i am live this is just going to be a an impromptu reaction to uh what happened last night okay uh my name's joe um i'm having a conversation with brenda i think uh she's an atheist so yeah maybe we'll talk about our point of view and uh you know just discuss them i don't think probably any of us can change our minds but uh do we have the set this is the topic of abortion a set topic uh i was gonna talk about if god exists oh okay i thought that was i was misunderstood i'm misunderstood okay okay um yeah i'm an atheist i don't think there's any good reasons to believe in the existence of god okay all right uh so let me ask you what a good reason to believe in god what would be a good reason i think that if you could consistently perform some kind of miraculous feat um that would give me um i'll give evidence that would increase my um increase the probability that god exists right away i would jump on that and say that we live in a well-ordered universe there are laws of nature those laws are never violated um but rather than looking for miracles which are suspensions of the well-ordered laws of nature instead of looking for those because those are impossible to uh well i shouldn't say they're impossible but it's a what we should do rather is if if you want to focus on miracles you can say okay the universe is well ordered we know that we know this because of the scientific method we're able to do science if there are things that are not explainable by natural science that would imply there's a higher order a super nature you can go from that from that angle right but um yeah this miracle hunting thing is a bit of a it's a bit of a cop-out for brenda because we can always say from the materialistic atheistic standpoint one could always say well we don't have the explanation but that doesn't mean that there isn't an explanation and this ties in with the psr because implicitly anyone who values natural science knows that the psr is universally valid and later brenda is going to deny that fact but uh let's just continue and see what happens well if you consistently doing racial speech and i wouldn't really be racist sure right no if you could consistently break the laws of physics the laws are not broken ever by god or by the saints or by anyone else then that would indicate that there is perhaps a supernatural force or being bingo there goes supernatural yeah so that's good brenda understands that which could intervene in the physical universe and alter things i'm saying it happens all the time that would seem to be a normal thing it could just still happen i understand there will be like once you know it happens once right or i understand a miracle i don't understand why joe's focusing on the frequency of miracles like i think it's completely irrelevant i mean um the supernatural is very very very very common when my when i use my free will when i use my mind when i use my reason a supernatural intervention it is it's not natural so i don't think that joe i don't agree with joe's approach here saying oh no no no no it's it's very rare that the uh that the supernatural intervenes in the natural that's not exactly what joe's saying joe's talking about miracles cures and these sorts of things but even those are very common i would say i would say that god intervenes with miracles a lot more frequently than is understood to be the case i wouldn't put a number on it i don't know exactly how often or how frequently god performs miracles i would say every day you know i would say all day every day but i don't know it seems like joe uh has a different opinion on that but i mean in terms of apologetics i don't see where joe is going with this with the frequency count to be a violation of the laws of the universe okay all right so presumably a god who exists independent of the universe created the universe would have the ability to intervene and that intervention would not be what i would call a miracle and he could do it consistently there wouldn't be a mechanic like um the loss of the universe would simply ask his whim or or something like that but that would indicate to me that there's a higher power yeah i should just clarify that um a miracle is a suspension of the laws of nature the normal and i guess i could say natural use of our minds to interact with the natural material world would not classify as a miracle miracle obviously but it is still an intervention of er it is still an interaction from the supernatural order to the natural order so it's very close to a miracle but it's it's not a miracle because it's not a suspension of the normal normal operation of the natural world because god designed our minds to interact with the natural world god designed our supernatural souls to interact with the natural world so there's no intervention uh sorry although it's an intervention from the supernatural to the natural it's not a suspension of the ordinary way of nature the well-ordered uh occurrences of how things normally play out so it's not a miracle when we use our minds but i would zone in on that uh if i were joe i would have zoned in on the supernatural nature of our minds okay so i guess what about like somebody rising from the dead would that be a miracle yeah that would change my that would change my outlook even if we bring you back from the dead to try to convince your brother and your family members to believe in god to avoid hell they still won't believe if they if they don't believe they have moses and the prophets if they don't believe moses and the prophets they're not going to believe you this is what jesus said in the new testament right so brenda again is bluffing brenda will not be convinced by a resurrection brenda will not be convinced by a resurrection now i'm not saying it's absolutely impossible that brenda or any other atheist could be convinced of the existence of god by some dramatic miracle like a resurrection i'm just saying that typically those of us who are what should i say this when i was an atheist it was it was certainly not the miracle the miracles had no effect on me when i was an atheist i knew all the stories i knew i was raised christian i knew all the stories and miracles they had no effect on my uh willingness to believe it all has to do with sin right the the it's about coming to a point where you say uncle i'm not going to pursue my will anymore i'm going to pursue the will of god that's what's that's what conversion is all about it's not about hey look at this exciting miracle no it's about giving up your self-will but so if i were to talk to uh someone an atheist or non-believer uh about the existence of god and they brought up miracles i would just talk about the will to believe and the lack of will that characterizes atheism and i could speak from firsthand experience because i was an atheist for 25 years and i know full well that it was all about the will right it doesn't has nothing to do with the miracles that are uh described in the bible i would then have to re-evaluate everything i know um either the world doesn't work the way i thought it does or there's a being that can step in and intervene in the mechanics of the world again you could just point to aliens you could point to any sort of higher natural but higher level this is typically what atheists have recourse to that's why we have multiverse theories that's good i remember this is an episode of uh talking and james said you know j mike's once one of those he said well even if jesus works from the dead it's more likely that it's aliens so it's like i would say that the probability would be but if you or somebody else could consistently say pray to god and have that happen that would indicate that's not aliens it might be that god it seems to me okay okay that's reasonable so uh i was telling you i was always believe i didn't believe a lot of my life so but something's happened in my life and uh i also started studying arguments and i kind of changed my mind on everything so what was it that happened in your life was it a young catholic girl that happened in your life no no there's just some personal experiences so okay but that's the