Christian Professor ANNIHILATES atheists with his GALAXY Brain

[@rationalityrules]

Here's my thoughts on C.S. Lewis' Argument from Reason, in case you're interested: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qnnEkqh_bbSCjK8si=QjUkROLJxxIItq_Y

[@KGTiberius]

How can one explain supernatural religiosity to AI or an alien? I don’t get it, but don’t get it. How would one explain supernatural to AI?

[@KGTiberius]

It isn’t atheist… it is theist vs physics.

[@ambientjohnny]

Why are you so afraid of having an actual debate in the comment section about the bs you spew regarding "trans" issues? There are so many questions you avoid or dance around the bush about that people in live debates never corner you on, but I have no such qualms about being "polite".

[@deniswallace-vp9tb]

@@KGTiberius you could over an explanation but tell it that it can't be proven like religion

[@MrXeCute]

@@deniswallace-vp9tb Religion prooves nothing. Thats the real debate... when one can't explain something; therefor it must be God. We can't explain how life came to this planet: thus this must be Gods Work. What one tends to forget, is that God is all knowing... He/she could bypass "evolution" by thousand of years, yet he/she doesn't (99% off all life on this planet perished)... every person, every animal deserves it's pain. Unlike he promises in a lot of profecies.. And at least, what he did know, was where we went wrong, and punished us with an eternity of suffering, promising some individuals exceptions... Moses did see the promised land, but was not allowed to enter it. Starting a genocide afterwards. If thats God, I call it Hitler. No Thanks. ;-)

[@KaiHenningsen]

Of course, in science, we *don't* entirely trust our brains. That is, after all, why we invented the scientific method.

[@Sparhafoc]

Exactly! It takes a religious ideology to make someone so smart think in such stupid ways.

[@55Quirll]

Science is always tested, again and again, should something not give the answer it use to give the theory is then reworded or thrown out and new one is then created to explain the new answers.

[@DeepKnight-nr6vo]

The only emotion part we dont trust not logical part called cortex and prefontal cortex

[@AJPemberton]

@@DeepKnight-nr6vo Those parts of the brain can be fooled or mistaken too. Every part of it can be. It's a bunch of interlinked neurons in a bone box trying to interpret a stream of electrical impulses that can also be false. It is amazing how often it gets things right, but it never gets anything perfect.

[@Palalune]

Exactly. The entire argument is flawed, in concept and in execution.

[@HolyKoolaid]

Somebody please give Lennox back his Cheerios and box of crayons before he hurts himself.

[@v0id616]

😂😂😂

[@jamey55lee]

I love it!

[@stylis666]

Too late. In his lectures he has already explained why he believes a god exists: he doesn't want to live if there is no divine retaliation on those who sin. He's a very childish fascist and he won't be able to hear anything he doesn't want to hear. He isn't too dumb to hear, but he is too infantile and spiteful against and supremacist over all of humankind.

[@user-pw6ei2mn7x]

👏👏👏🍀🍀🍀

[@FactStorm]

And his tinfoil hat.

[@throckmortensnivel2850]

One additional point. For 99% of computer users, the question of whether a computer is a result of a random process or a design process is immaterial. They have no idea how computers are created. They just use them. What makes them trust their computers is not how it was created, but whether the output is correct, based on their input. To put it another way. if someone gave you a computer, telling you it was not the result of a design process, you could still test it and see if it worked. Does it give correct answers? If it does, who cares whether it's designed or not. Lennox is a sophist and a rhetorician. This sort of disingenuous argument is his stock in trade.

[@njhoepner]

I thought the exact same thing the moment he made that analogy. I know how to use a computer - I can't program one in any significant way, and I have only a very general idea of how one is made. My faith in the computer I'm using is based on how well it works...those that don't work properly I replace. My faith in the effectiveness of human reason is based on its clear and obvious results. My lack of faith in a god is based on the complete lack of evidence...something no apologist has ever been able to change.

[@55Quirll]

Agreed, they are examined and tested again and again to see how reliable they are

[@nickrhodes9031]

Is Lennox the kind of man who would not cross a stream using a fallen log because it was not designed as a bridge despite it being demonstrated that it possessed the properties to enable it's use in such a manner? It was not, after all, intentionally designed as a bridge.

[@philipgrobler7253]

Exactly, if it works, who cares how it came to be? My kidneys have been working effectively now for my entire life, I like to know how they came about, but whether they were "designed" or evolved over time, which is the rational conclusion I am able to reach, that does not cause me to question their effectiveness!!! ROFLMAO!!!

[@Jashtvorak]

Yep, exactly my thought.

[@nati0598]

"If your computer was a result of generations of brutal, unforgiving trials, across millions of generations, where the unfit are thrown away with no remorse, would you trust it?"

[@juanausensi499]

I would

[@thereagauze]

@@juanausensi499 apple was working on such a cpu before Steve Jobs passed

[@davidbonar5190]

mine makes a "pleasant chime" sound now and again that fills my void, so i trust it implicitly :D

[@joshuarapin3189]

That is kinda what happened😂 just not millions of generations

[@thereagauze]

@@joshuarapin3189 for the brain (not just human brain) definitely millions though

[@scrumbobulus]

The classic Cartesian Circle. “I trust my reason because God exists and I know God exists through my reason.”

[@SirSicCrusader]

This dude is one of the apologists of all time.

[@ravenvalentine4919]

the man the myth the legend of whisky him self

[@jonnowds]

Such brain, very reasons

[@robsimpson7319]

The only mindless unguided thing here is this man's confidence,reasoning and smugness

[@thelyrebird1310]

Did you forget the expletive or did you self censor?

[@MLamar0612]

It was intentional..... you arent familiar with Sir Sic i see​@@thelyrebird1310

[@TMMx]

Lennox's stories all sound like he's about to end them with "and everyone clapped."

[@MoreEriksson]

Seriously, it's all just too perfect as a narrative. How any self respecting Christian can take his drivel at face value is beyond me.

[@kajamatousek247]

@@MoreEriksson A core tennant of christianity is that you can't be self respecting, so that might be why

[@Antis14CZ]

He seems to live inside his own God's Not Dead movie.

[@IanM-id8or]

@@MoreEriksson It's like their conversion stories. They hear these kinds of "testimonies" all the time - they have to accept it from other people or admit that theirs was a lie too.

[@dawo3993]

His stories give me those typical youth pastor "I was a partying, drug addicted, lazy college drop-out until I met GOD" vibes

[@jcjc4314]

there is nothing as dishonest as religious honesty, and nothing as smug and condescending as religious humbleness

[@nerfzombie6242]

I like to call it "the arrogance of ignorance." BTW, I don't claim that I came up with this, but I cannot recall where I first heard it. 🙂

[@BunniRabbi]

Let's not paint with too broad a brush here. Plenty of us religious folk know this guy is talking nonsense.

