"Religion Poisons Everything" (Rebutted) 

Our proclivity to sin is what poisons everything. Love of God is the antidote. People who blame religion for evil do not properly grasp the problem at hand. All humans have the propensity to do great evil regardless of race, background, religion, etc. If you can’t even grasp the problem, you will seriously struggle with understanding the solution.

Sin poisons everything.

We need a response to the Protestant version of this statement aka “Relationship, not religion.”

A brutal takedown of an extremely common atheist argument.

this shirt opened my eyes to what the true shirt can be. I've been living a lie thinking the only true shirts were grey and black bc any other color would would stand out from the other colors, so i played it safe living my grey life. Then, I saw this shirt, and my mind was opened. FISH?? in MULTIPLE COLORS?? and lines and outlines and a cream background. I can't believe I've missed this in my life, so I vow today to make up for lost time. The fish shirt is the only True Shirt, so I found bulk pricing, sold my house, and bought enough for a lifetime. Thank you, Joe.

My 1949 catachism defines religion “religion is the virtue by which we give to God the honor and service due to Him alone as our Creator, Master, and Supreme Lord.

Every English speaking Catholic should be watching this channel.

Joe's voice is so soothing. I need Hallow apologetics for Sleep by Joe. ha

Thank you for the clickable title that drew me in. I have been binge-watching your videos for the past two days after viewing your excellent refutation of the theory that "religion poisons everything." I've enjoyed your appearances on Catholic Answers, but haven't made the time for your videos until now. I like Catholic Answers because it doesn't require a long attention span. I thought that I would become distracted due to the length of your videos, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Your presentations are more than just essays. They are mini-classes, with audio and visual bits holding my attention, emphasizing the major points and providing easy to understand apologetics. Even better, I don't feel as bad that I haven't read the Catholic books I'd hoped to do this Lent, because your videos are serving the purpose of furthering my Catholic education. I was poorly catechized in my youth, and Catholic Answers has been a big part of my reversion. Had I known how beautiful my faith truly was, I never would have left. Keep up the good work!

Excellent analysis of this fake argument. May many non-believers receive the grace to ponder these truths and have a change of heart!

When doing apologetics, always wear your best shirt . 😊

The traditional Catholic definition of religion is the virtue by which people render to God what is due to Him. It is part of justice.

The explanation of “the law of conservation of religion” was excellent. I think it’s something we inherently know deep down too, “if you don’t worship God, you’ll worship something lesser”

That is the greatest shirt I've ever seen. Where can I obtain a similar shirt?

The most brutal phenomena were not universally present in religious organisations, but rather in authoritarian or backward civilisations. Instead of blaming religion for poisoning the world, it's more accurate to point out that civilisations lacking understanding and respect for life are the main culprits of harming human life. Take, for example, cultures like the Aztecs and Mayans were conducting human sacrifices as late as the 16th century. The Mongols in 13th century massacred every single city upon encountering resistance, or the despotic rulers of ancient China brutally executed whoever offended the elite, widely disregarding the lives and properties of common people. During times of chaos and conflict, millions of people could perish, up to 2/3 of the population. During China's Cultural Revolution, countless people were randomly killed in the most brutal and bloody ways, many of the killers were teenagers. At least 20 million people died in man-made starvation during China's Great Leap Forward in 1957-1960. Cambodia's population fell by 2/3 during the Khmer Rouge era. Far more people were killed by Soviet persecution than by religious conflict during the same period. You can say that communism is also a religion, but the reason they kill people isn’t out of a belief in communism, rather a hatred of the opposition and a toxic desire for power. Compared to these atrocities, the extremist ideologies within religions pale in comparison in terms of trampling on human life. Rather than blaming religion for poisoning the world, it's more accurate to attribute massive deaths and perpetual conflicts to unfair systems and toxic authoritarianism. The author of this book seems to have only considered a small portion of historical realities (Western and Middle Eastern history for instance). It would be better for him to investigate global history extensively rather than making judgments based on limited historical knowledge. I made this argument as someone who is an amateur historian with relatively deep understanding of East Asian history. Edit: Add one more argument - Why can't people like this author see this? For there have been very few such periods of absolute dictatorship in western history, yet whenever it has appeared in history, it has always led to much bloodier massacres. For example, Britain under Cromwell, France during the Revolution, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union etc. Some would render the Catholic Church as some kind of authoritarian institution, but the Church hardly did equal things, because the Church can’t fundamentally have military power. In fact, whenever the Church wanted to "crusade pagans”, she could only encourage those Catholic military lords to carry out such. Unlike in ancient Islamic countries, the Catholic Church has always been separate from secular authorities, which limited the church's ability to indeed manipulate secular life and military conflict.

