DEBATE: Can Atheism Justify Human Rights? | Cosmic Skeptic vs Subboor Ahmad
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-------------------------VIDEO NOTES-------------------------
This debate between Alex J. O'Connor and Subboor Ahmad took place at Wadham College, Oxford University on the 6th March 2020. The question was 'Can Atheism Justify Human Rights?'
Thank you to the Oxford Forum for hosting this event, and to Patrick Dauncey for moderating. The motion passed, with a majority of audience members voting that atheism can justify human rights.
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Subboor Ahmad's channel (Darwinian Delusions): / @subboorahmadabbasi
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For the sake of this argument just assume all of my premises are true
I get what you are saying but tbf for making any type of argument, you need to assume that the premises are true...
Even if you grant all premises the conclusion could still be wrong. One can ask if the argument has any formal fallacy. For that you assume the premises as true and see if the conclusion follows from it.
@@Sebastian-nb4cu not true
The references Subboor Ahmad used in the debate:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Declaration of Independence)
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
"Again (Natural selection), it does not prove to disprove moral ontology, it says nothing about it." Alex O'Connor's 'Cosmic Skeptic' video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOsG...
“Our core morality isn’t true, right, correct, and neither is any other. Nature just seduced us into thinking it’s right. It did that because that made core morality work better; our “believing in its truth increases our individual genetic fitness.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
“Is natural selection so smart that it was able to filter out all the wrong, incorrect, false core moralities and end up with the only one that just happens to be true? Or is it the other way around: Natural selection filtered out all but one core morality, and winning the race is what made the last surviving core morality the right, correct, true one.
Which is it?
It can’t be either one. The only way out of the puzzle is nihilism.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
Replay the tape a million times ... and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again. (Stephen J Gould)
Alister McGrath & Bret Weinstein • Religion: Useful fiction or ultimate truth?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRx2u...
If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (Charles Darwin)
“Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.”
Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. (Michael Ruse)
@@Sebastian-nb4cu A part of an argument is proving your premises
It's kinda interesting and slightly amusing how everyone in the comment section of this video is obliterating Subboor Ahmad and everyone on Subboor's video is destroying Alex in the comment section.
Now thay you mentioned it
It is funny abit ...
Fan bases and comment monitoring at work.
Except that they're deluded believers.
Confirmation bias destroyes lives
@Dxrk Zoom I hope you realise that can work both ways
I'm so used to watching 2 year old videos on this channel that I was literally shocked when Saboor said "coronavirus."
Timestamp?
When?
This video was uploaded 2 MONTHS AGO. However, it may have been produced 2 years ago. Coronavirus has been widely known among scientists so it would not be a surprise if he is well-read in some areas.
@@wadatamana your name made my day bro 😂😂😂
Lol nerd squad 😂
The moderator looks like he just came in from a day of surfing
😹😹
He made this debabte woth looking amd not only listening to 😝
Looks stoned
i'll obliterate them both, although i have to say alex's logic makes much more sense than the beardy guys mental gymnastics and codswallop. unbiased enough for you?
He looks like timothee chalamet
No out-spoken atheist has ever said that being an atheist puts you on a higher moral ground.Not believing something doesn't give you a special ground. If any thing, it puts you on a neutral ground.
I think the idea is that other forms of deriving morality are in their essence flawed because they have implicit biases.
Can it put you on a middle path?
@@blondboozebaron There is no absolute path. Knowing that, puts you at ease. What can harm others can harm me too.
@@rouzbehazshab
Would you be interested if I made the attempt to draw one out for you?
Draw one with words.
A Venn diagram.
@@Oguzalp97 The bias is in the fact that like will protect like.
This is the most chill moderator ever I can't tell if he is just tired or if he is trying to listen to both of their points
Lmao I have to say though, he is leaning toward the tired side than listening.
@@JoeyJoeJoeJr.Shabadoo 😂
To me he seems bored as f**k.
He also looks like gigachad lol.
I think a good analogy to Alex's position is how we measure distance. The length of an inch is ultimately arbitrary and subjective. Subboor is arguing that since the length of an inch is subjective, you cannot make objective statements about it. An inch is subjective, but that doesn't mean you can't claim that item A is twice as many inches long than item B.
Nice analogy.
Saying A has twice as many inches as B is NOT a subjective statement because irrespective of the subjective length of inch, this statement will always be true if the length of A is twice to that of B.
Your is a dis-analogy (qiyas ma'al fariq) because in the above case, the objective statement is independent of the subjective premise about the length of inch whereas what Alex is arguing is that his supposedly 'objective' morality will only be true if we accept his subjective premise. He never said that his position is true independently of the premise.
Thats why Alex's moral standards are impotent. Its too loose to be effective enough to define rights. The same with why metric system are a must.
@@samx4434 The UN human rights declaration makes enough sense
An inch is not subjective. It's objective. It refers to an objective length/distance. You cannot argue "yeah I reckon one inch = 900cm". That would be wrong in all times, places.
What is subject is saying one inch or two or three is a short or long distance.
This kid is so brilliant that most aren't understanding him. One of the best debaters.
Lol
@@icemanbrfcwhat is so funny?
Alex is really enormously smart
@@Bistra4982 yeh I'm sure, and he ain't taking you for dinner broski lol 😂
@@icemanbrfc nor does you!
@@Bistra4982
The assumption that "he's so smart they don't understand him" is what's funny.
They do understand him, but his stance only works for him, if u do smth as simple as "disagreeing" with him then his whole point crumbles, that's why he was actually very smart to insist that he only cares about being "consistent" and not being "right", because he knows that his position can't be generalised.
This man is the personification of patience
"I'm not a potted plant" was the apex of his righteous fury xd
Who are you referring to?
The patient one
@@justinrivera1618 hAHAHAHA
I have seen that patience in debate with mo hijab...
Masochist: "Beat me!"
Sadist: "No..."
🤣
If a masochist wants to suffer and is denied... is that still a win for them?
@@JMUDoc Now _that's_ a subtle question.
thats a paradox lol.
depends on the motivations
To quote the Manics: "I'm happy being sad"
the misrepresentation of what Alex is saying is so cringe inducing
What was his misrepresentation? I’m too sleepy to watch the whole video lmao
Here 1:37:00
@@verosaraiva how is that a misrepresentation?
@@HosniBoun So I watched it.
Alex is saying that Collective belief that Rape is wrong is Objective.
But the other Guy says that it’s not, rather that it is Subjective because there’s people who like to indulge in rape.
However that is a misrepresentation.
Just because that person enjoys rape, doesn’t mean that the Collective view that Rape is wrong is subjective.
Rape being wrong is in fact objective because the collective majority agrees it is wrong. All those who disagree are mentally ill. We base our morality on well-being. Those who don’t value well-being are mentally ill. So the subjective view of the mentally ill on the matter is irrelevant.
@@HosniBoun But of course, we derive our basis for morality and ethics on subjectivity.
We need to be subjective to deem something as harmful to well-being. Once we all agree on this basis for morality, it THEN becomes objective.
mad props to Alex for keeping cool under misrepresentation and disinterest in engaging with his actual beliefs and arguments.
His move at 1:20:59 denying to defend his position is just godlike patience
The references Subboor Ahmad used in the debate:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Declaration of Independence)
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
"Again (Natural selection), it does not prove to disprove moral ontology, it says nothing about it." Alex O'Connor's 'Cosmic Skeptic' video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOsG...
“Our core morality isn’t true, right, correct, and neither is any other. Nature just seduced us into thinking it’s right. It did that because that made core morality work better; our “believing in its truth increases our individual genetic fitness.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
“Is natural selection so smart that it was able to filter out all the wrong, incorrect, false core moralities and end up with the only one that just happens to be true? Or is it the other way around: Natural selection filtered out all but one core morality, and winning the race is what made the last surviving core morality the right, correct, true one.
Which is it?
It can’t be either one. The only way out of the puzzle is nihilism.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
Replay the tape a million times ... and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again. (Stephen J Gould)
Alister McGrath & Bret Weinstein • Religion: Useful fiction or ultimate truth?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRx2u...
If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (Charles Darwin)
“Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.”
Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. (Michael Ruse)
Mad props to Subboor for keeping cool under nonsense and Speciesism, that continuously spewed from Alex O'Connor.
Alex is amazing he is what I call the ideal debater (Cool and Collective) unlike religious debaters (Ofcourse not all of them)
@@n.ganadily8973 Alex is amazingly ignorant, unlike Theist debaters.
@@robinrobyn1714 If you actually hold this belief you are horribly misled. Please provide evidence of this.
Alex: "You can't just swap out variables from different categories".
Subboor: "Why not"?
Alex: [long pause] "I... I would think that's obvious".
He eventually conceded that you can do that keep watching after this point and you will see it
@@uber70ppt94 Timestamp please
The claim that it was a category mistake by Cosmicskeptic is just wrong. We are not talking about the existence of God vs. the existence of human rights. We are talking about the BELIEF that human rights exist vs the BELIEF that God exists. Why would substituting one belief with another be a category mistake? Cosmicskeptics whole shtick was if it was "useful". THEY ARE BOTH BELIEFS. It doesn't matter if it is true or not or whatever Cosmicskeptic might say to convince you otherwise. And once all the Atheists realise that equivocating between one set of beliefs and another set of beliefs is not fallacious they see that Cosmicskeptics whole argument crumbles.
@@TheRevxPk that actually makes sense
Simon Wright it starts from 47:20
I want a t-shirt with "deer exceptionalism" on it
Koalas are the most exceptional ...fk deers .... Salman khan should kill them all
Official petition to get "I am for deer exceptionalism" on merch ?
Personally, I’m more of a cat exceptionalist. Why? Because I look at them and I suddenly have a reason to live - boom
Im gonna actually print THAT on a shirt .
Oh deer!
"Racial justice is Justice, animal justice is justice, gender justice is justice! " Subbed for that!
Timestamp?
1:14:37
That isn't true though. The concept of racial justice is actually unjust. It is a collectivist notion of guilt and innocence that shares all the ethical flaws of the war crime of collective punishment.