[@jipersson]

@@BunniRabbi LOL "Plenty of you religious folk" In that case, shouldn't you be the ones correcting this and all the other clowns attacking atheism as if atheism is a rejection of merely the Abrahamic god? Oh I forgot you are afraid of being dismissed as "not REAL religious, anyway"! There are no rationality among believers in an imaginary sky daddy, if there were they wouldn't be religious!

[@jamesaston410]

Well, add a happy clapping professor into the mix and you end up with the usual sanctimony and self-righteousness on steroids!

[@hagenjunger2914]

Sounds pretty much like this comment....smug, self-righteous and condescending...just saying🤔

[@Cuythulu]

My intelligently designed, god created brain tells me there's no god. And since my brain was designed by god it must be right when it tells me there's no god.

[@TomFromMars]

Lennox is unsufferable. All he does is regurgitates the worst arguments from the most stupid apologetics while waving his maths degree as if it gave his statements any relevance or validity.

[@jamesaston410]

Yep! There’s a big difference between intellect and common sense. There also a very thin line between genius and madness :)

[@rohdri]

...not gonna lie, anyone who trusts their own thoughts and mental functions implicitly probably doesn't pay enough attention to their own thoughts.

[@usa1945.]

Narcissistic I think

[@martinconnelly1473]

@@usa1945. It also takes a lot of hubris to think that on this planet with so many species that humans are so special that god created us to rule over them all.

[@jimlassiter749]

don't think,... KNOW... listen to the voices inside & follow the majority, you'll never go wrong & never have another to blame....

[@rohdri]

@@jimlassiter749 Nah, sounds too easy.

[@iiCounted-op5jx]

yep

[@pdav1285]

I, literally, have never heard a single atheist claim that minds do not exist. Not even one! Who are these atheists he is talking to?

[@shassett79]

He's equivocating between a common position like "minds are a property of physical brains" and an idiosyncratic one like "there is no such thing as a mind."

[@falsevacuum4667]

He is probably equating "mind" with "soul", like a conscious mind only exists as a separate entity if a soul exists, otherwise there is no "mind", simply the production of "physical brain matter".

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@shassett79 It's really about substance dualism. Dualists claim that the mind consists of a different substance than the body ("supernatural"), so when he says someone "doesn't believe in a mind", what he means is that they aren't a dualist like he is. He might also have said "they don't believe in a soul", but maybe that would have been to obvious.

[@ackbooh9032]

Maybe he's thinking about the eliminativist position in philosophy of mind (herald by philosophers like Paul and Patricia Churchland). It is neither popular among philosophers or popular among atheists, and there is no special rational link between the two positions. For a classical example: Spinozism could be considered atheistic since the doctrines reject a Christian deity (in favor of a pantheist or panentheistic cosmotheology), and Spinozism is fundamentally distinguishing mind from matter, and uphold the existence of distinct mental realities (modes of being in the attribute of mind).

[@shassett79]

@@KaiHenningsen But they deliberately don't say "soul" because they want to confuse the issue.

[@BasicBro99]

Lennox. Are these “atheist colleagues” in the room with us now?

[@petyrkowalski9887]

…do they talk to you?

[@nerfzombie6242]

😂🤣

[@marcdc6809]

the thing with religion is that while he seems to have a flawless argument here, his colleagues remain atheist, because reasons...

[@ElusiveEel]

@@marcdc6809 lennox even spoke on that about how they just want to sin and it's a spiritual problem and so evidence isn't enough. don't why he doesn't stay home rather than bothering us with his tripe then.

[@sandormccann2546]

Show us on the doll where the atheists touched you, John.

[@erikgilson1687]

Prime example of how you don't necessarily have to be an intelligent person to get ahead in Academia

[@DentArthurDent68]

He's an educated idiot.

[@exhumus]

The scientific method and peer review exists in part because we don't completely trust our brains. We constantly check our work. I'm an educated man but I'm not in academia. I can't imagine this guy's colleagues aren't capable of laughing his arguments away.

[@allangow4746]

Lennox is a confirmed liar, I'll wager he can't name one of his so call atheist colleges.

[@njhoepner]

Agreed. Not only is he low-hanging fruit, I'm very confident all of these conversations with "my colleagues" he always likes to use are purely imaginary. It's a common apologist tactic.

[@supertouring22]

I wonder how many of his "colleagues" avoid him like the plague every time he enters the staffroom

[@oldpossum57]

@@supertouring22 Easy to hear him coming down the corridor: he loudly applauds his own bon mots.

[@Nic-f5w]

God people are all liers!

[@IanM-id8or]

@@supertouring22 I think it would be far easier to count the ones that don't ;-)

[@convinceme6676]

I think Prof. Lennox is the perfect example of Bertrand Russells quote: (paraphrased) “fools and lunatics are always so certain of themselves and wiser men are full of doubts”.

[@tonycook7679]

They call this the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[@BeefT-Sq]

"Faith is the acceptance of ideas without without sensory evidence or rational proof ". -Nathaniel Branden-

[@sophiepooks2174]

@secularape Thank god I'm an atheist and a scientist.🐱‍🚀

[@adrianred236]

​@@tonycook7679I came here to say that 😅

[@DaveGIS123]

Bertrand Russell was pretty certain of himself, too.

[@verrezen]

The smug smirk he has while he presents his flawed argument, is disgusting. What a farce of a ‘scientist’.

[@Simon.the.Likeable]

Lennox has never been a scientist or even an engineer in the colloquial sense. He has never run an experiment or published a paper on anything other than his pure mathematics or philosophy. Even his bioethics doctorate is under the umbrella of philosophy.

[@GenericHuman54]

It seems dishonest that you want to comment to a KZbin debate/ argument video and not hold at least some respect for debate. What you did is make a claim without providing an argument. Do you not see the irony here? You critique him for a flawed argument, and yet you yourself make a baseless claims without following it up... Like c'mon man. We can do better than that! Give an argument for your case.

[@Simon.the.Likeable]

@@GenericHuman54 verrezen has merely lobbed Lennox's ad hominem aimed at all atheists back over the net. Lennox is fair game because his extraordinary claims can never be backed up with anything other than his warm and fuzzies from the Holy Spirit.

[@matswessling6600]

@@GenericHuman54irony?

[@TBOTSS]

@@Simon.the.Likeable Well he certainly backed it up against Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

[@Ezekiel365Days]

All Christians: I’ll prove “GOD” exist without proving “GOD” exist at all

[@dataforge2745]

John Lennox is one of those apologists that sounds like a caricature of a smart person. Like someone stupid decided to do an impression of what a smart person sounds like. He joins those ranks with Ben Shapiro and William Lane Craig. His whole schtick seems to be some sort of philosophical babble. Like some parody of a guru who asks you pointed questions, that are supposed to reveal something within you. Except his questions seem to be stolen from other apologists, and he never approaches any of them from an interesting angle. The question of whether we'd trust a computer that wasn't designed, is no different than the watchmaker argument. And its refutation is the same.

