Why be a Christian? Justin Brierley vs Cosmic Skeptic (Alex O’Connor)

I'm joined in the studio today by Justin Brierley you may have seen on my channel before he's the host of the unbelievable radio show and podcast and I have to thank you actually Justin because it was sort of at the beginning of my of my channel it was it was near the beginning when you first invited me onto your show as just this kind of practically unknown YouTube kids how do you say they I think you were starting to grow quite a bit in popularity even at the point I I've had you on getting on for two years ago now probably mmm but since then obviously that your channel has grown almost exponentially I'd say yeah well it must've been enough for you to see the video although I was directly addressing you in a video you were yes yes if I remember when someone first sent me the video which was your response video to my how a dice can show that God exists me yeah and I and I and I looked at it and as you probably well I wasn't convinced but I thought hey this guy's you know obviously intelligent and has a you know quite an interesting approach on his channel so it was intriguing enough for me to say why don't we bring him on and see what happens yeah and I appreciate it and I remember it was one of the first times I realized that I need to remember I'm talking to real people because we listen to the video in the studio right and there was a point at which I said something like it's just it just doesn't make sense and then the video stops fun discussion and we but but it wasn't really you weren't really defending yourself there you just have me on today I had you on obviously with another young oxford undergraduate the time at least Josh parikh and an innocence I was very happy to let that video be debated III put these videos out there for the purpose of like you do people digging into them disagreeing and everything and and so I was very happy in a sense to see that you had responded I like having putting videos out there that people think of worth responding to right hand and I may disagree with the way it's responded to but for me it's all part of the dialogue that we all exist for yeah so anybody listening or if you're watching on YouTube then the link will be in the description it's it's like you say a video responding to the idea that dice can prove that God exists well it's that's the analogy I'm using I mean I'm not we thing a dice can show that God exists Bogut's is really an analogy the video for the fine-tuning argument also the idea that the universe in its fundamental constants and forces has been appears to be fine-tuned for the emergence of life in the universe and I liken that to the idea of rolling a dice 70 times and getting the number 6 every time and the odds of that are akin to the chances of just the right level of fine-tuning occurring in well the example I was using was the expansion rate to the universe but there are any number you know you know the other yeah so just like like the the universe it seems to be totally fine tuned for the existence of life and to exists and and I made I made the analogy with it too rather like someone rollin you know dice 70 times in a row and getting six every time right you DEQ's you'd say something funny's going on why is that happening and and I would say the fact that we live in this fine-tuned universe there's something funny going on it can't seem you waved away as chance and that video you made is on your YouTube channel it is which is now also you were telling me that you've got your kind of focusing a lot more content there now the big debates there is the video originally that that dice video was originally on our main premiere channel which is okay the Christian media organization I work for and that's it's had about one and a half million views now I think we have also uploaded it to the unbelievable channel which is more bespoke for the the content I produce from the show it's got far less views there as a kind of mirror video but it gets a lot of comments I mean still lots and lots of comments yeah on that video and I think in a sense your response video and he served to in a sense bring it to even more people's attention so so I was I was grateful well I hope I hope that it did because like you say it's a it's it's a common argument and it was a good it was a good way of putting it yeah so I think it would be it would be so tell us about the show unbelievable is an attempt to kind of bring people together of our faith and no faith and just have debates kind of every week yeah I mean specifically Christians are the people of faith most commonly on the show so unbelievable exists as a radio show on premier Christian radio here in the UK it's been going there for over 13 years now and it began very much kind of at the time that Richard Dawkins that you know was well it began actually before he'd even released The God Delusion but it kind of had its birth in that kind of the zenith if you like of the New Atheism and that sort of thing so what's that's meant is that the show in aiming to bring Christians and non-christians together for dialogue and debate has often had a focus on atheism and some of the common arguments against Christianity from people like Dawkins and Dennett and Hitchens and others so so the show has been kind of a little point in that schedule each week where we say we're not just going to talk to Christians about Christian things on our Christian radio station we're going to invite non-christians in to see whether this stuff stands up to scrutiny sure that existed first of all just as a radio show on a Saturday afternoon now exists as a podcast and has done for over ten years and it's grown really really the growth has been on the podcast front primarily I mean those who tuned in on the Saturday get the show but you can listen to obviously anywhere anytime as a podcast and that many means that the audience has become very diverse both Christians and non-christians yes into it which is very exciting for me that I get to talk to the course yeah well we do love a good podcast of course and the show I don't know if this show kind of led you to writing the book it did really I I think so I I'm the moderator I tend to try and by and large be a fairly impartial observer and just steer the conversation and so on I am a Christian of course and it's on a Christian radio station so I've got my perspective but by and large when I invite a Christian and a non-christian like I have done with you a few time here to come on the show I'm letting them make the arguments and I'm just trying to make sure the listener understands and can follow and that we kind of keep to the time schedule we need for especially for the radio side of things right and and and so the book though was me sort of taking off my neutral moderators hat to some extent and saying yeah I've been hosting these shows between Christians and atheists for over a decade now you may ask why why am I still a Christian having heard from you know the most cogent right yeah the decline of the book is why after 10 years of talking with atheists I'm still a Christian the book is called unbelievable which follows the name of the show and yeah so why after 10 years of talking with atheists I'm still a Christian and when you say talking with atheists you're talking about their the the hosting of debate yeah oh you haven't just been that doesn't just mean you've kind of hung out with atheists or something like that but you've really been engaging with them for 10 10 years and still your lilyc ragin right yeah well I'll see one three times out of 10 somehow still Irish - I'm amazed exactly but no yeah the point is that I've been in the privileged position of hosting some of the brilliant minds across the skeptical spectrum if you like and and I still find Christianity a compelling worldview right and I I suppose him it's my attempt to distill what I think is some of the key arguments for Christianity in the book having heard a lot of them out there and heard them debated and also addressing some of the key objections to faith from atheists which will also be very familiar with yes and a lot and and none of it is done you know it's not a philosophically in a sense I hope it's got decent philosophy in it but it's not an academic book it's very much shame that kind of at the same level the show is at people who are interested in these ideas right claim to be philosophically trained but you you hope you're gonna get across some ideas at al a level though or thing yeah and I do that I really do think it's a great show and I'm not just saying that cuz you're here I remember because I hadn't heard of it before I'd been on it you know I'm not the type of person to listen to a Christian radio station but the debates that you have I think you do a great job of having as neutral as as you can be a position and so it does lead some really good conversations obviously people listening it's worth checking out the show and checking out the books links will be in the description of the YouTube channel but also simple Google searches will will take you there like you say I've been on the show three times including debating Frank Turek yeah which is one of my most viewed videos on you yeah I think that's over half a million yeah debating the moral argument which I'd imagine especially having read what you've had to say about the more alignment in this but you were probably bitching to kind of to jump in that is that's always the dilemma for me sometimes especially with things I'm particularly interested in like the moral argument there's always that that temptation to jump in and sort of try and if you don't feel the Christian guess is actually doing a good enough job you like what a covenant yeah debate it but you kind of have to try and suppress that yeah look I'm here to allow the Christian and the non-christian to have their say and and I don't get it right all the time and there I'm sure many times you could listen back to where I've tended to jump in too much on one side or the other yeah I mean it happens like I can imagine like I couldn't do what you do for precisely that reason I mean I could and I think we could have a successful show where I can I could host debates and point things in the right direction but I would be biased and it would be difficult to cuz and like you say you don't you don't get rid of your bias you rather like recognize your bias yeah is that and and and that's why I thought when I first went on the show and it was myself sat here and then Josh Parikh sanics me and you across the bench it kind of felt like in people said like you're going into the Lions Den like they're on it's two-on-one and and I came out thinking that's just not that's not what we're doing here it's well I'm glad you had the experience because because I do want to make sure ideally I want any skeptic a theater comes on the show to feel like it's a fair fair match we all come to these things with with the worldview of some sort or another we can't just you know we try and leave that our biases at the door to some extent when we assess things rationally but I hope the fact that I'm a Christian when people come on and they experience the show that they don't feel like I was somehow unfair to that right and they're not saying I get it right all the time but but by and large that has been the response I've had from most of the skeptics an atheist who come on yeah I mean Michael Shermer very kindly I I hosted a debate a live debate out in the States recently and and he very kindly tweeted after it's thank you for being such an objective and impartial moderator Justin and then and then he tweeted and thank you for also telling me secretly that you were won over by my argument and that you are now a signed up atheist I did I did say that share was not quite true literally yeah anyway yeah but I was glad I'm glad that people like Sherman do feel like they come on they get a kind of a crack of the whip I'm not yeah and if you know swinging things in one direction well certainly sir I remember when I uploaded the video of all of the videos that we've we've had you very kindly let me put those on my channel and sometimes I'll get people saying like they didn't let Alex talk like you definitely did I want to clear that up for anybody listening as well like you definitely did when it comes to these kinds of things when you do like a debate a formal debate it's very much like here's here's your ten minutes here's your ten minutes and don't step on each other's toes with a discussion like it's for me I don't care if I have the same amount of time it's about getting the ideas across so if there's a situation in which a I'm on your show and I speak for half the amount of time and suggest like that will be my doing like I can pop up and yeah say something if I want to like people people I think are used to the formal debate format and maybe don't understand that the utility of having a conversational format well you don't need to regulate who's talking that's right man I think that's right I think in a way you can marshal I think that the challenge with it with a more informal discussion it is simply marshaling your time right yeah and I generally try to make sure people kind of get equal ish amounts of time but you I'm not there with a stopwatch or anything yeah and so to some extent it's it's up to the person and if I toss the ball to the atheist and they kind of bat it back quite quickly well there's not much you can do about that you you just have to let the conversation take the yeah it must be hard as a moderate and knowing when to to jump in and stop and say well let's not do that let's move