Religion Helps Society | Richard Swinburne | Oxford Union
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- Richard Swinburne argues that religion helps society.
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Filmed on Thursday 7th November 2013
MOTION: This House Believe That Religion Harms Society.
RESULT: Motion Carried.
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ABOUT RICHARD SWINBURNE:
Richard G. Swinburne is a British philosopher of religion. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. He aroused much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion, a trilogy of books consisting of The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason.
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I mean no disrespect to the distinguished gentleman, but as an American I couldn't get over the fact that he seems to have wandered into the debating chamber directly from a Monty Python sketch.
This man's speech was an example of how religion in fact harms society. A person so highly educated being so biased to desperately try to prove existence of god. His whole speech is based on the premise that there is an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god, which he failed to prove.
I wouldn't be so sure. If he were an atheist, he'd be doing the same rambling in another Oxford debate.
Superb evidence.
For the opposition.
His argument was 1. Religion helps society because it teaches people the truth. 2. That truth is that God exists. 3. We can know that God exists because he is the best explanation of the universe existing at all and the best explanation of the universe being the way that it is.
All the premises are false
He did nothing at all to help his side. Instead he had simply just given a sermon.
Poor Swinburne is usually smarter than his audience and as most brilliant people, he struggles to simply communicate his complicated thoughts
+thebullybuffalo No . He's an idiot. Rambling nonsense. Totally off topic. He didn't address the subject.
Gooners Rule You're right. An idiot somehow managed to smuggle himself into a teaching position at Oxford and an accomplished academic record.
Those things are just for show if you stand before an audience of Oxford students and regurgitate millennia old arguments as to god's existence as if they're something very profound, in response to a tangentially related question.
@@demoncard1180 They are profound, but not as profound as the ego of the depressed atheist who can’t understand them
I agree,a brilliant person does not necessarily be sophisticated in speeches
Completely bananas
I think Swinburne is the best philosopher for the last 500 years but I do feel like it would have been very hard to make sense of what he was arguing if the audience hadn't read his books.
Infinite Rumination yes, i argree with you- the argument seems to be simple and easy, but no one could easily and logically do like that.
He must be the only philosopher from the last 500 years that you know, then. I don't need to buy his books to know that I've heard the same idiotic ramblings from Euthyphro.
Eljot79 i’m not sure you know, but the problem of evil is the most thoroughly demolished refutation in the field of theology. Read Plantinga’s and Eleanore Stump’s treatments. There are countless rigorous books on the problem of evil. And, if you noticed, the problem of evil and suffering is usually on behalf of the sufferer. Most religious sufferers, when asked, say that their suffering increased their faith rather than diminished, so I don’t understand the hypocritical atheists who look around them and talk jack.
Why deal with the problem of evil at all, why spend so long on it, and why care about the existence of god in this context? The question was "Does religion help society?" This can be observed and described without rambling discussions of god's existence's so long that you run out of time.
true
Some here do not understand Prof. Swinburne's position. His argument is very simple. He is arguing that if God exists, he necessarily would want good things for society. Prof. Swinburne is arguing that the knowledge of and relationship with God is itself a very good thing. In essence, that the basis of religion, Prof. Swinburne argues, is a very good thing. The rest of his speech are merely supporting premises for this argument.
Do I agree with him? No. Not exactly.
However, that is an issue for another debate entirely. I'm happy to discuss it further, if anyone is interested.
The problem is that is bases itself on so many basses that are unfounded, that it is entirely non-topical. For example, the beginning statement "If there is a good, he necessarily would want good things for society." has no foundation. There is no basis for it. It relies on religious statements to believe religion, which is circular, and illogical.
His logic follows a statement I once heard to mock religion.
"Odin said he killed all the frost giants. There are no frost giants. Therefore, Odin must be right. (Therefore, Odin exists.)"
He was out topic and History proves him wrong. He is in denial.
He's not arguing shit, he's building a house of cards out of eggshells.
There's also not a lack of understanding. He's just logically impaired, or more likely, senile. God only wants good things? What are good things? What is god's character that leads him to believe things are good? Are the holy books an accurate depiction of god? What if the holy books were lying? Worse, still, what if they were telling the truth, and old god has no qualms about killing innocents and causing natural disasters for showmanship purposes? What makes his personal idea of god any better, any more likely than mine? Is Athena a good goddess?
Those questions just from thirty seconds of his ramblings. That old bucket's had it, it's leaking all over the damn place.