uh doug at pine creek thesis is that young catholic girls have um converted more non-believers than any argument ever has well yeah it's not so much religious it's just i just can't believe that uh that god actually exists so it's not so much i'm not part of any religion so it's not that i'm so you're not a christian huh i mean you can live with that but i'm a believer but uh i'm not your theist are you at this interview in the universe i believe uh i believe christianity's true how's that so well this is this is the strange thing about uh joe many many strange things about joe i love you joe but there are many strange things about you um if you believe that christianity is true then that's that's kind of a big deal right you are at that point you are a christian either you're a christian or i mean if you're not a christian you're bound for hell because if you if you know that it's true but you're not living the christian life you're not pursuing the christian faith and striving for virtue and trying to actively find the church so you can get into the church so you can be part of the mystical body of christ because that's what the church is if you're not doing that if you just believe it's true but you're not doing that then you are in grave danger you need to wake up and start actively pursuing your christianity because if you believe it's true you're in grave grave danger right if you're not pursuing that truth you know it's true you have to pursue that truth right it's like if you uh meet the woman that's destined to be your wife and you just say yeah that woman right there i know she's my wife but you don't pursue her no no you you sell everything you own you pursue you pursue your destiny you pursue the truth you pursue your spouse right and jesus christ is your spouse so uh joe you've got to you've got to kindle that little spark that you have of faith you have to if you know it's true that's that's a good start but you don't seem to realize that you're in grave grave danger you have to respond it's a grace it's a grace to see the truth of christianity but if you don't correspond with that grace it's not going to end well for you you have to pursue it you have to pursue jesus christ he's flirting with you right so pay some attention to him it's good that you're defending god the father it's good that you're defending uh christ in his church in in as much as you are right and fighting against false philosophies and false world views like atheism agnosticism and whatnot that's good but you have to also actively pursue christ and his mystical body of the church you have to find the church and get into the church and serve the church okay i've emphasized that to you before by email and i'm re-emphasizing it to you now and to everyone who's listening if you know christianity's true for god's sake find the church get into the church sounds like you're a christian though go through some of the arguments or okay or if you want to ask me any questions or whatever well i'm just kidding i'm kind of curious i believe that there's no good reason to believe in the theory so i call myself an atheist if he wants to push maybe an atheist agnostic um but i have a positive belief that there's no good reason to believe the deity and so far i understand that you are a nominal christian is that how you put it yeah i just put it that way why christianity rather than islam or judaism uh judaism is really cool you know you get to go to the central bank and make it withdrawal when you convert to judaism i didn't i was actually important i'm working here dave i can hear david cause he knows my sense of humor i'm born jewish actually so well from a jewish family you get all that gold man okay i'm sorry i was being flippant but um why not islam or hinduism uh with hinduism you've got like about several thousand dollars to choose from oh but i don't think that's true so i believe i believe in evidence for the resurrection so oh oh poor joe poor joe poor joe he didn't take those uh those jewish jokes too well seemed like uh i thought i thought brenda was being cute and playful there i would have uh i would have laughed along at least even if uh you know if you're not feeling that it's the most hilarious joke uh you know acknowledge the attempt the humanity and the attempt to connect on that level i think that would have been a better move by joe but joe is a little bit uh awkward during this uh during this exchange so far is that when it all comes down to yourself i don't know foreign correct right if there's if the judeo-christian god doesn't exist there's no good reason to believe in any of the three major um abrahamic religions right yeah so well for me i'd like a lot of philosophical arguments those are the things that convince me so really yeah the first question i was asked myself is i think it's live next question why does something exist rather than nothing do you think there's an answer to that um i'm not sure there's a good answer to that i think that something does exist if nothing existed then i'm not sure how there could be anything well if nothing existed there would not be anything that's that was a very silly statement by brenda uh yeah so this this is a gotcha moment for sure there's absolutely nothing the atheist can say to joe's uh attack here i mean this is a win for joe for sure so if you're listening to this joe and i'm sure you are now or you will be soon ding ding ding points for joe points for joe why is there something and not nothing there's only one answer it's god it's that necessary being it's the prime mover the uncaused first card it's just like game over for the atheist sorry so that's one solid point to joe right right i mean that's i guess that would mean something has always existed wouldn't you agree some well yeah either something or some person i suppose or some being that's usually how it's put usually how it's put in with whiteness's cosmological argument is that it's either a being or some principle or some aspect of the universe that has always existed but um yeah i can just i could just postulate that there's always been uh something even with the big bang i could say that there just has been prior conditions of some kind oh yeah yeah yeah yeah this is so lame this uh materialist uh world view is so impoverished metaphysically there's absolutely zero comprehension of the principles of metaphysics you cannot have and joe is going to get into this so i'll just let it play but you cannot have an infinite chain of cause and effect in the material plane it just you just can't have it okay so what so now when you believe like an incident regress is possible it might be i'm not sure i see a logical problem to infinite regress um but there are people they're called infinitive infinitivists who do believe that infinite regressions are not necessarily um bad i think i would tend to um redirect uh reject an infinite regress type of argument okay but that doesn't mean that something like i think that the universe can have an infinite past oh that's interesting oh i don't see any contradiction and lots of people have written about it that there doesn't seem to be any logical contradiction between there have been an infinite past or an infinite future i mean after all you could have in future you haven't in the i'll let this play out joe is going to address this uh but i mean there's a big difference between a number line where yeah you can have infinite numbers in this direction that direction whatever direction you want on a number line right but we are not numbers we are material creatures we're composite creatures and therefore we are caused every part was caused and the joining of the parts was caused and the composition itself is caused there's essence and existence those had to come together there has to be a cause of that and uh so it's all about causality it's all about cause and effect i don't know why uh joe didn't emphasize this more but we'll just listen to what joe says okay well i think i think there's quite a bit of problems with that sorry so yeah okay there's a lot of problems with different past but the infinite