[@davidmoore5925]

I suspect this "Professor" never asked an atheist colleague anything.

[@kappasphere]

He probably monologued in front of them and left them to puzzle together his incoherent nonsense. "I forced an answer on them" just means that he didn't wait for them to come to a mutual understanding and instead just gave his own answer. It amounts to just him talking to himself, in front of his colleagues

[@sigmaoctantis1892]

I'm sure he did ask and got the answer, "Yes. Yes. Whatever you say. Now, go away!"

[@IanM-id8or]

He may have asked them, "Why do you keep running away from me?"

[@erikblaas5826]

I was wondering about the possibility of having Christian and atheist professors at the same institute...

[@Palalune]

It's Hovind's "Professor on an airplane" all over again ...

[@oilfieldtrash6708]

Lennox is so smug in his ignorance.

[@imac1957]

Dunning-Kruger explain that beautifully. D-K are real scientists.

[@PeterLGଈ]

Aren't all apologists?

[@Palalune]

Reminds me of Dennis Prager and it's disgusting.

[@future-ui2be]

As a theist, I find RR, Dawkins, comic are all extremely smug. I wonder if you completely disagree. I think Lennox is quite smug as well.

[@misterocain]

@@future-ui2be Yes RD does exhibit a degree of smugness but he's nowhere in the same league as Lennox.

[@JohnCamacho]

Call the lifeguard! Lennox is drowning in his own confirmation bias!

[@DrErikNefarious]

"You reduce the universe to mathematics" Well, you're reducing it to 'magic sky daddy does a thing'........so......

[@slik00silk84]

Poor old fool never surmounted the brain washing of his childhood ! It was probably the fear instilled in him that he couldn't get over. So sad !

[@harryrabbit2870]

If the professor can find a serial number on the universe or a stamp that says "Made by God, Inc" then I'm willing to listen. But the computer argument is actually stupid. I built my computer myself with parts I bought from other humans. I can physically see it, measure it, even look at the code. I can build it again...and get a computer. As old as the prof is, he wasn't around to watch god built the universe, so he's essentially asking me to take his assertion on faith, which is the underlying issue I have with his argument.

[@thomasridley8675]

Spiritual faith has proven to be totally unreliable as a measure of crediblity.

[@catmando7262]

God's last message to his creation: Sorry for the inconvenience

[@kellydalstok8900]

The Norwegian fjords are designed by Slartibartfast.

[@blindleader42]

@@kellydalstok8900 Lovely crinkly edges.

[@DentArthurDent68]

​@catmando7262 The lost first page, "This book is a work of fiction, any resemblance to actual history was not the intent of the authors."

[@everythinghollow3870]

John Lennox’s arguments, can all be summed up as arguments from incredulity and false dichotomies

[@brentoncarter4275]

and he's just lying

[@tariq_sharif]

pretty much goes for the apologist of any religion ...

[@loganleatherman7647]

Don’t forget the heaping double portion of “appeal to emotion” fallacy

[@DaveGIS123]

This video is nothing but gainsaying

[@enigmaticparadox354]

why do I have to prove the lack of existence of a god they haven't proven the existence of?

[@tonycook7679]

You can't prove the non-existence of anything, it is a logical impossibility. We atheists merely offer the null-hypothesis, as required in every scientific endeavour, that god doesn't exist. This is not a belief or religion in itself, it is just the normal null-hypothesis that says "there is nothing to see here". Now the god botherers must prove the alternative hypothesis, that at least one god exists. After that we can set up another experiment to narrow down the nature of this god, given that he exists in the first place.

[@marcdc6809]

to me the standoff is just: I say 'I don't know'... now, enlighten me? tell me so I do know...

[@profd65]

Why don't you? You're claiming He doesn't exist. So prove it. If your claim is that Mary isn't it the room, then you must provide proof of this; it isn't good enough to say that nobody has yet provided proof that she is in the room.

[@marcdc6809]

@@profd65 it's a bit different, you are in a room with a person who claims Mary is in the room. Then you ask: where is Mary? answer: Mary is in a place outside of time and space. Then you say: if that works for you, ok, for me it's 'she's never and nowhere'... it doesn't make any sense. It would be the creator of everything so also the conscious designer of cholera, and you expect an afterlife and morality from this entity?

[@lightspeedlagu]

@@profd65Um, no. The onus is on the person saying god(s) exist to prove it. One can’t prove a negative in science (maths is different). I learnt that in elementary school.

[@TRayTV]

"I often discuss this with colleagues." Do you have a coworker so entrenched in their ridiculous beliefs that everyone has given up trying to reason with them? That coworker tells their echo chamber they often discuss their beliefs with coworkers.

[@ilya8348]

My very job is about NOT trusting a computer that is made with mindful guided process. In fact testing the outcome is the crucial part of building processors, computers, compilers, operating systems, firmware, drivers and software. Anyone who have seen any software glitch has a good reason to conclude that any trust you put into your computer should be tentative. So should be the trust in the products of human mind.

[@roscius6204]

Oh god, not the Teletubby Apologist again......

[@55Quirll]

The worst one is McGruddy, at least I think that is how his name is spelled, just as bad as Sye Ten Bruggengate

[@kellydalstok8900]

Uh oh

[@irrelevant_noob]

@@55Quirll *Bruggencate

[@55Quirll]

@@irrelevant_noob Thank you, I do get his last name misspelled often

[@Shunarjuna]

If a computer proved itself to be reliable after sufficient use and testing, I would trust it regardless of whatever process produced it.

[@Laki-jh9of]

Exactly what I thought

[@martinconnelly1473]

Neural nets that "learn" what works and what does not are clearly something Lennox has not put any thought into.

[@IanM-id8or]

I trust computers from HP & Dell that that run Windows. That's not quite "the result of random processes" but it's close ;-)

[@SamIAm-kz4hg]

I have often said that if reading tea leaves was a reliable way of forecasting the weather, we would all use them regardless of our understanding of how they work.

[@kennethgee2004]

but you do not trust it at first. You trust your own experience. But then if you brain is broken you trust it? Would you really trust a computer that was made by a random process? I do not even think you would get a working computer that way. The point is that systems of information have to be designed.

[@artor9175]

It's annoying to hear a deeply stupid person accuse me of being foolish.

[@davidbonar5190]

confuse them with a comparison: "i am as foolish as you are discerning." :D

[@G45H3R]

This guy has come up with the most convoluted, ridiculous, confirmation biased argument I've yet seen a theist make. Scientists do science precisely BECAUSE they don't trust their senses and therefore their brains. Experiments are meant to objectively prove or disprove a theory. It's the objectively observed RESULTS that we trust, not the brain that thought up the experiment.

