May 23, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
17:57
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| Alright everybody, just a short logical top-up on the question of empiricism, deism, religiosity and madness. | |
| So a debate raging back and forth on the FDA board about a fellow who posted on my proofs for God a rejection of empiricism As the sort of, you could say, the only or the sole or the important way of determining truth and falsehood, right? | |
| So when I say, well, there's no empirical evidence for God, people say, well, but that is mere empiricism, and all competent philosophers are rationalists who only look at the truth of a proposition in regard to the evidence for or against it. | |
| Which, of course, is nonsense. | |
| Like a fellow... | |
| It doesn't matter. Anyway, so this debate is going back and forth, and I replied to the fellow who posted on my YouTube channel saying, wait a second, you're using the empirical evidence of my speech to argue against the validity of empirical evidence? | |
| And I stand by that. | |
| It's an elementally silly thing to do, right? | |
| God makes everybody an idiot, which is really an embarrassing idiot, right? | |
| And that's what happens when you cling to a conclusion rather than a methodology, right? | |
| That you bend everything to suit your silly purposes and thus come up with the most embarrassing nonsense when it comes to philosophy. | |
| So let me sort of explain a little bit more about what it is that I'm talking about, and hopefully it will make some kind of sense at least. | |
| So when we bring something to bear, like empiricism on the question of God, empiricism, you know, reason and evidence, right? | |
| Reason and evidence. | |
| If it's irrational and there's no evidence for it, then we know it's not valid. | |
| And if the evidence contradicts the, quote, reasoned arguments, then the reasoned arguments are false, right? | |
| I mean, we sort of understand that, right? | |
| That evidence trumps rationality. | |
| Which is why, if you have a great scientific theory, which is perfectly rational, but the evidence contradicts it, then the scientific theory is proven invalid. | |
| My engineering theory, which is consistent... | |
| Consistent is better than rational. | |
| My engineering theory is consistent. | |
| It says my bridge should stand up. | |
| My bridge doesn't stand up. My theory is not consistent with reality. | |
| It might be self-consistent, but not consistent with reality, which is where truth resides. | |
| I say all men are lizards. | |
| That's kind of consistent, right? All men, right? | |
| It's just not consistent with the facts of reality. | |
| That only Republicans are lizards, right? | |
| So here's the problem with arguing against empiricism... | |
| Let's say that my Proofs for God video or argument is completely false. | |
| Let's just say I make every mistake in the book and it's completely false. | |
| Well, what evidence are you going to bring to bear against my argument for empiricism? | |
| Well, you're going to have to rely upon the empirical evidence of my argument, right? | |
| The video. It's a slideshow, I think. | |
| So, the slideshow, or the PowerPoint. | |
| The audio, maybe even the visuals, or whatever. | |
| But you're going to have to address the argument for which you have empirical evidence, right? | |
| So, if I say in my video 2 plus 2 is 4, and you say... | |
| If I say in my video 2 plus 2 is 5, and you say, well, that's just not valid, and I say, well, I never said that, you'll say, yes, you did, and here's the proof. | |
| And then you'll play me my recording of me saying 2 plus 2 is 5. | |
| Right? So here you have... | |
| The putting forward of empirical evidence, right? | |
| Sorry, Isabella's tugging a little on the court here. | |
| And once you have this putting forward of empirical evidence, it's really tough to say there's some other massive criterion for truth other than empirical evidence, right? | |
| How are you going to argue against the video I've put out in the empirical realm without quoting from and referring to that video in the empirical realm? | |
| And contradictions that it contains, all of which you are processing through the empirical observation of external reality. | |
| Major. Because, of course, the major argument—I'll use the word argument loosely here—for God is sort of like, yeah, okay, so there's no empirical evidence for God in reality. | |
| And, by the by, God is logically self-contradictory, right? | |
| And so, the equivalent to that is me putting out an argument saying that goblin plus unicorn equals five. | |
| And people would then say, well, there's no evidence that goblins exist, there's no evidence that unicorns exist, and it's a silly thing to say that it equals five. | |
| It's a nonsensical statement, there's no truth value in it, it is not even wrong, as Dickie D would say, right? | |
| Or if I put out an argument which says 2 plus 2 equals 5, people would jump on me and say, but 2 plus 2 doesn't equal 5 if you can't even get that basic down. | |
| Why would we take you seriously about anything else? | |
| That's what theologians would say, right? | |
| Or, if I said that in Matthew 22.3, Jesus says, I am not the Son of God, you poor, deluded rebel. | |
| Then people would say, but that is not what Matthew 22.3 says. | |
| And they would quote to me from the Bible, thus saying, well, look, you got your empirical evidence wrong, because I'm going to correct you with reference to empirical evidence, which is what is actually written in the Bible. | |