future you know the difference between potential infinite and actual information sure okay so like a potential efficient you know we could go on into the future forever right yeah potentially but actually but the actual internet we'll never reach it right we'll never reach a point where we've reached an actual infinity right doesn't seem to be the case so so there's no such thing as an actual infinite i don't know i i would tend to reject actual uh infinites existing in our universe yeah okay so that is a problem with uh i think the multiverse could be infinite and there are people who say that the universe itself could be of infinite size there are people who say that i'm talking about it it's just pushing the problem back one level brenda you have to realize that all these so-called multiverses these alleged multiverses it's just a fantasy but if even if we were to pause it multiverses existence of multiverses clump them all together that's what we call the universe we unify them all into the universe all that is all the matter energy configurations in all of space time that's the universe if you want to populate that with you know a large number of multiverses go for it doesn't change the laws of cause and effect doesn't change the principle of sufficient reason doesn't change any of the metaphysical principles and we're right back where we started we cannot have an infinite regress in the material universe period no matter how you slice and dice it and you certainly can't have an infinite number of multiverses because that would imply at any given time an infinite uh infinite amount of matter an infinite amount of cause and effect and you just can't get there you just can't have that quantities like you never have an infinite number of things well there's people who say that the universe could be infinite in size okay well there's no there's no number infinity so you can have a that could have an infinite number of pens right it doesn't seem so no right so the problem with an infinite past is so if there's a series of events that goes back infinitely you would actually never arrive at any whenever write it today and you would never arrive at any point in time because there would always be an infinite number of events before any single event so there's a lot of problems with infinite past which i think it's just illogical but what's the contradiction well first contradiction is there's no such thing as actual infinite so if you can't have natural influence because of cause and effect because material things are caused because material things are caused that's why we're not numbers we're not numbers on a number line that's why this is what joe needed is to say i think that i think that the multiverse could very well be an actual infinite okay there's no such thing as having an actual infinite number of candidates right if you agree to that there could be an actual infinite in the multiverse and there could be one pen and only in each universe and therefore you could have that as an actually infinite number of the other argument against this that i like to use this is so silly is this atheistic uh fantasy of multiverses is so silly but basically it sets up a circular um a circle of causality where the effect precedes the cause right i've talked about this many times if you have right now an infinite number of multiverses then you have a circle of causality the effect precedes the cause because you can have every effect and every cause man effect manifest at every point in time and so whatever effect you want to look at is necessarily always prior to its cause right because just look around everything's everywhere everything's everywhere so the effect and everything is everywhere at every point in time if you have the stupid multiverse uh model so the effect always precedes the cause therefore there are not infinite multiverses period so it's easy to debunk it using logic and using the principle of causality you can't have any number of events it could be um i don't see how it would work in this universe although there's people so i guess i'd give joe another half point here so it's got one and a half points so far say it could be infinite but it doesn't seem likely to me but you could have an infinite number of pounds spread out through an infinite number of universes so you can have an infinite number of things sure there's no contradiction it's a reasonable number when you have to reach the number that precedes that number brenda's contradicting himself because he's saying at first he said i don't see how there could be an actual infinite number of things or an actual infinite regress but uh he's trying to use multiverses to uh hand wave it away it's like a special case special pleading you know it's like yeah it can't happen in this universe but we got so many other universes to choose from and uh all bets are off and the rules don't apply and the you know we don't even know what the laws of physics are there it's a bunch of poppycock he's uh he's not saying this but um it's just poppycock you know it's complete nonsense there we live in a well-ordered universe and there's no good reason to posit a magic fairy land where the laws of nature don't apply and it's not well ordered and there's no there's no reason good reason to posit it and there's every good reason to reject it because without that without consistent laws of nature everything falls apart you can't have it in pockets you can't have logic just apply to this little pocket here that pocket here can't have uh this pocket well ordered that pocket's not well ordered we know that everything in the universe including if there are any multiverses and i don't believe there are including multiverses whatever's in the universe it's all well ordered and none of the laws of nature are ever violated ever are they suspended by a higher law yes but there's no there's no violation of the laws we'll continue here um infinity is easily dealt with in modern mathematics today all the time right it is a concept but there are infinite sets and mathematicians deal with infinite sets all the time we are not numbers we are not we are not numbers on a number line brenda we are material creatures subject to cause and effect actually infinite number of anything i don't know why not i'm not seeing the contradiction there's no logical the set theory deals with infinite sets and yes set theory deals with infinite sets we are not sets we are physical material beings with an immaterial eternal soul there's no logical contradiction in an infinite set so i think you could have a different number of pens in an different number of universes i think that would constitute you know the set of pens and it would be infinite no okay i mean i think there's disagreement i mean i don't think infinity is not a number it's not quantity it's not mutual quantity so you can have an infinite number of universes and can have an infinite number of pens because you're just rejecting that priori justification for that because mathematicians deal with infinite sets all the time it's set theory is it a number or not it's not a number of concepts it's a set right there's a potential you can potentially go on forever we can't have an infinite number of things i don't know why not because there's no number that receives it but you can have a set with a different number of members an infinite meaning unlimited but there's no quantifiable number that that can be yeah it's not quantity in a traditional sentence it's not a it's not an integer it's not an integer i think maybe it's a different type of thing it's a mathematical object and it's perfectly valid to talk about infinite sets and like i said you could i just take what the people who um seem to know what they're talking about have to say at their face value and the physicists that i read about tell me that the multiverse is highly likely to be true so they believe that there are multiple universes in addition to ours right our our universe our cosmos do they say cosmos for multiples which our universe is just one among a multitude which i believe could be infinite and our universe