Can Atheists Know God?

[@ZacharyCath]

This will be an enjoyable series. Excited for what's in store! Thanks!

[@peteraguilar7600]

First off, I want to give a compliment. This video presentation was very well organized, and I appreciated how it stayed on point and did not drift on to more stream-of-consciousness monologue. Also, your genuine interest in this topic came across, and all of those things impressed me very much regarding the quality of this video. That being said, there are several questions and I problems I found in your opening statement. However, since you stated future videos will more fully contain these arguments, I will wait to watch them with an open mind before bringing objections. I do have one request, though. While I obviously noted that you used the terms "omnipotence", "omniscience", and "omnibenevolence", I wanted clarification if you are intentionally defending "omni" attributes in your arguments or if you actually mean "maximal" attributes. I have debated some Theists in the past over their defense of "omni" attributes only a few days later to find out they actually meant "maximal" attributes, and so a lot of time was wasted arguing over something that ended up being nothing.

[@PedroHCF37]

Care to elaborate on the difference?

[@peteraguilar7600]

@@PedroHCF37 Fair enough. When you are dealing with the "omni" descriptions that some people ascribe to a God or Gods, you have to deal with logical contradictions. For example, let's say that you are talking about a God that you describe as being omnipotent. I then ask you if that God is able to create a boulder so heavy that He cannot lift it. If your God can do that, then He is not all powerful as there is something He does not have the power to do. If your God cannot do that, then He is not all powerful as there is something He does not have the power to do. However, if you are stating that your God or Gods are maximumly powerful, then by definition you are saying your God or Gods have all the power that does not contradict logic. While you would still have the burden of proof for your claim, there is less you have to defend when claiming your God or Gods is maximally powerful.

[@nandoxus]

As an Atheist myself if I ever meet God I'm damn sure going immediately to the psychiatric clinic lol because that's a symptom of schizophrenia

[@Harker777]

It is possible that there may be a great creator. Possible as far as it cannot be impossible. It just won't be the benevolent being that human nature will want it to be. I mean, this is somewhat evident over the course of the ages.

[@Harker777]

@Boris Cuduco Because it's not impossible and it depends on what we're talking about. This planet may well have been seeded by...who knows who or what. Could God have created all that is? Logic tells me no, because once we introduce a god into this equation, we multiply the credibility odds substantially, as God must have been something, residing in nothing only to make all this universe we're aware of out of nothing? It's a stretch getting your head around the big bang but now we have a big bang that was created by a 'spirit' that preceded nothing? It's a tough one.

[@damianedwards8827]

Its Unfortunate. God is the Existence of Love. Everyone Obviously Believes Love Exists. Atheists Unnecessarily Overcomplicate it. It's a Shame.

[@havenbastion]

Knowledge is justified belief. There is no way to justify a being so ineffable that it's indistinguishable from fiction.

[@sorelvio79]

You are assuming that all things are proven in the same way, which is not the case (a priori synthetic knowledge like math doesn't require sense data). Even if your intent is to make a knowledge argument, epistemology must be based on metaphysics in the order of operation, so you implicitly need to presuppose things about reality prior to your investigation. Since I would assume that scientific naturalism is your framework, before going on to critique theism, first you would need to give an account for the possibility of knowledge within your paradigm. How can material monism justify the existence of transcendental categories like the self, past, existence of the external world, causality, uniformity in time of the laws of nature, logic, meaning of language, existence of other minds, etc. since they cannot be proven empirically? Or how can any value judgments be made if everything (including oneself) is necessarily determined by the natural law and there's no possibility to reason outside of what the causal chain of events entails?

[@2222cream]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[@HollowProject]

Wow! I'm really looking forward to seeing it!

[@MyNameIsChristBringsASword]

An atheist never knows God.

[@Trypofar]

Like the content but you really need to raise the audio volume. Also, you speak very quitely for one time and very loud in the next. This makes it harder to listen to.

[@RENATVS_IV]

Now that I watched the video, I would ask Bob to reveal to me how the world works and how we can define the being.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

We will cover this in the video on God's knowledge. The problem is that Bob will either tell you something you can verify, at which point he is just Wikipedia, or something you cannot verify, at which point he could be lying.

[@fatkart7641]

Imagine, you finally find God, ask your questions, he raises an eyebrow: "the world usually work 9 to 5 shifts and a being is something that"is". Seriously dude? Get out of here I have some other dimensions to work on...".

[@BlueLightningSky]

I hope I'm not gonna spoil the series but if all powerful God is going to prove to me he exists, it doesn't matter what the proof is because I'd believe him either way because if he couldn't convince me with his proof he isn't all powerful.