@@brianmacker1288 no
@@brianmacker1288 Would you be prepared to debate Alex on that? I suspect not, and I suspect that statement won't hold water on closer inspection, but I can't be bothered.
At the end of the debate I felt very sorry for Alex. The misrepresentation of his position... jeez. These people don’t grasp complexities or nuances
believers entire lives are based on lies, what more can you expect.
Maybe he would’ve actually understood Alex’s position if he didn’t interrupt him so often
@Ixxros Sorxxi what do you mean, peer reviewed? Do philosophical positions get peer reviewed?
@Ixxros Sorxxi done; now it’s your turn, especially the cross-examination part - try and understand Alex rather than just assuming Subboor understands him
@Ixxros Sorxxi sure. Subboor completely misunderstands Alex’s point about pleasure and pain, for starters. He keeps saying that if we’d evolved on a different evolutionary trajectory, we might not want pleasure/want to avoid pain. (Although then he implies in the closing that people in Nazi, on the same evolutionary trajectory as us, didn’t value pleasure, so that’s confusing - but we’ll ignore that.) But Alex’s point is that it’s *logically* impossible for sentient beings not to want pleasure and want to avoid pain. If you accept Alex’s definitions - and I don’t think Subboor ever said he didn’t - then, *logically speaking,* sentience requires the ability to make choices, choices require desires, and the only thing that can fundamentally be desired is pleasure. *By definition.* That’s Alex’s point, and Subboor didn’t understand it at all.
As a Muslim this was actually very interesting I understood some of the arguments from both sides even if I didn’t understand some of the philosophical arguments. But I did enjoy the debate, I’ve grown to like CosmicSkeptic even though he may vehemently dislike religions especially the Abrahamic ones but I don’t really care. All I know is I’m slowly starting to understand his points and arguments
Same. His arguments do raise great discussions, however, he wasn’t faced by a complementary opponent. I’d like to see another Mohammed Hijab debate.
Seems like a fairly sincere guy but his fans don't seem to understand Suboor's arguments so resort to only mentioning that he interrupted Alex a couple of times. None of their arguments were perfect but Suboor edged this debate imo.
You should check out Genetically Modified Sceptic, he is a big proponent of being respectful in all situations and trying to have the best most civil discussions we can between atheists and theists. He is an ex-fundamental. Really a huge inspiration.
@@Sam-ng3of I disagree. The points Suboor repeatedly brought up were sufficiently answered philosophically speaking by Alex, yet Suboor just kept asking them. Also, Suboor kept conflating terms like moral worth and moral agency or objective and collective subjective. And I've never in my life heard a philosopher dismiss another philosopher's argument by calling it "philosophic jargon", that was appalling. If Alex' point was insufficient to Suboor then he should have explained his contention, not repeated the original question or dismissed it in such bad faith. Other than that I really disliked the lack of nuance in Suboor's points. They seemed to be so simple Alex had to ask several times for him to expand or clarify. I didn't even notice the interrupting, but that also seems to have been a problem, since Suboor wasn't contending with Alex' arguments at all in those situations.
@Shaun Sharted Because many religions especially Abrahamic say that athiests should be killed. However yes we should look at the individual but it makes sense to me to dislike Abrahamic religions as a whole.
1:02:20 Subboor believes that lions have moral agency. Did he watch the Lion King remake and mistakenly think it was a documentary?
They do have
Ismael Barrera Any creature or animal that cares about their infants have a sense of morality. While they are predators and have an odd way of living, they do have hierarchy. A senior is a senior. Watch a documentary and you will see.
the topic sais it CLEARLY, it is HUMANS RIGHT not all animals, off topic
@@abdulsalamumar7201 Ridiculous. Lions often kill cubs intentionally. There is no moral agency in animals. Acting on instinct is not having moral agency. Human morals are merely subjective and change over time.
@@itheuserfirst3186 no, there's some moral agency, just not as much do to their simpler emotions and thoughts. You don't need to pick one extreme or the other.
Hey, Alex. Fantastic debate. Been watching your videos and love your channel. I like what you have to say and I agree and see what you mean. Keep up the good work man. Will keep watching.
I love how he said "animals" and then you corrected him "other animals"!
I also try my best to use language that acknowledges our taxonomic classification!
"I can't win this debate against Alex. So let's move the premise of the debate to an alternative universe, where I'll make up a new hypothetical reality".
It's called a hypothetical scenario/thought experiment to help draw out the crux of one's arguments. I thought it was useful as, for me, it showed how utterly arbitrary Alex's moral compass is. How many are the assumptions and how many are self-contraditions that exist when Alex makes his proposition.
@@umarr6221 Of course our "moral compass" is arbitrary. Compasses are arbitrary-north is where the compass points. If we lived in a universe where being beaten to within an inch of your life cured cancer, it wouldn't necessarily be immoral to beat someone to within an inch of their life. Subboor's thought experiment was meaningless because all it demonstrated was that "if things are different, then things are different." It's self-evidently tautological. I'm surprised to see such banal argumentation even being offered in a philosophical debate.
Simon, I'm surprised you only got that from Suboor's questioning. He was trying to tease out what meter Alex uses to put the exact emphasis on each species value and worth, and by suggesting another world/scenario where animals felt more emotion/sensation than humans, would he value animals more. It is useful because for someone making moral claims, as alex is, it is important to know what principles he values to arrive at those claims.
Hope I answered the question.
Umar R what are the contradictions? Seemed pretty consistent.
@@umarr6221 Hi Umar, thanks for the reply but I understood all of that. It was one of the most tedious parts of the debate because Alex honestly couldn't have been clearer, yet Subboor kept repeating himself as if Alex didn't respond to it.
Dude you deserve to debate people who actually listen and respond to your points. This was painful - again
The end of your opening speech was especially brilliant! Thank you for speaking up for it!
"how big a cage should i get for my parrot?"
"32 miles"
The references Subboor Ahmad used in the debate:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Declaration of Independence)
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
"Again (Natural selection), it does not prove to disprove moral ontology, it says nothing about it." Alex O'Connor's 'Cosmic Skeptic' video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOsG...
“Our core morality isn’t true, right, correct, and neither is any other. Nature just seduced us into thinking it’s right. It did that because that made core morality work better; our “believing in its truth increases our individual genetic fitness.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
“Is natural selection so smart that it was able to filter out all the wrong, incorrect, false core moralities and end up with the only one that just happens to be true? Or is it the other way around: Natural selection filtered out all but one core morality, and winning the race is what made the last surviving core morality the right, correct, true one.
Which is it?
It can’t be either one. The only way out of the puzzle is nihilism.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
Replay the tape a million times ... and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again. (Stephen J Gould)
Alister McGrath & Bret Weinstein • Religion: Useful fiction or ultimate truth?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRx2u...
If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (Charles Darwin)
“Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.”
Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. (Michael Ruse)
Do please pay close attention to how Alex spent his opening remarks rallying for his side of the motion. Whereas Suboor spent his opening remarks using other people's arguments to justify inconsistencies in what he assumed was Alex's position based on comments he made from his CZcams channel... virtually no time rallying for his side of the motion. Poor form. But highlights the difference in the calibre of the philosophers at hand here. Well done, Alex. Onto the next. May they offer a less tedious challenge.
Not really because Alex never refuted Saboor's main argument which is.
P1. Atheism leads to moral nihilism because there is no justification for moral agency in atheism. Different situation results in different morals which proves the first premise true which Alex even admitted in the debate. He said rape would be justifiable in a different circumstance and it would just be called sex. Therefore you can never say which is right and which is wrong therefore moral nihilism.
P2. Moral Nihilism undermines human rights. None of the human rights work because of this moral ambiguity or nihilism. They are not objective like moral landscape of Sam Harris.
C. Therefore atheism undermines human rights.
Now I'm a muslims and I have to say I think Alex did a good job. Brother Saboor is a much more experienced veteran debater. So anyone would have trouble debating him. He overall did good however he completely fails to address Saboor's main argument and he was really struglling in the end when saboor trapped him. So hopefully next time he actually address Saboor's main argument.
@@Islamiccalling The argument fails before it begins because atheism is not a moral system. In the same way islam is not able to provide us with the perfect duck confit recipe.
@Thuzar Correct; intelligence is never defined by how one feels about what others think.
Islamic Defense what is your proof it leads to what you posit?
@@Islamiccalling Sorry, sweetie, Saboors' premise is faulty because atheism does not lead to moral nihilism. And certainly not religion can claim any moral high ground, it leads to authoritarianism and truly undermines human rights. And, religion relies on emotions as Saboor tried to do when bringing up the chinese Muslims, who are being cinesized as China has done to all it's people. Forced re-education. All countries have done some form of that and I feel bad for those who are suffering from it, but it is also done by islamists. So, victim card don't work! It is not an atheist evil, just a human one.💖☮️🎃
"Alex.. If it's possible that your view of morality is false in some other hypothetical universe, how could it be true in this one?"
Wtf kind of logic is this? As long as you can conceive of something being false in any possible universe, then it cannot be true?
This was an awfully frustrating conversation. Just constant reiteration of the same points followed by the same misunderstandings/misrepresentations in response.. Over and over.
Do you believe morality grounded in subjectivity can be objective?
@@fresh235 Yes,if the topic has an OBJECTIVE effect on the individuals and the system, let's talk about rape,why is rape immoral? because of the psychological effects it leaves the on the rapist and the person getting raped,it allows the rapist to adopt more aggressive and primitive ways of thinking,while scarring the person getting raped for life,both of these effects can in term affect the system these two individuals live in,is killing immoral? yes,because you're removing individuals who can be productive to the system,if you bring up ANY subjective moral rule, I'm 100% sure you can find an objective effect around it.
Seriously.
If it’s possible that your view of (insert word here. Let’s say say money) is false in some hypothetical universe, how could it be true in this one.