could be infinite in size and that's just what the theoreticians in physics tell me and i'm not expert enough to dispute what they have to say so i just take them at their word well i i guess i have a different because i remember watching a video with lawrence krauss and he was you know i think he believes in the possibility of multiverse and he was on a panel with much of physicists and uh the elephants said there's no evidence at all the multiverse so that's right there's no evidence of a multiverse but they still think that it's a possibility it's my understanding okay that's fine yeah there's no evidence of an author i don't know how you would get evidence for that i don't know how that would work but according to our best empirical theories about our universe my understanding is is that a multiverse is a distinct possibility too wouldn't it if there's a multiverse uh yeah i suppose we'd like to have one yes we believe in the principle of sufficient reason yeah i'm not sure i do know that everything means explanation yeah i think some things might not have an explanation i think that i i think that principle sufficient reason is that everything has either an explanation and something else an external cause or necessity of its own nature right anything there could be an underlying uh substance or principle to our universe that simply has always existed not necessarily right i don't know if it makes it necessary it could just have always existed i don't know what that would mean to make it necessary necessarily means it can't it cannot not exist i'm not sure that having always existed is the same as cannot not exist i'm not sure those are the same yeah i think there's no okay you think of this i'm not sure about i think you're right they're not the same oh okay i think necessarily like maybe just in all possible worlds like two plus two always before in every single possible world possibly yeah i'm not actually you know watching me i don't know a great deal there's lots of people who know a lot more than i do yeah all right uh so uh that's another uh i think that's another uh point for joe there so up to two and a half because yeah the uh [Music] the psr i mean you you can't argue against i mean you to argue to throw out the psr or even to cast doubt on the psr is so ridiculous it is so embarrassing for the atheist because there goes science but we have science we do science we know the psr is real and it's universally valid we know that we know that we can't pretend like it's not the case it is the case and we know it we know it's the case so two and a half points for joe zero points for brenda i talk about with uh i don't know yeah it seems to me that i don't know how a mind can exist without a body would there be any arguments um it would be an empirical argument and that would be simply an inductive inference that it does it seems to me that minds are always the consequence of brains brain activity that involves a lot of bad assumptions right like why would you assume that the higher is dependent on the lower that makes absolutely no sense like i said in the live chat i don't know if you could read it but um it is true when i pedal my bicycle there's a certain amount of momentum that i impart to the moving parts of this machine i'm a higher being than the bicycle but i'm imparting some of some of my energy into momentum into these dead metal parts these mechanical parts the pedals the wheels the gears of this machine which we call a bicycle okay i'm imparting energy to that system and guess what there's some momentum there because we live in well-ordered universe and yes if i stop pedaling the pedals can move my feet it's true it can move my legs a little bit that's true but to conclude oh the the petals of the bicycle move the human's legs no i'm sorry yes it is true technically you're right the met the pedals can move the human's legs but that's a secondary or tertiary effect the primary salient point here is that a human being is a higher nature than the nature of the bicycle and it's the human being in his will who is choosing to impart energy to this lower being this machine this bicycle and it just so happens there's some momentum and that can come back and affect the body of this human being and that can in turn affect the will can have some feedback on the will of the human oh i don't like the feeling of [Music] on my legs of this rotating bicycle putting pressure on my legs so i'm gonna kick my legs out to the side and just coast down the hill instead of having that momentum of the wheels force my legs to uh respond by moving a little bit right so your will could be moved by a dumb lifeless machine i don't like the way it feels when i'm biking coasting downhill and the wheels are turning because of that momentum that i've imparted to it so i'm going to kick my legs out i'm going to wail down the mountain like that so i've made a decision based on the feedback from this dumb machine but to conclude that the machine is in control and i'm just reacting to the machine all the time is to completely miss the point of that whole scenario we have a sentient rational being with free will who is for all intents and purposes 100 percent in control and dominating that dumb lifeless bicycle doesn't mean the bicycle isn't interacting to some imparting action and energy in some passive way on the human too i'm not denying that but let's keep the horse before the occurred here right and i have a hard time understanding how a mind could exist without without a brain to give rise to mental activity there's a lot of people are substance duelists right like i'm not david chalmers he's like an expert brain think i don't know much about him i'm really sorry i doubt he's a substance dude this isn't he a property duelist huh might be right not sure substance dualism is really hard to justify i really don't see how you can justify their substance to do this what do you think uh this is something i thought about i watched josh rashford and he said he's talking about what thoughts were right yeah what are they that's the activity around in your brain it's the firing of neurons what are they made of neurons your thoughts are made of neurons the thoughts are what you have when your neurons are firing like yeah we could be pretty sure this because when your neurons don't fire people tend to be dead seems to me thoughts are immaterialized how do you how do you figure that because my thoughts can't be part of my brain why not because they're not physical they're not physical things so you're just begging the question well they're not well if i think a thought how much does a dog weigh and i think i thought and i think well where is that thought what does that thought look like it would look like your neurons firing yeah then aren't you taking the question how do you know that no it just it just seems to me that that's what it would be because when we turn off those neurons you don't have thoughts anymore so you think it's not something matter well they're the consequence of your neurons activity right so when your neurons are not active right then you don't have thoughts what do you think they're made of they're not made out of anything they are the consequence of of brain activity well if my bicycle is left out all winter and it rusts solid it's not good for much is it right i can't as much as i force it my little legs and feet on those pedals it just doesn't move and so you could say oh you see the bicycle can't function therefore the human can't pedal well that's true in some secondary sense but it's again completely missing the point it's the human that's the agent here it's not it's not the bicycle the bicycle has no agency the bicycle has no reason the bicycle has no free will the bicycle is not a person right so it's the same thing with these neurons okay you could you could blow someone's brains out with a gun and yeah you're not going to see a human fully human meaning body and soul you're not going to see that you're going to see now suddenly is a corpse you're going to see the corpse of a human and you're not going to see the immaterial invisible