How My Views Have Changed (After 5 Years of YouTube)

[Music] why hello my fellow apes i hope you're well as the title says i'm going to hear explain how my views have changed over the last five years of studying science philosophy morality and theology as someone who's completely self-taught i always knew that i was going to experience some significant changes here and there but in many cases i've been surprised by which of my views have changed and more interestingly why it's been said before and i'll say it again one of the best things about being non-religious about not having theological or philosophical commitments is that one can truly and sincerely follow the evidence wherever it leads no matter how unintuitive and quite frankly uncomfortable the conclusions might be and some of the views i now have are extremely uncomfortable but as a russian proverb succinctly states better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie now as a disclaimer please appreciate that i'm not 100 confident in any of my convictions but rather i believe them over the alternative propositions in some cases i'm very confident such as that i exist in some form but in other cases i'm only just persuaded of one position over another such as that the multiverse exists secondly know that my purpose here isn't to defend my positions and so don't consider what i'm about to say my thesis if i've already expanded on my views elsewhere then i'll provide a link and if i haven't but you'd like me to then be sure to let me know in the comments and i'll escalate it on my list talking of which i've just dropped a poll for patrons to vote on which we can discuss along with other things in a live stream in a few days what's more i'm ready for the next batch of cartoon tiers to be created and so be sure to look out for me in your emails right let's get to it already after effects do your thing let's start with the central theme of my channel religion why does it exist i used to think that religion is merely in karl marx's words the scythe the oppressed creature the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions i used to believe that religion is merely the opium of the people little more than a social construct to provide hope and control the masses through existential bribery however by deep diving into history comparative religion and evolutionary psychology i've since become firmly convinced by the much more generous sociological view of religion yes religions are make-belief they're fiction but their fabric is woven by the subconscious as opposed to the conscious no doubt this fabric is fashioned by the powerful to fit their agenda but the fabric itself is natural this is to say that more often than not religious doctrines practices and myths embody a combination of the environmental challenges of those who conjured them and our psychological evolution as a species it's not by coincidence that snakes for instance are so prevalent in religious stories for they were our leviathan for tens of millions of years snakes were such a threat in fact that many ecologists consider them to be among the primary reasons for our forward-facing eyes and ability to identify camouflage objects what's more this evolutionary account easily explains why religious communities who were barely inconvenienced by snakes nevertheless prominently featured serpents in their myths such was the case with celtic britons in my video titled an atheist perspective of religion i provided a relatively detailed account of my current perspective should you be interested it's my view that by understanding the intuitive notions and compulsions of the religious mind will be able to save the babies in the bath water we'll be able to have hopefully a more productive and fruitful conversation springboarding from my sociological view of religion my goal in regards to religion itself has changed i once thought it possible for our species to surpass religion with a combination of compassion and reason that by treating facts in a way that's sensitive to our state of mind we can eventually emancipate ourselves from these primitive shackles a younger me envisioned a future in which religion is relegated to the bin of astrology and alchemy a world where only a very small percentage insists that we're the pinnacle of creation the divine's favorite toy but for reasons stated in the prior chapter i no longer believe this possible the mythos is in us as an operating system and so no social economic or educational revolution is going to change this unless we alter our genes religion is here for keeps it will continue as it has for our history to wax and wane and if our standards of living continue to rise i think there's a decent chance that it will wilt to the somewhat harmless we were with new ageism we are in fact seeing this occur in real time with the christian movement that's got jordan peterson at the helm but yeah the basic patterns archetypes and motifs are not going anywhere we're in a rational wave that bears the stamp of our lowly origin and that's simply not going to change given this my goal is now twofold one to keep applying compassionate pressure so that religion will continue to wilt to such a degree that it's compatible with a secular state and two to establish a truly secular state a state whose legal and educational foundations are entirely untethered to religion a tall order i know but a possible one since my early teens i've recognized the face of religion as arrogance disguised as humility hate disguised as love and a lobotomy disguised as wisdom but i always suspected that by reading enough historical and contemporary literature and engaging in enough conversation i'd come to recognize that behind the face is an intellectually rigorous foundation after all i reasoned so many wonderfully intelligent people believe in a god and there's entire courses and degrees dedicated to theology and apologetics whilst it might be the case that i'll never be personally convinced of theism upon a day i'll surely appreciate that there's at least sufficient intellectual support for the proposition and that given a sprinkle of divine revelation or personal experience there's a considerable probability that it's true that a god exists you know similar to how we think of the multiverse today there's a fair chance that it exists but there's also a fair chance that it doesn't there's good reason both for and against the proposition now given the direction that my life took i've been gifted with the wonderful opportunity of digesting a significant amount of theological content from the historical words of aquinas al-ghazali paley and pascal to the contemporary words of louis craig and plantinga and yet to my surprise i'm now less convinced of the existence of a god than i have ever been to be clear the more i learn the more i'm overwhelmed by what little i know each book each lesson smashes my ego and for this i'm very grateful most of my views have consequently weakened or indeed been shattered but a minority of my views have only solidified and one such view is that the various arguments for the existence of god and especially the way in which they've developed in response to scientific and philosophical objection are precisely as good as we'd expect them to be in a state in which there is no god they're quite frankly awful for me the most convincing argument by far is paley's watchmaker the sheer complexity of our biology the way in which for instance our system sends platelets to seal a wound is an intuitively very convincing argument that we're the product of intelligent design at least it was to me but even a rudimentary understanding of evolution by natural selection completely neutralizes it like a pin to a balloon darwin popped tediology a contemporary of paley percy shelley expressed frustration that just how poor the arguments for a god are in his essay titled a refutation of deism which for the record is a phenomenal read and i'll end this chapter by sharing just a few of his fine words if god wishes to