Powerful speech. Never before have I fallen asleep and thrown up at the same time. If I wasn't sitting upright, I'd be dead. That man is a battleship. He laid that room to waste. I'm surprised there wasn't a mosh pit after that massive triumph.
that's a interesting comment you got there.
Anyone know where you can see the vote at the end?
Leibniz argued (300 years ago) that assuming god exists, he cannot possibly be good and omnipotent at the same time. If he's good he'd want to remove all human evil and if he's omnipotent then he would do exactly that. That's something which can be immediately verified. the free will of humans would be irrelevant, because god wanting to do good, then would not give humans the power to do evil.
And Prof Swinburne certainly knows all this...
Totally agree with you. I made the same comment (my first one) on the impossibility of god being good and omnipotent.I didn't know the reference to Leibniz. Thank u for the information.
That thought, called the argument from evil, was actually formulated by Epicurus, circa 2300 years ago, and Leibniz actually strongly objected it, leading the foundation of the Theodicy - the solution of the problem of evil - as an area within Theology
Man and wife. Say, Man and Wife!
He went into great detail describing the attributes of his God, but he never gave any good reasons for why we should believe that this God _actually_ exists. It was like listening to a child talking about the powers of their favorite super hero.
brah then you don't get the point of the speech at ALL. better listen to it again,
Which god? What religion. I hate how they link arms when opposed by atheist rational arguments against to say "we out number you", when they al think each other are doomed to Hell.
Swinburne answers this in his writings, Swinburne treats “God” as a proper name of the person referred to by the following description: "a person without a body (i.e., a spirit) who necessarily is eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things." Separate to what he defends, in his personal life, Swinburne is an Orthodox Christian and thus follows their respective doctrines on the more detailed nature of the God that he describes at the fundamental level.
Tom Denman
Regardless, they feel heathens burn... So they cannot form a single group.
Good lord can dan Silverman keep his mouth closed for five minutes?
"God can only do good" several times he says this. Why then did he (it (god)) create bad/evil? Oh and mosquitoes and Ebola and down’s syndrome and parasites and polio and typhoid and smallpox and syphilis and cholera and dengue fever etc etc. Oh and piles/haemorrhoids.
+byrdale Evolution in all ways requires a learning curve, necessity being a 1st teacher in many fields ; including the spiritual. A teacher is a good thing.
But what about mosquitoes, ebola and down's syndrome, Gg Mo? If god can only do good, why'd he make these things? If a teacher is a good thing, explain terrible teachers, or more relevantly concerning the point you just made - what do mosquitoes teach you spiritually, as they infect you with malaria?
I believe in god, but I doubt he's a whimsical moron dropping plagues to raise test scores.
The piece missing in Swinburne’s presentation is found in Chesterton’s Orthodoxy in the chapter titled, “The Ethics of Elfland”. Chesterton tells the scientists why their assumptions are “not to be expected” more clearly than Swinburne does here. Swinburne knows this truth that that cannot see because they are blinded by their assumptions.
Here is Chesterton:
“In fairyland we avoid the word "law"; but in the land of science they are singularly fond of it. Thus they will call some interesting conjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet, Grimm's Law. But Grimm's Law is far less intellectual than Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tales are, at any rate, certainly tales; while the law is not a law. A law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation and enactment; not merely that we have noticed some of the effects. If there is a law that pick-pockets shall go to prison, it implies that there is an imaginable mental connection between the idea of prison and the idea of picking pockets. And we know what the idea is. We can say why we take liberty from a man who takes liberties. But we cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince. As IDEAS, the egg and the chicken are further off from each other than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests a chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears. Granted, then, that certain transformations do happen, it is essential that we should regard them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophic manner of science and the "Laws of Nature." When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o'clock. We must answer that it is MAGIC. It is not a "law," for we do not understand its general formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen. It is no argument for unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. All the terms used in the science books, "law," "necessity," "order," "tendency," and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis, which we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm," "spell," "enchantment." They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a MAGIC tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched.
I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. It is the only way I can express in words my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he has never seen who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country.”
