I'd love to get a Christian's response to this video

[dr2005]

Originally Posted by Cosmo

There is only one future. There is no free will because God already knows the choice we are going to make. I find it difficult to believe that God's plan is a vague one where he couldn't really be bothered to think up anything more specific. It seems more like you're trying to twist the idea so that they can accommodate the facts, which never works. Yes, you've technically twisted it enough that it's not an option, but the problem is it's so twisted that it causes many other issues; for instance, we cannot know God's plan. Further, you cannot prove that it is vague; we can, however, prove that the biblical idea of God's plan, one that the vast majority of Christians believe in, is incompatible with logic. Further; if one is to use the argument 'God is outside of logic' you automatically forfeit the right to be taken seriously, as you've shamed yourself immensely by proving to be a brainwashed zombie.

Leaving aside the accusations of twisting ideas and being a brainwashed zombie (which I would thank you not to repeat in future unless you really want me to respond in kind), your argument is - with respect - full of holes. Firstly, it infers hard determinism as the default theory when invoking a God without any rationale, which is a fallacy - given that the free will defence emerged from theology, I would have hoped you would know that. Secondly, your claim of there being only one future is in direct conflict with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and so I think you owe us a bit more justification than that. Thirdly, whether or not you find it difficult to believe has no bearing on its factual veracity, particularly as you provide no explanation or rationale for why you find it so difficult to believe. There is nothing inherently incomprehensible about God's plan being a framework in which the Universe operates as far as I can see - that is broadly the same way in which the laws of physics operate. Fourthly, your claim that God's plan is "incompatible with logic" is bordering on the absurd, given that (a) you haven't actually expressed your understanding of God's plan and (b) you have failed to demonstrate any principle of logic conflicting with it. Finally, I have never attempted to use the argument that God is outside of logic in my life so I fail to see why you even bother to mention it - it's completely irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Originally Posted by Cosmo

I believe that it's fully incompatible. If God is all-knowing, then he already knows the the actual outcome of all the potential outcomes. Unless you want to argue that the fact that he is all-powerful means he can force himself to not know?

Key word in that comment is "believe". Again, you provide no rationale for this whatsoever and merely expect it to be accepted as given based on your chosen definition of "all-knowing". You imply it to be akin to hard determinism, such that all our life decisions are already known by God and set in stone, without even attempting to explain why this has to be correct. It is entirely conceivable that God leaves our choices open within the framework he has established, and that while He has knowledge of all the possible outcomes it only becomes set in stone once we choose to act. Why does omniscience demand that He knows it beforehand? All it requires is for Him to have knowledge of all that which can be known - perhaps the definitive choice of a free agent within the Universe is not something which can be preknown, while the potential choices at any stage of life is something that is. I don't claim any authority on the matter, but I certainly know that if you're going to dismiss something completely out of hand you need to do better than putting it down to your "belief".

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Again, this assumes that God did not already know what Satan would choose; which is impossible because he is All-Knowing. If you believe God is all-knowing then you must believe in Determinism.

Again, fallacious argument - it implies "all-knowing" and determinism are interchangeable without justification, and also that hard determinism is automatically true. The doctrine of compatibilism holds that determinism and free will can be defined or constructed in such a way that they can co-exist - and before you accuse me of "twisting ideas" again, David Hume among others came up with this one. It came about primarily to resolve the issue of punishing criminals within a determinist model, which may be something to consider before bandying determinism around so freely as the default.

Originally Posted by Cosmo

That depends what type of Christian you are. More conservative Christians definitely do believe that Hell is more than just eternal separation from God.

Really? The definition I quoted is that of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, and I doubt many people consider it liberal...

Originally Posted by Cosmo

I think the difference is the consequences of it. We agree, as a whole, as a society, on what we allow and do not allow. For instance, murder is unacceptable because it hurts people which is not something we want. If you choose to do it, you'll be imprisoned for a period of time and then released.

If you don't believe in God then you're doomed to hell for Eternity with no chance of redemption.

That distinction is inaccurate - depending on where you are and the severity of your actions, you could be imprisoned for the rest of your natural life or even executed, both of which would be comparable with your description of Hell in terms of their consequences.

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Probably because it IS A COP-OUT. It's the worst argument I've ever heard in my entire life for the existence of God, and quite frankly it's intellectual laziness as it does not take into consideration the fact that God knows what you will do before you do, totally destroying the idea of free-will. At most it's an illusion.
I make a point of automatically quitting debating with anyone lazy/ignorant enough to argue that, for example, evil (especially Natural Evil) exists in the world because God allows free-will.