on and when to yell at the conversation flow and especially because I generally because of the radio side of what I do I try and time my debates to about an hour yeah which in Radio Times is is a massive halftime but Anjali most people who are listening on podcast say oh I wish you could just let it run on my job is sort of to to if we're gonna try and cover an X amount of ground not to get bogged down for the whole four 50 minutes in one very technical thing but to say okay guys we're not going to agree on that let's move on to the next point and and part of that is I think that's actually more valuable experience for the listener in the end because you want people to get the Rao view of an argument rather than just sort of get bogged down yeah grass of something for a long time so I mean with the show is your intention thinking that somebody might listen to that conversation an episode that you've done and think wow that's I mean that that resonates with me I I think I agree with them or is it more an attempt to just have people aware of the discussion to then go in deeper yeah at their own pace I it's probably both I think inevitably even with you know an hour-long discussion you're only gonna graze the surface of many issues and so it's it's a kind of taster often for people to go deeper into something and I've had people get in touch with the show who said I I start out listening to unbelievable now I'm doing a PhD in some area of theology or philosophy and I'm like wow just starting to listen to my show that has led them into this very kind of gear engagement with something for others that might be the only thing they ever really listened to on the subject and that's fine I mean you know let me be clear my I do have a rather specific objective which is that I hope in the course of doing unbelievable people will come to consider the claims of Christianity and find them reasonable mmm I am a Christian that's kind of my underlying hope is that in doing the show Christianity will be shown that it can sort of stand on its own two feet in a kind of rational way right having said that I think the best way I can do that is to create a level playing field and in that sense my hope is also that people whether they're Christian or not will come to this listen to it yeah and feel like I heard a reasonable debate between two reasonable people and I'm not and from that point of view I can't control what people's response will be so some people listen to the show and there might be a Christian to say yeah Christianity definitely won that debate they might be an 80s and say oh the Atheist walked away with it it's you know and others who are somewhere in between who might go either way sometimes I've run into Christians who said your show whose own who were kind of maybe on the journey out to faith saying you're showing you serve to confirm my belief that that actually atheism makes sense yeah and I've met people who were atheists who said your show was part of my journey towards theism or Oceania tea so the traffic goes both directions it's the power of conversation yes but yeah it can go yeah thank you any when I'm not kind of I can't control that all I can do is put the debates out there and see what we will make them well I'm glad that you're here and it I'm glad to have you kind of on the other side of the desk as it were because like you say you're usually the moderator you don't really get to express your own views but I wanted to take an opportunity to do so because as you sort of suggest in in in the book title here you must be in a pretty good position to sum up a lot of the arguments for atheism to sum up a lot of the arguments for Christianity that you hear and the debates between them so I think it'd be fun to just kind of go through some of these reasons why after 10 years of speaking with ATS you are still a Christian there seems to be implicit in that title the idea that somebody might expect that if you've spoken with atheist for 10 years that you'd that you'd become one right that seems to be implicit in the title perhaps I guess the reason I chose the title was actually because I quite often got asked especially when I did a sort of 10 year of the show asked me anything type episode a lot of both Christians and non-christians got in touch saying how come you're still a Christian I love all these years of hearing some of the best arguments against Christianity so that was kind of where the thought for the title came from and I suppose there is from the fact that question gets asked an assumption that I can't believe you asked to the Christian after right right and so for a lot of people I think there is an assumption that if you just are gonna hear the best arguments for atheism or against Christianity you you will eventually abandon Christianity that wasn't my experience and it hasn't been the experience of a lot of people yeah well as far as the book goes I think it would be fun to we were talking about perhaps giving away some of the books yes you listeners so if you're listening or watching the show right now I'll do my own yeah we've got some copies of the book and it'd be fun to send them out I'm sure you'll sign them yes they absolutely have pretend I think it would be fun to I think what a good plan would be is if you're listening to the conversation we're about to probably have something of a debate we're going to be discussing these ideas about religion and if you have some kind of comment or something to add try to condense it into a tweet mm-hmm put that tweet put that tweet out make it make a comment and it could be it could be an interesting observation it could be a joke whatever you want something that you think we would like give it a hashtag that will be able to follow shall we go for how about cosmic Justin okay so hash tag hash tag cosmic Justin and make sure you're following both of us on Twitter so we can get in touch with you and if we like your comment that we will send you a signed copy of the book for you to read and enjoy so go over and do that on Twitter will probably after this after this episode airs we'll probably give it a week for you to do that and then we'll pick someone and send them a book so if you want to read the book which I think you probably do if you're listening to this podcast if you're that kind of person then it's as easy as sending a tweet and I hope that I hope that we can send some books out and if you don't get one obviously just just buy them yeah just buy they are also available to purchase on on online and in in before we dive into the actual book yeah other thing I did want to make you aware of Alex which I think you've already come across is that we did a special video series last year as well called the bigoted Enver sation and we were lucky enough to get some some amazing atheist beakers on there like daniel dennett steven pinker yep and and a number of others and we in conversation with some really interesting christian voices in jordan jordan peterson yeah so Jordan Peterson was our big win that was the the one that we managed to snare this was shortly actually I recorded that episode where he was debating do we need God to make sense of life with Susan Blackmore who's well-known atheist psychologist and and that was great because I managed to get him just before he really blew up in the UK at least and around the world and with that Kathy Newman interview so we recorded that in early January last year and saved it till we put out this this big conversation series but that's definitely been the the biggest video in that series yeah right so people can go and watch that and again that that's kind of like more debates but with it's the unbelievable show but in a kind of video format in a video format with some really big names like I say with yeah with some great people yes who Peter Singh is another person who's on yeah serious debating ethics and stuff so yeah and if you want some some high quality dialogue debates that's a really good place to start we're just starting to fill my new season actually we've got some really interesting names for first season two of the big concepts yeah that's great and again as people will surely be aware everything is in the description yeah any kind of anytime you hear anything mentioned a book or a video series or anything all the links are in the description and definitely worth worth checking out those conversations because like you say that they're like the show which I already like and enjoy in video format with some really really great names so worth going and checking out but with that said let's jump into it so the book you you you kind of you take it a few different angles so you discuss sort of existential arguments for God you also discuss the moral argument and then you talk later about objections things like the problem of evil so am I right in thinking that for you because I think you say this in the book that the moral argument is to you that one of the most compelling cases I I find the moral argument a really powerful argument for God is that where you would begin with somebody like if you wanted to have a conversation with somebody who was an atheist and they weren't let's say they weren't familiar let's say they're like a passive atheist who just doesn't have the belief and it's your job to come and say here's a good reason to believe where do you begin with someone like that well that mystery question I think it would very much depend on the conversation I was having with them and if if it appeared that they had specific objections to God then I might indeed start with those first of all so if it's right the problem of suffering or evil and that's why I can't believe in God I might begin there rather than somewhere else but the but yeah if I was just kind of laying out my my case if you like to someone who's just not convinced I might the moral argument would certainly be part of it I think by its nature it can be sort of it's not the easiest thing to explain in a kind of 30 seconds yeah so you've got to kind of be willing to kind of put the legwork into to kind of make sure that we all understand what we're talking about I mean in the book I essentially lay out my general case for God for theism if you like in three chapters I say God is the best explanation of human existence God is the best explanation of human value that's really where the moral argument comes and God is the best explanation of human purpose and that's more a argument around meaning and that kind of thing and and so I think so this might be the way I would approach it with it with a somebody skeptical is to say I think what we're doing if you are an atheist I'd ask well does that mean you're a naturalist does that mean you believe that all that exists are physical forces and so on and if we can take that as our starting point then we've got something to talk about because there's a certain set of beliefs yeah that entails is huge I mean you you wrote on on page 57 to 58 here of atheists you say logically their atheism commits them to the view that there is nothing in the universe they're nothing more in the universe than the matter and energy that everything consists of so is your view of atheism they're a positive disbelief in God well I've preceded that by saying the majority of atheists that I do speak to about this subscribe to some kind of naturalism so I accept that there are many atheist you should simply haven't thought about it and what their atheism really boils down to is a sort of agnosticism of they they don't have a belief in God but they haven't really thought about the positive case for that and so I do meet a lot of atheist who say well the burden proof isn't on me because yeah I simply lack a belief in God like do you agree with that do you think that is a burden of proof the problem is for me that there are many things that lack belief in God you know stones box cats do we call them atheists well if we let's say we define an atheist as a person who lacks belief in God just as I think on your show actually I gave the example of something like veganism if we define it as you know abstaining from eating animal products then a rock is a vegan as well but usefully I think what we really mean is humans yeah thinking as a person who likes me that someone whom lacks belief in God all you're doing there is kind of describing a psychological state of someone and in that sense that I think the most you can say is this or gnostic now but if I meet someone who's giving me reasons why they don't believe God exists yeah I'm kind of going to assume they they actually hold a positive belief really that God does not exist the or that it's very likely that God does not exist well I'm interested in your diagnosis of agnosticism there because do you know that God exists well I I have a I I have a belief that God exists I mean III III think it's much more likely than not sure that I mean that's it's a separate question if you if you believe like do you know with certainty that God exists no I don't know with certainty in in the sense of I don't know in the way that you might ascribe one knowing that one plus one equals two right so that I could probably say to you then in that case well you don't know that God exists so technically you're an agnostic yeah but I think the problem is that you're that that puts the category of agnostic very wide I think I think it's a very broad definition of agnostic if if you're saying simply having some measure of willingness to be skeptical about your your belief in God or whatever makes you an agnostic well in that sense you know we're all agnostics about most things in life because we could be wrong why are you one of so are you