Peter Singer's Best Arguments Against Religion 

I think you meant to say insidious..

Sin is the absence of love only to be corrected not punished. The true teachings of Christ. Notice it's contrary to the dogma of the church

The belief in godly punishment for sin is the most ingenious manipulation.

Heuristic

What about the punishment in law and justice system?

Love Hitch, right now I got me a tumbler of JWB 🥃 with a tad of Perrier in his memory. Cheers 🥃🥃 to enlightenment.

I can only imagine his abject horror of that senator from Arizona, leading a prayer group on the floor of the senate chamber this week, begging their celestial autocrat to strip women of reproductive health care. It was absolutely repulsive.

@@ninajoit Nothing compared to the horror of men "informed" they'll owe child support for a minimum of 18 years. Wimmin's hypocritical 50 year rant for "choice" extends ONLY as far as their GENDER. Absolutely no choice for men to opt out of child support...and they BOTH "CHOSE" to take their pantsoff. Hilariously as shamelessly hypocritical as wimmin taking a too very convenient hiatus for wimmin's suffrage during WW!. I'm way too smart to get trapped into child support, but still enjoy the enormously superior feeling contrasted with wimmin demanding "choice" as a "human right"...BUT FOR ONE GENDER ONLY!!

Prove it. Liar.

@@JimCastleberry If you make the assertion that something happened then the burden of proof is on you!

Yeh, but let's not forget, there are no eye witnesses, simply because it did not happen, the Bible is bullshit

​@@JimCastleberrycan you tell us who any of the so called eyewitness were please? And how can their testimonies be authenticated? Please?

Except his revelation communicating with the resurrected Christ while as Saul was doing his persecution of Christians on the way to Damascus. And if he received that revelation at that time, it’s also possible he may have received additional revelations that were not placed into the New Testament as Paul.

And how is Mr. Churchill? Is he still carrying all that weight, or has he slimmed down?

Yeah, it’s such a non-argument if you pay any attention to it at all. And Lennox is _so proud_ of it! What we actually know is that Paul wrote about having had a vision. Do we know that he really had that vision? Would it establish the truth of the resurrection if we _did_ know that he really had it? No, and no.

He had a vision, that's it. Lennox equates this with Paul actually _meeting_ Jesus (his words), which is just not the case. Could I say I *met* someone from history (contemporary or not) if it was only in a dream? I don't think so.

Paul who?

@@Heygoodlooking-lk9kg: I think he was a member of The Beatles. Anyway…, everybody has been an eyewitness to SOMETHING. How is that even significant?

If there were indeed around 500 eyewitnesses to jesus's resurrection, it's quite telling that not one of those FIRST HAND eyewitnesses wrote this extraordinary event down until Paul decided to ask around and write down their experiences as hearsay. And the bible does not have 500 accounts, so who's to say that Paul didn't simply discard the ones that didn't fit his vision of new faith and only kept the ones that did? Even then the gospels are inconsistent in describing people's reactions to this miraculous event. In one, the women who discovered the empty tomb were too frightened to tell anyone. In the other, they were overjoyed and told everyone and anyone they came across.

The fact that "divine hiddenness" is THE sole common attribute of every one of the thousands of gods ever proposed by human beings, it certainly does lead the reasoning mind to doubt that any of them are any more real than any others.

The best paraphrasing of Epicurus I've read

@@SiRushBass I'm happy to hear that. Especially considering I've never read any Epicurus. 😅

@@MizzouRah78 haha, hilarious mate. Here it is "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus

@@SiRushBass Ah. I have actually heard that referenced before. Thanks! Lol

Dishonest overwieght lier

That's exactly why I despice religions. They all feed on the inherent fear of death in human beings.

@@--Snowy-- "End Times" is another manipulation tactic,go study more about it.I live in Georgia country and most priests are moving with expensive jeep cars while talking anything negative about priests is sin.You don't need religion to be moral and have strong character,just study stoicism for example.In reality if you believe that there is no afterlife you would be more motivated to live as best as you can because you have one.

It's not even simply the fear of death that drives religion. What ultimately renders it pathological is that it perverts our own moral integrity by _reducing_ it to a system of reward/punishment. That's literally the most _primitive_ stage of Kohlberg's moral development.

