Condemned to Hell for Subconscious Activity

Greg Koukl attempts to answer the question, "Are there scriptural explanations for why some people don’t accept the existence of God other than that they’re “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” or “fools saying in their hearts there is no God”?"
#strask : Aren’t Some Unbelievers Sincerely Seeking Truth?
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[@Paulogia]

With the advent of Super Thanks, I'm starting a pledge to read and answer each Super Thanks comment left as I'm newly full-time and appreciate the financial support so much. For many reasons, I greatly appreciate the time and thought put in to every comment, but schedule and mental health prevents me from replying to each individually.

[@willbyrob6582]

Paul, I’d like to recommend a response video to the Analytic Christian. He has made 2 response videos now to the problem of divine hiddenness.

[@bananaslug.1951]

No problem keep the great work coming

[@melchiordeduser5967]

Paul, I think Koukl was talking about interaction with Doug that can be found in Doug's video "Calling into Greg Koukl's show. Here comes the hypothetical questions." at 48:47

[@paulthompson9668]

I've got a challenge for Greg. Talk to me, I'm not even an atheist.

[@bananaslug.1951]

Heck if you could get Greg to answer any question with out his word games, he would most likely disappear from KZbin!!!!

[@lisaboban]

I subconsciously knew for years that Christianity was a lie. I suppressed that knowledge and tried (desperately) to live as a Christian. But eventually I brought my conscious and subconscious knowledge into alignment. Now I am whole and happy.

[@ARoll925]

Same for me, I tried really hard to believe it, I just couldn't swallow that much bullshit

[@brianpeterson8908]

Same here, held on by my fingernails by trying to be agnostic/spirtual and finally a few years ago admitted it's all a lie, no god, no heaven, go live my life and not worry.

[@robertl4824]

Same here, the final straw for me was reading about the origins of mormonism and how easy it is to con people into a religion.

[@cipherklosenuf9242]

I relate to this too. It’s remarkable how many thoughts and prayers it took for me to acknowledge that people write books. That’s what it comes down to for me…we dream dreams, tell stories, experience life, and have “transcendent” experiences that we now recognize as physiological and we write books, no supernatural explanation necessary.

[@rainbowkrampus]

Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug.

[@mustachemac5229]

I find it interesting that Greg claims atheists bring shallow arguments while presenting the most shallow argument ever, "You know, you know the truth, you're only suppressing it."🤪

[@torreysauter8954]

I've noticed people like Greg tend to do a lot of projecting

[@88marome]

Indeed

[@DMWMDX]

Along with a dose of "I'll stick with the Bible". So much for being an honest truth seeker Greg!

[@robertx8020]

He knows 'in his heart' that he is full of BS but he just doesn;t want to admit it :P

[@EnglishMike]

@@torreysauter8954 You have to remember who he's talking to. Statements about atheists only having shallow arguments are intended to bolster the confidence of Christians who are watching, especially those whose faith has been shaken by talking to atheists or consuming their content. In the end, he has books to sell.

[@jacketrussell]

If a fool can figure out that there is no God, what's Greg's excuse?

[@avi8r66]

Koukl is the modern example of 'the artful dodger'. If he doesn't like the question he works hard to rewrite the question to fit answers he likes to give.

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

I'm pretty sure that is a tactic all professional apologists employ.

[@avi8r66]

@@Ugly_German_Truths Agreed, but he is one that specifically teaches his 'students' to 'reframe the question' to something they can answer in a way that doesn't make them sound like cult members. Logicked did a nice job on this example of his teaching... video titled "Dodging questions for Jesus"

[@fred_derf]

+avi8r66, writes _"If he doesn't like the question he works hard to rewrite the question to fit answers he likes to give."_ He actually wrote an instructional book on how to do exactly that. He literally, wrote the book on it.

[@avi8r66]

@@fred_derf Yes he did.

[@utubepunk]

Just like Frank Turek.

[@germanvisitor2]

I met Greg Koukl once in a bar. He told me he is just in it for the money. This definitely happened. And congrats to 100k subscribers!

[@LukeSumIpsePatremTe]

And all christians sub-consciously know this

[@markhackett2302]

And there were, if I recall, over 500 people in that bar that witnessed Greg saying that to you, so it MUST be true!!!!

[@DanDan-eh7ul]

I wrote it in a book, and the book says it happened and that the book is true. Must have happened, the book said so

[@jaclo3112]

@@LukeSumIpsePatremTe exactly. All christians subconsciously know there is no god and only believe in the jesus human meat sacrifice god and substitutionary attonement because they just don't want to be held accountable for their actions and harm they inflict on others. Their justifications for their beliefs are as shallownas a puddle. It's so easy to tell people what they think and believe. I can see why christians like Greg engage in such monumental dishonesty and lies.

[@DoctorZisIN]

@@markhackett2302 Some of them are even alive today! Go ask around and you may find one.

[@DC_Prox]

The sad thing is, it's entirely possible that Greg isn't being dishonest when he incorrectly summarizes previous interactions, because every time he has a conversation, a radically filtered version of that conversation gets filed into his long-term memory, and that becomes indisputable fact to him. When someone says "I didn't say that" he never doubts his own memory, he assumes the other person is either not remembering correctly, or is being deceptive. EVERYTHING that he hears and everything that he says gets filtered through a lens of confirmation bias.