be known cherished thanked why does he not show himself under his favorable features to all these intelligent beings by whom he wishes to be loved and adored why not manifest himself to the whole world in an unequivocal manner much more capable of convincing us than these private revelations which seem to accuse the divinity of an annoying partiality for some of his creatures would it not have been more in conformity with the views of a god so jealous of his glory and so well intentioned for mankind to write in a manner not subject to dispute his name his attributes his permanent wishes and ineffable characters equally understood to all the inhabitants of the earth no one would then be able to doubt the existence of god of his clear will of his visible intentions under the eyes of this so terrible god no one would have the audacity to violate his commands no mortal would dare risk attracting his anger finally no man would have the effrontery to impose on his name or interpret his will according to his own fantasy second only to religion morality is a topic i've given much attention and over the years my views have significantly altered i went from a position of moral realism endorsing sam harris's moral landscape to a hedonistic anti-realist position which i'll lay out in just a moment along this journey i've had the opportunity of publicly soundboarding against my brother from another mother alex o'connor culminating in us both agreeing at least that is on that day i've also recently had an illuminating discussion with two moral philosophers kane b and cole nazrala which has helped me better convey my view in academic terms it's actually been quite some time since i properly laid out my thoughts on morality two years in fact but since then there's only been one change it is however a big one i now believe that there's only one axiomatic ought and it's to obey our hedonistic masters in the introduction to the principles of morals and legislation jeremy bentham wrote that nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters pain and pleasure it is for them alone to point out what we ought to do as well as to determine what we shall do on the one hand the standard of right and wrong on the other the chain of causes and effects are fastened to their throne they govern us in all we do in all we say in all we think every effort we make to throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it in a nutshell this is how i currently perceive morality there is nothing to say that you ought to value your well-being that you ought to serve your hedonistic masters but you do even the act of suicide is a final bow at their whims mother nature has seen that you're not born with a blank slate you're born with the goal of minimizing your suffering and there are scientifically objectively right and wrong ways to achieve this that are relative to the environment hence in some state x will be objectively the wrong thing to do whereas in some other state x will be objectively the right thing to do this of course is made all the more complicated by the fact that we're a social species and that our hedonistic chains are tethered to our genes as opposed to our ego basically morality is bloody complicated as already said i spoke out my views in the aforementioned video but yeah over the first few years of my time on youtube my thoughts on morality altered a great degree i can't say that i'm entirely comfortable with the conclusions i currently hold i prefer for instance for more realism to be true but i can say that i'm very comfortable with the consistency of my conclusions they make sense of an otherwise insanely hypocritical state of affairs now here's the biggest change in my world view that i've experienced as a flame and this one still regularly keeps me up at night i used to find all variations of the multiverse to be quite frankly absurd i knew that a lot of the most respected and elite physicists and philosophers of our time endorse it in some form but it's always struck me as quite frankly too extravagant to be true how is it that if there's a possible world in which the earth and mars have switched locations then there's a decent chance that it's occurred this just seems bonkers it's not quite supernatural it's not in the same ballpark as religion but it's certainly extraordinary this was my position for most of my life until i really considered what is surely the biggest question of them all why is there something rather than nothing now it's near impossible to do this topic justice with just a few paragraphs and so until i dedicate an entire episode to it let me just recommend sean carroll's amazing podcast episode aptly titled why is there something rather than nothing seriously if this question grinds your gears give carol a few moments of your time there's no possible universe in which you'll regret it my answer to this profound question is drumroll please i really don't know and so i certainly wouldn't bet my house on any specific proposal there is however one proposal that i find more plausible than any other and i'm in good company the proposal is simply that there's no such thing as nothing nothing the absence of everything is an abstraction and well nothing more again this needs more time to unpack but why precisely does this entail a multiverse well if there's no state in which there's nothing then there's always been something and if there's always been something then that something has cyclically rearranged itself into an infinite number of constitutions an infinite number of universes this means that if there's a possible world then there's a decent chance that it's occurred after all if you play the lottery an infinite number of times there's a high probability although not guaranteed that upon a day you'll hold the winning ticket another reason i find this answer so compelling is because it also happens to trivially answer the so-called fine-tuning of our universe putting aside the fine-tuning of children dying of cancer and all the other injustice that we're beset by the fact that our universe harbors intelligent life isn't extraordinary if the dice has been rolled an infinite number of times the chances are that some universe will win the lottery and why not us i mean if we didn't win the cosmic lottery then we simply wouldn't be here to marvel at how unlikely it is that we might win the cosmic lottery in other words we're simply douglas adams sentient puddle pondering how amazing it is that the hole in the ground that we sit within is so snugly made for us and that if it was just five percent less snug we wouldn't be here at all it fits me very neatly in fact it fits me so neatly i mean really precise isn't it it must have been made to have me in it finally and most seriously i used to think that arundel castle is the best castle in england however i haven't just changed my mind on this but i now know for certain that it isn't it looks gorgeous don't get me wrong but it's definitely not the best castle in england porchester castle on the other hand is bloody marvelous just look at this beast built by the romans in the 4th century with walls that are 10 feet thick this absolute view has stood the test of time and it's on my doorstep like seriously i can see it from my window so let me just state this unequivocally porchester castle is the best possible castle in any universe fact consider yourself calmly educated by the knights who say knee no number no shrapnel anyhow join me in a few years when i'm no longer convinced that porchester castle was the best thing since sliced bread as always thank you kylie for the view and an extra special thank you to my wonderful patrons and those of you who have supported the channel via other means i really really appreciate it oh and patrons be sure to let me know which topics you'd like me to take on

Channel: Rationality Rules

Views: 65,543

Rating: 4.9407816 out of 5

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Id: dIromog6h10

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021