A Pagan Response to Atheism 

As an atheist, I can confirm that no matter my beliefs, your beard is, in fact, omnipotent

I'm glad that you pointed out that most polytheists do not believing in mythic literalism. Most of these myths are just allegories to help ancient people understand various concepts.

As an atheist, belief wise, it comes down to the gods being unmeasurable and intangible outside of individual experience. But this style of polytheism is thoroughly wholesome and intellectually stimulating to me. The only real problem I have with religion is when people are made to serve a moral code, rather than moral codes being made to serve us. Otherwise, believe and practice what you want, if you’re happy I’m happy

"Yes, my beard is in fact omnipotent." Then why hasn't it's playlist been updated in a year!? Checkmate, polytheists.

A wise man I know once told me that the Polytheist and the Atheist live in the same world. Both look around and see the world around us as ultimately what we're engaging with for the most part. The difference being that we believe there are numinous presences behind it and Atheists don't. A Polytheist will see Zeus or Thor or Shango or Indra within the force of lightning. An Atheist sees lightning. Either way, we both acknowledge that it's a powerful force

For a minute I felt attacked as an atheist, "I wouldn't use those weak arguments against a polytheist! He doesn't usually strawman us this bad?!" But then I realized I'm not the kind of atheist to attack people's beliefs and therefore probably not the kind being talked about. *shrug* I actually agree with most of the video though, polytheism makes way more sense than monotheism.

I mean being an agnostic atheist myself I don't deny the possibility of there being gods, I just want to see evidence before I accept it as fact.

Did you hear about the dyslexic agnostic with insomnia? He stayed up all night wondering if there was a dog.

These are definitely the kind of nuanced conversations that are very lacking and sorely needed in the RU-vid sphere. Again, I'm super stoked you've taken up bringing these topics some attention!

I’m a Norse Pagan, and I watched this with my agnostic fiancée. It was a really interesting conversation starter! Thank you for putting so much work into this!

I wouldn't say these arguments helps polytheism, they are just immune to the arguments against monotheism.

Occom's razor is very often (ironically) simplified as to miss part of its potency. I like the way Einstein put it: "The goal of all theory is to make the irreducible as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." It's that last part that people tend to forget. A more complex explanation can be the correct/favorable one if it also accounts for more of the data. Granted, you still get medical zebras. And the progression of science is based on hunting hypothetical zebras. So I'm not disagreeing with anything said. Just thought it worth expanding on a bit for the purpose of clarity.

For anyone wanting to dive in, the school title for Ocean's appeal to zebra is called Plato's Beard. Still an atheist. You have interesting content to be sure, but none of it seems effective in the way of persuading me to your POV. What I have gathered so far is that you'd be a very fun person to sit and chat with

As a newer pagan, without knowing many others around me, it's always great to see this content. It helps so much when trying to explain or "argue" with others. It's nice to have this video to reference!

As an ex-atheist now-pagan myself I must say that, having been exposed to philosophy and theology in atheist circles, it was philosophically a smoother transition for me from atheism to polytheism than I expected - despite the astonishingness of the UPG i experienced. This video is an pleasant surprise.

I'm one of them there polytheistic atheists. I left Christianity when I was in my teens, when I realized that the very idea of Satan was evil, but that Christian theology falls apart without it. And realized that if so many reasonable humans had worshiped multiple gods long ago, there's no reason I couldn't do that today, even if I were the only one (I soon discovered I wasn't the only one). About 20-ish years ago, when I was in my late 30s. I was listening to to a panel discussion between a Christian Minister, a Rabbi, and an Imam (no, the discussion did not take place in a bar, believe it or not), and they all agreed that, despite the differences in their faiths, they *knew* monotheism was more valid than polytheism, because our modern scientific theories all meld better with a monotheistic worldview than a polytheistic one. And I thought to myself: "Yeah, that's because our modern scientific theories were crafted by people living within a monotheistic culture, and so that's how they framed their metaphors to explain their discoveries." So I started playing a game of reframing our modern scientific understanding with polytheistic metaphors. And suddenly, when I looked at the world, it was like one of those ambiguity illusions (duck/rabbit, two profiles/vase), and my view of the world would flip between theist and atheist at a blink, without any loss of reciprocity, comfort, or beauty. And these days, it's mostly settled on the atheist side of the coin. I believe that any gods worth worshiping, should they exist, would respect my decision to focus my attention on building ethical and loving bonds with my fellow mortals on Earth. And any god that *demands* worship doesn't deserve it.

The philosophy videos you have been doing have been really helpful. I appreciate these concepts being explained in easy digestible ways. :D

To me the issue with Divine hiddenness only comes into play in traditions which put belief before action. This is very specifically an Abrahamic/montheist issue in most cases. Even if we assume that there are a specific set of ethics encouraged or required by the Divine, seeing belief as required before ethics reduces the meanfulness of, and thus the importance and meaning of those ethics. The issue with the problem of Diversity is similar. We have limits to our knowledge, and in our ability to understand things beyond a certain level. To me, different faiths/pantheons are different language. If I explain my perspective in French, and you don't speak French, it doesn't matter how good my argument is.