@@rickb.4168 it's pure romanticism. It's the same kind of thinking that no matter the universe "love" would exist.
how faar you can be extreeme sceptic with your own concept? let subboor help you XD
Alex, you have the patience of a saint (ironically!) I don't think I'd be able to explain the same things over and over so calmly to someone so bent on misunderstanding your points.
His patience is something that separates him from those who agree with him and are irrational.
Alex: *gives a detailed explanation of why being a sentient being requires feeling pleasure & pain for the fifth time.*
Subboor: "Sure, sure, sure, but you still haven't given me an explanation of why this cannot be. You see, we're in a different evolutionary tree."
He quite cunningly made fools most of you . Morals and truth are subjective its not distance bro . Truth is always subjective only if you have some senses running smoothly.
maaaan I went and tidied my room when Alex got angry, big dad energy
I kinda got scared too I was getting flashbacks
Hot
time ?
@@zaenlol 1:24:54
@@MrGuillermolago oh shit
In the Frozen song tune... “Do you want to build a straw man?”
@Rob LoweTheists do it too. Stop tryna pretend they don't.
@Rob Lowe Bruh, you got stats on that or you jus gon assert it as fact?
@Rob Lowe sames you boy we ain't special and tryna pretend like you better only takes away from your "moral high ground"
@Rob Lowe yeh eh i can git mo incoherent if ya want
@Rob Lowe Mmm, yes the classic for arrogent, pompous, self aggrandizing people when talking to people they dislike.
When Alex is explaining his stance, Subboor isn't even listening. he is just saying "sure, sure..." and keeps reading in his laptop... 10 seconds later he ist asking the same stupid things he did before, even though alex already cleared it up.
This is just painful to watch, especially, because subboor is acting so cocky and self-confident all the time, while alex is very respectful and actually thinks, before talking.
@Lol Rofl Alex does answer that question. Did you watch the debate?
@Lol Rofl Hey, i just want to point out, that english isn't my first language, before i attempt to answer you :D
I think Alex did answer the question and offered a lot of context to it. If someone understands his explanation about how something can be objectively right or wrong within a subjective topic it's very easy to understand what he is saying.
An example would be, that I like chocolate flavour more than vanilla. That's my subjective taste. So within my subjective taste it's objectively true, that I ought to order chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla ice cream.
In Alex' example he says, that subjectivly MOST of the pople would want to live in a society, where rape is punished. So objectively we should punish rape, so that MOST of the people feel safer in our society.
But the way subboor asked the question, without acknowledging this distinction of objectivity within a subjectiv preference, is very ingenuine and seems like an attempt to one of those "GOTCHA"-moments.
I'm not saying alex is always right about anything and he wouldn't say this about himself either. He really seems to care about the topics he is talking about and tries to reflect on his position as much as possible, while discussing it. For that reason I really appreciate him and his opinions even if I would disagree.
Also I would like to point out 1:18:00 in the video, where Alex asks Subboor about impartiality. Subboor didn't answer the question at all and just keeps attacking alex, as if there wasn't even a question to begin with. I got really mad about that and hoped that the guy in the middle did a better job of keeping the topics on track. Instead he seemed very bored and sometimes had this ugly arrogant smile on his lips, while not even listening to the conversation...
@Lol Rofl I think we found Subboor's CZcams account! Lol.
Alex was very clear, concise, and very easy to follow. Further, I don't think that there's a need for inherent objectivity. I know theists get stuck on this concept a lot but I can't understand why it's of any sticking point whether there is an inherent objective nature to morality or any concept. I would suggest people struggling with this concept read Jean Paul Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism" as perhaps another lens of trying to understand this concept.
Great video Alex. I've been watching your videos since shortly after you started but have lied in silent lurker status. I'm enjoying your debates and wish you continued success in all of your endeavors!
If u have to think what ur are talking about in a debate clearly u don't know what ur r talking about
@@khanaqib6003 I disagree and would argue that if you don't stop to think during a debate, especially when posed difficult or confusing questions, you're prone to repeating rhetoric and may not be critically analyzing your own views. Why is thought a bad thing?
The rape vs rapist argument and the blue vs yellow argument can be easily reconciled. Rape is defined as sexual activity, and usually sexual intercourse, carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person's will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent. By its definition, rape only occurs to those that do not consent to it, and therefore ALL people necessarily agree that rape is something that they don’t want to happen to themselves. Much like the hypothetical situation where all people agree that blue is the best color. Therefore, much like the person saying that they want yellow for themselves against all others, the rapist wants to rape against others. The person trying to enforce yellow doesn’t want it for themself, because they prefer blue; much like the rapist does not want to be raped, even though they want to rape others. Therefore, rape is wrong because it is universally harmful to all, including the rapist should it happen to them.
This shows that human rights are about humans don’t want done to them, not what they may have predilections to do upon others. This is often epitomized by the statement that your right to extend your fist ends when it infringes on someone else’s right to not have it extend into them and their personal space. This is where religious rights often get muddy. The right to believe your own religion does not extend to the right to enforce your religion upon others. Likewise, your right to enforce atheism does not extend to the right to enforce atheism upon others. Using the China vs Islam argument as an example of why atheism cannot support human rights violates this, because it tries to argue that atheists claim that action to be ok, because some atheists try to do it.
Just as the argument that some people who don’t want to be raped themselves rape others means rape is not objectively wrong in a world where nobody wants to be raped is itself a false argument, so is the argument that some atheists who do not want to be forced to change their religious views forcing atheism on those that do not want to change their religious views is not objectively wrong in a world where nobody wants to be forced to change their religious personal views is also a false argument. Put simply, people acting to deny human rights that they themselves want protected for themselves does not invalidate that human rights exist, and that they exist not based on what those with power can enforce, but based on what those that are sentient to experience don’t want done upon them. Therefore, human rights are based on preventing suffering, not emphasizing pleasure.
Your comment is so underrated🌹
Thank you I had trouble understanding that point
By applying the pain and pleasure principle, one can contend that being subjected to rape is morally reprehensible on a subjective level, as it involves inflicting pain and suffering upon the victim, a situation that even the perpetrator would likely find undesirable. However, when employing this same principle to assess the morality of rape itself, it becomes challenging to make an objective judgment. This is because, within the framework where pain and pleasure serve as the moral compass, a rapist who derives pleasure from their actions could argue that their subjective experience justifies the act. Thus, while one may perceive rape as wrong based on subjective experiences of pain and suffering, objectively labeling it as universally wrong becomes elusive.
Additionally, the notion that rape is inherently wrong because it could potentially happen to the rapist overlooks the core argument. This idea relies on the hypothetical possibility of the rapist becoming the victim, and until this hypothetical scenario becomes reality, the act is considered wrong. However, this perspective ignores the fundamental issue that rape itself, from the perspective of the rapist, is not morally wrong. Even if the rapist were to experience being raped, it merely shifts the dynamics, with the rapist becoming the victim and potentially perpetuating the cycle of harm. The subjective experience of the act remains unchanged, underscoring the complexity of moral judgments and the limitations of solely relying on the pain and pleasure principle to determine morality.
@@NeedlestolearnBut I'm not sure about the claim rapist or murderers think that what they are doing is good. Especially rapist. Many of them know what they do is wrong but for some they do it. Either because they have a lack of control in resisting or they want to hurt the other person (knowing they are harming them) or they don't realize what they do is rape. Even if they believe that the action is neutral the fact that they wouldn't to be forced with violence shows that they can acknowledge the harm.And then they can agree with premise that harm exist and is bad for them. They only reason they would disagree on the fact that harm is bad is because they are psychopath or unable to control themselves thus sick. I'm not sure how it misses the core of the argument. Tell me how I'm wrong
@@AymanPlayer The crux of the issue lies in uncertainty regarding the objectivity of wrongdoing. It necessitates assuming that the perpetrator shares the same moral framework, but they may argue against it, rendering "rape is bad" merely an opinion. This highlights the challenge in deriving morality from such ideologies, as they rely heavily on assumptions and subjective viewpoints, rather than objective principles.
I was straight, but after looking at Alex in that suit, I'm leaning towards bi.
BRO WHY ARE YALL LIKE THIS
10M Subscribers With No Videos change straight with lesbian, and same 😄
Ty Throw You say that as if it’s an insult. It’s not.
@Ty Throw Citation needed lol
HAHAHAHAHAHA that's awesome...
I think what Ahmad does not understand is that atheists:
1. didn't choose their lack of belief in God
2. will see no advantage in pretending that a God exists
3. do not need a God
@Rener Oslo I suggest you to watch that bit of the video again and see where the conclusion went. Alex admitted that if it was the case that belief in a god is beneficial then it would be better off to believe. But this is only relevant if you assume that belief is a choice (which it isn't) . How is that so hard to comprehend mate, watch the video again for fuck sake.
I think there's a lot that Ahmad doesn't understand...
@Rener Oslo Justifying morality with human rights doesn't require you to be convinced that human rights actually exist on their own. Justifying morality with a god, on the other hand, requires you to be convinced that that god actually exists on its own. They're not "exactly the same type of justification".
@Rener Oslo I'm not convinced that morality is objective, but that there are objectively right and wrong ways to maximize pleasure or to reduce suffering. I think Alex holds roughly the same position.
What exactly is the inconsistency you're seeing here?
The morality that Alex put forward is problematic as it's based on maximization of pleasure on a societal level. Simply look back to Nazi Germany and current India where the majority people's pleasure is expelling minority from the country, that is why Alex's moral ground is catastrophic. You just carefully look at what alex say, then you can easily understand the inconsistencies in his argument
This was very pleasureable content to consume, thank you Alex!
Cosmic Skeptic is scary. His Oxfordian education really shows in his language. His reasoning... as far as I have seen ... kinda flawless. He reminds me of Hitchens. But I think he's even better than Hitchens... who used to use more rhetorical arguments than Cosmic does. Cosmic sticks to reason and doesn't seem to appeal to emotion. That's scary. He seems more intelligent than Sam Harriss.. who I thought a genius. I actively look for bias, for bad reasoning... and I just struggle keeping up with Cosmic's ideas. Subboor is outclassed.