So, to say there are laws of nature as brute facts without the realization that this is something which requires an explanation - as it should be very unexpected by chance, and nothing which can be shown to be of necessity - is the blindness of materialistic assertion. We must ask, “What are the possible candidates for an explanation for these laws?” Once we compare the explanations, atheism is immediately dead as it can explain nothing and from it we should expect no universe at all, or, granting the universe, expect no such order but rather random chaos only. From Buddhism we would not expect such order as all physical reality is considered illusion. From polytheism we would expect the many gods warring with one another, causing chaos as laws changed by the whim of one god or the other. Only from monotheism would we expect this ordered universe. Thus, monotheism is the best explanation of the evidence not only of physical matter, but of reason itself and our ability to understand the creation. God explains the laws of nature, consciousness, reason, morality and free will. Other explanations fail in one aspect of these evidences or the other. Atheism fails to explain any of them, and is therefore the most absurd view other than perhaps someone who says nothing exists at all.
One issue I have trouble with in Richard's reasoning is that God seeks the Good (God is goodness). When I look at the world around me, I see a lot of pain and suffering and death and it seems to me that this state of affairs has to exist for a sustainable ecosystem (recycling of matter) to be. It is basic and foundational to the running of our world. I would claim that if God is all-powerful, for our functioning world, then he is responsible for both good and bad.
Actually, this has left me in an ethical dilemma. If God is not pure goodness, then why should I (we) act morally?
There's episdemic distance between us and God, he is goodness but our finite limited understanding doesn't understand this
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
So, you obviously no ruler (since you would not openly question it, but keep that to yourself and make use of it), and there could be made an argument that you are also not wise yourself, since you seem to follow this atheist religion where it is important to cling to the believe your worldview has some higher truth than those of other ideologies...
atheism means No belief in Gods especially the abrahamic gods which are in reality Penis Gods
Lucius Seneca
Why especially the abrahamic gods? I mean would that make people rejecting other religions less atheistic? And what do you mean by penis gods? Are you sure you don't take your anger or whatever the issue might be that you have towards the abrahamic religions a little too serious, with quite some religious zeal?
Drudenfusz If you study origin of God, he came from a Penis God, proven with Scholarship, such as linguistic scholar John Allegro and so Jews, Muslims and Christians are reenacting ancient phallic worship
Lucius Seneca Proven? You mean interpreted in that way at best. Sorry, but there are no proofs for that claim, it is only a thesis someone made, and you want to believe that, but that doesn't make that the truth. How come that it took you a year to answer and then provide such a lame excuse of an answer? Makes you look like you want to find excuses for your weird beliefs there.
2:24 aaaand he lost me.
It wasn't an amazing start, but assuming an omniscient, rational being would be good? That's stupid.
It would be perfectly rational for such a being to create our universe filled with as much pain and suffering as possible if he needed tortured souls for something.
For all we know God eats souls, and the pain inflicted on us is just like mayonnaise.
i really dont understand why god(the absolute power) needs people to prove his existance
That's not the fault of God. That's the fault of the people
An omnipotent God should EASILY be able to prove his own existence. He would not need to rely on the words of old religious books or prophets.
He has proven his existence... Quite clearly... Look at the world around you, so many signs
It seems he didn't understood the purpose of this debate and by the way his arguments for god's existence is really off.
Somehow I think he missed the topic, and when I done so in school my teachers didn't took that too well. The other speakers for the helpfulness of religion in society made a much better case.
He's great at producing arguments, but the premises are completely unfounded.
And this, boys & girls, is why one must not abruptly stop taking one's medications. He lists the properties of the universe the say we'll, that's just the sort of universe a god wodl make.
They saved the worst for last. Even in agreeing with Tariq Ramadan, and generally supporting both sides of this truly pitiful debate, this rambling nonsense did nothing but hurt the helping side.
The defense of the atheist, respond to arguments as “rambling nonsense”
@@planc3318 Except that all the atheists engaged in this debate employed withering logic compared to this guy. Your desire to believe is clearly greater than your desire to know.
@@adrianh332 What lol? The issue with you atheists is that you avoid using logic and instead rely on emotion. But try to disguise your lack of emotional wellness as rationality
@@planc3318 My mental health and wellness are extremely good thanks.I'd avoid making sweeping generalisations collectively and individually about people you don't know, it's not a good look. Frankly I don't understand why it's such a big deal to some when others don't believe in their particular flavour of supernatural deity (or any deity at all) after all it's not like we're barging into your church to deliver a sermon on the non existence of god's but we're totally entitled to state our point of view online so get used to it, your days of privilege are over. Just relax and enjoy your church services and activities if you're secure in your belief system non believers expressing their views should have precisely zero impact on you.