Even if atheism proves to be true, it can't destroy my relationship with the world around me. I can't help but find spiritual experiences

The sound of clopping on the street behind could be a horse, a zebra, or a centaur. But the set of circumstances that would make the items on that list possible get more complex as we progress through it, and justifying a claim for any item being the source of the sound requires increasingly more evidence.

Love the way you articulate yourself. As an athiest, this was extremely engaging food for thought.

This is why for my part I don’t actually care to argue against polytheism. I don’t do much arguing at all, to be fair, since I genuinely only care about others’ beliefs if they cause harm, and I don’t think most religious beliefs do. But insofar as I could argue, I personally don’t think polytheism is that unlikely. I don’t personally believe, but in my case it really is just a matter of non-belief when it comes to polytheism. And I actually think that if I ever came to believe in any sort of deity again, I’d end up in polytheism.

Brilliant as always! I nominate you as the First Horseman of Polytheism.

I’m a big ole dumb dumb smoothbrain who thinks the gods are just kinda neat, but this was super interesting and cool! Also, wow some of those earlier arguments in the video were ones I used as a shitty highschool edgelord atheist.

Atheist here (and I'd count myself an ally, don't throw rotten fruit please). I agree that a lot of these arguments work very well only against specific conceptions of what is usually a single god. Polytheism usually doesn't suffer as much, I believe, because the sources polytheists have with which to rebuild their ancient religions are scattered, few in number, and from various sources who may not even care about getting the nuances of these divine myths down with any degree of accuracy to how those early heathens might have communicated their beliefs. It's just a natural (and I hope uninflammatory, though I may be more callous than I realise) consequence that by virtue of having less in-depth sources to pull from that claim divine inspiration and infallibility, polytheists are left with MANY fewer vulnerabilities. Their claims are, when you step outside of those few mythic literalists, by and large unfalsifiable. Christians who are loath to give up any of those omni traits or most of what Paul said, though? In my opinion, simple logic dismantles those viewpoints. Polytheists have a greater-strength version of what very liberal and allegorical christians have -- a nebulous form of greater power which we can't comprehend with any wholeness, and who may not even be accurately-relayed by the authors of the bible, making the number of logical or evidential arguments they fall prey to significantly smaller than the mythic literalists, who are under much greater theological restrictions because they make the motte-claim and then have to defend it instead of retreating to the bailey of the liberal christian or polytheist. Polytheists are just up-front about the fact (most of the time) that you cannot demonstrate your deities to exist, and you don't push your religions on us, and don't seem bothered when people don't believe in the same (or any) gods as you do. So generally I have no problem with polytheists that aren't pushing dangerous woo-woo. I have to say though, I think your speculation on monotheistic gods being seen as 'contenders' with atheism in a probabilistic sense is really weird. Most of the world's population of theists were raised with a particular religion, and the largest of these religions have big perceived consequences for falling away from the faith, with many many people feeling as though they will be judged, ostracized, or will cause loved ones distress and pain for falling away. They have heavily-entrenched personal biases and legitimate concerns/fears (particularly of Hell, in Christian and Muslim cases) that may cause them to give these 'cumulative cases' or probabilistic arguments more weight than they deserve. Or maybe they don't want to give up the vague sense of spirituality, since it can feel like you're losing something, somehow, when you're separated from even a form of deism -- some notion of magic or the supernatural has been cut off from you, and that can be enough to create a bias. Whereas I and many other atheists/agnostics actively sought relationships with any gods who would listen, while continually running the odds. I personally WANT to believe in gods. I'd LOVE to believe in miracles and magic, souls, and potential afterlives. But when I'm intellectually-honest with myself, I know it's FAR more likely that I will be wrong, mistaken, or deceived, if ever I think I've witnessed something supernatural/divine in nature. Frankly put, it sucks. I'd love to believe. But I can't choose my beliefs.

Loving these philosophy videos!

23:51 speaking of omnipotent beards, I for one would love to see that make a comeback sometime

I'm new to Paganism and Polytheism in general but your points on why the gods let suffering happen and that we have a relationship and responsibility from the gods to care for our Earth is what endeared me to Paganism. I feel more in touch with the gods, knowing I have a responsibility to the world and also that the gods aren't wholly good, which to me was always the greatest flaw of Christianity and such religions.

Okay. I know I'm normally that guy who occasionally drops by and posts puns but I figured I'd actually write something somewhat serious. I'm an Atheist but arguing for atheism/against theism was never really my cup of tea. I never really take issue with matters of faith unless it is being forced upon others or being used to justify harming others and things of that nature, otherwise I just keep to myself. I must admit that I find most (if not all) of your content fascinating. I've always wanted to learn about Norse Polytheism (many of my ancestors were from the area where it was prominent in history) but I think that my interest is purely academic but regardless, if one day I were my interests in Norse Polytheism were to change from purely academic, I could always just keep watching. It now occurs to me that the two pun comments I have made on this channel have been about graves and corpses. I hope it has been Humerus because I may have just made a deathly mistake.

