Its nice to see Alex’s opponent admitting when Alex’s objection makes sense and not resorting to straw man arguments. Alex logical reasoning is strong. I stopped eating meat largely because of it. I think the ability to change your mind when confronted with better logic is important to re addressing your own views which is obviously difficult.
It is hard to overstate just how honest an interlocutor this chap seems to be. Alex rips him up and he seems to be conceding the whole time. There seems to be zero "Tap Dancing" (as Dillahunty would say).
His logic is good but he never gave me a reason to give a fuck about morals, i believe morals are subjective and his arguments against that dont work for me.
I just want to say I applaud these two for demonstrating good debate etiquette. They didn't interrupt one another too much they didn't go off on tangents they didn't they didn't try to argue outside of what a debate is meant to be you don't find that very often nowadays.
Well I mean by all technicalities a debate is a civilized argument so it does tend to seem like a discussion. this is technically what a debate is supposed to look like, not the whole being interrupted by the other person other person always butting in sort of thing, that's not how a debate works. But of course people ignore that anyways and talk as they please.
Takes a strong character to say "Yes that's a fair point, I'll have to give that some more thought". And it's hard, but not quite as hard, to accept that and move on to the next point without gloating.
Alex, can you please make a rebuttal video or a video exposing Sadhguru. He has millions of followers across the world. He claims to be spiritual and downplays science. He has given speeches in the UN a platform that he clearly doesn’t deserve. I’m sure it’d help bring light to a lot of people.
arvind animal activist made a couple of great response videos about him i highly recommend him if you don't know his channel yet ru-vid.com/show-UCuaj1eVLt9O2aHRN-ULEXiQsearch?query=sadghuru
Alex: a good god is as likely as an evil god. Max: an evil god is less likely because of *insert special pleading here*. Alex: that can be used to argue for the evil god existing too, so we're back to square one. Max: yes but an evil god is less likely because of *insert special pleading about the psychology of an evil god needing to be known first here*. Alex: the problem with that is it can be used to argue for the existence of an evil god too, so we're back to square one. And so on and so. Granted though alex did eventully get through and max did eventually admit that he didn't have a rebutal and that on the specific topic that they were diecussing at that moment he would need to look into it more in depth. I do feel though that there was a lot of cognitive conflict on max's part in "computing" that a good god is no more likely than an evil god, and I hope he can come to see that fully in the future.
Dead on, I actually appreciate how intellectually honest Max was being in accepting when he did not know or when Alex had a good point. I have hope for more useful discussions in the future
True. I think deep down max knew they were not totally logically sound. It seemed that he was hoping to argue for a probabilistic sway in the good God direction by way of posing a lot of different arguments. The problem is, most of them boiled down to having the same flaws and assumptions that as you said, Alex could then pose the opposite premise and once again reach the opposite conclusion. Argument quality is more important than argument quantity.
I understand God could possibly be evil, such as the christian God or Muslim God that will torcher people forever, but we do evil things because of motive for power, money, greed, control and such.... God would have no motive to be evil because he has all power and control... I do believe in God and property translated scripture that doesn't have a hell or eternal torment....and we are here to experience evil for a short time for contrast purposes....and all creation is subject to disobedience so God can have mercy on all and give all everlasting life.... that's what scripture teacher in the original Hebrew and Greek....that makes most sense to me ...
This was a really good conversation! As a Christian I always enjoy Alex’s conversations with his critical thinking and I’ve never seen dr. Max but he seems really smart too. They both added really good things to the conversation
I like how "torturing puppies" has to be accompanied with "for fun" from a theistic view, because there are good reasons to justify torture, like "sin"
well if you said is it possible for a maximally good being to torture puppies, you can imagine a hypothetical scenario where it is, in a trolley problem life situation. So for fun is to make it more clear what you have to debunk.
Damn, you killed it man. Mad respect to Dr. Max for his honesty and modesty, but I almost genuinely felt bad for him, lol. Keep it up, you’re clearly only continuing to improve your discourse!
Doesn't need to be, there's plenty on this topic in the old testament. You don't need debates when narcissistic monarchs brag about their atrocities in their own vanity book.
25:45 - 27:33 - This is clearly a failure of imagination on Max's part. We can easily imagine an evil god who creates things in order to torture them, rather than a good god who creates things in order to love them. This is trivially easy to imagine, and Max's asymmetrical agnosticism on this point tells me that he hasn't seriously considered it. At least he did concede most of this point in the subsequent minutes.
A "Why couldn't your god be evil?" B "Because he only does good things." A "And how do you know that makes a thing good?" B "It comports with my god's nature." A "... and your god's nature is good?" B "Yes." A "But why couldn't it be evil? _Without_ repeating your first answer, because that would be a circular argument."
