Is God a Dictator? | Analysing Christopher Hitchens
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
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---------- VIDEO NOTES ----------
Is God nothing more than a "celestial dictator"? Christopher Hitchens thought so, and was relentless in exclaiming so. God is an all-knowing supervisor, who judges your thoughts and demands praise and obedience. But does this make him a tyrant?
I wanted to spend some time responding to Hitchens' famous argument, and see how it might be responded to.
---------------- LINKS -----------------
More on hell: • How I Got Over My Fear...
Hitchens Source 1 (Hitchens vs Hitchens): • Debate: Hitchens V. Hi...
Hitchens Source 2 ("Hitch-slap" compilation, Agatan Foundation): • Video
--------- TIMESTAMPS -----------
0:00 The Celestial North Korea
1:08 Introduction
3:46 What's Wrong With Dictatorship?
11:45 What About Freedom?
19:50 Bishop Robert Barron
23:26 Outro
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Atheists: *Poses questions.
Christians: Why do you ask? Why should I answer?
Atheists: To know.
Christians: But can you know anything?
Atheists: No.
Christians: Then why do you ask?
Atheists: To know.
The curse of obtusity.
Atheists: Give me proof.
Christians: Why?
Atheists: This and that.
Christians: No opinions.
Atheists: It's facts.
Christians: How do you know?
Atheists: This and that.
The burden of opinion.
Alex, you arrogant piece of shit: was your father the dictator in your home?
Why use the phrase "dictator" when absolute monarch applies equally well.
Interesting take
Only if God gave actually guidance but thought provoking as usual .. im under impression that God being Omniscient make universe predetermined also God straight up killed 15,000 people for complaining bout other people he or it killed .. I like too say we have a will but it isn't so free I believe we influence our decisions or lack thereof but due too causal chain, physics, nature vs nurture , epigenetics also have influence that's subtle like being low in certain vitamin and you got 2 option between your favorite drink and drink that you know has more of that vitamin so you chose it but you not aware of it being depleted... God knows how exactly all that interacts with your will depends on type one God believe in.. I will say the problem with God dictatorship is I expect perfection to be perfect as allegedly we made in his image but perfect being creates imperfect beings which does not follow unless he did so on purpose out fear of human becoming more godlike
Great analysis. Its pretty interesting how esteemed Hitchens and his Christian brother differ in views yet criticize the dogmatism of PC Culture as new theocracies (or even techocracies)
But Hitchens isn’t talking about a deistic omniscient God, he is indeed very much talking about a theistic God such as the one of the Old Testament, who is very much human and dictator-like. He even says “he would require me to worship him..” etc that should tell you he’s obviously referring to theistic rituals. Him referring to hell as a more literal torture also tells you the specific texts he was talking about…
Hitchens never delved too deep into philosophical arguments for a deistic God (at least not that I’m aware of), he mostly focused on things he felt were unjust, the holy texts being one of these things, because of how corruptly they’ve been used and what an unjust world it would be if they were true.
Nevertheless, using Hitchens as a jumping-off point to talk about the argument for an all-loving God, who is like a dictator who wants to best for you is a very interesting thought experiment!
How is the NT any different?
@@littlebitofhope1489 I suppose there’s a bit more of an emphasis on hippie Jesus and “turn the other cheek”, and not so much on a tyrant who gets angry and goes about punishing everyone. But you’re right, not much better…
Also yes a omniscient being telling you that he wants the best for you is cool, because the other option is bad and presumably he can't do anything about it but reason with you, but a ominiscient omnipotent being can do something about it beyond any barrier, an all powerful, all knowing, all loving dictator would in fact be a good thing, in fact it's apparently what judaic religion poorly tried to represent, a god-king with infinite power and knowledege leading his people to ultimate success over any trial, but due to the nature of their tribalisc and outdated morality the god that seemed perfect to them back then is reasonably not seem in such a good light nowdays
@@interneda98 It's just a bit better hidden. He never spoke out against slavery, and he said to follow the laws in the old testament. That's what I go by.
You can't compare a world where witches were real as microbes couldn't be imagined and cannibalism was normal not morally wrong some victims walked to the slaughter as it was ok back then they had totally different mind's.
To assume your morals are yours is as insane as you get you get them from your environment
Well, about your friend making poor choices or the smoker. You're actually helping them by suggesting better behaviors or restricting their choices. That's correct as long as you're not the guy who created the conditions that give them misery. But if you did indeed create those conditions, then you are just a sadistic voyeur, the mafia boss that helps you avoiding the trouble he's going to make if you don't follow the rules he himself made up.
Yeah I too felt that the implementations are quite different when a god also created the rules of how you and the universe works. If i warn my friend about the dangers of apples because I genuinely care for him, but the warning is only necessary because I poison his apples am I really still benevolent? Or if I create an AI and explain the laws of robotics to it and stress their importance for it to follow them because otherwise I've designed it to self destruct, am I really not imposing my will but only warning? I don't think a creator god can be a benevolent dictator if there is any possible way to get yourself into an inescapable afterlife of displeasure much less torture. I'm doubtful that a creator god that is also omniscient can even coexist with their creation having free will unless that omnicience is carefully defined to not include certainty of the choices of the creation. With no free will and punishment you would in effect have been created specifically to get punished.
Brilliant point
Could you not argue against autonomous existence itself? Why bother creating a sentient life that is inevitably capable of acting imperfectly such that they will entrap themself in conditions of misery? Is it moral to create a being that will necessarily suffer? It certainly seems that you cannot have free will without the ability to make the wrong choice for yourself.
Perhaps though the being will necessarily suffer, this suffering is limited and more importantly could in of itself be needed to feel pleasure. How can one perceive what is pleasure if they do not know of unpleasure? If the overall pleasure a being feels is larger than it’s burden of existence, is it justifiable?
If you can grant this premise of some suffering to be justifiable for free will to exist such that the being can feel pleasure, I would say that then aiding the being for it to autonomously develop itself to get a better ratio of pleasure to unpleasure is moral.
Yeah this is the most critical point and it wasn't addressed as far as I could tell in the video. God is a dictator and tyrant precisely because he created the rules and then punished everyone because of original sin and if we don't follow his guidance to get out of this jam he created we enter an eternity of suffering. You can't have an all loving God who creates an eternal punishment, in my opinion. Now Hitchens knew who his questioner was and that his brand of Christianity believes in a hell so his argument holds but if say he was talking to someone who practiced Judaism and didn't believe in the afterlife then yeah I could see your analysis making more sense.
which aspects of your life do you think were out of your control ?
I’m struck by how fair minded this is. You take others’ views seriously and work to understand them rather than belittle ideas that aren’t quickly your own.
It's not tho , Hitchens is talking about the monotheistic God not a deistic God
Nice try at apologetics Alex ;)
But if we're considering the typical version of a god generally imagined by our most popular religions, then I think the celestial dictator criticism applies very well.
Especially when we include the factor that this god chose to design the entire perilous universe of both real and spiritual threats which he so wants to save his chosen people from.
Isn't the saying something like "Made in His Image"
@@berrybbenson4634 yes, that too.
If made in his image is just literally, as probably originally intended, then god has 4 limbs and 2 nostrils and nipples and a big ol' butt hole, etc.
If it means anything more personal than that, like about the emotional temperament of character, then he probably is a big old butthole.
Yeah no, that's just false. The majority of religious people, VAST majority, are Catholics (just like Bishop Robert Barron) and they don't believe in a dictator. God
Yes, and he deliberately made billions of people knowing in advance what they would do and then he would have to do, which is torture them in hell FOREVER. If that is not psychopathic, nothing is.
Also the fact that the gods of major religions all have bad human qualities like a narcissistic desire to be worshipped and a practically childish anger towards people who disobey them.
Speaking as someone from a Catholic background here: your ability to steelman a worldview different from your own and consider its various intricacies really prove to me that you are one of the most important thinkers and youtubers of our generation.
I like the kid but that’s a stretch. Maybe CZcams I guess. He’s got a little work to do but I think he’s in this upcoming wave of thinkers for sure.
@@michaelfsolis maybe you've been more fortunate to be surrounded by better thinkers, but I've just come across so much myopic, partisan, BS in real life and on the web.
@@AntonAchondoa dude is just being condescending. Might be bait as well since this is CZcams after all and being a dick is all too common.
@@AntonAchondoa He has not been fortunate enough to be surrounded by better thinkers. He's one of those people that sneeringly and condescendingly looks down at others and thinks they themselves are the ones who are "better thinkers."
Look at how he refers to Alex as just, "the kid."
"He's got a little work to do."
What little work does he have to do as a thinker? To go on Joe Rogan's podcast and be a charlatan and grifter like Jordan Peterson? Sure.
@@AntonAchondoa I’d agree. I just think he’s got some time to put in before I’d consider him on Hitchens level
Even if God is telling us what to do because he knows what's best for us, he would still be the one responsible for making us that way. That is, for making human beings such that we *had* to love him, and *had* to glorify him, or else be damned, annihilated, or what have you. And that does strike me as the behavior, not just of a dictator, but of a tyrant.
Great point!
This is exactly right and why I don’t agree with Alex here
same reply as one possibility - another is that God is just not all-loving and doesn't care much, sentient beings are just an afterthought
🤣🤣
That was my second thought...first was the excessive diet analogy....if the person telling me to eat better and move more were another human (with perfect knowledge) it would be one thing, but this "being" could just imagine me thinking and it would be so....and change my metabolism...or juat make what I eat disappear...and he'll why have to eat at all? Which leads to the design problem. Third is that the "hell" was created by him according to the book, and is eternal no chance of redemption.....soooo
You've earned a lot of credibility for taking on our favorite thinkers. No one is above criticism. It is dangerous to become a fan (fanatic) for anyone.
That in of itself is the problem with a “dictator”. A “perfect dictator” is an oxymoron. Hitch understood this.
And I too approve of this gentleman parsing Hitch; because Hitch himself didn’t spare anyone.
Whether it was:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Mahatma Gandhi
Mother Teresa
Ironic because Alex actually has no credibility and completely ignores any criticism against himself.
@@brandonsobremisana6681 Just because he started eating fish doesn't magically remove all his credibility lmao
@@blubaylon he said primarily but not exclusively seafood. So yes he is a spineless hypocrite with no credibility.
Personally, I've never liked Hitchens. He's always struck me as rather bloated and vain, and probably irritating to be around. Seems like he was the sort to monopolize conversation at the Thanksgiving table, holding forth on all his pet topics, talking over those who are younger, less assertive, or simply a bit too female for his liking.
I think what Christopher Hitchens meant is the inability to question 'authority". You could never question it, just obey the rules, and if you didn't - you'd be punished. It's the inability to ask the hard questions. This is the same in religion AND in dictatorship. In my opinion, it's quite a good analogy.
But you forget main point made in Video, if GOD exist, a omnipotent being, it probably knows better than you do, therefore question you might ask will not be even close to GODs level of thinking
If this tri-omni consciousness was real, why would it be involved in anything? Wouldn't that mean that the present doesn't really exist, since this being outside of time and space has access to all of it simultaneously? Everything has already happened and is a series of points on a fixed timeline, and this being knows all of it from the very beginning. Why would it be mad about the outcome of anything? Also, since thinking is "the process of using one's mind to consider or reason about something", wouldn't that also mean that it doesn't actually possess the ability to think, since it already knows everything?
Religion is NOT an unassailable authority. Stop saying that it is!
*Irony*@@TheMilitantMazdakite
@Godgod-wdadadawdawdawdwad I understand, but how would I know that this God is, in fact, omnibenevolent and omnipotent? I think that the major point of the analogy is that you can't know if God has your best interest in mind or if he is just a tyrannical dictator.
I feel like you're a better advocate for theism than other theists.
This ongoing insecurity that Alex has of comparing himself with Hitchens is tedious and is only making Alex look bad. He is trying to undermine Hitchens points - yet Alex only succeeds in convincing himself that theism wasn't that bad all along. Alex keeps digging a hole for himself. Really sad to see.
Well he makes some very good points, but he's also quite flawed. His comparison to smokers doesn't make perfect sense. Yes, for smokers, it might just be an addiction that is beyond their control, which he's right to say, they should end and God's "good dictates" helps them to end it and heal their lives...