[@cipherklosenuf9242]

So…what’s your point???🤣

[@rainbowkrampus]

This idea puts him into narcissist territory. I'd say it's more likely that he's just arrogant and dismissive of countervailing views. An asshole, basically.

[@polarisnorth4875]

He's evidently one of those people who pre-decides what his opponent is saying without actually listening to the argument before denouncing his opponent as a liar if challenged on his interpretation. I know people like this, they refuse to listen and are incredibly difficult to work with.

[@HiEv001]

Yes. Agreed. Most people don't realize that there's good evidence that we don't remember things, so much as we remember what we thought the last time we recalled that thing. It's like your brain does the equivalent of erasing and rewriting a page from a book after each page is read. This is why we have "big fish" stories, where the fish gets bigger each time the story is retold. Human memories are far less trustworthy than most people realize, which can make it hard to tell whether people are consciously lying about their inaccurate recollections or are simply honestly mistaken.

[@quantize]

@@cipherklosenuf9242 we cant help if your comprehension is that poor.

[@unduloid]

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” And a wise man shouts it from the rooftops.

[@DeludedOne]

The mighty Fool is the true God behind the Curtain that created all things, and we are all but his marionettes dancing on the stage that is his entertainment. Praise the Fool! It's as plausible a case for a God as any other.

[@jacketrussell]

If a fool can figure it out, what's Greg's excuse?

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

My heart has neither mouth, voicebox nor ears, so i do not effing care about this verbose deepity that appeals to emotions over intellect.

[@kitsunekierein7253]

I cannot agree more with this if my life depended on doing so....

[@stubdo16]

Which god though?

[@peterkapinos277]

When I was a Christian, and I saw books and writings, say like Htichens and "God is Not Good", I would actively avoid it, to say in my head that it is wrong whole-sale. It did NOT pursue reading and hearing things that went against my faith. If I heard x that was in contradiction, I would find an apologetic that shored up my faith, against the argument's logic or rationale. Truly, this is what I did. I suppressed truth. I suppressed real, logical arguments that had incontrovertible evidence, like how the Synoptics do contradict each other. I wouldn't hear it and would not study it.

[@YY4Me133]

So, what did you do?

[@peterkapinos277]

@@YY4Me133 It kinda fell apart when I realized god was only mighty in the “olden days”, and not now. Red Sea parting to now, unsubstantiated “miracles” and appearing on toast. Paulogia was one who really helped me out of it. I realized I was literally praying to the air; there was no god hearing it.

[@YY4Me133]

@@peterkapinos277 Not to be argumentative, but this contradicts your first comment. Or am I missing something?

[@cipherklosenuf9242]

Thanks Peter. I can relate. I gradually accepted the challenge of honestly considering the criticisms of the Bible’s claims over a period of many years. I decided that if the Bible, as I believed it, was true then it could stand up to the “wisdom of the world.” I eventually have come to acknowledge that supernatural belief systems are cultural constructs not supernatural revelations.

[@peterkapinos277]

@@YY4Me133 No problem. I suppose I don't understand what you were asking prior to this. My initial comment was saying when I was a Christian, I would avoid anti-Christian argumentation, actively. I am not sure what is missing. :) In that, I was suppressing logical argumentation, exactly what the STR people say that atheists do - suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Hope this helps.

[@brianstevens3858]

I have ran into many instances of people who feel angst from something they are not actually guilty of, because they had been trained to use guilt as a goto instead of rational evaluation of something that went wrong.

[@brianstevens3858]

​@Lureeality 🎶🎵 So sounds like one of my X\s.

[@tryintoreason9738]

Paul, one of my favorite things about your approach is that you don't put words in people's mouths. You show them speaking. Koukl is a repeat offender deceiver when it comes to "misremembering" (read: inventing) stories that help his cause, and I appreciate that you show this and move on. Growing up in the church, I can't count how many times I heard pastors and evangelists employ this Entirely Made Up Story tactic only to hear the faithful parrot those stories and insist they were true. Once enough time had passed, if you challenged these people, a lot of them would insist that they saw it happen... kind of like all the people who claim to have been at Woodstock.

[@Ernoskij]

And this is part of the Mandela effect, if you repeat something enough times, people will start believing it

[@brettbrewer6091]

This apologist tactic is one reason I've come to dismiss all of them as liars. At some point, they're going to talk about how they had a conversation with an atheist, at that point I know everything they are about to say is a lie. It's the standard, I said this to the atheist and they didn't have a good response and the atheist was like -Whoa! I never considered that! Then the apologist liar can pat himself on the back for his brilliant gotcha.

[@DavidSmith-vr1nb]

I know I wasn't at Woodstock, because I wasn't born for several years afterwards.

[@PaddySnuffles]

Not surprising. False memories are _extremely_ easy to implant. I read a study about false memories a while back where they had the test subject's family all tell them this entirely made up story about this time when the test subject was little and got lost at the supermarket snd someone helped them find their mom. It took no time at all to implant the false memory and the person was _adamant_ that it was a real memory describing details of the event and everything.

[@reubenmanzo2054]

What happened at Woodstock?

[@DesGardius-me7gf]

The “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” thing is a circular argument. You know, the same principle in Romans 1:18-20 can be applied to ANY fictitious deity.

[@albionicamerican8806]

Yeah, that reprobate Paul suppressed the knowledge about Zeus's sovereignty over the universe.

