Continue watching DEBATE Craig Vs MadeByJimbob | Christianity or Sec. Humanism, Which Has a Better Ethical Foundation?
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Welcome everybody to Modern Day Debate. I'm your host tonight, Ryan. And we're going to get started. Thanks for the wait. Thanks for waiting for us. My goodness, I'm all out of sorts, guys. All right, we're doing Christianity or secular humanism. Who has the better ethical foundation? So without further ado, we're going to get Craig on the floor to start us out. So Craig, you got 10 minutes to start the show.

Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Just quickly, before we do start, I want to remind everyone that November the 15th and 16th, Modern Day Debates are holding DebateCon 5 in Newark, New Jersey, where you can go and see me live debate Christianity versus secular humanism with Andrew Wilson and the moon landing against Alex Stein. Tickets are available now.

So hello, everyone. My name is Craig McNeill, and I'm really excited to be doing this debate because I don't normally do this. You probably know me for talking to people that think the Earth is flat. So I'm excited to expand my wheelhouse a little, and this is quite an important conversation. For those of you who don't know me, I spend a lot of my time thinking about big questions like this. My background is in physics and nuclear engineering, so I tend to look at the world through the lens of evidence, logic, and how things actually work.

Excuse me. These principles have shaped how I approach everything, including morality. I also run a YouTube channel debunking flat earth nonsense, so if you're wondering if I'll be using evidence and reason tonight, the answer is yes, that's pretty much my brand. I'm also a husband, a dad, and a firm believer in the power of humanity to do good. That's why I'm here tonight, not just to argue for secular humanism, but to show why it is the better ethical system for everyone. Ethics should be built on reason, not revelation.

The foundations of secular humanism is reason, empathy and a shared commitment to human well-being. It doesn't rely on any divine commandments or ancient scriptures, but instead uses critical thinking and evidence to determine right from wrong.

This matters because morality, tied to religion, is by definition extremely rigid. It's locked to the norms of the time when those religious texts were written. Norms often included things like slavery, misogyny, tribal warfare and many worse things. For example, the Bible condones slavery in multiple passages and instructs women to submit to their husbands. These aren't values we hold today and aren't values we should ever hold.

Secular humanism, on the other hand, evolves. It adapts as we learn more about each other and the world around us. And that's why secular societies have led the way in advancing human rights, abolishing slavery, expanding women's rights and legalizing same-sex marriage. These weren't driven by any religious institutions, but human progress.

Morality is intrinsic and not dependent on God, because one of the most common claims from the Christian side is that without God, there can be no objective morality. But let me ask you this. Is morality truly objective if it's based on the arbitrary commandments of a deity? If something is good only because God says so, what happens when God says something harmful is good?

History shows us that this question isn't just hypothetical. Countless atrocities have been committed in God's name and still continue to be committed in God's name.

Secular humanism just avoids this problem entirely. It starts with a simple universal principle: morality is about reducing harm and maximizing well-being for everyone. It's not dictated by fear of hell or the promise of reward in heaven. It's simply grounded in empathy and reason.

And here's the thing: people don't need religion to behave morally. Secular societies like those in Scandinavia constantly rank highest in measures of happiness, safety and equality. Meanwhile, the most religious societies often struggle with corruption, violence and inequality. Now, I'm going to explain why I think Christianity's ethical framework is flawed.

The Bible is often presented as a perfect moral guide, but when you actually read it, it's full of contradictions and outdated moral prescriptions. Yeah, sure, it tells us to love our neighbor, but it also tells us to stone people for working on the Sabbath. Yes, it tells us to care for the poor, but it also literally commands genocide. When faced with these contradictions, Christians often cherry-pick the parts of the Bible that align with modern values and ignore the rest.

If you're already relying on human reasoning to decide which parts to follow, then why would you cling to the Bible at all? Secular humanism doesn't have this problem. It doesn't claim to have all the answers, but it's willing to ask the hard questions and adapt to new challenges. It allows us to confront issues like climate change, artificial intelligence, and global inequality with the tools of reason and compassion, not the limitations of some ancient doctrine.

Secular humanism is inclusive and finally I want to emphasize the inclusivity of it. Unlike Christianity, which divides the world into believers and non-believers, secular humanism begins with the simple premise that everyone matters equally. It doesn't care about your religion, your race, your gender or your sexual orientation. It simply asks, how can we build a better society where everyone has the opportunity to thrive? This inclusivity is especially important in a diverse world.

Ethical systems rooted in one religion inevitably exclude those who don't share that faith. Secular humanism, by contrast, provides a universal foundation for ethics, one that respects dignity and autonomy of every single individual.

To sum up, I think secular humanism offers a foundation for ethics that is rational, adaptable and inclusive. It doesn't rely on some outdated dogma or fear of divine punishment. It's built on empathy, reason and the shared human desire to make the world a better place.

Christianity, for all of its historical significance, cannot escape its contradictions and limitations. It asks us to tie our morality to an ancient text that condones slavery, suppresses women, and punishes thought crimes. Secular humanism asks us to do better, to use the tools of reason and compassion to build a more just and equitable world for everyone. And thank you very much. That's all I have.

All right, thank you so much, Craig, for your introductory statement. I'm just going to fix the name there, everybody, so just bear with me. Awesome possum. We don't want to have the wrong name on screen. This is made by Jim Bob. We're going to save that. So thanks to both of our speakers. We had a little technical glitch starting up, but we're up and running strong now thanks to Discord, so that's great.