the kind of Christian who because I've met a lot of people who are on this view that they'll accept that an atheism like mine is a passive atheism it is just a lack of belief in God it's not I don't actively believe there is no God and yet still feel as though I have some burden of proof because it's like I'm kind of denying some self-evident reality I mean you you make a case that in order for for value and purpose and morality and all these things to make any sense you kind of have to believe in God so if I just say I'm not convinced do I still have a burden of proof there well I think you have a burden of proof if you're making claims about the way the university is so if you're a naturalist Alex I think you have a burden of proof to show why naturalism is true so my question to you would be so you would claim to be sort of agnostic about God but are you agnostic about naturalism are you a naturalist alright and I think I would probably say that again it would be similar to your christianity who's like yeah I'm an agnostic because I don't know either way and I'm not a scientist and then that but I think it's more likely true than not true that the universe is naturalistic no does that commit me to naturalism to the extent that I need it well tonight right I think it means I think it would I think it doesn't make sense to simply label yourself as agnostic in that sense I think if you believe something is more likely true than not you're kind of you're in the region of being more committed to a particular position and so I don't think is helpful to simply label everyone agnostic if there's any measure of yeah do you know sort out I do this just leaning on well the other might not do it like if if I if we're discussing because it's kind of overcast when we came in today and I could say do you think it's raining and you say you know I I don't know but it's probably more likely that it is raining than not based on based on the weather that I saw earlier like I'd still say that that's an agnostic position like we don't know we don't know if it's raining but even if you kind of lean one way more than the other it's kind of a separate question whether you know it's raining too whether you believe it's raining and it's the same thing with God I think so I think but like as far as I'm concerned in my definition of the word agnostic which is just being in a position of being that you don't know yeah we're both agnostics and both have to be agnostics and the difference lies in our belief rather than our knowledge well I think I think it it lies in sort of how a commitment if you like to a worldview so I'm committed to the Christian worldview I don't say that I'm committed I want to hold that in a way that's that's humble that says I could be shown to be wrong I'm not saying this is somehow I know this in a way that can never be proved to be wrong I mean if you someone could show me the body of Jesus Christ dead somewhere in Palestine then I would be wrong with that but would that do it for you or would you think there's some other explanation like would it would something like that just just a singular case that Jesus's body is found it really won't to me that the Jesus he'll rise from the dead and I would have to say Christianity's false and you do that kind of immediately off the bat well precisely also do you do that you know it's pretty fundamental to Christian belief if Christ is not risen then our faith is in fact yeah that's that's what Christianity is founded on a historical event to claim and that Jesus Christ rose from the dead so yeah I'm not gonna sort of fudge it and say oh it was just some spiritual experience in the minds of the disciples that's really so it doesn't matter whether Jesus body is there or not I believe it is actually foundational to cry on it yes oh yeah so it's a it's in that sense it's it is testable I mean whether you could or not obviously identify anybody as right anybody in you know the imprint solidly in principle yes falsifiable yes yeah right sure that I think that shows the level of intellectual honesty because there are many people who say that they'd never allow their and if I'm perfectly honest I've met some atheists who get very close to their beliefs being unfalsifiable I mean I don't know if you've listened to any of the debates I've done with Peter Atkins who well-known here in Oxford as a right but but when I've asked him the question is there anything any kind of evidence that could make you doubt your atheism or believed in God he has basically said no there's nothing you could present me that could make me doubt that atheism is true and at that point you've got to say well that's not a falsifiable belief any longer sure and and but then someone like Atkins I don't want to mischaracterizing you all know better than I has that kind of positive yeah atheism God does not exist which is an argument that can be made and that that's perhaps why he's in a position of certainty about that because it's it's an active belief but like I say I think it's it's good to see it's good to see people who are willing to change their minds I have a I have a question about whether your kind of your ability to say I might change my mind I might be wrong hmm is it unfair to characterize that as doubt it depends what you mean by doubt doesn't it only because like I don't think of it as doubt I think of it as as a willingness as a Hoops for form of humility I think to say I could be wrong I think doubt is a bit different I think that's more when you are sincerely questioning it's not know what you're doing well with the show I would say I'm always open to questioning things and I've certainly gone through periods of doubt and there are things I am NOT certain about or I I have not made sense of yet within my Christian faith so in that sense yet if you want to call that doubt that that would be doubt but I don't in a sense I don't have significant doubt in the core claims of Christianity if that made sense in in as much as I'm not wondering are they true or are they not true sure I'm I'm I'm convinced that they are true to the best of my ya knowledge as certain as that I'm sat across the room from you is that the kind of level of certainty we're talking about I think there it's never to be it's a different kind of trap so Christian often talk about faith and and faith in a sense is something that isn't about looking at something and it being right there in front of you and it's about trusting in something on the basis of evidence that you've been given for it so it it might be more akin to trusting that the the chair anchored to sit in is going to hold me up right and though I don't have absolute proof of that you know they could be loosen the screws before I came in here and if it's all gonna collapse or something but I I trust you as a person I trust you know that you haven't done this as a prank it's so there's a kind of that that kind of level of trust is the way I would probably characterize my Christian faith is that I oversee have never seen Jesus standing in front of me as you stand in front of me Alex but I have a number of other aspects of my experience that make me trust that Jesus Christ is true so you spoke about the the core aspects of Christianity that you may leave it to you people have different ideas about what they are so obviously there's the resurrection like you point out first Corinthians 15 if Christ has not been risen you're still in your sins your fate this view told very clearly that that has to be a component of the Christian belief what else to you lies in in the in the real core of Christianity well for me you know you could probably sum it up in something like the Apostles Creed I mean that's what the Creed's were developed for was they were sort of an easy to view way of looking at what are the the core beliefs of Christian so that that would include the deity of Christ that Christ is divine that he lived he died for our sins and that he rose again the holy spirit that it's a Trinitarian conviction that I hunt so those would be some of I suppose the the key elements yeah yeah and a you nondenominational why I do belong to a denomination but I'm nonde nominee you could same nondenominational as far as the show goes I hear from a wide variety of perspectives different denominations yah when it comes to Christianity and and in the book line I'm very much advocating for what CS Lewis called a mere Christianity which is just say we're not going to get into the long grass of all the various things you could debate over various doctrinal positions on various things we're just gonna say was Jesus Christ who said he was what did he rise from the dead if so we've got pretty good grounds for believing that Christianity is true yeah but before you even get to Jesus you need to God that you start with start with his dad and you that's where you kind of begin trying to put forth these arguments for the existence of God so well look why don't you try to convince me why don't you talk me through some of these arguments let's see what they're made of why they're convincing in areas in which I might disagree with I mean well any one of these we could take the whole show for so so maybe we should start with one of one or two the ones I know you've been most keenly engaged to it and and one of them is the moral argument yeah I think it'd be good to focus on that because I do want to get into the problem of evil as well which is something I haven't really talked about on my channel before and certainly not in the podcast and I think the two is somewhat linked they argue a different question yeah they need well in hand and that was kind of where the whole Frank Tirek thing came from wasn't it yeah but I I mean the way I put it in the chapter is that I believe God makes sense of human value in a way that a naturalistic worldview cannot and so it's it's it's as simple as really pointing out that a lot of people believe that there is an intrinsic value and dignity to human life that somehow we should treat humans in a way that we're not obliged to treat the rest of the world the world and even you know some humanist manifesto I don't know if you think of yourself as a humanist Alex but they're obviously the ethical framework that I meet many atheists that they hold is some foot in form of humanism and if you look at some of the declarations that have been made around that they seem to very intrinsically hold humans as having a special status and you know we have whole documents of human rights the UN Declaration of Human Rights we had the 70th anniversary of that recently and and the question is well if these human rights this human value this intrinsic human dignity does exist if people are agreed on that where how do we ground that and and and my view is that theism Christianity specifically is a good grounding for it because a Christian believes that God has created humans in His image that gives humans sort of intrinsic dignity and value and Worth and in fact has shown that as well in his death on the cross and in trying in reconciling humanity to himself in that way but I don't find any justification for that belief in a naturalist atheist view of reality where we are in a sense a somewhat random byproduct of an evolutionary a purposeless you know process of evolution I don't see you know in a world that is essentially you can boil down to a matter in motion molecules and so on where this intrinsic dignity in value lies and I suspect you might say the same because I know you're a subjectivist when it comes to morality yeah there isn't a any objective standard out there to which we're I mean it's complicated because it sounds as though and like I think you're you're you're right put perhaps for the wrong reason I call me a subjectivist it sounds like you you are just trying as hard as you can to avoid subjectivism moral subjectivism it sounds like your argument is based on the idea that we must have some conception that people are valuable as a matter of fact and that it is wrong to to to throw acid in the face of a girl FGM is wrong and we like I believe it is wrong I believe it's objectively long I'm but I'm all I'm saying is that if you hold the belief that it's wrong that it's effectively wrong and that humans do have some intrinsic value then you can't believe that on you and you're naturalism won't support that and to be clear you're not saying that people who don't have a belief in God or some higher being can't have those moral convictions oh no no and that's the big which is a yeah a few guys may renounce this idea that what I'm saying is atheist can't be moral people yeah nothing could be further from the truth many of the atheists I know are incredibly moral they justify I just don't believe they can justify it on the basis of their worldview and that's because it's a kind of a leap of faith almost right takes place when they say but I just believe humans have this intrinsic value and dignity and they're like well great so do i but I don't believe you have a grounds for this for believing that so why does God provide that basis in a way that atheistic world views can't well simply because I think if we are created in the image of God and God is the creator of everything and God is the ultimate source of good and value and love yeah then there seems to be a natural you know relationship there between us having been endowed with this specific value that we recognize right and I can't give you a mechanistic account of that of course yeah but I think that it makes it makes more sense of our fundamental belief if we have one Shore and so when it comes to it because it does come down to the idea of being made in the image