I liked it, Allen! Excellent presentation. I agree - the nation of Israel and the Jewish people are an amazing development. I'm not aware of anything else like it. I told an atheist friend of mine a few months ago that I thought, even if Jesus wasn't a divine messiah he kind of was anyway, because he effectively has saved the nation of Israel! Sheesh! That guy at the end. There's always one.

The bit that wasn't addressed was how do we know if there were changes prior to the earliest editions of the texts that we have. Can this be done? Are there different manuscript 'traditions' that diverged, prior to the earliest extant texts (2nd/3rd century), that could help us to reconstruct the autograph?

So, you kind of softened your statement at the beginning such that it’s really not different (I don’t think) from what Ehrman is trying to say. You qualified that we can be certain that our text today is “by and large” concordant to the original. That’s true, but that’s not the same thing as being sure that it’s exactly the same, and we have no idea if things were added. Is the birth narrative original? Did the voice say “today I have begotten you” or “in whom I am pleased”? We will never know.

And just for fun here is Ehrman on the history of Paul described by Acts and as described by himself: "Sometimes the differences really matter. When Paul himself talks about his conversion in Galatians 1 he insists that after he had his vision of Jesus he did not - he absolutely and positively did not (he swears to it!) - go to confer with the other apostles in Jerusalem. Not for years. And what happens when Paul converts according to Acts 9? What is the first thing he does after he leaves Damascus? He makes a beeline to Jerusalem to confer with the other apostles. In Acts he does precisely what he himself swears in Galatians 1 that he didn’t do."

Also, I tried to look up the references with Tim McGrew provided and they were somewhat hard to find. I couldn't find Sallust, Historiae or Lucian, Vera Historia, in English, but I did find Cicero. Here's what it says in the Cicero reference, "How gently, how sedately, how calmly! For he proceeds with O father ! O my country ! House of Priam ! in which so much action could not be exerted if it had been consumed and exhausted by any preceding emotion. Nor did the actors discover this before the poets themselves, or, indeed, before even those who composed the music, by both of whom their tone is sometimes lowered, sometimes heightened, sometimes made slender, sometimes full, with variation and distinction. [103] Let our orator, then, be thus graceful and delightful (nor can he indeed be so otherwise); let him have a severe and solid grace, not a luscious and delicious sweetness; for the precepts relative to the ornament of eloquence, which are commonly given, are of such a nature that even the worst speaker can observe them. It is first of all necessary, therefore, as I said before, that a stock of matter and thoughts be got together; a point on which Antonius has already spoken; these are to be interwoven into the very thread and essence of the speech, embellished by words, and diversified by illustrations. But the greatest glory of eloquence is to emphasise a subject by embellishment; which [104] has effect not only in amplifying and extolling anything in a speech to an extraordinary degree, but also in extenuating it, and making it appear contemptible. {27.} This is required on all those points which Antonius said must be observed in order to gain credit to our statements, when we explain anything, or when we conciliate the feelings, or when we excite the passions of our audience; [105] but in the particular that which I mentioned last, amplification is of the greatest effect; and excellence in it is the particular and appropriate praise of the orator. Even that exercise is of more than ordinary importance which Antonius illustrated ** in the latter part of his talk, (in the beginning ** he set it aside,) I mean that of panegyric and satire; for nothing is a better foundation for emphasis and amplification in a speech than the talent of performing both these elements in a most effective manner." So, basically, this is not another example of the same technique but what Dr. Tim McGrew is referring to is that it was a known and accepted practice in antiquity for authors to bend the facts of history to produce a more readable narrative. This goes back to what I said below: this is an example of a style of history that we would never accept in a modern historian but which we recognize is common in ancient historians. Whether we call such ancient practices of historical style good, bad, deceptive, artistic, or whatever, is up for interpretation. I'm willing to accept your grading of Ehrman's take as a D as long as it's a grade 69 D - nearly a C but still a failing grade. I accept your arguments as to why as valid. Ehrman's not necessarily "wrong" but his interpretation and explication of this example do not entirely tell the whole story. For a scholar of his level we should expect more. I myself would give him a C, because I do think Ehrman is technically correct in what he's saying albeit not giving us the entire picture.