Very good, even the music, as usual.Thank you, Joe.

In response to Weinberg, Freeman Dyson said it well: "For bad people to do good things - that also takes religion."

Cool shirt, Joe.

Cool shirt man!

Another great episode! You always have a unique angle on these topics, thank you for what you do!

You come back to the question, "Is Christianity true." I can respect the position that, if Christianity isn't true, then you shouldn't believe it. But I think it can be argued that, if atheism is true, then it doesn't bloody well matter what you believe or don't believe. And in such a case, I think I'd be better off believing in Christianity as it at least gives me something to hope for, even if it is a false hope. Who cares? Who's gonna hold me accountable for believing in something wrong?

love love love this, well done sir

Really appreciate this video.

Great fish shirt, Joe.

That shirt is wearing you, Mr. Heschmeyer! But after a long week of wearing shirts, I like to take a break myself, and let a shirt wear me for a day. 👕 👍

Man, this is a perfect response! 💯

Oh this came at a good time, something to think about

You The Man, Mr. Popery!

Now this is a shirt, couldn't even pay attention on the content of the video. Sartorial mesmerization. I must have it, please share where it was purchased.

Bro, I love the shirt!

Yeah, it's not religion that's bad but specific religions that are bad. I wish the atheists of the early 21st century had the conviction and honesty to call out Islam directly. We might be living in a better world with people unified against the followers of history's most obvious false prophet!

Man, that is such a cool shirt lol love it!

I can't really imagine what it's like for older people. This idea is so novel and offensive, but I'm 20 years old, and even while always being religious in some way, this attitude seems so normalized to me because all my life it's viewed itself as a valid position.

My biggest problem with the whole argument that religion poisons things is that they refuse to acknowledge that non-religious people have done horrible things too such as Hitler and Stalin

WOW, Cotton Eye Joe is actually a very deep song!

If atheism is true, objective meaning isn’t a real thing. Meaning nothing has meaning. You can try to create your own meaning, but ultimately, everything is meaningless. Meaning your own meaning is meaningless, which you create and I think most people don’t like this. Morality isn’t a physical thing. So, in atheism morality would just either be created by societies or created by evolution. But then there’s nothing actually wrong with not following morality, if we don’t want to. You could say that everyone wants to flourish, so we should follow morality, because it makes us flourish. But there’s nothing actually wrong with going against the wants of many, in this worldview. Furthermore, an atheist would have to explain how and why morality exists, where it comes from (morality is what God is not, since God is Good, a Moral Law indicated a Lawgiver, and evil is a probation of good, or an end, which the end is something similar to God, we could say), and how we know about it. There is nothing like God. Therefore, since the simplest answer is the correct one, then it make sense that since atheists try to create a complex argument for morality existing, th at in their worldview, it just is evolution or something. Therefore, there is no good and evil in this worldview, and trying to live in the kind of worldview, is almost like being skitzophrenic. People have tried this, and it never has worked. If you believe in no morality, then you can’t say anything about what is moral or not. You may have values, which really have no meaning, but then it just becomes a matter of strength in pushing these values. Meaning, I would rather have a soceity that believes in morality, and those values. Since soceity is way worse off without morality, and can’t exist functionally. Atheism is a belief system nobody has liked throughout history for a reason. It’s either been polytheism or monotheism. This is because everyone dies, even the brave and the beautiful. Nobody likes that. Nobody likes no meaning. Nobody likes no love, no willing of another’s good, and just chemicals. The good and the bad aren’t judged. Nobody likes no meaning to happiness and virtue. You can live a life of just suffering and die. When you lose everything, you don’t have God to fall back on. You don’t have God as a Friend. You grow old, your body fails you, and you die. You are forgotten, and everything you have goes to somebody else. Soon everything you know will be gone, and nobody will remember you. Even humanity will disappear. And who thinks humanity will save itself? Humanity is evil and doesn’t work well together, in this view. And even then, you yourself most likely won’t be saved from death. Life is good, that’s why we don’t like death. And life would be valuable, even if death wasn’t a thing. Death making life more valuable is a cope. And I’m heaven, life never gets boring. But for an atheist, there is no last end of man, no answer to the endless craving for happiness, love, and truth (God), which we all desire. No reason for why there is evil, in fact, there is no evil at all, even though we recognize it. There is no good to you living or dying, it just is. So, while Christianity recognizes this evil that everyone else recognizes, at least we have faith in good reason for it, and good reason that God creates some men who go to hell, and have faith it is all fair. Meanwhile, an atheist just sees suffering for no reason. And is suffering what constitutes evil? Why is suffering evil? What makes it inherently bad? There are things that also aren’t suffering that are considered evil. So, atheism is a way worse thing to follow than theism. Pascal’s Wager was actually a much more modest argument: If you are stuck between Christianity and atheism as being true or false, and you want Christianity to be true, pick Christianity, you have nothing to lose. But you lose in atheism regardless.