When opposing Occam's Razor, it's also worth noting that even on a logical level, Reductionism ( i.e. oversimplification or selection bias) is also a fallacy therefore we can conclude a standard of simplify where possible but not so much that your model is miopic

Appeal to Simplicity: The point of the naturalist's occam's razor argument is that deities aren't a necessary component to explain the natural world and its operations. Saying that deities could still exist despite that is a non sequitur. Sure, things could be more complex than the simplest "horse" case, but if so then, like in House, you're going to have to run tests and prove your diagnosis of "zebra", or more accurate in this case, "unicorn". When you get down to it, a logically sound occam's razor can't be countered with arguments at all, it can only be countered by invalidating a premise or providing solid prof that the more complex case is the reality.

Trying for ten minutes to pause at the right frame just to read "seize the means of production"... totally worth it

Wow! That was amazing ! The amount of work that you did on this is outstanding ! Now...to watch again for technical pieces...n applications for my life!! Thanks 👍!!! 👍🐺🧙‍♂️🐺✌!

Got this video showing up in my recommendeds and it led to me checking out a bunch of your channel. Just wanted to come leave a comment because I really appreciate what you've been doing here. I'm also an ex-Christian whose spiritual journey has led me towards embracing polytheism and working with multiple different gods. The popular discourse around theism vs atheism has long been one which I feel left out of, christians and counter-christians shouting each other down and pretending like nothing else even exists worth a mention. But your videos, your thoughtful approach to these topics, your respect for other cultures and other ways of being outside of the colonialist narrative, have been really uplifting for me, and I feel much more secure in accepting my experiential reasoning towards polytheism as a rational one. Keep up the great work, and may the gods bless you!

As an atheist and naturalist, I appreciate your care, not to strawman the arguments.

Its been a year and I still come back to this video every now and then. Solid video, thanks for your contributions ocean!

people who don't think farts are funny have less laughter in their lives and the same amount of farts.

Growing up, I realized quite early that I was not monotheistic. I felt called by nature and understood it was alive. When I confessed my struggle to my Baptist father, he laid a question before me: If you don't think you are a Christian, what do you think you are? Not only did he acknowledge that faith was a person experience, but his example inspired me to try to understand what faith was. By the time I was a high school senior, I had frustrated monotheists with my questions, so I was reading deeper into the myths I read growing up. This is where I find your explanation on polytheism's diversity so encouraging because that is my experience! I also had the pleasure of sitting down with a friend that identifies as an atheist, asking if this was due to a lack of belief in gods or a lack of faith. He asked me to clarify, so I reminded him that faith is simply complete confidence in someone or something. Instead of getting caught up in titles and labels, what if spirituality was connecting with what you hold as your personal truth about life? I asked if science was any different when you consider that people place faith in how it explains the world we live in. Could that not be spiritually fulfilling to know in your core being that this is truth? He smiled at me, saying he wished monotheists made compelling points like that. It is my truth that the divine is not limited to the structure humanity transcibes to it, but that it reveals itself to the individual in a way that the person can perceive it. Just as two people can eat the same food and have opposite taste about it or react differently to stimulus of any kind, faith is found within only after looking there to find it. I also agree with Ocean that we do not choose our faith, for that is how we as individuals connect to the divine. Great video as always, sir! I always direct people to your channel for indepth explanation of polytheism.

As a Neoplatonist, the whole "problem of evil" falls apart when one realizes that the tri-omni qualities often ascribed to the gods (omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence) have different definitions within Platonism than they do within Abrahamic contexts. For example, omnipotence in Platonism refers to the fact that the gods presently *do* all things that are physically possible, not that the gods could perform random acts of whimsy in a theoretical scenario. Omnibenevolence means the gods love all of humanity equally and bestow gifts to everyone at different times, including your enemies. Omniscience means that the gods possess all knowledge and have infinite intellective faculties in the present moment, not that they are railroading the future on a predestined path. In other words, the gods do all that is *possible.* If it were at all possible to exist in a world without evil, then we would already be in one.

This was incredibly educational. Even loved the reference to cosmic skeptic. Would be cool to see a convo between the two of you.

10:58 Given that you usually close out your chapters with something witty, the second you brought up Woodward's Zebra I predicted you were going to make a Monty Python coconut joke at the end of the chapter. I know your personality and dry sense of humor, and it's a joke that writes itself, so you could almost say I used Occam's Razor to make my prediction. I really enjoyed the video, and you're raising some very good points. Especially about mythic literalism, which I try endlessly to avoid on the rare occasion I let myself get suckered into some kind of ontological debate. It's low hanging fruit and applies to very few practitioners of any brand of theism. In my opinion, it should only be brought up in debates regarding said mythic literalism being taught in lieu of science in public schools.