Not at all. Bias has surely settled in you.
Oh please. I am an atheist and Alex spews fallacy after fallacy. The entire idea of utilitarianism was falsified long ago because their is no way to calculate minimization of suffering, and no reason to assume "suffering" should be the sole criteria. Suffering is subjective, and tied to pleasure in complex ways that are entirely subjective. Do we ban competivive sports because only one team can win the championship and all others suffer from losing that year? Alex's claims are all hand waving. He purports the existence of the impossible.
He also goes a further step of foolishness in trying to subsume the animal kingdom under utilitarianism. How does one minimize sufferring between lions and zebras via utilitarianism.
Further ridiculous because he can't make up his mind whether he wants a top down utilitarianism or a rights based one. He also seems to have settled on collectivist rights, not the proper individual rights.
What a mess.
@@brianmacker1288 championship in unnecessary therefore the pleasure or suffering from that is contingent
Therefore there's no reason to ban it
On point @@brianmacker1288
If this is satire, I think it’s hilarious and you have a great sense of humor
Unlike Hijab, Saboor is a good and kind human being
Be quite rafida
I agree he is a lot better than Hijab but anyone watching from a neutral perspective can see that Saboor constantly interrupted Alex, misconstrued his points and twisted his words, didn’t listen to his points and went around in circles, tried to strawman by changing the definition of his points such as where human rights are derived from. It’s pretty annoying to try hear Alex finish his point and Saboor just cuts in and goes ‘yeah thats fine’ rather rudely. That being said he was still far more honest in this debate than I have seen Hijab be on his channel with his arguments.
@@user-dq5hp8mz3p you are not neutral, you literally talking on Alex s side. Shame on you
Go learn basics
@@beginnerplayschess4263 I’m talking on the side of Alex because he was actually honest in this debate, he wasn’t changing Saboor’s points or saying he meant something other than he meant. Typical though, second I criticise one side it means I’m bias? Sure thing. I’ll repeat myself, no matter which side you are on its clear Saboor either didn’t understand or kept misconstruing what Alex was saying. I genuinely think some of you muslim debaters actually straight up don’t understand the opposition view because you are so invested into the idea anything they say is wrong.
I'm getting very frustrated. Every time Alex dismantles Ahmad's arguments he just starts interrupting him, saying "yeah... yeah.." over and over again while just scrolling through his laptop. Super rude-
@Ishaaq Ahmad Aren't you intelligent.
@Ishaaq Ahmad Well i am sorry for posting such a arbitrary and frankly stupid comment. Please forgive my behavior and perhaps I can one day be seen as something more than a common cretin in your eyes, oh wise one.
1:25:00
Omg, first sighting of Alex angry. Overdue, very overdue.
It was a very polite way to say "shut up and let me answer your question"
That guy was really irritating
IMAN Production do you want me to write down his reply or are gonna rewind and hear it yourself
@IMAN Production I just want to say that if a question is simple in its formulation it doesn't mean that it's easy to answer. The problem with the question "Is rape objectively wrong" was that for Alex a proper answer need a deep discussion. I think the yes-no answer accordingly to Alex is "no, it's subjective" is not complete, and his whole side was the discussion was around it.
I want to clarify that I am actually in the Subboor side because I think human rights are subjective, so I think my opinions are quite objective xD
1:24:30-1:26:26 fuck, I want him to step on me...
Thank you for what you are doing Alex.
Alex you’re a formidable opponent! Thank you for explaining concepts so concisely, it makes philosophy much easier to understand.
The references Subboor Ahmad used in the debate:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Declaration of Independence)
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
"Again (Natural selection), it does not prove to disprove moral ontology, it says nothing about it." Alex O'Connor's 'Cosmic Skeptic' video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOsG...
“Our core morality isn’t true, right, correct, and neither is any other. Nature just seduced us into thinking it’s right. It did that because that made core morality work better; our “believing in its truth increases our individual genetic fitness.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
“Is natural selection so smart that it was able to filter out all the wrong, incorrect, false core moralities and end up with the only one that just happens to be true? Or is it the other way around: Natural selection filtered out all but one core morality, and winning the race is what made the last surviving core morality the right, correct, true one.
Which is it?
It can’t be either one. The only way out of the puzzle is nihilism.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
Replay the tape a million times ... and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again. (Stephen J Gould)
Alister McGrath & Bret Weinstein • Religion: Useful fiction or ultimate truth?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRx2u...
If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (Charles Darwin)
“Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.”
Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. (Michael Ruse)
can you summarize his "easy to understand philosophy" on the objectivity of morality? it sounded to me like he only avoided this issue
@@MohdHilalhe kinda is
Same video 2 different channels. Completely different reactions.
yeah its crazy, as a muslim i came here. i dont agree with either reaction to be honest. i think sabboor possibly went into areas that just became to vague and i think alex's premise is extremely flawed. but the right arguments werent put forward. as much as i love sabboors content usually.
Umm Osayd mashallah your objective brother/sister that's something you definitely need for seeking knowledge
Unsurprisingly. The majority of commenters simply support their preferred debater or ideology. Doesn't matter how consistent or rational the argument was, they'll just support what and who they already believe in. Personally I think both Subboor and Alex had some significant issues with their arguments.
Wesley O. There was a debate against Alex by Abdullah andalusi and Mohammad hijab. I much preferred the content from both sides in that debate. And I think the arguments against Alex where much clearer and concise. Unfortunately the argument of ethics for atheists is their wobbly third wheel. It's very hard to support without people just saying "well I think And I feel and this is what I see as ethical". It's very subjective and that is a major issue. This was much better highlighted in the other debate.
@@tranquilambiance1751 Thanks. I'll check it out as I'd like to see some stronger arguments being made by Alex (tbh I think his position is extremely difficult to defend so I'm not that hopeful), or at least stronger rebuttals against his arguments, because imo there are a number of ways to discredit Alex's position.
This is tedious, but necessary. Thanks Alex for championing the obviously sane position repeatedly against stubborn opposition.
Trollitician eh sorry dude, but you’ve chosen a pretty poor name if you want people to know you’re being serious or not. Either way you should attack the claim, not the person.
"obviously sane position" no not really and you know that.
@@zarakl821 That is my honest opinion.
Can you explain his position?
@@Frankenshein not better than he can.
kinda sad that atheism has to be defended in some developing countries...
when i told my parents that i am an atheist and left the church i got forced in everyone was just like "okay it's your choice" and that's it! ^^
Welcome to sweden when going TO church is the crazy option
what i find ridiculous is a) that believers are worried about atheists (atheists literally don't care about stuff, we ain't no threat to anyone) and b) believers think we believe in something too. luckily i live in the UK and over here even the priests don't really believe in a god, no one has a problem with darwin and richard dawkins is a national hero. i've never believed in a god, and i was just commenting elsewhere that even as a child "in the beginning" rang fairy story warning bells for me, why oh why does anyone believe sky fairy nonsense???
@@HarryNicNicholaspeople believe in it because it makes them feel better.
@@asdfffs yea
@M no I think Harry is referring to the unrounded, unfounded belifes in a god?
The debate title is loaded in the theist's favor, it presupposes that theism has any more of a justification for human rights than atheism.
But that is a presupposition that many theists have. It is a claim made by religions all over history.
@@DeathEatsCurry Yeah and taking that into account is biased.
@@aspacelex its not biased, its justified, cause as subbor mentioned, current human rights borrow a christian pressuposition of the divinity of a man or divine spark
They do though
How is atheism even connected to human rights??
"answer my clearly, simple loaded question, its just a yes or no answer"
Man, how is this guy having a masters in philosophy and still not aware that the question he asked could have been a loaded question.
When did he say that?
Exactly! I was really annoyed by that.
Which guy?
Oh I just reached the part now 😂😂
And on top of that Subboor was patronizing Alex at many instances although he was the one who didn’t listen nor understood what Alex said. He’s an apologist. Nothing more. A streetdog and should get back to Hide Park. He’s a bully not a debater.
Something that really bothers me is how he's on his laptop looking for the next thing to say while Alex is giving an explanation. If you're not giving your full attention to the other person while they are giving an important explanation, then why bother being there at all.
Wtf are you talking about? He's there to refute his arguments, not stare at him while speaking to him as if they're on a date.
@@sAfgun123 It's a debate. You're supposed to respond to a person's arguments and perhaps consider them, not look for ammunition on a laptop.
Pavlišič Kaja He did respond to his arguments. What he does on his laptop is irrelevant.
@@sAfgun123 he's supposed to listen, though.
@@pavlisickaja2495 But he did listen. How else would he have responded to his arguments?
48:20 "What I'm doing here is I'm only changing the variables in your argument"
"But you are doing it in a way that can't be done. You can't swap in something that isn't of the same category."
"Why not?"
O.o' ...... Alex almost has a stroke. I thought he would never recover the ability to speak again.
Ahmad soon realizes that he asked a very silly question and start grasping to straws.
@Dirilis Gundogdu Except he did say something silly. He was trying to make a false equivalence between believing in god and the concept of human rights as a means to maximize pleasure as two things of the same category, which they are not.
Human rights exist as a concept, got is supposed to be more than that. Alex was never defending that you should believe in everything that maximizes pleasure.
It is indisputable that human rights exist as a concept. But it is not indisputable that god exists as a concrete real entity.
That is why you can't just swap two "variables" willy nilly without making sure they are of the same category.
As for the question "if there are benefits of believing in god exist, why don't we just simply believe in god?"
That is such a dumb question. And the answer is because, for a lot of people, truth matters. Some people can't be convinced of something just because it is beneficial. And we don't choose what we believe or are convinced by.
@@Alkis05 you said "Some people can't be convinced of something just because it is beneficial."
what about the same argument Alex did "about believing in human rights because it is beneficial"
?
@@HosniBoun Maybe I wasn't precise in my phrasing, so I will try again. Ahmed is asking why shouldn't believe in god because it is beneficial. And then he says that similarly Alex believes in the existence of human rights because it is beneficial.