@@adrianh332 Nice how you talk about generalization but then assume I’m Christian. Regardless, studies have shown that actively religious people have better mental health than non religious people.
And all I see is a rant about how you aren’t barging into religious places and forcing your views. Well yes you aren’t, but don’t pretend like atheists don’t preach their views or that they aren’t often smug and dismissive and arrogant towards theists.
I haven’t really seen any reasoning you’ve presented as to why Swinburne is wrong here
I highly respect Professor Swinburne, but I'm having difficulty understanding him and following his argument. In fact, I'm not able to figure out what his argument is. Maybe I'm not intellectual enough. All I can say is that my faith is very simple: I believe.
***** The problem with this argument is that how can we be certain that the "God" is not evil misleading us with "truth";
-
***** Consider the tsunami of Indonesia: confirmed a death toll of over 100,000 people; children, families, communities. A god who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent who had the ability to stop such suffering on such a scale and who has failed to do so, is either impotent or evil... or perhaps non-existent; None of which is deserving of our respect.
I paused at 00:27. Religions teach us the truth? Wow... What a bold statement... Let's see where this goes...
This ill informed, non-sequitur bound speaker is a PROFESSOR, proof that all universities also necessarily harm all of society.
The only thing I could make out from what you said is proof of your mental ineptitude.
"I must continue..." and I must slip into a coma. This was rambling, incoherent and sliding toward Green Inkery.
Asserting something is the truth is not the truth.
Wow... really? You really think he doesn’t know that? It takes some degree of Nobel-prize deserving ignorance to conclude such a thing.
"But.. He's supposed to be a person to who's power there is no limit, to who's beliefs are all necessarily true - there is no limit to their truth, and to who's freedom of choice there are no constraints arising from irrational inclinations. That is to say he's supposed to be a omnipotent, all-powerful, omniscient, all-knowing and perfectly free being"??
Really?? Well then, Mr. Swinburne, please explain how it is then that such a being could *ever* be as maniacally jealous, and as brutally barbaric, as the god of the christian bible most assuredly is?!!
[I just don't get it.. is he arguing against the god of the bible's existence? It sure seems that way..]
lol even the indian girl in the background thinks "what the fuck is that old man saying..."
The universe exists, therefor there is God. What the ..
He offered token reasoning for god's existence and only began to answer the question in the last two minutes.
This is very muddled and really doesn't answer the question.
My favorite part is around 1min and 7:45. David Silverman looks like a buffoon - proud in his ignorance. Made me crack a smile. After all, has anyone seen any form of naturalism that doesn't rely on "brute facts" which are merely a nice way of saying "this has no explanation"? But at least they get to piggy back on the prestige of the sciences before telling us that they don't know anything after all.
For me the buffoon was Swinburne struggling to get through his appalling speech. I prefer some one that has the honesty of saying "I don't know", my respect for some one that add 'I'm working on it" but only my wariness to sone one the present do know it all. "this has no explanation" is different from "the explanation have not been discover yet"... The funny things about your comment is the the ones who appear to know event less than the scientists are the believers... If you had some scientific background, you would have noticed it too...
lol It's so funny to see people in the comment section think they're smarter than Richard Swinburne 🤦🏻♂️
Hitch would have thrived here.
nice speech from mister richard swinburne
All arguments for the existence of a god can be boiled down to an argument from ignorance - we don't know why this-or-that happens, therefore god. Swinburne's argument is no exception.
Try Durkheim's characterisation of collective efference, i don't see how this is an argument from ignorance
The man may be considered as being as a capable man to spread the notions of religious belief.
Yet it could be awkward if these speeches presented in a debate.where there is setting agreement and he shall simplify his expressions to essential point,to establish his truth.
I would say regardless of his point.he does require to pay effort on regimenting argument.
Modern Medical Science & Incredible Decision of Imam Ali (a.s):
1400 years ago, two women gave a birth to babies, a son and a daughter. Each of these two women claimed that the son was theirs. Back then, there wasn't really any birth certificate, no pictures to prove, there was no DNA testing facility, no hospital. Imam Ali (Chief Justice of the Islamic State) came up with a miraculous way to discover who's right. Imam Ali told them to get some breast milk from these two mothers. Put in a cup and weigh it. One that's heavier, she has the son, and one that's lighter has the daughter. You could say how did they come up with this? Milk is milk. What does it have to do with milk? there was no modern characterization instrumental technique, no liquid chromatography, no HPLC, no ICP, no Ion selective electrode, no EDX, no titration method. 🤔 How Imam Ali knows that one milk should be more viscous hence more thicker?