[@nathanjasper512]

@@albionicamerican8806 Not true, he's actually suppressing his knowledge of Zoroaster.

[@DesGardius-me7gf]

@@albionicamerican8806 The whole “reprobate mind” bullshit is something Paul pulled from his ass.

[@willbyrob6582]

But we’re not responsible for what happens in our subconscious mind. If we are, that means we’re also responsible for everything we do in dreams, because dreams are created by the subconscious mind. Going to the analogy Greg likes to use, it’s like sending someone to jail for killing someone in a dream.

[@fred_derf]

+William Robinson, writes _"it’s like sending someone to jail for killing someone in a dream."_ I got sent to "boyfriend-jail" for something I did to my girlfriend in _her_ dream. It wasn't even my dream! It was her dream! Greggy's arguments make about as much sense...

[@brianpeterson8908]

My old baptist preacher used to rant that 'don't covet your neighbors wife' meant you couldn't even think she was pretty, you had to keep all such thoughts out of your mind. Well how the F do you do that? Ended up he'd been carrying on a three year affair with his married secretary.

[@fred_derf]

@@brianpeterson8908, writes _"Ended up he'd been carrying on a three year affair with his married secretary."_ The only surprising thing about that story is that the secretary wasn't male...

[@JD-wu5pf]

@@fred_derf And that the secretary was an adult

[@jaclo3112]

@@JD-wu5pf and the secretary consented.

[@AegixDrakan]

It's always so *intensely* frustrating when apologists pull the "well, you think some things are right or wrong, therefore you have objective morality, therefore gAwD. Otherwise right and wrong is just opinion, therefore there's no real reason not to be bad". x_x I recognize that morality is a construct that exists from a combo of empathy and the social contract in order to ensure cooperative survival and yet I feel strongly about that morality, even if that's all it comes from. Things don't need to come from an authority to be true or exist.

[@jaclo3112]

@James Henry Smith why are you spamming the comments section with this insane christian babble? You do realise all you are doing is showing the world that christianity just makes you rude and tell lies.

[@gristlybillow7050]

congrats on the 100k dude, been here for half of it. love your stuff and your laid back approach. hope to be here for at least the next 900k. ps. loved seeing you on the creaky blinder's podcast

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

its way overdue for paul... i blame the algorithm for him not having 100 k far earlier! even as a atheist it is calming to just hear him pick apart historic semantics or point out broken logic for fundamentalism etc in a calm voice.

[@LouieLouie505]

Koukl always sounds like a used car salesman. His voice quality, cadence and pronunciation (adding the "y" sound before vowels -- thyat, yin, thyere, hyave...) grate on me before he even starts his dodge and deflect. Paul, I clicked to hear your analysis because it is ALWAYS informative.

[@hifijohn]

what an insult to used car salesmen.

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

I prefer to call Apologists "used car salesman salesmen" ;)

[@Uryvichk]

@@hifijohn Yeah, at least used cars actually exist.

[@gregoryrosenberg106]

We didn’t evolve “morality” in the same way we didn’t evolve medicine. We evolved the ability to reason along with evolving to be a social species. We evolved to value survival and cooperation and used our reason to create tools to further those purposes. Tools like medicine, education, government, and morality. And just like any other technology, morality has been tweaked and refined, which is why we see so much variation in morality across cultures and across time. All moral systems, even Christianity’s, have the same aim: maximizing well-being, but as we learn more about the world and ourselves we find parts of morality that work better or worse for that purpose, and thus refine it. Humans used to think slavery was perfectly moral (especially Christians), but we don’t anymore since we realized that being of a different race doesn’t make someone less human (although some have yet to realize this unfortunately). So I would agree it is wrong to say that we evolved to be moral, but only because it is imprecise. We did evolve behaviors and instincts that led us to invent morality to better align ourselves toward humanity’s shared goals.

[@Cellidor]

The way I've often phrased it is: "Our morality begins with biology, grows with society, and is refined through scientific understanding". I've seen those who argue against evolutionary morality by tossing out things like 'Oh well then survival of the fittest is king then and the strong should rule the weak? Is that what you're saying?' which the above phrase handles because morality from our biology is morality in its most unrefined state, it's a diamond in the rough.

[@myoneblackfriend3151]

About 25 minutes in the woman says that “They [Atheists] don’t like god.” Would she like a person that is murderous, cruel, causes people to be sick, and is willing to burn people alive that don’t like him? Simple questions like mine actually get some of them to think about what they are saying. Good work, Paulogia.

[@johnnehrich9601]

BINGO!

[@david2869]

Or for that matter, execute people who disobey, and who is willing to drown innocents because of others who are guilty of crimes that he invented.

[@johncouch9062]

I can’t like or dislike something I don’t believe exists.

[@Keira_Blackstone]

@@johncouch9062 I can. I really don't like Voldemort, and also don't believe he exists. It's why Turek's 'Atheists are lying to themselves because they claim both that god doesn't exist and that they hate him' argument holds no water.

[@avi8r66]

They answer that usually with how we puny humans cannot understand the ways of God, and they give god a pass on all the evil their book says he did because whatever he does is good.

[@Ponera-Sama]

The real irony here is that Psalm 14:1 contradicts Romans 1:20 by outright saying that there are people who believe in their hearts that there is no god.