eternal soul of the human being because it's invisible we can't see it you know by the light of grace in the order of grace by by some special privilege we might be able to see a human soul it's not beyond god's power to give it to grant us that that's extremely rare so yeah you'll see a corpse just like you can see the rusted you can see me struggling on my rusted bicycle and say oh you see he can't bike without his bike well yeah well we're body and soul and if you interfere with the body then the person the human person who is body and soul is obviously got some challenges got some limitations right like look at blind people deaf people people who are in wheelchairs people have all kinds of impediments but their soul is still a human soul and they still have free will and reason unless that's also impaired i mean that could be impaired there are many ways of impairing impairing people their reason their free will they have different levels already god-given levels of free will and reason not everyone's gifted with the same free will not everyone's gifted with the same amount of reason and this brings me to the the whole question of the nature of the soul is it simple or is it not simple is it immutable or not that i've never really stumbled upon the answer to that in all my years of reading catholic literature and catechisms councils the saints in all my reading i've never really stumbled upon that so i i'll have to look into that it's a very interesting question if our souls are complex and mutable hmm that doesn't sound like a soul anymore to me it doesn't sound like a song i'm leaning towards immutable and simple now are there uh is god in a special category where he is the only one who's absolutely simple and our human souls are relatively simple uh is there an absolute immutability in god that our souls participate in in a limited way i don't know there are many many questions that i would love to explore on that uh the question of the immature not the materiality that's that's a given but on the immutability of the soul and the simplicity of the soul that's very interesting to me and very mind boggling one way or the other it's gonna to be mind-boggling whichever way those questions get answered okay so there must be a material no i don't think so so this computer right now is very active right and when i turn it off it will no longer be active but that doesn't mean that the software is immaterial it's not a material the software actually exists on the hard drive it's simply being the consequence of what i can see right here in front of me and the operation of the computer all of that is uh i woke up i woke up computer i'm gonna have to think of another word because because that's my weight word for alexa um so i stopped laughing david i changed the white word to the c word no i can't use it um no computer there it goes computer stuff all the joys and technology so so um software is not immaterial right and these events that are happening on my screen are not immaterial they really exist and they're the consequences of my pc and its operation and so my thinking my experiences of the soul my beliefs and sensations are the consequence of my brain when it is um um working properly or even improperly can i get that experiences the hardware software analogy is a good analogy but it has as all analogies have it has its limits and uh you know it's beyond obvious that software is material and it's not spiritual right a computer no one's ever claimed that our computer is run on spiritual software no one's ever made that claim because it's just beyond obvious that our hardware and our software is material right it's grounded in this material world it's not there's no soul of the computer well i mean there may be a soul in that aristotelian sense but not uh not a rational free soul and not even a soul a living soul right there's uh there there's a soul in the aristotelian sense where every material object has a soul that principle of that tension that gives the form okay i think i think that's what material things but uh yeah how come because i just think they're not at least evident that they're they're immaterial entities is it self-evident now this is this seems pretty weak uh what joe's coming up with here now i think it's self-evident that thoughts are immaterial um is it self-evident that thoughts are immaterial self-evident well only only if you've understood that there must be an uncaused first cause which is supernatural and immaterial you know so if you're if you're if you're a monotheist or if you're a hard solipsist then yeah i think it's i think then you could say it's self evident because the there is no alternative it can't be material because the material is here today gone tomorrow in constant flux and completely dependent on all of the circumstances which are themselves ever changing so yeah i guess i guess uh i would admit uh it shows right here that it is self-evident but only because i'm a monotheist and only because i was i was a hard solipsist before being a monotheist so i mean uh it's self-evident to us but is it self-evident to the atheist the typical naive realist atheist and i believe brenda's a naive realist atheist which is just the shoulder shrug like hey it seems like we have a world here seems like there's a you know big old world out there it seems like there are other beings other minds other people other persons that's how it seems right so this primo fascia argument that uh it seems to be real so i'm gonna go with that rather than inventing some fantasy religion creation myth or some god or whatever i'm just gonna go with what seems to be the case that's the typical atheist of our day and the typical atheist i think of all time is that naive realist shrugging of the shoulders oh well it seems to be real let's just roll with it that's what david hume said and that's what most uh atheists say at the at the end of the day it doesn't seem self-evident it seems to be pretty evident right if i drink alcohol um it changes my thoughts because it's changed my brain right if i take lsd i've never done that i'm gonna be terrified of doing that if i take a psychoactive drug it changes my my experiences because it changes how my brain works how does how does um alcohol affect an immaterial substance uh well i i can't answer every question i just think uh i think the mind is i think his thoughts are immature come on joe you're losing points here because you gotta say we are a huge i'm a human person you are a human person and the human nature is body and soul this is essential this is metaphysics 101 from a from a christian perspective we are body and soul so yeah you punch me in the face it hurts my soul sorry because we're body and soul i have my feelings when you hurt my feelings my feelings are in my soul right when you cut my finger it hurts my soul my soul is in anguish i feel the pain in my soul so uh i mean is that mysterious yeah it certainly is i mean so i agree with joe like we can't explain it but we know that we are uh humans with a human nature and that human nature is body and soul i think this is very very important to explain to the atheist and joe didn't uh didn't bring this up real estate that's just my opinion put up dude something else if you want well no i kind of want to pursue this because this was elizabeth objection to descartes which was she didn't see how material objects could affect immaterial world or the immaterial could affect material right unless you say there's some sort of causal connection between the material and the immaterial do you think that there is uh i'm going to bring the next order anything why can't he material things affect the material world because they're causally isolated from each other because otherwise says if and because we think that the uh the physical world is uh causally closed it's there's no outside they would violate a number of uh conservation laws right so so much for uh rejecting the psr are you gonna you're gonna maintain you're gonna put cast doubt on the psr but say oh the conservation laws you cannot both choose one choose are the conservation