Same can be said about law and justice 😅

@@carrotbrainYT who made law and justice

John Lennox does not engage in blind faith. The atheist community seems not to understand what faith means. Its meaning is closer to trust than belief. It certainly does not mean blind faith. That notion is an invention of atheists.

Mathematicians don’t have to believe in a physical universe to do maths. In fact, of the few elite scientists who are theists, most do physics, none do biology.

Atheism is a faith. It is a statement of what you believe about whether or not God exists. Unless you know for certain either way, your opinion about this question is by definition a belief, a faith, a truth in which you trust.

@@bencornell4432 First point.... You ARE an atheist. EVERYBODY is ... Nobody believes in all the gods that have been imagined and written about (by people). People who claim they believe in ONE god, (their actions show that they don't really) are atheist about THOUSANDS of others.. They haven't even read all the scriptures or dogmas. Second point... If you cannot tell the difference between an imaginary thing and a real thing, then both words become completely interchangeable and meaningless. All gods are the product of human imagination. No people = No gods. They cannot exist as an idea, unless humans exist FIRST to imagine them. Real things exist whether anyone believes in them or not. All gods are self evidently imaginary.

@@bencornell4432 False... I explained exactly why your statement is false and it didn't appear for some reason. First point... EVERYBODY is an atheist. Nobody believes in all the possible gods that have been imagined and written about. People who claim to believe in one god are atheist about THOUSANDS of others. Claiming to believe in one god, does not absolve a person from their atheism towards all the others...

Second point... All gods cannot exist, unless a human exists FIRST to imagine them. All gods are self evidently imaginary... Atheism isn't a faith it is a rational observation to a nonsensical, baseless claim..

@@AndyCampbellMusic so how does atheism gives solution to problems regarding human emotions?

Almost as if many separate attempts were needed…

You missed counting one of them, there are 2 sextillion and 1.

The truth is that the various religions need to be themselves the centre of the universe. For money and for power.

Then we came to realize not only are we not the center of our galaxy, that there is no discernable center to the universe.

i came here to ask the same thing about the world in general, because religion is the meaningless noise, and the faithful are disturbing and annoying.

Why do you think any vision Paul had would have been opposite what he reported?

@@jursamaj : That's the point Peter Singer is trying to make. You have something in your mind for so long you start "seeing visions".

I'd say that's demonstrably false. This kind of open discussion, debate, and questioning has helped countless people deconstruct their faith. Me included. That, along with education and the abundant access to information. Sure, there are certainly those who will never have the capacity to let go. However, it's a slow process. I honestly believe it's possible that the religious will officially be in the minority within a century.

Good for you. However, I have been interested in this topic for quite some time and the people like you I can count on one hand. Also, please note, I was generalizing. The idea was to point out the level of blindness.

@@simonov_spas I've been involved in the topic consistently for probably @ 15 years. Your personal account is in no way indicative of the figures. Thousands of people are swayed and deconverted by means of the methods mentioned. Whether generalizing or not, it's simply untrue.

@@MizzouRah78 Karen, just because you don't agree with something, does not make it false. My personal observations tell me one thing. Yours tell you a different story. Unless you have stats for believers to nonbelievers and non believers to believers ratios and rate, these are just two opinions.

@Spasko84 Karen? Really? Grow tf up. I'm not the one basing my argument on personal, physical experience. Your limited experience doesn't equate to being rational about your claim or generalization. "No amount of intellectuals or logic will sway the part of the population that believes in fairy tales" is a preposterous and unfounded statement. Between being logically fallacious and sensitive, I'm surprised you're not a Christian. 😂

Is there any religious society with 100% justice and good people???

@@thatguyrich9822 exactly that's my point, humans are not 100% perfect, how can you expect them to be?

Secular humanism has a few advantages. For one, it can develop ethics based on the true foundation of all ethical systems: human nature. We cannot flatter ourselves: human nature can be extremely ugly. But enlightened self-interest alone does a remarkable job of clarifying ethical issues. In other words, the Golden Rule, which many cultures have invented. Two, secular humanism can predict when we are going to feel ourselves in ethical quandaries: on limits on parental rights, on m surgical and medical abortions, on capital punishment. We can admit that we feel competing ethical principles, and act accordingly. Religions tend to be confused in quandaries, as divine laws are supposed to be absolute and never at cross purposes. (False of course, but that’s what they claim.) Three, it is corrigible. Secular humanism has extended « rights » to many animals, which only a few religions did. Secular humanism has recognized that the planet has rights. Secular humanism has been the force behind universal human rights.