[@somersetcace1]

That was worded very well. I've been with me 24/7 for 56 years and while I'm certainly not an expert on much, when it comes to *me* I'm pretty much the worlds leading expert. So, if you're trying to convince me that what you believe is true, demonstrating that you don't know what you're talking about, by attacking the one thing I am absolutely sure of, is not a great way to go about it.

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

well phrased , sort of just ..sad... when a fundamentalist tryess to cover up ther arguments flaws or baseless nature by trying some version of ''i know your mind better then yourself'' etc

[@pechaa]

@@Amoth_oth_ras_shash I agree. I really like the “I’m the expert on myself” tack. But sadly, the idea that a Christian knows my mind better than I do does tend to prick my mind a little, if only at first. From birth, I was taught that God knew my every thought and move, that he was watching and judging. Because God doesn’t exist, none of the Christian apologists’ arguments are actually convincing to atheists, but they do work on those who have decided to believe in God already. This is one such argument. If you believe God knows you better than you yourself does, it seems entirely plausible that you know your atheist friend better than they know themselves. I’m just thinking aloud here.

[@libertine5606]

@@Amoth_oth_ras_shash They always have to bend themselves into pretzels to try to make the Bible coherent. Then attack you for being stupid, or a fool, or resistance to the obvious. I mean how can you be resistant to a sky God that is all powerful but won't come down from the sky, and demons that takes over you but of course not be seen, and that you are a fool not to believe in all the magicians that lived 2000 years ago but the present ones end up in money and sex scandals. Ya, I am the foolish and shallow one.

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

@@pechaa true ,sad but true as absurd as it is ...but with luck fundamentalists leaning into that kind of 'nuhu' semantics will kee diminish , at least in global numbers though i honestly worry for some regions of the world :/

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

@@libertine5606 as i said my adult life... if any god wants to make an argument why i should care about its instruction books.... its free to schedule a phone conference with me.

[@tonedumbharry]

Greg's argument is directly reversible. It, more or less, describes my move, as a youth, from theism to atheism. I did not admit to myself, at first, that I found Christianity illogical, unhistorical, immoral and no more likely to be "right" than any other religion. Do this mean that if I find his line of reasoning unsound, I should find my reasoning unsound or am I confused?

[@brianpeterson8908]

His reasoning is unsound as it relies on an imaginary, unproven sky fairy and a book written by unknown writers from the bronze age.

[@tonedumbharry]

@@brianpeterson8908 To be fair to him, that is not the part of the argument I'm referring to.

[@tonedumbharry]

@@adamnascent7231 You are completely missing my point. Never mind.

[@markhackett2302]

Yup, Greg KNOWS there is no God, but suppresses that truth in his unrighteousness, his need to get laid and his need to monetise the religion.

[@erickent3557]

​@@tonedumbharry I must be missing your point also. Here's how I took your initial comment: IF Koukl's argument is that atheists become theists when they admit the "truth" of subconscious belief, and, IF Bradfield-Smith's journey in the opposite direction (theist to atheist) was based on admitting the "truth" of subconcious belief, THEN: if Bradfield-Smith says Koukl's "subconsicous belief" argument is faulty, then was Bradfield-Smith's "subconscious belief" reasoning also faulty?

[@facundocesa4931]

I've seen people asking for help because their faith was wavering. When they finally stop believing, it makes no sense to say that they suppressed the knowledge. They tried to hold on to a belief, not to suppress a knowledge.

[@dethspud]

Dang, you are good at analogies, Paul.

[@Paulogia]

appreciated.

[@ARoll925]

Wow, the projection is impressive

[@timhallas4275]

The whole thing is summed up in one phrase. She said, "... is there a reason why some people do not accept the existence of God." This question is asked under the presumption that God exists,, while it questions people who make no such assumption. The existence of "God" has never been shown to be possible, let alone proven.

[@monsterinhead214]

Exactly so.

[@juniorloaf12]

Yayy! 100K subscribers! Congratulations Paul, it's well deserved

[@MODea-pq7ei]

I love your work, Paul. Much sincerity from France

[@Paulogia]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@BleedForTheWorld]

Congrats on the 99.9K subs, Paul. Love you.

[@Paulogia]

Thanks so much!

[@grapeshot]

Fool or not I have no reason to believe in the invisible sky wizard and plenty of reasons not too. If by chance that genocidal maniac in the sky exist. That is one monster I will not worship.

[@mistylover7398]

Same. Bible God =aku

[@plamenski5244]

when you need to sell a certain religious dogma or other superstitious nonsense - you write stuff like "the fool says in his heart" and you threaten people with eternal torture if they don't believe. Works like a charm apparently

[@LeeDeeThe1]

Ah, thank you Koukl, you finnaly cured me from my my unreasonable fear of being in Cars, through making me see that I am not really afraid of them! Great.

[@grrsss8335]

I noticed in the interview replay they cut him off when the guy said "a guy might not kill themself if they think they are going to hell..." when trying to explain how the idea might have had an evolutionary advantage.

[@ericslingerland5472]

Intellectually, I understand cognitive dissonance, but the sheer levels it can get to always seem to surprise me. Like, how can you bring up the devil blinding people to God in the same conversation you are blaming those people for not processing their believe?

[@frankwhelan1715]

And god allows the devil the power to do all this stuff, causing us this harm instead of shutting him down,

[@rainbowkrampus]

It's pretty amazing how powerful our brains are. We basically invent the world around us by fitting our experiences into conceptual models. When our experiences and conceptual models misalign, sometimes we throw out our experience in favor of the model. Absolutely wild. Universe in a walnut indeed.

