I grew up in a very devout Southern Baptist family and I wasn’t allowed to have friends who were members of our church’s youth group. When I was 26, I decided to become an ordained minister. I became an ordained minister when I was 29. And I was one of those persistent and determined ministers who was convinced that I had the correct interpretation of the right version of the right denomination of the right religion and I saw it as my religious duty to spread the “Good News” to every single person I came across and I saw it as my religious obligation to warn everyone that if they didn’t accept my particular interpretation of my particular version of my particular religion, they would be deservedly condemned to an eternity of punishment and torture. And then when I was 34, I came across videos of Christopher Hitchens and after listening to the many of his debates, I was forced to reevaluate my religious beliefs. After spending several months on thinking about the validity of my religious beliefs and the lack of rationality and logic behind my religious beliefs, I was able to set myself free from the shackles of religion. After that, everything made so much more sense and I was able to allow myself to learn about my fellow human beings and accept every single person with no reservations. The freedom and compassion and empathy I have gained since throwing off the shackles of religion has been the most profoundly liberating experience I’ve ever experienced.
Can you explain why Baghdad was once the greatest city with the most advised ideologies in math and science but after science and math was looked upon as a devils work. The city never gained their foothold of where they once were?
I, as a part of the target audience of this channel, will obviously have a bias. Even so, in my biased opinion, this debate wasn't even close. The Catholic Church is objectively one of the most destructive organizations in human history. Dr. Zuckerman absolutely wipes the floor with Lewis.
His interpretation is in line with most theologians though? So that’s not a very fair characterization. Is he supposed to be beholden to what every evangelical espouses?
@@BlakeZeb You missed the point that I was making. It doesn’t matter if his interpretation of his version of his religion may align with other likeminded religious adherents, he seemed to be under the impression that his interpretation of his version of his religion is the one and only true interpretation and everyone who doesn’t align with his particular interpretation of his particular version of his particular religion are just flat out wrong. His humility is quite impressive.
Everyone should learn how to masterbate, especially women. Most men don't care about a woman's needs. Why would they. Under theist ideologies, women are only here for men's pleasure. Women need to learn how to masterbate so they understand their body and what it takes to find their pleasure zone. Women can live without men, but men cannot live without women. I would bring up the LGBT community but theism is against it.
Everyone needs to learn how to masturbate, especially women. Men don't care about women's needs because this little black book of their flying sky daddy makes women their servants for men's pleasure. Women can live without men, men cannot live without women.
… he’s a philosopher, backing up his ideas with the works of great philosophers. Also, this is one of the most debated topics in history lol. Of course most of the ground has been tread. (He also does have original ideas, they aren’t in the scope of this debate. Such as his PhD topic covering why Christians should be vegan, or why Catholics should not be against homosexuality)
Thank you, Prof. Zuckerman. 45 minutes in and he brings up a subject I can't get a straight answer from a theist: How can you govern based on divine revelation when it is necessarily a first person, personal thing?
Prof. Phil completely demolished Lewis in this debate - although it seems that Lewis was able, at one point, to bluff his way using scientific-like nonsense on the materiality of God.
In that little black book. It's tells a guy to go out and take a life away to prove you love the flying sky daddy over your own child. What parent would do this? If you would you're not a good parent.
This idea is the bedrock of Christianity itself. That a sky daddy murdered his own son as a human sacrifice to pay the propitiation of the blood debt from the sins of Adam. It's fucking wild when you strip off all the Lovey prose it contains. It's ritual blood magic and human sacrifice oriented. Insanity.
Few points from Lewis are philosophically true.... secularism is not the foundation of current society and it is not proven yet, that it is the very best and only foundation, yet on the other hand it is overwhelmingly well proven that (and that to the point of this debate) it is better than christianity to build a society upon. I would compare it to well know saying "Democracy is the least bad way of ruling a state". Similarly we could say "Secularism is the best foundation so far or up to date to build a society upon". Religion is dead. Side note concerning the USA. Even you have a separation of state and church in the constitution, I would argue there is no other country in the developed world that is so under a religious influence or even ruled by it. In USA You cannot get elected into almost any governmental position not commenting presidency to proclaim loudly personal christianity and roar "God with America". This is not possible to be seen even in countries like Poland, Italy or Spain who were literally runned by a church. Even on personal level, in certain USA states coming out as an atheist can lead to real troubles like loosing a job, friends, shunning....in the contrary, in Italy or anywhere in Europe nobody would care... So education guys... until the education will not be runned by scientists but by religiously biased societies, we are going to rise ignorant generations and progressing nowhere except fights...
I suggest Lewis watch the Intelligence Squared debate, "Is Catholicism a Force for Good," not to change his mind (that's mission: impossible) but to show how the audience were tremendously swayed by the arguments for the negative.
Prof. Zuckerman, keep doing what you are doing! You were snarky about Lewis' beliefs not him as a person; which is the proper way to use snark in my opinion. You did an amazing job! I'd love to hear more from you.