“Alright, let’s see it.” Dan McClellan 😁

I'm so using this!

@@iwatchyoutube202 From the dawn of time before God was born. Before the eternal void was formed. A time and place before space. When life was yet to be poured.

It is easy understand how various religious doctrines are composed to suit the mores of their particular audience/society. So maybe we can overlook absolute conformity between them. However, it must be acknowledged that mankind in general has an undeniable inner spiritual need for love and to understand the deeper purposes of life itself. Of course, science tries to pretend that there are no spiritual dimensions regarding life,and that everything is an accident with little or no purpose,-- except maybe that of survival of the species. All very well until one brings morality and choices into the picture, then one can either dismiss such values as irrelevant , or regard life as a series of spiritual choices between the various aspects of life/consciousness/awareness.. So perhaps one should start by regarding life as an opportunity to learn that conscious/spiritual awareness presents us with options in terms of attitudes/behaviour, --especially in regards to others. ( For example, do unto others as you yourself would have others do to you.) A good beginning from which to start.

@@electricmanist None of which actually bears on the factual question of whether any gods exist. Until demonstrated otherwise such drives are nothing more than an effect of our brain wiring.

@@diogeneslamp8004You use the term...brain wiring,-- well I wonder if you have ever considered how human 'brain wiring' came about ? The incredible neuron complexity of the human brain (not to mention the brains of all creatures) leaves no doubt that all this complexity didn't just happen--all by itself from nothing. Imagine, if you can, complete 'nothing ! No, not even that we term space since space itself is just the distance between 'things'--whatever they may be-- but absolutely 'nothing". Nothing at all, not even that which we call 'space', since space as we understand the term, is the distance between things, whatever they may be. Nothing! Not space, but total nothingness Hard to comprehend isn't it ?

@@electricmanist Singularities are also hard to imagine, but black holes exist, regardless of the paucity of your imagination. Just because it seems unlikely to you doesn’t mean it didn’t happen as advertised. Do you have any direct evidence for a god?

@@diogeneslamp8004Whether black holes exist of not , is not the issue. But the issue of a supreme intelligence creating all that is (e.g. the universe and even you) is not. If you choose to think that you are a meaningless 'nothing' (here today, gone tomorrow), that is your choice. However, the existence of the limitless universe (right down to its very molecular level) , is not. A creative force behind all that is, is self evident by the very fact that it (the universe) exists.

Oops.

You have at least a person you can verfiy that they exist. You have their behavior, actions, communication, development you can assess. And you can ask other people who will see the same person as you do, confirming that they exist.

@@Lordidude How does that mitigate faith?

If you base your marriage on faith, you are foolish. Trust comes with experience.

Faith is belief in the absence of any evidence. Superstition is a subspecies of faith.

In the context of determining whether something is empirically true or not, what is the value of making a distinction between faith and superstition?

@@Lordidude Another ignorant definition of faith by someone who has no idea. If I were to say that science includes astrology, necromancy, psychic abilities, witchcraft, and alchemy, youd be okay with that, right?

@pathfinder1273 I wouldn't because they don't apply the scientific process correctly.

Also, it’s perfectly possible to believe something untrue based on faith, so faith is never a sure path to truth.

Where your born and who taught you that religion

@@ryandaripper9937 My mother.

Plato said that there was a city called Atlantis on the bottom of the ocean? Plato was a wonderful philosopher but he was terribly deluded when coming to the idea of Faith and atheism. He also existed A LONG time ago before science was advanced enough to make religion obsolete.

Second!

Believe in Jesus 😁

Believe in Jesus 😁

​@@user-qm7ur3sv1cwhy?

🎉

He doesn’t mention them because they don’t exist.

I might as well say that you don't exist.

Bible says donkeys talk.

Bible says serpents talk.