[@dobrien51]

Well, now that Greg has read bible passages at me I am surely convinced.

[@Environmental_Frog]

Congrats on the 100k subs!!!!

[@bodan1196]

"... a fool has said in his heart..." Well, yeah. My heart is a muscle. It pumps blood. It does not think nor reason. My brains however, has looked at the evidence, and found them wanting. Poor. So... I withhold belief.

[@EnglishMike]

Borrow a stethoscope from your doctor and place it against your chest. Listen very carefully to the background murmur and you may just be able to make out the words "There is no God, there is no God, there is no God..." in time with your beating heart.... (sounds like the ending to an episode of The Twilight Zone!)

[@guuspot923]

Congrats on 100k subs! And... You've got to love when theists call Atheists presumptuous for not holding the belief the theist presumes the atheist _must_ secretly have...

[@andystokes8702]

4.57 - 'We suppress, consciously, things that we know to be true but we don't like''. Yes, that would include things like the earth being billions of years old, humans being one of the great apes, common ancestry with all other living creatures, evolution, all that sort of stuff. Christians are brilliant at projecting their own shortcomings onto those who do not share their beliefs.

[@letefte]

Greg "I only care about appearances" Koukl is one of our greatest allies. Think about it. He is arrogant, obnoxious and is projecting constantly. He probably has turned more people Atheist than Paul has. PS. Congrats on hitting the 100k mark.

[@rainbowkrampus]

I wish that were true. Given the generally authoritarian tendencies of theists, that kind of arrogance is often interpreted as confidence and dominance (see all of Donald Trump's existence). That, and plenty of theists are arrogant and obnoxious and projecting themselves. Like likes like and all that. My hope is that if a person is looking to an asshat like Koukl, they are already in the process of questioning and they're trying desperately to cling to belief.

[@simphiwe4930]

I love how this type of argument is probably held by the same people who would call "group hallucination" argument for the resurrection absurd😆. Like, every non-beleiver (billions) is falling under the same psychological phenomenon but a handful of people sharing one psychological event is *totally* out of the question😂 (not putting the hallucination argument forward, just an observation).

[@goldenalt3166]

That's probably how they could get 500 to agree. "Everyone has seen Jesus, just look that the trees." "O, in that case, yes, I've seen Jesus."

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@goldenalt3166 Were there ever those 500? We know literally nothing about them except the claim that this many people saw X. We don't know any names, we don't know where or when this happened, we don't know anything useful. I could easily say "500 people saw _extremely unlikely thing Y"_ and then not tell you anything else - would you believe me?

[@goldenalt3166]

@@KaiHenningsen First century people were super skeptical. That's why when they learned that Jesus family and home town called him out as a fraud, they all denounced him.

[@frankwhelan1715]

@@KaiHenningsen Jesus could have went round and got all their names

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@frankwhelan1715 Sure, but how does that help *us?* If someone else had all this info but didn't (by whatever means) transmit it to us, then we don't have it, just as much as if that someone didn't have it either.

[@Futt.Buckerson]

Love to see PineCreek Doug getting more attention, even if it's tertiary. I just watched his video w/ Koukl the other day, and just couldn't look away.

[@Splitfinger709]

What about people how never heard of his God? Are they suppressing belief in his God? Can you suppress something you had no idea existed? I think he knows God isn't real, but he's suppressing his disbelief. Great episode as usual Paul! Congrats on the 100k subs.

[@martinmckee5333]

Ah, but that's the point of Romans 1:20, that the world itself makes it clear enough, so that even the tribes in the deep Amazon rainforest already "know". So yes. Everyone who does not believe is doing so dishonestly according to the Bible.

[@Splitfinger709]

@@martinmckee5333 you'd think God would make himself visible to those people... you'd think an all powerful being should get that done... but for some reason, he chooses to use people to spread that message. Almost like he doesn't exist. 😆

[@zemorph42]

@@martinmckee5333 They never met the Pirahã.

[@Soapy-chan_old]

@@Splitfinger709 This god also waited for 4000 years to appear as jesus to save the people afterwards, condemning anyone born before to burn in hell without the chance for salvation.

[@martinmckee5333]

@@Splitfinger709 You're preaching to the choir here. I'm quite convinced that non-existence is the best explanation.

[@robertfreeman6082]

My “cos the Bible tell me so” meter is now off the scale and had a melt down 😂

[@nagranoth_]

People like Greg are vile. There's no other way to describe what he's doing here.

[@rainbowkrampus]

As far as big name apologists go he is definitely one of the more detestable. Maybe not top 10 of all time... maybe, but still up there.

[@Lorenzo_That_Vegan_Dad]

This is my favorite weekend cartoon.

[@someguy2249]

Finally 100,000 subscribers!

[@Paulogia]

finally!

[@Soapy-chan_old]

So convenient for apologists that their scripture tells them that non-believers are actually believers.

[@DPMRsEmail]

It kills me the lies they will support just to sell another book.

[@artemisia4718]

I was lying to myself when I was making mental gymnastics to conciliate what I knew to be real (the stuff I was seeing in my microscope) and what I wanted to be real (religion) because it would displease my family if I came out as an atheist. Apologists never seem to give atheists the benefit of the doubt, do they? We're all liars to this crowd. Might be they are suppressing the belief that we may have a point because their paychecks depend on the religion stuff being right.