....however, when it comes to bad people and their evil actions that they purposefully, intentionally, consciously schemed up to cause pain and destruction to the innocent, well this is quite different. The fact that the evil is intentional makes it deserving and indeed entirely NECESSARY of punishment. Hence, the necessity for hell.
His idea of annihilationalism, is all very well and cute, but it is completely unjust, because it let's bad people get away with what they have done, no matter how bad they had been. We simply "eliminate" them as an easy and digestible type of "justice" free of pain to the criminal... but whilst they WERE alive, it doesn't matter how evil they were, a small amount or a large amount of criminality, either way they just get eliminated in the end so long as they have apparently surpassed a certain threshold of evil. This makes NO SENSE. It is unmeasured and therefore totally unjust.
The only way you could make this work as a god, would be not to allow them to hurt people in this world, so that they're unable to inflict pain and suffering on others. However, they are still evil at heart and therefore they get eliminated because God knows they WOULD have done it, had he allowed it. However this is not the world we live in, is it?...
...and therefore annihilationism doesn't work as a concept for a perfectly just and good god. Hence, I'm sorry to say, there must be a hell of punishment. Not necessarily eternal, but still, there must be some sort of punishment that is precisely measured for the gravity of the horrible evil deeds committed. There's no way around this, even if you can't stomach it, but that is the reality and the cost for the freedom you have in this world to hurt others.
Oh and by the way, I don't even know why he's against the death penalty. Isn't that what annihilation precisely is? Ending their lives simply and quickly without any drawn out pain and punishment. I thought that's exactly what he stood for.
@@Cheesesteakfreak No, his sense of truth shouldn't be dictated by atheism, but the other way around. Hitchens has some really bad points and Alex has the honesty to not follow another man blindly just because he's also an atheist.
I miss this man as if he were my real friend. He is inspiring and eloquent in his speech. He is over the top, yes; but steeped in wisdom.
I often thank God for how He killed Hitchens.
It was painful, so punitive, and also took about 18 month.
18 months for that sack of shit to act rationally on the warning of death.
@@20july1944 wow such hatred. Holding on to that must make your life so empty
@@glharlor No, I enjoy the thought of Hitchens CHOOSING to be a douchebag and then God punishing him, warning him and finally killing him.
This was all on Hitchens
@@20july1944 Do you enjoy that your god lets 20,000 children die everyday?
Do you enjoy that your god let half of all children die before puberty before last century?
This was all on your god .
Funny how petty and insecure you and your space bully are.
He might be a douchebag (I don't think so), but he didn't say anything false.
@@GuitarDog_atx My point is there IS a Creator God -- do you agree with that?
I've been seeing a post going around where you explain that you're still against factory farming, but you see nothing wrong with torturing fish? Is that true Alex?
He has become a Jordan Peterson acolyte to get in his daughter's animal abuser panties
Oh, how I miss Hitchens. In this conversation, I try to think about how Hitchens would have responded to this video himself by looking at examples of his other conversations: While the points brought forth by Cosmic Skeptic about a "perfect benevolent dictator" are indeed valid, what we must realize is that we are not dealing with such a thing, and it is merely a fantasy: we are dealing with a church that has a history of being far from perfect and people that are all too willing to serve as its mindless pawns. The reality is that the philosophical ideal of the "perfect situation that may be acceptable" is not the reality, nor what we need to be distracting ourselves with fanciful pondering. The reality is that religion has created an environment where people are willingly placing themselves into the roles of permanent and irredeemable servitude to very real entities of social and political power where indeed, "the gates are locked from the inside."
Would the perfect situation be people not needing a perfect dictator?
I think I feel a solidarity with your reason. I only want to point to two things that are minor inconsistencies or maybe I am not understanding (and only to advance both our causes, hopefully). It seems, that halfway through you diverged from talking about God (real or imagined) to talking about the church. God (if he, it, were real) would not be culpable for what the church might do, any more than one could say, for example personal freedom is bad because some individual having personal freedom committed murder. The second thing I like is where you said, "indeed the gates are locked from the inside". I think this was in the context of religions and religious groups being "under the thumb" or subservient to governmental, social, or political forces? I think I might get the jist of that, but maybe you could explain more what you mean. As I understand religion and Government and their symbiosis, it feels, to me, as if "the gates are locked inside and outside"
@@stevedriscoll2539 Even a real god can only as far as we know interact with people through people. And if the real god is the one that convince someone to in your example unalive someone of their of "free will" after being convinced god is responsible.
@@stevedriscoll2539 Also unntil we have evidence of a real god we have to hold the church responsible for anything....but if we eventually find a god, damn there could be alot god is responsible for!
@@stevedriscoll2539 The point is, that in all faiths the concept of "deity" is a fabrication: The Christian God has no more chance of being a reality than Thor, Anubis or Quetzalcoatl. What the followers of faith recognize as divine figures or symbols are merely constructs of the imagination with desirable traits attributed to them. Suppose in the future, we somehow discover that there actually is a guiding consciousness or "purpose" to our universe. In that case, it will only reflect the descriptions within existing religions through their ability to be as flexible and vague as possible with their dogma, just as they have been doing to adapt to our increasing understanding of the universe. Discussing the "god" of any existing religion is as practical as discussing the gods of faiths that no longer hold sway: We understand the traits of Jupiter, Osiris, etc. as they are attributed by the religions that revered them. We understand that the deities themselves were merely a feature of the religious culture that evolved along with it, not a true driving factor. I do not discuss the Christian "god" as an entity because it does not exist and has no traits of its own: it is a fabrication of the religion of Christianity: something that definitely exists.
My point is that we are not dealing with any imaginary concept: we are dealing with the many adherents of an evolved dogmatic belief where each individual within it, regardless of their noble intentions, is guided by their innate desire to adhere to their social norms, peer pressure, traditions, tribal identities, etc. Some organizations have formed within the structure of this belief to take advantage of its traits to dominate those who would willingly put themselves beneath it. In the context of this conversation, this is what was meant by "the gates are locked from the inside". The quote definitely applies to any situation where individuals willingly submit to dominance, to include governmental, social or political ideals as well.
I am an agnostic from Ethiopia and I love watching your video. I hope my country will escape from the chains of religion and everyone will be able to fully criticize religion without getting labeled of anything . With regard to your point in the video ......... Even if there is no hell I don't want god telling me how to behave every step of the way and I would like to make my own mistake and learn from them more over the existence of a superior being monitoring on how we should behave is compulsion because we know for a fact doing anything other than what he ordered is abominable even if there is no hell.
No one cares what you think, you filthy wog.
Your father was a dictator in your home, and I hope you loved him.
Earth is free people hell is ware the evil go paradise can't be paradise with evil people and most people don't change.
The bible has guided us psychologically for thouands of year's to all that's good in the world the free world didn't exist before the bible neither did advanced science only by millions of free thinking mind's can we find the best person for each job like sport's you get motivation to be the best and compete to find the best by competition.
Sadly atheist are trying to tell us what we can do eat and even think denying science as bigoted.
With veganisum the New Hinduism or infinite gender theory where gender is a feeling outside of biology like a spirit or socialism all are oppressive and damaging all use moral justification for forcing there beliefs on everyone else dictators
17:46
At least consider yourself lucky to be in a Christian nation and not a Muslim one
You are looking at it the wrong way, God is there for people who need a moral and emotional safety net. Your country as far as I know is not the best of places when it comes to livelyhood, just like in mine, Romania, religion is for the poor. I've noticed that as a society reaches a certain level of wealth, there's no fear of how the hell do I pay my gas, water, electricity next month? My grandparents for example have that kind of thinking, even tho their pension takes care of it.
this then would raise the question: "why would an omniscient being who created everything and us, who doesn't need us or our devotion etc. passionately want what's good for us?".
Urmm because he's good and you're his children...
Don't you passionately want what's best for your own children????
@@marioluigi9599 Please how can you claim to know what god feels about his children? How can you equate human emotions and attachments to God's? Have you lost your mind or are you just this simple?
@@Keplerf-vn2ld shut up meg
He freely created out of an act of sheer love.
@@Keplerf-vn2ld Your rudeness, nor your ignorance about Mario's claims, do not make an argument. God is the ontological source of all transcendent qualities, so we can know some things about Him through those.
Hitchens - consistent on the matter of facts
Alex - consistent on imaginary ideas
Wonderfully summarized.
Always excited to see new content with Alex O'connor!
Same!
I used to be, but not anymore. I thought he was a future Hitchens, but he spends too much of his time on philosophical masturbations.
I’m writing a book at the moment about my journey out of Christianity and it was this exact point that woke me up. I realised I was exhausted by the constant need to analyse myself, belittle myself, every church service was a heavy emotional slog of ‘what is wrong with me this week’. It felt like I’d realised I was in an abusive relationship and I woke up and needed to escape. But being in that constricted mind set since childhood, it was extremely difficult to re-wire my brain to think for itself, because I never had. I never questioned anything, I obeyed to the point of self sacrifice and it had left me a shell of a person.
I’m totally with you. I hate the stereotype that Athiests hate life and themselves, because it’s not true. The idea that I’m not going to be tortured forever by for being Bisexual was the biggest mood boost I got in my life.
Knowing that the Universe has no master and the limits we reach are only set by what we know, rather than a single fearmongering book knowing everything, was a massive positive improvement for in my outlook on life.
Unfortunately the culture of many churches is anti-intellectual and hyper spiritual, or unspiritual and hyper legalistic, which are both going to burn most people out eventually. It sounds to me like the church you’ve been attending had dead leadership and lacked the Spirit. I’ve seen too many people walk away for these reasons. A lot of Christians I know personally seem to be only skin deep christians and very superficial, or alternatively irrationally dogmatic which is so destructive in my book. It’s a pity to see you go, but it sounds like you’ve been surrounded by inauthentic people in the church all your life and have come to the place where it’s time to call BS. I can hardly blame you my friend. I can only hope that you pray to the Almighty one last time to challenge you by his Holy Spirit. When that happens your life will fall apart completely, and in that place you’ll call on him and he’ll meet you there. But until that day you’ll feel that you’re being your own person. At least you’ll be real. Peace.
@@wattlebough Exactly. Reminds me of Matt Slick's daughter.
What denomination did you grow up in? And did you suffer from scrupulosity?
@@Lerian_V Oh man, yeah the old pastor’s son or daughter thing. I don’t know about this guy and his daughter specifically, but I’ve known the kids of a few pastors, and they have always felt like they just weren’t a priority to their dad, who was always on call for his church and congregation. I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few years about how the model has to change in church. One of the things that’s been on my mind is that men shouldn’t really put their hand up for the role of pastor until the last of their kids has reached their majority. I don’t think it’s right that children are denied the time and attention they deserve from their dad for the sake of really any position of employment. In this case church leadership.
Sorry Alex, but your analysis is off-base. It is truly just mental gymnastics to assume "a perfectly benevolent dictator exists" (regardless of the fact that every example, perhaps save Marcus Aurelius, comes up far short of such a being) and assume "the God of Christians" is such a being (although his purported scriptures state flatly the opposite) so that you can argue against Hitchens' infinitely more likely (based on past observation and scriptures) hypothesis. Even for someone who I believe is a philosophy and religion (or something in that vein) student, that's just making shit up for the sake of arguing.
Hes making a new god up for the hypothetical
I would argue that the issue with a dictator isn't solely based on the quality and benevolence of the dictator themselves, and is instead threefold. The first is a personal issue of mine; I could never live under that sort of strict "choiceless" situation. Sure, free will may be an illusion all on its own, but if that illusion was simply overridden by someone telling me I must do something else, I would feel no point in living- it is no longer my own life, after all. The best way to explain this isn't focused on the freedom of the situation, as you brought up, but rather on my own view of the world. Either I listen, as is only rational, and no longer have my own life, or refuse and live my own life, and- regardless of the reality of hell or not- am punished in some way. Whether by no longer existing- which is honestly in some ways more terrifying than punishment- or by not being rewarded for listening to this dictator.