[@wackzsaml3979]

It's so damn simple these theists just don't get it

[@hugo54758]

What an odd question. Can deists and atheists know what their peers believe in and how different it is to their own beliefs? Can they know what are the alternatives to their beliefs? Can they know how to get out of their views, in the best way possible, without fearing anything from their relatives?

[@littleghost6102]

while i don't see a way i could be convinced in the existence of god's omnibenevolence, i dont really see why i couldn't be convinced of their omnipotence or omniscience... while, technically, no feat could prove *infinite* power/knowledge, simply having enough power/knowledge, would, i think be enough to claim they have it all (barring of coures that i'm going crazy or we're in the matrix or something), since there isn't really an exhaustive list of everything you could do/know. though i will be interested in listening to the rest of this series to see if it changes my mind

[@Ansatz66]

Why would we assume limitless power just from being shown some impressive tricks? Isn't the default assumption always going to be that powers are always limited? If someone can lift a hundred-pound weight, we wouldn't normally assume that they can also lift a million-pound weight. If they can lift a million-pound weight, that doesn't thereby mean then can lift literally any imaginable weight. Why would any amount of feats indicate that there are no limits at all?

[@MatthewFearnley]

I guess this is trivially true in the sense that you can’t prove you’re not a brain in a vat, and in that finite beings can’t exhaustively prove the infiniteness of these attributes. The best anyone can probably ever do is to take God at his word and trust him based on what he does show us, even in heaven. I’m not sure what to expect the practical outworking of this to be. The idea that atheists should always reject belief in God seems to me to be an “absurdum”, but maybe I shouldn’t speculate too much before watching.

[@miguelatkinson]

I don't know that sounds like it can go both ways and don't have any valid reason to affirm such a claim so we end up with agonisticism

[@MatthewFearnley]

@@miguelatkinson I think if we take this approach, it would lead to an extreme agnosticism on all facts. The question is whether that leaves us with the ability to make any rational decisions. Ultimately, I think the rational thing to do is to "wager" in the most sensible direction. E.g. to wager that my mind is rational, or that I'm not a brain in a vat. That if I meet God in Heaven and he says "I am all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful, trust and follow me", then the most rational way to "wager" is to trust and follow him, because the possible range of implications of distrusting and rejecting him are either overwhelmingly negative or simply impossible to comprehend. So if I was as certain as I could be that God existed, I could still technically be "agnostic" on his trustworthiness, but would still consider it worthwhile to follow him anyway.

[@miguelatkinson]

@@MatthewFearnley I don't know because once again that creates a problem why would a supposed god set up such a system that would result in it's creation being justifiable untrustworthy aswell the personality of this god because maybe this god cares more about those who pursue rational inquire rather than blind faith or good deed or other means and it also puts into concern the benevolence of said deity as considereding the sheer ignorance and lack of knowledge we possess as finite beings knowingly or unknowingly this makes God queit evil it especially gets worse the second you factor in religions if where speaking of a theistic or personal god this sounds queit familiar to pascal wager which is possible worse arguments for God's existence but it's not even an argument for God's existence but for the truth of Christianity or the existence of the christian god so that doesn't even work but besides that this slowy turns into the false dichotomy fallacy considering their are people who agonistic and theist at the same time know as agonistictheist

[@faragar1791]

First I would like to know as to what exactly is a "God"? How will I know that that I am meeting with God if a don't know what he/she/it is?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

In this series we focus on a "God" being defined as something that is all powerful, all knowing, and all good.

[@Stonefallow]

The problem with the claim of God is that the claim is unfalsifiable, so there are no criteria for which it can be proven right or wrong. The claim "everything you have studied about history is a lie" is also unfalsifiable in the same way. That said, I believe under the scenario you are giving it would be possible to have justified true belief in a being capable of creating universes, planets, and human life. Those things could all be demonstrated, and would meet at least some definitions of God.

[@Stonefallow]

@North Korea Is Best Korea That's because the null hypothesis "humans don't exist" is falsifiable, unlike the "all powerful God" hypothesis. Even if you obtained exhaustive knowledge of the entire material/observable universe, you could never demonstrate that this encompassed "all". Under this criteria, the position theism can never be justified and the position of atheism is logically required.

[@Stonefallow]

@North Korea Is Best Korea The rest of my statement makes sense, you just didn't understand it. Every claim is "unfalsifiable" when it requires you to prove a negative. The God claim is unique in that it is unfalsifiable when trying to prove a positive. If the null hypothesis can never be disproved, it is impossible to have justified true belief. Consequently, if I can never prove that a God does exist, the belief can't be justified.

