A Pagan Response to Monotheism

[@lizabethhampton4537]

My favorite part of Egyptian mythology is like, "which god is the creator of the world?" "yes."

[@kevincrady2831]

I also like that they're not very human. They merge, bifurcate, change forms, and so on, and they're not just immature people with superpowers. This makes them seem more plausible to me as cosmic entities than recognizably human gods and goddesses with human wants and needs, etc.. Whatever a god or goddess might be, it's not something that evolved from Australopithecines. 😄

[@Silvvrninja8]

Wasn't it space which is also the father of Ra but Horus was also Ra's father?

[@sabithasajan5564]

@@kevincrady2831 not human? NOT HUMAN?!

[@33-vertebrae]

That's not answer, though.

[@Holite]

​@@kevincrady2831I would argue that they're pretty human, usually with simple wants, needs, and characteristics

[@bforman1300]

The most entertaining argument for the existence of many gods is, "The Bible says so."

[@DarkAdonisVyers]

Like I always say, if you treat YHVH as a dictator who purges his rivals and compatriots in a bid for power, and his followers actually believe in his "liberation" bullshit, it makes perfect sense.

[@twiggledy5547]

As a Christian, this is true. The Bible is also clear that these other gods are lesser than God and usually demonic in their rebellion against God

[@bond3161]

Because it has revealed to be so One God Three persons Ditch that idea for now and examine Creation, design, destination, purpose, meaning, ethics, Then you'll see Christianity is the best explanation Follow the evidence Polytheism general lacks the following Specific doctrine, codified ethics, clear explanation of how creation and the nature of world. Bible explains it all. The heart of the message is love. A personal experience inherently means polytheism?? Ok...

[@bforman1300]

@@bond3161 says someone who read that horror story wearing blinders and rose colored glasses.

[@bond3161]

@@bforman1300 empty words Provide an actual line of reasoning please

[@zugabdu1]

Not only do these arguments conceivably work better for polytheism than monotheism, but if your polytheism isn't tri-omni, then you don't need to engage in certain types of apologetics that most monotheists do. You don't need a general theodicy to explain the existence of evil if your gods are not tri-omni gods. You don't need to explain non-belief if the gods don't need everyone to believe in them and don't need to have the ability to convince everyone.

[@1950sTardigrade]

yeah Christians should drop the omnis. the bible itself argues against them, theyre just a drag

[@sakogekchyan7366]

At that point, why even worship these gods? What do you have to gain other than material goods?

[@markblack8521]

Even as I am atheist, polytheism has always made more sense than monotheism. If God exists, then multiple gods are even more likely. Good vid.

[@bond3161]

No that's your choosing bias If there is a creator who is timeless, boundless, all powerful, eternal That's infinity There can only be one Infinity

[@A.G._TRY]

​@@bond3161 no he wasn't biased, you on the other hand are, you said that if there was a god that was infinite or timeless there could only be one, but most polytheistic religions see the death or weaknesses of their gods, therefore you have bias to the monotheistic standard of gods, almighty eternal beings.

[@bond3161]

@@A.G._TRY dude, how many infinite can there be? Death or weakness of God, that sounds like a god to you? Crying out loud

[@A.G._TRY]

@@bond3161 yes it does sound like a god to me, gods themselves don't have to be all powerful, the only reason people associate all mighty power with gods is because of monotheistic religions.

[@A.G._TRY]

On top of that monotheistic religions have holes in their arguments, for example god should be able to stop Lucifer but he doesn't, even though he is all powerful, it would make more sense if Lucifer himself was also a god, but he isn't.

[@grmpEqweer]

A world made by committee, the gods of said committee being less than perfect, not always interested, and not always paying attention? THAT actually fits the experienced world a little better. ...I'm an atheist now for complicated reasons, but, if I were going to return to theism, I'd go back to eclectic paganism.

[@alex.datepsych]

This is exactly my take as well. The gods are more consistent with the world we observe around us.

[@Greenfrog777]

I actually agree with design by committee, though I don't concede the Gods as imperfect. I take the "multiple kinds of greatness" approach. What is "perfect" for the Gods of wolves may be imperfect for the Gods of deer. Design by committee may mean concession and compromise, even among ideal committee members.

[@garynaccarato4606]

The funny thing is that when you examine closely the word Elohim which appears in the book of Genesis and gets replaced with the word God during the verse "in the beginning God created both the heaven and the earth" when translated into English language it more so winds up translating to mean, the gods,the pantheon, or a collective of gods which seems to actually imply that the world was created by a collective unit,multiple entities or by a committee.

[@aguychillin7700]

Greetings from a fellow polytheist turned atheist but also with some questions bumping around. We are flitting across the theistic spectrum and I only hope we settle down somewhere

[@grmpEqweer]

@@garynaccarato4606 There's lots of hints of polytheism in the bible, historians who study the religions of the area would tell you Yahweh started out as a consort of a goddess. Maybe Asherah, but it's been a while since I listened to that talk, so don't take my word.

[@BriannadaSilva]

I'm an atheist but I really enjoyed this video. I'm not convinced by polytheism per se, but I do think you convinced me that many of these classic arguments work better for polytheism than monotheism. So, bravo on that! :P I've never heard these arguments framed in this way. Very refreshing. Thanks for making this!

[@fiittr872]

I find that the Experiential argument works best for a hard polytheist. As a soft polytheist, one would have to invalidate other experiences on the bases that they just have misidentified the experience or didn't have it at all, similar to how it would happen with a monotheist.

[@justinbradley2865]

I think Ocean was trying to point out how difficult it is logically to claim your personal experience is valid while everyone else's is wrong.

[@Nerobyrne]

The argument from experience was always the only one that really resonated with me. I tried searching for Yahweh for around 10 years, and I always found callings that didn't make sense, but now I realize they were from other deities. All the other arguments are just abstract "what if" questions, which are fun to think about, but your personal or shared experience is much much more compelling. But, perhaps that's me, I seem to be drawn much more to the experiences of other humans than to philosophy or logic. I'm sort of a "collector of stories". I listen to tales from Reddit every day, my hobbies all involve stories and I love hearing what people have to say.

[@taproot0619]

This points out a SERIOUS oversight in monotheistic argumentation. And one that I'd noticed, but not focused on in the past. I one told a Christian friend of mine, "first you have to convince me that deity ever existed. Then convince me that deity still exists. (For example, you could argue via the watchmaker that the universe was created by an intelligent mind. But that doesn't mean they're still alive. There are a TON of watches that outlasted their maker. Hence why I think this step is worth separating out from the last one) Then convince me that they give a crap about me/us/humanity. Then convince me that only one exists. Then convince me that its yours." And I could have an interesting back-and-forth with a christian until we got to the last two questions. And they always get stumped. I could concede deism, and even theism to the Christian. But they couldn't ever put forth a decent argument for monotheism. That conversation usually ended in something along the lines of, "but you concede that the Christian god may exist?" "Sure, if you concede that Zues, Ra, Thor, and every other pantheon may exist." It truly shows just how much Christianity v. atheism has cornered the market of theology for so long because there aren't very many arguments from either side that really work too well against polytheists.

[@barretthoven]

See that’s where I fall. I concede that the Christian god may exist, but so may the Egyptian ones or the Norse or Aztec or Greek or Native American or Central African, etc.

[@iainhansen1047]

As an atheist this type of argument is one of my favourite to use when talking to christians. Their arguments never even slightly work towards proving their god existence, only that A god exists. I personally love the version of this that points out how many of the classic Christian arguments for their gods existence come from Islamic theologians, who were obviously trying to justify a different theological framework. Always gets the islamiphobic ones panicking.

[@taproot0619]

@Dough Nut could you explain more on how such a line of argumentation strawman's the Christian theology?

[@devifoxe]

@Dough Nut atheist here... Yea ok you describe Christianity... Ok everyone know what christians believe!!! Now are you willing to make any argument??? Also a lot of polytheistic religion say exactly the same you say... I am not care to argue in this regard.. (I don't like to argue over definitions) But I don't understand why christians are obsessed with the monotheistic label... If don't effect anything in the Christianity if they drop it... Spatial the christian tha are believe in trinity... Is look more of a marketing thing than a theological....

[@taproot0619]

@Dough Nut but I didn't use the word "god" in my argumentation at all. I used the word diety specifically for this reason as to avoid conflating terms. Convincing me of the magnitude, scope, and essence of "God" as "being itself" as you put it would be part of the question, "now convince me that its yours" bit. So I still fail to see how this would be a poor line of questioning for an atheist to ask a Christian.