of God I presume that you're somebody who generally accepts the scientific literature on evolution yeah I mean with some caveats but I'm yet very happy to say if that's the best explanation going per then that's the best thing right and that's a good way of looking at it so but my question would be something like if if human value is predicated on the idea that human beings are made in the image of God and that they are are special they they have some kind of special worth then if you trace the evolutionary heritage of human beings you get back to a kind of a fish ancestor which doesn't resemble humans and clearly wasn't made in the image of God so I struggle to get my head around the idea that we can have a kind of a fish and then billions of years of evolution and at some point along that chain okay round about here this is where we're now in the image of God mm-hmm it seems like if you're made in the image of God there needs to be this this immediate creation of humanity as it exists because otherwise you run into a problem of degree yeah yeah and and this is an area where I wouldn't claim to have massive expertise but I'd say I mean like the question would be something like what where like a chimp chimpanzee is our closest ancestor are they sort of close enough to the image of God to have some semblance of that that moral dignity well I would say for anything that is non-human that is a different species or whatever the way we treat that species that animal we need to do that as a reflection of our god-given image if you like an hand and so it's incumbent upon us to to treat things in ways that reflect the compassion and and everything else of God as built in us so I wouldn't say that the belief in in the intrinsic uniqueness if you like if humanity means we can just do what we like with the rest of creation you know it's it's that butBut coming to your point about when did this you know yeah like when it's when I can't guarantee s sort of put into humanity I don't know is the honest truth it could be you know I'm speculating here that there was a moment at which God endowed a primitive pair with conscience and kind of an awareness of him and morality and everything else that could be one way it could have been some kind of slow process in which that accumulated into a group whatever I don't know all I all I do know in a sense is that we do believe we're special we do believe there's something special about humanity and that we and I believe that is best grounded in the idea that we are made in the image of God how exactly that came to be is open to speculation and we have a story in the Bible obviously in Genesis which i think is a great analogy a great piece of poetic literature that tells us we're created for a purpose and to reflect God's image but it's not giving us a scientific account yeah and and that would be that's and I've done debates on when that happens what it I'm kind of somewhat agnostic if I'm honest on that I don't know and I don't think I may ever claim to know yeah because I mean Christianity seems to quite clearly draw a distinction between human beings and other animals and and very much press they're their specialty and that's what we do with something like human rights as well we said that humans are of their own kind and yet I mean Peter Singer makes an interesting point on this which is that whereas we would lump oysters and chimpanzees in this this category of animals mmm we have a complete divide between chimpanzees and us even though we are far closer to chimpanzee than an oyster is and I mean can you see the can you see the problem with saying that the the morality that we have is grounded in the fact that we were made in the image of God and yet if you go back not that long ago in terms of evolutionary history maybe two hundred thousand years or so there are there are different species of humans I mean to to do Neanderthals have and have the same kind of really I don't I'm I'm I'm kind of vague agnostic on that I mean it could be that God has purposes and you know ways in which he was in some sense those Neanderthals or whatever had some kind of moral sense or whatever I'm not in a position to know all I do know is what I can tell from my experience now yeah humans and the way that we are distinct from the rest of the undetermined do you see it as a serious challenge this evolutionary history don't really know because for me it's all it is is it gets us to the same position we're humans and we the majority of us seem to have a belief in this intrinsic value in humans whether we whatever evolutionary pathway that took or whether it was a special creation at some point of the first human couple or whatever it was you know if it was a young earth creationist belief you know that it was all started 6,000 years ago the point is we're all presented with the same point of view now yeah and and all I ask a theist to do is to consider why if the naturalist account is true and that all of this is actually from a purposeless process why we have this special regard and I tell the story in the book I don't if you got to in in the chapter that I talk about it but III managed have a kind of mini conversation with Richard Dawkins along these lines he was doing a debate in Oxford with John Lennox Yellin own Christian thinker had the Natural History's and the Houston Museum I mean this would have been well before you ever were engaged in these things he said back in 2000 think Jose Annan yeah exactly so this makes me feel some old Alex that's the problem thank you yeah but anyway I managed to sort of do it so a little interview with Richard Dawkins in the kind of after-show party as it were and in fact you do you mind if I literally just read out the book cuz well that's yeah they'll do a better job of it than me trying to to recall off the top of my head but I essentially sort of ended up asking Dawkins about whether he believes ultimately that our morality is derived from a sort of godless purposeless kind of evolutionary sort of standpoint and and this this is how the interaction went and tell me what you think of it and I said but if we had evolved into a society where rape was considered fine would that mean that rape is fine and he said well I don't want to answer that question it's enough for me to say that we live in a society where it's not considered fine we live in a society where selfishness failure to pay your debts failure to reciprocate favors is regarded a sconce that is the society in which we live I'm very glad that's a value judgment glad that I live in such a society and I said but when you make a value judgment don't you yourself immediately step outside this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good and you don't have any way to stand on that statement and he said well my value judgment itself could come from my evolutionary past and I said so therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution and he said you could say that in any case nothing about it makes it more probable that there's anything supernatural and I said okay but ultimately your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact we've evolved FiveFingers rather than six and he said you could say that yes and I I think that's a consistent position to take yeah it's consistently but it's it's troubling but it's troubling because none of us live like and I think Dawkins recognizes this is troubling when he says something like you could say that yes instead of just going yes yeah absolutely yeah it's like a kind of now there this conversation took place before the moral angio's say sam harris and after that he then said i used to say oh it's all subjective but actually I think now there is an objective case but I think you've done a very good job Alex in showing why this is not objective that the moral landscape both M Harries yeah so like I'm interested to to see to see what you make of this because to me moral subjectivism is not as simple as so I I've I've got in in your book which I can also quote from you've said for this reason and it's kind of disgusting the things you just been discussing many people claim that morality is entirely subjective you say this means that there are no universal standards of good and evil but that individuals decide for themselves what is right or wrong depending on their cultural circumstances and personal point of view now to me that kind of confuses moral subjectivism with with moral relativism and they're often thrown in the same bag but I believe that to be a moral subjectivist isn't to say that morality varies by culture you still run you still run into the problem of the grounding for it and is it just as arbitrary as five fingers instead of four but I could ask the same question to you I'm sure you're familiar with Euthyphro dilemma but for those who aren't who are listening the question is asked is that which is good good because God commands it or does God command it because it's good and you can't say that God commands it because it's good because then there's some standards of good that exists outside of God he's not omnipotent but that that implies that the reason things are good is because God says they are and then it seems are but surely that makes it just as arbitrary cuz again you also believe that the reason you have five fingers instead of six is because God made it so and so is it not still just as arbitrary that you're made with excited of five or six fingers people many philosophers have doubt perfectly satisfactorily with the Euthyphro dilemma have you through foe I can't remember how to pronounce it properly but and and William Lane Craig as always C said you know you simply split the horns of this dilemma and the third option is that good is God there yeah the good is by God's very nature is good and therefore you don't have this idea that God's either subject to the good or is arbitrarily defining the good goodness is God essentially and I'm satisfied with that I think that at the core of this God is intrinsically moral right but in an ethical framework someone could just turn around and say that you know Hedden ism is intrinsically moral as as John Stuart Mill it essentially does and I don't see why it's more compelling to point to God and say well we're just because if you kind of accept the Euthyphro dilemma and then you say well let's have a conversation about this like let's see how God is is the author of good and when we run into problems like this how we can solve them but if your answer to it is to just say well good is God then I don't see why that's any more compelling than me just finding any other kind of naturalistic quality and saying this is what we identify as good that's essentially what sam harris does as well when he identifies touching a hot stove as bad and he just says like there's no denying that span and like almost definition in fact definitionally so it's about kind of there well it's okay and I said then I would have to say but what you're saying there is therefore everything is subjective regardless of whether it's got a religious basis or or a kind of naturalist base in an ethical sense yes perhaps yeah and I just think that actually no I am aware I'm simply I apprehend that moral facts exist and moral values and duties exist there and and all I'm trying to do is say what grounds this and although I can't give you a sort of complete definition of how God grounds the good I'm far more convinced that God gives a satisfactory grounding for that the naturalism which I don't believe gives an grounding for it at all and I think you're in greement with that but that's I mean why what is it about having a god mmm what is it about having a supernatural being that allows you to say that we now have a basis for morality because that being is not just being in the universe or in reality that being is the ground of reality that everything that exists exists within the purposes and mind of that being that being is is reality almost you could say right and and in that sense it's not some are being arbitrarily deciding what is good and bad it's the very notion of good and bad exists within that being that that that it's the ground of yeah to talk about Morales but like you point out there that makes God the grounding of both good and evil well makes God the grounding of being able to distinguish between them yeah do you think that God is the author of evil no no no evil whatsoever well I I don't believe that God wills evil if that's what you're yeah that's that's not what I'm asking although I was going to ask you a similar question which is that this view of God is the foundation of reality is that to you inconsistent with the view that God is malicious could there be could it be the case that God is the grounding of reality and and is the beginning and the the Alpha and the Omega and yet is malicious and no I don't feel that that makes sense I know there is the evil God argument from from Steven lore and so but I've never I've always felt that I suppose it's an intuition ultimately that goodness love those the things we label good they they are if you like the things that I would naturally ascribe with a being there being that you would give the quality of God essentially and it seems to me an unnecessary sort of skeptical view to say but it could be that that that God is actually an evil God who is intent on producing evil in the world I suppose it's my my experience my personal experience to some extent is is is the basis on which I would say that that I don't believe it's it's an evil God behind this universe and the experience of love itself makes me believe that if a God was really an evil God trying to extract the maximum out of suffering