[@Stonefallow]

@North Korea Is Best Korea First of all, you incorrectly quoted me. I said the God claim is unique in that the null hypothesis is unfalsifiable. Second, the parameters of God and how we define it were set up by the premise of this video, and in my previous post. For a God to be "all powerful", it must necessarily be unfalsifiable. Third, unfalsifiability goes to justification, which is an element of knowledge within epistemology, and you cannot handwave it away and claim that a belief is justified when it lacks sufficient evidence to be proven.

[@Stonefallow]

@North Korea Is Best Korea Maybe you need to start you studies over, because everything you just said is incorrect. Proving a negative is a logical fallacy, and Popper understood that as well as anyone.

[@bognome]

Interesting outlook. I hope that your arguments don't also imply that we can't know wether the laws of physics really are true. Which… fair. But I wouldn't find that very interesting to argue: we're still justified in behaving as if they were true. (My worry is that you'll be taking a purely philosophical skeptic outlook on things, while claiming that your arguments also apply to more 'casual' skepticism. But we'll see wether my worries are justified :p)

[@bognome]

@@thotslayer9914 What do you mean? I'm trying to piece it together. Are you talking about the text in the 'about' section of my KZbin account? That's the introductory poem of a novel I like, _The Horde of the Counterwind._

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I think the challenge here will be that this argument is presupposing a being that at least appears all powerful. Once we assume that things that are powerful enough to appear all powerful not only exist but are standing in front of you focused on changing your beliefs, it becomes challenging to reasonably assume a skeptical scenario is unlikely, in fact it seems that a skeptical scenario is far more likely than not in such situations. I try to avoid only relying on these concerns in the series, but there are some mention of them.

[@bkhan19]

No one can know God unless they have been directly communicated to by God. That's the whole point.

[@justiceiria869]

God communicates through man. That is why there are street preachers.

[@miguelatkinson]

Yeah that sounds like it could create confusion and historically have caused the existence of cults and have spawned terrible tragedies

[@bkhan19]

@miguelatkinson to you it seems that way. To others it created order and eased suffering.

[@subliminallime4321]

I'd ask for the omniscient being to tell me the winning lottery numbers for the next drawing. It might not prove anything, but it's better to be unconvinced & rich than it is to be unconvinced & poor. The ending of Carl Sagan's novel Contact, where pi in base 11 produces a series of 1s and 0s that form a perfect circle when printed out would be pretty compelling evidence to me of an intelligent creator, though still not convincing.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Haha! I have already recorded this series and I think I make that lottery joke myself in the video on God's knoweldge! Great minds think alike. :)

[@Dadas0560]

This argument makes no sense. If that God were in fact the Omni-God, this God would not need to reveal itself to anyone specifically. Everyone would already believe in and worship that God by default. God has no way of proving that he is God unless the person who requires the evidence has at least the same properties as that God. Otherwise there is no way to understand what that God is, thus there is no way to know if this God is actually God, or just a more advanced being.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

We might imagine a God that was capable of causing people to believe in him by force, but for some reasons related to goodness and free will wanted them to believe of their own free choice. Setting aside for now all the issues with the Free Will Defense, this seems to be what many people believe.

[@Dadas0560]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene Sure, many people believe tons of different nonsese. You have even made a fallacy in your statement: God ... wanted them to believe of their own free choice. There is no free will or choice if God set it up thiis way, or any other way. It is still God's will, no matter how we twist it.

[@OddWomanOut_Pi81]

This is an example of a conversation that never fails to make me feel like a complete DOLT. 😄😄😄 Idk if it's all the five-dollar words or what...*sigh* Alas, I will continue to torment myself...as an agnostic, I feel it's my duty.

[@sronicker]

This argument is meaningless coming from you. You claim to present this from the empiricist point of view, but you've insisted that you're a universal skeptic. You doubt your own existence. Of course you doubt the evidence you see/experience! An atheist that at least admits that there is some kind of argument or proof that they would accept is at least being honest that they are at least seeking the truth. Your position here is stating that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING would ever convince you that God exists or that you would ever believe that God exists. You don't believe anything is true, and don't hold any position on anything. How could we ever take you at your word when it comes to this. You've posted before about being a universal skeptic, but here again you're exposing your hypocrisy by holding a truth claim. You clearly believe that this series and set of proofs will hold true and will be logical and will follow the laws of logic, and will conclude that you are not justified in believing in God. I thought you've made it clear that you don't hold any statement as true? Which is it? Is nothing true or is at least this claim true? Same with the laws of logic. You had a series about proving the laws of logic as suspect, but here you're going to try to use those laws and logic to prove a proposition. I used to recommend this channel as a good primer for basic philosophical content. Unfortunately. I can't anymore in good faith. You are a hypocrite and show it every single video. You lie with every single video. You present facts, arguments, and hold claims on various positions in every single video. Why waste your and everyone else's time with your lies?