[@rookmaster7502]

From my perspective as an atheist, polytheism looks way more fun. The more gods, the merrier. And each one with its distinct character and purpose within the supernatural realm. I suppose Christianity, with its Trinity, angels and various saints, is not really that far removed from polytheism.

[@41Duck]

Also atheist. Polytheism is pluralistic by definition, allowing for many traditions to coexist. This also seems to include the tradition that at least one god cannot, therefore does not, exist, as well as the traditionally agnostic.

[@mikehart5619]

Polytheism is more fun.

[@hartwarg3051]

Yep it's true, blondes and Polytheists have more fun

[@reaganeidemiller7132]

Polytheism is also logically more plausible; it grants more room for deities to be naturally emerging, makes it more reasonable that individual deities decide to bother with humans and the human world, and polytheistic deities are less complex and powerful meaning that their presence is more plausible because it requires fewer jumps from what is known.

[@hartwarg3051]

@@reaganeidemiller7132 I wouldn't agree they are less powerful or complex, but more relatable, flawed and fallible. I would say that this makes them even more complex if anything.

[@sootsire2375]

I do love this kind of video because whenever I have these kinds of conversations with my friends, I tend to play the devils advocate for some of those conversations. So when you put forth videos about different ways of thinking, I do deeply enjoy watching them and learning from them. Also, your pun was clever and took me a minute to catch.

[@scarredFalconer]

I often say, "I do not deny the Christian God's existence. Of course He exists. I simply deny the premise that He is the only one, and deny his worship based on his depiction and the actions of his followers." Most people stare at me dumbfounded for a few moments and walk away after that. I have a similar story about a U.S. Military recruiter. He accosted me on a walk and asked if I had ever considered military service. I honestly answered that I had and had decided that it wasn't for me. Poor guy was dumbfounded and didn't know how to respond. The through-thread of these two stories is many people in both positions (The Christian and the recruiter) are so entrenched in their faith that the concept of Knowing necessitates Acceptance. When presented with Knowing and Denial, they become confused, and often don't even try to argue because all their arguments are predicated on the subject not knowing their Truth.

[@SrValeriolete]

In buddhism we have scriptures about how gods come to develop that narcisism of thinking about themselves as all powerful, all knowing creators

[@adenjones1802]

The problem is that our Christian God is omnipresent and thus doesn't make much room for other Gods to exist. He is omnibenevolent and thus it is a moral necessity for us to establish a relationship with, which I suppose you can call worship if you want to. Therefore if you believe that the Christian God exists you have to by definition believe that only he exists or you have to like everyone else not understand him.

[@scarredFalconer]

@@adenjones1802 But omnibelevolent (which is it's own discussion) and omnipresent do not mean exclusive. Nothing about those two qualities logically prevent the existence of other deities. It's the "First unmoved mover" argument again. That argument only proves that there is AT LEAST ONE unmoved mover. It is entirely possible that there are more

[@adenjones1802]

@@scarredFalconerOk lets say that there are multiple heavenly beings. Perfectly possible from a monotheistic perspective (angels and stuff like that) but when we are talking monotheism, we are talking about the being with the highest amount of knowledge, virtue, power, etc. Otherwise what is differentiating you and me from being heavenly beings? The only no arbitrary way to distinguish a God from a non-God is by the attributes a God can have but a non-God can't. Such as being omnipotent. If God has all the power in the universe then there can only be one of him. If there was more than one omnipotent being then these beings would have to share the power between them meaning they don't have all the power, meaning it is a contradiction. Therefore all they arguments that rely on omnipotence require monotheism. Omnipotence is a more falsifiable qualification for God. In other words, Polytheistic arguments are non-falsifiable or at least more difficult to hold any strict, workable definitions for as compared to Monotheism which lives and dies on its tri-omni definitions. This is why atheists prefer to debate us because we give them something to work with.

[@0verlordgaming912]

@@adenjones1802 Except the Christian god is born out of earlier, polytheistic near eastern societies, often having influence from Greek and IE philosophy/religions. I don't think Yahweh has anymore sway in being the unmoved mover than say Wodin or the Dagda.

[@lucideandre]

Not a theist myself, but I just realized that if we scale up the analogy to a building, you can even go further than “people who built the building”. Because I could imagine a monotheist saying that, well, one single architect created the building, and the others only helped. Now, setting aside that that’s not how buildings work, and that a bunch of others need to come up with things in the building, one could use as an analogy something like a library. It’s a building. It also has ornaments of various types along its walls. It also contains shelves and tables and chairs. And those contain a myriad books. Then it’s even more polytheistic. You need people to create the building project, and the people who build it. But you also need artists to create the ornaments. You need artisans to create the furniture. And you need all the creative authors, painters, philosophers, etc to write the books. And all the book makers to print them out and bind them. You need a vast myriad of both creative and practical minds to come up and put this thing together. And if you don’t, you don’t have a library. At best, you have an empty building. Likely not even that, but just a blueprint. Certainly not a library.

[@computergamescritical6917]

I think it’s just kind of stupid to make a 1-to-1 analogy between watches and the entire universe. Like, of course one human couldn’t build an entire skyscraper, but a being possessing omnipotence and knowledge of all things could build one effortlessly just by willing it into existence. Likewise, I find people who just say that the universe is obviously designed are people who just kind of feel that way, they simply point to the precise intricacy of the whole of reality. But, the precise nature of physics can’t be understood at all, you could say it’s intelligently designed, and some would say that the universe is fine-tuned, because certain constants of the universe function to certain incredibly small windows for life to exist. But, why isn’t this standard of “fine-tuning” applied elsewhere? Why specifically just the constants of the universe? You could say that the concept of spacetime being bendable (which allows gravity to exist) is evidence of fine tuning, or the fact that gravity is proportional to mass/energy, and not, say, the rate of cosmic inflation, and what if those constants had to be set to those specific numbers, because of hidden variables? Like how volume is length times width times height, but that’s specifically because of how geometry works, volume literally has to be proportional to that or else it wouldn’t be volume, likewise, perhaps the constants of the universe are proportional to certain variables and simply have to be that way. Darwinian evolution perfectly accounts for life, even if you may not find the explanation believable because it looks designed, that itself is not proof at all, it’s simply a logical fallacy known as an Argument from Personal Astonishment. Anyway, not sure why I went off there, but just some things I’d like to say about theistic arguments.

[@lucideandre]

@@computergamescritical6917 like I said at the beginning of my comment, I’m not a theist. I myself don’t find those arguments for god convincing. I’m just engaging with it, doing a sort of thought experiment of how the cosmological argument could make the most sense. While, of course, an infinite and omnipotent being could do it, we’ve never seen such a thing. On the contrary, all the beings we know are limited, but can achieve great things through cooperation. So if one grants the cosmological argument, multiple limited cooperative agents make more sense than a single one with no limits, based purely on what we experience in our world. Also, if I’m to take this though experiment one step further, the chaotic nature of the universe could be excused easily with multiple deites, as multiple deities can mean conflict, and conflicting ideas about how to “build” the universe, thus forcing those conflicting notions to coexist. The results, while beautiful, are also chaotic. Again, I don’t believe this. It doesn’t convince me. But it is an attempt to engage with this stuff differently

[@computergamescritical6917]

@@lucideandre Thank you for your response. I wasn’t claiming you were a theist, though perhaps that might have been what I was unwittingly communicating, my reply was mostly just a broad critique of theistic arguments, and also a critique against an atheistic/polytheistic argument. I think that, as we explore deeper aspects of the universe, there is no guarantee that it will have any parallels with the things we are familiar with, space and time seem constant and unrelated, but Einstein proved they were connected, and oddly enough, bendable, like a material substance. When you’re talking about the creation or origin or potential design of the universe, we are now talking about an area that we can’t even make empirical judgements on, we have no idea what made our universe come into existence, and so although we have parallels to the construction of, say, a skyscraper on our planet, when it comes to the “construction” of the universe, we have no idea what happened, and no guarantee that it works in any way similar to anything we’re familiar with, we don’t even necessarily know if it pertains to the laws of logic or if it can be even comprehended by humans. Perhaps some people think it’s more likely that the universe keeps on working in the same, consistent fashion on its “lower” levels as it does its “higher” levels. The different spatial dimensions, for example, are all just layers of the preceding spatial dimension, the 2nd dimension is just rows of the 1st, and the 3rd dimension is just rows of the 2nd. So perhaps some think it’s more likely that something like the “design” or “creation” of the universe may work in similar ways to human design, but ultimately, this is purely speculative, we don’t know if that would be the case if such hypothetical “spirit beings” or “higher powers” existed and were manipulating the world, because they may work in ways entirely alien to our conception of reality.

