Final Nail to Apostle Martyrs? (Sean McDowell vs Paulogia) 

Seans are usually intellectually honest and free of bias.

If Sean keeps going on this pathway of honesty, he might accidentally become an atheist.

Respect to Sean McDowell. It is rare to find a Christian apologist who has a high level of intellectual honesty (or in some cases, ANY intellectual honesty). I'd love to see more interactions between Paulogia and Sean McDowell.

Cool vid. It was nice to see an apologist steelmanning an atheist's position for a change. Bertuzzi accusing others of cherry-picking and starting with conclusions got a laugh out of me though.

Wait, a theist apologist who has intellectual honesty? One of those is bound to chase off the other, and for McDowell's sake, I hope he keeps the intellectual honesty.

I have to be honest, I’m slightly stunned. Not that Turek eat al we’re trying to muck it up. But McDowel is a rare “breed” of believer. The honesty of this guy and how he handles the attempted false assertions is brilliant...

Oh thank the God I don't believe in, something other than the news to watch. Thank you Paul!

What's sad is how much effort and time goes into trying to defend every detail of historical writings almost 2000 years old as fact. Historical writings this old are not enough for me to base my life on. This is why I love science and how it doesn't state facts! It states theories with testable evidence that are always up for a new model to arise. It's just people afraid to leave the huge ancient monster religion. Thank you so much for all the work and time you invest in your videos Paul!

People will die for a belief. People will die for a (known) lie if it supports that belief. There is nothing to see here, move along people.

Very pleasing to see McD spit some intellectual honesty the faces of the likes of Turek

Paul, your videos brighten my day. I listen to and watch several atheist channels, and I often come away in a fighting mood. It’s fun, but I’m the same way it’s strangely fun to be angry. But listening to you calmly and kindly call BS on apologists feels like a more sustainable and healthy approach, and I genuinely appreciate you!

Thanks Paul. You’ve been a slowly maturing bubble of reasonableness and respect in the atheist themed videos I’ve been watching daily, for years. You catch more flies with honey, they say, and you sir are a jar of manuka.

Massive respect to Sean, as an exchristian. I recently started reading through his massive book he cowrote with his father. Even though I disagree with him, I can tell he is genuinely seeking to challenge even those he agrees with and be generous to those who disagree.

Sean is a good person, I have really enjoyed this back and forth. I really appreciated his honesty and thoughts.

I don't get how any christian can take bible literally. USA has some problems with religion

Did all Japanese pilot in WW2 believe that their emperor was a god? According to some christians, the answer must have been 'yes', or they would never agree to dive their plane into an enemy ship, right?

I really appreciate the charitable and kind way that Paul and Sean are treating each other and the arguments being made. So refreshing

I sense a budding bromance between Paul and Sean. ❤️

Paulogia building bridges again, so cool!

"Criminals are motivated by power, greed, and/or sex." I would highly disagree with that. I think such a statement is hugely dependent on the *type* of crime being committed. There's plenty of criminals that are motivated by survival. And there's others that are just motivated by rage (crimes of passion as they're usually called). And then there's the psychopaths that don't have the usual limiting morality that the rest of us have. I think they're largely in a class of their own. And ofc, for most criminals the whole "what if I get caught" doesn't usually enter into the discussion - they usually either believe they won't be caught or think they've taken measures to be sure they won't be caught. This is why harsh criminal punishments don't deter crime.