[@sigmaoctantis1892]

You say, "...pic your favorite Abrahamic tradition." OK. I pick Yahweh. I think the Bible provides sufficient evidence to claim that Yahweh does not possess the omni-qualities. So, Yahweh appears before me wishing to convince me of his powers. I cite Genesis 3:22 and ask to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life. Only in the case that Yahweh complies with my request and I obtain the benefits described in that verse, do I know for certain that he is really a god as purported in Genesis.

[@BabbleCacophony]

I'm guessing this doesn't rule out being justified to have high confidence in its existence. You might not be able to 100% prove its existence but you are more inclined to believe it to be the case do to its verified traits.

[@Jonathan-jk7of]

Same with brain in the vat

[@adammyers3453]

Hmm, I think the start from omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence is a bad starting place that has too long been left unchallenged. The definitions are completely imprecise and nearly useless for the purpose they are being used for. Suppose that we have a being that is arbitrarily powerful, knowledgeable, and good. What is the difference between all powerful/knowledgeable/good? That isn’t clear at all. A better direction would be to start from a sufficiently broad definition of god and see what one can do with that and then decide what attributes such a hypothetical god might have. Personally, I like the following definition (which I argue is a valid definition that is superior to the mainstream definitions floating about),(note: this is a simplified version that has the target be a finite set, one could make a more precise version, but that can get unnecessarily confusing, and the point doesn’t require the “best” such definition) “Let T be the set of all species (deliberately vague) that have ‘technology’ [deliberately left vague and meant to be as inclusive as possible]” and let t:T to {0,1,2,3,4} be a function that assigns each species its Kardeshev number or, 4 if the being is more powerful than a type 4 civilization [the reasoning for this is that the effective difference between the two classes is rather moot for the purpose of this argument]. Now, select the maximum value (with the order that you’d expect), and find the preimage of the maximum and call it G (for the nonmath nerds, take the highest Kardeshev number associated with the species that exist that have technology, and give each of those species with that number a label, G). The set G is the set of all gods. With that, one may attempt to argue what powers each element has and their number. Funnily enough, because for humanity, h, t(h)=0, there must be atleast one element in G (though there is no further property to be discerned from the math alone here). Hence, there is atleast one god, so atheism, strictly defined is shown to be false (though it can be salvaged as a form of theistic humanism, with the claim that humanity is the sole element in G). But, I digress.

[@nandoxus]

Can we know if death is final and eternal nonexistence through logical reasoning? I believe that empirical analysis of death hasn't given a convincing answer so far.

[@wtfamiactuallyright1823]

Reincarnation baby! Your poop will contain remnants of our ancestors, next step, a dung beetle. Do the maths. 😉

[@nandoxus]

@@wtfamiactuallyright1823 well. I'd love to be reincarnated in some alternate universe while I retain my knowledge. But that assumes the existence of a "soul" or some eternal consciousness...

[@nandoxus]

@@edthoreum7625 God is a delusional thought

[@wtfamiactuallyright1823]

@@nandoxus Well, you never know. I've always had a sneaky suspicion that everything is connected somehow, to what extent is beyond us atm, maybe it always will be. I've always loved the this phrase "We are a way for the universe to understand itself." Carl Sagan Maybe AI will better inform us of this lol.

[@wtfamiactuallyright1823]

@@nandoxus "We are a way for the cosmos, to know itself." Carl Sagan Ooops that's what I get for, I think it's called ad libbing lol...

[@wackzsaml3979]

Huh the title, i used to be a theist that by definition means i knew "god" right? But look at me now, an atheist so does that mean by the faulty theist's worldview i knew "god"? or somehow unknow him/she/it now?

[@TempehLiberation]

Man this channel deserves more subs! I'm looking forward to this series. I generally hold that the only way to "know" a deity (mono/polytheistic either one) is direct religious experience. Granted that won't make someone else believe. Seeing as I haven't had such an experience I'll still be chilling with the Agnostic Atheists.

[@miguelatkinson]

Well yes and no remember where talking about religious experiences their experience meaning they could be subjective or induced

[@Pfhorrest]

As a syntheist -- one who thinks that godliness is an ideal, an objective, something to aim toward, to create, rather than something that already exists -- I think there's an interesting analogue between the unprovability that any given entity is already a god, and my take that it is not possible to ever finish the task of creating a god. Because though there may be no limit to how powerful and knowledgeable and good any entity could be, you can't get from a finite amount of anything to an infinite amount ever, so although there could come to exist beings that are arbitrarily godlike, they could never actually be finish being, strictly speaking, gods. Likewise, you can never finish testing the limits of any godlike being's godlike attributes, so you can never be sure that they actually are limitless and not just in excess of however much you've thought to ask it to demonstrate thus far. Since on my broader philosophy the ontological is the asymptote of the epistemological -- what is real is just what is knowable in principle, what ever-increasing knowledge converges toward -- it makes a kind of retrospective sense that a kind of being that could never finish being realized also could never finish having its reality demonstrated, since the converse would also be true: if you can never in principle differentiate between a world where this kind of being exists and a world where it doesn't, then it is not the kind of thing that could be real.