I can't believe in theistic ideologies because life has meaning. If life never ended it would suck, it wouldn't have meaning. What gives life meaning is it has an ending.
That makes no sense. If you are an atheist then life has no meaning, you create your own meaning. It having an end wont make it meaningful. It makes it more valuable not meaningful. But atheist lifestyle and its relativity is just doesnt work in practice
I appreciated how Zuckerman pressed Lewis on kitschy syntax like "the father" and "logos." It's vapid fancy talk, and Zuckerman's exasperation with what he got is the most appropriate response imo. I do think Lewis is clearly well philosophically educated and has some good points to make. One major problem in these talks though is that hifalutin Christians are defending this niche, highly detailed account of Christianity, and non-theists are railing against popular beliefs. Zuckerman tried to point it out but it didn't seem to land for Lewis. The point is something like this; I have complaints about fans of a particular sports team fan-base. These 100s of 1000s of fans are real pricks. They pride themselves on a culture of celebrating dirty plays and complaining about the refs no matter what. Their bad behavior escalates into vandalism and violence on a regular basis. Some sports scientist from some University across the Atlantic wants to convince me otherwise by pointing out the sophistication of several plays the sports team made in a big game 50 years ago. Such genius was displayed by the teams coaches and staff! And I'm over here concerned that several department stores are looted and on fire...
"the secular society is an opportunity [..] for the Christians to show that our position is the most rational, that it is the most truthful and this free open debate that Prof Zuckerman would like to foster will only be beneficial to Christianity" - Howeth One of the most arrogant statements I've heard made by a believer. Howeth, we've always had open debate. Religions debate each other. There are many other religions around the world other than Christianity. No single religion has been demonstrated to be the most rational, certainly not the most truthful. Come out of your titanium bubble.
I'm not going to invest 2 hours to childish proselytizing of Lewis' religion. But I'll point out that we know too much now to accept the religion, even if it *would* be valuable to do so. Beliefs aren't chosen. You have to be convinced. Now if he wants us to *pretend* to believe, on the idea that such pretense will be useful… I still don't think that would work. The pretense would be too obvious.
The theist, in character, opens a thousand cans of worms at once and then leaves the athiest to respond to as many as he can in the alotted time. It's Brandolini's Law in action, yet again.
What I really liked is that Phil started by making it very clear what he stands for, and this was not the case with Lewis - he started attacking human secularism, before even explaining what it is exactly that he stands for. The basis of his ideology became even more and more vague and "word soup intellectual like" throughout the debate. It was good that Phil started to ask some basic questions to find out what it actually is that Lewis understands even by the basic term Christianity. My overall conclusion of the debate is that Lewis not only a) believes there is an "absolute truth" (rather than multiple possible paths to resolve a certain topic), but also b) believes that he personally knows what is the absolute truth, and c) wants a society that is ruled by his religious ideology. All this, while still continuing to claim that he is completely open-minded for other peoples' view-points and beliefs. It is Lewis' belief that all humans will eventually - just by logical and natural thinking - end up to the exact same worldview as he has - because it is the only true one anyway. Yeah, right...
This Lewis guy keeps making the guy out as if he is stupid. Telling him he doesn't understand this or that so "he needs" to read these certain books. It's not going to change the others guy ideology. Never once did the atheist ever tell Lewis he doesn't understand Atheism and he should read certain books. Why do people with a flying sky daddy complex have to force their views on others?
Secular countries should not allow theocratic religions like izlam, because it has its own political system. Just like communism and dictatorship are not allowed in secular countries, izlam should also be not allowed.
It's spelled "Islam", and at least in most Western countries, will not be banned. _Because it cannot be banned._ It's just not allowed to be a part of government.
Christianity has it's own laws that are separate from the government so it's trying to be it's own government as well. And the teachings of Jesus were about another kingdom and not the government.
Since religions contradict each other, ignore TRUTH to accept things through “faith,” and cause constant condemnation and wars, JUST STICK TO THE FACTS!
55:31 It's annoying how much Lewis tries here to make the discussion into "how much do you actually know" as if having more knowledge about christianity makes his opinion more valid. I don't think Lewis has deeply studied Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and all the stuff he doesn't believe in before rejecting those as political system.
I find it interesting that Lewis quotes various philosophers more than the Bible. He doesn’t argue from the Bible. I think he lives in a bubble of his own making.
He’s a philosopher who got to his Christian beliefs through philosophical understandings, and that background is going to greatly influence his reading of the Bible vs say an evangelical. The philosophical understanding it going to be more important to understanding where he’s coming from than Bible quotes.
The history of science does not have a lot of christianity teachings. But you will find a bunch of Islamic scientific teachings. I think this guy keeps mixing up his religions.