TLDR: Thanks for the videos. I might be a heretical Christian, perennialist, Judeo-monolatrist, or a full-blown polytheist. Please let me be a productive member of your coalition. I love your take on faith, after all. You opened my mind to many life-changing ideas. May your pantheon bless you with wonder and adventure. I’m looking forward to this video! I’ve been binging your videos for 9 months, and this is my first comment, I think. I just wanted to say thank you very much for providing a very interesting perspective in regard to how our world may function amidst gods. In fact, I must admit that you have many compelling arguments that I personally love. Recently, I’ve been talking to my father a lot about the inconsistencies that I loathe in Christianity. I’m basically at the point where I definitely feel like a heretic if I still even classify as one. Ultimately, I have a really hard time defining what I really am. However, your videos have helped me feel more comfortable about searching for the truth in our universe. I’m going to attempt to label myself even though I don’t like labels per se. All right, I think I’m simply some type of perennialist. I do believe that it’s the most honest worldview since it claims that none of us can quite possibly know everything. Still, many of us are close to and desperately seek the truth. However, I am very open to the faiths of others and I might be willing to say that their traditions are true to a certain extent. Honestly, I’m not confident enough to state that any human could ever fully figure the truth of divinity out. That being said, I think we all owe it to ourselves to try. Long story short, I know some form of divinity must be real. All in all, I like how you express your faith and I want you to know that although I still revere the God of the Abrahamic faiths, I hope your pantheon and community of faith are treated with the utmost respect. In other words, I could also be considered a monolatrist with a special connection to this one God. Maybe that makes me just as much of a polytheist as you! Who knows!? But I think there is a beauty to not knowing. Good luck with your journey and life and may your gods bless you with a wonderful saga worthy of a place in the Eddas! I pray that someone like me can be a part of your coalition for peaceful coexistence and enriching the lives of our neighbors. Thanks for opening my mind to so many beautiful ideas.

the problem with the medical zebra analogy is that there are criterion used to identify a rare disease, it may have many of the same symptoms but it can't be entirely the same therefore that disease is demonstrably different from a common disease. naturalism and supernaturalism both explain the world equally well but one adds unnecessary unfalsifiable claims. basically your diagnosing your patient with a rare disease when they just have a cold.

One problem with the idea of a theodicy of allowing evil is the idea of the universe as a test. The idea of the physical universe as a test is even difficult to swallow from within a theological context. I've seen some preferentially reject the tri omni traits.

I really love this video! I think it was good not as a fight against atheism or monotheism but simply an exploration of how polytheism fits into these types of arguments especially when it’s normally unaddressed in modern conversations. I partake in monolatry because I believe in many gods but only personally worship one (somewhat, he takes different forms.) I’m very open to other religious ideas though and I find atheist arguments interesting so it was great to see them from a polytheist perspective. Thanks for the awesome video!

Fun fact the original name for House was "Chasing zebras, Circling the Drain." Also as an "atheist" my approach to deities, other than certain depictions of YHWH, is largely "my monkey brain can't tell the difference."

This is really interesting, as a hellenic Polytheist I'll have to play with these and see how they fit with my own beliefs of Deity(s)!

I know that this isn't really the point of the video but as you brought it up I can't help but to talk about it. Trees from a biological standpoint are much less a type of plant in and of themselves. It is more accurate to say that Trees are more of a shape that plants can take.

I love stacking cairns at my local beach. Knowing they wont last gives a sense of release. My count is 12 stones high near my neck line.

I guess I'm a beardtheist now

Today I was watching a video about The Dagda and my mom had a fucking meltdown she yell at me cuz I said "in just trying to learn about other religions" my mom said "there only 1 religion". Proceeded to list like 6 religions which made her madder. She then said you're a Christian and that's it nothing else. Good she didn't know I was a pagan that would've been hugely bad. Its Bull shit is what it is if I want to learn about something or worship something different from you then let me, all your doing is shoving me farther away from jesus. Can anyone relate to this? TL;DR conservative Christian mom has a mental brake down over me watching about the Celtic religion.

I think an argument on why genesis is relevant when discussing with christian is the fact their is a lot of elements that take that story literately, be it the idea of orginal sin, or the fact Jesus does refer to the flood as a literal event. The Buddhist concept of enlingtented beings becoming god like makes sense in a polytheistic concept too as a little addition.

As one of my history professors said, disagreeing accounts weren't a problem it just meant there were multiple interpretations

What I don’t like is as a Christian is that only the loud conservative voices are heard..and as a bi girl and a witch it’s hard to stay a Christian Like I’m okay with norse Gods and other pantheons because I know their myths.

I mentioned this in your epistemology video, but with you bringing up the non-resistant non-believer I feel it becomes even more relevant. Watching your content and the content/discussions of other polytheists, I have found myself sort of in the same spot as being described as "non-resistant non-believer," in that I do not have any personal experiences with deities. But clearly many many people claim to have experience with deities, and profess such experiences leading to beliefs that I can't solidly shoot down with arguments (as you point out in these recent videos). So in other words, I end up in a situation where I'm coming from atheism/nonbelief, have no personal experiences with deity, but also feel like to say they don't exist would be to invalidate the personal experiences of thousands of others. Is there a fairness in calling them all liars or mistaken? It hardly seems like it. But what would my own beliefs be considered if I don't do that yet still don't hold any relationship with deities because I have never had any deity-evidencing experiences? It feels like in my belief (or at least refusal to reject the beliefs and experiences of thousands of others) I'd be a polytheist, but I'd be lacking all practice or relationship with any deity and would be externally indistinguishable from an Atheist.

As one who worships Ygdrasil, Monotreeist is now what a call myself. Thank you for that. 😂

A fine addition too the collection

I would say that I find the gods unlikely: I am as of yet unconvinced that anything supernatural exists. If it does, I find polytheism more likely than any variant of monotheism that I know of. Though, even if the supernatural exists... that doesn't mean any gods do in fact exist.