[@Pfhorrest]

@@thotslayer9914 Yes, though I don't see how that relates to any of the above.

[@Pfhorrest]

@@thotslayer9914 Unfortunately not yet, I was educated in an Analytic department that didn't showcase that area of philosophy, and haven't had time to read much of it on my own since, though I've read superficially *about* it.

[@Pfhorrest]

@@thotslayer9914 I do, and I admin The Philosophy Chat on it.

[@Pfhorrest]

@@thotslayer9914 that is the name

[@Drudenfusz]

If rationality cannot help a deity to convince any atheists, then that should be also true fro theists as well. Thus the argument made here seems to say that one cannot get to religion through rationality. Not sure if that was the goal of that thought exercise, but it seems a little roundabout at its approach. I mean why are there only atheists pointed out in the title, when it should be everyone, since I am not sure if atheism makes people in a different way approaching rationality.

[@mickeymaples4928]

something interesting to note though if God isn't the philosophical definition of god. Being an all-knowing powerful benevolent God, but a really really powerful one in all those categories and shows me empirical evidence of his power I would say he exists and is god but not the philosophical one

[@braden_m]

I’m a bit concerned that you say that the atheist “shouldn’t” believe in God from this argument. As long as you say this, I hope you don’t believe in the external world because a parallel argument can be run for that and a skeptical position (namely, solipsism or monistic idealism or no position at all). For any argument we might make or proof we might attempt to use to prove the external world is perfectly consistent with a skeptical hypothesis, and so if you think an atheist SHOULDN’T believe in god because of the consistency of experiences of god with non-god hypotheses, then you also SHOULDN’T believe in an external world (someone let me know if I’ve missed something and my argument has gone terribly wrong). It seems fine to say that the atheist should lower their credence (perhaps drastically) that any experience they ever have will be proof of God, but if you think they SHOULDN’T believe in god due to skeptical hypotheses then parallel arguments can be run with about everything

[@yinYangMountain]

When one stops for a moment and examines the oft argued-for attributes and premises of the Abrahamic God, the Classic God of Theism if you will, this god is seen akin to a married bachelor wearing an invisible pink square circle while riding a female stallion. So it’s not that ‘a god’ does not exist, it’s that certain faith-claimed variants certainly do not, and cannot, exist.

[@amalthomasthomas1514]

God never gets disturbed of atheists.He is happy about who acts worthfull.

[@miguelatkinson]

So no atheists have acted worth fully?

[@TheGibber]

I mean, I get it. These extremes are inherently impossible to prove. But if some dude showed up, showed you he knew what number you're thinking of, what you had for dinner last night, that g thing you did in third grade, told nobody about but are still ashamed of to this day, and can quote any random wikipedia article you search up from your desired startpoint? While I agree he tehcnically hasn't proven he's omniscient, I'd sure as hell give him the benefit of the doubt at this point and accept it as "true" Same for omnipotent Though omnibenevolence I could never even conceive how he would prove to me, especially simultaneously with the other two. He'd have to have some magic reason x why everything is actually in the best possible state at all times, and I can't even begin to conceive of what that argument would be

[@ZacharyCath]

Either that which is true is beyond our comprehension or it is not.

[@redsparks2025]

The religious raised such a high bar in their definition of God that no version of a God can jump over. The problem is within the contradictions of God's omni-powers. No need for scepticism as God is defeated by the logical contradictions of those Godly omni-powers.

[@ZacharyCath]

It's not about raising the bar. God simply IS and must be the eternal ultimate. This is why he has revealed himself as "I AM".

[@redsparks2025]

@@ZacharyCath You have missed my point. In any case, God IS and I AM [God] are both circular statements designed to terminate further questioning and critical thinking. Ask me who I am and I can also answer I AM, but that does not make me God. Not only would you make a poor philosopher for missing my point, you would also make a poor theologian because other religions can also say their God (or gods) can proclaim I AM and their God (or gods) IS.

[@ZacharyCath]

@@redsparks2025 In attempting to defend your ego, you resort to insults. Nonetheless, I will rebut. God's claim is a proclamation of supreme being. When you encounter that finality of being, there is no "further". You are otherwise left with infinite regression which is fallacious.

[@ZacharyCath]

@@redsparks2025 The theist, specifically the Christian, contrarily argues that a supreme being without omni-powers cannot be foundational. An eternal "it" is not coherent.