Second, and more importantly, What is best for each person is subjective to them. You could not have a single leader, even with perfect knowledge, perfectly align everyone's wants and needs in the perfect way. People are different, and sometimes their wants, desires, and ideals conflict. You could never have a perfect dictator for these reasons. In regards to your example of the lazy friend, this is similar but not exactly what I mean. Doing things that are beneficial for your overall health are one things- but, for example, Two people who love the same, third, person. There is no simple solution to this problem, if the two people in this example either don't like each other, or aren't attracted to each other. No matter what solution you come to in this situation, someone will be snubbed one way or another, and suffer for it. You can argue that, therefore, sometimes bad things must happen for the good of the whole, but this is where we go into point three.
Point three is quite simple; the idea of a god who created the situation that he is telling you how to navigate has full choice and power in putting you into that place. This, I think, is the best way to compare God to the dictators of North Korea. Kim Jong Un/Ill put their people into their sad situations, then demand they follow their commands for their "best" life in this situation. Perhaps that is the best life they can indeed have in North Korea, but that is still Tyranny. In the same fashion, God put us (in the theological view) into existence, then demands we do what is "best" for us. And while that may be true in that world, he created the situation, and could have made a better one for us, had he wished.
Brilliant
Thank you for putting into words what i was thinking 🙌
LOOOOL and you proudly and openly say this with respect to the fact that all God asks of you is to do what is good and right. In other words you're a (wannabe) sinner ie. a self-professed criminal in God's eyes. That's hilarious.
Oh and by the way, people who think criminals are just victims of oppression think that because they'd quite like to commit a few crimes themselves and be let off with no punishment other than having to attend those reformatory lessons.
So I'd say you'd be a criminal in this world too if you could get away with it. No doubt a pot smoker soy boy like Alex? LOOOL but... criminals are destined for hell. So carry on like this and that'll be your final destination. Sorry, but that's life ;-)
So you're upset at God cause he has a different idea of what it best?
@@avivastudios2311 I don't believe there is a god, so I'm not upset with anyone. I have no strong feelings about something that doesn't exist.
If I could have it proven to me a god or gods did exist, I may have issues with them, but not simply because they have a "different idea of what is best" that's incredibly reductive and, frankly, a childish view.
This video has genuinely changed the way I look at religion. Very very interesting and thought provoking content. Very well done
God Bless You!
Thank you for your open mind.
“Telling a sinner not to sin might be like telling a smoker not to smoke” was my favorite Haha. Another one that made me laugh was “God I love the law! Give me more of the law of golf!!”
😂 ⛳️
this video comes off as religious apologetics unfortunately. Alex doesn't give the stronger arguments, only the arguments Hitchens has made. Read @walmin73 's comment at the top.
@@ericnr9781 @walmin73’s post doesn’t show up for me. This video is a steel man rebuttal to the God as dictator argument, to which Hitchens was extremely popular and influential with. Are you saying that Hitchens’ argument for God as dictator isn’t good, or are you saying that the God as dictator argument itself isn’t a good one?
This kind kind of content is why Alex is my favorite atheist. Just one of the best out there right now
you missed this western Godless and souless person because you as one as you do not have God take humans as God (especially Godenier) even if you will never in your life admit it (right??) It is normal, that is an effects of Atheism.
But May God bless you.
What this dude is doing is to deny God from his warm house (due also his youth age, if he was der and closer to his death probably he will not talk like that) in a rich society in order to take some godless people that immediately see his video goes licking his godless western ass, but of course NONE will never admit it.
May God bless you anyway.
Why then those godless people are so obsessed with God and Christianity??? Even more then God believers 🙄
May God bless you and your life again...
@@Mar-dk3mp I ain’t reading all that, I’m a catholic and I think Alex is a honest atheist.
@@ThomistReview1950 damn he deleted it lol
@@joshuathomas512 lol
@@joshuathomas512 Who deleted it?
I believe the critique is more applicable to Christianity specifically. Within Christianity, humans are inherently unable to live up to God's standard (only Jesus is perfect), so the constant surveillance and judgement is much scarier, especially if an interpretation of a literal hell is also applied. This would be a potentially terrifying existence. I think he did use it in a number of debates on "does God exist", which may be an inappropriate application of the critique/analogy for that philosophical question.
A standard you can never match, let alone surpass, is worthless.
@@wet-read Which is why Christians are false even among themselves. In most cannons, Jesus is quoted to say "God-father is better than me" (aka "only father is perfect, not the son") and also "You will be able to do greater miracles than I have done" (and if you don't have to be "more perfect" to do miracles than I don't understand the arbitrary "rule" for being allowed to do miracles).
you missed this western Godless and souless person because you as one as you do not have God take humans as God (especially Godenier) even if you will never in your life admit it (right??) It is normal, that is an effects of Atheism.
But May God bless you.
What this dude is doing is to deny God from his warm house (due also his youth age, if he was der and closer to his death probably he will not talk like that) in a rich society in order to take some godless people that immediately see his video goes licking his godless western ass, but of course NONE will never admit it.
May God bless you anyway.
@@wet-read you missed this western Godless and souless person because you as one as you do not have God take humans as God (especially Godenier) even if you will never in your life admit it (right??) It is normal, that is an effects of Atheism.
But May God bless you.
What this dude is doing is to deny God from his warm house (due also his youth age, if he was der and closer to his death probably he will not talk like that) in a rich society in order to take some godless people that immediately see his video goes licking his godless western ass, but of course NONE will never admit it.
May God bless you anyway.
@@letsomethingshine you missed this western Godless and souless person because you as one as you do not have God take humans as God (especially Godenier) even if you will never in your life admit it (right??) It is normal, that is an effects of Atheism.
But May God bless you.
What this dude is doing is to deny God from his warm house (due also his youth age, if he was der and closer to his death probably he will not talk like that) in a rich society in order to take some godless people that immediately see his video goes licking his godless western ass, but of course NONE will never admit it.
May God bless you anyway.
Talking about addiction, there are several not addictions but full blown dependancies under which we labour not because we brought them onto ourselves but because God forced them onto us. Not only does he not give us any advice on how to break free from them, he plays the role of our sole dealer and expects gratitude each time he blesses us with the next dose of something that isn't necessarily required by living beings except us who were hard-wired to crave it.
Can't wait for Alex's "I used to be an Atheist story"
And the "I used to believe in morals story"
He doesnt have one.
@@jairogers5876 yet…
You're wrong
That’s a bit condescending
I think the main issue is that the God also is the one that instills us with urges and desires that run contrary to the supposed perfect way to live. God does not need us, but for some reason he has created us in such a way that we require dependence on him. When talking about an all-knowing all- powerful being there can be no distiction between " sending someone to hell by way of punshiment" and designing them in such a way that they end up there by the law of the universe that you also created. This applies to all ideas of hell; As long "hell", whether that is being seperated from god, non-exsistence or eternal torture, is worse than the alternative of being linked with God for eternity. God has designed a system where people feel drawn towards practices which negatively effect them.
This would be my main objection as well. God is not a distant traveller that found us floating in space, took a liking and now tries to help us. He ist, according to most forms of Theism, an all-powerful being that created the universe and everthing in it -- including our "attachements", or wants and needs. Why giving "advice", if he could have just created humankind in a way that would make it unnecessary, since we would already live our "best" lives? This can be even achieved without negating free will, because we would "freely" choose to live as he intended for us.
+
@JensT Hi. Yes, good observation‼️
Also, we could question why would God create Adam and Eve 'perfect' at first and yet with some need of being tested for free will purposes⁉️
Christians like to say God couldn't allow them to be 'robots' WITHOUT free will‼️
But, why not⁉️ Who would complain about a PERFECT God making PERFECT humans carrying on into eternity⁉️ 😳 😀
Sounds perfect to me‼️😀
First show how such a separate entity can exist apart from everything and yet at the same time be called a cause before imaging a "perfect being".
@@JohnWaaland yes, the idea that they created sin by disobeying god but that sin is what makes us disobey god is ridiculous, clearly sin was involved in the first place.
I think you nailed the key contingency.
If Hell-as-eternal-torment doesn’t exist as a punishment for those who will not heed the words of an infallible-advice-giver God, then no, God is not a tyrant.
But if it does, then he is.
This is why I’ve long-maintained that the doctrine of eternal torment for those who are outside of God’s grace to be the most toxic idea in all of religion.
I think the bishop is misleading here. The Christian concept of sin is not simply that it's not the best thing for you. The "criminality" of sin is that it dishonours God and hurts others. Which is why there is a punitive element to the punishment in hell.
@@jessethomas3979 the best solution to someone who hurts others is to hurt them, for eternity. Of course. Who could have a problem with that?
@@Greyz174 The punishment serves the purpose of justice. It isn't meant to solve the personal issues of the sinner or reform him. That's not it's purpose. Discipline would serve that purpose, but that's not what's happening in hell.
And the reason it's eternal could be many things, such as the fact that people don't stop sinning in hell.
@@jessethomas3979 what is justice and how does this serve it?
@@jessethomas3979 i should probably elaborate more.
If we think that theres this thing called justice where you do a bad thing and must suffer conscious torment because you did the bad thing, but _not_ for practical reasons to prevent future harm, what exactly is the basis of this justice thing youre talking about? Whats the point, and how is it not completely ad hoc?
You're leaving a very crucial part of the puzzle out of your analysis.
I think a good analogy to explain what I mean would be playing a Roleplaying Videogame (albeit not being perfect). Imagine having these options: You either play the game freely (as in ignorant of the optimal path), without any prior knowledge and without using google or walkthroughs to look up what to do next on your first playthrough.
Or you start the game, having your full walkthrough, how to do the best build and where to find the gear for it in front of you.
Now some people will chose to latter option (at least until they figure out how boring that is after a couple games), but I think we all know that the appeal to be thrown into a world to explore and figuring things out for yourself is a big part of the fun/happiness the game brings us.
When it comes down to it, I'd probably position myself somewhere inbetween, as when I'm in trouble or at a roadblock, I'd like the option to look up the optimal solution. I think I'd apply that to myself in the real world, too. I don't want to walk the optimal predetermined path while being aware at all times that I'm doing just that by being told what to do.
I think that's also what Hitchens was referring to when he made the parents analogy. We don't necessarily value the optimal path higher if we have to sacrifice our sense of independence and exploring for it. Because that in itself is a crucial part of our construct of happiness and well being.
You are correct that exploration and independence are very important. Your assumption that God would tell you exactly what to do is the false assumption. God isn't like a parent that tells you exactly what you have to do every second of your day. God is like a father that tries to put you on the right path but ultimately wants you to develop by yourself as well. Any good father would let you fall down and hurt yourself as a way for you to get experience and toughen yourself. There are generally two strategies, one is to dictate exactly what your child should do at every moment and the other is to make them internally stronger so that they learn to take care of themselves. God adopts the second strategy not the first as it can be seen many times in the bible (like leaving people to wonder in the desert), so Alex is dead right in his critique.
This was such a well argued argument. I've been watching you for over a year now, and you keep getting better at what you do. Much respect!
16:50 I totally under stand the "in a sort of hell" part. Telling your friend how to avoid feeling so bad.
But it's only really analogous if start with the assumptions that you (in this metaphor) are the one created your friend knowing beforehand that he would suffer that depressive fate, and then Never introducing yourself, then sending someone else to deliver your message that only YOUR advice can save him.
And millions of people have witnessed to the message. It's only free will that hinders a person from taking a given advise to get better. Sin is [like] an addiction; it's slavery, and it weakens the sinner's will to get out of hell.
Yup! It's only analogous if you created the harmful effects of smoking and your friend. Like you created your friend while knowing full well that he will smoke, and you also deliberately created the harmful effects of smoking when you could've made it harmless.
And that's how monotheistic God is, he deliberately created hell, and deliberately made people imperfect while knowing full well that making them imperfect would lead them to misery because you're the one who created the punishment for imperfection. Knowing that imperfection will lead them to misery, yet creating them and deliberately creating a place of misery to punish the imperfections of the creatures you created to be imperfect.
@@Lerian_V not really. Someone who is addicted to something keeps doing it because they are chemically compelled to keep doing it. It’s not a free will decision.
Some people can overcome addiction. Some people can’t.
Exactly! Cosmic Sceptic has to fundamentally alter the terms of the argument Hitchens is having in order to steel man it.
@@samforsyth Not really. The success of AA for addicts shows it's about weakened will. Call it psychological or spiritual.
If hell is a place of seperation from god, not a place of direct eternal torment, and if God cannot help you from it, what does that make god look like? Certainly not the traitional tri-omni creator.