🤔I don't normally chime in on these but I found Howeth's arguements so vacuous, circular, impersonal and semantic....I just had to highlight in one sample just how poor and infuriatingly insubstantial his answers were. To add, as an agnostic I like to consider all arguements fairly evenly though I would say Howeth failed miserably in making a convincing arguement for the non-laique state in the West. I mean......really though? Zuckerman : Just what's your evidence for God? Howeth : The evidence for God and heaven is what's called the principle of sufficient reason. So that every reason has to have .... either contain its own......sufficiently explain itself, or be explained by another reason. And what we find is that there must necessarily be only one reason which is explained and contains the explanation for its own existence. And that would be God and this was an argument given by Leibniz I would prefer the Leibnizianaccount for the cosmological argument. That's the cosmological argument from the perspective of Hagel we would then take that and we would say that we already assumed truth, which indicates that unity in the first place, so when I affirm an argument, I already affirmed that there is actually this universal reason which I can know. and that implies that God is a normal subject, and is united with us in a manner of speaking. 😑
What you're talking about is sophistry, not philosophy. Empirical science itself originates in philosophical thinking, specifically Francis Bacon's nominalist (the idea that metaphysical universals don't exist) reconstruction of Aristotle's logic for empirical inquiry.
I would like it better if Phil did not have the uncontrollable urge to talk over Lewi. This show was bearable because I have a Video Speed Controller, and at 1.8 speed, it was still coherent. I man the voices, not the arguments.
"we're both good people because we won't vote for Trump:" Thusly alienating literally half of the voting block of America. Lewis then goes on to affirm that politics divides people and no one can figure out how to to bridge the gap. Shit, man, you're the gap.
Woof. Talk about a landslide. The British guy spent his time defending christians instead of making a case for its benefits. Put this video under "self-consciously defensive."
A lady asked me if I believe that she lost her arms and legs and only with her family and friends they did this putting hands together ideology and her limbs just grew back. I said no, not without doctors and modern surgery. She said well it did happen and it's all to this flying sky daddy. I guess she thinks she's better than everyone else who has lost their limbs or has disabilities. Because they tell me they believe in these flying sky daddy's and they never grew their limbs back.
1:20:15 phil zuckerman: "i just think we are talking past eachother" it seems like the vast majority of debates where people have training in different fields is like this. im not sure of what Lewis is probing Phil for, but i believe he is trying to understand the logic behind Phil's ethics/morals. Phil doesnt undsrstand the philosophical terms he is using so it just goes nowhere. without first agreeing on what good itself is or what makes something good and why, they cant answer the actual question of the debate of whether secularism or christianity is better for the west. Phil needs to learn some basic philosophy as it seems he has no understanding of it whatsoever. i dont know how knowledgable Lewis is on the actual sociological data of specific events, but it seems like not much. if Lewis can't get Phil to understand what he saying, they should skip the philosphy part of the debate. start out with agreed upon axioms and then have a sociological debate, which i think Lewis himself said he wasn't prepared for. Lewis needs to take some time and gather hard data on this stuff.
overall i think Phil's secular humanism and Lewis' interpretation of christianity would both be good for society if we were basing that "good" off of my generalization of their ethics, but if i had to choose i would go for secularism as a base for society. i think the real problem is people who are uneducated and/or closedminded, leading to dogmatism and forcing wrong beliefs on others. i think secularism is slightly better at a reducing that in people. Phil mentioned how he has gone to churches and talked with many christians that have different and wild beliefs that are harmful, I think having these beliefs that come from philosophy without actually undsrstanding the philosophy is a large part in addition to someone using Christianity as an emotional crutch. they believe these things without the reasons and can't be argued with because of that. in comparison to "people finding their own meaning" which forces people to see that their beliefs are theirs and they don't have absolute proof of these things.
@@ryanstockdale3413 The problem is that we, humans are instinctually simply bastards, as soon as we sense a chance to live better we would step over anyone. That's human nature. Now religion and secularism try to reach the same goal, to make us behave better to each other, only theism try to reach it through fairy tales, while secularism through reason. I don't see it as a hard choice.
Ill have to agree. A atheist that thinks he knows what hes talking about and a “christian” that doenst know what to say. He cant represent us chrsitians and that atheist never read the bible
Atheist brainrot be like: "Wow this person i dont like is disingenous dishonest liar delusional the fact he spews fallacy fallacy and wordsalad even though i dont know what am i talking about." Debate bros like you are killing the debate community
Lewis you lost the debate Lewis you need to present your worldview how to accomodate other religions and idealogies. Please prepare for future debate come up with better solution
@@zachio69 Yes, there are many walking subliminal messages around the world, like him, but we are so blind and ignorant😭 Jesus forgive us for our sins🥺🥺
It seems to me that IP tries to criticize someone in the spirit of fairness. BTW, I'm Japanese, a citizen of a country where the vast majority of people (myself included) uphold secular humanism as Dr. Phil does.
@@user-dn7um1iw8q "It seems to me that IP tries to criticize someone in the spirit of fairness." I know it may seem so, but he really doesn't. His arguments are chock-full of logical fallacies, and the bad thing is that he knows it, so it's just intellectual dishonesty. For an example of how a good philosopher can reject his arguments, I suggest you watch Kane Baker's brilliant video titled "Moral Anti-Realism Defended: A Response to @InspiringPhilosophy".