[@doloreslehmann8628]

I think the actual problem with them suppressing this belief is that the Bible tells them that atheists are all liars. And their very belief system hinges on considering everything true that the Bible says. So if some part of their Bible-based theology gets in conflict with reality, they have to rewrite reality in order to fit the biblical statements.

[@SonOfTheDawn515]

Not being right but believed.

[@maninalift]

He ties everything he does to his book, his book is called "tactics" and is explicitly about using "manoeuvres" to win arguments... and he says that the other side are insincere and not genuinely seeking truth.

[@kv4n]

Ok, I'm envisioning you and ShannonQ siting around the house and you ask, "Explain the subconscious to me." As you take notes. LOL.

[@monsterinhead214]

Drowning in counterexamples. A cruel fate, but I ... I ... I supressed the idea.

[@monsterinhead214]

I perceive supressed beliefs in Greg's mannishness.

[@ChooseThisLife]

Oh, gosh, Christians, via the Bible, say I am a fool. How shall I ever make it through my day?

[@JRRTokeKing]

I’m a simple man, I see a new Paulogia video, I drop what I’m doing, watch the video, and hit that like button.

[@Paulogia]

Appreciate you, Josh.

[@GodlessGranny]

I think this is one of your best videos ever. There is some very good thought put into this. I would be most interested in Koukl's response.

[@sonnyfleming904]

Paul. This is extremely good. It is obvious a lot of work and thought went into it.

[@w4rsh1p]

Whoa almost at 100k subs! Congrats! 🎊

[@Paulogia]

Yes! Thank you!

[@davidfitnesstech]

Koukl: "What's MISSING is the work of the spirit." I love how Koukl made all of his previous comments irrelevant by that last phrase.

[@B.S._Lewis]

Doug is just suppressing that conversation with Greg. Or Greg is just making crap up.

[@martinmckee5333]

The funny thing is, if I'm being generous and Greg wasn't being outright deceptive, then an alternate explanation would be that he had a false memory which grew and changed as he thought about it (as he said he did). That would demonstrate, quite handily, the sort of cognitive distortions in his own arguments that he claims in others' when trying very hard to not simply call them liers (which, it seems to me, is what many apologists prefer when they're being honest).

[@richardscottmills]

The projection levels are over 9000 from Greg.

[@Qwerty-lp1fz]

Conversation between Pinecreek and Koukl on CC channel is worth watching. Koukl admits that people literally go to hell because God did not intervene in their lives. Still, he's too afraid to say that in his own view God is responsible for people going to hell (which is actually understandable given he really believes in a cruel tyrant ruling the world)

[@the-selfish-meme7585]

I salute your efforts, sir! "It's difficult to reason a person out of a position that they weren't reasoned into."

[@Oswlek]

Do they really not hear how repugnant they are being?

[@krazer9515]

I hate the "you believe in your heart" argument. It is so egotistical that it just disgusts me. The entire thing is based around the thought that someone else knows what i think better than i do, and they can and do use that basic assumption to attribute whatever belief they want to me.

[@krazer9515]

@James Henry Smith Your last sentence basically proves you don't understand how proof works. By definition you cannot prove something is false. So any statement by you saying that I should believe something because it "wasn't proven fake", is a worthless statement, and gives no positive reason to believe anything.

[@Marniwheeler]

Fantastic Video. Thank you again. Really great content.

[@Marniwheeler]

@James Henry Smith Why would a soul be tormented for eternity in Gods creation? Makes no sense. If Hell and God are real, they are not as described in any holy books, so forget religion. Be a good person, make good decisions.

[@Dadas0560]

I think I heard Amy say she would love someone who would threaten her with torture, because they would threaten her with torture. Amy must be a masochist. A psychological masochist at the least.

[@phileas007]

hey, we don't kink shame on this channel!

[@Dadas0560]

@@phileas007 I did not shame anybody. If you think I shamed somebody, you have the problem, not me!

[@filipe.sm31]

Congrets for the 100K!

[@Paulogia]

Thanks! 😃

[@Vadjong]

Call me shallow all you like, but the louder apologists protest, the more guilty they feel for their deeply repressed atheism; duh...

[@kenmulajr]

The amount of projection coming out of him is impressive and depressing all at the same time.

[@OneCSeven]

Greg is a man who is incapable of imagining people who are not himself.

[@drzaius844]

It was the “believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead” that got me. As a kid I just doubted the story, and was terrified that I would go to hell because I couldn’t force myself into belief, that God would know that my invitation to Christ was really just BS, but that I might be wrong. What a wicked theology to teach a kid. Religious extremism is a real form of abuse and so many of us are recovering from it, actively trying to forgive our parents for doing to us what their parents did to them.

[@MarshaAnderson-i1j]

It always comes down to “yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so”.

[@thesuitablecommand]

I think Greg is lying to himself, and he doesn't even know it. I think he thinks, "I have good evidence and good reasons for believing in God," but deep down, he knows he doesn't, and he is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. See, it's not nice, is it? So how about we all stop pretending to know each other's thoughts better than the person who is actually thinking those thoughts, and have a real conversation like grown-ups?

[@Justas399]

so what are your thoughts on this?

[@Joemamahahahaha821]

@@Justas399 his thoughts are that we shouldn’t tell people what they do and don’t believe when we can’t possibly know other people more than they know themselves.

