence if you don't do the experiment you can't say that there is no evidence you can argue that it doesn't work and you might be right but you can't claim that it doesn't work because there's no evidence without doing what is needed to actually gather the evidence and this for me is what reinforces my confidence in God's existence I've experienced his existence through that experiment I've experienced the transformative power of what can happen when you expose yourself to a pattern of living that is outlined by Jesus and His Church and I experience this in very explicit ways routinely like if I slip out of that pattern and neglect discipline like prayer I feel the effects immediately I'll leave you with a quote from GK Chesterton that always comes to mind for me when I'm thinking about this kind of thing he said that Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting it has been found difficult and left untried and unlike the question of werewolves the question of God's existence has significant implications for each of our own lives so standing around saying that you're withholding belief because you don't see any evidence should strike you as lazy at least if not dishonest because the majority of people who have ever lived are claiming that it's true and there are mountains of philosophical works that reinforce that claim unless you've explored that evidence and considered it honestly it just doesn't make sense to stand around saying I'm going to withhold belief until something compelling announces itself to me without actually looking for it yourself unless you've read Pascal acquaintances Agustin and Aristotle and many more instead of just listening to what popular contemporary atheists like Richard Dawkins have to say about them then you just can't continue to fall back on that excuse thanks so much for watching guys if you enjoyed that then please consider subscribing and liking and come find me on Facebook and Twitter it's a huge help when you do that it helps us get these videos in front of more and more people and a big thank you goes out to you Catholic for presenting these videos and if you want to support the making of these videos then please consider supporting my work as a digital media and marketing expert my company holder design specializes in branding web and graphic design marketing social media videography and all that kind of good stuff so if you know of a parish a diocese a ministry or a business that needs help in those areas then please send them our way and I'm sure we can help them out [Music]

Channel: Brian Holdsworth

Views: 16,214

Keywords: Brian Holdsworth, Theism vs Atheism, Jesus vs Thor, Jesus vs Zeus, Jesus vs Flying Spaghetti Monster

Id: 65euu8YRTpY

Length: 10min 7sec (607 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 22 2019