@@diogeneslamp8004Sure, just as crazy as the talking donkey. But somehow I find the talking donkey story funnier. It's hilarious how Balaam just carries on arguing trivialities with his loquacious beast like it's totally normal, like it happens every day, like some scene with Shrek and Donkey. Not a miracle of God at all. It's true Eve is also nonplussed by the talking snake. But then she's just new to the world being freshly created by God and not sure what to expect. So maybe she just thinks a talking snake is totally normal. But Balaam should have known better.

Why doesn't god heal amputees? He only heals people who have illnesses that can naturally cure sometimes. Also your god made those people sick in the first place. What an as.shole.

I like pie...

In other words, so long as you don’t have to prove it, you can believe any nonsense you like. Thus, there are fairies at the bottom of the garden. They just hide when you look for them. Carl Sagan has a fire-breathing dragon in his garage. You know what really pisses off doctors and nurses? When you thank gods instead of the medical staff.

The origin of life, abiogenesis, is solvable. There is no a priori reason we can’t do it in the lab. After all, it already happened on Earth, 3.4 billion years ago. The problem is the expense of time and money. Demonstrating abiogenesis in the lab could take millions and millions of labour hours, and yet the discovery would benefit no one. It would shut up a few creationists for a few minutes, but they would move the goalposts and goon yammering about something else. Seeing someone healed is called medicine. Health care should be a human right. Heaven is imaginary coping mechanism. Médecins sans frontières is justice. « Faith is the evidence of things not seen. » If we break that down, we see this: “things unseen” are non-existent. The evidence of the non-existent does not exist. Faith is meaningless. Your faith is irrational belief in magic.

He also pointed out that it is a simpler explanation that the universe is eternal, than an intelligence that created it. We don't need that intelligence to explain what we now observe. So why do we have to assume its existence?

So you’re expecting to learn the basics of cosmogony in a RU-vid thread? This isn’t hidden knowledge, you could read about it for yourself. God helps those who help themselves.

@@ploppysonofploppy6066The power within each and every atomic structure of the universe speaks (no shouts) of a continuous creative force behind its existence . The very laws of physics/dynamics (which govern the entire structure of the universe) require an ongoing and intelligently designed) balancing force to maintain equilibrium. - (as does every atom of your own body remember). Atomically, INTELLIGENTLY designed (AND MAINTAINED) from moment to moment) these laws cannot be explained away simply by wishful (imaginative) thinking--- otherwise you yourself (and your arguments) fall into the same pit of utter meaninglessness . !!

@@diogeneslamp8004We are not merely referring to the cosmogony of the human race, but more to that of the entire universe. To adopt such limited thinking (if it is even that) to the existence of the universe (let alone to some of its inhabitants) , suggests some sort of limited awareness of being.

@@electricmanist No it really doesn't. There are observable laws of nature. And those laws explain how the raw matter extant at the big bang would create exactly the universe we see. Was anyone there to see it? No. But scientists have been theorising about it, but now we have telescopes that can see back in time, almost to the event itself. And the predictions in those theories are generally standing up. These laws were discovered by lifetimes of painstaking observations. To call them wishful thinking is offensive to those who have dedicated much of their lives to it. And yet, none of that disproves God's existence, just that we don't need one to explain what we see. To add a creator to the story at this point, requires an assertion, which is your right to make. Have you asked yourself why you make that assertion? Whenever I ask that, people usually don't reply by the way.

Likewise the Israelites did no wrong when they committed a genocide against the Canaanites (Joshua) because god commanded their destruction. You sicken me,

​@oldpossum57 I agree that not everything is holy in the Holy Book. It was written by humans, and it's inspired only to the extent they were able to be faithful to the truth and to resist evil in their lives. God doesn't take the free will away from some people just to make sure they will convey his message by 100%. It would be unjust. Besides this, it's impossible to make sure that God's message will not be twisted and turned into a lie. In this case, God would have to take the freedom away also from the preachers, who interpret the Gospel, as well as from all the listeners who can also interpret it wrong. I think the majority of the Evangelical Churches in America preach something one cannot call the Word of God. The Prosperity Gospel is just one example. Twisting of God's message happens also on the opposite side of the globe: The Russian Pops are blessing soldiers who were sent to kill their Ukrainian brothers. They insist that murderer are protectors of God's moral order; with President Putin misusing Bible quotes ("There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.") to justify the killings. How to search for Holiness in the Holy Book? One of the criteria would be consistency. If God forbids murder calling it a sin, how could he command to murder? His commandment is: "Don't kill".