[@98based30]

A confident idiot is always looks more convincing than rational but questioning person. That is the really strenght of Lennox, and basically all apologists, because they never question their faith. Many can claim they did but no, they never truly question it, because they cant.

[@DinosaurianDude]

"Why do we believe in a flat earth? Or if Frank Turek understands anything?" Gold!😂

[@SamIAm-kz4hg]

I love how he snuck Frank Turek in so randomly and smoothly.

[@Snowboardjedi892]

It’s a shame to even dignify Lennox with a response video

[@thomasridley8675]

Letting them pass without a response would be irresponsible.

[@future-ui2be]

He is a atheism grafter so he needs to

[@pansepot1490]

@@future-ui2be what does he graft? Atheist apple trees on wild apple rootstock?😅

[@DanielGarcia-rx3kt]

​@future-ui2be what do atheists have to graft? Atheism can exist on its own and does. It doesn't need to take any cultures or traditions from somewhere else to take over any people to exist.

[@brooktu4249]

How on Earth does John Lennox get so many speaking gigs? And how, since he's had many debates with atheist bigshots, does he continue with his drivel, unabated?

[@MoreEriksson]

Simple; his brand of apologetics is appealing to the kinds of Christians who want to believe their faith is strong and can be so easily defended with elementary rhetoric, while atheism is every bit as weak as the straw man he creates

[@tylerduncanson2661]

He has a foreign accent that people think makes him intelligent.

[@njhoepner]

Theists, in particular christians, suffer from a dearth of support from intellectuals, especially scientists...they have to take what they can get. This also explains the popularity of Jordan Peterson in christian circles, and William Lane "Low Bar Bill" Craig.

[@grahvis]

Because religious belief needs constant reinforcing. Like all apologists, Lennox is a reinforcer of existing belief.

[@martinconnelly1473]

@@tylerduncanson2661 An Irish accent makes him sound intelligent? You clearly have no memory of all the "Irish" jokes that used to be common a while back that were based on the incorrect concept that Irish people were far from intelligent.

[@nathanbindschadler7805]

I hate how religious people say atheism is a belief system, it’s not, it’s not believing something without evidence.

[@louisep67]

Thanks!

[@dlhawkins5086]

You can also respond to his computer analogy by testing the computer. If it consistently produces accurate and intended outcomes, as verified by multiple valid and reliable sources, then it is trustworthy regardless of how it was made. This is the scientific measurement 101, and the fact not a single Oxford professor could think of it makes me doubt Lennox’s story. A simpler analogy, I can find a stick on the ground made of random, mindless processes, and I can notice that stick is about a foot long. I line it up with my ruler, my tape measure, and I use it on multiple projects that require me to make one foot measurements. Every time I use it, it works. It doesn’t matter that no conscious mind designed that stick to be a foot long, it still works consistently.

[@pansepot1490]

The “once I outsmarted an atheist” is an old rhetorical device (aka lie) apologists use all the time.

[@Ianmusk-g7j]

I've always wondered what the world would be like if religion didn't exist...

[@PeterLGଈ]

Some control freak would invent it. 🙁

[@piotr.ziolo.]

It's not possible. Religion is a crucial part of our brain function and the single most important evolutionary adaptation that allowed us to conquer the world. Almost every human being is religious. Do you believe in corporations as something really existing? Do you believe in nations? Do you believe in human rights? These are not different from religions. We humans are able to believe in things that do not exist and build our societies around those ideas. That's why we can cooperate in groups of millions of individuals and why we were able to conquer the world. Theistic religions are just an unavoidable byproduct of this ability.

[@FischlInsultsMePls]

Probably worse of. Science helps us grow out of our religious phase, but for a long while it has been the single strongest cause for union between people.

[@BeefT-Sq]

@@FischlInsultsMePls "Though I understand that there may be various other factors, I think if you remove religion from the equation, comparatively one may nurture a more courageous child. Perhaps a rational one too, if the concept of life as the most important 'value' is well understood." -Anonymous-from an Objectivist forum

[@skidrowoffroad]

I've wondered that many times and always come to the same conclusion that we'd be far better off and more advanced than we are currently.

[@nighthiker]

Every time I saw a theist trying to debunk a materialistic, scientific outlook on life and the universe all they did was show they don't really understand the science.

[@CharlesPayet]

Exactly. Every single person I’ve seen try to “debunk” evolution, has gotten the theory of evolution so incredibly wrong, it’s hilarious.

[@theboombody]

Science accepts materialism as an axiom because it's quite useful in experiments. It might be quite useful because it's totally true, or just true on things that can be experimented on. Experimentation has limits. First the experiment has to be repeatable with controlled conditions. Second, while not scientifically required, you PROBABLY want to take ethics into consideration before conducting certain experiments. And ethics certainly isn't materialistic.

[@Jcs57]

Science is untrustworthy they utter into their magical microphones and cameras sending their captured words and images to your magical device by means magical channeling. Idiots and morons feel sorry for these people.

[@OceanusHelios]

@@theboombody No scientist will have work for long if he publishes a paper with the conclusion, "Abbra cadabra a bunch of bloody motherfucking magic did it!" That is not how science works. And scientists are watched by other scientists and that is why ethics are adhered to. Also we have this thing called conscience which is the product of our brains and living in a society. It's funny how civilization has requirements, isn't it?

[@theboombody]

@@OceanusHelios Science generally avoids generating conjectures on stuff it has no clue about. (Which is more stuff than you'd think.) This thing called conscience is not sufficient enough to guarantee ethics is followed all of the time, even in a peer-review environment. That's why P-hacking is an issue in statistics.

[@radosawszmid7822]

He's a funny grandpa, but as time goes by he just starts to piss you off with his idiotic arguments. That's his method for tiring the opponent.

[@CelestialTeapotSpotter]

Even if you grant his entire argument, he has no reason to assume that the "intelligence" that allegedly guided our evolution is trustworthy. He's basically saying that he can trust his intelligence because he trusts god's intelligence, a god for which we have no evidence.

[@OceanusHelios]

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my ignoramous brain, which I fully trust....because my personal pet-keeper of human pets who lives in the sky designed my ignoarmous brain..." That's all I am hearing when Lennox makes his argument. We are not impressed.

[@BeefT-Sq]

"It is a mistake to assume that everyone, no matter how irrational, can be reached intellectually " if only one knew the right words . " Everyone is not reachable because not everyone wants to be reached." -Nathaniel Branden-

[@mirandahotspring4019]

Lennox is a cognitively dissonant mathematician desperately clinging to his childhood god.

[@Groffili]

I never understood the likes of Lennox. He is clearly a competent, intelligent and highly educated mathematician... and yet he is out there trying to defend his belief in magic. Badly. It's almost as if he is lashing out against any doubt, because he knows that he is behaving irrational, but is emotionally unable to admit it.

[@mirandahotspring4019]

@@Groffili He makes a lot of money in appearance fees I guess. Comes across as the wise, avuncular old friendly, fat guy.