[@redsparks2025]

@@ZacharyCath Not defending my ego. Not resorting insults. You assume too much about me. Just stating the logic of your argument has flaws as I understand it and giving you advise that your flawed argument would also be reject in both genuinely professional philosophical and theological debates rather than the pissing contests that are online social media debate forums.

[@mr.c2485]

All Bob would have to do is exchange my mind with his. I would need just 7 days. If Bob is not a mind, then perhaps he could exchange his spirit for mine. If not a spirit, then perhaps a name exchange. If not a name, then a time swap. That should just about cover it…

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

How would you know that Bob actually gave you his mind/spirit? An all powerful devil might give you a mind that appeared all good, but was not his. He might give you the ability to change your own perception of the world instead of changingthd actual world, but also give you the belief you were changing the actual world. If Bob is all powerful he can make you believe he gave you his mid for a week and it was all you ever dreamed it would be.

[@CuddlyPsycho1134]

So what you really mean by "God" is the god of Abraham. What about the god of Einstein and Buddha? "God is a mirror that shattered itself so it could look at itself." - Dogen

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Similar to the problem of evil, this is focused on a specific definition of God, not all possible Gods. If someone thinks anyone that can lick their elbow is a god, then this argument fails. But given that most religious people believe in a "three O" god, this argument will cover most.

[@jimpassi349]

MY WIFES STEP DAD WAS ONE /// TILL HIS DEATHBED HE BECAME A BELEVER/// ITS NEVER TO LATE

[@wtfamiactuallyright1823]

First I'd ask what his/her/they/it's real bloody name is and then I'd ask the being to make it so I'd understand how it's the creator of everything, this should be simple for them. BUT even then this would be possible for a more developed, non, all powerful being, regardless I would be none the wiser of the situation. Sooo, we're all kinda screwed on this one. We won't know till it happens and when it happens we won't know. I just hope it's a she and she's, hot. I need a, cig...

[@fatkart7641]

First, I would ask him to give me the same insight John Coffey gave to Tom Hanks in The Green Mile when he showed him what really happened. Reliving everything in a matter of seconds should be a pretty good start at convincing me of the whys, hows, and what was his intentions all along. Then, have you ever seen the Sphinx or the ruins of Persepolis in real life? Well it sucks. It's tiny, way less impressive than in the pictures or movies. Like telling a kid dragons are real, then dragging him to the exotarium to show him a komodo dragon. I mean, you didn't lie, but... So yeah, that would be my expectations with God. Or Bob. An extraordinary being, able to manipulate anything at the subatomic level... just overhyped by an old book and a bunch of fanatics. That would be enough to believe in Bob. Love him? Hell no, but acknowledge his existence.

[@krzyszwojciech]

Make me omniscient. (Did I break the rules?)

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Clever idea. One question would be how would you know you were omniscient? You could be given lots of beliefs about things, but you might not be able to tell if they are true or not. And simply implanting beliefs in someone's head does not make one omnipotent. We will cover the concerns more in future videos.

[@krzyszwojciech]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene Yup. I'm not sure that even God, if he existed, could know whether he's omniscient or not. On the other hand, it's a different thing to prove something with certainty and a different thing to conclude some claim is true as reasonably justified. If you had the time to explore your supposed omniscience, maybe you would conclude on your own that everything you believe is coherent and congruent with reality. Add the attribute of [supposed] all-power and you could test most if not all of it. You could still be in the Matrix or whatever, but you disregarded those options at the beginning.

[@992turbos]

Atheism is justified since theism isn’t. :)

[@samuelschick8813]

@North Korea Is Best Korea, Pretty arrogant comment considering your screenname.

[@nate6898]

@@samuelschick8813 what the fuck are you talking about

[@joegeorge3889]

I know god he's an elderly white man with a long white beard and no one can change my mind

[@persephoneharrison3439]

Why did you choose to become an atheist? What made you choose that faith/religion?

[@Amogha_Che]

A all knowing god, by definition the god should know how exactly to make me a believer or if the all knowing god says that the I can not be made a believer, by fact. That is the god has created a creature who can never be made a believer even the almighty god, then my non believing in god is not a choice it is by design.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

The question is how can you know the difference between an all knowing all powerful, evil god and an all knowing, all powerful, all good one. They are both able to change your beliefs at will, and would know what to say to make you change your mind. The problem is that you have no way of knowing which one you are speaking to. So while your beliefs may change, they remain unjustified, meaning they are not knowledge.

[@InventiveHarvest]

**** SPOILERS.- WARNING **** If I met Bob-God and he could show me his power, yes, I would still have questions. Obviously the problem of evil comes to mind. I would ask, "then what's up with all the suffering baby seals, asshole?" Additionally I would have to know how he knew there was nothing outside his knowledge, because by definition, he couldn't. But maybe he could answer these questions somehow. Then I would hopefully change my position and believe in Bob-God. Though, it would take some pretty strong answers to these questions to convince me.