laws yeah okay then you have the psr are you gonna throw the psr okay you're throwing out your conservation laws too right be consistent so where in the brain does the soul connect to the brain to the body these are questions the soul is the form of the entire body this is a catholic dogma the soul is the soul of the human is the form of the human body okay right down to the little pinky fingernail the soul is the form of the entire body okay that is that well understood is that intuitive do we know do i un claim to understand how and what that means no but it's a catholic dogma that the soul and the body are united intimately so intimately that the person is that union of body and soul and the soul is the form of the body however answering everything and it seems to me that it's not terribly self-evident if you can't if you're just hypothesizing something or what you can't have any kind of explanation and or any kind of mechanism i can offer a mechanism yeah joe failed to bring it down and examine the metaphysical principles that enable the monotheist or the heart solvers but in his case the monotheist to take as self-evident the fact that thoughts are immaterial and it goes back to through cause and effect to that necessary that one necessary being the uncaused first cause who is necessarily immaterial and is necessarily the source of every perfection and is uh infinite in every pure perfection and so on and so forth simply that my thoughts arise due to the activity of neurons in my brain i can point to them i can point to the region that's responsible for vision i can point to the region where there's higher order thinking and all kinds of things but you can't give any explanation well you don't understand the thoughts are not made of anything so that would be the definition of thoughts are they're not a substance they're just the activity of the of the brain well it's gonna be a metaphor something if it exists why so you think if it exists it has to exist material or immaterial right well what brenda is saying is it's like a dance like oh look at the dance and there are 100 people dancing this ethnic dance and look at the dance and joel's like yeah but where where is the dance show me where's the dance and brenda's saying well the people in the people that are making these movements that's the dance that's the group dance that's the circle dance and joe's like yeah but uh what you can't uh identify the exact material dance you're just waving your hand and saying the whole thing generally is a dance well brenda's right it is the whole thing generally is a dance and you can't do reductionism and say it's when this girl kicked her leg in that particular way that's part of it undoubtedly that's part of it that's not the dance that's one movement of the dance but the dance is bigger it's the gestalt it's the whole thing organically and it's not this particular group it could be any group doing this traditional dance in any place doesn't have to be in this village could be in the village next door so brenda's right right brenda is right brenda's wrong but right wrong that thoughts are just an epic phenomenon of the physical material brain that's wrong but given that wrong assumption brenda's right to defend it in this way saying look it's just i can't i can't do a one-to-one correlation because a thought is a complex thing of a coordinated dance of all these neurons and it can happen in your brain my brain whatever so it's not specific to this neuron or this set of neurons or this time or this place it's like that dance on the mountaintop by this one tribe that's the dance but it's also the dance when the next village over is doing it with their people right they're not the same age not wearing the same clothes i mean they may have this similar uh pattern same colors but they're not the same identical uh objects right so brenda's underlying assumption is wrong wrong oh so wrong but the defense makes sense joe should see that and step back and say yes but look at go deeper thoughts are not an epiphenomenon of the physical how do we know that because of cause and effect and we go right back to the uncaused first cause and we start with that immaterial being and then we know that it is self-evident that we have we are given souls which are immaterial and that our thoughts are immaterial and so on and so forth so joe really missed an opportunity here to go back through the cause and effect chain of all contingent beings all contingent parts of every part of every thing living or non-living and going back through the chain of cause and effect back to the uncaused first cause which is necessarily spiritual immaterial and absolutely simple that's why i'm not impressed with joe's defense even though i've given him two and a half points so far maybe more and even though i disagree with brenda and brenda's you know making a lot of uh bad assumptions um i'm still on average disappointed in joe when you get right down to it this is not a good defense it's not a good apologetics uh approach those are the only two i'm sure well these could be different levels of description right so one way of talking about for instance um the water in my teapot is that it's hot it has a temperature but there's no such substance as temperature temperature is just a way of talking about the collective activity of all the molecules in the water which is that they have a kinetic energy that results in the water boiling but there's no substance called temperature but it's just a way of talking about about the water yeah okay so the thoughts they're not made of anything they're not material they're just uh they exist right there there's a super venus there's a super venus there's a way of talking about things how does the neurons create the thoughts i don't know that i don't really know that but the neurons um have connections with each other and it's their activity that gives rise to thoughts thoughts and memories memories are stored are memory stored in the soul i have no idea well we're pretty sure that they're stored in the brain and i believe it's many of the members maybe not all are stored in the neuron as chains of molecules inside of the neuron i could be wrong about that i'm not up on everything so but it's memories are are physical i can go into your brain and erase your memories yeah the um i've already i've already critiqued this uh this materialistic uh interpretation of the mind brain into a you know relationship but it brings me brenda's little talk here just now reminds me of once again of the mystery of the human soul and for me the soul and the mind are the same thing how can it be that our memories and our experiences accumulate and are stored for lack of a better word if our souls are immutable unchangeable and simple how can that be it's a deep deep mystery are are our souls not immutable are they mutable right like if you corrupt a young innocent catholic girl which ends up in hell because of your corruption it would seem that you introduced a change into her soul right so i really have to look into this is the human soul immutable or not why do i have the impression that it is why do i have that impression why do i just default to that i could be wrong the reason i default to that of course is because we're told the soul is immaterial and immortal so yeah i'm gonna have to i'm gonna have to look into this uh the immutability of the human soul and the simplicity of the human soul interesting questions you know where a specific memory is i can erase it by scrambling that region of the brain can you put like a memory and like can you hold them out keep it in the box probably at some future time we might have the technology to do that okay i think we just disagree it's fine well you don't have any given any reasons for any of the things that you're talking about it's just you just believe these things i have reasons and evidence which is that um substances affect the brain which affects my thoughts you have an explanation for why that would happen you have no explanation for memories uh it doesn't seem possible that the soul even has memories maybe it