The difference is that God is supposed to be concrete, not a concept, like human rights. Alex pointed out this false equivalence.
He is not arguing that human rights are absolute universal concepts, for example. He is saying that if the goal of ethics is to find rules of conduct that benefit humanity (ie. hedonism), and if following the ethical rules of human rights is beneficial, then we should have human rights as ethical principles. That is what someone means when he says "I believe in human rights". It's benefit is the subject matter when you talk about "believing" in it.
Belief in god is not about ethics. It is about epistemology. It is about knowing/believing in the concrete existing of an entity and what relationship can be established with it.
My belief that cigarettes exist or how I could get one is not affected by if its beneficial to me or not. It's benefit is not the subject matter here.
I hope I made a better job expressing myself this time.
+
@@Alkis05 I am sorry but I don't agree!
I want to be clear on the terminology:
-When we speak about existence, we speak about existence in real life... and to now we have no proof that human rights exists (nor do we have for God if you are an atheist)
-what you are referring as "existing as concept", I would rephrase it as "well defined concept"...
When you say that human right exists as concept you mean that, the concept of human right is well defined and do not induce any contradiction. We can say the same about the concept of God.
The issue is here: concepts being well defined is a necessary but not a sufficiant condition to ensure existence.
One of the best examples is the complex set in mathematics \mathbb_{C}. Complex numbers are very well defined mathematically, yet we cant proof their existence in real life
For you to claim that Suboor's argument do not apply you have to either:
-proof that human rights exist
-proof that God do not exist
-Or bring a new argument
You can argue about human right being immaterial, God being physical... i dont believe it matters if you are believing in something that you cant proove right
This was such a refreshing debate compared to the one with Mohamed Hajib.
Yeah, comparatively it was better but I still think that Subboor was kind of manipulative and didn't really listen to Alex. I just left this debate feeling like Subboor just tried to twist Alex's words and tried to scoff at Alex for something that just wasn't true
Nat Ch. oh yeah completely! But at least Alex had a chance to explain himself and was able to provide his view and actual thoughts on the topic, which Mohamed Hajib didn’t allow Alex to do.
@@SapienEnergy yeah, that's very true. I hope more people see the video Alex did, somehow he was still gracious to Mohammed in it
He got destroyed in both.
@@gman4074 did you even watch it? Alex made points that Subboor just ignored out of pure ignorance. In no way was Alex destroyed 😂😂😂
Nobody:
Sabbour: BUT THAT DOESN'T APPLY FOR ANOTHER UNIVERS.
Sabboor: But what if the Evo2 beings didn't experience pleasure or pain?
My bonsai: 👀
He wont listen n keeps repeating the same question
To that Alex should've simply said "so what?" Hitchens style
Nobody:
Alex: I have to think if rape is bad.
Is it likely that another universe with a different set of rules and variables could have existed? According to your world view the answer is yes!
You're just mocking your own hypocrisy!
"Would you say that a lion has moral agency"?
"Yes"
"...Has moral agency"?
"Yes"
A lion has moral agency because he does actions that can be considered " good" , or " bad" according to Subboor. " Judged by whom?" was Alex his good response. But even more fundamentally, the fact that some actions can be considered "good" and some actions can be considered " less good" or even " bad" doesnt mean that the lion has agency, just that he does random acts to which these labels can be attributed. The lion is not a moral agent, because he doesnt reason morality like we do, even if he can do things which outcome can be objectively considered good, better, less bad, or bad. This was just so weak by Subboor :(
czcams.com/video/JfTyKxR_MiU/video.html
HaSnA BaShEeR Lol when you can’t give a cogent reply so you have to send everyone a link to a Muslim apologist whom Alex already intellectually slapped around the room.
The cropping up of apologists is a clear sign that people if faith are becoming desperate.
czcams.com/video/M0XuDqg2iRA/video.html
Time stamp @5:00
Would advise to watch the entire video but perhaps a prejudice against subhoor is common amongst atheists.
His opening statement reminds me so much of Hitch
Alex, you have the patience of a saint lol. It was painful to listen to this debate. The loop the opposition was on made me feel like I was on LSD. Repeating without thinking, yep sounds like religion to me.
@@Alpine1996 No. How the religious have managed to convince themselves that a God is necessary for morality mystifies me. To use your language: appeal to authoritarianism as a basis for morality is utter nonsense. In two thousand years you've never gotten past the Euthyphro dilemma.
So much of apologetics (such as Mr. Muslim's here) breaks down to the following idiocy:
If things were different then things would be different
But things aren't different
Therefore God
The references Subboor Ahmad used in the debate:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Declaration of Independence)
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
"Again (Natural selection), it does not prove to disprove moral ontology, it says nothing about it." Alex O'Connor's 'Cosmic Skeptic' video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOsG...
“Our core morality isn’t true, right, correct, and neither is any other. Nature just seduced us into thinking it’s right. It did that because that made core morality work better; our “believing in its truth increases our individual genetic fitness.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
“Is natural selection so smart that it was able to filter out all the wrong, incorrect, false core moralities and end up with the only one that just happens to be true? Or is it the other way around: Natural selection filtered out all but one core morality, and winning the race is what made the last surviving core morality the right, correct, true one.
Which is it?
It can’t be either one. The only way out of the puzzle is nihilism.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
Replay the tape a million times ... and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again. (Stephen J Gould)
Alister McGrath & Bret Weinstein • Religion: Useful fiction or ultimate truth?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRx2u...
If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (Charles Darwin)
“Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.”
Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. (Michael Ruse)
@@Alpine1996 what a long list of fallacies, well done you.
@@Alpine1996 "My belief in God is one of absolute truth, it is incorrigible in that it is simply logically, a priori, a requirement that an uncaused cause exist" So your solution to the question is an even more complex being which creates even more questions?
@@Alpine1996 Hm, the ocean having a bottom argumemt shows that you don't know history. In the many versions people imagined the world, one popular was that the sky is water, hence its blue, and the firmament holds it back. In the firmament are small holes, from where it rains. The continents are surrounded by water, so people thought they are floating above the water. Water above, water below, possibly infinitly deep. People tried to find the true depth of the ocean and many concluded it to be bottomles, due to insuficient long chains to measure tbe true depth of the ocean. People also thought the sun and moon circle the earth and for some reason, and other false things we know today to be not true.
So to say we can infer the bottom is just wrong, as people never concluded it logically. Just as we don't know if there is an border to space. You're just biased because you know the ocean has a bottom and isn't a full water planet.
And I never understood why the infinite regress is a fallacy. Can you provide an example where it shows why it is a fallacy?
Ahmad: "Why are we making an exception when it comes to humans attacking humans?"
Because we have the intellect to think about the consequences of our actions
How do YOU trust your intellect to be correct?
Because from an evolutionary perspective you can survive on false beliefs too.
We can have bad Consequences and still think it's for the greater good. Remember Hitler?
@@lunarcalendar368 Hitler shot himself in the face
@boxers nation what is wrong with these from a atheist point of view? Where do you derive your morality from? Everything is subjective.
@boxers nation
We theists can justify why we trust our minds, can you?
There are falsification tests in religious books, have you ever tried them?
Can I know on what basis of morality you condemn slavery, child marriages etc. (P.s I am not a fan of them)but
Charles Darwin approved the massacres of the "savages" in North America, Australia, Africa etc based on survival. And the hierarchy.
And if reproduction is the the basis of evolution, how can you condemn any sort of marriages?
@@lunarcalendar368 Speaking for myself, I rarely trust it outright with the complex stuff. I trust my brain to recognize harmful and beneficial things but I'll think it through and test. Seems to be working out thus far and so I trust it just a little bit more everytime. Sometimes it fails horrendously and I don't trust it in those scenarios that it failed in.
Edit: even if it works out some level of skepticism is necessary since things may have worked out because of other factors that I didn't even consider (correlation vs causation and all that)
Cosmic: "Things bad" not moral, "things good" moral
Ahmad: If everything was different you would be wrong, therefore you're wrong
Amhad: What if we rewind the VHS and evolution makes rape good.
Alex: 🤨 Then it would no longer be rape, by definition ot would be sex.
Young Dawah yes, people have different desires that they wish to fulfill. The point of a moral system is to be able to evaluate desires and determine whether or not those desires should be realized (with action) by some standard. By Alex’s standard, consensual homosexuality would be permissible because it does not cause suffering to individuals involved in the relationship. Eating meat would be immoral because even though it gives pleasure to the person consuming it, it required a significant amount of suffering of non-human persons to make happen. If you want to demonstrate that homosexuality is immoral under Alex’s system, you have to demonstrate that it causes more suffering than pleasure to those who are involved in it.
@Young Dawah 'Arf yö red thär bibler? Ez moster importo par ett havler ov öll thar sturry ov Jengus Christler, son ov Lordo. Thar ust trüest bibler, fur nuly ta dee vot.
Fortunarto, Ay ehm moster educatordo. Hogg aten ov öll Bibler ez prophesito foretolden! Lordo havv choosen Hogg as be ov new Jengus Christler! Jenguss Christler ez crucifixo en then thar H’Ongry Hogge do aten ov Jengus Christler en everbotty applauden vary hardardo. Helleluyar!
@Jackesfox Who is cosmic to decide whether something is bad or not, if you cant decide whats bad then you can't decide what's not moral vice versa for good. Lots of us know things are "bad" for you, for example, Heroin but it brings about absolute pleasure and nowadays we have the saying "I'm here for a "good" time, not a long one", this saying is usually associated with pleasure and is said before one of the lads snorts 1g of ket, that's why I have the stance as long as I have a child my jobs done, hence why I take a sh*t tonne of psychedelics and drugs to discover new meaning to life because as an atheist I have realized there is none. As life has no meaning our existence is merely natural "rights" are purely subjective if someone wants to kill someone or even enjoys it who am I to judge, I can't condemn them as long as they don't affect my family & friends.