[@nunyabisnass1141]

Well that wouldnt keep you from believing in them, only from accepting them if their answers were unsatisfactory. In the old testimemt yaweh existed along many other gods and primitive Judaism was for all intents and purposes a pagan religion existing along side of other pagan religions. Even modern christianity and catholosism are pagan in a sense with "the father, son and holy ghost" as well as the various saints treated as demi-gods. Its really a case of special pleading in the domestic definitions of their faith that end up betraying through self contradictions of over developed characters that cause enough confusion for ppl to reject their definitions, and ultimately their concept of god as a whole.

[@InventiveHarvest]

@@nunyabisnass1141 its like Q from Star Trek. If I met Q, could I accept him as the one true God? Picard did not.

[@nunyabisnass1141]

@@InventiveHarvest circumstances were a bit different but i get what you're saying. If we were to encounter a sufficiently advanced culture that seemed to defy all of our preconceptions of common sense and kmowledge, then yes it would be easy to reguard them as a god. However in the stng universe, Q (john delancy) was set up to be a kind of stuart for developing cultures and took a particular interest in picard because of his scepticism and strong foundations of morality. This is off topic but when delving into the lore, it seems that Q's interest in picard as an emissary for the potential of humanity to eventually join the ranks of the Continuem, unfortunately never got very far story wise, but always hinted at their interactions beimg trials to prepare them for that task. I guess as a comparrison its apt to state that humanity was Q's chosen ppl in much the same way as the jews were yaweh's chosen ppl, despite the Q continuem itself not having any specific motive or direction other than to preserve its own existence, by avoiding the damaging influence of lesser life forms. There were so many gems of unanswered questions in stng like the allorians relationship with the Q and how Q felt a need to be wary of them...so anyway i think thats enough of my geeking out.

[@daka1272]

You god-believers sure know how to rant nonsense better than anyone else in this world.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I am not a "god-believer" or a theist of any kind. The argument we are looking at here is quite atheistic, as it makes the case that you cannot prove God's properties with any empirical evidence.

[@daka1272]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene well, you said for your argument that "even if you could ask god anything" how about asking him to transfer the neccessary knowledge to you that will be sufficent to warrant a belief, or simply to create empirical evidence that would warrant a belief. A god should be able to do that, no?

[@kwitseo]

God should already know how to make me believe in his existence, being all knowing and all. LOL

[@persephoneharrison3439]

An atheist is a walking bundle of contradictions. He reasons and does science, yet he denies the very God that makes reasoning and science possible. On the other hand, the Christian worldview is consistent and makes sense of human reasoning and experience.

[@kwitseo]

@@persephoneharrison3439 No evidence of God, no truth in your claim.

[@persephoneharrison3439]

@@kwitseo Why did you choose to become an atheist? What made you choose that faith/religion?

[@kwitseo]

@@persephoneharrison3439 It's not a "faith/religion." It was because Christianity never impacted my life. I found going to church dull and the claims of the supernatural to be absurd.

[@persephoneharrison3439]

@@kwitseo So are you saying you do believe in GOD?

[@raythink]

Spoiler: The series would be a disappointment.

[@kirkmarshall2853]

The only way anyone can “know god” is to know that god doesn’t exist.

[@kirkmarshall2853]

@@thotslayer9914 if your metaphysics contains a real god then you’re not doing philosophy you’re doing pseudo philosophy with a dash of theology.

[@kirkmarshall2853]

@@thotslayer9914 both are simply wrong.

[@kirkmarshall2853]

@@thotslayer9914 just because someone put a lot of thought into an idea doesn’t mean it’s wrong and the ideas of idealism or transcendentalism are laughably wrong

[@kirkmarshall2853]

@@thotslayer9914 there is not anymore more than the natural and material. We have many ways of talking about it. Poetic naturalism is the closest we have to being right for a philosophical worldview.

[@kirkmarshall2853]

@@thotslayer9914 Plato was a proto fascist with Hardly a single good idea. There weren’t any good ideas for the entire Middle Ages cuz Christianity is pure evil and all the Christian “philosophers” were morons. As are todays platonists, theists and new Agers. If those philosophical ideas were worthwhile they would have created a scientific Revolution they didn’t. Naturalism won.