[@haraldschuster3067]

@@Groffili - Religion is so successful because it addresses a couple of things in one nice swoop. Humans are afraid of the unknown. "God did it" is a lousy non-answer but still strangely comforting to many people. Christianity goes a bit further. God MADE you. Special. OK, he took a chimp and made some changes but He Created YOU in HIS image! Think of that. You're not just an animal, you're special! And this almighty being knows you! He watches over you! Like a protective big brother. And, wait, there is more: You don't die! You'll be resurrected (although we have not even decided how exactly) and you'll go to paradise to live with your loved ones (although we're very vague on the details). And there's more! If you don't believe all this, you'll go to hell (here we have a lot of details on). So - if you're one of those who cannot accept that their life has no purpose other than what YOU make of it, you might be VERY attracted to the idea of a higher being who will provide that purpose and reason. I think the good professor is someone who just can't handle himself being an animal and the result of simple, biological processes. He wants to be more - religion offers him to be more and so he clings to it. As a therapy against his own insecurity and inferiority complex.

[@jumpman8282]

Ah, another adventure with Mr. Lennox on his quest to undermine atheism, science and rationality.

[@JohnSmith-fz1ih]

Would somebody please tell Mr Lennox that the scientists are already aware that human brains are infallible, and that this understanding is built in to the scientific process? The entire process is a recognition of all the ways humans come to incorrect conclusions, and an attempt to remove those human biases. Literally the entire process! This isn’t news Mr Lennox. You haven’t uncovered a bug in the process. I won’t even bother debunking the idea that science has this underlying problem, but Mr Lennox’s approach of implicitly trusting his own brain because he decided it’s infallible based off an assumption he made up. That’s so obviously wrong that it doesn’t even need explaining.

[@scottcrosby9827]

Evolution by filtering for fitness (natural selection) is not an unguided process. It is guided by that very process of filtering for fitness. It is the long version of the very iterative process of improvement that engineers use.

[@colinrodgers9336]

He’s from Norn Iron, as am I. Being brought up there myself, people like him are what undid my indoctrination. And his degree is in mathematics, not science, which kind of explains things.

[@pazitor]

Reason alone can never provide evidence. Only evidence is evidence.

[@MadMetalMacho]

Logical deduction can definitely be evidence... but of course only if you start from something that's already proven.

[@skagenpige88]

Reason alone provide reliable evidence to me all the time.....If I dident know what heat was and i went into a warmer and warmer area...reason tells me that is bad.

[@pazitor]

@@skagenpige88 Heat is the *empirical evidence* informing your rational choice. No heat, no decision needed.

[@pazitor]

@@MadMetalMacho That would amount to an informed choice still ultimately based on evidence; i.e., something proven. In science, proof depends on *multiple independent observations* of hard evidence. No evidence? Then no comment, nothing there to see.

[@BunniRabbi]

That's starkly untrue. Empirical evidence includes both priori and a priori evidence. If not, you wouldn't use math in science.

[@bubaks2]

1:58 i trust my calculator to do maths. I also trust my washing machine to do the laundry.

[@badatheist9948]

Lennox is a joke. Then he creates a straw man

[@TBOTSS]

Funny that you avatar is Christopher Hitchens. Do you remember what happened when they debated?

[@QuintarFarenor]

@@TBOTSS Lennox got Hitchslapped?

[@TBOTSS]

@@QuintarFarenor that is not what Hitchens said.

[@kellydalstok8900]

@@TBOTSS trolling for god; your mum must be so proud.

[@QuintarFarenor]

@@TBOTSS Care to elaborate what he said that makes you think so?

[@zaleost]

Whenever I listen to an argument like this I always need to pause and think for a second. Not because it’s in any way convincing, I’m just left baffled trying to figure out how this even remotely proved god exists and wondering if I missed a step in their argument somewhere.

[@davelikesthings]

I've been a software developer for 25 years. A mindless unguided process is a devastatingly accurate description of most IT projects. 😂

[@TheMaui2020]

John is right. Obviously the Church was promoting science and Galileo was undermining it when it brutally suppressed his astronomical explorations. Come on, these people are too irrational to dignify with a debate.

[@mmoreno7137]

Remember too that God allowed demons and the devil to interact with and deceive us if Christianity is true. That adds another layer of uncertainty if true. That means there is an intelligence working against us.

[@Llortnerof]

Remember Job. God straight-up allowed them to kill humans just to win a bet that his followers are unthinking idiots.

[@theboombody]

Very much so. Don't take it lightly because it's crafty.

[@markevans8206]

That’s what drives me nuts. Gods and the supernatural make it less likely we can trust perceptions and make predictions. Gods could (and in the various religious texts, do) deceive us. And they can randomly change physics to suite their whims.

[@highstax_xylophones]

knowledge allowed existence so that if good existed then evil simply does too...cannot fathom up without down, etc Anything else would be a void The stories and fantasy is but one way of understanding all of it isn't it?

[@jessewallace12able]

Arguing against atheism by arguing for Deism or Theism, is not an argument however for Christianity.

[@BunniRabbi]

It does point out that one then needs to start getting more specific about what god-concept one is talking about doesn't it?

[@ElusiveEel]

Even arguing for the resurrection of Jesus is not an argument for Christianity. They mastered the non-sequitur thousands of years ago.

[@stefanschneider5427]

Do I trust a computer that has been created in an unguided process? As a computer scientist, I don't even trust a computer, that has been purposely designed for a single special task.

[@drzaius844]

Imagine walking around the office being as obnoxious to your coworkers as John.

[@TheSkyGuy77]

5:30 I'd use an old J. Peterson phrase "What do you mean by 'you'? What do you mean by 'believe'? What do you mean by 'unguided'?" 😂

[@irrelevant_noob]

5:30 to include the actual question too.

[@MeanBeanKerosene]

Lennox is a professor of Mathematics. That's it. Like Peterson or Shapiro, Lennox talks straight out of his ass without zero proof and far, far beyond his expertise let alone experience. His biases, like the above, are painfully obvious that I have no idea why anyone listens to these charlatans.

[@SamIAm-kz4hg]

All three of these guys are different types of clowns. Peterson like technobabble, Shapiro is all about words per minute, and Lennox just tries to pretend that he's simply a humble grandfatherly type. They all have a schtick, but very little actual substance.

[@calebr7199]

I've gotta say, the argument against rationality because of evolution has got to be one of the dumbest arguments that I have ever heard against atheism. It's basically just admitting that you don't understand evolution.

[@CharlesPayet]

I’ve never heard a single apologist accurately represent evolution, so it’s not really surprising.