Every time I have a debate with theists, I find it helpful to always recall that this god is supposed to be omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent. I would go as far as to say that Omni- attributes are one of the biggest weaknesses of Christian theology. It is already freaking hard to reconcile the tri-omni attributes without contradiction, yet christians perform an extreme form of mental gymnastics: trying to accord for free will AND tri-omni attributes.
Your analogy even shows this point further. The reason you have to "tell" them they have to delete tiktok, rather than delete it yourself, is because you do not have the power to remove it on arbitrary whims. Therefore, the explanation should be that this 'God' character does not want people to be better off. If he did, then he could make people not have "hell" as a result. An omniscient authority does not have to merely 'tell' you, because he could produce whatever result he wants, and your consent is not necessary for it. Omniscient authorities don't need "guidance" to control people. If this figure was to be omnipotent, in principle there should be no effort to not sin. He will save us every time we do something wrong. Heck, there shouldn't even be the concept of sin. He could not have created sin as a concept in the first place.
If hell is a place of seperation from god, then great. God is not omnipresent.
If God wants to save you, but cannot help you from the results of sin, then great. God is not omnipotent.
If God doesn't want you to be saved from said "hell", then great. God is not omnibenevolent.
So in any case, the traditional theistic god fails to even be defined coherently.
Why are you trying to debate theists?
Serious question btw, not being facetious.
"If hell is a place of seperation from god, then great. God is not omnipresent." That seems a watertight argument. Ever had a response?
@@eltyo340 It's just fun to debate things on the internet, nothing more.
@@martifingers Most responses would be that you would not "feel" the presence of god, though he is still there. My response to that would be first of all, that is not technically a seperation, and second, that that is the current state of most atheists. It is nothing bad, it is nothing painful. Why would anybody care about not feeling god's presence when they never have felt it in the first place? Therefore, to most current atheists, there is no pragmatic reason to accept God anymore.
@@grandiflorum4716 Hi . Good points. I appreciate the logic of your argument but I do get the feeling that a very negative connotation is often implied ie that the separation implies hopelessness, despair and psychic pain. Why this only supposedly happens in the afterlife I am not sure but given the vagueness and incoherence, I would argue, of all the concepts involved that is perhaps not surprising.
I’m not going to be as antagonistic and callous as some of the other commenters, but it would be nice to get some clarification on the vegan issue. Specifically what nutrients were you lacking on a vegan diet, and was this confirmed by blood tests and a consultation with a dietician or doctor? The UK is relatively vegan friendly, especially compared to the US. I live in the Bible Belt and have still managed to stay vegan for over 6 years, so it’s frustrating to hear things like this.
UK is incredibly vegan friendly, I would be surprised if any other country is more so. And he has money. I have a hunch it might be related to mental health. I struggle with it, and it has caused me to eat an unhealthy vegan diet in recent months. I am fatigued, so I got a blood check, and I am low in folate. So I am taking a supplement, and eating more folate-rich foods to fix that. Surely if he cared he would also get checked and make dietary changes. I don't want to judge him too quickly but I just don't understand.
Hitchens held contempt towards theist doctrine and the characteristics of the god/s described therein. True there are "some" (although I propose a minuscule) of theists that view Hell as a metaphor but the overwhelming majority worship a dictator that is sadistic in nature. A god creates life knowing it will sin and disregard the warnings sent to justify an actual physical eternal torment. Hitchens's point still stands, "who wants this but a servile slave?"
The more you talk about Christopher Hitchens the more I think it’s a true tragedy that he wasn’t alive long enough to meet you and have conversations with you.I think it’s something that the two of you, along with your audience would have greatly enjoyed.
Its not a tragedy when you take into consideration that nothing matters, everyone dies, everything has an end, the world will end.
Its not a tragedy when you take into consideration that nothing matters, everyone dies, everything has an end, the world will end.
@@madelynhernandez7453 What's your point here?
@Madelyn Hernandez we all have lives to live and we need to fill them with something. Who cares about great scheme of things if you have here and now to deal with and we can make anything matter if we choose to.
you missed this western Godless and souless person because you as one as you do not have God take humans as God (especially Godenier) even if you will never in your life admit it (right??) It is normal, that is an effects of Atheism.
But May God bless you.
What this dude is doing is to deny God from his warm house (due also his youth age, if he was der and closer to his death probably he will not talk like that) in a rich society in order to take some godless people that immediately see his video goes licking his godless western ass, but of course NONE will never admit it.
May God bless you anyway.
Why then those godless people are so obsessed with God and Christianity??? Even more then God beliervers 🙄
May God bless you and your life again.
The issue with a celestial dictatorship isn’t the dictator necessarily. It’s the fact that it would deliver to a sentient entity complete dominion and authority over individual human beings by self appointment. You cannot morally self impose yourself the leader of a group without their approval. Let’s keep in mind too, god doesn’t seem to want to be a “leader”. It’s a top-down brutish enforcer that (as they say) creates us sick and commands us to be well.
Disagree.
It would be immoral ‘not’ to impose yourself the leader of a group if you knew for sure what was best for them.
However that’s not generally the case for humans. But it is for a perfect god.
You're not thinking correctly. Only animals or inanimate creatures can complain about their creator being brutish. Beings with free will cannot legitimately make such claim against the creator. To make this claim, you have to relinquish your free will... but even that is an act of free will. So at the end of the day, as St. Augustine puts it, "God created us without us, but he did not will to save us without us." It's a privilege to have free will and to be to decide for ourselves whether we want to live the best life which we were created for, or use our free will to self-destruct. God cannot violate our free will.
Three things to say on that:
1)You do impose yourself as a leader and dictator over your own kids, don't you? And it's necessary, isn't it? We don't give kids free reign. Why do you get the right to do that? Well because you created them as their parent. God created you, so why does he not have the same right over you?? You don't make sense
2) He doesn't create you sick and commands you to be well at all. The reality is he creates you imperfect, but commands you not to do bad things onto others... and also to repent and feel remorse for any bad things you still did, which is not a hard command to follow at all. You don't make sense.
3) It's not comparable to North Korea, because the minute North Korea finds out that you're breaking their laws, they punish you instantly. God however, knows you're breaking his law all along and yet allows you to still carry on all throughout. His mercy is that he gives you the length of time of your entire lifetime to break his laws and hurt yourself and others AS MUCH AS YOU WANT, so that hopefully at some point you'll stop and genuinely repent, at which point he immediately forgives you for it all, because of how compassionate and loving he is, and because you were genuinely remorseful for every last bit of bad deed. This in no way compares to North Korea, and hence Hitchens' point is completely void, and makes no sense.
@@marioluigi9599 According to the Bible, you and me are unfortunate enough to have been born with innate sin that if not acted upon (by believing in Jesus and repenting) will ultimately land us in hell. How is this not commanding the sick to cure themselves by bending the knee to the same entity that created the whole situation in the first place? Hell is the standard for human beings according to the Bible, since you must actively and intentionally do something to evade this eternal torment. Additionally coming back to your first point - that is not an accurate depiction of what’s going on. The goal of a parent figure is to prepare their children to be able to stand up and operate in the world on their own. Whereas the biblical god always wants humans to be subjugated to it, and to be praising it for all of eternity. This is a massive difference that cannot allow for the figure of the biblical god to be likened to a parent figure.
@@isthispodracingg 1) The concept of original sin doesn't exist in all monotheistic religions nor indeed in all interpretations of Christianity, and yes you could argue there is a problem with it and you don't have to believe in it. However, whether you do or don't believe in it is completely beside the point. You will sin in this life anyway, so you would have to ask for forgiveness for your sins anyway. The main point there is, you don't have to repent for being who you are, but for what you did.
2) Hell is only "the standard for human beings" in so much as human beings do and will sin. Hell is the justice for that evil. Heaven cannot be entered except by being free of sin, which is only possible through God's forgiveness, which is earned. You must actively be remorseful for your sins, in order to have them forgiven, and not so much "actively do something to evade something bad".
3) Whether it is the goal of a parent figure to prepare a child or not, is irrelevant. My point was that DURING childhood the parents are the dictator that must be followed, whether the child wants to or not, until the child does do the right thing of their own accord.
Similarly, you must follow God whether you want to or not, until you're "grown enough" to be the good person that you are of your own accord, and able to correctly interpret God's will without the help of any of his direct commands.
However, despite his commands, God still grants you the mercy of a lifetime to completely disobey them all and yet still be completely forgiven in the end, so as long as you do what is right by the end.
4) It is not for God's need that he be praised for eternity. He is free of needs. They did address that point in the video, which you seem to have not understood. If you praise God all your life, it is for your own want and need to be closer to him and away from sin.
I think Hitchens was making a point about specifically the abrahamic gods. Which all seem to be very human and even corruptable. Which means that if god existed as described in the books Hitchens wouldn't find him worthy of being a dictator leader. And he is in fact a type of cruel dictator who enjoys human vices.
This was good! I haven't watched one of your vids for a few years, but you seem much more measured and mature now.
I suppose we could pretend (change the colloquial meaning) that a dictator can be noble and benevolent, and we can pretend that hell is something romantic. But could we not also pretend there were an existence in which no matter what I chose to do with my life would be exactly the most worthwile path for me? I could partake in things that are 'harmful' without giving consent for harm to occur. Is this any harder to imagine than a celestial dictator? I think not. In which case an existance that includes the dictator would be less preferable.
Harm can occur irrespective of intent, the point in moral guidance by a benevolent dictator is that it actualises good outcomes and is universal. Having a personal metaphysic which denies the harm of your actions is contrary to reason and empiricism, having a shared metaphysic about divine moral guidance existing and being scholastically inquired into is neither irrational nor are its outcomes contrary to naive empiricism.
I dont get both of your points friends, care to elaborate?
@@abdullahharoun6680 My point is that if we define hell as something other than fire and torment, and dictator as a benevolent and noble person, we can as well go 'balls out' as it were and posit an existence in which every sentience is its own sovereign, each with a perfect trajectory causing no suffering at all. Is this much harder to picture in your mind than a celestial dictator? Not only do I think it is not, I also think it is much more dignified for all involved. Alas, neither is true so I wouldn't lose much sleep over it if I were you.
@@Encounterpart naive
It's been a long time since I've watched that specific debate, but, two things:
1. He was debating Peter. He's sure to get more fired up in that case.
2. As I recall (which may be mistaken), he was responding to a concept of heaven described as being perfectly good because we'd no longer have earthly worries and could spend all eternity worshipping god, which is a perfectly awful afterlife. There's no room in such an afterlife for personal free will, for personal growth, for exploration and self-improvement, or for any other morally-neutral or morally-good aspiration a person might have. Just an eternity at god's feet, entirely without change, without choice, without any hope of freedom.
Yeah, I wrote the above at around 9:50, and continued watching. I guess I basically disagree with all of the points you made as even being relevant. No Christian description of the afterlife I have ever heard is a good one. They all describe a complete erasure of will and change. To me, this is an erasure of self. If I can't step away from god and go explore all reality to learn and to understand all of creation, then I'm trapped as a husk: I have no being left, only abject subjection and eternal boredom.
Christians, I find, are horribly unimaginative about the afterlife. But even in the absence of the *Christian* heaven, I find the concept of an afterlife horrifying if I don't have some personal agency and the freedom to choose my incorporeal future. Because _that_ is the essence of self.
You actually have very little "freedom" to choose who you are as you are as is. Not saying afterlife is possible but just pointing out that your deluded if you think you have free will. While not taking anything away from your subjective experience and your capacity to feel pain and joy, with all due respect your sense of "self" is merely an illusion
you missed this western Godless and souless person because you as one as you do not have God take humans as God (especially Godenier) even if you will never in your life admit it (right??) It is normal, that is an effects of Atheism.
But May God bless you..
@@animalsarebeautifulpeople3094 you missed this western Godless and souless person because you as one as you do not have God take humans as God (especially Godenier) even if you will never in your life admit it (right??) It is normal, that is an effects of Atheism.
But May God bless you...
@@Mar-dk3mp What?
@@Mar-dk3mp the fuck you said?
I'm at 19:00 and I'm just hoping that, before the end of the video, Alex considers that the commands or dictates that might come from perfect being have always been communicated to people by other people. You'd either have to assume that the orders could go directly from the deity to every person or that the few who receive the orders are actually getting them from the deity AND conveying the information with a perfect understanding of them and in a purely honest way (and that there is no conflict of interest in doing so).