[@lucideandre]

@@benjiman_OBE oh, sure. But the people to operate and use the library could be said to be just…people. As in, other beings beyond those who originally created it

[@lucideandre]

@@benjiman_OBE I mean, sure. That’s a way of seeing it. Like I pointed out in the beginning of my comment, I’m not a theist. I’m an atheist. I’m not defending my the existence of any deities here. I’m also not opposing it, I’m just making a thought experiment. But also, Ricky Gervais is interesting in that he’s certainly someone with some irrational, unjustified, made-up beliefs that likely will become obsolete.

[@41Duck]

At 12 seconds, I stopped the video, tossed the phone, and left the room. There was no point in me trying to watch anything at that point until my eyerollers settled down. Once I got a cup of coffee and was better prepared, I was able to watch on through, and was howling with laughter. Fucking brilliant, man. Well done!

[@pinkartwitch]

I’m a hard-ish polytheist but I wanted to point something out that was said I have an issue with - Ocean was discussing with the experiential argument that in order to argue for a multi-faceted god (ie all gods are just the same one with different masks) you would have to favour a view that dismisses certain experiences to relabel them and we have to accept the experiences as described to be consistent. I think there’s a bit of a pitfall with your argument because our experiences as human beings are fallible, so I do agree with the spirit of the experiential argument and that’s actually the argument that landed me in the polytheist camp from a strictly monotheist worldview, but I think holding space for doubting experiences is an important counter-weight in our faith. Just because you experience a thing, it doesn’t make the interpretation of that thing correct. That does NOT give us a right to discount everyone else’s experiences, not at all, and that is exactly what monotheists do, but it’s just something to keep in mind. A point about the cosmological argument I’d love people’s viewpoints on, which I actually think adds strength to the idea of many gods, is that the universe could very well be uncreated by the gods, the gods don’t need to have been its originator AND it could be very well that when the universe was created, that’s when the gods came into being as well. So even if they didn’t create the universe, they could still very well be an essential part of its ecosystem. Just a thought, very much unprovable but something I’ve thought about.

[@OceanKeltoi]

I think we're mostly in agreement. But for the experiential argument you would want to avoid relabeling experiences in order to collect your initial data of the experiences. After that, you may build a model of understanding that is polytheistic, and that may lean in a direction of hard or soft polytheism, or that some deities express themselves in a soft polytheist sort of way, and others a hard polytheist sort of way. But that would be something that is done after you honestly look at the descriptions of the experiences themselves. Any honest exploration of that, however, would have to include that humans can make mistakes. Not everyone's description of their experience is honest, or even well understood. So there's plenty of room for error in what we're looking at, and that consideration must be part of the analysis.

[@SHDUStudios]

It’s crazy how monotheists will just dismiss us as demon worshippers too.

[@MrFredstt]

Happens all the time. Being extremely dogmatic seems to be integral with monotheists specifically Christians and Muslims. They are so confident that they're right and that we MUST be tricked by satan or some shit and thus we're evil at worst or misguided fools at best

[@Fcozer]

I love the ontological argument. It can apply to anything you want and it gives me hope that somewhere there is this great perfect chocolate cake that I can imagine, which, if can be imagined, must be real to actually be great and perfect.

[@mavrospanayiotis]

As usual your videos goes much deeper and give a lot of arguments pro polytheism in general. A reference point.

[@SpinoMedia]

Yo agnostic here, kinda flipping over tables in the search for meaning, and I think these videos have been interesting. Not sure if it’s for me yet, but I appreciate the effort.

[@trevorhanson6295]

We need more polytheistic centric philosophy. Thank you for the video! Looking forward to more of these. :D

[@prateekatt]

Turn to Hinduism

[@mpbarber12]

I have always looked at religion from an experiential point of view which is why I have never engaged with an atheist who wants me to "prove" that God exists or prove to a monotheist that the Gods exist. Religion, in my opinion, is by its very nature a very personal thing as no two people will have the same experiences and interactions with a supreme deity or multiple deities. So when asked for "proof" of any divine existence my response is usually, "That is something you are going to have to figure out for yourself."

[@flakjacket2559]

Glad to see this video. I'm officially coming out at work and eventually with my family as a pagan/polytheist; This helps me feel more sane. Thank you lol

[@thelostpsychosis]

I'd say the Experiential argument works best for Polytheism, most Polytheists I've heard of, talked to and learned from all have a plethora of experiences that they've shared, I myself have only had one or two experiences with the Gods, but those few alone are enough for me. Also, the one with the analogy about buildings makes way more sense for Polytheism, rather than Monotheism.

[@jackwalter5030]

I've watched this video twice. You're done a top-notch job of summarizing these philosophies. Thanks so much.

[@alexcypher4794]

Reading about the Socrates v Euthyphro dialogue from the standpoint of appreciating the discord of the gods communicated within it leads to something special.

[@avanijoy]

Whoa whoa whoa... You just breezed past a Norse concept of chaos... Please do a video focused on that!

[@jayjeckel]

7:00 Positing one deity or many deities as the uncaused cause(s) doesn't really change the argument. In both cases you're adding an additional claim that isn't actually necessary since the creation of the universe itself can be named the uncaused cause with no need for sentient beings, magical or otherwise. 11:00 One omnipotent deity creating on its own or multiple deities working together, that doesn't really fill any of the holes in the watchmaker argument. The main problem with the watch maker argument is that counter to its main premise, the world (much less the universe) isn't well deigned for human life; the exact opposite in fact, the planet and the universe are extremely hostile to human life.

[@cmac8154]

Creation myths have always been a struggle for me because they all start with creating "something" from "nothing" by describing all of the THINGS/Beings present in the so-called nothing. They simply shift the starting point. As for the fine-tuning of the universe, this planet is finely tuned for a series of ecosystems, some of which are friendly to life, some of which are hostile to it (think incredible pressures and darkness of the deep ocean where very few organisms can manage to hang onto life). Also, every other planet in the universe has its own highly specific set of conditions, some of which may support life we haven't yet found. There is to me no reason to think this planet with its set of circumstances was the goal and epitome of creation, it was simply one of the many outcomes.

[@jessifiello7201]

I love that you do these videos. You’re so great at debating. You could say you’re a master-debater.

[@OceanKeltoi]

I used to do many debates back to back. You might say i was a mass debater.

[@jessifiello7201]

@@OceanKeltoi even better!

[@TheZeroNeonix]

A lot of these arguments rely on assumptions about things we can't know. The Kalām Cosmological Argument relies on the assumption that the universe began to exist. Given that space and time are connected, where you cannot have one without the other, I think it is more reasonable to assume that the universe never began to exist. The singularity, where all that exists was once condensed into a single point, is the first moment in time. There's no reason to assume there was anything before the singularity, since that would require a time before...time. Also, the idea that the universe is somehow fine-tuned is flawed in many ways. First, it assumes that the universe could have existed in any other form. Second, even if we grant that the universe could have had different rules for things like gravity, how do we know there are not infinite universes for every single possibility? Third, the argument assumes that there are no other possible universes in which life could exist, which is unlikely, given there would be an infinite number of possibilities. Fourth, given that there is only one known planet with life on it, in an unimaginably vast universe, and how inhospitable the vast majority of the universe is to life, it does not seem reasonable to call this universe fine-tuned to our needs in the first place. Our one small planet is the only place we can survive, and there have been many mass extinction events throughout history when life on earth nearly ended. Contrary to the universe being fine-tuned to suit us, it seems life is fine-tuned to survive in a universe which keeps trying to snuff it out. That being said, I do find it amusing how these arguments work for polytheists. Monotheists often make these arguments as if we're supposed to come to the conclusion that their specific god must exist. If we assume the universe must have had an uncaused cause, a non-deistic cause is compatible with polytheism, a single god as the cause is compatible with polytheism, multiple gods as the cause is compatible with polytheism. So then, why do Christians and Muslims just dismiss polytheism as an explanation? It's like they think the only options are atheism and their religion.

[@philosophicaljay3449]

Love this video. I think that using this line of arguments is useful when debating monotheism vs polytheism, and you basically covered 1/3 of what I usually build my case around here. I find that the experiential argument(s) tend to be very unconvincing to people even though, I believe, they are quite sound. I think that there are two main arguments used by monotheists to counter polytheism that are common enough to warrant being addressed, and that is the argument from god's singular nature by using the Identity of Indiscernibles (which Max Black disproved decades ago but is still quite common) as well as the argument that the gods would inevitably come into conflict and bring rise to various paradoxes (I see this often when debating with Muslims in online forums, it has its own issues as well, but takes more explanation than the previous one).