[@toonyandfriends1915]

you thinking it's an argument against rationality makes me think tha tyou don't understand's platinga's argument

[@martinconnelly1473]

@@CharlesPayet I think a lot of people have a slightly off idea of evolution that results from Herbert Spencer coining the phrase "Survival of the fittest". It is more a case of death before reproduction of the less fit leading to the good enough surviving to pass on their genes. The result of this just good enough evolution is easy to see in lists of human features that are often used to point out what a poor "design" we are if a god deigned us. It is also why a lot of christians believe that we were designed perfectly but the fall from grace and ejection from the garden of Eden resulted in us being imperfect, it explains away these poor "designs" from their perfect creator.

[@dmitriy9053]

​@@toonyandfriends1915like Lennox did misunderstand it? We are not talking about Plantinga now. It is another can of worms. Lennox simply does not understand even his own side well, much less he understands science.

[@calebr7199]

@@toonyandfriends1915 Lennox is not using Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism, we are not discussing Plantinga. Lennox's argument is basically rationality is impossible to come from evolution. It's an argument against rationality from evolution.

[@castor-zv9kv]

"Or that Frank Turek understands anything" is my favorite moment

[@irrelevant_noob]

12:57

[@AD-jq7ow]

So i don’t trust my computer when i work on it everyday ?? I don’t trust my car? Wtf?

[@Martial-Mat]

I used to think this guy was one of the better minds in apologetics. Boy has he gone downhill.

[@OceanusHelios]

I'm pretty certain that is more a reflection of you going uphill. The apologists are never uphill. They are always downhill. "I dunno so god done did it!"

[@kellydalstok8900]

@@matthew3136 not necessarily

[@unduloid]

@@matthew3136 Lennox has _always_ been this obtuse.

[@Martial-Mat]

@@matthew3136 Something you'd hope the American voters would learn...

[@Martial-Mat]

@@OceanusHelios Love it!

[@EveloGrave]

What drives me crazy is that, let's say there is a God. Or Gods. Out of the INFINITE possibilities, why is Christianity (typically in the western culture) the correct one? Being Agnostic is one thing, being part of a religion is another. I may be an Athiest, but I am more so an Anti-Thiest.

[@marcdc6809]

true, the monotheistic god is already a logical inconsistent construct... the conscious designer of malaria and cholera has to somehow also be the giver of objective morality and care enough about his creation to give us a comfortable afterlife... I think they're in for a big surprise if there is a god...

[@ElusiveEel]

and lets say that Jesus was a real living jew that got resurrected from the dead, what makes his particular interpretation of his chosen text about Jesus the correct one?

[@deepashtray5605]

It would be much easier to take Apologists a bit more seriously if they didn't rely almost exclusively on informal logical fallacies over demonstrable facts and testable claims.

[@lurch666]

But then they wouldn't have an argument.

[@zaxzaxx4561]

Lennox assumes that a guided process can't exist without conscious intent, which just means he's never seen a pachinko machine. He says this in the first minute or two, which means that's about 12 minutes of my life that I've just got back.

[@thespian14251]

“UndouteBly” … ??? I think you meant to say “undoubtedly” … sorry, just a little “beef” of mine. I really am appreciating the argument being made 😀

[@simonkoster]

That's some weapons-grade smugness on display there.

[@haydenwalton2766]

@@simonkoster that's john

[@EamonBrennan-f2j]

Oh yeah. Mr Lennox is hugely pleased with himself at all times.

[@discontinuedmodel232]

Actually entry-level smugness by apologetic standards. ☹

[@blueredingreen]

Would you trust this river to carry this boat downstream if I tell you the river was produced by mindless unguided processes? Well... yeah, that's generally how rivers form, and indeed they can be trusted to carry things downstream as long as those things float, the river is deep enough, etc. It has nothing to do with whether the river is designed or formed naturally.

[@jmcsquared18]

Lennox actually thinks that, in an atheist worldview, computers are more trustworthy than the human brains that built them, and not only that, he thinks this is a gotcha. When exactly did people think that John Lennox was a wise thinker??

[@rembrandt972ify]

Nobody ever thought that.

[@joycey845]

I've always thought it's because his Irish accent makes him sound more intelligent than your average loudmouth American preacher.

[@leonais1]

I once came across a Lennox lecture on AI which was perfectly fine up until he started talking about the end of days. If AI extincts humanity it will be as prophesised in the book of Revalations, so it's in God's plan, so nobody needs to worry about AI.

[@gsp3428]

I dont think anyone would trust something that wasnt put together by an agent or mind. Its like if someone said this car which just came together by natural forces somehow, would you trust that car to ride in, probably not. His argument is very true. Its pretty obvious God exists, but of course to suppress the truth is really what atheists want, none will admit, because they love their ungodly lives.

[@Deinonuchus]

They also think William Lane Craig is a wise thinker. They have very low standards.

[@johnnyrosenberg9522]

As an amateur programmer, I'd say that I don't trust a computer anyway. All software ever made, except the most simple Hello World kind of ones, have bugs. Some widely used more complex software have tens of thousands of known bugs, some even more, so no, I don't trust computers at all. That's why we test the software we make in the first place, but if the software is complex, there's no way we can test every possible scenario. And when I say computers, I'm referring to the whole package, that is software+hardware. I'm no expert on computer hardware, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are hardware bugs as well.

[@Mogodu_Rachoshi]

So I can't trust God to not be crazy since he just popped out of existence without a creator of his own?🤔🤔

[@__j_o_s__]

😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

[@__j_o_s__]

Religious logic 🥴🥴🥴

[@toonyandfriends1915]

no because from the greek philosophers there wouldn't be a rationaly understood universe if the universe weren't so. He also didn't pop out of existence and always existed, according to believers, due to necessity

[@hamishbrown9778]

I can accept god might exist but I seriously doubt it, those with faith of any religion can't accept the possibity god might not exist!

[@BeefT-Sq]

"Indoctrination of children by parents and care givers, school teachers etc. during the formative years of cognition subvert the natural inclination toward reason and understanding from experience i.e. reality, and replace it with a predisposition for evasion, mysticism, and emotionalism as adolescents and adults.. from which only a few escape." -Anonymous-from an Objectivist forum

[@primafacie9721]

Religious debaters through the entire history of human kind have never been able to talk a single ham sandwich into existence much the less an invisible all powerful being that created the universe. Do at least one sandwich first. Maybe start with just a pickle and work your way up from there.

[@njhoepner]

Think of all the problems that could be solved if they could just make sandwiches come into existence.

[@kellydalstok8900]

@@njhoepner I’ll have a cheese and pickles please.

[@pansepot1490]

You’re joking but as a small kid I wondered why Jesus didn’t just multiply bread and fish every day. Wouldn’t that have solved the hunger problem at least for his people?

[@njhoepner]

@@kellydalstok8900 Coming right up. Extra prayer on the side?

[@njhoepner]

@@pansepot1490 True. It's something any child can see plain as day. If one decides to accept the existence of this god, then the only possible rational conclusion is god likes suffering, starvation, disease, etc.