20 years ago I took an interest and further studied philosophy with greater thought having slowly established my own understandings of the human condition. I have listened to all the renowned speakers, those old warriors as well as young blood such as Alex and his compatriots. Hitch was well informed, marvellous raconteur and humourus, backed his arguments with extensive knowledge yet he approached discussion as an informer not a teacher.
If we had met I would have appreciated a discussion on ego, how it is motivating yet how it can cause constraints on our ability to broaden our understanding.
Maybe Alex will have a brief discourse on how much of our activity is based on satisfying our own ego.
😂If I can mentally monitor its influence then I can evaluate the worthiness of my verbal and active engagements
This talk by Alex was that of a teacher and philosopher. Much appreciated.
this way of thinking and video is cute and all, but i (and most likely hitch) would say thats all it is.
hitchens’ words were extraordinarily relevant for todays society because people are still so fucking naive and scared to give religious sheep the respect and knowledge they deserve as humans. alex just comes off as a grifter here tbh.
@@drew.p.y Thanks for your interest in my reply.
1. For me, after all my research of religions and atheism I have concluded that since theories of life-after cannot be proved or disproved then I have no need to convince others.
2. It is evident to me that humans are not very high on the evolution scale hence we tend to follow paths that meet our needs.
3. Religion, faith, worship, accepted rulers including royalty are for me a biological response, people feel a need and supported if they can defer to those who give them a sense of fulfilment. If they change it will be from their own choices.
4. This is the nature of humans for millennia. So I have no need to change them, can maintain my own equilibrium but we can share ideas without emotional content. The bishop was unable to share information without adding his own emotional backup to somehow establish that his words were necessary to consider as truth, body language, facial expressions, grimaces, quoting scripture as his evidence of the truth
5. Maybe eventually the masses will rein in the ruling elite but its not happening in my lifetime.
6. I would like to recommend to mildly dip in to Buddhism teaching, forget it is a religion. There are meaningful phrases that do not involve a God. It has given me an understanding of myself and allowed me to separate from distracting speakers and fellow humans who cannot embrace the fullness of our time on the planet.
Wish you well, cheers, Jim here in the UK
@@jamesperkins4068
i know you think i'm being too emotional about this or whatever, but thats fine. i think our differences simply lie in our optimism and what we each value in life. and i respect your values.
i value honesty and truth above all things. i can list many reasons why but that would be redundant. i think all humans deserve the respect of an honest life without mental manipulation. without a crutch. you seem to not care about achieving this because its a hopeless endeavor. yeah, i know you cite buddhism and whatnot, but the truth is we've both realized the same truth: this is all we get. a couple decades of eating and shitting, and then... poof.
nothing we do matters in the end, but at least i'm gonna give a shit while i'm here. because it's fun, and because i get bored on the internet. cheers :)
@@drew.p.y Well put. You know the choices that you make and they are with purpose. You have an active mind. So many do not consider their behavioural patterns and defer to authority. Many in power are fulfilling their own needs and egos.
20 years ago I began questioning and challenging the status quo. It has been a rewarding journey.
I can view, without judgement, differences in opinion, knowledge, understanding whilst I have arrived at accepting that we are all one species, diverse, bizarre, often incomprehensible meeting many along the way who make the effort worthwhile.
Cheers. Here’s to a manageable life.
(Some sayings have become dogmas that have guided my thought processes. For example, ‘We become the words we use’ or ‘ Embrace possibilities, manage limitations’)
@@jamesperkins4068
you seem quite sharp and knowledgable, which is refreshing to be honest. most people online don't really have thoughts of their own. may i ask for your general age range/life experience? i have a guess but regardless, i'm curious what your journey was to get where you currently are intellectually.
i feel like one thing is missing. dictatorship isn't just bad because of the fallibility of the dictator, but of the people as well. in fact, my mine argument against dictatorship has more to do with the people than the dictator. yes, there could be someone that understands people better and knows what is good for them, but if the people don't agree, then the point is academic. it could even be that the people are idiots, but ironically, the stupidity of the masses is more important than the intelligence of the individual, simply because of inevitability. politics isn't about doing what's right, it's about doing what's feasible. because politics by their very nature are designed around humans living together and that incorporates all their fallacious instincts and all. it's the same sort of logic of why allowing abortion is necessary despite the fact we normally say that needs trump wants or the fact that we have an "innocent until proven guilty" policy despite the fact that we normally say the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
I agree with you, and I think this is the point Hitchens was attempting to make. People want to live under the dictator god.
@James Black no, what is Dune?
@@jhibbitt2896 Dune njoying deez nuts?
@@jhibbitt2896 It's a sci-fi novel.
Not sure how to contextualize this without rewatching the video but it's worth noting Aristotle's definition of tyrant due to its influence and historical importance of which HItchens was certainly aware: A tyranny is rule by one person who puts personal interests above those of the political community.
Brilliant video. To give it a comparatively anaemic materialistic analogy, this concords with Jocko Willink’s motto: discipline = freedom. A great many CEOs, thinkers, artists and innovators do the same thing everyday. Wear the same clothes, sleep and wake at the same times. They have a hard core routine. David Lynch eats the same food for every meal everyday. By constraining himself so radically, he says, that his mind is freed from thinking about such mundane decisions and he is free to dream and imagine. To be creative. Similar to the bishops analogy of light pollution blocking one’s view of the stars.
If one sees religion as a long-gathered, inter generational, multicultural human collection of communal best practice; then what a potentially wise law to follow! To take care of so much of one’s life in a holistic, amiable manner, then be free to target one’s personal efforts towards something of one’s own. Makes sense.
However, human fallibility doesn’t just apply to the leader, but to every follower too. Thus, if people wrote the laws, who’s to say they’re wise and perfect.
Popper thought we have facilities to judge moral opinions similarly to scientific statements. We can debate what’s good and wise and refine towards preferable alternatives. Our emotional equipment send us signs of their value. Perhaps this is God (nature) inscribing the law into our hearts? Maybe the bishop is right again, in more of a Taoist sense.
An endlessly fascinating topic. Well handled and well presented! ❤
That's interesting. My wife is annoyed by the fact that I can eat the same meal everyday. It annoys her because I don't join in with her fretting about what to eat next. I never thought of it as freeing my mind, it just comes naturally. For example, I ate a tuna baguette for lunch every day for six years. One day I could not face it and changed to BLT, for the next decade.
I think there is a definite distinction that can, and usually should be made between the "god of a specific tradition", the "god worshipped by specific members of that specific tradition", and the various "conceptualizations of a perfect god", because the differences between the three can be surprisingly large, and seems to happen quite often...
Oh yeah, huge! And how bout this idea ( of a principle that I notice at work continually, and it is insidious mostly): politicians say things continually that can sound wonderful, but when one examines what they do, one sees it is the exact opposite. You see this in religions and religious folk all the time. Example the Dulles brothers. They were Christian zealots that orchestrated the destruction of whole societies, and the mass-murder of peoples around the globe.
FINALLY! I missed you Alex! But it was definitely worth the wait:)
“What do they know-all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world - about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.”
Isaac Bashevis Singer - a member of a family perished in the Holocaust and a Nobel Prize winner
3:50 tyranny is not only wrong because the tyrant could abuse his power, even if god was the perfect dictator, the problem with having a dictator is that a dictator rules through coercion and force not through convincing, human
is thus that we need to be convinced not beaten into accepting a better life.
I rather learn and grow by myself and my mistakes than having anybody no matter how well intention policing me into obedience.
A dictatorship assumes one must not ever experience an honest mistake since it is sufficient to believe in the infallibility of the power of the dictator
To accept and not to rebel to dictatorship is truly the temperament of a defeated, slavish and naive human being
You could imagine a perfect strong AI. This AI spends all its time and resources figuring out what is best for mankind - and lets assume this AI is always right about everything. Would you want this AI to be the dictator of the world by giving it the absolute power over the implementation of the results of its thinking without discussing it with any of us?
(This is something that may actually happen. There are many companies right now trying to develop such a thing. One of them speaks about "building a god" as marketing.)
A benevolent artificial intelligence could lead us into a prosperous future the likes of which we cannot even fathom. However, this AI would be built by someone, probably a corporation. That corporation will program it to give at least a slight advantage to the company, which will defeat the entire purpose of the AI and have an inclining disadvantage over time. This advantage would eventually lead to the company being the true ruler of the world.
How about that powerfull A.I. deciding that human documents and information are obsolete? What if the A.I. concludes that the best way for the world to survive for humans is to wipe all our info and use their own instead. Phones nor internet would work at all. You can't call, you can't know what's going on, nothing works, you just have to trust that A.I.'s process.
@@lockheart5731 Fortunally without God you think you will be NOTHING. so do you know where you can put your benevolant artifical Intelligence, godless idiot?
But May God bless you anyway.
Gibberish
@@lockheart5731 Ah, but Funnysterste specifically said it is a perfect strong AI and is 'right' about everything. You're putting in an addition of corporations that 'will' program it to do their bidding. Funnysterste has already ruled that out, simply saying that it IS the best. I agree with your first point - assuming that it really is perfect, always correct, and 'right' (morally). It would almost certainly be an objectively good thing. Honestly, this video by Alex seems to be very compelling for dictatorship, again, assuming that the ruler really is a good thing. Obviously, as stated in the video, humans are terribly fallible and this would be a very risky thing to do. Also, clearly the AI would be questionable, just as a human would (as you stated).
Long story short, if it truly were 'perfect', the only thing we'd be relinquishing in terms of freedom would be the freedom to rule. And the need to rule is entirely mitigated by a good government. I'm inclined to say that, if God were real, I would have no issue with his rule.
I love that your making videos analysing and critiquing Christopher Hitchens. I think it's valuable to ask questions like "what is actually wrong about dictatorship" and I agreed with your thoughts about it.
That being said, I can't help but wonder if there isn't something you're missing in your analysis. Hitchens was smart enough to realize this very obvious fault in his argument.
*What if Christopher is valuing freedom in-and-of-itself in these arguments?*
You're assuming that if Hitchens was presented with Plato's hypothetical republic he would be totally onboard with it, but what if he wouldn't? If you look at those clips you sourced again, it's right in the open. He doesn't critique the fallibility of God's actions or morality, he critiques the absolutist authoritarianism of God -AKA the lack of freedom-.
I might be totally wrong, I'm not a Hitchens expert or anything.
Aah, The infowlabullieT of any Dictaker iz a Likely Problem
you missed this western Godless and souless person because you as one as you do not have God take humans as God (especially Godenier) even if you will never in your life admit it (right??) It is normal, that is an effects of Atheism.
But May God bless you.
What this dude is doing is to deny God from his warm house (due also his youth age, if he was der and closer to his death probably he will not talk like that) in a rich society in order to take some godless people that immediately see his video goes licking his godless western ass, but of course NONE will never admit it.
May God bless you anyway.
Why then those godless people are so obsessed with God and Christianity??? Even more then God beliervers 🙄
May God bless you and your life again..
@@theunclejesusshow8260 you missed this western Godless and souless person because you as one as you do not have God take humans as God (especially Godenier) even if you will never in your life admit it (right??) It is normal, that is an effects of Atheism.
But May God bless you.
What this dude is doing is to deny God from his warm house (due also his youth age, if he was der and closer to his death probably he will not talk like that) in a rich society in order to take some godless people that immediately see his video goes licking his godless western ass, but of course NONE will never admit it.
May God bless you anyway.
Why then those godless people are so obsessed with God and Christianity??? Even more then God beliervers 🙄
May God bless you and your life again....
Exactly. The problem with dictatorship is not the fallibility of the dictator. It’s the negation of individual freedom. Some people don’t want to live in a cage, even if that cage is comfortable and pleasant and meets all of their needs.
Not to mention that in the best case described version of a christian, all loving dictator, requires this god to be present and interacting with our world.
Which it isnt and doesnt. Making all forms of dictatorship, even the religious ones, irrevocably and unequivocally human and fallible.
Even Plato, in his daydreaming, readily admitted as such. Priests are such disingenuous gaslighters.