and evil from the universe it doesn't seem like a good way of doing it well that's interesting yes interesting point I just want to make sure that yeah because I want to pick up on this when we when we discuss the problem of evil very shortly that's an interesting point to consider it's like is it conceivable that with the evil in the universe right now we still live in the best possible possible world and that the evil is is a necessary compartment of having the the most good overall well it's at least conceivable that that's the case but it seems that it's inconceivable but we're living in in the most evil imaginable world because that would just be complete suffering all the time and everything I think so yes and and so from that point of view I think that's probably a good way of putting it about before before we get there I want to ask you a question which is yes if we were roommates right and I that would be great fun one of the first disagreements we might have would be which color to paint the walls in the route of our new room and we're having a debate about it now it transpires that you love the color blue it is your favorite color and to the extent that you think everything should be blue like you just it's your favorite color for the walls yeah and I agree with you as it happens I also think that blue is the best color right the logical next step is well okay let's paint the paint the room blue at that point if we were having that conversation would you turn around to me and say well hold on Alex can we just make sure that our love of blue is actually grounded in something more than just our opinion or is it enough to say well look we both agree that the colors blue so with it it's as though it's objectively true that we should paint the room blue it kind of follows from that and we don't need to worry about the fact that we might be mistaken and I love the blue because we both agree in it and so it doesn't actually matter and no one's gonna be upset if we paint the paint the room everyone's gonna be happy it's gonna be fine would you have a problem with the fact that that's not grounded in something more in that case no because it's a from somewhat trivial point you know blue doesn't have a moral dimension it our preference of the color blue if you are asking hey we both agree that child abuse is fine and hate and that everyone else in the world agrees with that so I guess it's fine and that that obviously would be a problem because then we've got to say hang on just because we all agree on this doesn't mean it's necessarily true but would it would it be would it be a problem in the sense that like if everybody around you agrees that God exists and from that they derive propositions like let's not torture babies I don't think they do that I think that's the wrong direction now I don't think people you think it goes the other way I don't think people derive the belief we shouldn't torture babies from believing in God I believe people know we shouldn't torture babies and they apprehend that as an objective fact about reality and then you point that out to them and say is there a grounding for that the best grounding I can see is God because naturalism doesn't do it interesting so I don't see that you have to argue for God and then say oh and then we get objective out the honest you say I see that there are objective values I may not have a belief in God at this point but I'm I know plenty of atheists who believe in objective values and then I would simply say but you're inconsistent if you believe in objective values and you don't believe so so like epistemological II it works in that direction it's that it's the moral belief takes you to the knowledge yeah I I don't think you can ground the moral belief without there being an underlying yeah but you still think so to said the poletik the belief itself does come from God well I believe that in a sense that everything comes from God ultimately yes exactly well I'd say that evil is the result of God allowing freedom in his creation so so there's a kind of a kind of it's a necessary result if you like but it's got justifiable reasons for allowing it so I'll tell you the reason but that's yeah again I because I'm I'm itching to get into that but I do we just want to hear your views there's another thing I'm itching to get into which if we got time for I would love to discuss free will because we start to talk oh we can yes that's the other way you left my studio and and I always thought I'd love to talk about that again we haven't we absolutely to too many things to discuss and to try and find the time in Africa can do it in the taxi fare who take to the city centre but okay so the reason why I wanted to bring at the blue example was because like you're right it's trivial but it's it's not it's the same principle which is that if we painted the room orange we'd both be in pain it would be a trivial pain who is going to be the pain of discomfort or distaste and if we paint the room blue then we're going to be in pleasure and it's a trivial pleasure but the same principle is true of when you talk about morality we are essentially talking about pleasures and pains and again you can't you can't grab the problem of someone like Harris is that he tries to objectify that but we are essentially talking about pleasures and pains even even in a even in a religious sense I don't know if you'd agree with that well I yes and no I mean I think that the principle that torturing babies for fun for instance to give the classic example by the horrible lumber is objectively wrong is true as a fact regardless of where the babies exist I just think it's real easy yeah I think it's something that is true I don't think it's dependent upon the particular state of affairs existing I just think there are there are and and it boils down to again you know it's it's about a certain the way you should treat certain yeah but I mean to me that sounds like saying it's a fact that gravity on earth accelerates objects at a speed of 9.81 m/s^2 and that's true whether or not earth exists yeah like if Earth doesn't exist then that can't be it there can't be a proposition there has to be a kind of non-cognitive well I think it's simply the point of view if earth existed it is true it's true in principle yes so I I'm happy to say if babies exist then we shouldn't yeah murder them I'd like obviously that's not a logical argument but but the point is like yeah the the the the moral belief is predicated on the existence of the babies like if you're gonna have it if you have a conditional like that if babies exist and that's not but I thought you were a subjectivist so I'll tell you I'll tell you what I mean by that okay and it has evolved so I don't blame you like in fact my views probably when I last spoke you were closer to what you think they are them okay actually are now the subjectivism for me doesn't lend this is why I brought up the blue example that the subjectivism for me doesn't lie at the level of the action it lies at the level of the underlying belief so with with with the Blue Room there is it's completely subjective that we prefer blue and yet it is objectively true that the best way to achieve the goal of the Blue Room is to paint the room blue yeah because we that's subjectively both our faiths exactly and it's an objective derivative that you know to reach that subjective gold there is objectively a right and wrong way of doing that and this is something that my friend Steven Woodford rationality rules as yes you've had him on your show has helped me to understand so the level of so the subjectivity lies at the levels that belief that the that the blue is the best color yeah not at the level of of well if if we want blue then let's paint the room blue that's not a subjective part that's objectively true right so in the same sense I think the morality breaks down to pleasures and pains and I think the pleasure by definition is Derek Parfit essentially had it is is what is wanted when experienced like pleasure is good to you that there's no way around the subjective the subjective preference for pleasure so whoever you are and whatever your conception of pleasure is and whatever brings you pleasure you must subjectively feel as though pleasure is a good thing right now from that there are objective derivatives and this is where Sam Harris gets it right which is that if we have this goal of well-being in mind it's called pleasure and pain then there are objective ways to achieve that yeah so when it comes to moral subjectivism it's it's not a case like you characterized it earlier of like let's see if we all agree that torturing babies is wrong like we could completely disagree but we can be right or wrong about that in relation to the pleasure yeah so if I'm talking to somebody who is it was an atheist hmm and they say that that rape is sometimes permissible hmm and I say that it's not obviously avoiding reductio cases like if you have to rate one person save the whole world you know what I mean all things being equal yes sure right and the way I'd go about that is to say well look do you think your pleasure is a good thing to you I say of course now that's subject to preference that isn't just almost the definition of subjectivity it's just what you prefer right now I would say like so do i I think my pleasure is a good thing but we agree on this now let's not get bogged down into the metrics unless we're having a matter ethical discussion let's not get down bogged down on the men heretics of whether or not we're justified in thinking uh pleasure is good but since we do I can objectively try to demonstrate to you or at least I can try to demonstrate to you that there is an objective component to that to the idea that by not raping people you are maximizing your pleasure right and if that's the case then I can I can make a case to make them change their mind that that rapers is sometimes admissible to believing the rapers is wrong mm-hmm in an objective fashion right in line with their subjective belief right if you see what I'm saying so moral subjective isn't to me isn't culturally relative as you have it in the book it's not like if I go to two if I go to Iran mmm it's just it is morally true that we behave cover their heads I mean I know we don't want to take this to reductio ad absurdum but I suppose the point for me is it still sounds like a pragmatic argument you're making there if we want to maximize well-being in the world we should all pay this principle that we shouldn't rape each other and that sort of thing that might be the way in which you'd make the objective case that your subjective but you know say there are just two people left in the world and one person believes they're gonna get pleasure by raping the other person it's really not gonna make any difference to anyone else in the world at that point does that then make it moral you know well no it possible it doesn't it doesn't make him him right because like you say that person believes he's going to get pleasure from from raping someone he's either right or wrong about that yeah and I'd wager that he's wrong but what bet he believes he does and let's say he does and he does derive pleasure as much we may find that an objectionable thing if we're just doing it on the basis of pleasure in that instance then it seems to me that he should do that well because that's that's the thing that will bring him pleasure yeah that's an interesting thing it's not going to be anyone else that when I had that DS sat in your chair yeah I asked him the same exactly the thing yeah and I said well what if somebody is like axiomatic predispositions are that they want to rape someone that's their goal like surely they shouldn't and they go any goes no they should right I said what and he said yeah because I have to stay consistent with with them you that morality is about the achievement of goals right and so if the goal really was like achievable by raping someone then even then that's what you should do and I was taking it back but then we immediately sort of brought it back down to earth by saying but that is metaphysically impossible it's not possible to be in a position where your pleasure is not at the basis of your preference and you can make a case that it's not it's objectively not possible that by raping someone you will actually maximize your pleasure because there are different kinds of pleasures right well then then I suppose yes you're getting into the deeper water of this person has placed a measure of preference on this particular type of pleasure when they should actually be valuing this much deeper pleasure of valuing someone for their you know yes and I think that but the problem is that at every stage I think we're assuming some kind of objectivity to to things that this type of valuing someone and and giving them their due dignity and everything is is a more valuable thing than simply achieving the carnal pleasure of the rape or whatever it is and so for me it's like we're still debating an objective fact about reality and and I've never been out to escape that and so very often you know the other thing that that skeptics have put to me when I've talked about this is opal you know look we're just we got on morality by evolutionary history and that kind of ingrained sin that's the idea that we should treat people a certain way and that kind of maximizes the the our ability to pass on our DNA and have you know a flourishing society and everything else and I say fine but you've described what is and the problem is it doesn't generate a naught you know that that may be the way that a flourishing society develops through the evolution of these particular