I think the young man made an interesting point at the end: namely that the dating of Acts after 80 is interesting in that the book of Acts ends abruptly after Paul arrive in Rome, making only a short note about Paul's stay in Rome. That's actually an interesting argument, but after thinking for a moment, it doesn't make much sense. The argument seems to be something like that the author of Acts would have given more information about Paul if he had known it. First of all, if that logic is true, then the author of Mark can't have known about Jesus' resurrection since he didn't provide an account of that in his gospel (before the added longer ending). Second, the argument itself doesn't seem to be self-consistent. The author of Luke ends with a statement that Paul spent 2 years in his rented house welcoming all who came to see him. Does the proponent of this argument think that Luke is therefore writing during Paul's stay at this rented house? If so then how could he write that Paul "spent" two years, instead of "Paul now lives at his rented house in Rome". Speaking past tense about Paul's residency implies that the author thinks he knows this information as something that's already happened. Surely then, that also implies that he knows that other things either are happening or did happen with Paul after his residency if he knows that Paul's residency was only two years, but the author makes a choice to not tell us what happened. Arguably, this could for the same reason that the author of the gospel of Marc ends his gospel with an empty tomb and not with resurrection appearances: he knows that people already know about these. Additionally, Acts is primarily a story about the formation of the early Christian church foremost and a story about Paul in consequence.

To the un-designed coincidences argument: couldn't you simply suppose either one or both of the following is true to explain these? 1. Writing letters of introduction and taking land routes were common in the ancient world? 2. The author of Luke/Acts is known to have used Mark and Q in his writing of Luke. Isn't it possible that he was familiar with the letters of Paul as well and simply wished to make his story as compliant as possible?

Very good. Generally informative, inspiring, and generally thought provoking. I don't think there's a need to pick on Ehrman so hard. He is a good scholar and, honestly, you kind of admit yourself in your rebuttal to his criticism that Luke is taking liberties with the facts of the history to tell the narrative in a way that was more convenient at the time, which is exactly what Ehrman said, albeit towards a different end. It's a fair point, but, of course, Ehrman surely renders his opinion on Luke/Acts based on far more criteria than simply one observation. Off the top of my head, for example, I can think of a few points in disfavor for Luke: 1. How about how Luke not only borrows textually directly from Mark 2.but also changes the order of events from Mark 3. AND this reordering of events doesn't line up and contrasts with Mark/Matthew. 4. Luke's birth narrative has what, in a straightforward reading at least, appear to conflict with Matthew's, similar but I think more profound than the apparent contradiction between Luke/Acts mentioned above 5. Luke's geneology is different from Matthews and both claim to be of Joseph 6. The resurrection narrative is wildly more elaborate than Mark's, containing more angels, more details, ect. 7. There are more miracle stories than Mark, in general, which I think does indicate a certain amount of elaboration. Ultimately, I think it could very well be that the physician Luke, himself, did write Acts, based on eyewitness sources, but I do think we have to admit that there does appear to be a certain amount of fictious-ness in the telling. It's not impossible for legendary material to crop up in relation to a legend-worthy character, like Jesus, and, indeed, we should expect it.

Remember kids, Microstates DO NOT apply to Macrostates. If that were the case, this computer would cease to exist upon me not observing it

Larouche was prophet 😂

Quantum mechanics is just math pretending to be physics

Morality is the cognitive process of differentiating between human intentions, decisions, and actions that are appropriate from those inappropriate. The recognition and evaluation of the consequences our choices have with regards to ourselves and others. My NOT believing in a mythological god in no way impedes the ability of forming such moral assessments. We are self aware conscious pain and emotion feeling individuals capable of love or hate, incredible acts of altruism or depravity. It's how we navigate through life and these potential extremes that define us, not our belief ( or lack of ) in your specific subjective invisible "God"

Causality is risen to the observer of a particular wave outcome (y) that found or satisfied conditions (y) matching the identified causality (y). It is an ancient teaching...