This whole discussion was actually really good content and a first class example of how debating should be done on these topics. Well done to you both! I'm very impressed with Sean's intellectual honesty and willingness to stand apart from other Christians to walk his own line based on what he personally believes. However, I have to disagree with Sean on a few key points. I think the definition tangent he went on with the term "Martyr" was mostly irrelevant - so well done Paul for covering that. No one cares about the definition of the word here. What we care about is the criteria Paul thinks is important w.r.t. the claims presented. While watching the original discussion I was a bit frustrated that Sean didn't seem to be responding to the content but rather to one or two specific words. I don't think he was being deliberately dishonest here, but maybe if he rewatches the video he might realise what was going on. All we're interested in is figuring out what is true. We're not interested in figuring out whether this or that person would have been called a Martyr. We're not trying to nail down the definition of what a Martyr is. We're trying to figure out whether some people who claimed to see Jesus after his resurrection, later died specifically for that belief. I agree that using a different word is a good tactic for "next time". Probably the main disagreement I have with Sean is in what he calls "hyper-skepticism". It's not. It is simply "the lengths one must go to in order to rule out bias and the possibility of being fooled/mistaken". We all have a different threshold for how sure we need to be before accepting something. Even different thresholds for different things. Personally I don't want to give up my (probably only) life for a lie, so I think skepticism is definitely warranted here. Why would anyone want to lower the standards of their inquiry to the point where they could be fooled? I suspect, although I have not done the required investigation, that for every single detail he claims is evidence for the resurrection, we would have equivalent detail (if not a lot more) with regard to other phenomena (such as alien / UFO witnesses, or modern day miracle claims). Is it really hyper-skepticism to treat these claims with extreme caution, given that nothing even remotely close to a resurrection has ever been confirmed. Personally, if you could produce 12 real live witnesses today who sincerely believed they had seen an alien, I would still doubt them until I had the kind of corroborating evidence that such a thing would warrant. Namely, DNA confirmed in a number of trusted laboratories, or some kind of tissue, or artifact, or video from multiple trusted sources, etc. A resurrection is far less likely than even that, since we know it is at least probable that other life forms could exist. By contrast we know of no physical mechanism by which someone might rise from the dead. All of this is to say that even if you had 4-6 witnesses who sincerely believed they had seen the resurrected Jesus, that's word-of-mouth testimony from 4-6 people we really don't know all that well. You can pretend these people were of exceptional moral character, but based on what? A few verses in some anonymous documents? We have far more evidence for people who sincerely believe they saw Elvis after he died. A question for Christians is, if your friend came to you and said they had seen Jesus, would you be as skeptical of that claim as if your friend said they had seen Elvis. If not, why not?

new here,,,, rational and simple,, love it

I really look forward to your videos and having one so long is a treat

Another absolutely killer video Paul. Congratulations on compiling such an excellent testament to your hard work and intellectual integrity.

Great video Paul! You're gaining views and subscribers because of your well-thought-out, well-edited videos. You're very methodical, fair, and honest, and we appreciate this!

Thank you for having these conversations! Fantastic

I don't have anything useful to contribute. I just wanted to thank you for a great video. Regardless of what you think, you're a great communicator Paul.

...that high pitch chime, oww, my sensitivity is making me cry...

Hey Paul, I've watched many of your videos and I think this one might be your best. I appreciate your willingness to engage the topic and McDowell respectively. You presented your points simply, coherently and without being disrespectful or vitriolic. You are a breath of fresh air for the atheist community. I think that we call can learn something from the way you engage these beliefs and those who hold them.

Love how you are so thorough.

Around the time of the Classical Greek period there was a well know story going around about this prophet who had a decent amount of followers -- who publically announced a claim that the gods had told him to walk into a bon fire on a certain date in order for something marvelous to happen (the details of which I can no longer remember). Anyway as the date for walking into the fire approached, the prophet understandably started getting nervous and begain trying out different kinds of excuses to get out it -- the last attempt being that the gods had now told him they changed their minds... The populace, however, wasn't having any of it and called him out as a false prophet who would lose all respect, honor and credibility if he did not do what he claimed the gods told him to do.. Well, you'd think any normal person would just say, okay, you got me, oh well, I had a good run, but, no, I ain't walking into that fire. But instead, he walked into the fire and died. For some people death is preferable to having your whole reputation and life story negated and made ridiculous -- even if, in fact, your whole life story was pretty much a lie to begin with.

I continue to wonder how such an underrated agnostic atheist like Paul, has less than a few hundred thousand subscribers. Thank you for representing us in such a responsible way❤️. Also, I think I know some flat earthers that would die for their truth, and I know millions of N. Koreans that would die for the truth in the divinity of Jong Un family. I know you hate being compared to people that believe such stupid shit but you kinda bring that upon yourself, don’t believe stupid shit and you won’t get railed for being a fucking child

Thanks mate, Much needed today...a Paulogia hour long post!!!! perfect....coffee my guitar and ...smoke... perfect day to have off!

I honestly believe that this type of conversation is the best way to reach a lot of religious people... will Sean be converted anytime soon? Probably not, but I think many listeners who are less knowledgeable will feel more comfortable about asking questions and seeking real knowledge... and that can have some great outcomes. Top marks for this one Paul!