No, the issue with dictator ship is not only that a person is corruptible but also what is defined as good and for whom. A dictator can be perfectly wise and fair yet the people he rule over have different priorities. Fairness means different things for different people. Good for the majority may not be good for the minority and that sometimes leads to the tyranny of the majority. For those problems that intrinsically do not have a singular correct and clean answer, democracy is the best compromise, with the agreed amount of check and balance from each society.
If there was a smoker with no idea of how harmful smoking is, and you were to ask him or command him to stop smoking 'because it's the best for you' , that by itself would not increase his freedom as Alex argues. If you inform him about the dangers of smoking, without any ask, it would increase his freedom to make a choice based on that information.
Even with "tri-omni" powers, a mere commandment without information and demonstration of consequences is not really increasing your freedom.
On the topic of hell you really changed the premise. Hitchens made an excellent argument against Christianity and that's been his focus the whole video. You switched it to any forms of theism, some of which are much harder to debunk and much more vague than the Bible. At least in the U.S.A. 95% of Christianity subscribes to a beleif in hellfire and brimstone and eternal torment due to separation from God, so his point is really relevant to almost any theist I encouter.
Exactly. This video is pointless. Just some philosopher jerking himself off
Yes, but we can also go for the highest fruit.
@@VictorSamuelMosqueraArtamonov True, but how you get to that higher fruit from the Bible is beyond me.
@@leob3447 To be fair there's not much description of hell in the bible. The modern concept of hell that many Christians subscribe to was brought into Catholicism in the 1300s and was heavily influenced by Dante's Inferno. So we aren't getting to the low-hanging fruit from the bible either. So technically we are arriving at both "fruits" by expounding on the doctrine of these religions and taking them to their logical conclusions. The low-hanging fruit is what was espoused in the past but has fallen off in modern theology and is only hanging on because of its widespread adoption by commoners, and the highest fruit is what theologians say now about the nature of God based on past teachings.
@@tecktonic88 I understand. My point is that you have to do a lot of re-interpretation of things (Adam/Eve, Global Flood, basically most of the OT) to come up with a god that 'just wants the best for us'. I really want to believe there is a god like that - but I can't get there by reading the Bible. Or by viewing the world around me.
If God really wanted to save us from hell, he would do a better job of explaining what is needed to go to heaven and show that he actually exists.
I think my biggest issue is that, according to the bishop, god doesn’t need us and doesn’t have to have us exist, he doesn’t need our moral perfection or anything. If that is the case with an all loving god, why create the people he knows would disobey him and go to hell? He doesn’t need his followers nor the unbelievers.
Did he create the unbelievers because he is incapable of creating a world of only his followers or something else inconsistent with a perfect all good deity?
By creating a person that god knows won’t obey him and will be separated from him, he has forced that person into something they don’t want.
If they aren’t needed then it seems to be needless destruction and pain. He is a tyrant then, not in that he forces people to obey him while they are alive, but rather because he had the choice not to create them and forced them to exist knowing the outcome.
hey alex. thx for your interesting videos. i like that you consider and think through things many people reject outright.
that said, this video is unfinished:
if we had an entity that is omni* and all-loving that comes from out-of-context (starman, an AI etc) and starts a self-help-book business - fine, it would be unwise to dismiss it.
instead what we got here is an entity which created us in all our glory and our disaster as well and then "dictates" how to behave to have his blessings.
its like writing a defective program and then blaming it ...
this. This is my ethical beef with theists. If omnipotent and omniscient god created us so flawed and easily driven by wrong motivations, then gave us freedom to f ourselves up and then introduced religion, aka 'the word of god' one true way (that is not one) - this is more like an abusive relationship with your parent and you wouldn't wanna praise your neglectful mother for leaving you to exposure and danger.
Exactly
I'm not sure that it goes without saying that you would always want to do what is best for you. For example I know that it would be in my best interest to work out regularly but I don't think that means I'm obligated to or that it would be just for someone to reward or punish me for my decision.
What's more, I think my life would be made worse if someone in my life was constantly reminding me that I would feel better if I had a healthier lifestyle. Even if their advice was sound, just the level of meddling in my business would negatively impact me.
"you would always want to do what is best for you."
But to know what's best for you, you have to learn it first. You can't know what is best for you without knowing a lot of things about your whole being both internally and externally.
"I don't think that means I'm obligated to or that it would be just for someone to reward or punish me for my decision."
You're assuming there's an external punishment or reward. This is a misconception. The reward of regular exercise or the punishment of not exercising are already inbuilt in the whole process.
"If I do not eat, I disobey a law of nature. I suffer as a result a headache. The headache is a judgment upon my disobedience of that law of nature, which is eventually the law of God. Now, we disobey moral laws, we produce certain effects. These effects - catastrophic effects - are called the judgments of God." - Fulton Sheen (3 Times in a Nation's History)
"I think my life would be made worse if someone in my life was constantly reminding me that I would feel better if I had a healthier lifestyle."
That "worse" feeling is what hell is. People in hell can choose to leave that state whenever they want, and God would extend his hand and them immediately. But the problem is they won't, because they're self-centered. Their hatred or rejection of God meets the intensity of God's selfless love. This makes their hell worse and worse. And they hate God more and more... the cycle continues.
As C.S. Lewis puts it, "The gates of hell are locked from the inside." If God can violate free will the first thing I'm sure he will do is to drag people out of hell, or the path that leads to hell, against their own wish. But he respects your free will to choose where you think is good for you (even though as your creator he knows you inside and out more than you know yourself). The Christian understanding is that a person can be so steeped in sin and rebellion against God that the person's heart grows so cold enough that it would be virtually impossible for the person to have a change of heart. Such person lives in that state of hell forever all because of their stupid decision to reject the advise of the one who made him and knows/loves him more he knows/loves himself.
Agreed
I am sorry but that's on you, this is the typical "me me me me" mentality, forget about God, you need friends that can often say "no, don't do it" to you to give you a different perspective, you can't live in a world when there is no obstacles or voices of opposite opinion at your paths whatsoever especially when some of it can make your pause and realise that this path may be bad for you.
@@baishihua they didn’t say that. They meant that nobody likes a nagging friend. Okay an advice once or twice is good, but excessiveness of it is nowhere near good. Your bad might be my good. And anyways learning for yourself is always better for self-improvement than taking orders, it makes you feel better about yourself. Especially if the friend is the one who created those conditions that lured you to this lifestyle and causing you misery and allowing it to continue, then calls you to stop and if you don’t, you’ll get punished for eternity and he’ll blame the sin that he himself created and set the conditions for. Alex even summarised what he thought about the topic when he said that “i don’t believe in religious sin/s and think they are silly”. He’s right.
@@abdullahharoun6680
*They meant that nobody likes a nagging friend. Okay an advice once or twice is good, but excessiveness of it is nowhere near good.*
I may have misunderstood OP, I guess the attitude of "I know best" ticked me off, I know someone like that in real life and it isn't pleasant when they are in that "mood". Anyway I thought OP was talking about God being a nagging friend and I don't remember God's presence being "excessive" by any religious standard, in fact God being not around enough is the usual opinion. Also "nagging" in itself is a stupid tragedy, and if you assume God is omnipotent they obviously wouldn't lower themselves to this level.
*And anyways learning for yourself is always better for self-improvement than taking orders, it makes you feel better about yourself.*
If you think about it, only religious people bother you all the time, if God exists, he will just set up sequences of "obstacles courses" in your life so you learn your lessons by simply living through it, and give you the impression that you learnt it yourself freely, he doesn't need to show up and tell you what to do.
Now God being omnipotent has tons of problems, such as why aren't we made perfect to begin with, why even create us, what counts as "forward direction" for such being in order to "progress" if God is already at the finishing line all the time with everything.
Even if he had my best interests in mind and know said interests… I don’t want to be surveilled all the time.
Great video! Careful dissection and analysis
Alex did drop the ball on this one, but it is ok. By definition freedom should be ability to choose even what is not good for you.
Actions come with consequences. If there were no consequences and all actions were arbitrary then there would be no meaning to anything you ever did. If you want both freedom and meaning you need consequences.
The examples about forcing oneself a few restrictions to allow more freedom is convicting. Even as a person who has those convictions as a believer in God and needs reminders. Thank you.
My thoughts exactly.
Someone who wanted the best for us might take just a wee bit more time to let us know just what that is.
apparently 'he' gives us all the time we need/free will to figure it out but we're not free?.. go figure
@@flyingfig12 You're free, idiot
Existence of an omniscient God seems to demand dictatorship (but not that God be the dictator). God who knows everything knows the future. If God knows the future, then the future is written in stone. If the future is predetermined, we have no choice. If there is no choice, everything is dictated.
It seems to me that a god in such a universe would be powerless to change the future, and therefore couldn't dictate anything, and therefore couldn't be a dictator.
So, simultaneously, each of us would be a powerless pawn in a dictatorship, and so would God be.
love the channel. one thing that never seems to get enough attention in 'God' debates, is 'what is god'? We seem to all assume we know what we're talking about, theists and atheists alike. I still have no idea what what god is.
Good point
This is why, when I'm making the North Korea comparison, I always make it clear I'm arguing against specific gods. Usually Christianity but it applies to most gods. It all depends on if they punish you or not. A good sequel to this would be how to determine if this being actually is perfect. I think the only way it could be done is if we had full access to its understanding. But even then how can you be sure if it's not hiding something. Also, intervention would be an issue. If this is genuinely a triomni god then I personally believe it is evil. If you have absolute power and wisdom,; there's no excuse for any of the horrors of the universe.
Then we come to agnosticism haha
well said
'Arguing against specific gods'- you're implying that it is the flawed characterization or fallibilistic knowledge of an entity that is problematic and not the existence of the entity as such. So, the problem is really with treating the "Word of God" as frozen in time and treating the expressions contained within it as perennial. But the theological assertion is that God does not exist in time and therefore, the word of God which is revealed to humans will invariably be contingent upon the times in which they live. This is why hermeneutic traditions within all religions are crucial to its propogation.
'If we had full access to its understanding' - If you are indeed aware of every truth there is to know about God and its intentions, then you are no longer "free" to act according to your autonomous choices in any given context. Like Kant said, certitude of a God would render morality obsolete because your actions are always going to be driven by heteronomous determinations and not your autonomous will and sense of justice and fairness. In principle, no matter how perfect our living conditions are on earth, we will be able to posit counterfactual scenarios that could have been better than the ones existing. This conscious and imaginative capacity of something more (or better) than what already is, is the essence of normativity. Theists argue that without God, there is no objective basis for this normativity.
'There is no excuse for any of the horrors of the universe' - This could also be addressed reasonably by a theist (even a tri-omni type). 'Horrors' already imply an ascription of emotional valences to phenomena that are just entailed by the facets of natural necessity and contingency. Laws of nature are given, and all material events have to unfold through natural processes involving laws and its perturbations, which are necessary processes insofar as life itself emerged from this dynamics of order and disorder. One can be isolated from the other only in a logical or analytical sense, but a naturalistic explanation would show that even moral claims like 'good' and 'bad' cannot be isolated from each other (in other words, reality is necessarily relational). Theists could also argue that a God who has to intervene all the time to stop the contingencies from occurring would not be an all-powerful God, because the 'creation' itself has to be self-contained and processual, without the need of constant intervention. Ofcourse, the old scriptural notion of God faces problems here, since it claims that God did choose to intervene at specific moments in time. Even if that is true and God chooses not to intervene directly anymore, it does not prove the evil nature of God, but only a supreme rationality that cannot be grasped by our knowledge. Basically, we can only ultimately fall back on our finitude as a defense or rejection of God. Emotions have always guided faith (even if it is faith in the absence of a God) and not rationality, but emotions are ultimately what grounds human consciousness and experience.
Just to be clear, I'm an agnostic who likes to hear good arguments from both sides.
completely agree. i see no way to reconcile a tri-omni god with the universe as it appears. at least one of those 3 traits has to be compromised.
Evil and suffering in nature such as natural disasters, sickness, and death are a product of sin. God allowed sin to be in this world, because God wanted creatures that possess free will. Sin is the choice to deny following God. With free will it gives a renewed meaning to trust in God. The experience of sin, for us creates a stronger foundation of devotion towards God. The choice of evil is not a test. It's simply a feature of a human being.