But that asserts everything He does is absoluletly objectively good. But as we can see creating men wasn't the best idea ever because of how much suffering there is in the world. And the fact that we today know god didn't create men in his image but we evolved creates the question where does even god come into the play and do absoluletly good things. Even if we agree that god created the universe and natural evolution lead to our existence, what makes creating the universe an objectively good thing? But if we take the another way and say god interferes with our daily lives and does objectively good things, where does the suffering in the world comes from? And humanity isn't the correct answer in this question because if god does interfere to push objectively good things he would not allow suffering, but if he deliberatly allows suffering then he is obviously not good.
The only reason people experience "good" is so that those who don't have that recognise they experience suffering. If nobody experienced anything good, everyone else wouldn't know how miserable their lives are. Therefore, an evil god can be expected to promote some good in the world in order to maximise suffering for everyone else.
@@alpacino9226 You could say that you are being given the answer "4" and are insisting that the only addition to reach it is 2 + 2, ignoring 1 + 3, -1 + 5, etc.
My first impression of Dr Baker-Hytch is he looks too young to have a doctorate. But he makes good arguements, is polite, and a genuinely great conversationalist.
Alex, very impressive responding so eloquently and clearly on the spot. You clearly have a great grasp on the deepness of these issues and can consider them on the fly. Well done.
the portion that begins at 16:30 sounds like the paarthurnax dilemma "What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
This is probably the most amicable I've ever seen a discussion. Neither person seemed to try to misunderstand or strawman the other. My bias is showing but Alex definitely won the debate in regards to the topic but as a conversation, we all win.
Thats just to you people suffer far far more than any animal can and we still want to live even if tommrow I'm going to get my head chopped off that could happen I know that animal's don't I don't worry about bad happening and it has
@@Killerkiki313 I can't but we are omnivorous and I won't ever go vegan because it very clearly adapts your mind we could be highly intelligent like elephants without needing animal's but we do for optimum health
Understand the concept the disgusting treatment of animals but god gave man free will (good) not to do bad things. The choice is not preloaded only a choice.
So glad to see smart people having actual discussions, willing to concede points and examine views. I wish all debates were this rational. Well done, all 3 of you.
I watched his video about Christian pro-forced-birthers, and why they are wrong. Brilliant video! But plenty of atheist pro-forced-birthers in the comments, who started to argue that in their opinion it is science that somehow supports the idea of restricting pregnant women's right of bodily autonomy
It was actually getting frustrating watching this doctor not understand Alex's point (good/bad in terms of functionality vs good and evil objectively) after so many explanations. He would always answer in a circular non-answer and it ultimately ended with: "huh, I don't know I'll have to think about it". The 'bliss world/mixed world/torture world spectrum' idea was very interesting. I would love to hear a longer discussion on that.
Interesting observation. I’m only about 52 minutes in and I’ve been incredibly impressed with this guy. I found the points from both sides really intellectually stimulating, I’ve seen no straw manning, I’ve seen the Dr accept pretty much everything Alex has said. And I don’t mind at all that he said he’d need to think on it some more. There’s been one time I’ve seen so far where he said that, and it was to a scenario I think he probably hadn’t considered before (that having a propensity for evil but overcoming it and always doing good is more virtuous than having a nature that always makes you do good).
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih yeah, I'm definitely not against admitting when you don't know something. With how long they spent on that point, I was just hoping he would've had something substantial to answer Alex, since he always seemed to have a good rebuttal previously. Hopefully they'll revisit the topic again.
@@xFriendlyNapalm I agree, but I wouldn't lump Dr Max in with other theists. This seems to be an intellectual pursuit for him, and he understands very well that his opinions could be wrong. That's not typical for a theist (in the online world anyway).
@@_Booker_DeWitt I agree with that. When I hear the words "he's written a paper" that implies to me that he's studied the topic in depth, considered all underlying assumptions and possible rebuttals against the points made in the paper, and only published the points that he can back up. But if this discussion is to go by, it seems like the paper was a list of arguments, where possible rebuttals weren't given much if any consideration, and published with the hopes that one or two might hold water.
Alex’s rebuttal of Torture World and his insight on Mixed World was great 🎯. I really appreciate Max’s honesty in admitting that he needed to think about something further, rather than doubling down in self defense.