Well done and thanks for sharing this with us and keep up your great work 👍

As a Christian theist, I have greatly enjoyed listening to Paulogia. A critical point that he makes about evangelicals and their requirement to fulfill a signed document as the basis for their paycheck is profound, severe and very impacting....🤔🥴

I enjoy your material Paulogia. Great Job 👍

Sean reminds me of pastors who on Sunday say things like "now, Matthew in the bible tells us that Jesus..." heavily implying that "Matthew" wrote his own book in the bible. Yet if you ask that pastor in private he will confess "well we do not know who actually wrote Matthew". They feel like they are justified in misleading as long as, if directly asked about it, they admit to the truth. Sean does the _same thing_ with the martyr issue. He says things like "i never said that dying for a belief proves the belief is true" and.... while that is _technically_ true of him you can tell by his other remarks (13:06) that he heavily implies this to be the case and uses their death as evidence of the truthfulness of the claim. Its like phone psychics who scam people out of money but put a disclaimer up that says "this is for entertainment purposes only" so you cant actually sue them.

The editing alone in this video is soooo impressive. You have really honed your craft. Beautiful 👍

Excited to watch this one.

Excellent work Paul, a one hour video derailed my morning

It's so rare and pleasant to see a discussion between two knowledgeable and respectful opponents! An applause to both of you!

great stuff as always Paul!

This was good to watch, the kind of conversation that needs to be had.

19:53 - Sean: "(Peter motivated by power) is an assertion without any evidence." Me: _"An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest."_ (Luke 9:46) _"Now there was also a dispute among (the disciples), as to which of them should be considered the greatest."_ (Luke 22:24) _"But (the disciples) kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest."_ (Mark 9:34) _"(James and John) replied, 'Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory'."_ (Mark 10:37) _"At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, 'Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?'"_ (Matt. 18:1)

Wow! That's an *awesome* video Paul... another one of your best. While I do happen to think you are too charitable in granting Paul (Saul of Tarsus) as an eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus, but that didn't change the strength of your conclusion.

So refreshing to see such agreement, intellectual honesty and cooperation between two opposing entities. Especially during the insanity that is 2020.

Thank you Paul, you are doing a great work.

From some of the video of Sean I have seen in the past; he isn't unwilling to be manipulative with words or enlarging small mistakes, but based on what you showed he definitely does seem to be one of the more honest theologians even if he isn't perfect and still has some apologist tendencies. That is refreshing to see in anyone especially one with more authority than other apologists.

....because of you the Phrase "for my wifey told me so" came out of my mouth.

It's awesome and refreshing to see a civil debate these days. Keep up the good work Paul.

Paul. Some of your videos are so good i wish I could put them on my bookshelf next to my other important works. This is one of them...bravo.

The first time I saw Sean on here I thought, what a nice guy. Since then I have seen him lying his face-off on other shows. He's just another Biola robot.

I'd love to see Paulogia add a jingle for the "look at the trees" argument using a clip from the song Jellysickle wherein E-40 said "look at the trees, look at the sky, look at the moon..." in a perfect cadence for a little jingle.

Its so good to see a debate partner who is polite and honest. These are great discussions!

Great video. I am enjoying your objections Paul. I'm a Christian who tries to remain as objective and sceptical as possible. We all have our preconceptions and bias though and without these open and respectful conversations we will never get on. Thanks for your work.

If Sean McDowell is a skeptic, as he claims, then I'm Mary, Queen of Scotts.

An hour long Paul vid!? I'm in heaven

I love all these clarifying videos. I have a lot of debates in the comment sections of RU-vid and those who are arguing, but allow me to clarify or correct a mistake without ridicule are my favorite. In order to respond in a timely manner, I must cut a few corners and I rarely link sources. I am willing to read articles, and honestly, I often just forget to save articles, and mostly have a list of RU-vid videos that I felt were extremely clear on the content.

Paul kills it Again! Love your vids!! Aussie chris 🇦🇺

I really look forward to Sean's RU-vid channel in a couple years time. Someone this intellectually honest is bound to turn away from apologetics at some point.

Sean seems like an okay guy but him going out of his way to criticize you for saying that if you thought you saw a deity appear to you, you would have to consider that you were hallucinating, even going so far as to say it wasn't "scholarly" to consider a natural explanation is one of the most clownishly silly things I've ever heard an apologist say. If he genuinely believes that the correct methodology following seeing a vision of a God is not to even consider natural explanations but to jump straight to believing it means that his standard of evidence is laughably, absurdly, impossibly, low.