In addition, a reality in which evil couldn't occur wouldn't be a reality with the same values that we experience. This is because all good and evil stem from desires. In a world without all desires, good desires wouldn't be seen as greater than bad ones. Wants would simply have the same value of one another which is perfect If you want a Utopia (heaven). However, if you want a world where wants can be greater you need imperfection. It would be reasonable to want both of those things. Thus that would give a reason for God to created the heavens and the earth.
Furthermore, evil is what separates us from the angels, for they have never experienced sin (excluding Lucifer). In a way that it makes our presence in heaven with the experience of evil feel much more divine and rewarding. That would be because we had this experience of sin that would make God's grace overwhelmingly majestic. Not too overwhelming to the point where we feel uncomfortable, for we will never feel unfulfilled, unloved, imperfect, or bored in heaven.
Now this argument doesn't explain why God would create hell as satisfyingly. Though I'm not inclined to believe that God created hell per say. I believe that hell has always existed as simply a space in which God had chosen to not touch. I believe he only exists there as omnipresent and omnescent. This would make Hell the worst place possible a perfect dystopia. Now as to why God would do such a thing could be because that's where all the imperfection goes after revelation and an unforgiven sinners soul. Because the soul has to go somewhere after death for it is eternal. The soul in question can't go to heaven because it didn't ask for forgiveness during life. It can't stay here because the mortal body has died. So the only place to go maybe besides some sort of purgatory would be hell.
I think your point makes a lot of sense in principle. In practice, though, no actualized religion presents such a God and so the proper path to follow, so to speak, is hidden from us. What are we to do, then?
As a still Catholic person, I appreciate your willingness to police your own side, even when this confronts your younger self.
Playing Reverse, Reverse, (reverse?) Devil's Advocate here, am I not free to voluntarily fall down into the Hell of Addiction?
In the sense of the arguments near the end of the video you might say that it's cruel to create weak flesh that finds it hard to make the right choices for itself.
However... the people who believe that tend to be the kind of Atheists who believe if God was real, God would be running around curing cancer, stopping rape, and ultimately forcing people to not do evil deeds because God keeps reminding them of the consequences, and not because they find not hurting others an end in itself.
And I'm including there people like DeSantis et. al, who claim to be Christians but act as if they secretly don't believe God is a real being that will punish them for riling people up, driving them to kill innocent people because they want power.
Make a video about why you renounced veganism !
Haha! 2 hours ago I was talking to someone about my kid figuring out their dream career at aged 13: 'A benevolent dictator'. But, immediately recognised that, " Unfortunately, that"s a paradox'", because the only path to dictatorship is the opposite of being benevolent. So, that rules out that career option!
Your kid is Dr doom in making
@Justforfun Lol 😄 Honestly, at this point I wouldn't be surprised by any developments.
Someone should have told Boris Johnson that 40 years ago! 🤣
@Richard Bradley I know your comment wss a joke, but to consider it seriously...🤓. I am pretty sure benevolence was/ is irrelevant to Boris. Unlike my kid who figured out for themselves that non-benevolence was a deal breaker for them. I think if someone was honest with Boris when he was a kid , that even if being the king of the world was possible, a lot of things about the job would suck for him personally. Such as the constant risk of being assassinated, etc. People with narcissistic traits only care about what happens to them. The adults around Boris obviously failed him. 'Kids are our future', people!
Dictator or not you have to face God once death... Keep in Mind that.
May God bless you anyway.
Didn't expect a video at this time of day though.
The idea of a "celestial North Korea" really draws upon Hitchens' knowledge of George Orwell. Not least the book 1984. Hitchens' was a huge admirer of Orwell. What Hitchens does is to draw a parallel between Orwell's fictional dystopian world and the real life dystopian world of North Korea. He then links this dystopia to that of the religious world. This is very powerful imagery to place in people's minds. The question is, of course, is this valid? The world of religion is so diverse the question cannot be answered. For some religions it will have some truth for others it will not.
Definitely a good video that explores some unusual challenges about the idea of a god in a dictatorship sense. I think dictatorship is just something that has been going on for thousands of years before the Bible.
We also have lots of problems with how god is portrayed in Christianity. God is portrayed as a badass MFer in the Old Testament while he is also portrayed as a sweet old man in the New Testament. This starts with understanding the authors of the Bible and what their ideas for a god would be. It’s really all common sense.
PS, interviewing with a catholic priest was a little odd
I used to watch hitch vids all the time and still kinda love him but I must confess I haven't watched him in years, except via response videos like these.
Thanks Alex, great vid
I agree. I used to watch Hitchens and regard him as an indomitable debater but Alex has blown his cover by demonstrating his self contradictory arguments and subterfuges.
Hi Alex, great video as always. Is there any chance you might be able to update your website with your latest whereabouts and upcoming events that you’ll be taking part in?
If atheists are anything like many vegans, they’re going to view this as Alex finding God.
I’m an atheist, who happens to be a vegan, and I happen to love Hitch, and I find this analysis to be incredible! Great work as always, Alex.
Well, Alex thinks God still can be an ideal dictator who "might" save you from a possible doom, which in the end might be "good" for you after all. It's possible, he thinks. You'd be better off worshipping this dictator than give him your middle finger. I knew this whole vegan and "animal liberation" crap he was advocating would lead him to no good. I am sorry, I am an avid atheist who everyday gives his middle finger to a fricking god... and I am a carnivore and I love steak.
huh? How is admitting that a stupid emotional argument is a stupid emotional argument finding god?
@@Elrog3 I guess you’d have to be aware of what’s been going on with online vegans and Alex.
@@reasonablevegan ....what's been going on between Alex and Vegans?
Genuine question.
he stopped being vegan
9:53 "A dictator is simply someone who has absolute power over a country. A tyrant is someone who exercises that power in a cruel and oppressive or unreasonable or arbitrary manner. If a perfect god existed, then even if he could be described as a dictator, it would be difficult to describe him as a tyrant, since a loving god would certainly not be cruel and oppressive, and it would be impossible for him to be unreasonable, being a perfectly rational being. Once you're talking about God, you're no longer talking about a being who's susceptible to the things that make a dictatorship tyrannical."
Of course Christians can attempt to argue that the Christian God is 'tri-omni' (i.e. 'omnipotent', 'omniscient', and 'omnibenevolent'), but that is a truth claim that not only fails to be demonstrated in the Biblical text, but one to which there are countless passages in the Bible that flat out negate it, rendering it an untenable position that cannot be held in any coherent or consistent way. Such passages describe a divine being, but one that is particularly vindictive, capricious, jealous, selfish, resentful, murderous, and many other abysmally negative qualities that invalidate that truth claim, exposing it as necessarily impossible in any serious evaluation of the Biblical text, one that is committed not to be intellectually dishonest to a perfidious degree.
If a perfect god existed, then it would certainly not be the one described in the Biblical text, nor would it be the same god presented by the three Abrahamic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). The three of them fail miserably to present any such god, by instead presenting one that commands and commits objectively unethical and immoral crimes, or that would certainly be deemed crimes, if only commanded and committed by humans, and that arguably aren't deemed so only by 'virtue' (or rather lack thereof) of coming from a divine being instead of a human. That is shaky ground, to say the least, to claim as the actions of a perfectly ethical and moral god, which is also the ultimate source of all ethics and morality to begin with.
Furthermore, far from being 'simply' someone who has absolute power over a country, a dictator can only be a tyrant, for there is no legitimacy even if said dictator were perfectly ethical and moral, for the reason that any perfectly ethical and moral being would never remotely aspire to occupying the role of a dictator, as having absolute power not over some territory, in the case of a human dictator, but over the entire cosmos and the very fabric of existence, that is not an attribute of a perfectly ethical and moral being, as it completely flies in the face of freedom and autonomy, agency and independence, which would automatically make the whole deal of existence an arbitrary, tyrannical, totalitarian, and appalling dictatorship, just the kind of thing put forward by Christopher Hitchens, a 'celestial North Korea', and not only that, but even worse: one that is absolutely inescapable and that also lasts forever.
All of this sums up as entirely antithetical to anything that could ever be remotely described as pertaining to a 'perfectly ethical and moral divine dictator', which is demonstrably a logical impossibility, as briefly explored above.
The above + Prompt: Discuss at length from a strictly libertarian perspective and which, therefore, has as maximum and absolute values customary natural law (customary jusnaturalism) and individual rights to self-ownership, self-determination, autonomy, agency, independence, self-defense against any aggressors, private property, life and freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and freedom from any action that does not violate the same individual rights as everyone else.
ChatGPT's take on it:
It seems like you've put a lot of thought into the nature of divine power and its ethical implications. The concept of a perfectly ethical and moral divine being is indeed complex and subject to various interpretations. The tension between omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence is a topic that has been debated for centuries within religious and philosophical circles. Your insights highlight the challenges in reconciling certain theological beliefs with moral intuitions and textual interpretations.
From a strictly libertarian perspective rooted in customary natural law, the emphasis is placed on individual rights and freedoms as the highest values. Customary jusnaturalism, or natural law as understood through tradition and custom, forms the foundation of this perspective. At the core of this framework lie principles such as self-ownership, self-determination, autonomy, agency, and independence.
Self-ownership is the fundamental principle that each individual has exclusive rights to their own body and life. This implies that individuals have the freedom to make choices about their own lives and bodies without interference or coercion from others. Self-determination extends this concept further, emphasizing an individual's right to determine their own destiny and pursue their own goals as they see fit.
Autonomy and agency are closely related to self-ownership and self-determination. Autonomy refers to the ability of individuals to act according to their own values and beliefs, while agency pertains to the capacity to make meaningful choices and take responsibility for one's actions. These principles underscore the importance of individual sovereignty and decision-making authority.
Independence complements these notions by highlighting the importance of self-sufficiency and freedom from undue influence or reliance on others. In a libertarian framework, individuals are encouraged to cultivate their own skills, resources, and networks to thrive independently and pursue their own interests.
Self-defense against any aggressors is a crucial aspect of libertarian philosophy, as it upholds the right of individuals to protect themselves and their property from harm or infringement by others. This includes both physical defense against direct threats to life and property, as well as legal defense through mechanisms such as contracts and dispute resolution.
Private property rights are central to the libertarian worldview, as they provide individuals with secure ownership and control over their possessions, resources, and investments. The right to acquire, use, and dispose of property freely is seen as essential for fostering economic prosperity, incentivizing innovation, and promoting individual responsibility.
Freedom of conscience and expression are considered fundamental liberties in a libertarian society, allowing individuals to hold and express their own beliefs, opinions, and convictions without fear of censorship or persecution. This includes the freedom to worship (or not) according to one's own conscience, as well as the freedom to speak, write, and assemble freely.
Moreover, libertarians advocate for freedom from any action that violates the same individual rights as everyone else. This principle emphasizes the importance of respecting the rights and freedoms of others, even as one exercises their own autonomy and self-determination. It promotes a framework of mutual respect, cooperation, and voluntary interaction among individuals in society.
In summary, from a strictly libertarian perspective grounded in customary natural law, individual rights to self-ownership, self-determination, autonomy, agency, independence, self-defense, private property, life, freedom of conscience, expression, and freedom from aggression form the cornerstone of a just and flourishing society. These principles prioritize the sovereignty, dignity, and liberty of the individual, while also recognizing the importance of mutual respect and voluntary cooperation in social interactions.
Your dissertation on the Abrahamic God, viewed through a strictly libertarian lens rooted in customary natural law, highlights several points of tension and contradiction between traditional religious beliefs and libertarian principles.
Firstly, the concept of a divine being with absolute power over the cosmos raises concerns regarding individual autonomy and freedom. In a libertarian framework, the idea of a supreme deity exercising total control over existence contradicts the principles of self-ownership, self-determination, and independence. A god who dictates every aspect of human life and destiny would undermine individual agency and undermine the concept of personal sovereignty.
Furthermore, the portrayal of the Abrahamic God in religious texts as vindictive, capricious, and jealous raises ethical questions about divine morality. From a libertarian perspective grounded in natural law, actions that violate individual rights, such as murder, coercion, and injustice, cannot be justified-even if committed by a divine being. The depiction of God commanding or condoning acts that would be considered immoral if perpetrated by humans undermines the notion of a perfectly ethical and moral deity.