[@KarenNelson-n6n]

Thanks

[@mmoreno7137]

Another thought here too. Many parts of the computer are not designed. The quartz crystal used for the clock is natural in origin. The transistors are made of natural elements selected for their properties. In fact if we found a type of common rock that accepted inputs and processed them reliably in the way we want then we would all have much cheaper pet rock computers on our desks.

[@oliviawilliams6204]

But we don’t trust our brains. It’s why we test our theories over and over again, why we use peer review…

[@Llortnerof]

We don't even fully trust our computers, for that matter. And those actually are 100% going to do exactly what you tell them. Especially when you mess up and misphrase your directions.

[@mirandahotspring4019]

We invented writing to make a record of things our untrustworthy brains couldn't accurately remember.

[@Johnboy33545]

He gives us no reason to trust his mind. I wouldn't trust him for the time of day.

[@kgsws]

13:58 Is that a monitor lizard?

[@v0id616]

Sure is 😄

[@sethgilbertson2474]

No! It's a computer monitor! 😂

[@psaunders2112]

No I’m just please to see you

[@glabrouswashere8078]

Once again, I’m left feeling “is that all you’ve got?”. Dubious analogies between brains and computers. I actually trust neither, but, on the whole, computers are more reliable than brains, because their behaviour is easy to understand, while the brain, as a product of evolution, does odd things (e.g. well-known optical illusions).

[@AD-jq7ow]

I think his all argument fells apart because he mistook « mind » with « soul »

[@GreenLantern1916]

My brain is the product of a guided process that is known as evolution.

[@oldpossum57]

Evolution isn’t “guided”.

[@GreenLantern1916]

@@oldpossum57 Ah, I see what you're saying. The development of the brain was guided by the process of evolution.

[@oldpossum57]

@@GreenLantern1916 The common meanings of our words quite naturally suggest our social environment. Thus “guided” implies a guide, “designed” a designer, “shaped” a shaper. Naturally, the scientists ask us to accept slightly different meanings of these words, ones suitable for a materialistic or naturalistic universe: no spooks allowed! Mr. Lennox is frequently guilty of equivocation: using one meaning of a word, then slipping to a different meaning to “win” his argument. He makes me think of a schoolboy who thinks he has gotten away with something. (Most likely, everyone has tired of him, and just wants him to go away!) In any case, our brains are pretty much determined by genetics and the accidents of the environment. Our genes were, until not long ago, determined by natural selection operating on random variation and mutation More recently, our physical culture has so transformed our environment, that we are no longer so affected by natural selection.But the architecture and processes of your brain are probably the same as your H. sapiens ancestors. We are highly social big-brained apes, evolved to hunt and gather under African skies.

[@GreenLantern1916]

@@oldpossum57 Thanks for the well thought-out, thorough answer - very much appreciated! :)

[@haydenwalton2766]

I've been watching closely for years this very intellectually dishonest individual. I'd bet my last dollar that just about every time lennox gives one of his "I had a conversation with a colleague" - it's complete bullshit

[@deepashtray5605]

It might be true... in his head just like his god.

[@ChristianIce]

That “atheist colleagues” really sounds like Trump's "many people say".

[@SaHaRaSquad]

"If you knew that your computer was the product of a mindless unguided process, would you trust it?" Yes. If a mindless unguided process can lead to a machine that can boot an entire operating system and run for weeks without problems that's amazing. And it can't be any worse than the house of cards that generations of human engineers have come up with.

[@knowledgenuggetsnz]

Listening to you induces a smile that does not fade until the video has ended. Beautiful content sir. I also wish I had your vocabulary. It’s like listening to the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling (The irony does not elude me).

[@DMWMDX]

Plantinga is backwards. Since the brain is a product of evolution we should expect it to have got better and better at identifying real things but have a left over non fatal tendency to misidentify reality some of the time. Why non fatal? Because it would have been selected out of the population otherwise. So we have exactly the brains naturalism would predict: mostly reliable but prone to illusions like seeing faces or ghosts or supernatural signs in the stars that aren’t real - all the things which form the basis of our superstitions and theism. Plantingas conclusion should be that we must abandon theism because it is based on the residual imperfection of the brain that natural selection can’t eliminate

[@njhoepner]

The problem I've always had with Plantinga's argument - and I respect him as a philosopher - is that it relies on a false dichotomy: either evolution produces a brain that is 100% reliable or 100% unreliable. He should know better. The only way evolution produces a 100% unreliable brain is if being 100% unreliable provides a survival advantage - which is obvious nonsense. The advantage will go to those with brains that can deduce truth and make rational decisions. Take the standard "unreliability improves survival" example - perceiving an unknown noise as a dangerous predator. Sure, there is some advantage in perceiving a predator even when there isn't one...but if it stops there, the one perceiving every unknown sound as a predator will be constantly fleeing or hiding and will thus starve to death - not advantageous. The one who ignores all sounds gets eaten - also not advantageous. The one whose brain is able to learn to distinguish predator sounds from other sounds wins - thus the ability to perceive reality accurately based on experience is selected for.

[@theunknownatheist3815]

Plantinga is a schmuck. Everything I’ve ever heard from him has been absolute garbage.

[@toonyandfriends1915]

@@njhoepner The argument works because our mind is reliable, the argument runs however that there is naturalism doesn't warrant you to believe that your mind produce emore true beliefs than false ones, not that it is actually the case. Your objection here doesn't really object Platinga. One has to wonder how much truth tracking other animals' brain are (since of course they can know some truths though usually instinctive, which sometime you might think is more bias than anything rational). Other animals can survive and reproduce but i doubt they have an entire study of their preditors

[@njhoepner]

@@toonyandfriends1915 I'm sorry, I've heard Plantinga's argument from his own mouth, I think I get it. Even with animals it doesn't work. An animal whose brain only identified food correctly 50% of the time would be outcompeted and die out in the face of one that could do so 60% of the time, which would in turn be run out of town by one that could do so 70% of the time. We observe that they are very good at this, and at identifying predators, and at determining when to run vs when to continue their own grazing/hunting/gathering. Thus it's pretty clear that those which have better grasp on accuracy do better. Compare that to the standard case Plantinga's argument relies on, the human who always runs whenever it hears an unidentified sound. The group with that trait would die out in the face of the ones who could figure out when to run and when not to. For reason to develop as we see it today via natural selection does not require that it be flawless, only that more accuracy provides an advantage over less...and that much is obvious.

[@toonyandfriends1915]

@@njhoepner but that has nothing to do with truth tracking and rationality unless you are arguing that animals are using their rationality to survive

[@Gabachazo]

Obvious Senility!!!

[@Alun49]

I suspect his colleagues see such dialogues with him in a very different light than that of Lennox. It is an easy task to present ones argument, and the responses of others to ones questioning in such a way as to suggest that it is us who held and maintained the intellectual high ground. Lennox has a habit of missrepresenting atheist arguments post debate, like Dawkins for instance, in an attempt to regain ground after the event. Lennox is not a particular honest theist apologist. But then that would seem to be consistent with all the apologists I have so far heard.