[@WildMen4444]

I would argue the various "paradoxes" are not a bug but a feature of Polytheism. Yes, if there are many Gods that are concerned with different things then there will indeed be times those things come into conflict. Lo and behold that is actually something we see happen with the Gods: various stories and instances They come into conflict. Why is this? One need only look at the natural world. It's built upon conflict! Night and day, predators and prey, health and illness, friction and inertia, etc. The world stops working properly if any one of these truly prevails. Conflict among the Gods therefore is not a problem but a necessity. This is compounded by the fact that these conflicts lead to creations and the Gods Themselves provide cultural ways to navigate these conflicts such as sacrifices to appease land spirits when we need to take resources or rites of passage that allow for young people to go from the protection of childhood deities to the realm of deities with more adult concerns. The world is dynamic and therefore a dynamic conception of the divine is far more plausible

[@philosophicaljay3449]

@@WildMen4444 "I would argue the various "paradoxes" are not a bug but a feature of Polytheism." Don't know if I would go that far. One of the more common paradoxes relies on the tri-Omni god, which is the god concept used by many monotheists and Neo-Platonists. How it goes is assume two gods wanted opposite things, what occurs? For example, God A says 'let there be unicorns' and God B says "let there not be unicorns'. Both gods are Omnipotent, and so we end up with a logical problem. Of course, this is shown to be a bad objection as it ignored two other properties of gods, Omniscience and Omnibenevolence. In this case each god would only be able to do good things and they know that what the other gods want are also good, so why would they ever come into conflict with one another? But even if we assume that the gods are not tri-Omni, how does the universe maintain uniformity of nature? If gods are able to influence the very nature of things, how can we ever trust induction? While some chaotic elements exist within the universe, it still does ultimately follow a level of uniformity. If there are multiple gods then this needs explanation. Personally, I tend to favor the view of the gods, for the most part, being rational beings (favoring some level of Platonism with my non-Platonist paganism), and so I find this easy enough to address. It is, however, something that does need to be addressed by some polytheists. I think one of the advantages we have in addressing this problem, however, comes from combining the rejection of mythic literalism with some of the works of pagan philosophers, specifically this quote, "For this is law amongst us Gods; none of us will thwart his neighbour's will, but ever we stand aloof" Artemis, Hyppolytus. Here we have textual backing that the gods do not thwart the wills of other gods, thus they do not come into conflict with each other. Breaking the uniformity of nature would necessitate that such a conflict occurs. Of course, this text only seems to suggest that there is some sort of contingent agreement for such a thing but not that the gods necessarily don't thwart each others will. By supposing the gods are rational, as I do, I think we can preserve the uniformity of nature without necessitating that the gods never disagree. Rational conflict and disagreement is then possible, but as all parties are rational it would not be hard to argue that the uniformity of nature is a result of the base agreement they all have as rational agents.

[@WildMen4444]

@@philosophicaljay3449 Well, there's a couple of things I have to say to that. The first one being that your first point is kinda moot. We already are at the conclusion that there aren't any tri-omni deities competing against each other. Just wouldn't work. Secondly, I will say that perhaps I should have clarified that the conflicts in question are not really conflicts. As you say, the Gods are not actively negating each other's wills. The myths aren't literal. However, They do engage with each other in ways that cause change and are manifested symbolically as a conflict. These symbolize the changes we see in the outer and inner worlds. So my point still stands. There are things that clash and those things are represented in divine drama as conflict but really ultimately are for the collective goal of maintaining cosmic order. Breaking the order to reaffirm order

[@ZMattStudio]

It could be that my understanding of Max Black’s critique is incomplete, but as far as I understand it it is far from a disproof. If the symmetrical universes in which the spheres reside in are in fact distinct, then we can identify them as two independent (though symmetrical) universes. And if we can identify them independently, then they can be predicates. If applying these different predicates to their corresponding spheres results in the asymmetry that Black claims, then their definitions are inherently contradictory, and cannot be used to prove or disprove anything. If it does not result in asymmetry, then the spheres have different predicates, and are not the same. If the universes cannot be identified independently, then they are only separate if we already assume identity of discernible to be false. If we assume it to be true, they are then the same universe, and thus the sphere contained within is the same.

[@philosophicaljay3449]

​@@ZMattStudio Max Black's symmetrical universe isn't comparing two different universes. Think of it this way, there exists a universe that only has two identical balls in it. Their position within the universe is such that the universe is entirely symmetrical. Anything you can say about Ball 1 can also be said about Ball 2. Even relational properties are identical as the universe is symmetrical. Is there one ball or two? In fact, let's replace the balls with two photons that are just sitting there, because we already know through scientific reasoning that photons share entirely identical properties. The mere fact that such a universe with two photons within it seems metaphysically possible suggests that the Identity of Indiscernibles is false. After all, if every property of one thing is equally shared with another thing then those must, in fact, be just one thing via the Identity of Indiscernibles, but this hypothetical universe does not seem to be metaphysically impossible and so the Identity of Indiscernibles must be false. A friend of mine is in the works into formalizing this with a photon as the example, but to quickly use it in an example, Let's say that there is an Omnipotent god looking at a universe. At the moment the universe has only one thing in it, a photon. Can said god, being Omnipotent, create a second photon within this universe in such a way that the universe becomes symmetrical (given that he could also, theoretically, move the already existing photon to a different location within said universe)? If so, then could said God now use that universe as a blueprint and create a new universe identical to it? Within the old universe you could argue that the two photons are distinct as they have different temporal properties (one having existed long), but this is not the case for the two photons in the new universe. These two photons would have every conceivable property identical, so are they actually two different photons or just one? Obviously there are two, but this cannot be allowed under the Identity of Indiscernibles, so either something (what could it be though) about this state of affairs is impossible or else the Identity of Indiscernibles is false.

[@kamilgregor]

Another argument which works better for polytheism is the argument from divine inspiration. When the Holy Spirit makes Christians speak in tongues, they babble gibberish. But when the Mouses inspire epic poets, they recite tens of thousands of verses in flawless classical hexameters. Just sayin'...

[@ginomammana]

Very good arguments, excellent examples, all was VERY clear even for someone whose mother tongue is not English. I look forward to a part 2

[@Entererofthethreshold]

I’m fairly jealous of people new to these ways. 18 years ago when I started, it was either Wicca influenced books or fundamentalist like reconstructionists. Amazing how much the culture has grown, how many more mjolnirs I see etc.

[@MrFredstt]

I can't even imagine how desolate the pagan scene must've been 18 years ago assuming you're also from the west

[@GnosticInformant]

I agree! You can't explain the problem of evil and imperfection with an all knowing, all powerful single god working alone. It can only be explained if there is multiple gods that are not all knowing and all powerful.

[@bond3161]

Umm no God created a free will universe where ❤ is possible There is rebellion thus evil

[@XxfreyaxXx]

@@bond3161 responding to every comment isn’t gonna win people over

[@bond3161]

@@XxfreyaxXx just doing what i can Cheers What objections do you have maybe i can clear it up for you God is love He died for you so you may live.

[@lucy-vh3oi]

I spent a good 30 seconds trying to see what was written at minute 13:03 and when I did I felt so called out- anyway I loved this video so much!! I learned a lot, thank you

[@OceanKeltoi]

Making it on screen for such a short time like that probably made it more likely for ADHD people to make sure they knew what it said.

[@philosophicaljay3449]

Same. I have learned to set video speed to .25 when I try to pause the video for such things.

[@samikaysays]

YUP. Same

[@Florkl]

Excellent food for thought for myself and a new direction to explore in discussions I have with Christian family and friends.

[@demetriusprice5890]

I grew up Mormon, with the belief of God the Eternal Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost as three separate dieties as well as Heavenly Mother(s) and the ability for people to become Gods. So, when I correctly identified that we're practicing polytheism, I was disfellowshipped.

[@carmenbitzer3583]

Your videos have become my watch before before bedtime reading routine. Very informative and I’m really enjoying all of your content.

[@PODBOOM]

Best intro pun yet (IMO) I LOVE language, and words, so that one hit hard. Well done, good sir!!!

[@MegaTomPlays]

I battled with this for a bit when I started researching the Gods/polytheism, it says in the bible no other gods before me so on a basic level Christian text declares that there are multiple Gods. Now I wear my Mjölnir with pride and am attempting to learn as much as possible! Thanks Ocean!

[@bond3161]

What? That's your understanding of it? Ffs....