moral principles yeah but at what point does that mean that people ought to have that as their goal yes and I think we're in agreement on that one that you can trust that you can't cross that line and and and for me the problem is when you have the rapist or the you know the person who just doesn't agree you know when and thankfully you know if you just go to another society today where they want to force women to do engineer to wear burkas or wear female genital mutilation takes place the problem is if there isn't a an objective aspect and moral reality then I don't think we have the moral right to tell people what they shouldn't shouldn't be doing because he ultimately is about opinion right I mean this is the the evolutionary argument does come in here for me too but it's in a different sense like I would never I'd never make a claim to nature and say that you know because we've eeveelution airily developed a care for certain things that they are morally correct because like you say that that takes you from an is to a naught but I do think that we can go to another culture and say I know that you value pleasure I know that you value your well-being and I know that it is not culturally relative what will actually bring you bring you pleasure like it is there are objective facts about people's brains that we can know so we can go to another culture and say amuse the evolutionary argument to say this is why you think that pleasure is a good thing I can show you that we have evolved to to think that our pleasure is a good thing I can also show you that we have evolved as a social species and I can show you the evidence that the objective evidence to suggest that the best way to maximize our well-being is to work as a team and to have social characteristics now it doesn't follow from that that we ought to act in accordance with that but what we've got now is a situation where I know that you have the goal of your well-being and I have the evolutionary argument that says that the best way to maximize your well-being is to act as a social species and develop general moral moral rules like don't rape each other don't kill each other do with that what you will right and you heard that well I agree if you can if you can establish that there's there's a kind of a goal that people want and to fulfill that goal they ought to be doing things then obviously that's that's an alt in the way that you know to win at chess you ought to play exacting in that position it's precisely what misses that's not a moral thing in the chess case and to some extent is simply a way of getting to a goal in the case that you're talking about the the the problem for me is it still doesn't create a moral ort it just says if you want X then you should do y I was responding to the to the argument you were making about kind of not having the right to go to another culture that yeah it sounds like what you're saying there is that we're all playing chess everybody's playing chess now the question that we should be interested in is is why the hell are we playing chess like why why are these rules the rules we're using why does that matter but on the level of action if you say like we don't have a right to go to another culture and say that FGM is wrong well that's like saying I can't go to another culture and say you know moving you're like protecting your queen is a good idea generally speaking like you know actually I can go and saying that yeah and we can turn around and say well why are we playing chess yeah but it is the case that if they are playing chess then I can go to any culture in the world and say yeah you should probably protect your queen in most instances yeah but I think I'd obviously have to hear the developed version of how you're going to convince them that they're their actual preferences are best served by adopting your particular moral view but I mean that that's a separate question it's not about how to convince them it's about the idea that there is some kind of objective not not an objective standard but an objective method by which we can achieve a shared subjective standard maybe so but the problem is would be you know when you go to another culture they may have a very different idea of what human flourishing and well-being is and and you'd first of all obviously have to convince them that their idea of that is wrong and that they actually ought to be adopting your particular view of what that looks like which then your particular morality is the best way of achieving that and and I I think that's that that doesn't strike me as something that is that automatically falls out I mean I actually think that as it happen the judeo-christian ethic has been the best way of creating that kind of a culture right because I was just gonna ask you guys do you not see it as the same like in the same way that I'd have to go and convince them that that my version of pleasures and pains and goal achievement is right you have to go and convince them that the Christianity is true all I have to do is say like all I have to make them aware of is the fact that subjectively they think their pleasure is a good thing it seems fairly easy to me what you have to do is go and convince them that a man rose from the dead and that he's the foundation of all being and that he's fully divine but also fully human and and it like I well I I don't think in order to achieve a just society I have to convince people of all those things I think that a good flourishing society comes out of certain judeo-christian principles like the intrinsic dignity of human beings and that sort of thing and I mean we're going around the houses here but but all I'm saying is I think that the the Christian story provides a better framework for justifying that than a naturalistic story I accept that you believe that you could find these sort of shared subjective goals if you like and pleasure and pain I have to get here how you would persuade someone who simply doesn't exist in your worldview Alex that which is let's be fair been very highly conditioned in the West by a judeo-christian ethic up till now well we could debate that we had to pay that but the point is there exist many culture still in the world and certainly historically where they have a very different view of human the worth of human beings and some human being simply are worthless another as it is and for me how you distinguish between who's got the right view of humanity is is is gonna be more than simply showing that we ultimately have the same subjective preferences for pleasure because I think people are a lot way away off that in certain cultures and places to me that just sounds exactly like the same problem that you'll have religiously speaking like yeah okay I have to convince people of my view of pleasure you have to convince people of your your view of religion so I mean your argument seems to be that in order to have this objective basis you need you need there to be some some got some transcendent being that can be the grounding of morality yeah and I'm suggesting an alternative and so it can't be enough for you to turn around and say well look I can see how you could go about doing that I just think it's easier to do it through religion because the whole argument rests on the idea that there is no other way to explain it and well that's REI and I what I suppose the point I'm making is that even you're I think prepared to admit that you're not giving us an objective foundation for morality no there are no actual moral facts and values that exist out there I suppose what I'm saying though is that you don't you don't have to yeah I get that but the the point being that I I again I'd have to hear argument spelled out in detail but I can't see how you know going to a culture where they simply have a different view on the value of women or children or whatever it might be and they treat them in certain ways how without some objective reality about the way we should treat people you're gonna convince them you might end up convincing them you might you might say hey actually you guys need to rethink the way you know you think about the way you're going to achieve the things you want but you know if you're gonna go to Genghis Khan okay who was in a position to do exactly what he wanted whatever way he wanted I don't think he's necessarily going to say you're absolutely right Alex - for the well-being of the whole of the species if I want to do I shouldn't go around raping and murdering and pillaging because he's in a position where he says don't care I'm I'll do I want I'll fulfill my desires exactly you know because I have the I'm in the position to do I mean I see I see your argument but but and I'd hate to kind of keep pressing this but do you not see how it's precisely the same in the reverse you say you know I see what you're saying Alex but I just don't see how you can go to another culture that simply has another conception of pleasure - the one that you do and convince them like I don't see how you could go to that same culture who simply have a different conception of God than you do it's the same problem and I don't know why your answer is better than mine oh but I think we're talking cross purposes then because I'm not saying I have to convince them of my conception of God in order for them to be able to accept my moral framework I'm saying if we have an agreement if if someone believes that there is an objective way an objective type of morality exists then that can only be justified on God so I like I say I'm not I'm not going to a culture and saying yeah here's why God exists therefore you have to act this way I'm going to the people who already believe that there's an objective moral facts about the world like baby shouldn't be rape and saying if you believe that I can't see how it can be grounded in naturalism but I think there is a good explanation in theism and I suppose what I'm doing is I'm saying if you believe that then here's why I think it's grounded in pleasure and I would actually say that that and you say well if you go to another cult who has a different conception of pleasure like I don't think that that's metaphysically possible I think the way I'm defining pleasure is essentially what is wanted when experienced well it has to be a good thing but that's that's yeah I know time is running free yes I really what this is what I've been because I've been watching a few of your videos otherwise and last time you came in or it might be the time before we ended up at the doorway as you were leaving my studio talking about freewill and I think this does link in to the morality thing because I think I know that you believe free will doesn't exist okay and I think that creates a double problem for the moral question because obviously you believe the morality is subjective ultimately there's no objective standard by which we can yeah all right even if we can kind of come to some subjective agreement about what it would take objectively to together but on top of that if there is if and I think you're absolutely consistent with with a naturalistic worldview that if matoran molecules is all that ultimately exists then we do live in a deterministic universe and all of us are essentially could not have done otherwise than we do I think that also balance is a significant problem because not only can you not come come come it doesn't mean that when people do bad things we're not in a position to to say they're done anything objectively wrong we're also saying they couldn't have done anything other than what they did yes so they're they're not morally blameworthy yeah there's no praise or blame and that for me is obviously a huge issue both for the for the whole model thing and I know you've done I mean you're not alone like that's one of the biggest problems but for me the question is what is true if it leads us to her to a disturbing conclusion like the idea that we can't actually say someone is is responsible for their actions like if it's true then then tough luck to I mean the shock factor comes in saying something like if somebody murdered my family tomorrow the worst I could feel rationally I mean emotionally as another story but the worst I could feel rationally for the person who murdered my family is sorry for them because they're just a victim of their circumstance they didn't choose to have the genetics that they have they didn't choose to have the upbringing in the predispositions to violence and the desires to to to commit murders it's not their fault like it just sucks for everyone involved it sucks for me it's my family and it sucks for them because they're gonna have to rot in prison now forever suddenly the emotions you're feeling are handed down to by the universe exactly and use all kind of been set in snow yeah from from time immemorial but here's the problem I think the problem for you is much deeper than that and I haven't seen many videos where you've responded to this issue which is that if there's no free will then I don't see how reason functions full stop so when you say you're an atheist or agnostic or whatever and even just saying making the statement that free will does not exist the only way you can come to believe that or to believe you know how to say I'm an atheist is through presumably a reason of the process of reason and evidence but if everything we think and say and do is predetermined that is that's all been predetermined by a non rational process and therefore I can't see how we ground the idea of coming to evidential reasonable conclusions in a universe which doesn't allow for free will yeah it's an interesting point I think it's similar but not the same as something like the fallacy of composition to