This was excellent!

After the talk, someone asked me about God's relationship to time. While I haven't given the topic the attention it deserves, in this talk I am assuming that time (as we know and experience it) is part of the created world, part of the created space-time continuum.

Maybe sometime....is to consider the occurrence of Discontinuity in what ever Factors involved 😊😊

Philosophen haben das Konzept der Kausalität detailliert elaboriert. Die meisten Physiker haben davon keine Ahnung. Und vertreten eine naive und einseitige Version von Kausalität. Nur weil jemand QM "versteht", ist er nicht qualifiziert, sich gehaltvoll zum Thema zu äussern.

Loved this presentation. Wasn’t able to make it to the meeting sadly so hopefully I can next week.

👍

At the ensemble level, existing quantum theory is accurate to loads of decimal places, too damn accurate if you like. There is no evidence of any requirement to amend quantum mechanics by the addition of something resembling the viscosity term in the Navier-Stokes equations. I will just suggest that the savvy natural philosopher will realise that modification of known equations of quantum mechanics is forbidden. But just the same, at the level of the individual event, or the jointly-correlated dual event, something else is happening. I would suggest that there is more than one way to travel faster than light. The wave function is an oscillation in one of the ways. We have a degree of freedom in the other way which can be taken up by tachyonic Brownian motion. Bell’s Theorem is good news, since otherwise we would not have a new degree of freedom to play around with.

I had a out of body experience when I was a kid. I dodged a soccer ball without looking. Time seem like it slow down and for a split second I got a top view of myself and the guy who threw the ball. I also saw part of the roof from the laundromat near me. If there was an object on the roof Idk if I would have seen it. Prob not but kinda relates to the red shoe story he mentioned.

Why are so many people on the internet trying so hard to prove that they didn't pay any attention in high school science? ;-)

Cause and effect. Cause and effect is omnipresent in our everyday lives, as well as in quantum mechanics. And if in modern philosophy this concept (cause and effect) causes controversy, then this is due to a misunderstanding of the essence of quantum mechanics. ---- ''If you are not completely confused by quantum mechanics, you do not understand it'' / John Wheeler / ''Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense'' /Roger Penrose/ "Nobody understands quantum mechanics and that's a problem". /Sean Carroll/ ----- It is quite possibly that "cause and effect" in quantum physics is subject to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle -------.

Analytical retrospective of LDS beliefs is useful for an LDS person who can think in those terms. But most do not think that way about their religiousity. I was LDS from age 19 till age 36. At age 36 I resigned to rejoin Biblical Christianity. ( that was over 30 years ago) In my first decade as an LDS member, I just went to Church and lived the LDS ways. I was successful being an LDS person, I was making progress in almost all areas of life, I set goals reached them with LDS social support and was reasonably happy in life. Mormonism was Faith, Repentance, Baptism(other ordinances too) Laying on of Hands by the Priesthood for callings, and remaining faithful to commandments and LDS routines. And through those LDS processes, I would progress Godward. The whole idea that you could analyze LDS beliefs, and or history to judge them to some standard ( as the Bible) was not and is not in the usual LDS mentality. After being LDS for 15 years, and having many conversations with Biblical Christians, I could see therer was a difference between the Bible and LDS teachings that could make a real Eternal difference. It took me a huge amount of work to see this, and it took a lot of effort to make the arrangements to leave the LDS Church as well. Being a former LDS person, I view my conversion to Biblical Christianity as a miracle and a wonderous work of God.

Methodological Naturalism, as he described it, in the sense that we can't rule on out Natural explanations is based in the self-refuting philosophy of Scientism, part of which involves the false belief that science has no limits & will eventually tell us everything about reality. For example, we can know with 100% certainty the cause for the beginning of the universe MUST be supernatural. How? Because there are only two options: natural or supernatural. And we can rule out a natural cause by logical deduction: “Nature” and “The universe” are synonyms. Nature did not begin to exist until this cause caused it to. Therefore, a natural cause (a cause coming, by definition, from nature) cannot be responsible for the origin of nature. To say otherwise would be to spout incoherence. You’d basically be saying “Nature caused nature to come into being.”