[@johnpro2847]

john starts all his stories with "Once upon a time"..

[@hankpikuni7024]

Cheeks make me hungry for grandmas frybread.

[@JuntusOrothon]

@@hankpikuni7024 not all sleeps need to be pushed through the fence.

[@lucbourhis3142]

Evolutionary algorithms… Self-play in reinforced learning… Some of the most impressive progresses in computer science are literally based on some part of mindless unguided processes. Unguided in the sense of programmers not taking all the decisions.

[@goldenalt3166]

God isn't as smart as Google.

[@Llortnerof]

​@@sammur1977 So you don't know what an algorithm is. Evolution is, functionally, an algorithm that wasn't created by anybody but simply arose naturally from base constraints of how the universe works. Algorithms don't need a concious or unconcious designer.

[@lucbourhis3142]

​@@sammur1977 First let me take a specific example to make it crystal clear. Let's take Alpha Zero: the best AI for the games of Go, Shogi, and chess. All programmers did was to create an arena where two copies of the neural network battled each others. At the end of the game, the expectation of the neural network is compared to the actual outcome, and the neural network is then updated to reduce the discrepancy. Rince and repeat. Zillions of time. All starting from completely randomly connected neural networks. And just in case it was not clear: Alpha Zero has never ever seen any game played by any human during its training. All it was given are the rules. So, now, do I consider that unguided? Absolutely not. Would that qualify as unguided according to Lennox? Since he considers the evolution of the brain as unguided, consistency demands that he would consider the training of Alpha Zero as having a significant lack of guidance too. But then, here we are: I trust more Alpha Zero to play Go, Shogi, or chess well than any software programmed in the old-fashioned way with tons of heuristics to score positions and prune the vast tree of potential moves, all put in there by computer scientists and chess masters. Alpha Zero trounced Stockfish, which is one of the best representative of those dinosaurs.

[@goldenalt3166]

@@sammur1977 Except that physical matter doesn't need anything to create the feedback loop. Space and time are sufficient.

[@lucbourhis3142]

@@sammur1977 Evolutionary algorithms are even more striking. Especially genetic programming. In that method, a program is the equivalent of the phenotype, driven by a long series of genes. The goal to create the most fit program by mimicking Evolution: create diversity with random mutations, recombination (crossing over if using sexual reproduction), etc, and then selecting at each generation to improve fitness. Do I consider that unguided? Absolutely not. But since Lennox put the sticker "unguided" on the evolution of the brain, he must put it too on genetic programming because the latter very closely mimics the former. But then, there are many areas where I would trust a software created by genetic programming a lot more than one written even by a talented team of programmers with a clever guiding design. Because it works way better. Again defeating Lennox's argument. Which is nothing more than a sophism. And a lie. No way his colleagues are as stupid as he paints them.

[@tarp-grommet]

Mr. Lennox is the model for old stuffed shirts who cannot believe we would be so rebellious and disobedient as not to believe in his god.

[@OddityDK]

Lennox just asserts that because his “mind” was designed, it’s trustworthy. That’s a non sequitur. Well done Lennox. Google created an AI which believed that black Nazis was a reasonable representation of history. What’s to say that God didn’t create us to be faulty in a way that suits his purpose? For example by believing he is perfectly good and flawless?

[@Zilayza]

These videos are a must. It is refreshing and educational to see arguments be dissected and challanged. We all benefit from challanging assumptions and arguments. Please may I have some recommendations on books or other sources that could help train in logic and argumentation?

[@DeludedOne]

This guy keeps getting quoted by Christians and apologists as a great apologist and owner of atheists. A more in-depth look simply reveals him to be no more than a slightly more sophisticated fine-tuner who flouts the argument from design in ways in no different from any other creationist. Also his nonsense about how creationists can trust their brains to be reliable because they "know" it to be a designer is the same rubbish someone from AIG once put forward. It omits the rather glaring fact that to even know of a designer they have to trust their brains anyway. In fact ALL their arguments aboutfine tuning REQUIRES that they trust their brain, so if this is their point it would require them to start by already believing in that designer to be able to trust their brains before even making any argument for that designer existing. Clasdic begging the question as it is with virtually ALL arguments from design and fine tuning.

[@DeludedOne]

@@Kantiandude The problem with this argument is that this is something that applies to EVERYONE, regardless of their beliefs about their minds, whether it has a naturalistic or theistic origin. In order to even know anything, we'd have to be able to process and absorb information through our senses, and our brain does that. In order to actually regard any of this knowledge and information that our brains, and by extension our minds, provide us, we would have to trust in the reliability of our brains and minds to accurately and reliably process this information regarding what we perciebe. Only then can we actually regard the conclusions that result from this processing as reliable. If we don't trust or have no reason to trust in our brain's ability to do this reliably then, well, no information it processes can be regarded as reliable according to Lennox's paradigm. However he misses out, deliberately or otherwise, the fact that this applies to all perceptions and knowledge, including that of his god. So in order to even GET to any sort of knowledge or claim that his god even exists, let alone that that god is responsible for designing and creating his mind, he must already trust in the reliability of his mind BEFORE knowing of that designer. Hence Lennox has to do the very thing he accuses naturalists of doing and insisting that is flawed, he has to trust in the reliability of his brain first WITHOUT knowledge of his god in order to even GET to the claim that his god created his mind. Hence he is relying on the same "flawed and unreliable method" of trusting in his mind without any sort of knowledge of who or whaf is behind it's "design" in order to even get to the conclusion that there is a designer behind it all. However he then pretends that this isn't a thing at all and confidently declares that HE knows his mind is reliable because he knows there is a reliable designer behind it (and this reasoning is also flawed, though I did not bring it up in my post), despite having required to trust in his mind to even get to the conclusion that there is a designer let alone that it designed his mind. This of course is assuming that he got to the conclusion that there even is a designer through observation, perception amd cognition throught logic, which he and all other design apologetics assert and insist is how they get to such a conclusion. However there is another way, which is almost certainly the ACTUAL way these people get to such a notion, they simply assume that such is the case without engaging in any other the above, and then, as Lennox has demonstrated, use this presupposition to make arguments for this designer, creating a circular reasoning loop through begging the question via presupposition, which is whar all design arguments are based upon. Stephen highlighted this in his clip quite clearly. To sum it up in order to get to any notion that there is a designer behind your mind, you must first rely on your mind's supposed reliability prior to even knowing of this designer's existence. However if the only way to know the reliability of your mind is if you also know that a designer is behind it, then there is no way to ever know of he reliability of your mind through a proper vognitive and logical process. The only other option is that one must presuppose that their minds are indeed designed by a designer before even beginning to be able to know, let alone argue for, the existence of such a designer.