say because we come from irrational origins the result can't be rational I think the rationality is a product of naturalism so I don't think it's a problem to say that the rationality has it has arisen from the non-rational in the same way that I don't think that any individual atom is conscious but if you put enough atoms together in the right formation in our brains then it gives rise to consciousness even though the components are not themselves conscious just as no molecule of water is itself wet right despite the composition being yeah and it would be a similar argument to say like well it's constituted isn't it true though that if determinism is true which I think you believe is the case I don't necessarily believe that's the case and I can tell you why but but well I mean look so either determinant I mean that the law of a fundamental law of logic is that P is true or not true it's one of the other and it can't be anything else now determinism is either true or not true so the universe is either determined or it's in determined if it's determined then we're following on a chain of causation you have no control if it's in determined then by definition there has to be an element of randomness and randomness by definition you don't have any control over either so it's either way it's logically true xizt yes but it makes it kind of logically true that free will calm takes it but but ok but either way you get to it determinism or kind of randomness free will doesn't exist and and the problem for me is that the very basis on which you come to your decisions has to involve freewill at some level because you you have weighed up the evidence and decided that it's unlikely that God exists you're therefore an atheist you've looked at the evidence from the universe and science and everything else and said looking at all this I don't think Free Will exists but in the very process of making those decisions you are using a process which has to be free to make any sense because you you have to have the ability to choose one or the other but if determinism is true or free will simply doesn't exist you never had a choice you you were always going to be an atheist I was always going to be a Christian it's basically boils down to the way our brains work it's nothing to do with us arriving of rational conclusions from evidence and for me that undercuts the whole it undercuts naturalism full stop because if if you've arrived at the belief that naturalism is true by a process which is itself non rational and in which freewill can't exist I then don't understand how you can have any confidence in your belief in naturalism because you haven't actually arrived at it by a by a rational process do you choose to become convinced of an arguments conclusion well I I choose to look at the evidence and decide whether it makes sense but do you get to choose what convinces you and what doesn't yeah I think I do okay so here's an argument that God doesn't exist there's evil and suffering in the world therefore God does not exist just just choose for the purpose of argument here just just just choose to be convinced of that for a second choose to be convinced that yeah that God doesn't exist doesn't exist just just do that real quick well obviously I'm not I can't choose in that sense to be convinced of that right so you're actually not that there's no level of choice when it comes to actually becoming convinced of a proposition so all of the propositions that you believed you didn't choose to well well well I did I chose them in a process I mean just simply giving me two propositions I'm not going to suddenly change the belief that I've arrived at over a period of time why not because there is a process of evaluation and looking and reasoning I mean the other states too to get there because it's unconvincing right it's not it's not convincing of enough for me to just say there's evil in the world devil God exists but you don't get to choose whether or not it's convincing and if I if I if I make that argument more complicated if I say well evil exists in the world and it's unnecessary and God doesn't exist okay still not convinced and let's add a premise like and and if God is ultimately good that he will eliminate all unnecessary evil and you make it more and more complicated eventually you might turn around say you know what actually that that's a convincing I'm convinced that God doesn't exist but you don't get to choose any part of whether or not that chain of reasoning convinces you you are just led to that conclusion like if I present aren't an argument that you find convincing you have no choice but to just become convinced of that conclusion and that's what happens in all rational processes the choice I see what you think the choice lies we have the choice to kind of weigh up the science and won't argue that you actually don't have a choice to do that because everything is is ultimately out of your control and I'm talking like everything to the extent that you don't just know exactly position is that the person who who any any position at all whether you're Christian atheist or whatever you didn't have it you didn't have any choice in if free will doesn't exist it could never have been different and and so the problem for me is that I often hear atheist saying show me the evidence show me the reasoning and all the rest of it yeah and the problem is if an atheist also believes there's no such thing as free will then they're asking for an impossibility because none of us arrive at it by in fact by a process of reasoning and they do they they arrive at the process of reasoning even though they don't get to choose whether or not the reasoning convinces them so the reason why I would say to you hmm try and give me an argument that convinces me for Christianity is because I recognize that I don't get to choose what's convincing and that it might be within your capability to produce an argument that I have to accept and so I'm not asking you an impossibility it's not the case that I always have to be an atheist because you better produce reasoning you you you don't that makes out though that that I have that I am capable of changing your mind yeah by an argument and that you could have thought otherwise okay that there's a sense about necessarily it doesn't mean that like that that like well I could have thought otherwise had you said something different but you couldn't have said something different so right actually maybe that's where the confusion lies like I'm not saying that that yeah that's I think I think that might be might be it might be the point it's hard to it's hard to phrase you if you present an argument that convinces me the Christianity exists it is perfectly possible that had you presented a different argument I may have not become convinced mmm but the impossibility lies in the fact that you couldn't have presented the other argument now you could say that logically speaking if you had then I'd have not become commit so all done differently mmm but that's just like saying if things had gone differently then they would have gone differently yeah which yeah that's that's the case like if if if you chose to get the the bus instead of the train then you'd have got the bus like you cares like that's not mmm that's not a relevant point to make well it seems relevant to me in as much as I think you know if you're you you have seemed to have arrived at the positions you take through a process of logic and reasoning okay and my simple point is only that I feel like I'm repeating myself though so forgive me if I am but is that that process requires you to have been able to choose because that's what reasoning is it's the ability to choose between alternatives on the basis of the best evidence well I'm not sure I think reason reason is is that that is often what what is like entailed by the uses of reasoning it's the experience of choosing an option but it's conceivable that reason can exist in isolation like reason is an attempt to know truth mmm so like I don't I don't understand why you need the option to have reasoned differently if the whole if the whole point of reason is is to get to what we believe to be truth and objective truth then if our reason is functioning properly then we must arrive at that conclusion if it's functioning if it achieves the goal we want it to achieve we often practically it doesn't then it has to it has to achieve the same same point if there is an objective standard of truth and both using reason and the point of our using reason is to achieve that objective standard of truth then our goal is to get to that point and nothing else right you don't need the the option to get it wrong in order to get it right I mean all all it strikes me though is that all of this seems to be come you know completely arbitrary if if we were always going to take the position we take it because of the the physical nature of the universe you were always going to be there making your own yeah I was always gonna be here making AI argument and for me I then don't understand how that equates to being a rational process because like you know as I've heard you say in the videos thing could never have been different to the way they are so in what sense did you have any control over your choice to be 1/8 oh it has no control over right but that's that's just that's just the point it's like but then you haven't arrived at it by a rational process as far as I can see well I has no just because I'm not in control of it doesn't mean it's not doesn't mean it's irrational like it's a tional non rational it's not no no irrational because that life suggests so different but it's it's certainly not I mean the movement of atoms in the brain is non rational looking that said I tell you in the same sense it is a rational thing to do when you put your hand on a hot stove to pull it away immediately even though you don't really get a choice as to whether you do that or not it's still the rational thing to do mm-hmm well it's it's the thing you do that's sort of ingrained I suppose in the the physical reaction is almost there whether you want to or not but it's also I mean it is the rational thing to do in this but it's the rational thing to do if you don't want your hand to experience pain yes but I I think that's slightly different to the sort of how we arrive at true beliefs because I think the problem is that we both want to believe things that are true yeah but it strikes me that if if there is no free will if if that fundamentally exist it's um it's kind of impossible for us to in any way get underneath things to know whether what we believe is true or not because we never had a choice so one believe is undermining what here is it the is it there being no free will undermines reason or is it that there is reason undermines the argument that there's no free will I think it kind of travels maybe in both directions so as I think if you want Rize if if you believe there's no free will but you're using arguments that depend on a process of reasoning then you you can't have them both and equally if you believe that there is such a thing as as reason then you've got to believe in a process of free will that allows for it but I mean so do you accept the the logical dichotomy between determinism and indeterminism the fact that one of those has to be true sure yeah but neither of those necessarily give you free will I think they both completely eliminate free well yeah and I think necessarily so but but okay but you just said a second ago you accept that dichotomy and you just said then yeah I Will Survive shame is a sign of free will well but I'm working from a completely different world view the new Alex obviously where I believe there is a God we have a soul that I believe there is free will I don't believe we live in a deterministic universe but it's not because it's in deterministic it's because I believe we have free will we have a the ability to change the way things go there is a free agent at the center of this reality which is God and and in that sense yeah of course we're starting from completely different worldviews and biological life yeah right it's a logical point that and it can be the universe but it could be it could be it's a soul it could be whatever whatever frame of reference you want to choose something is either determined or it or it's in determined but you're using in determined in the sense of being random well I think it has to be and and I'm not using indeterminate in that way i I mean that we have the ability to do otherwise doesn't doesn't mean it erratum if something is in determined this isn't important because I I was with you on that think that in determine isn't necessarily led to randomness but i think it was peter van inwagen who changed my mind and one of one of his essays he thought let's think about what in determinism means it means not determined by anything right if it's not determined by anything then it's not determined by you well I suppose I wouldn't necessarily use the term that we use in in an indeterminate I all I'm saying is that we live in a universe in which we have freewill in which things could go could we could make different decisions than the one we do and what would so are you are you suggesting that if we were you were on the clock and I don't mean like we travel back in time with a widow with the knowledge we have now I mean like everything just rebalance to the same physical state yes like an hour ago five hours go whenever you want yeah and every atom in the universe including the atoms that make up your brain and your neurons and the part of your brain that governs your bodily movements and your desires and your thoughts all