12:50 From my personal atheist perspective, the flaw in the theodice of 'greater good' is the question of; if an omnipotent god exists, and allows the evil to exist for the purpose of nurturing greater good happening in reponse, what is the point of worshipping said god? By the logic of this theodicy, the weight of nurturing the greater good is entirely on humans, and it will flourish regardless (as empirically evidenced by atheists also taking stances of good in response to evil) of a god. At this point crediting a god for it is just giving out a pity participation trophy for said god at best, and at worst taking credit away from those who actually took the stance against evil (ie. ye olde 'praise be jesus' after a doctor successfully performed a life-saving surgery). I've been an atheist my entire life (a quirk of mine, I live in an extremely catholic country, but I've never quite picked religion up, even as a child I was a sceptic at heart) and I've retreaded probably majority of arguments, I just love to Discourse. But one argument I'm really fond of, because it's half-sincere, half-meme, is the 'ad capitalism' argument. If a god or gods or any given supernatural phenomen would exist, would corporations not try to use seidr to predict stocks? Would US military not make a honest attempt to weaponize abrahamic god to Sodoma & Gomorrah-style nuke their enemies? ;) Either way, I'm really fond of polythetistic religions (at least when they're not being racist cocks like AFA - imagine my surprise when I found out they aren't even Scandinavians....- hell hath no fury like an American 'protecting' the 'ethnic heritage' of an ethnicity they weren't born into) and while I'm incapable of mustering up any sort of belief, I *do* appreciate the stories they tell, the philosophies and stances they embody, and while I can't believe in literal existence of, say, Odin, I still admire certain principles he might exemplify, like knowledge-seeking.

I think it's a little unfair to accuse athiests of having a motte and bailey approach. It's important to remember that these conversations often start without an athiest knowing what it is you believe. For example: I believe that all of the major god-having religions I've spent any time investigating(for me, this is the Abrahamic religions and Hinduism) are made up. I'd also include any god I've ever heard of for whom interactions with humans are expected. If you think a particular ritual causes or is likely to cause a god to intervene in the material world, I think we have enough evidence to discount that. Were I to encounter a someone who identifies as a religious, I would probably make the assumption that they believe in a sort of god that I have good reason to believe doesn't exist. However, if they then specified that they were, say, a Spinozist, a pantheist, or some other form of deist, then I would have to concede that I merely lack a belief in their god. To me, this isn't a motte and bailey, it's merely me making an assumption, and then correcting my view if the assumption is not valid. It's basically a time saving measure, since the vast majority of the religious who engage online are from an Abrahamic tradition. Those are also the types of religious people who are more likely to try and impose their views on others, and I view stopping that as the primary reason for engaging. You're right that many of the arguments typically created to refute Christianity specifically don't fare so well when applied against other forms of God claim. I wouldn't necessarily describe that as "helping" polytheism. As an analogy: Let's say I described myself as an "a-cryptist". I don't believe in any cryptids. Let's just say that bigfoot is the cryptid with the most supporters. Were I to present an argument against bigfoot, I don't think it would be reasonable for a "cryptist" to say: "Ah, well that actually helps my belief in the Loch Ness Monster. You see, the widespread belief in cryptids demands an explanation, and the most likely explanation is that some sort of cryptid exists. Since we have good reason to believe it isn't bigfoot, that makes it more likely to be the Loch Ness Monster".

The only thing I learned from this video is that farts are evil.

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.”

I think this should be required viewing for any atheist taking part in online arguments about divinity. Yeah some might think "of course, that's obvious" at some of these points, because anyone who doesn't know that the problem of evil is specific to a triomni god isn't qualified to use it in an argument. And personally, as an atheist, Occam's Razor is still kinda what I lean on even knowing about zebras. Sure, I might be proven wrong but as of now this is where I'm at. And that's why I call myself an agnostic atheist when pressed to specify. Of course, Occam's Razor is also why I think if I were to be convinced of any god's existence, I would probably conclude there are more out there. Let's take life on Earth as an example. Life exists on earth, we have proof of that. I have no reason to assume that Earth is special with regard to life being possible, so naturally it's probably just as likely to arise elsewhere. (obviously it's less likely on Venus, but given another planet with similar pre-life parameters as Earth, I have no reason to believe that the planet not being Earth would change anything). So, if I'm shown a god exists, I would now know that they can exist. So, provided there isn't any argument given for why that one is special or why others can't, it'd be reasonable to assume there's more of them.

Very intellectual pleasing video. A discussion with you or a person with similiar believes would actually be fun.