@@thinkingtogether5328 Another way to look at it is this: gods, religions, and ethical systems are all the invention of human cultures. Human cultures found their inventions on the animal instincts of a highly social Hunter-gatherer ape species, H. sapiens. This ape has very powerful instinctive emotions connected to our brain chemistry. These instincts are socially regulated.Very roughly, something like this model is what researchers in the human sciences propose. Certainly, a naturalistic explanation of human conduct might prove less flattering than the notion that a god or gods created the universe for us, a short-lived mammal, but it is much more likely to be true and more likely to indicate a fruitful way forward. I think even a theist would have to grant the naturalist explanation is more likely than any of the competing religions. I am sure all primitive human cultures need to channel and temper murderous agression. Even in a state of nature, the group can only tolerate a certain amount before the network of interdependencies breaks up. We see our chimpanzee cousins dealing with these problems. Much less expensive is murderous agression against the “other”. Our cousin the chimpanzee hunts and kills our cousin the bonobo. Amalekites and Israelites killing each other over land and cattle was more normal than Israelites killing each other. Sam Keen in Faces of the Enemy shows how governments of all stripes dehumanize the enemy. It makes it easier to “other” the foe. (By the way, one reason we can be sure all of these OT war stories are grossly exaggerated is that nomadic herdsmen cannot afford to go to battle long enough to annihilate their foes: they just don’t have the logistics to do more than conduct a raid.) Interestingly, cultures can educate their young men to channel their agression into sports and risky past times. Gwynn Dyer explains how the US Marines have to take 18 year olds who have no ill intentions against anyone and turn them into men who will kill on command. Forty years ago, they appealed to the young men’s rape fantasies. I doubt they are allowed to do that now.

​@oldpossum57 I can't agree it's more normal if the Israelites kill other tribes then if they kill a member of their own tribe. This kind of moral thinking, seemingly based on natural law, can result in a Nazi morality (which was fully compatible with the natural selection laws and only in conflict with religious morality). Scientific comparison of many models of social behavior has shown that what benefits every individual and every society most, is cooperation and not fighting. The benefit of the winner in a fight is less than the benefit of every single participant in a cooperative behavior. The leading world religions promote altruistic behavior over the egoistic ones, forbid killing, teach compassion and forgiveness. Taken that cooperation has evolutionary advantages, one can regard them as a late evolutionary development, which will eventually lead to the appearance of a highly altruistic species, while the egoistic homo sapiens will get extinct;-) (Although the religions itself are still contaminated by primitive ideas like patriotism, patriarchism and so on). When you speak about what's more probable, you touch the problems of logic and of the probability. When using logic, one has to know about its limitations. It is enough to overlook just one tiny detail of reality, and one comes to completely wrong conclusions. For instance, your first message opens with "Likewise", and you treated there two different problems as if they would be similar in nature. Making such an error in a simple logical task, what gives you the confidence to be able to get to the right conclusions about the nature of the whole universe just by the means of your own logical thinking? I don't have that much trust in my own mental abilities. I think the Atheists make the same mistake the Teologians do: They both believe to be able to explain God by the sheer power of logic. The only thing we can know about God is God's manifestation in the world in the form of Truth and Love. Only those, who are commited to always be faithful to the truth and to practice love (defined as: carrying for others) can dream about finding some means to "prove" God's existence, and this only by experiencing his presence. About probabilities: We live in a very unprobable world, and we need to assume the existence of endless many universes to appear this universe more probable. At the same time, to make it work we have to assume, that in all those vast worlds the same probabilistic laws will apply - which stands in contrast with the fact, that we need also to assume, that physical laws itself (including the probability laws) are varying between the universees, because some of the laws governing our universe are also very unprobable, unless there are endlessly many worlds governed by different laws. With other words, our universe should be probable only in the areas of space which includes universees governed by other probabilistic laws then the laws we know from our universe.