doesn't you have no explanation for any of these things okay so uh it seems brand is getting a little bit aggressive here but at the time when i was listening to this last night i thought it was justified i thought it was just i thought brenda's justified to be pissed off here because what's joe doing he's coming in he's you know uh laying down some assertions he's not doing a great job of backing up his assertions with metaphysical principles and brenda's bringing the materialistic atheistic mechanistic worldview with plenty of examples and i so last night i was feeling that brenda was justified in being pissed off and feeling like joe is provoking but not um not bringing any substance that's that's how i felt and i think that's how brenda felt and that's why i felt it was justified for this aggressive little outburst here by brenda saying you're not justifying anything i'm justifying everything you're not justifying anything and i frankly i shared those sentiments and that frustration and so that's why i didn't really um i wasn't i wasn't disgusted by this little show of aggression here i wasn't disgusted by it i was sort of sympathetic to it sort of agreed with and i felt the same sort of i felt the same sort of weight for different reasons obviously for completely different reasons because i want my faith to be defended more stringently and more uh more thoroughly using metaphysical principles but anyway having uh now listened back to it now as i'm listening back to this i think it's a little bit uh uncalled for on the part of brenda so i'm starting i'm starting to have some more sympathy here for joe uh even though he's not doing a great job but i'm starting to feel uh with a second listen through them having a little bit more sympathy for joe and also the fact that joe is uh you know uh a cute sensitive nice guy and he let me know by email that he didn't really appreciate that i didn't step in as moderator i should have stepped in and helped and whatever and uh but i told them both beforehand i'm not going to step in i'm not part of this conversation i'll just introduce you and i'll wrap it up and that's it but i know joe had his feelings hurt because i uh didn't really defend him and i told him he didn't really do a good job and that sort of thing so i apologize for that listening back now i feel uh i'm starting to feel a little bit more sympathy for joel here i mentioned this all you did he kept mentioning is this all material material i never talked about this i saw anything what would it be it exists i don't think it's all exists all right well i didn't say anything about this thoughts yeah i can feel joe's being defensive here now this whole think look all i talked about was thoughts yeah i don't think they're in material i think they're material yeah but what do you think do you think that our souls can think i do i probably yeah i do i do i think i think your mind is your soul yeah your mind is your soul that's what i believe i think that's the catholic teaching oh okay well how does that work i don't know how does the multiverse work um they came into being as a result of inflation in the early part of the universe how'd that happen so brenda's admitting the multiverse is part of the universe wow is that the standard model for this explaining away the multiverses like it's like oh well our universe expanded and that gave rise to the multiverse so that is so lame so in other words the multiverses are dependent on our universe this is so so lame i'm not sure i don't know okay so you're definitely i don't understand where you're going with us so i think joe's doing a bit of tip for tat here just emotional reaction because brenda lashed out a little bit you're not defending yourself i'm bringing evidence you're not bringing anything and i think joe is just doing a little bit of emotional uh reaction here which is not great to see well you seem to want to have this position but you don't seem to want to have to defend it all right i'll just say you're right how's that better oh oh oh look at the look look at the look on brandon oh that's classic yeah that was a good reaction face there right there around circles lucky going it's okay we're just going oh i like brenda brenda brenda's cool that was a cool reaction right there that's a better idea sure what are you what are your thoughts on morality you think like i think uh some ideas think it's sub objective subjective like i think it's easier like just moral facts or more opinions so um do you know what what is uh objective morals to you dude how do you understand that uh god let's say i guess more fact could be something that's true regardless of whether any person believes it or not right so objective means that it's independent of personal opinion yeah right and so where do your morals come from no i'm just i'm just asking are there more other such things as more effects i'm not sure that there are but what do you think uh yeah i think there are more effects i would go towards that because i think i think if there are more facts and it just becomes everything just becomes really subjective to each individual and then that means you can't say anyone's done right or wrong because everybody can just make up their own moral system yeah i'm not convinced that if there are no moral facts everything is subjective i don't believe that i'm gonna i'm gonna let this play out it's not terribly interesting but what i would have done and what i wish joe would have done when it comes to morality morality is one of the best proofs of the existence of god okay one of my favorite proofs it's all about that standard of judgment are you making any judgments about truth goodness you know so we have a morality that's uh you know these are stan there's a standard by which we judge the goodness of an action or a goodness of a choice or the goodness of an omission or a lack of an action you know um there are these standards by which the atheist judges now we just need to focus in on that standards that standard absolute eternal objective and uh immutable or not boom now we have the atheist completely cornered where they have one of two options become a monotheist by acknowledging that that standard by which they judge true with their goodness or whatever that standard by which they judge is absolute eternal immutable and objective in which case they've embraced monotheism de facto generic monotheism welcome to the club hallelujah or not it's not objective it's just subjective it's not absolute it's just relative it's not immutable it's in flux it's not eternal it's here today gone tomorrow so this is the gotcha technique that i've developed and there's absolutely no way out of it the best an atheist can do is say yes my judgments may not be objective and eternal and immutable and all that but it's still my opinion it's still my opinion and i think that's what we're going to get to here but it really my approach really focuses by bringing the attention on to your the opponent's judgment this atheist that's fighting with me what are your judgments right what is the standard by which you judge are you judging yes okay what is that standard is that standard god or not if it's god hallelujah if it's not who cares so anything it's subjective no i didn't say that i'll tell you either objective or not objective which would be subjective hmm i'm not sure about that isn't that a strict economy objective or not objective well i don't think there are any objective morals but i don't think that if there are no objective morals then everything is just is just um basically i'll give i'll give joe a point here because he got brenda to admit there are no objective morals there's no standard there's no standard no objective standard by which to judge therefore who cares about any of your stupid opinions brenda who cares so i give i give joe two points for this one boom why not because i think that there can be there can be obligations and possibly you could use the language of obligations and duties you could take the utilitarian view that what's what's moral is what's in it what's best for everybody you can take a number