@@thecommander9304 Why make a exception for your family and friends? Why condemn their murder? There is no ultimate meaning there is the meaning we establish and you don't want to live in a society where your friends and family can be killed so you should act to avoid that society. Not caring about the murder of those you don't care about will help bring in that society.
I have so much respect and admiration for you Alex. I would have lost my composure so many times and laughed. I suppose that's why I don't participate in live debates 😂 Great argument. I feel like listening to your channel has helped give me, and I'm sure many others, a better understanding of how we can reason and have a moral code while being atheist. I can't wait to see what intellectual endeavors you pursue in the future. You have a brilliant mind. I wish I was half as eloquent as you.
Man, you freaking nailed it. Great to hear someone make nearly identical arguments to what I make regarding morality (and a few beyond that even) without weirdly trying to call it objective morality.
😂😂😂 u guys are cancer to society
@@mohammedanees1610 Did your post present strong, logical evidence of objective morality? It didn't. So then you apparently don't have a good reason to believe it exists. Just like me.
Well I'm honest about it: because I don't know, _I admit I don't know_ objective morality exists, and won't believe in it unless we someday get evidence of it.
Valuing truth isn't "cancerous". It's the most rational way for a society to behave. In fact irrational beliefs like religion are a far more dangerous ideology to humanity.
@@majmagehow about this. To be selfless is better than being selfish because it is the embodiment of empathy and compassion versus selfishness embodying ego/pride or pleasure.
To murder someone innocent is selfish and evil, to help a stranger in need is selfless and good. The kicker is, helping someone gives both the one in need and* you a rewarding feeling. It's actually as if love is the one thing that breaks the action-reaction paradigm into action-action (both being forward/good from a moral perspective).
Finally to argue that murdering someone isn't fundamentally wrong would hinge on the subjective 0.01% of humanity essentially basing an argument on a statistical outlier. We know good cannot exist without evil (nor can the north exist without the south) and we know what each encompasses yet somehow say it's all subjective? You can't have it both ways.
@@dartskihutch4033 Objective means, _"not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts."_
Subjective means, _"based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions."_
You've stated your feelings on various moral acts. That's why what you described is subjective morality.
Objective morality would mean that you could prove something was right or wrong independent of feelings/tastes/opinions. Yet nobody so far has ever been able to do that. (In fact most commonly other posters either present their own feelings like you did, or ask me my feelings. Ironic because _that's exactly what makes it subjective!_ )
@@majmage objectivity and objective morality exists in slightly nuanced spaces, but sure I'll concede to that and allude to my point that 0.01% of humanity would agree that murdering the innocent is wrong, and we only set moral standards for humans, so are you saying that we would need 100% to agree? Or would that still fall into 100% of people subjectively agree this is correct?
In that case does 1+1=2 not count as objectively true because someone somewhere truly disagrees? Do you agree that up cannot exist without down objectively due to relativity? In the same stroke, would it not be true objectively that good cannot exist without evil?
If we can't even agree that objective truths such as this can't exist, then we might as well say nothing exists, evil nor good, up nor down, and everything is nonsense and absolute chaos. But then again, chaos is directly proportional to order.
Okay! As a muslim i always strive to be sincere to my conscience as this is what my religion teaches me, Qur'an says "Be just even if it's against yourself" so I'd like to give my honest review about the debate.
it was certainly a very productive discussion and I've definitely got to learn from both sides, both of them have shown that we can establish a respectful dialogue doesn't matter how severe the disagreements between our different worldviews may be, brother Suboor has always impressed me with his professionalism and his immense knowledge of academic discourse,
i have also grown much respect for Alex seeing him demonstrating disciplined mannerism and academic integrity and, he's one of the few atheists on internet who have earned my respect, as for the debate,
Suboor did a good job with presenting his arguments in a lucid way but it was Alex who stole the stage with his logical responses to Suboor's arguments, Alex remained consistent throughout the debate without deflecting from the topic and he came out successful in defending his arguments against the attempted rebuttals of his opponent, so Alex is clearly the winner as far as this debate is concerned, it is not to say that i agree with Alex's view or that I think his arguments cannot be dealt with and shown to be incoherent but only that this debate has a clear winner and that is Alex.
Peace be upon you all.
SubjectToScrutiny excellent post...
You do a much better job at removing your own bias than I do a lot of the time so I just wanted to say I'm impressed with your balanced view point and it was helpful for me to balance my own biases.
Subboor kept misrepresenting Alex’s position over and over again like a parrot ... I don’t get how people can be patient with that...
"I'm trying to educate alex" when he said that it killed me inside
Oh my god and when he pulls out the Nazi comparison at the end. That's when you know you've lost
@Rener Oslo when was the first time I failed to see the point?
@Rener Oslo also, the argument that a majority agreeing makes something true is a complete fabrication that Ahmad made up, it was never Alex's point. You'd have to have zero respect for your opponent to think they'd seriously believe that majority makes truth.
@Rener Oslo at this point youre debating with yourself
Stop
That Timothée Chalamet impersonator in the middle is reaaaally good.
Time stamp?
I love these sorts of debates they give us a lot of information.
The difference between this interaction and Alex's interaction with Mohammad hijab is astonishing. Alex really didn't shy away from confronting and held his grounds and didnt let anyone (including that audience) to speak over him. He made his points precisely without any room for doubt for the positions he holds. Coming to suboor I felt like he came to the debate with some preconceived notions of what Alex will say without really understanding why he is saying it and prepare his rebuttal based on those notions. This is quite evident when Alex will try to explain something and he will try to hurry alex up by interrupting and asking another question thinking he just caught Alex saying some word or statement he was hoping to hear as a "gotcha" moment. But I m glad Alex actually explained things well for an average listener like me. I wish suboor was more present in this conversation and actually listened and conversed rather than having that debate mentality of "gotcha" moment and waiting to hear the words or statements he was hoping Alex would make. I believe this interaction would have been a far more enjoyable and intelligent video than it was if that would have the case.
@Persian Assassin no, he said given a different world with a different perception of rape (that perception being it's not bad, and that instead it's a good thing that everyone enjoys), it would stop being rape and just be sex, and that there was no problem with that, precisely because it would no longer be perceived as a painful experience. At least that is what I got from this discussion, it was hard to keep up honestly because Suboor was so bad.
Persian Assassin , God didn‘t make a commanment „ thou shall not rape women and children“ according to the Torah, Bible and the Quran. So much for rape is morally objective wrong.
@Persian Assassin holy shit really? You're gonna try and pull me into that trap? And after 2 weeks of nothing? I suggest you try reading what I said again.
Of course in this world, rape is bad, and that's based partly upon it being a painful experience. But if you can imagine, in a DIFFERENT world, rape may not be experienced as painful, but may be experienced as pleasurable. At which point, by definition, it stops being rape, and isn't considered a particular bad act, it just becomes sex.
At no point in that am I saying I think rape is good, or that it's not bad if the victim enjoys it, or that even the victim would. I'm talking about a scenario in which the experience and therefore the morals are different. That's Moral Philosophy. You can do this with other things like murder, you could imagine a world where murder isn't seen as bad by people and therefore isn't punished, maybe seen as just a natural part of life that happens. Again, that's not to say I think it's good. These examples are just to show morality is subjective in nature and dependent upon us being here to perceive them, rather than being objective facts about the physical world or something similar.
@Persian Assassin also you are not taking into account that if a rape victim enjoys parts of it they are still going to have lasting traumatic psychological issues
@Persian Assassin (1) Islam doesn't believe in marital rape. First, a husband is allowed to beat his wife he disobeys him. And if a wife ever refuses to have sex with her husband, the freaking angels of the God curses her for the entire night. So that's two against female sexual agency. And there is no verse condemning a husband if he so chooses to force himself upon his wife. No examples of any punishment for such crime.
(2) Islam doesn't have a concept of statutory rape. A child of nine can not consent and an adult having sexual relationship with one is considered a rape in many, many countries. But not in Sharia.
So, yes, Islam does condemn rape, but that condemnation is dependent on what they consider or does not consider as rape.
I feel this was a Q & A with Alex... Subboor just brought talking points and Straw.
*sings* Do you want to build a straw man?
@Ali Hanif if you build a logical argument and it's consistent, than it's true. That is the point of logical argument. Point out the flaws.
@@SteveVanWinkle an argument can be consistent (P1 killing humans is wrong,
P2 there is no trait in animals that justifies the difference in ethical consideration Conc: therefore killing animals is also wrong)
But the assumptions dont have to be true on a fundamental basis, killing humans is a-moral could be true so the consistent argument crumbles.
So an argument can be consistent but it may not have a true basis. Therefore an argument can be consistent but still wrong- or atleast its basis can be wrong.
So if you build a logical argument and it is consistent it may be true - but it doesnt have to be.
I dont want to debate if the examples and arguments are correct or not i just wanted to get the point across
@@moritz3168 if all parties agree on the premises and conclusions it's a logically sound argument. If you can not agree on the conclusion, You need to point out the flaws, in the premises or the conclusion they put forward. Every one keeps creating strawman arguments and saying this is why he is wrong.
Your example of a "consistent argument" is not a "consistent argument" the first premise is flawed that is why it falls apart.
Find the flaws in HIS argument and point it out.
@Ali Hanif 'Arf yö red thär bibler? Ez moster importo par ett havler ov öll thar sturry ov Jengus Christler, son ov Lordo. Thar ust trüest bibler, fur nuly ta dee vot.
Fortunarto, Ay ehm moster educatordo. Hogg aten ov öll Bibler ez prophesito foretolden! Lordo havv choosen Hogg as be ov new Jengus Christler! Jenguss Christler ez crucifixo en then thar H’Ongry Hogge do aten ov Jengus Christler en everbotty applauden vary hardardo. Helleluyar!
I came here from the 'short' clip you'd posted after being confronted by the audience member about his view that you claimed to be a 'law giver'.