Ay, that was really hard at the end. I wasn't convinced that the good god hypothesis was more convincing than the evil god hypothesis since Alex made so many points that caused Max to concede, but even moreover, the story of the homeless person outside the college actually, embarrassingly, provoked my eyes to well up ... Can't say that's ever happened while watching a debate! But to really focus on the tremendous suffering that people (and non-human animals) have to experience brings out a lot of emotions, and it becomes really hard to stay rational and look at it all purely from the lens of philosophical argumentation. With such powerful emotions, it seems obvious that if there is a god, it would be uncaring to say the least and evil at its worst. In fact, I just watched an interview on Invisible People with an 18-year-old who became homeless at age 7 because his parents died in a car crash, he ended up in an abusive foster care situation, and he ran away. He now is going to enter the army just so he can have a nightly bed and three meals a day. That is no reason to enter an institution that will only inflict even more suffering on the human race. What kind of god would allow this all to happen to a child? Christians try to do backflips and somersaults to rationalize these conditions that humans face, but from an outsider, no matter how many possible reasons are given, it still doesn't seem possible, just like madness really. I have to say though that these conclusions are based on my emotions more than hard logic, but at least this discussion helped to shed light on how the logic that Christians use can very well be turned on its head to equally justify an evil god. Interestingly, that idea of a torturous mixed world also reminded me of Season 1 of the series The Good Place, in which a demon thinks the best way to torture humans is with themselves alone, including the comparative living conditions that Alex was describing. The real kicker is that most of the humans that seemed good and to be living well were actually just demons acting as humans, and in a later iteration, they were played by realistic virtual simulations that didn't even have a conscious human experience of pleasure. That would be even worse than the most torturous world that Alex came up with, as then any pleasurable living conditions aren't even enacting pleasure, and yet the humans think it's all real and feel the worst kind of pain imaginable. Oh, and I think it's VERY obvious that anyone who stepped into a perpetual bliss experience ("bliss world" as they term it) would absolutely 100% choose that over the mixed world we currently have. People don't like to admit this to themselves for all sorts of reasons, but to me at least, such reasoning always seems disingenuous.
I will simp for the beard anyday but, with my aesthetic instincts kicking in, I can't help but want to sort that hair out! haha Someone get Alex a stylist, there's real potential here ;D
I get that this is intended as a light hearted joke, and in response to this, I'll take Alex's critical thinking that is rooted in integrity, justice, and quest for knowledge however way he chooses to communicate them. =)
23:23 "There's nothing that God can't do for a lack of strength..." so easily it falls out of the mouth yet he is powerless when children are stolen, or babies are mutilated, or women are raped, or bombs are dropped - so he does nothing because he is cruel, oblivious, apathetic or more obviously non existent.
"Could" is a waste of time on such a question in which theists have *never once* in thousands of years, shown a 'there there.' Without any proof of a god, any discussion of anything else is just time-wasting, daydreaming nonsense. It would be like discussing what Unicorns eat... um... why bother when you haven't presented a freaking Unicorn!
It's not a waste of time when billions of people base their lives on the predicate that their god is good, whether or not that god exists. If your child had an imaginary friend they thought was good, but that told them to tortute animals, I think "Are you _sure_ your imaginary friend is good...?" is a perfectly reasonable question.
You talk about unicorns when thats not the same one is God the creator of the universe the other a fictional character... Whatever created the universe is what God means you can't have a better exsplantion you can only say don't know
Of course an alleged deity like the one in the Bible could hold and embrace and instruct its adherents in this world to follow morally bankrupt (evil) positions. We know it's possible because if you believe the alleged deity of the bible actually exists, then there's already clear demonstration that this deity has instructed its adherents to behave in morally irresponsible (evil) ways.
Exactly! I can’t tell you how often Christians justify heinous acts in the Bible by saying they are actually morally acceptable because God commanded it (see destruction of Amalekites 1 Sam 15). This notion further bleeds into extremist Christian views of today - justifying morally reprehensible behavior by saying they are doing God’s work (see WBC, subjugation/abuse of women, etc)
@@hannahhill5627 Hi, I don't know if you're able to see this meme, but I took the quote from a radio interview of AC Grayling by Dennis Prager that I listened to quite a number of years ago: facebook.com/photo?fbid=10151538905215905&set=a.93099875904 ..................quite terrifying, actually.
Anyone who can read the bible (which should be renamed “God’s Guide to Genocide “) and not recoil in horror and revulsion at the gratuitously cruel atrocities committed or commanded by the barbaric, bloodthirsty deity therein, has suspended all pity, empathy and compassion.
I think the point of the paper was that A maximully good god is more probable than an evil one. The Evil god argument says that both are equally likely, doctor Baker-Hytch was trying to claim that a good god is more likely, it's more probable
@@zephyrproffitt240 I think the simplification stops his argument in its tracks. Probability is simply likelihood over possibility. He presents nothing to assign a value to either of those variables.
@@larjkok1184 Evaluation of "one is more likely" doesn't require actual values assigned. Evil god argument claims total symmetry, so only thing needed to refute is is finding one piece of assymetry towards your preferred outcome, and you have a probabilistic argument without ever needing to assign any probabilities. Math is only required to check relative weight of multiple assymetries pointing separate ways to see where we fall after factoring them in.
Riveting stuff, best thing I've seen on your channel. Though I'm an atheist Alex's description of a maximally evil God needing to create a world of continual suffering felt like an accurate portrayal of life! Aaargh!
Only an hour of the way in, but I'm confused about why Baker-Hytch is talking about a probability space. If Alex is only tasked with showing that God _could_ be evil, why does it matter whether one view is compatible with more theories?
I was thinking the same way! Great conversation but Baker-Hytch has to work on his presentation or understanding of his interlocutor's propositions. Steel manning Alex should have happened earlier in the conversation so that he could get a better understanding of what it was he was to be debating. The burden of proof is on both of them, but the only way to disprove an evil God is to prove that only a good God has the probability of existing.