[@tjohannam]

I lean agnostic/atheist with an interest in religion, if I had to choose a religion polytheism would be my choice. It just makes the most sense and I like the many regional versions✨

[@Earendil1979]

As a christian, I was super into all this stuff... but I realized I was arguing simply for the enjoyment of it most of the time and so stopped being theologically argumentative. So I guess that makes me an adherent of the Experiential argument. I had many experiences as a christian which I of course attributed to God as defined by modern US evangelicals, of the Reformer followers and Baptists particularly. As I began to move away from Evangelicalism through the outbound path through ever more mystical forms of christianity (of which I never finally gave up. I think I tend now to feel that Jesus is one of the gods I worship, whatever that means) I started questioning many of those experiences as whether they weren't just a group emotional response. There were however a few which were outside of a group experience, and felt VERY true and real. They were also however, all, or nearly all, in a natural setting, and rooted in my connection to and appreciation of the spiritual aspects of the natural world. Which then makes me wonder, was it really Jesus? I realized that I've been connecting to spirituality like a pagan since I was a naked little kid running through the woods behind my house in the spring, having about as pagan a spring fertility and rebirth ritual as one could have.

[@joenathan8059]

I think the simple fact that even in monotheistic religions there are other deities(even if you think they are lesser or if god is tri-omni) proves it. I'm not even sure if you could call it monotheism,maybe Henotheism is more appropriate.

[@BlackLotusVisualArchive]

This is largely why reading the bible turned me Mesopotamian Polytheist. The bible literally says Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Canaanite gods have power, just that... they're """evil""". In reality, Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Canaanites were normal every day people like Israelites and weren't any more wicked than anyone else, especially as ancient history is a mess of imperialism and genocide no matter what people group you look at

[@joenathan8059]

@@BlackLotusVisualArchive the bible has countless examples of people worshipping other gods and gaining knowledge and power from them. Also mesopotamian paganism,what's that like

[@kevincrady2831]

I do not think the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments make a good case for gods, but they do fit much better with polytheism than monotheism. The Teleological Argument in particular would argue for polytheism and _against_ monotheism, at least if the "One God" is supposed to be Tri-Omni. The core concept of the Teleological Argument is _design._ "Design" is a process by which one or more intelligent entities plans the creation of something in order to achieve a purpose. E.g., a watch is a device for telling time, a building can be used for office space, residency, shops, religious practice (a temple), and so on. However, the need to _design_ something arises because the designers can't just _will_ their purpose to be achieved and have it be so. Their power is _limited._ The design (in our Universe) must be crafted to take into account the known principles of physics, available materials and resources, etc.. So when we talk about the Universe being "fine-tuned for life," that presupposes that the Fine-Tuners are _limited_ by physics. They can't just make life appear in any old universe. Instead, they must engage in some delicate, precise "fine-tuning" to make life possible (assuming that is their purpose). Then we have to take into account that they only _barely_ managed it. This Universe consists almost entirely of hard vacuum bathed in ionizing radiation. The vast, vast majority of the rest of it--stars, asteroids, planets, etc.--is also uninhabitable by life as we know it. Thus, if _this_ Universe was "fine-tuned for life," i.e., being a home for life is its _purpose,_ it follows that the Fine-Tuners could not have created a verdant, flourishing Cosmos filled with life everywhere you look. This militates against the sort of Deity that could have arranged physics to be anything it wanted, or just went with a completely malleable "cartoon physics" instead. Designers have to play by the rules. A Tri-Omni monotheist "God" doesn't.

[@bond3161]

There can only be one Infinite I can't see it any other way

[@neopagan1976]

@@bond3161 - Nobody cares how you see it. Why are you so desperate to convert people? I think if your God wanted more followers, he would convert people on his own. He wouldn't need you to speak for him.

[@bond3161]

@@neopagan1976 its not how i see it. Its a matter of objectivity. Two plus two is four yes? Scientific ideas come from logic and rationality yes? So does philosophy. It matters because its the only consistent answer to literally everything, from meaning, purpose, to valies and morality. It literally IS the idea of love, something every one knows for sure. On the surface Christianity seems to be another religion. But thats just the invisible war we are caught in between. God has already won for the war for us. And he says, believe in the gift he has given to us so that we may live past death. I love you and and all, why wouldn't i want you to have the best gift? Why wouldnt i want everyone to know love, and receive it? Let us follow the evidence.

[@neopagan1976]

@@bond3161 - It's like I previously stated. Nobody actually cares about how you see it. You Christians should have learned by now that the world doesn't revolve around your religion. It never had. Why do you think nobody in this comment section will ever be willing to listen to you. The human race had survived for millennia long before your religion came along, and the human race will continue to survive long after your religion has faded into oblivion. Oh, and yes. Your religion really will fade away, It's already in an accelerated steep decline. For the record, when it comes to science and objectivity, don't be trying to lecture anyone, because you lack even the most basic knowledge of both topics. Oh, just to be clear, there is no actual secret war against you Christians. People would have to view your religion as being something of real value before they'd even be interested enough to declare some kind of war on it. The truth is that ultimately your religion never had any real value attached to it. In other words, your religion just isn't interesting enough for people to even bother declaring war on. This is especially true since there are so many other more spiritually authentic religions to choose from. FYI, your God could hardly win a war that never actually took place.

[@Eorthedohtor]

I liked this video a lot. I was thinking myself for a while that many arguments work just as well fot Polytheism. I think I first realized this fully when it was pointed out that experiential arguments are inherently Polytheist/don't work well for Monotheism and that the Monotheist would have to avoid using it.

[@beansheinz968]

Nice video as always! Christians of the ancient and medieval world would affirm the existence of hierarchies of spiritual beings. I worry that the general debate about monotheism vs polytheism today is often clouded by neither side knowing much about what the other actually believes. A Christian today who shares a worldview more in line with pre-enlightenment christians would say that the polytheist is right to recognise countless spiritual beings as well, with some caveats. I would recommend anyone watch Jonathan Pageau's two videos on Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and monotheism especially, as well as his other videos for a primer on returning to a symbolic worldview, which if recaptured seems to help reconcile the experience and understanding of both polytheists and monotheists. I'd love to see both camps engaging more on a serious level without being bogged down so often by Suitcase Materialism

[@mjdjoy]

Your videos remind me of going to church, but If going to church was enjoyable.

[@tietajavaskimaan296]

awesome video once again philosopher Ocean keltoi! 10/10

[@grmpEqweer]

5:22 "I'm just dicking around at this point." 🤣

[@kevincrady2831]

"Definitely something to toy with." 🤣

[@northp_the_green_pale_pete]

Philosophy is difficult in my opinion. But these are some great explanations and arguments to consider in support of polytheism. Thanks for another great video!

[@konnosx1213]

It is important I think to note the climate of syncretism that existed across the Roman Empire by the time when Christianity first appeared. Around late antiquity civilisations we tend to think of as insular had come in extensive contact with each other. The Ancient Greeks knew of Buddhism and Hinduism; there was even a philosophical school of "Hellenic Buddhism". Plato's own proto-gnostic beliefs were somewhat prevelent though probably seen as fringe. The whole concept of Heaven and Hell was not present in Judaism, it probably came from Zoroastrianism which has an explicit Apocalypse very similar to the Christian one where good people get rewarded and bad people are destroyed, the destruction is even done through fire but that doesn't say a lot considering that pretty much everything in Zoroastrianism is tied to fire. There is even the theory that -if he was a real person- Jesus himself might have been influenced by these beliefs.

[@timhennessey7778]

Another great talk ,thank you

[@tickytickytango5634]

So if the belief that every sentence must start with a definite article is the-ism, then the belief that every sentence must start with an article, definite or indefinite, would be a/the-sim?

[@Nerobyrne]

For me, the teleological argument was always the weakest, because it defeats itself. It requires that you recognize the watch as uniquely designed, and the beach to not be designed. It then argues that this means the beach actually was designed. Meaning that it's an argument that requires itself to be false in order to work.

[@OceanKeltoi]

this is an excellent point.

[@philosophicaljay3449]

I think that the teleological argument works better by focusing on structured order. If we came across some unknown object in the woods we would still come to the conclusion that it is designed if it seems to have some level of structured order to it. Even if we observe some parts and those parts seem more random to us as first observation, the overall design would still be apparent. The universe is much the same, it has a structured order to it (it operates on mathematical principles). Even if parts of it might seem random at times, when you dive deep enough you find more and more of that randomness explained. There are still some flaws to this formulation, but I think that by moving into this general direction that the watchmaker analogy can be saved. I do, however, think the fine-tuning version of the teleological argument does not fall into the same pitfalls as the like of watchmaker arguments.

[@Nerobyrne]

@@philosophicaljay3449 this actually makes it even worse, as it posits a "designed" quality that we recognize intuitively, meaning we also intuitively recognize it's absence in the woods around it. And much like the woods around it, we also recognize it in the universe. In fact, SETI wouldn't be possible if the teleological argument held any water. Science itself relies on us NOT believing this argument. If it was true, science would be impossible, as we'd have no way of recognizing design from non-design, since we recognize that EVERYTHING is designed.