of views and those don't have to rely on any objective moral um facts you don't have to where more obligations come from um probably for me from society and from my my culture and my parents the people around me might makes right so like i came from like nazi germany then my obligation would be to do what they did right but your theory i think is that that's not my theory come from our community families where we come from yeah well if i came from germany shouldn't i do what they did to the jews i'm not convinced that that was in line with the culture of germany for one thing joe you know joe's rubbing salt in the wound here i mean it's a good it's a good point and joe was right but i would have just scored the victory said look okay you've admitted there's no objective morality you don't have a standard by which to judge morality okay so you can live with that brenda for the rest of your life until you convert to god right you're stuck brenda you've admitted you're stuck with weak sauce your judgments are weak weak beyond weak okay the only way you can have strong judgments is if they are absolute objective eternal and immutable that's that's the only way if those if your standard by which you judge is not absolute objective eternal and immutable if your standard is not absolute objective eternal and immutable then you brought a limp noodle to a gun fight okay you got nothing right that's game over that's game over so uh yeah it's good i'm listening back to this because i'm giving joe a lot more uh credit a lot more points here it's a win-win-win-win-win for joe i think that they may very well been out of line with the culture of germany okay what about like like i used to live in africa and uh i lived in uganda for a little while for two years it's kind of like watching me when i play chess with someone who is actually better better at playing chess with me like i mean i may know the principles of chess and i may you know uh love the game and all these sorts of things but when it comes right down to it when it comes to pulling off the victory it's like the people around watching me even though i have mate in three it takes me 30 moves to win it's just agony for those who are watching me because it's like you had him mate in three but you didn't seal the deal and you went the roundabout route because you couldn't see the victory that's how i feel watching joe here he's like yeah he's got the principal principles he loves god and brenda doesn't have a leg to stand on philosophically metaphysically but it's just that sloppy very sloppy approach that's painful to watch painful to listen to that's why i was frustrated last night that's why i gave joe poor notes after the uh discussion and so i just want to formally apologize to joe because you know joe's winning he's making the winning winning moves here but just in a sloppy way and not nailing it home driving the point home in a very clear and concise way when these concessions are made by brenda in this case when these concessions are made they're damning concessions they should be highlighted and enshrined and made into uh you know just just a flashing light like you've conceded you don't have any objective standard by which to judge period that should be emphasized and so many of the other arguments that joe brought up they're good they're fundamentally good but you need to you need to emphasize it in such a way that the point gets driven home not to brenda because you know that's neither here nor there but to the listeners and those who will watch this video there won't be many people watching it but to those who do watch that discussion between joe and brenda they might be in the comforter of their own home having some doubts and questions about the uncaused first cause or about god about morality about religion whatever it might be and if you can just drive in very clearly some of these points for example with the objective morality that's an excellent very moving point no one wants to come to a discussion admitting that they don't have an objective eternal absolute immutable standard of truth and goodness by which they judge they just don't it's embarrassing it's lame so if you can cl show that and emphasize that you will win the hearts and minds and souls of somebody out there who stumbles upon your discussion video it's illegal to be gay they maybe they kill gays that's part of the culture is that yeah is that wrong objectively yeah i think it's wrong i don't think it's objectively wrong okay so they have their rights but i cannot like things and i can think that i can think that that is um that's all you've got as an atheist well i don't like it and you can't stop me you can't change the fact it's the fact that i don't like it well yeah that's lame good law for people to have right it doesn't it's just might makes right well i don't like it and all my friends don't like it and we're going to get together and we're going to change the rules here in our little local community in our country and whatever so yeah good for you do what that wilt it's like there there's only you know it's a battle of wills right if you're agnostic you're an atheist it's just a battle of wills it's just might makes right that's all it is it's so lame and you know i've discussed often this whole thing with uh satanism do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law it's called the law of philemon or will and uh yeah i think it's uh it's a valid law do what they will and the the catholic version from the 5th century saint augustine said love god and do what thou wilt we have that freedom we have we have a free will therefore god but um you know it's just so lame to watch the atheist or the agnostic talking about they're gonna exert their will and they have their will and this is my idea of goodness and justice and oh no it's not objective eternal or immutable or absolute but it's mine and i value it and other people value it and i think you should value it too and give you a little speech but it's so lame it's just your will against mine and i've made my choice i'm catholic okay i've made my choice i am siding with jesus christ and his church that's my choice it's a power it's a very powerful choice and it trumps your choice why because my standard of goodness my standard of truth is absolute eternal objective and immutable boom end of conversation follow that because that if i have if i don't agree on moral facts that therefore i have no say in anything yeah of course your opinion their opinion nobody's right nobody's wrong well you're just kind of totalizing right and wrong i think i think that right and wrong could be different than simply that i think um i think it's it's a good thing right to help people to not um cause harm to other people yeah so i'm gonna give joe more points here it's just it's just joe's winning so i i apologize formally once again to joe joe if you're listening to this you won you won the whole conversation all this quote unquote debate this friendly loose debate you won okay every point you brought up you're a bit sloppy you could have been tighter you could have nailed your points down more emphatically and got dug down deeper to the metaphysical principles to back up a lot of the stuff that intuitively you know and i know that um you're not accustomed to debating i'm not either i don't debate i just have conversations with people and then i think later how i should have said things i'm sure it's the same thing with you but you won obviously you're on the you're on the side of god you're on the side of truth and goodness you're gonna win but i was just disappointed last night now i'm really listening to it and i'm getting excited and i'm seeing a lot of your gems here they're gems in the rough right like it's like these gems need to be dusted off washed and soaked and then polished you know cut sharpened up polished and put into a nice little uh cabinet for all to admire that's that was my only frustration so that would be in line with my moral belief that you shouldn't not necessarily harm people so laws against homosexuality would unnecessarily harm homosexuals