As Max said, the validity of philosophical views is usually determined by the number of possibly contradictions. When arguing about whether a god could be evil, Alex isn't trying to argue that it has a non 0 probability. The "could" in this sense implies with equal probability because any non equal probability would skew the argument and make either the evil god or the good god more likely and therefore more philosophically valid.
@@ParadoxProblems Understood. But it would seem to me that Max did a terrible job of proving that the "good" god takes up a greater probability space than the evil god in this video. It's important to articulate one's self well, and I'm sure his paper is very well written and more thorough than the things he stated, but from the video alone, one would seem to take away that Alex provided enough contradictions to validate the idea that an evil god is just as likely as a good god. Disclaimer: I have not read Max's paper, nor do I plan to, as this is a theological issue rather than philosophical (which I am much more interested in). One cannot debate the morality of a being that has not even been substantiated.
@@alchimyst4995 Yeah, I agree. It seems Max's main problem was conflating "good" as fulfilling its purpose and "good" as the moral definition of an act which makes life better. That leads to the similar conflation of "bad" and "evil" that Alex pointed out. I feel like Alex could have deconstructed the 2nd claim even more by addressing the difference between what is good for god's purpose and what we consider to be morally good. It is entirely plausible that a god that is good at being evil makes us think that god is morally good leading to a disparity between moral good and the morality of god which completely deconstructs Max's 2nd point as well.
@@ParadoxProblems Okay thanks, that makes sense. I guess I was thinking of could in a really strict way. But true, they were only really trying to "break the symmetry" one way or the other. I wonder how it would've gone if they instead had like 3 hours to hash it all out
Kudos to Max Baker-Hytch for his maturity in the debate. From my perspective, Alex's points were more sound (note that I was already on Alex's side of the debate) but I greatly appreciated that Dr. Baker-Hytch conceded points when he didn't have sound refutation at that time. This isn't to say that he couldn't have refutation but just that he didn't have one at the time. I know that sounds mundane to point out but it's a very difficult thing for probably every person in the world so I just wanted to voice that.
About Mixedworld gradients: I agree, as they admit, there is a version of Mixedworld that people will superficially, upfront, choose as their favorite over Blissworld-but that in reality is not as good, and they only prefer Mixedworld because they are already in Mixedworld. If they were in Blissworld, they would not make that superficial choice. If there exists such a suffering that can only be produced by seeing the contrast between those suffering and those having pleasure or being fine, and every person in Tortureworld is experiencing maximal suffering, then the people of Tortureworld must be hallucinating to be under the impression that there are people having pleasure. If they weren't, there would be a form of suffering that they are not experiencing. Adding more people into Tortureworld would indeed add more suffering, even if the new people were only from Mixedworld, but as Alex admits, all of those additional new people experiencing the same torture as the people already in Tortureworld would still be even worse. So assuming the number of people is the same, Tortureworld is worse than any gradient version of Mixedworld. The only reason that having a portion of the people in a world not be Tortured makes it seem even worse is because we're outside observers seeing the contrast, and not because it's actually any worse.
Tortureworld could have a fake raffle. The winners get to escape their torture and live in complete bliss. Everyone is automatically entered in the draw, but the draw is a lie. Fake names are announced, everyone feels worse that they weren’t a winner but are left with (false) hope that they may win next time, only to have that hope extinguished once again. Forever. No actual absence of suffering required.
@@jojomojojones but what if the hope of winning gives people pleasure? in thag's comment and yours, the argument is essentially the "higher order evil" theodicy. If you accept that theodicy (which you shouldn't to begin with), then you must accept that torture world is a version of mixed world. The exact same arguments work for bliss world. Putting a few suffering people in bliss world could make you feel better that you're not one of them, or make you feel worse that they exist. Here it becomes more obvious that having happy people in torture world could provide torment as much as it could provide hope, and the argument is symmetrical for bliss world. The longer you examine these and the other arguments, the more clear it becomes that maximal good/evil is nonsensical, and assuming that it exists leads to illogical conclusions. It also took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that it's literally just heaven and hell. So if people would rather live in mixed world, they're saying that heaven is worse than earth. Or, that heaven would just be the same as earth. Or, that suffering in heaven must exist to create a "higher order good," which is gratitude for not being chosen to suffer. It's a nice demonstration of why maximally possessing a subjective quality just makes no sense, unless the idea was came from a human.
Can anyone explain to me how an omnipotent being could possibly be "moral" when it is not subject to any oversight or repercussions for any of its actions yet we are? If their is a "God", life immediately turns into the matrix. How could existence have any meaning if all are ruled by God? Enjoy your eternal veal pen.
If you say that 1000 sufferers, is worse than 1000 sufferers and 1 happy person, because they all see what they are missing out on. Then wouldn't 1000 happy people, be worse than 1000 happy people and one sufferer, because they all see what they are missing out on.
Why? Its not like we can do anything about him. Since we have no proof, or means with which to interact with such a being, it is a moot point worrying about it.