[@widewailcorduroy7278]

This is an interesting investigation, and I will follow you down the rabbit hole, but it's ultimately meaningless. I can claim that I don't need to know the nature of this evidence ahead of time. You ask me what I would ask of God. I shouldn't have to ask anything. If there was a God who was omniscient -- just omniscient -- this God would have Perfect knowledge of what evidence I would need for me to believe. His omnipotence would will this evidence into being. If this God had this perfect knowledge, which is a metaphysical necessity for omniscience, then not giving me this perfect evidence, along with his perfect knowledge that I'm an unbeliever, is consigning me to his Hell on purpose, which means this God is not omnibenevolent. It is therefore a logical impossibility to be all three at once.

[@RENATVS_IV]

Without watching the video, I will state that atheists can know God, only if we assume for a moment that God might exist. But maybe, they can know him after dead xD

[@miguelatkinson]

I was really wondering what he meant by can atheists know god if he was referring to the concept of God then yes of course that's the reason why I am an atheist but if he means like the ontological existence of God then no as matter theist also don't know even that because by definition this entity is ineffable and unknowable towing the line to practical ficition

[@-_-THINK-_-]

God saves by Grace with no works included you ask Jesus to save you because you believe in everything he did and he will ask the Father to send you a holy ghost untill the great day and it will never leave you because it is sealed in you forever no things now or in the past or future good or bad can get you to heaven or hell the only way to heaven is by believing in God's only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Only way to hell is to not want to be saved and feel you don't need saved and don't ever call upon the lord to save you and send you the holy ghost to save you from the devil and his demons Hell is not supposed to make you leave God because hell isn't even created for humans it was for the devil and his demons and Jesus asked God to forgive us because we know not what we did or do... And sin is bad but we will always sin because we all where born in sin and no one is righteous no not one and we all fallen short of the Glory of God so therefore that's why he let us know what life will be like and showed us that he loved us so much he will not destroy us if we love and believe in him too he offers everlasting life if anyone can prove to me the Bible is wrong please try and if you ever doubt God just remember he won't doubt you ask to be saved and ask him to show you the truth I really don't understand why there is some many different teachings about Jesus and God amd people try to scare people with hell when the Bible tells you exactly what you need to know like yea alot of people don't believe in God and Jesus and yea sure there are people who genuinely don't care about God either and that's why there will be great tribulation for 7 years and after that Judgement the Bible says there will be a multitude of people that can't be numbered that come from the tribulation that where saved at first they didn't believe then they saw God's wrath and did believe the ones during tribulation that go the full 7 years or within that time that still didn't believe go to hell see there are two judgments one by Jesus and one by God when Jesus judges it's to all the people who believe in him good people and bad people and it will be by what works we have done for him and the father and he will place everything we ever did in fire and he will reward you if it survived the fire if it doesn't he gives you a stone or even nothing but when we are judged we will also get crowns gifted there are 5 I believe and anyone who believed in Jesus gets the crown that allows them life that's free to everyone who believes when God judges it will be to the ones who did not believe to the ones who did through life and tribulation and he will separate the believers from the non believers hell or Heaven are two places you go after death pick the right place listen to what the Bible says you are saved by God's Grace through faith not by works least any man should boast... " Whoever " believes in Gods only begotten son "will" not "perish" but have everlasting life... No God cannot be mocked none of what I said means we can sin for fun or freely because you can lose gifts and other things idk much because I'm from earth and never been to heaven yet and I'm just learning best I can from my own study's and let only the Bible speak and let itself interpret what it says as it should be. Try your best to be good even when you fail it don't matter yea we will lose battle's but not the war when we are in Gods side we are in Jesus hand and his hand is in the Father's hands and no one or nothing can separate us much love everyone get saved ;)

[@henry1395]

Who cares?? The !main thing is God don't even want to know them !!!

[@2222cream]

Further proof Atheists can always find a way to deny God. It is a problem of the heart , not the mind.

[@Harker777]

That's patently an illogical viewpoint. It may be the crutch you require but it's a feeble way of viewing the matter

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

One might make the same argument to you. Theists can always find a way to believe in imaginary things. They want it to be true that death is not final, that the wicked are punished, etc. It is a problem of the heart. You have such wishful thinking that you mistake what you want to be true for what is actually justified.

[@Harker777]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene Listen to you "They" As if anyone that has come to the conclusion that there isn't a god...any god...they must have come from the same program. I for one having been raised as a Catholic naturally came to my conclusions via a process of logic. This cannot be said for most 'believers' as they came to their conclusion via a means of indoctrination. Chalk and cheese process to me.

[@ZacharyCath]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene This seems to run along the lines of presuppositional argumentation. What arises here is whether any belief can be justified. A belief may simply be an adherence that which is useful, but not ultimately true. On the grounds presented, the atheist cannot know truth.

[@2222cream]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene as you well know, epistemic justification comes cheap or (depending on how poisoned by philosophy you are) *not at all* ; you of all people should know that. Parody arguments can always be made to any argument, one can always do a Moorean shift; it is of little consequence.