[@philosophicaljay3449]

@@Nerobyrne I disagree. I think that by following this line of reasoning that you can find an underlying design element throughout the universe, but that does not presume that such order will be anywhere but in the foundations. For example, you can create a code that outputs a random mess of things. While the surface layer of the observation would be a random mess of things, and thus clearly not something that seems designed, but looking further into things, closer to the foundations you will start to see design. This is why we can recognize, for example, the pocketwatch as designed while not having the same intuitions for trees. The pocketwatch's structured order is also clear to see on the surface as well as the foundation while the forest it was found in does not have that structured order on the surface. As such, SETI would still be possible as what is being looked for is that 'surface layer' being ordered. As I said in the previous comment, it is by diving deep enough that the elements of randomness become more explained.

[@Nerobyrne]

@@philosophicaljay3449 yeah there are ways you can find order in the universe, it's just that the teleological argument doesn't get you there. Even logically. P1: there are natural laws which cause things to manifest in reliable ways. P2: intelligent beings are able to manifest objects in ways clearly not natural. C: the universe was intelligently designed That makes NO sense.

[@autiejedi5857]

Even the watch implies multiple, as the watchmaker needed to get the parts from somewhere in order to assemble it.

[@raylea72]

Ooo, all that shade at 12:50.

[@thevinlanddragon]

I am deeply enjoying these takes.

[@diamondflaw]

“Definitely something to toy with…” Bad Dragon has entered the chat.

[@petrfedor1851]

For me personaly multiple gods makes more sense than one. Numerous invinidual agents affecting world in multiple different way is way more in line with how unnecesary overcomplicated reality is.

[@rinyotsu2.0]

The Christian God is like the mob boss who has his henchies going around saying "would you like to buy this bridge I built?"

[@shadowdragon3521]

I never found the Cosmological or Teleological arguments very convincing because they both claim that the god(s) created the universe, and I do not personally believe in creationism in that sense. So for that reason I think the Experiential argument works best out of the arguments you listed. However, if we ditch philosophic arguments I think there's something to be said to the fact that historically, most human civilizations have been polytheist for most of their existence. It's possible that in the distant past people had a stronger connection to the gods than we do today, which is why polytheism was so ubiquitous no matter where in the world you look. On the other hand, the switch to monotheism wasn't so much of a natural transition as it was forced-conversion.

[@dhooth]

the idea of multiple people working different jobs on a construction site (around 11:50) reminded me of patron saints in catholicism. in the past people used to pray to specific saints rather than to god himself if the matter was a bit too specialised/inconsequential to bring it up to the literal creator of the universe. like if you'd lost something you'd pray to saint anthony etc

[@mercedesbenz3751]

The concept of Monotheism is responsible for all unrests in the world. Monotheistic thinking in religion, thought, ideology, food, clothing and everything else is the prime cause for unrest. In other words, ''Only my way, Only my god, Only my book, Only my faith. Or only 1 way, 1 God, 1 Book, 1 faith.'' This kind of thought is responsible for all the chaos in the world.

[@haltijaEntertainment]

If anyone did have an answer 8:36, i'd love to see that pinned. An interpretation of Genesis 1 could be all the Elohim created everything together, and with that reading, 1:4 could be that they agreed collectively that it was good. But other than that interpretation, I can't think of anything-and I think a lot of about myth.

[@OceanKeltoi]

It's an interesting idea to explore. I hadn't come across a conception of polytheism that holds to that. But it would be really interesting to explore if one such tradition exists.

[@RebelRebelRose]

The road block I run into arguing with christians is the whole "God's ways are not our ways" so we cant understand it with human logic and the argument is over because you can't argue on a faith based belief

[@OceanKeltoi]

Thats called the “appeal to mystery” and its not exactly helpful to the Monotheist because it doesnt actually offer a justification other than a willful override of evidence counter to their position.

[@veracyning5572]

Where the watch maker argument fails, (and this makes fundies furious) is that the person who made the watch didn't invent it, or possibly any part of it, and certainly didn't invent the concept of time. It took many people over thousands of years to come to the point of a pocket watch. So if nothing else, this is an argument for polytheism 😋

[@taitaisanchez]

I’m personally a big fan of the experiential argument. It’s not falsifiable externally and doesn’t have a lot of the philosophical baggage that something like the cosmological or teleological arguments do. It just lets you live life without pondering the nitpicky stuff and enjoy things. It also feels like it’s asking the wrong question. Asking “do the gods exist” seems to be about superstition and at what point do our relationships with the Gods and praxis go from a fun use of our time to a nonsensical waste of our time. Instead I want to ask, what does this deity’s influence do for you? What would you be inspired to do with your experience that you wouldn’t otherwise do? Or if you’re an atheist, what does this lack of a deity’s influence on your life mean? How are you now more free? How do you see yourself in this beautiful, glorious naturalistic world we have? My UPG experience with Freya has a lot to do with my trans feminine experience and my connection to the divine feminine. To be fully myself. From being soft and warm and kind to also the more salacious aspects of my life. No argument for or against the existence of deity can change that. I am more at ease with being a woman because I have Freya reminding me I’m as much of a woman as anyone else and to fight any bastard who says otherwise. Speaking of, any plans on doing a video about Vanatru?

[@cynicviper]

The same as you find yourself in that "feeling good with yourself" I find myself in "truth". I don't mean this to say "I'm right" or something, just that one of, if not the most important things for me is that I'm representing reality as fairly as possible and not. as what I wish it to be. That being said, I personally don't subscribe to "objective truth". I think our conception of it comes from the way we are as subjects, so there's no way to get out of that and have "an outside perspective". Sorry for the rambling, but I just wanted to say that while you might value something like "meaning" (correct me if this is a misrepresentation in any way), I value "truth", so these questions over the existence of anything really, not just gods is important to me.

[@taitaisanchez]

​@@cynicviper I come from kind of a utilitarian mindset. There are a lot of things that are true, but almost worthless. It's true I can't eat the sun, for example, but in my day to day life it's not a useful truth. For me, meaning is about how we can influence how we interact with other people. That which is true is compelling only because we face so much uncertainty. Usually in how other people react or deal with either us or the world we share. The truth is a swiss army knife that we can either use to shank someone or pop a champagne cork.

[@cynicviper]

@@taitaisanchez That is perfectly reasonable, and I do think truth is almost wholly instrumental, but isn't that the same for your interactions with other people, or even your feeling of accomplishment/meaning/happiness? Aren't those instrumental towards some other goal (in one sense at least)? And, not to just go contrary to your statement or anything, but I'm extremely against utilitarianism. I care little about what use things may have or if they are practical. I just value thinking, the deeper, the better (usually). I can understand it might feel like useless mental gymnastics, but what is wrong with that? I just enjoy doing it, it doesn't have to have any use outside of that(kind of like actual gymnastics).

[@taitaisanchez]

@@cynicviper I'm not a huge fan of utilitarianism, it just works for me more often than I feel like it really should. Also I feel like it's illegal to talk about instrumentality without dropping some kind of Evangelion refere... *turns instantly into Tang*

[@cynicviper]

@@taitaisanchez Lol. I don't know if you got anything from this "conversation", but it was fun either way. I hope the best for you and good night. 👋

[@john80944]

I think this is kind of the core problem of any religious discourse: they're arguments, and from what I know about speaking religion with normal people, arguments don't work the way they're intended. People don't believe in something that logically makes sense. People believe. Period. Sometimes logic matters, and more times they don't. Arguments are fun, like theoricrafting are fun. But it doesn't touch people like the divine touched us.

[@OceanKeltoi]

Generally I think this is true. But I also think that a lot of the arguments do matter for those that think in that sort of way. For me, they are good for articulating certain concepts and expressing why I agree with something.

[@bond3161]

CHRISTIANITY hinges on logic and history

[@neopagan1976]

@@bond3161 - Your christianity hinges on forced conversion, genocide, and holy war based bloodshed. There's nothing logical about Christianity.

[@nicokelly6453]

This was very interesting, thank you for sharing.

[@gregcampwriter]

"The Watchmaker keeps to his schemes. The hours tick away--they tick away."

[@thedesertwillowlunchtable]

This is the most random comment ever after this video, but it hit me as I was listening - I would LOVE to see a video giving the pagan response to Marian miracles/apparitions and Eucharistic miracles and such in Christianity/Catholicism. I have a feeling your answer would be quite thought-provoking!

[@americaeaustraliaepius4338]

Our response is simple. The ones that aren't hoaxes are product of faith and sincere devotion. And since the Gods dwell in everything... that means everything, including in the faith, while misguided, its still faith.