14 centuries later, scientists at Michigan State University analyzed the milk of mothers who gave birth to sons and one who gave birth to daughters. They researched many women all the way from Kenya to Massachusetts, and the result was consistent. They discovered that the composition of milk is different.
For example, milk of women who gave birth to boys have a higher amount of fats and protein. 2.6% percent fat in that milk. Whereas, milk of women who gave birth to daughters have 0.6% fat. How did Imam Ali know it 14 centuries ago that one milk has more protein and fat, hence more dense than others?😮 Isn't it a miracle from the Imam Ali and his genius way of determining the truth?
O gawd!! Does God have a sense of Humour!! His rambling reminds me of a Monty Python sketch from the 1980 s.
the greatest benefit of religion is that it enables people to worship an omnipotent God?! what has that got to do with society?
look up Durkheim's notion of collective efference
I believe in God, but Swinburne’s theological views are more conservative than mine
Your a maggot
What a rambling argument from ignorance. One know planet in the universe can sustain intelligent life on some of its surface for a minute fraction of the universes history, therefore the entire universe is evidence for God. Laughable!
Swinburn went in with the ontological arguements here but ravi zacharias would've sent these secularists packing
Unfortunately this gentleman didn't appear to understand the proposition and barely addressed it. He had much to say about god but offered no evidence whatever to support his existence. Lots of 'god can only do good' but not much about religion harming society.
Got off topic.
Nice Chap, but his arguments are flawed, and he doesn't make a very good case for the opposition. Indeed, the existence of God can't be proved by natural reason. But even if he had been able to do so, and even if he had proved that some people are inspired to good deeds by religion, he hasn't been able to prove that religion hasn't drawn people to do bad things in the name of religion. I can't remember who said that good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things, but it takes religion to draw good people to do bad things.
You don't remember because it's not worth remembering. The "good" man convinced by religion to do bad was never a "good" man, whatever "good" means.
where do you think your notion of what is good and what is bad comes from, and how these are derived at? What do you think their underpinning premises are?
I've never met a convincing Christian apologist, they are all universally awful this guy was no exception.
If god needs to be proved by you or anybody else, then he is not a god in the common sense which you have presented. God doesn't need a proof if he should be all powerful and all knowing. So god is a fail.
if god cannot do evil, then he isn't all powerful.Watch DarkerMatter2525 to see these arguments going in the sink.
+noelj62 You don't seem to understand the concept of a god.
And god can do evil, but because god represents the ultimate good the religious believe that he will not do evil.
+TONUSER You should define ultimate good then. What is good for a lion is bad for the prey it's eating. And if there such thing as all good, how come there is evil and pain for man kind. If God is the reason and the prime mover of everything and with him nothing is, then evil and pain exist only through him and he cannot be all good for man kind. Take another example, incest is bad by today's standards of morality but it was OK for God when he created first man. Do his principles shift with time, then he is not ultimate. Whatever the discussed concepts are, God should not need someone to prove his existence if he wishes himself to be known to his conscious creatures.
Embarrassing ramblings.
The thing about Swineburne is that he’s so absurdly intelligent that he comes off as rambling to people unfamiliar with his work or not smart enough to understand what he’s saying
Agree in 1000000%, also i find very not very respectful the fact that the Silverman's and others laugh at Professor Swinburne when he was starting
@@pedrogonzalez9934 They laugh at him because he is a run of the mill Christian apologist employing the same tired non sequitur arguments they have heard a thousand times before. Why does Christianity need apologists anyway? Surely it's within god's power to fixit so that's not necessary.
Wait a minute. Religions help describe the truth about our universe. What? All of them. Or just the Judeo, Christian, Islamic God. Head of that big happy family who can't help living together in peace.
Who in the hell keeps coughing? What he is saying is extremely profound. However, unfortunately, it's over peoples heads. He just proved that religion helps society, through a systematic system of hypothesis. It's just like math. What he said is right on.
What math are you referring to? Kindergarden?
Nothing this guy said is based on reality. Go read a physics book before commenting.