Firstly, free will is actually a freestanding philosophical issue distinct from religion, and isn't employed as an argument for the existence of God in the first place. It's only employed as a response to the problem of evil, and only then in a moral context. Even a cursory read around the topic should have made that quite clear. Secondly, again you invoke hard determinism without causation and again that is a fallacious argument - one I hope you will at least attempt to address is future post. Finally, is not "automatically quitting debating" itself both lazy and a cop-out? You seem to have landed yourself in a contradiction there.

[xxxAJxxx]

Atheism isn't religion, it is irreligion. I agreed with every single point the dude in the video was making. Made craters through the bible. So good.

[αγάπη]

Just thought I should say that I loved it, and am now subscribed.

[Lizzie]

Originally Posted by Yorehl

Mr Self Destruct,
Atheism is a belief about religion and can join in religious debates. That's all I'm saying.

Originally Posted by Toz

No. Atheism is a lack of belief. Religion and atheism are both philosophical stances, so they can join in philosophical debates.

Originally Posted by ~Mr. Self Destruct~

Atheism is as much of a belief as not not playing hockey is a sport.

Atheism = there is no god.
Christianity = there is a god.

Both makes claims without proof therefore both are beliefs.

Atheism is the belief there is no god. Believing something that does not exist without proof that it doesn’t exist is still a belief. Atheism makes claims with no proof. Just like Christianity. I think that is how the original comment was meant to be taken.
The last reference about sports would be more correct if we were talking about agnosticism.

[~Mr. Self Destruct~]

Originally Posted by Lizzie

Atheism = there is no god.
Christianity = there is a god.

Both makes claims without proof therefore both are beliefs.

Atheism is the belief there is no god. Believing something that does not exist without proof that it doesn’t exist is still a belief. Atheism makes claims with no proof. Just like Christianity. I think that is how the original comment was meant to be taken.
The last reference about sports would be more correct if we were talking about agnosticism.

A lack of belief is not a belief, not matter how you want to phrase it.
By the way, agnosticism is also a belief system. Theism and atheism regard knowledge, whereas gnosticism and agnosticism regard belief (or a lack of).

[Lizzie]

Originally Posted by ~Mr. Self Destruct~

A lack of belief is not a belief, not matter how you want to phrase it.
By the way, agnosticism is also a belief system. Theism and atheism regard knowledge, whereas gnosticism and agnosticism regard belief (or a lack of).

By saying that god does not exist is a statement of belief, not a statement of fact. That statement cannot be proven. Therefore atheists believe that god does not exist.

[Toz]

Originally Posted by Lizzie

By saying that god does not exist is a statement of belief, not a statement of fact. That statement cannot be proven. Therefore atheists believe that god does not exist.

No. What do you not understand about the fact that atheism is a LACK of faith. It isn't faith directed at the idea that there is no God. It is an all out LACK of faith. Look at spirituality like a big dark space- it could be a cavern, or it could be a perennial night sky. Look at our attempts to find the top of the cavern, so to speak, like a spotlight- religion. There are different colored spotlights, like there are religions. Atheism would be analogous to no light source at all.

[FriendZoneMayor]