[@missk1697]

The most sound argument against monotheism is the problem of evil. Existence of both "good" and "evil" makes sense with many gods, or with no gods at all, yet it is something absolutely unexpected if only one god is present.

[@Lycaon1765]

Unless that god is an ass lol

[@bond3161]

Free will, ❤ and rebellion Christianity

[@doktordanomite9105]

Saw the thumbnail and immediately thought of childish Gambino

[@scrumbobulus]

I keep rewatching this video. I can’t stop thinking about how polytheism makes so much sense.

[@lily_littleangel]

I'm in a bit of a weird situation in that I do call myself a polytheist and an animist but that every argument except for the experiential one works. That's because the gods I see aren't these flawless and all powerful beings, but rather flawed beings with limited powers that seek to create order in the world, and make sure everything works according to the principles of physics. Furthermore, gods aren't eternal and certainly don't exist "before" the universe came to be (although, you can't really talk about a time before time), and they come and go: for example, every human has their own personal deity (mine is called Myrendia), who come into being at your birth and fade away when you die. What did create the world was a collision of elementary essences which the gods use to control the world, namely Life, Light, Love, Death, Darkness and Unlove (Hate).

[@mattwilliams100]

Good stuff. Teleological a clear win for polytheism imo. Would be great if you could cover the problem of evil. It's a tricky one for monotheism. MUCH easier for polytheism but it would be good to see it explored in some depth.

[@bond3161]

Problem of evil is solved by Christians The understanding you guys have if it is so so shallow. God wanted a loving universe. He gave free will. Free will implies rebellion. He is love and life and your guide. You die without him.

[@mattwilliams100]

@@bond3161 Christianity literally creates the problem of evil by assigning the attributes of God. Free will is a whole other minefield... Is your God all-knowing? If so he knows the future. If he knows the future then he knows what you're going to do. If he knows what you're going to do, then you will do the thing he knows. Conclusion, if you can only do what is already known you do not have free will. Or, God cannot be all-knowing. Hence Calvinist doctrine of predestination, that is, if God knows what you're going to do then he knows if you're going to heaven, and has always known, and there's nothing you can do about it. (Rough summaries of both, but that's the gist).

[@InvincibleSummer7]

"I'm just dicking around. Definitely something to toy with" Haha this made my gay little heart happy

[@Insatiable.Curiosity]

oh my gods oh my gods, oh no, your intro caught me so off guard I chortled! …Chortled!! Begrudgingly I admit defeat. Well done, sir.

[@Braintree0173]

hey, i heard you mentioned on gmskeptic and cosmicskeptic's recent conversation, came here and you hit us with the-ism right off the bat. what a first impression. time to binge your whole channel

[@OceanKeltoi]

Oh? What did they have to say?

[@Braintree0173]

@@OceanKeltoi Only good things! Drew was saying conversations with you had influenced him to take second, third and fourth looks at arguments for theistic positions, and to stop dismissing them as irrational. The exchange starting at 43:13 of Alex's video is around where you come up.

[@Greenfrog777]

Personally, I hate the watchmaker argument. I expect a watchmaker because I've seen watches before and know about their construction. When I see a tree in a forest, I don't necessarily assume that somebody planted it there, even if that's a possibility. It's really an argument that starts from the conclusion it wants to prove.

[@OceanKeltoi]

I like that criticism of the Watchmaker argument a lot actually. I was thinking that as I was writing the script, that the actual reason is that I already know what a watch is and how they form. But the argument could equally replace the watch with an unknown object that appears mechanical. It's mechanical appearance would imply a creator. But perhaps its 'mechanicalness' would have the same consequence of familiarity.

[@Greenfrog777]

@@OceanKeltoi Absolutely. I also like the "puddle" criticism. Us saying that the universe appears fine tuned to result in human life is a bit like a puddle after a rainstorm thinking "this hole seems fine tuned to a puddle of precisely my shape and size." Someone may well have dug that hole to collect rainwater, but from the puddle's perspective, there's no difference between that and an arbitrary hole that it just came to fill.

[@philosophicaljay3449]

@@Greenfrog777 I think that the only reason the "puddle" criticism works is because the teleological argument relies on an axiom that life is somehow special enough for consideration to be given. Various philosophers have responded to the anthropic principle quite well, but it is that axiom that becomes the big weakness. One of the more prominent responses I have seen from apologists and philosophers to the puddle criticism is the following: Imagine that you are set to be executed by being shot. There are 100 expert marksmen aiming at you, each of which has participated in such executions numerous times (thus their accuracy is not in doubt). You are blindfolded, put up against a wall. You hear the call for fire and hear the 100 guns go off, but in the end you are untouched. Now, does the question "why am I still alive?" matter? After all, you had to be alive in the first place in order to even ask the question. Why is it that circumstances are such that you are alive? Well obviously because those are the exact circumstances that need to have occurred to ask the question to begin with. When you look at this analogy it is clear to see the flaw. Just because we live in a situation in which things had to occur a certain way in order for us to be alive does not mean that there is not legitimacy in asking 'why'.

[@Greenfrog777]

@@philosophicaljay3449 I do like that, though I think that the "expert marksmen" aspect raises a similar issue. With the existence of life, we do not have real alternate universes to compare to to really speculate on what might otherwise exist (or fail to exist), and the imposition of sentient beings who intend for a certain circumstance to come to pass (or fail to pass) really just assumes exactly what the analogy is attempting to prove. Ultimately, I think that attempts to prove God or Gods through analogy are misguided. The origin of the universe is a rather unique event (at least given the current state of knowledge), and I feel that analogies are doomed to fail in such circumstances.

[@philosophicaljay3449]

@@Greenfrog777 I do agree that analogies tend to be over simplistic, but I find that they tend to serve as a way of 'dumbing down' the philosophy to a level that most people can understand without devoting much time to it. They serve almost like a 101 to an idea, you see it and you can either go "not interested" or decide to delve further into the exact reasoning. I think that when it comes to the question of what otherwise might have existed that we are stuck with theoretical models. Sure, it might not be as convincing as having something concrete to compare to, but I think that they are still useful to an extent. This is where Roger Penrose's calculation on the odds of a life permitting universe come into play. Of course, it will always leave some level of dissatisfaction, but it is what we have. I think that even if that means that the teleological argument alone won't lead to the conclusion that it still has its uses. After all, rarely in court, for example, do cases go to trial on just one singular piece of evidence.

[@lucideandre]

When you talk about different types of greatness, and mention, for example, a great warrior. And I must quote the words of a great philosopher and master: “Oh! Hihihihi. Great Warrior? Ohuhuhuhuhu. Wars not make one great”

[@missZoey5387]

Never really considered these arguments this way before. Interesting

[@Matt-on4of]

This is great. I've been looking for stuff on Polytheism. The experiential argument in particular was interesting. I believe i had a experience with the divine while visiting a christian monastery. Despite looking into Christianity (and frankly, liking a lot of it. Especially Celtic Christianity) I couldn't bring myself to believe everything that Christianity stands for. So Polytheism potentially helps me with that. Even if I can believe I had an experience with a god while at a christian site it doesn't automatically make the Christian interpretation of God true.

[@starking2162]

When I was at the Christian college I used to attend studying philosophy, I was taking an Old Testament class. Our final was to write an exegesis on a passage of our choice no more than 10 or so verses and it was relatively free form in format otherwise . I picked genesis 1 where it talks about creating man, and related that to other faiths namely the Enuma Elish, which has a creation story very much like a what you propose with the scaled up “teamwork” creationism, where the gods work together to make the cosmos (after besting Tiamat the serpent/dragon). I also realize now that a fairly common trait in the traditional faiths’ creation stories is the gods using the corpse of an enemy to make parts of the world and/or other gods. Uranus’ body for the Hellenistic peoples, Ymir for the Norse, Tiamat for the Babylonians, and so on

[@liacurry1076]

This was a fun one. My philosophy professor could never

[@philosophicaljay3449]

I think your post got cut off somehow

[@Dloin]

Among my Metalhead friends we always joked that Thor is clearly more plausible then Jesus. After all he protects Midgard from the ice giants while Jesus wanted to get rid off sin. But sin is everywhere while I have never seen an ice giant. But iam atheist. I don't see any evidence of the Universe beeing created. We can't inhabit most of it and it's rather us that fit into the universe then the other way around.

[@OceanKeltoi]

The fine-tuning argument has this issue I think. If the universe was fine-tuned for our existence, it stands to reason that we wouldn't have so much universe that we can't exist in.