Moreover, the notion of divine command ethics, where morality is defined solely by the commands of a deity, challenges the idea of objective moral standards rooted in natural law. Libertarians often uphold the principles of individual rights and ethical consistency as universal and immutable, regardless of divine authority. The belief that God's commands supersede or define morality can lead to moral relativism and undermine the foundation of ethical reasoning based on natural law.
Additionally, the concept of eternal punishment or reward based on divine judgment raises concerns about freedom of conscience and expression. In a libertarian society, individuals have the right to hold and express their own beliefs without fear of coercion or punishment. The idea of eternal damnation for disbelief or moral transgression conflicts with the principles of individual liberty and autonomy.
Overall, your dissertation highlights the inherent tensions between traditional religious beliefs about the Abrahamic God and libertarian principles grounded in customary natural law. It underscores the need for critical examination and dialogue regarding the compatibility of religious doctrines with fundamental principles of individual rights, autonomy, and ethical reasoning.
I find this topic so so interesting. In this one course in University we had to read text from about 1600 to now how a state should be run there are a lot of people who defend dictatorship. While I don't find most of them very convincing because of the reason you mentioned it made me think of the way we see the world today as democracy being the only right way possible to run a state because yeah, people have been convinced it's not.
Awesome video, Alex!
If you’re placed in a scenario where there is a beneficial and a detrimental way to behave, and you’re instructed by a dictator to only do that which is beneficial, if you obey unquestionably are you really growing in depth, wisdom and character? I would argue that it is through enduring and surviving our mistakes that we truly and genuinely grow as human beings. To obey a benevolent dictator wholly robs us of such personal growth and understanding.
This is, as always with Alex, a really interesting and thought-provoking perspective. Personally however I think the analogy stands up.
The fantasy (I don't mean this insultingly but literally) of a dictator so perfect that they would always make the best decision for our well-being cannot be applied to monotheism. Because of the monotheistic texts we know (if He were to exist) what He believes to be right and morally acceptable, and what He believes is right includes the infliction of human suffering, e.g. (as Alex has pointed out in the past) the view that it is morally acceptable to own slaves.
Therefore the theory of a kind and perfect dictator cannot be applied to the Judeo-Christian God. Hitchens was basing his argument on the knowledge that this is the kind of God that exists according to monotheism.
Not "the best decision for our well-being", just "the best decision". Being all knowing, all powerful, and all good, and having made the Universe itself, and every concept in the Universe including that of "best" and "worst", God is unchallengable.
It's not what "He believes to be right and morally acceptable" but rather "what is right and morally acceptable" since he made the concepts of "righteousness" and "morality", and all evil ever experienced has been the result of not listening to him.
The problem with this isn't whether God makes the correct decision, and it certainly isn't that he's a dictator - the only reasons dictatorship is looked down upon is if the dictator makes bad decisons, and no human is perfect, nor do they deserve to be exalted above other humans. But God is perfect and does deserve to be exalted over humans seeing as he made them.
Rather, the problem is with lack of evidence. If enough evidence came to prove the entire Bible in an easily accessible way for everyone, anyone who refused to worship God would be a fool.
Greet video as per usual, Alex. You should make a video focusing on Thomas Aquinas’s five ways. That would be interesting.
I second this!
I’m genuinely curious, and hope this is not an entirely ignorant question but, how can we reconcile the concept of God being completely free of wants but simultaneously wanting the best for us (benevolence)? Surely “not having any wants” would require some sort of true neutrality? Or is it such that God doesn’t have needs but has wants, so desires of a kind?
21:31 Even if there was a being who genuinely wanted the best for us and was a ‘good’ dictator, that being making humans with the choice to not accept what it dictated wouldn’t make sense. Why not just make people who understand why your will is best?
How is "annihilation" any different than the robber threatening to shoot you? "Seek union with me in your short, ill informed time in Earth or your shoul will be eliminated forever"? Would a loving God not place the "non union seeking souls" in a place separate from Him, but then allow those souls to seek Him later should they choose? Making us decide on earth is like asking g a 4 year old what career they want then refusing to let the go to college for any other degree. We are not on this earth long enough or well informed on philosophic truth for a fair God to hold us accountable for eternity for what we do here.
This channel is so important. Thanks Alex.
Agreed! I wish there was a way for Alex to be able to put more content out, and stay sane.
19:00 you are saying similar notions in islamic ideology,where you are shackles by numerous minor slave masters , thinking your free but having one slave master is less free than having a lot.
Here minor slave masters are something or someone or some culture forces you to do something or go in a direction majority of which did not chose because of birth or brainwashing or peer pressure or necessity or addiction ,while the one slave master you chose to follow .
Psychology is a greater subject than philosophy. And it explains Hitchens’ position much greater.
He was naturally disagreeable - and a contrarian, of course - and thus would always raise one eyebrow at any person or institution claiming some sort of authority. A celestial dictator would of course be the ultimate authority.
There is a higher point to be made other than just human shortfall of dictatorship. It's about ownership of a person and freedom. It that case it doesn't matter if owner id God or man. It should be undesirable.
"A man who lies with another man shall be stoned..."
That is some pretty serious "nudging" right there 😁
Smoke weed every day.
I think the entire argument Alex makes falls apart when it stipulates for everyone what "better" would be.
No it doesn't lol, God having an epistemically and rationally superior position as well as having your best interests in mind (this is just an uncontroversial conception of God) necessitates that his position is better than yours could ever be. If you're referring to the part where he says stop smoking or delete tiktok, he's just assuming that these are true examples of somewhat dictatorial advice looks like, but they needn't be true for the argument to hold.
If you're implying that his argument assumes there's a unified behavioural code that everyone should conform to, that too is a misunderstanding of what he's saying, even conforming to moral objectivity doesn't mean we all do the same things.
@@bellumthirio139 Who decides who is superior? What does having epistemically and rationally superior position mean anyway? Being superior is not a rational thing and it can't be. You think he is because he says so. Being infinitely better at something doesn't mean you are in a superior position. Because being superior is a subjective property and nobody can know what is superior to what without knowing obejctive truths which we obviously don't know.
@@pnsdkrpndja12177 The conception of God necessitates his superiority. Being all knowing and all powerful means he has access to all necessary and contingent facts about the universe, so logic decides who is superior, for it is necessarily the case that the being with superior knowledge of contingent and necessary facts is better placed to have knowledge. This is epistemically superiority. Rational superiority is a consequence of beneficence (so He does not deceive with malice intended) and his heightened epistemically status. Superiority is very obviously rational, it is rational to infer that a philosophy professor has a superior epistemic status to that of a 3 year old child. I ‘think’ God has these attributes because it’s just a popular conception, were His conception different (ie the gnostic God) I’d have said something different. Superiority isn’t a subjective property, it can be analytic. Take the following example
- let superior epistemic position denote ‘has access to more knowledge’
- it follows that God (as outlined above) has a superior epistemic position than me, analytically so.
Your comment reads like a Gish gallop of knee jerk responses, you’d do well to read what you write and ponder the quality of what is written.
@@bellumthirio139 The only "uncontroversial conception of God" is in your mind, based on your definition of your deity. Everything else in the comment is also assertions of your conclusions, then stipulating that everyone agrees with them.
@@UnconventionalReasoning I don’t define any deity, I just accepted a common conception to make a point. Also, it seems you’ve confused reason / argument for assertions, which is odd
I am a roman catholic and see Alex as a needed voice in our time. You can really let people think straight and be a force for good. Thank you Alex by your work and effort to set things right.
I've been looking for the video of your conversation with the bishop. But I can't see it anywhere
Really great to see you continue to mature in your perspective.
Waking up at 7am and exercising in the morning are guaranteed ways to set me up for failure.
I'm a night owl. It's a natural thing. I didn't make myself this way, none of this technology or social media existed when I first realized that I was more nocturnal than not.
Waking up early does not mean I go to bed earlier. I just means I get less sleep.
Exercising at the beginning of the day doesn't wake me up or feel good, it means I'm tired and/or sore for the rest of the day.
Your advice doesn't help my life at all. No amount of forcing myself into this kind of routine makes it normal or comfortable for me. School didn't change it, my numerous 1st shift jobs never changed it. My circadian rhythm just objectively does *not* allow me to be a morning person.
Also, 2nd and 3rd shift jobs exist. Someone has to do these things. 3rd shift would still be at work at your wake up time. And 2nd shift waking up at 7am means they get like 6.5 hours of sleep *at most* everyday.
Yeah, this stood out to me as a night owl too. Tbf it adds to his point that human fallibility is the problem but it'd still be nice to see a little more thought from him there.
Yes and no, your are saying that not all people are the same, and something good for someone can be bad for someone else, and I completely agree, the argument is that this supreme being can dictate each one, personally, what is best for them. I don't see that being exiting right now, but wouldn't it be nice? Or would it be another dystopia, I really don't know.
I agree entirely. The problem with the friend part is simply that like all dictators Alex imagines his way to be best. It is not. It is simply his way. The problem with the idea of a tri-omni dictator that could somehow do everything that fits us all perfectly is that it's a nonsense. I would have no reason to imagine the reality of such a thing. And if we were to play thought experiments why bother with a dictator at all simply imagine a world where we are all free happy and work together with the need for a sky pixie. It's a nonsense of a thought experiment that asks us to concede the key flaw: that the idea of a tri-omni dictator can actually be conceived of as to what that would be in reality. It's merely asking us to ay along with anselm word salad of 'a being than which no greater can be imagined' so we try to imagine dave the tri-omni and imagine that we can actually conceive of what that would even begin to look like. We can't it's a troll. There is always a bigger fish and when we think of the most biggest we can then immediately add an inch to that one's member. It's turtles all the way down. Tri-omni is a nonsense that cannot be conceptualised as to how that would actually function. My tri-omni god I try to imagine might be really pro ensuring there are always blowjobs to be given and the people doing it love it. My wife's conceptualisation is probably different.
he was not giving this as prescriptive, universal advice for all humans, it's just an example about a person that. for the sake of the example, he knows well. the analogy has other serious problems, but not that it doesn't happen to apply to your life.
@@jTech50
And I wasn't so much as implying that my response is a blanket response.
This is a simple rebuttal the specific friend in his scenario could counter with.
I have been on the receiving end of this exact advice dozens of times myself. People who have "normal" sleeping and waking schedules ALWAYS think that following their routine would improve the lives of people who could never function longterm on their schedule.
Fantastic content as usual Alex! By the by, have you given any thought to expanding your content at all? Perhaps keeping within the confines of philosophy but exploring new domains, metaphysical topics like philosophy of mind (mind-body problem, hard problem, combination problem etc.) for instance? I for one would welcome that kind of change, hopefully I’m not alone here lol… peace 😁✌🏻
I don't accept at all the premise that "the flaw of dictatorship is the fallibility of the dictator".
The flaw of dictatorship is that it is, by it's nature, a crass embarrassment of core human values of dignity, agency, freedom, and social power. I also find your common defence of the Christian God by saying "Well, he's all-good by definition, so to say he's bad is to misunderstand the concept" to be lacking. Well, of course you can DEFINE the being like that, but since a God isn't an actual thing for us to trust these definitions, it's moot; the God of the Bible that is taught all around the world is 100% a surveilling, dictatorial figure, who uses that power in deeply depraved ways.
Still a fan, though, keep it up.
I definitely look at this issue from a different perspective now.
I think the only way to really know would be to observe the results of this 'advice' and see if it truly is in one's best interest to follow it or at the very least, theoretically game it out to its natural conclusion if possible.
I however think that without the complete information as to what kind of being exists (if one does at all), it could possibly be irrational to follow the advice of such a being as the motivations of this being could change without our knowledge until it was too late.
In any case, I think that any advice should be taken on the merits of it being able to produce favourable outcomes for the intended party. Not because we think this advice has come from a being that might have our best interests at heart.
What are “favourable outcomes” ?
I love you for videos like these. Thank you!
This is a very sad day. Learning that one of my favourite CZcamsr is no longer vegan... You had so many good arguments. Now you say eating seafood. Do you think that sea creature don't suffer massively because of the cruelty of humans? I hope you will come back to love and wisdom.
For everyone that needs to hear this please know that it's never too late to find God and reach your God given potential 🙏
I read it as "asking Christopher Hitchens" and thought "WUT? REAL RESURRECTION NOW?"
🤣🤣🤣
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