It's amazing how both good and evil gods are equally plausible... almost like god can have whatever attributes we want... like we're the ones in control and god is like a fictional character.
Some pretty interesting discussions! The Specially "A mixed world of mostly suffering with a small minority living well could be worst than torture world" and the question of "Is something that is fully good better or worse than a fully bad being that chooses to do good".
I think that small minority living well part doesn't work very well. It's clearly a more evil world in my opinion if the minority living well to taunt the people suffering are just some kind of illusion.
Are you kidding? Max had no good answers or rebuttals for anything. He seemed unprepared and completely out of his element. This wasn't even a debate. This was Alex having to repeatedly explain concepts to someone who for all intents and purposes is obviously intellectually inferior or woefully unprepared to discuss the topic.
Could the most powerful being in existence be evil? Of course, there is absolutely no reason what so ever not. Could the creator of everything be evil? Of course, there is absolutely no reason what so ever not. Could a being defined as the ultimate manifestation of good be evil? No. Does these have to be the same being? No.
Exactly. You can't have an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. You can have a god with 2 of these traits, but not all 3. Omnipotent and omniscient god can be evil or not perfectly good so he let's evil happen. Omnipotent and omnibenevolent god doesn't know everything, so he can't stop all evil. Omniscient and omnibenevolent doesn't have the power to stop evil. A god with all 3 traits cannot exist because evil exists in the world, which means god can't or doesn't want to stop it, or he doesn't know about it.
@@randominternetguy3537 The way people get around that is by saying good and evil is defined by a godlike being. For example, if a god thinks a group of people should die, then that is the morally Good thing. Therefore an omnipotent and omniscient god can do anything, and anything they do is by definition Good. This presumes that humanity's intuition of good and evil doesn't matter in a cosmic scale as it is a god who defines what good and evil is. A good example of this is when Christians say the Israeli genocide of non-Israel tribes in the old testament is good.
@@Lilybellmusic no, they would say "you wouldn't find something like this in the new testament, because Jesus died for our sins in the new testament." Despite the fact that there is suffering in the world. So they're saying that anything God does is good because God did it, so it must be good. Now we find ourselves in a conundrum because they believe in the abrahamic God, one who is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient. The conundrum is that if God can't make us understand why his actions are good, he isn't omnipotent. If he can't stop the suffering, he is (again) not omnipotent. There are reasons why a God who is only 2 of those things could justify not being able to stop suffering. Omnibenevolent and omnipotent, he doesn't know where or when suffering is happening. Omnibenevolent and omniscient, he knows of the suffering and wishes to stop it but lacks the power. Omniscient and omnipotent, he simply does not give a fuck. Its a shitty argument, unless you consider free will, which gives it a little more nuance, except that he doesn't make himself clearly observable therefore proving an objective morality within him. Also, he could simply explain why some action will lead you to hell. This is a shitty part of the argument and I'm done. I'm gonna sleep.
@@randominternetguy3537 I don't really understand why you wrote the whole thing out again, I very clearly understand the omni-qualities requirement of a Christian god. My point was that the Christian argument of "anything God does is good because God did it, so it must be good" which hinges upon the assumption that Christian god defines good and evil, essentially works to negate any sort of moral challenge - for example, when you say "the conundrum is that if God can't make us understand why his actions are good, he isn't omnipotent; If he can't stop the suffering, he is (again) not omnipotent" - that could easily be dismissed by a Christian to say "Not explaining why his actions are good and choosing to not stop suffering, is Good from godly point of view". The same can be applied when you later say "he doesn't make himself clearly observable therefore proving an objective morality within him" - they could easily dismiss that by saying, "not proving an objective morality is Good from godly point of view". The entire problem is that in Christianity, God is the one who dictates what is good and evil. It's the reason why in a Christian belief system, God can be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent without being illogical - the premise that God dictates good and evil, makes it logical. What the original poster Rickard Bergelius didn't understand is that their wording has a subtle condition: it should read as: "Could a being defined as the ultimate manifestation of good be evil in human point of view?" And the answer would be yes. The subtlety comes from the fact that the bible argues God is the ultimate manifestation of Good, and it doesn't depend on outside judgment for that to be true. In Christianity, what humans think of good and evil does not matter. This is all because of the incredibly powerful premise that God dictates what is good and evil. This allows for a (what you might describe as hand-wavy) explanation on omniscient + omnipotent situation - it's not that he doesn't care, but it's that humans simply don't understand why existence of evil is a good thing. Nowhere in Christianity does it suggest that full understanding of God's morality is required to make omnibenevolence true, just like how they don't need to demonstrate exactly how God is omniscient or omnipotent. It's just a premise. It just happens to be that omnibenevolence is an incredibly powerful premise. Tl;dr: before employing the argument on why omni-qualities of God are inconsistent, you first need to address the presumption that God defines what is good and evil, because as long as God defines what is good and evil, the omni-qualities are in fact logical and consistent. The problem is that omnibenevolence is by definition, unassailable. Any attack on it can be dismissed as "that's just evil in your point of view, but God is still Good". It's the cliche "it was part of God's plan" defense. Personally, I find this very difficult to challenge besides just saying that while logical, it seems unlikely to be true.