[@pmtoner9852]

Actually I think you were onto something there for a minute

[@Justas399]

@@Joemamahahahaha821 When a person says they are an atheist or Christian you can know what they believe about those things without asking them.

[@Joemamahahahaha821]

@@Justas399 ok, and?

[@azophi]

CONGRATS ON 100K

[@Paulogia]

Thank you so much 😀

[@toblexson5020]

How is 'the Christian God doesn't align to my internal moral compass' a trivial problem? If God wrote morality into my heart, then that is a major problem. Unless he intentionally made me with a corrupted morality, in which the all loving God condemned me to hell during my creation.

[@promiscuous5761]

Thank you.

[@BobHutton]

So this is what New Zealand's prime minister does in her spare time.

[@norswil8763]

Only issue with that is that she’s atheist

[@energyfuture9196]

I value what you do Paul, and I love you. I have come to be a Christian after an intense emotional experience, one strongly motivated by feelings of my mortality and by a yearning to understand the mystery of being. I think that efforts to impugn and belittle nonbelievers are deeply misguided, and come from a place of judgement we are not meant to trod. All the best to you.

[@DeludedOne]

The thing with Koukl's suppressed knowledge dodge is that we either consciously know something or we don't. Having "unconscious knowledge" (which is not the same thing as dispositional belief) is in no way relevant if we cannot access it deliberately. So "knowing something unconsciously but having it suppressed" is functionally the same as consciously not knowing it. And it is through conscious thought that we question the existence of God and/or come to the conclusion that he either exists or doesn't. 4:44 And here's the dodge. If you could not access that so called knowledge of God when you question God's existence, are you at that moment sincere in your disbelief of God or not? Koukl has to assert that you'd be DISHONEST and a "Fool" (how dare he insult the Great Fool That Doesn't Belong To This Era!) in that situation. That would be like saying someone misremembering something in a sworn statement in court committed perjury where perjury requires premeditation to answer with falsehood. 7:25 And when that atheist is saying that, even if we grant that there IS suppressed knowledge of God (which has not been proven even up to this point btw), is that belief deliberately suppressed, meaning that atheist is fully aware of that belief at the moment but is simply unwilling to acknowledge it. If not, then can we consider the atheist to be dishonest and a "Fool" given this circumstance? 9:45 Well he misses the point there as expected. Because the point is not that morality HAS to be objective, but rather it is as an explanation for how morality forms as a naturalistic process. In fact, while he is accusing Doug for here, is bringing to fore his OWN bias about morality necessarily being objective, which is exactly what he's attempting to accuse Doug of, for having preconceived "unconscious" beliefs that come to fore at certain moments. I doubt Koukl is even aware that he's doing this when he did this, so it certainly counts as exactly that in this case. 11:44 Yup, I called it, Doug wasn't saying that morality necessarily is naturalistic or relative/not objective. What he's doing is positing an answer to the assertion that morality could only come from a God (along with other things like creation of the universe), by offering a counter-explanation that features these things happening naturally. Doug isn't necessarily saying that that's what he believes to be or asserts to be the "truth" about morality and the creation of the universe in this particular context (notwithstanding whether or not he actually holds such beliefs in general), he's simply saying: "Your explanation is not the only one, here's another that doesn't need a designer or God." 12:00 This is projection at its finest. Koukl is implicitly asserting here that his beliefs are "quantified in the cellular sense", whatever that means, while the naturalistic explanation given by Doug is not. I would wager that the reverse is more likely to be true. 12:40 Hahahaha yeah. Jan 6th Capitol Insurrection based on the sincere belief that Trump won the 2020 elections but the win was somehow "stolen" by Biden. It is a belief that holds NO basis in reality, but even today, many people in the America (the FarQ party base for the most part) STILL hold on sincerely to that belief. I will never stop using this example over and over because it's as relevant an example as we can get right now. 13:39 And here it becomes absolutely clear just how shallow Koukl's belief is. His entire reason for believing Romans 1;20 is because it is Romans 1:20. Like that's literally it. 13:50 Again, how does this affect the sincerity of these people? If Romans 1:20 claims they aren't consciously aware, then can we call them dishonest? If Romans 1:20 claims they ARE consciously aware (and this seems to be the more likely case), then the Bible is simply wrong based on a simple example of how people who sincerely disbelieve in God exist. Whether or not they are MISTAKEN or unaware that God exists is irrelevant, we are talking about their sincerity here. 18:14 And this leads to subjective interpretations of such perceived reactions based on presupposed bias even when there might be none. At the very least, I can see how someone who already has the preconceived notion that all atheists are dishonest a la Romans 1:20 to "perceive" such "subconscious reactions" in the atheists they confront, regardless of whether or not that perception holds any basis in reality. I suppose I could argue that Koukl's erroneous recollection of his conversation with Doug can be considered such an example. 22:43 Great, more Biblical examples of how atheists are so dishonest and stuff, although now they pin in=t on something else, the Fall. Convenient out I must say. 23:18 And the 2nd biggest scapegoat for Christianity, the Devil. I wonder when they will get to the actual answer in their own theology and accuse their number one scapegoat, God, for all this. After all, nothing can happen without God's say so. If they say the Fall did it, then God allowed the fall to happen, God is the one who wanted men to "rise in rebellion against him" ultimately as he knew beforehand everything that would happen. Kudos for the explanation that Satan did it as Satan surely could not have done anything without both God's foreknowledge of the repercussions AND his consent and willingness. Finally if humans are simply that way by their own individual merit, then as the creator God created each and every single one of these dishonest atheists knowing that that's what they would become. In other words, he created such dishonest atheists with the intention that they be dishonest. 24:23 But at the same time that truth seeker would be honest about seeking what he cannot find. 25:31 Not necessarily because simply knowing that God exists does not automatically make God worth following or worshiping. It's the same if we ask them if they would follow Allah if we could prove that Allah exists and Islam is the truth. 29:45 Not to mention that the holy spirit angle kind of contradicts the other points. If a lack of the holy spirit's intervention would mean that those who disbelieve would never believe, then this not only puts the fault firmly on God since God IS the Holy Spirit according to the belief in the trinity, but also that the other explanations become worthless. Satan does not need to blind anyone, nor does the fall need to have occurred to mislead anyone, no indeed does any individual human have any responsibility for actively resisting God. No, even if we factor out all of those, so long as God doesn't make these unbelievers believe by entering them in the form of the Holy Spirit, then they will remain unbelievers. Which is to say all the unbelievers ultimately are unbelievers because of God deliberately withholding the Holy Spirit from them, and the rest of the explanations can simply discarded because this one explanation is the overarching one. I don't know if Koukl is a Calvinist, but this is as ringing a subconscious endorsement of Calvinism as any I've seen if so.