It's really disappointing to see a Physics professor so evidently influenced by their religious bias. The BGV theorem simply doesn't imply an origin to the universe. Why are they interviewing this guy when he clearly hasn't even studied the theorem. Here is why the BGV theorem DOESN'T imply that the universe had an absolute beginning: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nmLCkJ1jh8-NgNE

As a bio major, I had hoped these arguments would’ve been better. This is a man who doesn’t understand how evolution works.

Ah, just like that other channel run by a creationist. And his video "The Case for Flat Earth in Astrophysics".

Jungle conclusions.... chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/threelly-ai-for-youtube/dfohlnjmjiipcppekkbhbabjbnikkibo

Great book; and timely with all the mumbo jumbo promulgated by the scientistic glitterati.

Evolution has been observed in the lab and field, both micro and macro, and is therefore absolutely a fact. People who argue against observed facts are either stupid or delusional.

His whole argument is nothing more than a god of the gaps logical fallacy. I'm surprised he would make such a weak and obviously flawed argument. He failed miserably

Good speaker, bad a/v. The speaker deserves better.

About the first question at 49:00 : she is wrong, they don't have deductive arguments for the multiverse. I didn't hear one.

The atheist dudes were pretty awkward.

BioLogos is part of the problem. They are proponents of naturalistic darwinist evolution. Francis Collins has been proponent of junk DNA in his book, The Language of God. He was wrong. Also, he strawmans Intelligent design arguments, and is not interested in working with ID proponents.

No comment

ID is the "only" explanation thus far which is logical and based upon experience. The biological / genomic record has generated profusions of functional information (the origin of biological life / the Cambrian Explosion, etc.,), and only one phenomena has ever been observed to produce such such changes: consciousness / agency. We've already given materialistic evolution 150 years, and nowhere have we observed new proteins, new genes, new gene regulatory networks, or hierarchical information.

Looks like Fuz made drivel a "Highlighted reply" hoping people won't view all replies and see I demonstrate it's drivel. Typical dishonesty from him

Things that if designed would be the mark of idiotic design falsify intelligent design, There are lots of those things like the same pipe for food and air so we can choke. There is also a backwards retina and new eyes (kids<10) need correction (glasses)11.4% of the time. An appendix that we can easily live without but can kill us in agony. Wisdom teeth that we can easily live without being impacted often...

apologist dribble argument from authority and appeal to emotion here

Does Quantum Mechanics undermine causality? No. Quantum mechanics apparently undermine some form of causality: determinism, but not causality as a whole

At the 12 min mark you find your first and primary flaw in the argument. Because we do not know, or understand something we cannot assume that a metaphysical being did it. this is called "god in the gap". This is the same argument made two thousand years ago about thunder and lightning. This argument just happens to pick something that is difficult to know. If you want god to be what we don't know, that is fine. you must realize that that type of god is slowly shrinking as we understand more and more of the universe. The rest of the lecture is not really worth watching, as his foundational argument lacks merit.

If the sample is small, then we have a problem, but if the sample is large and useful to observe, then the point made in this video is correct - QM is highly predictable and hence causality is not lost. Probability is then something we can rely upon. QM is the most successful scientific theory of all time. For the most part, your smartphone or tablet, or computer, works because QM properties *are* dependable, and part of nature. If not, nature would crumble.

I'm more like sorry (for the teists) rather than angry

Jesus Christ, what a bullshit!

This is ridiculous. Science doesn't mention a deity, because there has never been a scientific hypothesis concerning a deity. They can never be one. This lecture should have been a simple set of facts: 1. Some people beLIEve in a deity. 2. Science has shown us that beLIEf is not a factor. 3. Science gives us qualitative results 100% of the time.

Wait Strauss works at CERN??

The sound is garbage during the Q and A

I looked at different sides of the issue. Then, I left Christianity and became an atheist. I followed Strauss's advice.