@@Lilybellmusic ok I get it. They started out with a premise that can't be falsified, and therefore their argument makes perfect sense as long as they believe in the premise. Thanks, Imma have to do some research to be able to more easily falsify or get rid of the premise.
It seems to me that the semantic issue here is that we're using and acknowledging two definitions for bad (ineffective vs evil [malevolent]) but we're not drawing the same distinction between the definitions for good (effective vs good [benevolent].) A god that maximizes malevolence is a good (effective) malevolent god, where as one who tries but fails is a bad (ineffective) malevolent god. Likewise, a god that maximizes benevolence is a good benevolent god compared to a bad benevolent god who tries but fails to maximize benevolence.
Max's whole argument was just a word play of 'Good' and 'Goodness'...but you can be Good at being Evil. Their definitional argument fails everywhere they use the word 'Good'...which is literally everywhere in their religious claim. Evil Good God is just as likely as Loving Good God. Well done Alex for illustrating that.
The problem of evil eliminates the possibility that an all-knowing and all-powerful god could be good. There is either no god, an evil god, or they are not all powerful and all knowing, in which case they don’t meet the definition that the vast majority of people have for a god.
Alex: (exposes argument) Max Baker-Hytch: Well I guess..... you could..... hmmmmm..... i think...... (15 minutes later) Max Baker-Hytch: I guess you are right.
You raised a good point about a god who overcomes a desire for evil is better than one who never overcomes that desire. There is even biblical support for this with the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Jesus’s moral character was demonstrated through him resisting temptation. It would show nothing if he was resisting nothing at all.
My question to a theist would be this; If God can just create beings however he wants, why did he create sex, even though he knew it would lead to rape? I don't think i'll get any answers.
What if Alex was a crazy serial killer but is so smart that nobody will ever catch him. We would never know as he is smart enough to make everyone believe that the very idea is ludicrous.
There is a discussion to be had about what 'true bliss' really is; I don't think it's necessarily the same thing as constant maximal pleasure. The fact that we might prefer to live in a world where pleasure is not constant and maximal shows that perfect bliss may not be possible in a world of perfect pleasure
I would say both seem pretty unlikely, for one of the same reasons the idea of a benevolent god is often considered suspect-a malevolent god could be doing so much better at making us suffer.
Good discussion. I typically agree with 100% of what Alex says, but I don't agree that that version of mixed world is worse than torture world. I don't think the infinite regress of adding new people NOT suffering somehow makes the suffering people feel worse. That A) relies on envy and self-pity as an attribute of their suffering, which is minimal compared to any given physical torture of torture world, and B) Still refuses to acknowledge that people with good lives do negate the evil of those suffering in SOME way. For example, I'm actually happy some people are born wealthy and live amazing lives from start to finish. I DO feel envy and bitterness toward society and I know many of them are spoiled assholes, but I mean we can at least be thankful that this world is good for some people. Even if I lost my home and froze to death tomorrow, I feel like it would be a better world than if I suddenly learned every single soul was miserable. That's some alternate dimension nightmare that, in my opinion, IS worse than a bad mixed world where there's a perverse sense of betrayal because SOME people have it good. Especially since in this version of mixed world (imagining for a moment the evil god mirror is true) we still have hope of getting out of the suffering and becoming those happy Oxford students, or whatever joy there may be. So I could see why a theist would say "but yeah it's still true that he can't be maximally evil because there is genuine good AND hope." The flip of the argument doesn't work as well as I originally thought it did after watching Alex's video.
@@reesecane7878 You do know that God created man after his own image right? =Murdering mankind because his followers rather be with women did 100% trigger a genocidal & mudering ragefit.
@@reesecane7878 Angry at a murdering monster. You bet yah. And so should you be. Cause the followers want to depict it as it was ok/good for "God" to do it.
29:20 I like how he responds with "fair point" as if what he just said didn't show the probability for there being an evil god rather than a good one as essentially equal given our predisposed knowledge. *you can't convince a smart theist by any simple means...* It sucks to see minds with so much potential beauty suffer from cognitive dissonance 1:04:46
I liked Max’s point about torture world, mixed world and bliss world and it got me thinking. This point brings to light the only asymmetry between good and evil: the fact that humans desire good and not evil. There is something arguably undesirable about bliss world: a lack of meaning or purpose, while there is nothing desirable about torture world, thus an asymmetry exists. The problem with this argument is that it steals the asymmetry from human intuition and desire by separating “good” into two different things. There is good as in human experience such as the bliss world and then there is good as in having meaning or purpose. This argument relies on these two goods being different such that the bliss world can have something undesirable about it. Using the same logic, it would make perfect sense that a maximally evil god desires there to be meaning and purpose to the evil. Therefore, the maximally evil god would find something undesirable about the torture world which loses all sense of meaning and purpose and may prefer the mixed world which retains these attributes as well as having evil. Honestly, all these arguments do is express the absurdity of thinking in terms of objective good and evil.