Your response was great, as usual, but the way you introduced the audience into the discussion to verify whether you had or hadn't made such a claims was very much in the mould of the late 'Hitch'. :)
Subbor: "People beleive in delusions all the time to make themselves happy". Sums him up really.
Sums almost all beliefs including Atheism.
@@BePostitive Not sure what you mean mate. I do think that belief in an god without evidence is a delusion. How does that make my view a delusion? Please explain.
@@BePostitive You realise that Atheism is a lack of a belief and not a belief right? Its like saying the off button on your TV is the same as a TV channel. There isn’t any excuse to be making mistakes like you are, you obviously haven’t got a clue what atheism is.
Assuming that atheism is a system, I assume you're quite stupid. Not playing football is a sport? Not collecting stamps is a hobby?
@@synthrostx4508 it seems like you are the one who is Stupid here, do you know that belief have several different definitions?!
According to your definition of belief, Atheism is not a belief system, but according to mine it's a belief system or at least incorporate several different belief systems. But you know what I won't debate it with you here cuz it seems like you are one of them ones... etc
Alex looks so handsome in that outfit.
u gay bro?
@@riglancer5473 Yes, very gay indeed. I adore men :-).
Bin Young ok bro
Bin Young I agree. It’s delicious
When I was in 8th grade I thought he was really damn cute oop
This was an amazing debate to watch in person. Makes me wanna attend more to learn and improve 😀
Thanks again Alex
Good debate, watched it all
I like Alex, his demeanour, his mannerisms and his ability to keep the viewer watching. It was a really good debate. I don't think it's as clear cut as many of the comments suggest. Suboor is a very intelligent man, he made many good points as did Alex.
That means that I think you have a very balanced view that is not heavily biased I think. Just listening at this right now, but that is usually my take as well. I believe in God myself but I believe in Vedanta so I have no dog in the race as it pertains to Islam vs Atheism, no dog in the race as it pertains to both belief systems. For me, religion is very powerful and has had a positive transformative effect but it is more so a personal thing and a way of life, I don't care to convert people with the zeal of the convert, no. If one is happy and good even being atheist I applaud that, I am just not orientated that way myself. Good to see someone such as yourself not cemented in "my way", "my belief". I think that is quite toxic, going into these debates as the "atheist team" or the "muslim team" etc, that is all part of ones ego. Much better to approach it the way you do, I think. All the best man.
No he didn't he has comprehension issues.
he literally didn’t 💀
Well ehm...
I'd like to agree with you.
I think I hoped better from Subboor. I feel I get his point but also feel Alex already won it over before Subboor even started talking.
It's like Suboor started talking about "this is why Atheism can't work as a moral basis" but I feel we just did how it does.
@@viancavarma3455 who didn't what?
Ugh. I'm sick of the "if we rewound the tape" analogy. No matter how many times I rewind The Lion King and play it again, Mufasa dies.
that proves randomness doesnt exist
@@911beats no, it only states that what happened happened. A = A. If there was a new universe with similar starting conditions it very well may have an element of randomness. No idea tbh
@@Omagadam1 theres no such thing as randomness, its a mathematical concept that doesn't exist in reality
@@911beats I'm not saying it does, I'm just saying my interpretation of the tape analogy doesn't disprove randomness only that a = a
I feel bad for Alex just watching this
I feel bad for you too just by reading your comment
Alex baddest moment 1:34:56
@@_eLf45 baddest? Is that even a word?
@@trybunt
it's not a proper word, it's a slang
what is slang?
"Slang is very informal language or specific words used by a particular group of people. You'll usually hear slang spoken more often than you'll see it put in writing, though emails and texts often contain many conversational slang words."
Good job keeping it together Alex. Saboor kept trying to twist your words. I thought you were very clear
"You don't understand what I'm doing, I'm just replacing the variable in your argument"
"Yes but you can't do that"
"Why?"
"They're of these two different categories of variable"
Repeat ad nauseum
The references Subboor Ahmad used in the debate:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Declaration of Independence)
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
"Again (Natural selection), it does not prove to disprove moral ontology, it says nothing about it." Alex O'Connor's 'Cosmic Skeptic' video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOsG...
“Our core morality isn’t true, right, correct, and neither is any other. Nature just seduced us into thinking it’s right. It did that because that made core morality work better; our “believing in its truth increases our individual genetic fitness.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
“Is natural selection so smart that it was able to filter out all the wrong, incorrect, false core moralities and end up with the only one that just happens to be true? Or is it the other way around: Natural selection filtered out all but one core morality, and winning the race is what made the last surviving core morality the right, correct, true one.
Which is it?
It can’t be either one. The only way out of the puzzle is nihilism.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
Replay the tape a million times ... and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again. (Stephen J Gould)
Alister McGrath & Bret Weinstein • Religion: Useful fiction or ultimate truth?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRx2u...
If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (Charles Darwin)
“Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.”
Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. (Michael Ruse)
@@darwinistdelusions6504 epic
I always roll my eyes when someone says "they remind me of a young Christopher Hitchens" (Especially when it was applied to one individual by Bill Maher) But this is the first time I've seen a debate that really gave me a hint of that familiar wit and humor. I'm really looking forward to see where Alex goes from here.
Alex isn't a young Christopher Hitchens. Far from it. He's too polite and keeps himself out of the muck.
I do miss Hitchens.
Both Alex and Hitchens are fairly overrated in my view. Every time I watch one of Alex's videos I can't help but think of a comment I saw on the Catholic priest Bishop Robert Barron's CZcams channel where he reviews "God is not Great" -
"Rule #1 when reading/watching/listening to anything by Christopher Hitchens:
Simply having a British accent, charismatic personality and witty writing style does not automatically make you right about everything, or frankly anything."
The attributes that are listed in this comment often dupe people into believing that both of these people are far more sophisticated than they actually are and lead to many sycophantic fans taking everything they say as gospel on account of their ability to conjure up soundbites that at first glance appear to be highly rational/logical, yet which are often exposed as being philosophically weak when seriously examined critically, which I think Subboor managed here, particularly on the topic of morality where Alex denied that animals have moral agency only to realise that he contradicted his own moral standards, or when Alex had to hesitate when asked if rape is objectively morally wrong past present and future yes or no.
@@patrickmcardle952 Lol...Hitchens is overrated because he has a British accent.
This has to be one of the most infantile arguments I have ever heard.
castro sherwood all that’s infantile is the manner with which you simplified the point I was making which is that it often dupes people into thinking that his arguments are more sophisticated than they actually are. The best way to see when this happens is to watch him present an argument and then look at the transcript immediately afterwards
castro sherwood Take the Iraq war for instance. This is one area where the clear majority disagreed with his views, yet when you watch him speak on this subject with all of the wit charisma and sophisticated sounding jargon etc. you’ll find yourself getting won over only to then have to remind yourself that he’s categorically wrong. If I’m honest, I’d classify Hitchens as being a British/enhanced version of Aron Ra when it comes to religion - a highly charismatic/articulate atheistic preacher who is able to tap into the feelings shared by teenagers/young adults who are resentful towards religion or who feel as though all of it is nonsense but who couldn’t quite put their thoughts into words, which Alex is able to do very well as well. This is what leads to people of this ilk being fairly overrated in my view
Lots of Sam Harris' views were thrown around, and in a negative light. I feel compelled to defend him a bit, because Sam's position is actually really close to Alex's. Sam says pleasure and pain are objective due to observability of the neurophysiology of experiencing morality (and pleasure/pain). Alex is just starting from the next level up, at the level of experience rather than the biology causing that experience (making his foundation subjective). Experience IS subjective (Alex), but the neurophisiology causing it is objective (Sam). I prefer Alex's, tbh, because it means that if pleasure and pain is possible without a basis in reality (that we understand or not) then Alex's morality would still hold but Sam's would not; Alex's is more general and more powerful. However, Sam's position is still sane and shouldn't be misrepresented; it's also consistent AFAICT.
I agree. Best as I can tell, they are more just just consistent. The difference between them is a semantic one at best. Both describe our moral system as simultaneously subjective relative to the universe *AND* objective relative to the facts of our biology and physicality.
Rener Oslo Agreed, the whole subjective morality concept is nothing more than a chaotic paradox in my opinion.
Rener Oslo Indeed, I would even argue that questioning objective laws and axioms is illogical and flawed. Take the trivial example of why we don’t question the laws of nature and mathematics which are fundamental buildings blocks to our existence. Long story short but if there was no objective basis for morality, then it follows that i can RATIONALLY justify ANY act, be it moral or immoral (you might as well wipe out humanity if you believe in such a thing) hence the chaotic paradox that i referred to from earlier.
@@edit8826 Rener said it is absurd to make objective claims from a subjective premise. Even if the objective claim is right, that doesn't make the argument reasonable, as the premise is based on personal views. There is no subjective premise in your claim, either it is true that people consider pain to be a negative experience, or they don't.
@@edit8826 For example, my favorite color is red. So if I'm buying a car, I might be able to claim objectively that I should buy the red car to maximize my own pleasure. But that is based on a subjective premise, that my favorite color is red. It will not apply to people who have a different favorite color.
So how many did vote for Alex at the end there?
Shout out for that question from moderator haha... thought he was asleep but he basically closed the debate!
Nobody:
Subboor: If things were different, things would be different.
No. They would be even differenter.
So how do we know our different differences are better then the other possible differences?
i mean he is not wrong about that. Subboor is wrong about a lot but not that.
This debate resembles more like a tentative to misrepresent one side than *debating* about the subject. Using various strawman, misrepresentations and (some) ad hominem, Subboor is visibly highly motivated to show so-called “Alex's inconsistencies” while remaining in the convenient position of not exposing his own views on the subject discussed here.
A good example of such a tactic is by systematically opposing Alex's views against Harris' views, showing an easy-to-follow connection between two "public figures" of atheism, confounding the audience in making them think that their (apparent) incoherences make Alex wrong (and therefore atheism) -but, do we have to remind that this was not the subject matter!?
It obviously worked, as the questions were all directed toward Alex, not Subboor.