***** Well that's a hypothesis on it's own. For all you know, whomever is coughing, had a legitimate cough.
Maybe what he is saying is so profoundly useless that it made them cough... lol
It was filmed only days before it was uploaded in the middle of Winter; the sad truth is that the people coughing probably had nothing more than a cold or so-called 'freshers' flu' which spreads through Oxford each year.
Anyone who claims that religion is beneficial because it tells us "the truth" is absolutely ridiculous. I attended this debate wondering if Swinburne, who I had read a lot about in my A level philosophy course, would be able to sway me. Instead he gave an irrelevant theological speech that did not respond to any of the criticisms leveled at the opposition.
Wow, you believe that he "proved" in 6 minutes that religion helps society. The man obviously deserves a Nobel Prize at the very least, or maybe a sainthood.
Truth?! :)) ha ha This old man makes me laugh.
disastrously bad case for this motion
ohh gawd he's so easy to target I won't even try.. he is the basic theist! he is honest about his beliefs.. I'll give him that.. xD
Lets all remember, that the amount of space you have in commenting on youtube is almost certainly insufficient for establishing in favour or against, for a position as nuanced and complicated as this. People with much more thought out views on these topics than you, find it insufficient to write a half dozen books to prove their points. Your 2 sentences are almost certainly insufficient. Not withstanding the fact that I presume most people here don't have sufficient time and training in Philosophy, Theology, Science, and Math to match the man in this video or any of the other OxfordUnion videos. Give your egos a rest. As soon as you go off and get your PHDs you'll realize these "this guy is right because A" or "This lady forgets X" are shallow rebuttals to a 10 minute video that is summing up decades of books and nuanced works of a person who can't answer your challenge directly as if you could be in the audience and ask.
I'm doing my PhD, so you clearly weren't talking to me while you were blowing smoke up his arse, but I must point out that he spent his ten minutes building premises upon premises that have been destroyed in the past, mostly by Greeks. I don't need to buy his books to know how full of shit he is, I can get a pretty good smell from here.
@@demoncard1180 funny that hubris is a declared a deadly sin within christianity and humility is a virtue... ever considered why, not from a metaphysical point of view, but what such type of conduct does to the harmony of the social group on a trivial day to day level?
If I'm wrong that Swinburne's a rambling fraud for an idiot flock, you should be able to tell me why I'm wrong. Assumptions that I'm not religious or I'm a sinner aren't really relevant, though, you can keep posting them twice if you like.
@@demoncard1180 the "rightness" or "wrongness" of any claim are always entangled in an underlying epistemology and ontology, any judgment is always made in reference to such a framework. As far as I can make sense of Richard's argument, he is propositioning that regardless of belief systems human beings have a nature AND a structure to their social interaction IF such engagement is meant to be mutually beneficial (e.g. the golden rule). For lack of a better word, we can conceptualize this circumstance as "God," and the positive externalities that are generated by such a process are his "proofs" of the existence of God. Now we get into a bit of a bind here, in that different belief systems now become totalising, declaring everything else as (and I quote you) being the product of a: "rambling fraud for idiot flock". Such conduct is so common to the human condition that the Romans' coined a phrase for it: "damnant quod non intelligunt". If you are curious, regarding the utility of a religious outlook on life, maybe this gentleman has expressed his ideas way more palpable to your sensibilities:
czcams.com/video/svB4fqNuMxM/video.html
lol
This has to be a joke! I am going to give you proof of God. First of all you have God… then… God brings it all together, see? No!
It sure doesn't help society to hear 10 minutes of an appeal to ignorance. 'Philosophy of Religion'. Is this what this apologists do? Sit in an armchair and think 'oh if God exists I will exist Q.E.D God exists'. The only people who can't see past these sleight of hands are those who are already hold the conclusion. What is telling, he never used the word 'evidence'. For a simple reason. There is none.
He made several mistakes, the first being God is always right: we know that to be false through Noah's Arc and Adam and Eve, he claims God is always good; God fails to refute slavery, punishes homosexuals with death, and makes women unequal, and that God gives us challenges to overcome to become good. This is preposterous, try saying this to people in Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia. "Oh God is testing you with totalitarians, disease, terrorism, poverty, hopelessness, etc, so you should thank him." Sound reasonable? It shouldn't and that's why his argument holds absolutely no weight. Oh and obviously the big mistake being that he assumes God is real, when there is no proof, so again, his argument holds no weight, and is quiet frankly a horrid one and I am appalled a Professor would make such a ridiculous argument.
Sad
god babble
He could have saved 10 mins and 27 seconds by saying "God is stupid" !