| So, if I misquote the Bible, if I put out nonsensical statements, if I put out logically contradictory statements... | |
| Theologians will jump on me, right? | |
| I mean, theologians have jumped on a silly pause that Richard Dawkins has in answer to a question. | |
| They've jumped all over that as, quote, evidence, right? | |
| As evidence that evolution is incorrect and false, right? | |
| And... So that's what would happen if I put out nonsensical, self-contradictory, or misquote the Bible, religious people are going to jump all over me and say, that is incorrect. | |
| Now, what they're patently not going to say is, well, that only appears incorrect in the material realm, but it is perfectly correct in another realm. | |
| So let's substitute the word truth for God. | |
| So people say, well, there's no evidence for God in the material realm or in the realm of reality. | |
| And the concept of God is logically self-contradictory, but God exists outside of our mere perceptions. | |
| That's what people say. | |
| Now, if we say that Steph's arguments for atheism... | |
| Or against superstition. | |
| Let's just substitute the word truth for God. | |
| So if we put out crazy, illogical, inconsistent, anti-empirical things, arguments, to be consistent with their own methodology, theists should say, must say, really, Well, | |
| yes, it's true that the truth that Steph claims to prove in the material realm is not valid for the material realm, but the truth of Steph's propositions exist in a higher realm where a lack of evidence and logical contradiction equals a higher form of Platonic truth, | |
| right? No theologian, even if I make the most egregiously irrational and anti-empirical statements, no theologian will be able to tell me that I'm wrong. | |
| Alright, so if I misquote the Bible, they don't say, well, you have... | |
| It's true that what you say doesn't match the Bible in this realm, but it perfectly matches the Bible in some abstract realm which is of higher primacy and importance, which we have to have faith in. | |
| If I misquote... Our fictional buddy Jesus, they don't say, well, it's true that this appears to be inconsistent in the material realm, but it is a perfectly valid and accurate quote in the higher realm of true knowledge. | |
| And we have to have faith in that higher realm of true knowledge. | |
| And not get hung up on the fact that Steph has misquoted, or seems to have apparently misquoted Jesus in the material realm. | |
| I've never, I mean, I've been arguing with theists for a quarter century, and I've never heard one of these ass-clowns actually say that, which would be perfectly consistent with their own methodology. | |
| In fact, it is the only way to be consistent with their own methodology, which is to take anti-empirical, erroneous, illogical, counter-reality statements and say they are valid in a higher realm. | |
| They appear not to be valid in this realm, but who cares? | |
| This realm is not the important realm. | |
| We have to have faith in the accuracy of illogical statements in the higher realm. | |
| Every time I've misquoted the Bible, and I have once or twice, for sure. | |
| Actually, more than once or twice. | |
| I misquoted the Bible. | |
| Twelve million theologians descend en masse to tell me that I have contradicted the facts of reality, which is what is stated in the Bible. | |
| The fact that the claims in the Bible contradict the facts of reality completely escapes them, right? | |
| Because it's sad and pathetic clownery masquerading as philosophy. | |
| If I contradict the facts of reality of the Bible, they correct me in no uncertain terms. | |
| If the Bible contradicts the facts of reality by claiming that Jews come back from the dead and can walk on water and produce fish out of nothing, right? | |
| Then, well, that's a matter of faith, right? | |
| That's a higher reality. That's a higher truth. | |
| And so if I contradict the Bible... | |
| I'm absolutely wrong, unequivocally. | |
| If the Bible contradicts reality, that's a higher mystery that we have to have faith in. | |
| Well, how can you have both methodologies? | |
| If contradicting the facts of reality, the empirical facts of reality, i.e. | |
| what's written in the Bible, produces unmitigated error, unambiguous error, yeah, I know, she's upset about it too. | |
| Then, how is it that the fact that the Bible contradicts reality consistently and itself, how is that a higher mystery which we must accept? | |
| This is what I was obviously not very well expressing in my statement or my reply to this fellow. | |
| You cannot use empirical evidence to destroy the value of empiricism. | |
| You can say, oh yes, Steph, but there's a higher value than empiricism. | |
| But you see, of course, you're stating that in reality and I have to empirically receive that, right? | |
| And I have to 100% accurately process that in order to understand what you're saying and respond to it. | |
| So even the statement, there is a higher reality than empiricism, or there is another standard of truth than empiricism, It's completely relying on empiricism to make that claim. | |
| But you cannot communicate with anyone without using empirical, objective, tangible, sensual reality. | |
| Sense-based reality. | |
| You can't. We can only meet in reality. | |
| We can only connect in reality. | |
| And so what I would like for someone to say is they say, well, there's another realm of higher reality than empiricism. | |
| Like, okay, let's argue in that realm. | |
| You send me an argument in that realm. | |