The 'by definition" argument is funny. While to my mind it has no merit, I think it is anyway easy to deal with it. We can simply postulate that "whatever god does is evil by definition", which cannot be reconciled with "good god" theory. This would even the scale I guess. You now have one "theory" that cannot be reconciled with good god and one - for evil god.
I love how the premises of this debate made an atheist argue for a god, and a to christian argue against it. It managed to force the theists to start using the traditionally "atheist" arguments, while the atheist just needs to demonstrate the absurdity of the traditionally "theist" arguments.
I agree he is evil and does good from time to time just to mess with us . Or there's also a possibility he is neutral. Neither bad or evil. In that case no one can be rewarded or punished since everything is morally neutral.
I don't think anyone could expect someone to understand what pain feels like without having felt it themselves. That should be evidence enough that pain cannot be defined through other means and is, in itself, elementary.
@@AntonConstanti With that I was answering the point of debate on whether evil or negative feelings are required to be defined through their virtuous counter-parts. Personally, I don't believe God to be anything, and neither do I believe a wholly benevolent or malicious God would have been able to create our world because of its contradictions to either standpoint.
@@kappasphere but the theories of both make sense to me one being a good God but also a devil which some might seem as (a bad God but really a fallen angel) where people think God to be evil is where the personality of the devil lays
*Summary:* - Max: _My paper proves that theory X debunks the Evil God hypothesis_ Alex provides a thorough explanation of why this is not the case. - Max: _Yeah... that seems to be correct_ - Alex: _Wait, so you agree?_ - Max: _I have to think about it but for now I agree_ - Alex: _Ok, let's proceed to the next theory in your paper_ Rinse and repeat.
To be fair, I don’t think Max ever claimed the paper proved anything. He was consistently talking about how he wasn’t wed to any particular idea, and that his aim was to throw out a lot of ideas and hope one of them was actually effective even though the others may fail. (Which is actually a really strange thing to do... it was like he wasn’t convinced in any of his own arguments, but he was just hoping that one or more might be solid).
It's interesting to watch this conversation through the lens of: "Can any discussion of God's morality even make sense without constantly anthropomorphizing him?"
It felt misleading to confuse two concepts in the first part of the discussion: A. _Goodness_ we might define as a weighted-average of good vs. evil acts B. _Moral commendability_ we might define as how good someone is relative to our expectations (given their genes, instincts, etc) In a conversation of whether god is evil or good, only the first attribute (goodness) matters. The second attribute is both misleading and only indicates a lack of knowledge on our part. After all, people aren't _magically exempt from determinism._ Meaning: if someone doesn't murder despite a genetic instinct towards murdering, the reason they won't murder will be due to a variety of other factors (laws punishing murder, good parents, using reason, etc). That means if we knew all those factors, our expectation of the person's goodness would _perfectly match_ their actual goodness, which is why I'm saying moral commendability as it's presented here is just a lack of knowledge on our part.
You're wrong! God is incapable of doing evil by definition, therefore the short answer is no. Wait! Let's define God as an evil being... Damn, now you're right.
@@walmin73 if you presuppose god as all good than god by definition is of course all good, however we are not arguing with definitions we are stating that the world we live in contradicts the fundamental characteristics of a god defined in the bible, therefore if a god exists which I dont believe so but for arguments sake if he did he would equally be likely to be all evil
@@fUNNY-do6rb I don't believe in any god either. My point is that, in order to argue about a god, you need to make up one. The reference book describes the actions of an arbitrary god in the first part and it reports the evolution of a legend in the second part. Since you are making stuff up, you can create a god that fits your beliefs and give him any crazy property that makes him plausible according to the universe we live in. That makes any debate about god pointless, albeit interesting and fascinating when intelligent guys are involved.