of those atoms are in the same place moving in the same direction at the same speed doing exactly the same thing like that the the chain of reasoning the chain of causation in your brain like that the atom that is firing in your brain that's gonna make you pick up your hand and the second is is already firing mm-hm and somehow with all of that in exactly the same position something could have gone differently yeah I do because how I had a car because I'm a free agent because I have I am not simply the the the collection of physical reactions going on in my body in the universe I believe there is a and me within this so I'm assuming you don't believe always seeing it in a soul you know or some something like that you presumably have something more like a daniel dennett style yes yeah well of consciousness so when I had him on the show you know this was exactly what we were debating you know he was with Keith Ward who's a you know take takes a view that there is such a thing as the soul and he subscribes the libertarian freewill and and and I essentially agree with Keith Ward that as far as I can see free will exist I just I apprehend that I don't see how you can have reason without it think there are all kinds of reasons to think that it makes sense and I think I'm already committed to the view that I am not simply the collection of matter in motion that makes up me there is a spiritual dimension to who I am that is certainly connected with and part of the physical me but that I am this this union of of body and soul and that I could so if we round that all the atoms back to exactly the same point yeah things could go differently because I'm just free to make different choices I don't I am not governed by the physical cause and doctor of cause of cause and effect I actually do have just something more latarian freedom well almost ironically we have essentially no choice but to wrap up very soon I'm glad I've convinced you don't pull a Michael Shermer on me I think it is a lot of food for thoughts it requires a whole lot of unpacking that debris were like even the one thing that I would say to you and anybody listening is don't allow things like the idea that well I don't see how reason can really function if there's no free will or apprehend that there's free well and I can't get rid of that that feeling or intuition don't let that hold any bearing on whether or not the argument is true if the argument is true that free will doesn't exist if that is if that if that argument is is justified and is representative of a true belief then if it undermines reason then it undermines reason I don't think it I don't think it does right but but then how would you know that it's true you couldn't know that's true if it does undermine read well it may still be true I agree I think I suppose that you learn you wouldn't know yeah wouldn't imprints will be able to know that it's I guess that depends on whether you think that the laws of logic are sort of predicated on reason or whether the laws of logic it can be thought to exist in their own right it's not yet I mean it doesn't even go to that level I I just think you you can't have any trust in the the process that brought you to the view that well that's that's why I think it does go to that level because I'm making a logical case here which is that either determinism or in determinism is true and that both of those entail there being no free well I suppose the entailment part might be more to do with reason than logic but depending on how you like I'm sure you could logically formalize this argument but I don't think you can even conceive of the laws of logic without free will right but that's the problem it's like I just I just think did do anything without really the laws of logic exist before life existed well in the sense I think yes that they exist as a kind of okay well so here's a question then does does reason exist before it because you said earlier in this discussion that it is wrong to torture babies even if there are no babies is reason accurate and does reason hold if there are no sentient beings yes in as much as in principle if you are going to make arguments then then it it's true regardless of whether precisely so but that's all I'm saying which is that like you you seem to have just admitted there that reason works without humans and if there's no human there's no a free agent is it the problem is that the process by which we acquire our beliefs if if that involves no free will then we we don't have access if you like yeah - but then there's questions there's the question of what is true in this the question of how we can know what's true yeah so like if if freewill undermines undermines reason then there may be we can't trust reason and maybe we can't know that free will doesn't exist but I wouldn't change the fact that free will does yeah yeah I don't deny that it could be the case that free will does not exist but that we simply can't be in a position to know that because it radically undermines because that's a separate version but III do hold if you want to have any confidence in in believing anything including your atheism or Christianity I don't see how you can hold that and deny free will because it feels to me like you're undercutting that is by Soaring the branch off that you're sitting on it I'd not heard many people make that argument it's something that perhaps I think you should do a video on it more maybe maybe if we went to eat the person I would point you in possibly as a good proponent of it and the names gonna go gone out my head now Victor Reppert has done some interesting work on this the argument from reason for God so CS Lewis is a well-known proponent of it and if you get a chance one of the things when I was just before I went to Oxford actually in my gap year I read his book miracles which sounds like a book on miracles but actually the first half or second L is actually just an extended essay on the argument from reason right for why it points to God I'd say read that and then read some of the more contemporary sort of versions of that from people I figure replicated I'd be happy to do so and if people listening won't want to hear that then let me know I would just point out that I can understand that there's an argument that that reason lead you to God but I don't think that free will leads you to reason in the same way yeah I guess all it is is I don't think you can get a you can by reason without free will you it strikes me that you've got to have free will to for the act of reasoning otherwise I don't see how anything we believe is actually contingent upon us having mmm chosen it's just interesting because I seat of reasoning yeah that because it was determined I just I see reason as as the process of becoming convinced of true things and the process of becoming of convinced of true things out of your control anyway so I don't think people even even outside of a determinate even if we agree that a libertarian Free Will exists I still think that that the process of reasoning even for the libertarian would the libertarian will be able to say that the process of reasoning is not it is not a free choice it's not one of those things that fools into my libertarian framework because if reason is the process of becoming convinced of true things and we've already agreed that you can't choose what to become convinced of then then reason lies outside of that that we do choose what we become convinced of I don't think I agreed with you on that point I think we we we choose to believe in the things that make sense to us that we have the best evidence but is that a choice is it or is it what I think it is well we we assent if you like to the beliefs when we see that there is a rational basis for them yeah but we can't help to do so like you can't dissent from them because you find them convincing that's the whole I know but it's but you can't get to that point of allowing that natural process to take place where you see that the final puzzle and then you see the picture of course you can't choose not to see the picture that that makes sense but the process of putting the puzzle together it requires you to make all kinds of choices and freewill decisions to connect dots and make things happen and and then you see ah and and I've used reason and now I see the picture in front of me but if if all of that activity is predetermined by a non rational process in advance I don't see how you can call it rational it's just it was just what you were bound to do it just what your brain was bound the states your brain was bound to end up in and for me that radically undercuts reason at all that this skeptical unit she talks about in terms of reason and evidence I feel like but if you don't believe in free will none of it makes any sense it's all just a predetermined non rational process and you would just handed down your beliefs by the universe and you've got no access to whether they're true or not they just are not yeah you know I see what you're saying not about free will but about being the host of a show limited by time and wanting to jump in discuss nothing for an hour and you'll be able yeah I understand I think it's something we'll just have to leave yet is the duty of the audience and I'm sure that this didn't get to the problem suffering and I'm no I used up all that it's a shame although I think this was probably a more interesting discussion because I can have the the problem of evil discussion with with many atheist Alister McGrath he'll be a good one yes I'm dying to ask him a few questions on and on evil and suffering and I'm sure we'll get to them but yeah I think look it is just about whether you whether you think that the process of reasoning is a free one or not I don't think it is and therefore I don't think that there being no free or poses a problem to it and it's interesting that you think that a necessary component of reason it is free well I'm interested to see what my audience think of that so actually that this would be this would be a great thing to comment on for the of course they can company very well whether or not they're going to dis respond but it's it's true and I of course people people will not safely counter and Schuette people people will not have a choice whether they subscribe to the podcast whether they rate at five stars on iTunes and give you money on patreon whether they do that whether we get back to to number two philosophy and in the UK all been determined or indeterminately decided so it's either random or determinant whichever it is I want to make it happen so I hope that people listening can go and help us out with it with a rating in a subscribe if you enjoyed this conversation then make sure to check out justin's work you can buy it you can buy the book unbelievable why after ten years of talking with atheists I'm still a Christian or you can send us a tweet with the hashtag cosmic just hit cosmic cosmic Justin and with a comment on today's show and you can win a signed copy of the book which we will send to you and I hope that that you've been engaged enough to stay with us to the end and have some comments to make so yeah make sure that you do check out that content check out the the big conversation series on YouTube and the show subscribe over here on YouTube Spotify iTunes all the works and I think that's a good place to watch Thank You Alec I just say it's been an absolute pleasure I've really been looking forward to to this and I love what you're doing with the channel so well thanks I'm glad you're here I've got a I've got a big list of people that I that I want to sort of sort talk to on the podcast and you were one of the first names that I thought of because of you having me on your show all that time ago and it meant a lot to me that you were willing to take me seriously it's just some kid on the internet and seriously I I think you you you know I know you'll blush by I think you're really intelligent guy I like the the integrity you bring to what you do you're not a kind of typical you know just polemic YouTube atheists you genuinely want to I think get to the bottom of these things and I appreciate that and I hope you'll come on my show yeah well it means the world of course and absolutely anytime you need you need a good argument and you think that I'm capable of providing it I'm more than happy to come on the show and that's a show that again I would really do anyway I press that I'm not just saying this because you're in the room like I do I do hope that people go and listen to it and even if you just listen to the episodes I'm on if you if you're listener to my show go and listen to the episodes that we did we did one with Frank chiraq one with Josh Parikh on the fine tuning argument and we did one with cam with beauty on the intensity argument yeah and the Frank toric one was on the moral argument so go and listen to them and and and let us know what you think and with that said I think I think it's a good place to wrap up because we're running out of time anyway so I have been as always Alex O'Connor with the cosmic skeptic podcast and today I've been in conversation with Justin Briley for more conversations between Christians and skeptics subscribe to the unbelievable podcast and for more updates and bonus content sign up to the unbelievable newsletter you

Channel: Unbelievable?

Views: 49,872

Rating: 4.8475499 out of 5

Keywords: unbelievable, justin brierley, premier christian radio, christianity, atheism, philosophy, faith, theology, apologetics, God, Jesus, science, debate, determinism, free will, cosmic skeptic

Id: tzIjeHnWqfU

Length: 107min 1sec (6421 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 01 2019