[@Dloin]

@@OceanKeltoi yeah. And if i would have a genuine discussion about Gods with a polytheist I would first ask them to define God. Because I can imagine really powerful beeings. Just omnipotency is contradictory similiar to omnipotency and free will. How can I have free will if someone already knows what I will do? Sounds predetermined to me. But a one eyed dude sitting on a space tree in a giant castle? Maybe. I don't know. Doesn't sound impossible just wild.

[@wickedAberration]

Oh god I had to take a philosophy class... The Ontological argument seems just is absolute anathema to my ability to understand what someone is saying. The whole thing seems utterly inscrutable, every way I've heard it described. Honestly, I'm surprised that people think the Teleological argument is convincing, though.

[@OceanKeltoi]

It surprised me too that people like the teleological argument. But I’ve found that people find it, or some variation of it, like an appeal to beauty, to be what they attest to finding convincing.

[@wickedAberration]

@@OceanKeltoi My take is: I simply can't make any sense of the ontological argument: I can't figure out why people think it makes sense. The teleological argument, on the surface, seems a lot more reasonable to me, but every time I get into the weeds about it, I find myself in heated debates about the idea of order, and I find it to kind of unravel. When it comes to a "prime mover", I often just kinda shrug my shoulders and go, "Hell if I know, maybe you got me there."

[@SamHoward-c9f]

Another point about the argument of "One god with many faces" is the fact that monotheists will state that their God is the one God, and the many faces are the other gods. Which still implies monotheistic supremacy, despite very easily being picked apart. If we are going to entertain the idea of One god with many faces, well then who's to say what god is the one God? Every religion has sacred texts and personal experience, and none have any more weight than another within the idea of religious diversity. There's no more evidence that the Christian god is the one it's with many faces, than Zeus, Odin, Ra, or Allah. Hence, the argument of "one God with many faces" requires special pleading on the monotheist's part.

[@reaganeidemiller7132]

I am personally an infinite polytheist; I believe there are functionally infinite deities, or at least as infinite as life appears to be on Earth to us filling all occupiable space. To me, any deity humans are consistently preoccupied with for a time are likely real and chose to impact those people. Oddly enough, my view is that there are either functionally infinite deities, or no deities. Because if deities can naturally emerge, it absolutely doesn't make sense for there to be only one. My own experiences lead me to believe in deities, and so do several equivalent experiences for others, so if my belief is right so must be all others with equivalent evidence.

[@alicev5496]

Agreed

[@Drawoon]

I know an argument for monotheism as opposed to polytheism. I don't remember it that well, as I didn't find it convincing, but it goes something like this: If there are multiple gods, they would naturally come into conflict with each other. They would then keep fighting until there was only one left, thus ensuring monotheism. I probably forgot a few steps, because this doesn't logically follow.

[@alicev5496]

That doesn't really make sense. Humans live together in communities. So do deer and ants. Even territorial animals like tigers merely guard their territory from others, and still congregate for mating and child-rearing. Multiple gods would mean there are conflicts. But if we assume the deities are distinct entities with their own agency and thought we can assume they'd be able to tolerate each other's existence.

[@alicev5496]

(not arguing against you since you said you didn't find it convincing. Just figured it was worth stating why that makes no sense.)

[@Drawoon]

@@alicev5496 Yeah, I agree with you I think. There's no reason gods couldn't work together, or just tolerate each other.

[@scrumbobulus]

i’ve actually considered writing a book around this concept. it’s a really interesting thought experiment.

[@DJ-cz3uw]

I was thinking for a few days now if I should Embrace the Norse pagan religion I always thought I was a non believer of God and that was it didn't open my mind and soul to any thing else. until I found out I'm a Descendant of vikings. and thought to my self I want to believe in something ehy not the Norse gods.

[@TheVaryox]

That twist with the teleological argument is really nice. It shows that you can really conjure up just about anything with analogies and that you should be cautious to believe an analogy presented as an argument for no other reason that it is phrased in an intuitive way and relates to your understanding of simple common things. Analogies can never really argue for anything, they can only make concepts graphic and tangible. For example: In each moment, if we are in a building, there are borders between us and the outside world and other buildings. We can experience a lot of aspects of the building we are in, we can measure its size, the room temperature, all that stuff. But most of the time we cannot experience what is happening in other buildings. But once we have the ability to walk around, we might find a way to exit the building and enter another one, which we haven't experienced before. Once we learn that, we can do it at will. It would be foolish to assume one could not leave a building and enter another. Now hear me out: the universe is just like such a building. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that a multiverse exists and that there are Planeswalkers that can travel between the planes of the multiverse.

[@fluffysheap]

What a fun video this is. I almost wish there were more polytheists so apologists could quit bickering with atheists. I think debating monotheism vs. polytheism would be a lot more interesting. It's too bad they didn't have KZbin in the 4th century. As a Unitarian Christian, all the Greek philosophy in mainstream Christianity is a source of great frustration to me!

[@aaronpettit3181]

Although I really liked this video I feel it's best not to argue to disprove.... any argument I make against the existence of one God is argument against my own...instead I try to pose questions make others answer then question their answers

[@VisiblyPinkUnicorn]

If an apologist will ever ambush me on the street and use the watchmaker argument, I will answer that the pocket watch looks like it's working on itself and that whoever lost it there didn't care to turn back to retrieve it.

[@bond3161]

God never gave up on you He died for your sins

[@VisiblyPinkUnicorn]

@@bond3161 Tecnicallly, Yahweh can't give up on nothing since in that case he would have a finite attribute... which means that he can't be infinitely impatient and so he lacks an attribute anyway, but... it's your omni-god, not mine. Apart from that... let's assume that Yahweh and the sins are real. Premise 1: God created everything. Premise 2: Sins are real. CONCLUSION: God created the sins. In other words: Yahweh suffered from something of his own making, so when you say "God died for your sins" what you're truly saying is "God shot himself on a foot".

[@jan-Sopija]

0:06 if someone insists on only using the definite article once per sentence, would that make them a mono-the-ist

[@marocat4749]

I mean yeah the world is messy and a messy group project majes morse sense than one allmighty. In that aspect. And conflicts.

[@grmpEqweer]

_"Hey, how come YOU have more followers?"_ "Well, you punished yours with a famine, dude. You killed a bunch." _"They were butchering their goats wrong!"_ "You killed 100,000 of them because they were butchering their goats wrong? Was that necessary?" _"I must be obeyed!"_ "Dude, you're gonna be obeyed by less people." _"gaaaah!"_ "Snicker"

[@DylanNewberg]

The ADHD pop up killed me😂😂I had to try like 5 times to pause it in time😂😂😂😂

[@valariebrown3768]

Speaking from the POV of a Lutheran Christian, who was told by the pastor that the first step in preparing for baptism was to "boil the hell out of some water," I am pretty sure that I have not heard too much emphasis on the Triune God being the ONLY deity. I can recall LOTS of teaching and preaching about how this deity chooses followers, cares for them like a shepherd, or a parent, or a mother cat, by feeding, protecting, and teaching them how to be fully functioning humans, thereby gifting those followers with the ability to make right choices in dealings with other humans. When God's followers have dealings with followers of other deities the lesson is that God protects his own with enough oomph that the others back off, not that they convert wholesale to a new faith. Even the Egyptian plagues, even though they showed God's superiority over every major deity in the pantheon, did not convert any Egyptian to Judaism. Therefore, in my mind, there can be all manner of supernatural beings out there. That One picked me, and I pick That One back, as of December 1993.

[@xiuhcoatl4830]

Still you take one over the rest, when all sustain reality and our own existence, thats the thing, pagans would have no issue with acknowledging Jesus as a deity (if he truly was one and not just a fraud which is what I think he was) as long as that doesn't imply denying the other Gods.

[@valariebrown3768]

😉 He picked me first! I just reciprocated! 😁

[@alicev5496]

I do think christianity has toned down the monotheistic emphasis recently, at least in some places. In my catholic school it was implied through the stories (hard to read about Elijah and the prophets of Baal and St Boniface and Donar's oak without coming to that conclusion) but never really emphasised as important. However there definitely are still brands of christianity that emphasise there only being one deity, and everything else is either false or demonic. And historically that has generally been the dominant stance, and something many still have to argue against, particularly when it comes to protecting indigenous fates against colonialism. I see the christian god as one among many, and one I respect, and the same goes for many of his followers. I just do not feel his approach to building a relationship with him is one I feel comfortable in.

[@astrinymris9953]

I just have to point out the big problem with the "fine tuning" argument: It's perfectly consistent with a naturalistic worldview for the life which evolves within a universe to be well-adapted to live in that particular universe. In fact, it's exactly what the Theory of Evolution would predict. Not hatin', just sayin'.

[@casp6132]

Peace be unto you. As a Muslim I do not agree w your perspectives but thank you for sharing your thoughts