Ooookay. I tried real hard to make it all the way through the video, but I only made it about half-way (basically to the point of Noah's family repoplulating the earth), partially because it's after 4am right now, and partially because even though I claim to be agnostic now, I do believe in God, and I found everything he was saying to be incredibly twisted, albeit true.
YES, God did do all of those things, but every point that man made was viewed from the eyes of a human who (spoiler alert) is flawed and skeptical. Yeah, God knew "Adam and Eve" were going to eat of the tree. Yeah, He knew Lucifer would attempt to overthrow him, thus creating Satan and Hell. Yeah, Noah and his family sinned after the flood. These things are all true.
What he failed to mention was that the "magical talking snake" in the garden was Lucifer himself, who deceived "Eve" into thinking she'd have eternal glory. Now, in a world where sin has yet to be set into motion, thus making lying an unheard of deed, you'd probably listen to the snake too. God knew these things would happen because He knew that in order for humans to have free will, sin had to come into the world. Giving someone the choice of doing good without the alternative of evil isn't free will.
God has known since before the beginning of time everything that would ever play out here on earth, but did it ever occur to anyone that perhaps God doesn't see the world as a novel, but as a choose-your-own-adventure? I mean, most of us have read books like that. We get to a certain page, and we're faced with choices. We pick one, and live with the consequences, but somewhere else in the book, the reality of the other choice is still there. I think that God created the world more like one of those books, and by giving us free will, we have the ability to decide for ourselves (for the most part) how our lives will play out. Of course, there are exceptions in terms of those things we can't control like people coming in and out of our lives, illness, etc, but for the most part, we control how our life goes. Of course, that's not saying that God has nothing to do with it; it's quite the contrary, really. God has already written the entire book, and we're the ones deciding whether to turn to page 47 or 20. Hopefully that makes sense.
Now, back to Lucifer and Hell. Yes, God knew from the beginning that this would happen too, and no, He didn't do anything to stop it. This has to do with actions having consequences, going back to the free will thing. Obviously, humans don't always choose to do what's right, and in doing so, they're punished in one way or another, and that's where Lucifer/Satan/the devil comes into play. Hell is described many different ways in the bible, but it's clear in all the descriptions that it's a place of eternal torment for those who have chosen evil over good. In trying to overthrow a perfect, holy being, Lucifer was put in charge of the aforementioned torment, and even though he knows he won't ever win against God, he's still going to keep trying to harvest as many souls to feed hell as he can.
Now on to Noah and his family. Noah had sons, who were all married at the time of the flood. Now obviously, there had to have been some familial sex at some point in order for the world to repopulate, but consider this point to: Who said that Noah's family repopulated the entire planet? They come across enemies not so long after the flood, right? So who's to say that God didn't create more people after the earth dried? There's really no logical way to dispute that there HAD to have been other humans created after the flood, or even other humans saved IN the flood. When the bible talks about the world, it's (usually) speaking of the KNOWN world at that time, as in the middle east, parts of Africa, Greece, Italy, and India. Now, you don't have to be a geographer to know that that leaves a WHOLE LOT of the earth unmentioned in a single passage of the bible. The bible story accounts for what happened to Noah and his family, but to say that they were the ONLY ones left would be like saying that there were no people other than the Egyptians and the Hebrews in the time of Moses; we find out later in the bible that there were, we just don't hear about them because what was going on in THEIR world wasn't important to what was happening to Moses.
So there ya go, an Agnostic, Jesus-and-God believer's beliefs on that video. Enjoy tearing it apart guys.

[dr2005]

Originally Posted by Toz

No. What do you not understand about the fact that atheism is a LACK of faith. It isn't faith directed at the idea that there is no God. It is an all out LACK of faith. Look at spirituality like a big dark space- it could be a cavern, or it could be a perennial night sky. Look at our attempts to find the top of the cavern, so to speak, like a spotlight- religion. There are different colored spotlights, like there are religions. Atheism would be analogous to no light source at all.

That depends on whether you view atheism as being the null hypothesis position, as you and others advocate, or as a value statement of its own right. The former position treats it as a negative statement (I don't believe in a God or Gods), the latter as a positive statement (there is no God). Once you get into the realms of actively arguing against the existence of a God, it gets more difficult to claim it's not a positive statement and therefore entering the realm of a belief. I do see what you're trying to say, but I'm not sure it's quite as clear-cut as is being made out.

[Iris. ♥]

I'm a Christian, myself. Oddly enough, I wasn't bothered at all by his arguments. What can I say? The man is intelligent. He's entitled to his beliefs and he has clearly put a lot of thought into them. I watched another video of his and he said that he made it a point to read the entire Bible to develop his views. I can't complain when someone has put thought into the reasons for their beliefs. So, yeah . . I can see how his points make sense. I don't agree with most of them, but that's just me.

[Toz]

Originally Posted by dr2005

That depends on whether you view atheism as being the null hypothesis position, as you and others advocate, or as a value statement of its own right. The former position treats it as a negative statement (I don't believe in a God or Gods), the latter as a positive statement (there is no God). Once you get into the realms of actively arguing against the existence of a God, it gets more difficult to claim it's not a positive statement and therefore entering the realm of a belief. I do see what you're trying to say, but I'm not sure it's quite as clear-cut as is being made out.

Yes, there is the positive and negative atheism facet. For the purposes of this argument, though, we are dealing with negative- I believe it's agnostic atheism.