@@ceoanalytics423 people much smarter than me have spent their entire life building excellent arguments for or against the existence of god. Therefore, my answer here will be necessarely not exaustive. I'll try my best. Skip to the last line for the quick answer. For context, I grew up in a catholic context, in Italy. As a kid, I used to believe in the God of the Bible just because adults around me did, too. No questions asked. For the same reason, I used to believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. At some point, the tooth fairy stopped visiting me. I was quite disappointed, but also proud because that was the sign that I wasn't a baby anymore. At the age of 7 or 8, my teacher made clear that Santa Claus did not exist. I had then two contradictory information, both coming from trusted sources. After a brief investigation, turned out that Santa Claus was indeed made up and all the evidence of his existence had a much more mondane explanation (parents did those things). At that point, I started asking questions about the god that everybody was taking for granted. I was just trying to confirm to myself that at least God was not a scam. Easy questions coming from a kid's mind, like "God is omniscient, right? So he knows how many raindrops are in the air at any given time, right?". I'm not kidding, I remember me asking that question :D My dad, the educators at the church, the priest himself, they all gave confusing answers. Now I understand that nobody would give a theological answer to an eight year old, but at that time it was a huge red flag for me. Time passes, I'm skeptic about God, but I become a "chierichetto", those boys who help the priest during the Holy Mass. Now I can see the transubstantiation happening before my very eyes! In the Catholic church you must keep your eyes closed during transubstantiation, because God himself is coming down the sky to enter the wafer (I don't know about other's rituals). Of course, I watch, I desperately want to see God entering the wafer. After all, if they are so serious about not watching, there must be something to see, right? Nope, nothing ever happened. The answers to my questions are never convincing, my skepticism keeps growing, everything I see makes less and less sense. I grow up and have access to science and philosophy books (internet was not a thing, back then). Science makes sense, ok. Philosophy is great, I learn the basics of reasoning and exploring topics in depth. Philosophy also makes sense, the arguments in the books are excellent. Unfortunately, they contradict each other while remaining sound. I figure out that philosophy has no practical use. Don't get me wrong, philosophy is a great abstract tool, but it always confirm your premises if you know how to use it. That's the reason why philosophical arguments are never that convincing to me, I find scientific evidence much more reliable. And guess what? There is not a shred of evidence supporting the existence of any gods. So, in short, my belief in God just faded out over time and nothing has had enough strength to prevent that process.
I'm writing this before watching the video, hoping to be wrong in my line of thinking after I watch the debate :) Let's say God exists. Let's say God created human beings and animals. God has made human beings and animals for whatever purpose that may be unknown to us. He created living organisms in such a way that they must eat other organisms to survive. He has created certain organisms with mechanisms to avoid being eaten by other organisms - such as physical pain. He has created certain organisms with mechanisms of avoiding being ejected from their groups of similar organisms to ensure survival - such as mental pain. Now let us observe suffering. When a human suffers, they become miserable. However, with their intellectual ability and understanding, they can transcend their suffering. They can even use it to become mentally and emotionally stronger than before. They can even meditate to ignore it. They can find meaning and joy in suffering. They can even come to find suffering to be a catalyst for their individual progress as a person. They may even be able to find God through suffering. When an animal suffers, it becomes miserable as well. However, almost the entire animal kingdom lack the intellectual ability or understanding to transcend their suffering. They cannot use it to become mentally and emotionally stronger than before. They cannot meditate to ignore it. They cannot find meaning or joy in suffering. They cannot find suffering to be a catalyst for their individual progress as a non-human person. They cannot find God through suffering (if at all). God has created human beings and animals, and he has made them able to suffer. However, he only gave one of these the ability to use suffering constructively and to transcend their suffering or ignore it. This reason has yet to be revealed unto us by God, and therefore there must be a reason why human beings were chosen to receive this gift. On the other hand, what have animals done to deserve the ability to suffer without being able to transcend it? Bestowing a gift unto one while letting the other suffer, arbitrarily, must be viewed as cruel. Therefore, if God exists then he must be a spiteful cunt.
Most animals don't understand death so can't ever fear it and people can lose a leg and not even notice lot's of examples you don't feel the pain so most deaths are fearless and not suffering just a bit of panicking and that won't be on a human level they don't understand the same as us won't be thinking of not seeing loved one's.. But even that's not reason to assume God's evil life could be a living hell constant pain without the ability to die 1000 year's suffering like fire dally... So don't say gods evil it's mostly people NOT God
@@davidevans3223 Ah, I have to disagree with you there about animals not fearing death. This sounds like you're dismissing most of their psychology. Not being able to understand that they one day will day is not the same (like humans do when we think about our own mortality) as being faced with immanent death. Most animals also understand when another animal is dead. Look at any social animal when their friend is dead. They grieve. Take a look at any slaughterhouse, and the animals fear going in because they not only fear what is inside, but they smell the blood and hear other animals scream to their deaths. They are very aware that death is coming, and will refuse to enter. Animals very clearly are afraid of other animals who are bigger and stronger, who could hurt them or eat them. Sure, they are panicking when someone is trying to eat/kill them, but fear is also very present as well. Saying that they are not afraid when someone is trying to kill them makes no sense. Most deaths in nature are far from swift. Watch any nature documentary. Many antilopes are still alive as the lions feast on its legs and guts.
@@LordOmnipraetor look a bunch of wildebeest will try crossing a crocodile infested water one will get killed dragged away seconds later they try again no human would do that we would starve or move down stream..I'm not arguing with vegans animals are nothing like is
For whatever reason I think the first theodicy actually works better in favor of the good god than evil. Idk, I just feel as though genuine good/love is more important than “genuine” malice/hate/badness... just doesn’t seem as important for malice, so long as suffering is being caused then mission accomplished. In fact, I think the most evil thing to do, and therefore that which a maximally evil god would indeed actualize, is making all sentient beings be evil, cause suffering, etc. despite not wanting to. Like being trapped within someone else’s body, like being the evil god’s puppet, watching your own body go around committing acts of evil and hatred and being forced to see the horrors you commit while not wanting actually wanted to commit them.