The premise of this video confuses me, maybe i missed something but from what i'm getting, it claims that atheist arguments against monotheism helps polytheism, but the way it goes about proving this is by showing arguments that work at dissproving monotheism but aren't as aplicable with polytheism, and i don't see how that necessarily correlates. This would be like claming that using arguments against cristianity with the specific purpose of disproving cristianity strengthens islam, just because that one argument doesn't adress islam. Or that saying "cars can't fly because they're too heavy" means that helps the idea that bikes can fly because they don't have that problem quite as much. I had a few other particular problems: 1:18 I think there's a weird overlapping of ideas here, i'm hearing: "atheist firmly claim there is no god only to then back peddle to just being unconvinced to that same propositon". But what usually happends is that theist re-define the concept of god first, it is perfectly resonable for example, to belive that the god described in the bible does not exists, but when redifined to an "Unmoved mover" or any other much more vague definiton, stripped of the atributtes the atheist finds firmly impossible, is when they respond with "well i'm not sure about that". In my experience, it's the theist who first conflicts the god that they belive in with the one they have to argue for first. 3:00 to this section i agree, i'd just like to mention that pointing out contradictions in scripture doesn't just disprove that one literal interpretation (thought that's mainly what it does) it also puts in doubt the content of the whole book, when something as clear cut as the order of events of gods creations can be poeticized, pretty much anything can be claimed to mean something else, making very shaking grounds a moral code, or anything else really. 9:46 while it's true that the most likely or simpler explanation is not necessarily the right answer, this is all said in the context of defending the possiblity of the super natural and i find this disingenuous, every possible answer from the horse to the zebra and even people with coconuts are grounded in natural explanations, yet what theism propouses is more like considering that a real unicorn might be behind you. I get the point is to discredit occam's razor as perfect rule that always yelds the right answer (which is not what it claims to be), but super natural explanations would still fail, because if not then literally anything can be argued to be making the sound of hoof clops behind you with just as much validity. The biggest offender of that problem is at 25:42 "the simplest explenation for the diversity of scripture" isn't "many diverse deities", it's no deities. 29:16 This next part isn't so much an argument against polytheism, more just a weird thing i noticed, but this is a problem for both monotheism and polytheism but in different ways. In the case of the monotheist it has to discredit other peoples experiences that don't adhere to their god, with no grounds that wouldn't devalue their own personal experiences (could be an emotional episode, could be hallucinations, could be lying, etc). Polythiest may excuse the number of experiences with a larger number of gods, but it still has to discredit other people's experiences at some point, when someone claims to have met a god that claimed to be the 1 true god. I guess you could argue that gods can lie like that, but then why ever listen to any gods if they can lie like that? 31:27 going back to my main point, it makes perfect sense to me that it is far easier to dissprove any single gods description than polythism, not because it's more likely but because it's a much more broad unfocused proposition, dissproving polythism takes specific arguments against polythism, but that would mean dissproving the posibility of any god existing at all, and like i said at the beginning, if you can define a god in a vauge unfalsifiable way counts then polythism will always have a get out of jail free card, but i also don't see any value in unfalsifiable beliefs. PS: English is not my first lenguage, if something is spelled wrong, too formal or makes no sense just know i tried :c PS2: I can't not see an among us crew member on the shelf.

The "greater good" explanation doesn't work when there is little to no apparent good to come out of the evil which has happened. I can imagine a universe in which evil exists, but where good always triumphs, and the good which results from the bad always outweighs the bad. That, however, is not the universe in which we live. Childhood cancer, for example, is unnecessarily cruel. Any good that comes out of it is not outweighed by the suffering that is caused. I see no possible universe in which a good god can exist, wherein he allows innocent children to die slow, painful deaths to diseases which cannot be prevented or cured. The same is true of the idea that evil makes us grow. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger...except when it doesn't. Sometimes what doesn't kill you leaves you emotionally scarred for the rest of your life. Is God unable to allow only the kinds of evils which result in growth? If God's goal is for us to grow, then who does PTSD exist, or major depressive disorder? These things seem counterintuitive to that goal, robbing people of the resilience it takes to grow from a bad experience. Even if polytheistic gods aren't all powerful, there are still things that I feel I would do if I were in their shoes, which no gods seem to do for some reason. Why is there no god hanging out primarily in a children's hospital, providing healing to them? Why is it single, powerful people are able to commit great acts of evil, without being struck down in divine judgement, usually living the rest of their lives without justice? If I were a god, Putin would have a huge target on his back right now. If world leaders realized they had to behave honorably or else suffer divine wrath, I'd wager there'd be a lot less corruption in the world.

I love your content but RU-vid hasn't been notifying me when you post even when I rang the bell icon. I have to check your channel every couple of days

I'm glad I stumbled across this video, because I find it incredibly interesting and surprisingly relatable. I grew up Mormon, and as such my beliefs of the time were oddly both monotheistic and polytheistic at the same time. Many of the arguments for or against God or gods that I heard simply didn't apply to my beliefs. A good example of this is in the idea of Divine Hidden Hiddenness. You see, Mormons believe in a sort of preparatory afterlife in which the open people described would directly be given that opportunity to directly find God. The atheists I met at the time while I was finding my own path simply didn't have the arguments relevant to me, and the ones they did were ones easily countered in ways similar to some of those mentioned in this video. While I am some flavor of atheist/agnostic now, this video reminded me of that point in my life while also showing me new perspectives I'd never considered before, and I'm very glad I found this video. Keep doing what you're doing mate! It's much appreciated.

As someone who is raised Christian and kind of still am but thinking about leaving Christianity and head more towards Polytheism, I've always viewed each animals in the animal kingdom as creatures you'll see in any form of afterlife either in Polytheism or Monotheism or what have you.