My máster Richard Swinburne ❤
pathetic arguement
What a load of drivel.
His argument sucks.
Nonsenses, nonsenses, and....more nosenses.
This guy's presentation is special pleading 101. How else could it be? It's so unlikely. What are the chances? Get out of here with that crap, man.
What a boring and silly speech! Not saying that his speech is out of the topic as one opponent pointed out. The debate was about religion helping or hurting society not is god existed.
If true is so important, M. Swinburne should open science books and inform himself about the reality of this universe.
By believing in superstitions he shows that his interest on truth is not important at all. Science has proven that religions lie about the true nature of the universe. If you seek the true, one won't find it in religions. One will find delusion. And thats was M. Swinburne finds.
Sciense has shown that the world is exactly how we could expect it to be if god didn't exist. Science even shows that the creation of the universe and life can be explain totally without god.
No religion has ever proved the existence of their gods. If they had, this debate would not have taken place in the first place and we would be all religious. Having all the same innumerable religion. History, geopolitics and anthropology prove it is not the case.
How does he "knows" god is a person ? From old books!!! His evidence : none.
If god is good and can only do good then he can't be omnipotent (as I can't do bad things).
But if his is omnipotent and can do bad things, then he can't be god because is is not good!
So either god is good and not omnipotent then he can't be god or he is not good and omnipotent he can't be god either.
In 3 sentence I proved god can't exist. The philosophy that is is should like that… ;-)
The greatest benefit of religion in society is, according to M. Swinburne, is that religion tells the truth about the univers. Science has prouvent, has I said earlier, that wasn't true. Therefore religion has benefit in society on that matter.
Religion does not explain the universe. If it did we wouldn't need Science to do it ! We would use religion to build buildings, cars, bridges, planes, computers, phones cvs, or to cure prays. This is not the case. We use science. And people who use prays to cure, if there illness is bad enough they dies. Religion does not explain the universe, it invent stores about it and it not even the real one but an imaginary one : one where a god would exist.
The existence of human being was random. Is could not have happened. We could have been extinguished already, as neanderthal did and more that 90% of the pieces that existed. We almost did. So science shows the universe is not made for us. We just happen to be in it. If god existed, he would be such a waister…
"Our life on earth involves suffering" God could make us not suffer, but he refers too. Such a god is cruel and if he existed, he wouldn't be worth the attention he order.
"We are good things" First we are not things. We are persons indeed. Second: Open your eyes, M. Swinburne. We humans were all good then u wouldn't have wars, rapes, child molesting (religion brainwashing on children being one of them), sexual mutilation (circunsion being one of them) so on and so forth…
No, M. Swinburne, the univers is not exactly the way old would expect it if there was a god (by the way with one? more the 4000 have been invented during history). On the contrary it is exactly we would expect it to be if there was no gods.
If theres were gods we would live in a univers would we wouldn't need laws of physics. Things would be magical. There would be no justice the gods would do their justice themselves. We would live in a world of fairytales. But we don't.
It is totally normal that every particule behave the same way as the laws of physics are the same for all particules. It would be magic on the contrary if it didn't happen like that. The lottery analogy is just a very very bad on.
It is his "reasoning" that is deeply unscientific.
The enormous number of coincidence can be explain by a very simple fact : it has the time to occur. our universe is 13,79 billion years. Much simpler that the use of a magical guy in the sky.
The rest of his speech he just repetition of what he already said and was boring already the first time…
He conclusion is just appalling. No, again, this world is nothing like a world we would expect a god to make. It would be like the lords of the ring, Game of thorn or Harry Potter. And we don't live in such a world nor universe.
"If there were no god it would be unbelievable". The thing is the universe doesn't care if u believe in it on not. It is there.
Look at the face of Mehrunissa Sajjad she looks bored too when she doesn't look appalled by what he says. And of course Peter Aktins can't believe his ears.
Where do you think the notion of a "person" and not human beings as just a another animal/thing comes from?
this is one of the most unconvincing sides of a debate I have heard on oxford union
Absolute and complete rubbish from a seemingly intelligent man.
The religious community is Not able too give God, Jesus the Glory He deserves, they, the religious community are too busy arguing which shall be greatest(Luke 9:46)
In the kingdom of God,*¤*!
0:59 that was very childish behavior from atheists.
How do you British say when this kind of crap hits your ears? Oh yes, RUBBISH!