[@dragonhealer7588]

Nice. Are there still people who think the Muslim God is different than the Hebrew and Christian God?

[@DeludedOne]

@@dragonhealer7588 Yes there are. They are called Jews, Christians and Muslims.

[@dragonhealer7588]

@@DeludedOne Yet all claim their's is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob....

[@robertmiller9735]

@@dragonhealer7588 There's some equivocation going on here. "The same god" could refer to either identity, or attributes. While it's likely that there are Christians (for example) who think the Muslim god is a separate being (a demon, presumably), the mainstream in all three holds that the identity is the same, but the others are just wrong about its attributes. Keep that in mind, eh?

[@dragonhealer7588]

@@robertmiller9735 Yes, that is what I have found. But at best, only one of them can be right, if any.

[@toddonhigh]

Congrats on 100k!

[@adamnascent7231]

The fact that Christians flail so wildly to explain away the non-resistant non-believer is evidence of how powerful a logical argument it is.

[@MrLogo73]

This just means, that Psalm 14:1 is an ad-hom, Rom. 1:18 is an ad-hoc assertion, which leads right into the gaslighting of Rom. 1:20.

[@sussekind9717]

I love your conclusion at the end. I pointed this out to theists before, however they just don't seem to be able, or have the desire, to grasp it. Sometimes I swear it's just that they want to believe. Anything, anything at all that doesn't jive with it, is simply ignored. Ignoring the misses, while counting the hits. That's certainly a unique way of keeping score.

[@Paulogia]

Well said.

[@rustkitty]

True, I'm a fool and I have said in my heart that there is no God. (as in Yahweh) I guess this makes Christianity a "greater fool scheme"?

[@hamtrucker]

Paulogia I love your work.. You are awesome!

[@MartinJames389]

Calling evolution "Darwinism" is like calling a bullet train clocking 470 kph (290 mph) "Stephensonism" or an airliner crossing the Pacific an example of "Wrightism".

[@LukeSumIpsePatremTe]

It is a dishonest tactic, like calling a _war_ a 'special operations' or calling _torture_ 'enchanced interrogations'.

[@sbushido5547]

@@LukeSumIpsePatremTe Well, that and plenty of creationists seem to think that people believe in evolution based on the authority of Darwin (because their own religious beliefs are based on authority). So tearing him down means they debunk the science. Which is asinine.

[@grip4us]

Never understood how going to “scripture” to prove “scripture” never made sense to me.

[@michaelsommers2356]

The fool says in his heart that there is a god, and he suppresses the truth in self-righteousness.

[@DeconvertedMan]

Every time they say the psalm they take it out of context, every, single, time.

[@michaelmeszaros6982]

The best review of Koukl's video was by YODA who said "Load of crap biggest ever heard I is that." RightOn, Yoda, RockOn, Paulogia.

[@jeleeson]

Great, now I'm going to be thinking about wasps the rest of the day.

[@SecularStrategy]

I'm legitimately curious as to what this guy would say his job is. Does he really think his whole deal is to get someone to admit what they already know, like a police interrogation mixed with confession?

[@pmtoner9852]

Book says a thing.

[@grrsss8335]

I do not think I would be capable of loving the god described in the bible. It commits too much genocide.

[@LapsedSkeptic]

Paul playing hard to get “introduce me first” I mean maybe even a dinner & a movie.. make him work for it Paul 🍻

[@calonstanni]

WOW this was GOOD!!!!

[@ralphdupre357]

Way too much logic going on here… lol 😂 thanks for the video

[@DeceptionStudiesHQ]

Congratz on the 100k subs 😊 Silver play button time 🥈

[@mikecattel]

people adding "darwinian" in front of evolution has always irked me. Its just evolution folks.

[@rickmartin7596]

Constant reference to Darwin is a deliberate strategy. It's a ploy to make the argument a personal attack. Many people don't understand science, but they do understand personal attacks.

[@danieldelanoche2015]

It's notable to me that the Psalms passage Greg is quoting contradicts the Romans passage he is quoting.