24:48 Fun fact this is somewhat correct Trees actually don’t exist from a taxonomic standpoint Since deciduous trees and coniferous trees don’t share a recent common ancestor they fail to form a monophyletic clade, therefore “Tree” is an invalid taxa

I believe in the Gods. But if the definition is creator of existence, then I don't believe any being has that title as existence is eternal. The Gods, just like us are part of existence. They're more powerful and larger in scope than mortals. My reasoning for them exiting, is that if you venerate them they will reveal themselves to exist. So they exist, but the nature of the gods I do not know.

As an atheist I am hyped.

I wish I would’ve been here at the beginning, I myself am an (agnostic) Atheist, I am willing to accept that there might be gods out there if evidence comes to me, until then I remain unconvinced of the existence of any gods and especially to the ones man has created.

Really enjoyed this one, keep em coming!

I like my definition of what makes a god, a god: “A person, place, or thing of perceived agency that is seen as being emanate and/or transcendent in nature, whom forms of prayer and/or veneration is given to, in either the hope or expectation of some form of reciprocity/benefit in return.” The conversation usually ends right after I put this out...... Great video, btw!

I loved this video and I'm probably going to send it to some of the people I know. A lot of Christians I know like to dismiss my beliefs by saying that the gods don't exist because "they are the fruit of my imagination" (even though, using that logic someone could say the same about God) and i should find God or I'll rot in hell. While some atheists I know simply say that the gods/God do not exist and most of the time they don't elaborate because "they know they're right and they don't want to get into a stupid argument" 💀maybe I'll be able to at least show them that it isn't completely impossible for the gods to exist. So thank you so much for this, we all appreciate the hard work you put in to create these videos.

Telling someone "I worship Thor and wear his hammer proudly" usually elicits a response such as "You worship a movie character?" But watching your videos makes me more confident in telling people that I am a polytheist, without worrying about the strange looks I might receive. I should turn those interactions into a teaching moment and share who Thor really is, as well as the rest of the gods.

I am so excited for this video!

polytheism is certainly more interesting than monotheism, and has better explanatory value, and is more coherent, but you still run into the same problem: actually having evidence that these, or any, deities exist at all. if it's not actually true, then why is it worth believing in?

Give the people Splash Daddy's Philosophical Arguments!!!!

Mythic literalism has always been weird and fascinating to me. I can appreciate that people don't take things too literally - the world being cooked up in 7 days, the planet and the cosmos being the skull and remains of a dead jotun, etc. But then I always find myself asking, "how do you know what your god or gods are like if you believe that the stories are not literal?" How can we claim to know anything about the gods if the stories which provide us with information about their personalities, morality, and feats are all false, or at least written by flawed, mortal hands? And if they are not false, but also not literal, then what are they? How do we know what a god finds (dis)tasteful, or what their domain is? Can we say that Thor is a protector of humanity or that Hades is keeper of the dead if our source for that information is a story written by humans? Is it something that each person chooses as part of their hearth cult? That's reasonable enough, I suppose. But then it could be argued that one is putting whatever traits they want on a REAL entity, then worshipping it as if those assumptions were true. Which is fine, usually! But it raises questions for me, and could -- and surely has -- lead to conflict when two or more groups point their fingers at one another and say, "that's not how you worship ___!" At what point does a hearth cult become a headcanon for divine beings, and IF those divine beings are real and have traits and ideologies of their own, at what point does it become "disrespectful" to worship them in a capacity which they may not want you to? I suppose gods may not care, or see it that way. This may be a question from a mortal perspective. But still, I think it warrants philosophical consideration. But if we are to assume that the gods are real, then how can we learn about their nature if our sources are books and texts written by humans? Do the gods have traits, flaws, desires and dogmas, or is it up to the observer? And if it is up to the observer to choose what parts of a god they acknowledge, how do you know that your inspiration for your practice is a god and not just your 'headcanon'? It's like when you develop a crush as a child and start assigning all of these traits to a person that you don't REALLY know anything about until you get a chance to talk to them and get to know them. Is it wrong to act as though your imagined traits are reality? In the case of the crush, the answer is probably yes. But what about when your 'crush' is a GOD or GODDESS, and you CAN'T necessarily talk to them and get to know them directly? I love philosophy, and the concepts of Heathenry are beyond interesting to me. I can't say that I AM one, but I can say that I feel much, much more comfortable discussing and considering the Greek, Norse, or other polytheistic pantheons than I am considering monotheistic arguments. I started wearing Mjolnir around my neck after watching your videos for a time, and have had many wonderful experiences talking with people who saw my necklace and gave me a knowing, "ahhhh, I know what that is!" Perhaps I'm "growing out of the ground," as you say, or perhaps I am just incorporating elements of Heathen philosophy into my own, which is one of the fundamental parts of philosophy!

Just found your channel...very interesting..and informative..

Prefer the horse? Like loki? Gotcha

I am Norwegian and pagan, and I always love watching your videoes for that reason-- but when you mentioned the zebra analogy I was so immediately excited! I have EDS and we often use the zebra analogy because it is rare, but also very underdiagnosed, so we like to say «hoofbeats in the hallway need to be seen to be believed» in hopes of having more doctors check for it! Anyways, keep being awesome!

As far as the problem of evil with the religion of Shinto goes it's not really a thing mainly because in Shinto there is no expectations for the Kami or God's to act in a way which is seen as pleasant but that's also how at some pagans look at things well.