There wouldn't have been any slavery if religion condemned and not condoned it!

Fine Tuning: 1. The Universal Constants such as the strength of gravity, and the strength of the strong natural force allow for life to exist. 2. The probability to get even one of these right, is the same as finding one atom in the entire universe. But all of them are right. 3. If one was even a decimal point off, life would not be able to exist. 4. Through random chance, you don’t expect to see order, but chaos. 5. Therefore, a rational or intelligent Being Created the universe. Objections: 1. Puddle Analogy A puddle fits into any whole. Whereas, life doesn’t form in every circumstance. If off even a little bit, then atoms wouldn’t ever touch and only whiz pass eachother every million years. Or things would be so close together, that the Big Bang would collapse back in on itself. So, it’s not just carbon life, but no life could reasonably form. 2. Infinite multiverse An infinite multiverse could explain why one universe eventually would allow for life. However, the Bunsen Brain says it would be far more likely for one observor, a brain, to from due to particle fluctuations, and pop in and out of existence, with false memories, and a simple universe. Than a complex universe with multiple observers. The more unlikely something gets, the less likely something is due to random chance. It is still possible there was random chance. However, If you saw someone get 70 full houses in a row, it would be more likely that cheating occurred, than random chance. Similarly, the bunsen brain makes things so unlikely, that it’s more likely cheating occurred in our universe. How do we know we are not a bunsen brain? You still exist don’t you? Anyways, there’s also problems with actual infinites, and if they don’t exist, then an infinite multiverse couldn’t exist. An infinite multiverse would also mean a universe generator that itself would be finely tuned to create universes. And there would also be meta laws, laws across universes, that themselves are immutable, transcendent, etc, kind of like gods. Furthermore, we have no evidence of a multiverse even existing. Different theories of multiverses, like black whole theory, first of all, would hurt life, because more black holes would make it harder for life to form. And secondly, black holes have radiation seeping out of them, debunking that they lead to other universes. The simpler answer is most likely the correct one. So, it seems weird to appeal to an infinite multiverse, for our own universe, if we don’t even know a multiverse, much less a large one, exists. Finally, there is actually scientific evidence a multiverse doesn’t exist. 3. Constants are necessary Richard Dawkins actually debunked this one. First of all, there is no reason to think that constants are necessary, they don’t explain themselves. Also, Richard Dawkins said that if these constants are necessary, the question would be why specifically constants that allow for life? 4. Aliens made the universe Then what finely tuned their universe, and so on? Is it an infinite regression? Then why does the infinite regression specifically allow for life?

Great episode have learned a lot and I'm really happy to have found this channel the algorithm works and going through all of your episodes, i wonder how many atheists will view this one? 🤔

No, but twisting scripture does

Teleology: Everything follows a certain end. Why do things point toward ends? Why are they directed towards ends? Unless something directed them…

Even sports has replaced our Christian or other spiritual ideas.

Looks like somebody’s been reading his Cavanaugh!

Religion, per the Catechism, reflects humanity's innate quest for God and truth, encompassing both faith and reason, while emphasizing the practice of virtue, moral conduct, and the pursuit of genuine worship in accordance with God's will, all within the framework of respecting the freedom of conscience and the rights of others. James 1:26-27 defines religion as those who keep a tight rein on their tongues, who look after orphans and widows in their distress and who keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Tom Holland, a Roman historian, makes the same argument that you're making in his book Dominion. Essentially we're all christian if we know it or not.