@@thinkingtogether5328 I can’t follow much of what you say about cosmology. As I can’t follow it, I’m just guessing your topic is cosmology. I don’t think theological musings advance the discipline of cosmology much. I don’t suppose in a peer review of an article the reviewer ever asks the author, “Have you considered how introducing god into your equation might improve it?” I note your claim, “God is God's manifestation in the world in the form of Truth and Love.” I wonder how you know that as an objective statement? How would you define the terms, so that anyone else would know what you are talking about? As to religions being superior to an ethics based in naturalism, which we can call humanism, I think you have a lot of heavy lifting to do. Naturalism (methodological or metaphysical) claims that all ethical systems , all religions arise from cultural developments founded on human instinct. So, yes, the genocides of the Nazis, the genocides against the Amalekites by the Israelites, the bible, the genocides by Shias against Yazidis are all predictable on human nature. So are the self-sacrifice of Jules Léger, and Rick Rescorla and Godwin Ajala, and Frank Foley and the complex Oskar Schindler. As Hitchens asked, “I challenge you to name a good action that an atheist could not do. Then name an evil act that only a theist could do.” No one commits crimes to honour no god science flies us to te moon, as the kids say, while religion flies us into the world trade towers. Your religions are atavisms. Only a few of them treated animals as having ethical rights. None of them recognized the planet as having rights. All religions condone or command the hatred of “the other”. These superstitions have served what purpose they ever had. So long as people defer to some Nobadaddy in the sky, they can rationalize being hateful. If you want to see that writ large, look at the hate of Shia for Sunni, the hate of Hindu for Muslim and Sikh, the hatred of the white fundamentalist in the USA for blacks, browns, asians, women, gays and lesbians, Jews.

How is it bullying?

"There's something supernatural in the Universe"... Who told you that? Because you didn't made that up yourself, did you? 😉

@@-Thauma- There is first creator idk that is that.There can be endless chain of creators.

It's Jesus people, no one else

Everything created must have a creator - except the creator. Religious logic at work.

@@ObservantHistorian Forget who created creator,we don't care about that.Someone created universe.

Congratulations, you just gave us a perfect example of an Argument from Incredulity.

No, if it's the case that we DON'T currently understand how something works, we don't get to say that we DO understand because it could happen by magic. That way of thinking indulges at least five fallacies, although it's enough to call it a God of the Gaps or Argument from Ignorance. What's telling about this particular fallacy is that if we were to accept it as valid form of argument, than anything not known could be explained by any imaginary agency you care to think of. And they would all have equal standing. Pink pixies did it all, yeah.

Creationists have lost all the battles, so now they go to the last hope. Abiogenesis. “You haven’t demonstrated abiogenesis in the lab. Until you do, I’m going to hold my breath and turn blue!” Go on. Hold your breath. There is no a priori reason why abiogenesis can’t be demonstrated in the lab. After all, it happened at least once 3.4 billion years ago on earth, and once it gets going, you can’t stop it. However, it might take millions of hours of labour, and when accomplished will have no value except to tell Creationists, I told you so! (You could imagine that government, industry and academia would rather spend the money on life saving drugs.) So here is an idea. Why not get the fundamentalist churches of America and the Muslim world to pay for it? A better use of your money than buying mansions and airplanes for your preachers!

You are a dupe.

“He isn’t a competent philosopher.” Well, he is competent enough to have been chairman of philosophy at Monash University, an important Australian university, and competent enough to be present faculty at Zprinceton in the USA. Will you please tell us what college or university you are a professor of philosophy? Where you earned your degrees. What books and articles you have published.

@@oldpossum57 Cambridge. But no amount of academic credentials, books, or articles are a guarantee of academic integrity, philosophical logic, or willingness to consider all the evidence rather than just that which sits comfortably with one's own, in this case, very narrow world view.

@@campbellpaget453 An empty charge, coming from you. Obviously, it would be a discovery of the greatest significance if anyone could advance a solid argument for the existence of any god based on evidence. No one has done so. What has happened is that various gods have been discarded. There are dead gods littering the slopes beneath Olympus, beneath Valhalla. In the next century or so, the social scientists who read the statistics tell us that both Judaism and Christianity both will be dead letters. There will be pockets here and there of the more extreme sects. Some Chassids in Crown Heights, some LDS in Utah, some Falun Gong in NY, some Eckankar in MN. We cannot wait for you to bring evidence of gods any longer. There is very serious and urgent work to do.