What I always keep in mind is that bygone ages - and the ancient world especially - were no places for impractical dreamers. The ancients in particular had a much deeper and more immediate relationship with the world around them than those of us who live in air conditioned, wi-fi enabled comfort probably appreciate. The kind of anti-rational authoritarian religion many of us encountered in our own lives wouldn't have lasted long without being sustained and enforced through man-made hierarchies and political coercion. By contrast, authentic religion & spirituality arising from the human psyche apprehending itself in relation to the wonder around it knows its stories to be stories, and appreciates the divine for what it is, rather than what it isn't

"Evil allows good stuff to happen". I think that's a failed argument because if the christian god is described as omnipotent, if he is, he could create a perfect universe where good stuff heppen without the existence of evil. A lot of arguments for the christian god can be debunked using just this. Pagan: "If your god is real, then why *this* exists?" Christian: "Well is for *this other thing* to exist." Pagan: "But if your god is all powerful, couldn't he create a world where *this other thing* could exist without the need for *this*?" Christian: "That dosen't make sense! The only way for *this other thing* to exist is when *this* exists!" Pagan: "For you dosen't make sense! You live in a world where *this* exists, so you can't imagine one without *this*, but if you god is all powerful he could've created a world without *this*, but he decided not to! Therefore he want's *this* to happen!" And it goes on and on.

This is a very interesting discussion. Thank you for sharing it, as always!

Thank you so much! As a polytheistic Celtic Reconstructionist who subscribes to several atheist channels, I'm kinda sick of being insulted. These are often people who grew up being told that there was only one way of thinking, and were chastised and often shunned for any deviation from that one way of thinking. They claim they broke free from that intellectual tyranny, but yet, behave in similar ways to anyone identifying as non-atheist. I do not proselytize, or force my beliefs on others. For instance, Telltale says that modern witches are not practicing withcraft, they are only pretending to practice witchcraft. No, they believe what they do. When I read tarot, there is no fraud. I 100% believe that there is a connection to things unseen, and that the messages I get come from outside of my consciousness. To accuse me of fraud (a crime) is defamation, and discrimination, as the taking of omens is well documented historically. Whether I use tarot, runes, or look for behaviour in wildlife is irrelevant. I am doing what I believe to be true. What difference is it to them if I believe in fairies? Why do they care that I venerate my ancestors? How does it impact anyone else if I leave offerings to my gods? Why are their knickers in a twist because I communicate with my gods using a pictoral language? These are beliefs that make my daily life my exciting, more colourful, and more meaningful. I feel that the atheist mocking and insulting of polytheists are hypocritical, when we should be working together for religious freedom, and to stop the evangelical hegemony destroying our society and our democracy.

12:45 Plotinus addresses the ‘problem of evil’ with his point about it not having a positive, affirmative existence, but rather being a mere privation of the Good. There’s also the matter of the seirai and the way in which the Henads relate to the material world via emanation.

This is a strange take. Arguments for no gods existence help arguments for multiple gods existence? Looking forward to hearing about it.

This is my new fave.

Very interesting video. However, now I feel a strange impulse to seize the means of production.

One of my favorite things about both Hinduism and Quantum Physics is the presence of and acknowledging of Monotheistic-Polytheism. Both speak of the greater universe being formed by a single consciousness but acknowledge the greater universe as having many levels between bacteria and God. We are divine beings to an ant or bacteria. So to are there likely entities far beyond us that seem divine while not being God.

A while back you made a video about latent christianity and I think it would cool if you made a video about latent atheism. As someone raised nonreligious it is certainly something I struggle with sometimes and from what I can tell I'm not the only one. I'm not sure if your the right person to make that video, since you were Christian before coming to paganism, however but I thought it might be a cool topic to cover.

7:42 The most logical assumption is that there is someone with two coconut halves producing this noise behind you

A secular scientist would not only assume that it is a horse and not a zebra, they would be required by science to actually investigate and prove or disprove that it is a horse. They would probably end up sequencing its entire genome. Religion would tell you it's a zebra and prohibit you from turning around (that's called faith). A little example from personal experience. I once was praying in a mosque and asked the scholar (Mulana) why do we lift our right index finger three times at the end of prayer? He told me "The prophet did it and so we also do it, we do not question it" in Islam you even have the concept of Bila Kayf (without asking how). Evil is a human construct. Even a virus or disease is not evil and is simply propagating its dna/rna. The corona virus or the ebola virus are no more evil than a human being. What annoys me about theism is this idea that somehow the universe revolves around humankind. The universe doesn't give a crap about mankind and will continue existing billions of years after humans are long gone. Life has been around for around 3 700,000,000 years. homo sapiens has been around for about 300,000.

I don't know what's the difference, but when you characterized atheism, I'm instantly hooked. Within 3 mins. Great job! At least I feel this one is better than the last one. Maybe it's because atheists aren't the "spiritual" types typically?

Been looking at your videos today. Alright you win, I'm subscribing.

As a monotheist Christian, I love hearing debates and arguments. I just stumbled on this video and am definitely going to dig more. I always come across atheist videos but, never polytheist. Can't wait to hear your side.