Great video. Keep up the good works. :)

5 Solas believing Christian here. Love your videos man, thank you for all of the editing and stuff to make this easier to understand.

I think you are being generous to include Paul as an eye witness. Hallucinations shouldn't be weighted the same as an actual eye witness.

I'm very impressed with Sean! Great discussion on Unbelievable Paul, I enjoy seeing you two interact. :)

Koment dla zasięgu ;)

This is an excellent summary and followup to your interaction with Sean. He admits that the level of certainty by believers about various interpretations of biblical miracles is often overstated and accepted as true, and he is to be commended for that unusual level of honesty from an apologist. Here's the rub, if we are so susceptible to the temptation of overstating claims in modern times. How much more susceptible were early believers to this behavior in the 1st century. Social Psychologists and Neuroscientists understand the pervasiveness and frequency of this phenomena of human behavior very well today, which is why "overstating" remains the most probable explanation of most if not all miraculous biblical claims; indeed, any miraculous claim. Sidenote: I have observed myself doing this when trying to recount dreams to my wife. I find myself filling-in the gaps with description and meaning. I am in effect unwittingly "overstating" the actual experience such that it is coherent and interesting. It's fascinating stuff. Thanks for another great video. Keep it up.

How does it follow that the apostles dying for their beliefs means they believed in the resurrection? All that there deaths show is that they believed in the christian movement. Remember, they where followers before Jesus's death.

Thanks for showing him being kind. It can be too easy sometime to think their all Hovid clones.

Thanks for being so thorough Paul as I'm far too lazy to do all the hard work you do. Oh and I'd rather be "hyper" septic than hyper gullible.

Excellent work, and a convincing argument for the lack of eye witness’s.

Towards the end: I think the prior acceptance of the supernatural plays a massive role. As individuals who are not convinced of the supernatural for other reasons (for me it really goes down to the very basis of what constitutes reality and how we can *know* at all), any claim of the supernatural has a much steeper hill to climb wrt the burden of proof. Honestly, I'm not sure any amount of historical writing would do it for me (I probably want archaeological evidence too), Simply because of my other reasons for lack of faith.

put video on see an hour long go make coffee and watch, perfect!

Yes! A new Paulogia video! The excitement I feel when a new Paulogia video is uploaded is grossly disproportionate to the decorum and restraint that my age rightly demands.

Paulogia, I'm a little bit amazed at the number of video's you've done. The amount of research required (at lest for me) for each subject takes me weeks and sometime months to complete. As I have to read each competing argument and of course the historical material. This is not a simple look it up "Google" day. You've done a wonderful job.

Wow, I'm sortof impressed by the relatively greater intellectual honesty of Sean McDowell. He's still not speaking critically to the evidence, but at least he's not a total douchebag like, unfortunately large numbers of religious apologists.

"If I just accepted the Bible as a historical source then I'd just swallow completely the resurrection story as is " (8:35). No... this is incorrect and a misunderstanding of how we evaluate historical sources and evidence. I am loth to criticise Mr E as I admire his work and his thoroughness and integrity, but he makes a mistake here. Just because something (eg. a document or a book) is accepted as a 'historical source', it doesn't mean we have to uncritically accept and believe all the claims and assertions made by that source. There are myriad examples of historical sources which are widely read and treasured, sometimes regarded as the most comprehensive accounts of a particular period or series of events (Caesar's 'The Conquest of Gaul' for example), but which nevertheless contain inaccuracies, exaggerations, partisan accounts of conflicts or disputes, and downright lies made to serve a particular purpose and advance a certain cause. The job of the principled historian is to try and compare these sources with other sources (if available), to put them in context, and to evaluate their accuracy, reliability, proximity to events (in time and geography), and veracity (and in the case of written sources, to assess the record and reliability of their authors). In the case of the four canonical gospels they all score very poorly on all of these metrics and under any methodological evaluation. They are anonymous, written by people who were almost certainly not eye-witnesses (and therefore hearsay at best), are not independent of one another, contain contradictions and incompatible claims, and are very clearly written with a partisan purpose and agenda. Mr E knows all this better than I do, so what he should have said is that we must critically assess the reliability of these sources, and once we have done so we cannot fail to find them severely flawed and coming well under the bar for 'good evidence'. Personally, as someone who has been trained in the assessment of historical evidence (although not a specialist in the Ancient Middle East or Classical Antiquity), I find the gospels to be interesting sources for what people believed, or what the early Christian proselytisers wanted people to believe, and about the development of the theology of the early Christian church, but they fail to qualify as 'evidence' for what might have happened during the supposed lifetime of Yeshua ben Ioseph. I know that Mr E is well aware of all this so I am merely repeating it here for the benefit of any viewers and readers who are less familiar with the historical method and about what qualifies as a 'historical source' or 'good historical evidence'. Basically, a document can be one of those without being both.