| You communicate to me through that realm. | |
| Well, that's not how it works. | |
| It's like it was right, because it's not valid. | |
| Because you have to rely on empiricism to oppose empiricism. | |
| You have to send a letter saying letters don't get delivered. | |
| And that there is a superior realm, or you can say, there's a better way of sending letters, right? | |
| So if somebody says to me, I keep using snail mail, and somebody says to me, oh, come on, there's instant messaging. | |
| Right, here's the program, which is the theistic, quote, epistemology. | |
| Right, here's the program, right? | |
| It's far superior to snail mail. | |
| And the guy keeps writing to me in snail mail saying there's a much better way of getting information to someone than snail mail. | |
| Right? Here's the program. | |
| Here's the technology. Here's more or less how it works. | |
| And I'll say, well, why do you keep sending me letters through the mail? | |
| Why do you keep using snail mail if there's instant messaging? | |
| If you type your argument through instant messaging, that's all the evidence that I need that it's better than mail for most things, right? | |
| But empiricists who claim that there's this instant messaging of a higher platonic realm... | |
| Keep using snail mail, keep using empiricism to communicate about the superior value of this abstract, otherworldly, outside of time, outside of reality realm. | |
| It's like, well, if you're claiming instant messaging is complementary to, if not superior, to snail mail, and you keep saying that it's valid and it's real and it's true and you know it and it exists, then, you know, screw sending me snail mail. | |
| Why are you still mailing me? | |
| All you have to do is pop up a message on my otherworldly God-based IM platform and we're good. | |
| Right? So if somebody says to me that empiricism is not the only way of establishing truth, I'll say, okay, use this other realm. | |
| Don't use empiricism to communicate it to me. | |
| Don't use any of my senses. Have your God speak to me. | |
| Or, you know, light up the platonic ethernet web ring of my brain. | |
| Why are you bothering to send snail mail if you keep telling me that there's a far superior method of communication? | |
| It's ridiculous. All you have to do is pop up an IM message and I'm sold. | |
| But sadly, they never want to do that, to keep talking about the superiority of this other technology, yet they keep relying on the simple brain-based technology of empiricism to claim that there is something far better to or complementary to or superior to empiricism. | |
| But they will never rely on that medium to make their claim, right? | |
| So the guy who posts empiricism is not valid, or is not the only valid, how does he post it? | |
| Does he use this other realm to communicate to me? | |
| No. Does he ask his God... | |
| To communicate with me? | |
| Well, no. Even they don't believe what they're talking about. | |
| Even they don't believe what they're talking about. | |
| If I say, you can get my lectures through podcasts, instead of having me come over to your house and explain it to you, I'll send a link to the podcasts, right? | |
| Because then the person can download and see for themselves. | |
| But if I keep talking about the superior other medium... | |
| But continue to come over to your house and explain everything to you, my statements make no sense, right? | |
| This guy wrote to me in the empirical, objective, rational, observable, objective universe using a language I can understand with reference to the empirical evidence of my video to tell me that empiricism is invalid or less valid or other, | |
| right? But if there's a superior way of communicating the truth If this higher realm is there and the truth exists there, why does he not pray for God to enlighten me? | |
| Why does he not pray or send thoughts through this other realm to have it communicate with me? | |
| Right? I say that debating is better for many topics, that live debating is better than a message board. | |
| Because, basically, because, you know, people can be all kinds of gutless and creepy and passive aggressive on message boards, but they don't tend to do that in real life, right? | |
| So I say that debating is better than a message board. | |
| And so I don't get into debates about whether debating is better than a message board on the message board, because I've already said it's better to do a live debate than to... | |
| So I don't use the message board, right? | |
| I use live debating then, right? | |
| And so if I'm saying there's a higher realm to truth than empiricism, that's what I should use to communicate that there's a higher truth than empiricism because that would be an open and shut case. | |
| The moment I get a message directly from God, well, and I check out medically and it turns out to predict things that I could not know myself and blah blah blah, we're done. | |
| I'm sold. You don't need to convince me. | |
| You don't have to have me read Swinburne or Augustine or work my way through the ontological proof for God. | |
| It's ridiculous. Just send me a goddamn IM and stop snail mailing me to tell me how superior IM is. | |
| But they know it doesn't exist. | |
| That's why they type into YouTube rather than have their god talk to me. | |
| Because they know he doesn't exist. | |
| And that's what is such a fundamental buffoonery about this whole nonsense. | |
| And that's why I have no respect for these people. |
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