Subboor makes himself look like he's “right”... but this does not make a case for his position anyway.
He is super manipulative, and unfortunately a lot of people fall for that
Had this thought all along.. frustration hits hard when i watch Alex debating
@@rasmuslassen6273 especially indoctrinated people.
Alex is basically saying "Treat others the way you want to be treated", very simplified. But in essence, sentient animals can feel pain, if we were one of those sentient animals, would we think that being treated the way we treat animals now, is something we would want?
Also, why is Subboor so incredibly condescending?
Oh Subboor doesn’t even listen to Alex’s argument and rebuttal to even comprehend his position
The references Subboor Ahmad used in the debate:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Declaration of Independence)
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.” (Yuvah Noah Harrai, Sapiens)
"Again (Natural selection), it does not prove to disprove moral ontology, it says nothing about it." Alex O'Connor's 'Cosmic Skeptic' video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOsG...
“Our core morality isn’t true, right, correct, and neither is any other. Nature just seduced us into thinking it’s right. It did that because that made core morality work better; our “believing in its truth increases our individual genetic fitness.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
“Is natural selection so smart that it was able to filter out all the wrong, incorrect, false core moralities and end up with the only one that just happens to be true? Or is it the other way around: Natural selection filtered out all but one core morality, and winning the race is what made the last surviving core morality the right, correct, true one.
Which is it?
It can’t be either one. The only way out of the puzzle is nihilism.”
Excerpt From: Rosenberg, Alex. “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions.” iBooks.
Replay the tape a million times ... and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again. (Stephen J Gould)
Alister McGrath & Bret Weinstein • Religion: Useful fiction or ultimate truth?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRx2u...
If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (Charles Darwin)
“Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.”
Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. (Michael Ruse)
"im not sure i agree with the diagnosis" " SO YOU'RE DENYING THE PREMISE?"/// No, uncertainty does not equal disagreement (or agreement); its more of a trichotomy i think.
It's not a trichotomy. You either accept a premise or deny it. That is a dichotomy. However denying a premise is not the same as asserting a premise is false, which is a different claim. Subboor is rhetorically treating denial as if Alex is asserting the claim is false.
That Subboor guy just seems to be incapable of actually listening to Alex.
Maybe he had an archangel screaming in his ears at the same time.
Actually he was listening quite well
@@mostafasaid5012 he wasn't even debating Alex, the vast majority of the time he was essentially debating against random other philosophers that hold different views. That's the issue here, if atheism is simply the disbelief of a god/gods there isn't any other ideology involved, you can get vastly different Views. A similar example would be if during the debate Alex randomly brought up Isis, because they must not believe in equal human rights and they are religious. But I would think it's obvious that Subboor isn't debating whether extremist religious groups can justify human rights or not. I would hope he doesn't hold similar beliefs, and Alex has the dignity not to mischaracterize Subboor's position.
That's all of them. Honestly i lost all respect for him when he pulled the "Christianity is the reason we have the west today". No, the reason we have the west is a bunch of really smart people fooled all the stupid people into believing that a magic sky daddy would punish them if they didn't follow "the rules", rules which were obviously created by men, not a god. If they were created by a god, not only would the rules be perfect (which they are not) but it would be impossible for our primitive money brains to even comprehend the logic behind the rules.
@@mostafasaid5012 bhahhahaaaa
1:08:12 "If my Grandmother had wheels, would she be a bicycle?"
hilarious
48:30 lmao WHAT
I'd have just walked out at that point. My man is lost.
It's amazing how you're able to stay this calm while debating people like Ahmad
He kept slandering you right in front of you
I really enjoyed the debate
You're awesome Alex
Hmm, im biased towards subhoor. Can you point out where subhoor slandering alex?
@Eddie Austin Hmm, I believe he's referring to the frequent mentions of what Alex has previously said in a video from years ago, where Alex had to correct him saying that he was not a moral nihilist. Calling it slander is a bit much, but he was definitely going for the "Gotcha!" moments.
YOU can't expect anything reasonable from flat earth believers and/or evolution deniers. They're willfully ignorant and intellectually dishonest slaves or their mentors and masters. No wonder these kind of pseudointellectual hypocritic Abrahamic dogmats are blindly biased and backwards and regressive.
@Eddie Austin I see no difference between flat earth believers and evolution deniers. Both are dishonest intellectually and wilfully ignorant. In fact the reason for rejecting evolution and round earth are almost the same. No difference. Both are foolish.
And I believe in evolution and that's it. Not Darwinian or lamarkian, or Dawkinian. It's just evolution just like it's round earth and not Copernican earth or galelioen earth.
What happened around 1:24:00 was plain glorious. The way he handled that question and the rather obnoxious way it was put forward was beautiful. That was a Hitchens moment right there. Well played Alex.
We just wanna see blood in debates. Might be why Hitch was so well loved
I am so excited about you Alex! Hitchens has been my hero for years and who I want to be when I "grow up" (even though I have been grown for years) You remind me of a mini Hitch right now. We definately need more minds like yours! Keep up the great work!
hitch was far aggressive in nature contrary alex is very peaceful young guy but it takes only a male like Hitchens to slap those straw mans by those religious bigots.
We'll find out when we die
@@watvid1or we won’t (;
@@visiblehuman3705 in which case we won't know, we'll be nothing. But there's a few verses in the Quran about this.
Nobody:
Subboor: “let’s change the variables”
You only say that because -- you know why? -- Because you've evolved on this trajectory. /s
- You've been taking notes, any remarks?
- it's really hard to know where to begin...
You cracked me up Alex!
lol....you are easy to pleased to....that's cringe!
I could listen to Alex speak all day
Thanks!
That sentience bit was a real treat lol
IM SO PROUD OF YOU! You did so well!!!
What kind of question is that? And why waste time "debating" such silly question? I am not going to watch, but I assume the argument is something like "without god there are no morals; if you have no god, you have no morals; without morals, there are no human rights..."
You're close. It was:
Atheism leads to moral nihilism,
moral nihilism undermines human rights;
therefore, atheism undermines human rights
Without the All Wise and All knowledgeable Law Giver then your abortion campaign and the Arab pagans who buried their own daughters are the same *objectively according to you*
Morality becomes a joke, "sex liberation" is the disguise that LGBT community uses. People in Norway and Sweden are starting to accept Incest... I wonder why......... 💀🤕
You'd think the University of Oxford would be able to at least edit the sound of the audience's mic so that it doesn't do whatever is making my ears think they're partly plugged and that someone is speaking within my head but also moving from left to right constantly.
I feel like at some point, Alex wondered how he got to be arguing with someone who thinks lions have moral agency and that good and bad can be present in the absence of sentience 😂
What a wonderful human being Alex is. How I would love to spend a few hours in his company. Thank you for your continued efforts.
Hello Alan, Alex is a very busy man. I am not. Do you wanna hangout? Don't get me wrong, i am a woman lover but i have time to spend a few hours in your company. I must say i am not really a talker, but i can listen very good.
Next saturday?
Aslan B. Sure
So did you guys hang out ?
@@usèr1234-x1o Hahaha, NO!
I am in Australia and while I have no idea where Aslan B is there is no way I would seek out a nutter like that anyway.
@@AlanLow Hahaha.
I'd love to hang out with Alex too, but yeah, I'd pass on Aslan B.🤭
I've been listening to Alex for awhile now, but I want to bring something up, just for the sake of clarity... I'm curious how you came to the conclusion that morality is subjective on a personal level, but at the same time ultimately objective when you look at the bigger picture. Even if it's to say that it's NOT actually objective, and that we just treat it as if it were. The example you gave of the color blue for example, how can you say that blue is objectively the right color, if even 1 person disagrees. This sounds to me like a contradiction and a generalization combined. That is, to say that morality is subjective, and yet if you go against the norm you are not being moral, is in my opinion a contradiction. It's still your opinion of right and wrong vs theirs, so how do you justify this belief system? Also, how do you determine the "norm?" Is it taken to a vote and majority wins, and if so how is that fair and objective? By the way I'm not condemning the belief, not condoning it, I'm only searching for clarity on the matter, thank you.
If someone tells you they prefer blue over all colors and that other colors make them sad and then they tell you they are going to paint their house yellow well then you might try to convince them that doing that is a bad idea.
Perhaps Alex and his contemporaries such as Harris should use "universal" instead of "objective" Just because something is not absolute or objective (in the sense of Objectivism), does not mean it's universality is any less true. Just as believing morality to be relativistic does not make you a moral nihilist. The fact that sugary food tastes sweet is not absolute (in the objectivism sense) and the gustatory perception relies on the mind to exist shows that it [taste] is not objective but subjective. and so just as morality requires minds to exist and is not as "eternally" real or true as things that are within the domain of Objectivism, that does not mean morality is not universal within human culture. Killing is universally wrong across all cultures. Also, money is literally a piece of paper, yet its exchange value is "real" within the confines of human society. You could think of this as such: morality, taste, money, love, trust, etc exist on hierarchy of realistic. and what exists on the highest plane to be ultimately real or true.
He has done a lot of talks, if you go back in his catalog, you'll probably find them!
@@armanjasuja4059 bla bla bla... twisting here and there to make thing looks appropriate you your own belief
one person did not agree to paint blue, yet still say its all agree.LOL
@@armanjasuja4059 Nope, i think the better comparison is like gay marriage. some people agree and some people against it. its subjective to each individual.
However, in islam, its morally OBJECTIVE. gay marriage/sexual is haram/prohibited in Islam. Why God prohibits it? because God the creator of us the the universe knows best.
Now, in modern medical reports say that HIV infections are now mainly contributed by homosexual among men that surpasses needle/syringe and heterosexual activities
moving into the future, what else human SUBJECTIVE morality would demand, having sex with child? incest? with animal? or marrying a piano?
the opening arguments were soooo much better than the actual debate what the helll
At 1:25:00, I loved seeing you basically break down into a frustrated flurry of “HERE’S WHAT I MEAN, YOU DONUT. YOU’VE HEARD IT WRONG.”