Paul, awesome you were able to interact with a scholarly “opponent” with great integrity. Was really interested in reading Sean’s book, but the 99 dollar price tag for the e book has dampened that. Stay well

💚 *quality content* 💚

What's the point of that piercing tone that makes me want to throw my headphones across the room?

DUDE ease off on the ROIDS,, you making me feel small,, great vids,,

I haven't actually gotten into the meat of the video, but I have to stop and say I really appreciate both you going through Sean's interactions with other apologists and Sean's behavior with those apologists. It honestly is really nice to see him being intellectually honest in that way and I may just have to interact with his stuff more because of it. Thank you for pointing it out, and if you're reading, Sean, thank you for your honesty in your interactions both with Paul and the other apologists.

Excellent video Paul.

In the gospels, Jesus specifically taught the disciples how to live off the largess of the people to whom they were preaching, and he gave them ample examples of how to influence huge crowds. By the time of his crucifixion, he has thousands of people lining the streets with palm leaves as he road into town, he had people hosting feasts for him, and women wiping ultra-expensive bottles of perfume on his feet with their hair. Peter, according to the book of Acts, continued with this ministry and quickly had thousands of followers laying their money at his feet on pain of death (Ananias and Sapphira). Just based on what the Bible says, it's very plausible that he apostles had very strong motivation to perpetuate the story. Peter, in particular, seems to have benefited greatly.

The "hyper skepticism" claim is hysterical XD So, if he heard a voice claiming to be god telling him to kill someone. He'd just accept it and do it I guess XD

I love this guy's content. Superb

After seeing this video I am thoroughly refreshed, Sean seems like an truly great and honest person.

I usually try and see both sides in an honest discussion, but I can't see how "they were willing to be martyred" is evidence for ANYTHING.

21:23 This is one of the funniest things you have ever said!

Yay new video :D

Hello from England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

intellectually honest but he still won't accept the truth that the bible is not a indisputable source for history. It's frustrating that he cart see that

"Are martyred apostles evidence for the resurrection of Jesus?" Not even if there were any evidence for the martyrdom of the apostles, and there isn't. And, even given these alleged martyroms, it is not apparent that they would have been martyred because they believed in the resurrection of Jesus. It may have been that they were convinced of the immanent kingdom of heaven, where the "Son of Man" (bar abbas!), not necessarily Jesus the Nazarene, would establish the kingdom. Remember that the Council of Nicea was called to establish the nature of the Nazarene, whether he was a man, a god, a man who temporarily channeled a god, or an insubstantial spirit who was "sacrificed" in the heavens just below the moon. The council couldn't agree on his nature, so they borrowed from the religions around them ans called it a "trinity" , a "mystery". The important point is that less than a century after the "Edict of Toleration" the execution of "heretics", and the persecution of non-believers had begun. Anyone following the old religions was said to be worshipping demons and thus a witch who must not be allowed to live. It was only when Christianity splintered and so lost power that they also discovered "tolerance" for dissenters. Make no mistake, if they ever did re-unite they would would re-build their racks, and re-erect their stakes. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there is no power so absolute as the unified powers of religion and state.

Loved the Lowered Expectations clip, I loved that sketch.

Fascinating. Good job Paul.

anulfo romero got killed in te middle of a service,, was he a martyr?? i guess, but he got killed bc he was against the war in el salvador

Paulogia is right Well, duuuuuhhhh :P

I think Paul did a remarkable job debating Sean who arguably a more experienced debater. I also respect Sean’s openness to challenge unsupported assertions. And recognition to both for a respectful debate. It illustrates how sensitive topics can be discussed by those with differing opinions without resorting to unhealthy and unproductive communication styles. Very well done on both sides

I watch your videos so consistently that I was totally unaware that I wasn’t subscribed! Don’t worry, I fixed that.