Intelligibility: Joe Heshmyer has a great video on this. The universe is intelligible, when we wouldn’t expect it to be, if by chance. You may argue about specific things, but the truth is, everybody at least notices an orderliness to the universe which allows it to be intelligible. Even quantum mechanics, are actually intelligible if you know more about quantum mechanics, it’s actually becomes more orderly. The question is: why? Why can math be used in many different scientific ways to find out the strength of gravity, economics, etc? Virtually everything. Why is math usable in virtually every scientific area? No atheists have come up with a good argument to this, according to Joe’s research. Furthermore, the universe is structured and has laws. We’d expect a chaotic universe with random chance. Are we to say a random chance creator created universes and allows life to form randomly? Then why does this random chain allow for this? Pretty weird, even in the atheist view. In fact, while not a good argument, the complexity of life gives even more credence to Intelligent Design, because you still wouldn’t expect it in a universe created by random forces.

Bad Religion was a great book

I would ask Steven Weinberg how he knows what constitutes a "good person". If his moral character is not driven by religion, then he is simply using his innate sense of morality to judge good vs. bad. Where does that sense of good/bad come from? It's certainly not an evolutionary advantage. Let's say 100,000 years ago, you had a group of humans who had "evolved" morality and a group with no morals. Who wins fights? The side with compassion or the side with no problem killing people? So I would say humans have always had morals, or else the group without morals would have won out. Our creator "pre-programmed" us with morality. The Ten Commandments spelled it out for us. But I think Jesus' speaking about the greatest commandments argues the best for pre-programmed morals. "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ' This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself." How do we know what love is if it is not built in? He doesn't tell us how to love God and neighbor. He just says do it.

"Convolesence"??? (0:21-22) I think you mean coalescence.

They do bad things many testify to its bad influence. Semantics. Cain murdered his brother Abel. 1st example.of the evil side.

NO you do , we do , another words PEOPLE DO

Joe did u just mention the Holocaust 🙄

If you say religion tries to explain reality's deepest parts, you may conflate religion and. philosophy. But there are irreligious philosophers, Bertrand Russell, for example.

U overlook Paul's statement " a little leaven leavens all" that all it takes. Just dont use ur own opinion.

🤮🤮🤮🤮

"hard-won human attainments" You mean the gifts and talents God graced you with? For without God, we are nothing.

1. There are things that can and can’t exist 2. That means it’s possible there was a time when nothing existed 3. That’s absurd 4. There must be a being who cannot not exist (I.e God) 3 objections against this: 1. Infinite regression An infinite amount of contingent beings does not account for the existence of one contingent being. Just as a train with infinite boxcars does not explain why the train is moving. 2. We have never seen nothingness, how do we know nothingness was ever a thing. The Principle of Sufficient reason states: something must be explained within or outside of itself. If you deny the principle, then you allow for brute facts to exist. If you allow the universe to be a brute fact, for example, then you must allow other brute facts. 1. Socrates is a man 2. All men are mortal 3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal However, it may just be a brute fact, having nothing to do with the logic, that Socrates is mortal. Meaning you can’t trust logic, and radical skepticism becomes a thing. Why distrust logic? rightly used, it has never failed. 3. Another necessary being besides God. A definition of God is: that which no greater can be conceived. Therefore, God is necessary, or has perfect existence. God is also All-Knowing and All-powerful. Nothing else explains itself from within itself. The universe could be said to be necessary, but I can imagine it not existing. You can also imagine God not existing, but not everything you imagine is possible. I can imagine an unsolved math equation as true or false, but it is either one or the other. God, by definition, cannot not exist, God explains Himself, whereas the universe does not. You could say matter and energy (or movement), are necessary, which seems absurd. But, just because it can’t be created or destroyed in a physical sene (a little more complicated), does not mean it metaphysically must exist. For example, the smallest type of matter we know of is quarks. Could the universe be made of a different fundamental matter? If yes, it is not necessary. Similarly, God cannot be different, because God is greatest. Therefore, God explains Himself, matter and energy do not. God is Esse, or the Act of Being Itself. Just like God is Love and Goodness. God’s Whoness is His Whatness, or I Am Who I Am. God is Being, and therefore, God explains Himself. God is the most fundamental level of reality, that holds everything else in existence.

lol making an argument against someone has passed away..wanker

Thanks Joe for calling my comments ignorant. Maybe you and others will wish you had listened and taken note of my “ignorant” warnings and the “ignorant” warnings of other concerned Protestant/Reformed believers!! We are concerned for your souls and we quote Scripture which is perfect truth. The word ofGod is truth. Jesus said “ I am the truth the way and the life” - but you all ignore the truth and follow the false and poisonous substitute - the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. I am tired trying to be of help - the Bible does say we can shake the dust off our feet and move on. That we can stop throwing our pearls before swine who only trample them in the mud. So goodbye. K

Lmao Holocaust mentioned again. I cant escape! 😂