I want to remind everybody that we are a modern day debate. We're neutral space hosting debates on science, politics, religion. We do hope you feel welcome here. And yeah, as Craig said, we do have a live event coming up. It's going to be in Newark. It's going to be amazing. We've got 10 debates booked right now. They're all going to be super exciting and juicy. Of course, Craig's going to be there debating against Andrew Wilson. You've probably all seen the adverts, but I don't want to get too far away while Jim Bob is...

munching on the palate cleanser there, if you will, of the intro. So I'm going to hand it over to Jim Bob to give 10 minutes for the introduction. So go ahead there, Jim Bob. Thanks for being here. All right. Thank you. So yeah, the topic is foundation. Sorry, I have an echo. Hold on a second. Echo is still have an echo. Hold on a second. Yeah, take your time. I'll just pause the timer. Still have an echo. Not...

do you want to try popping out pop back in quick again or me let me move my um maybe i'm hearing it on the discord side hold on a second sorry about that yeah yeah take your time we like i said we had to work through some things so it's not like oh my goodness how dare you gives our audience a good chance to smash the like button too um yeah uh really appreciate everybody hanging out already it's uh we've got over 600 watching

I know this is probably hard for you because you can hear the echo, but how's it going over there? I don't hear your echo. I don't hear my echo. Okay. I wonder, Ryan, if you're muted, I don't hear it. If I'm muted? Yeah.

Are you muted at all? No. I don't hear it now. Okay. No, no. It sounds like it might be sorted out. Maybe it'll just be a periodic issue. If it keeps happening, though, maybe, like I say, this is an open chat room that we have here in Discord. So if you want to, like I say, pop out, pop back in, if that seems to fix anything, that's fine. But right now it's good. So we'll go back to the topic at hand, presenting the case for Christianity and ethics. So 10 minutes on the floor, and it's all yours, Jim. Okay.

Okay, so the foundation, we're talking about foundation. Foundation means the ground upon which all else is built. If we look at some of them as bricks, the foundation is bricks, we would probably consider free will, justice, duties. Craig, in his opening, mentioned dignity, by the way, which cannot be founded in empiricism. There's no

we can actually find through pure reason or anything. It has to be assumed. I would say it's actually outside of the secular view. Free will, the notion that someone can commit an immoral act against someone else, whether it's one-to-one or a group, presupposes a few things. It presupposes what I would call personhood, that there's a being, not just a meat sack, not a biological machine acting out its determined mechanistic paths.

The act of murder is no less determined than a hurricane if you're going with the purely empirical natural paradigm. So personhood is a metaphysical – sorry, no problems. Sorry, guys. Oh, no worries here. I can pause the timer. Let me just fix something here. No worries. Every once in a while my computer in the middle of a debate will pop up. Do you want to update? And it will take my whole screen, so no worries. All right.

I think I'm good now. Alright, sorry about that guys. I'm just having multiple technical difficulties. Okay, so... A couple. I was just saying your video is paused now. Do you want to turn off your camera and turn it back on maybe? Just see if that fixes it. We're having some technical issues there guys. We'll get through it though. We're determined. Are you able to hear me there Jim Bob? I can hear you. Yeah, let me just see if this reconnects here. Okay. My goodness.

Kind of love it. It's like the forces of nature are against us right now, guys. We've got the whole of the internet server working against us, but we're going to make it happen, guys. Keep hitting the like button, everybody. You know, we appreciate our speakers and their patience working through some of these online issues that can happen. Still frozen there, Jim Bob. So maybe I'll just shush and let you continue the intro, and then if you can fix it,

Yeah, let me try to disconnect and jump right back in, I think. All right. All right. Sounds good. All right. No worries. It should be super quick. There we go. It's one thing that we like about Discord. It's very fast. Let's see if we can get that all back connected. Doing that video thing again, unfortunately for me.

Okay. You guys can hear me though, right? We can hear you. So yeah, maybe before we get too far out here, we'll leave you as the two dots bouncing on the screen for now if you want to present the rest of your intro or if you want to pop back out and try it again. It just seems like it's being really finicky. Yeah. Yeah, do you want to try one more time? Just to pop out, pop back in, see if it does the thing? I'll tell you.

It's one of those times that you wish there was something physical just to give it a good... Yeah. Come on. Get working. I don't understand why that is the case. We just had it connected, so... That's very strange. I don't know if there was something that was changed in the settings or if there's something else trying to access your camera, but... No, there's nothing else going here. So...

Yeah, and I will say to our live chat, we already tried using our other systems, and yeah, it's not working out. There's something strange going on today. So we'll just roll with it for now. There's only so much we can do to troubleshoot, and I don't want to get away from the argument. So I'm going to give you back some time here. I'm going to give you back 40 seconds and let you continue. Okay, cool.

Okay, cool. So yeah, it assumes a couple things personhood, it assumes a mind, it assumes that there's a person in there who's evaluating things and making decisions from a purely naturalistic position. I'm not sure how you can account for such a thing, given we would all be just downstream from sort of chemical reactions.

It also assumes intent, which brings up free will itself. So I don't know Craig's position on free will, but it's certainly possible and common that a secular humanist view can completely reject free will. Though if that's possible, Craig is in a position to say, well, they're not a real secular humanists. Well, how would you determine that? It seems to me that there is no normative authority for what secular humanism is and isn't. It seems like, by his opener especially, that

It's all based in preferences, and the preferences can change. So if he calls back to terrible things in the Bible, even if I bit the bullet and said, yeah, that happened, from his view, they just preferred to do it at the time. It was just like a changing course for humanity. In fact, from an evolutionary perspective, they were determined to do it, and they succeeded for doing that. They were actually evolutionarily fit at that point.

So I'm not sure if he believes in free will, but he is arguing from the secular humanist model. So it's entirely consistent with a secular humanist model to deny free will. Even if a secular society determined that they were going to make an anarchistic society that leaves justice in the hands of each individual, whoever has the most force wins, that's actually completely consistent with a secular humanist approach. Because in his opening, and nobody, no secular humanist has actually...

you know, filtered this down to something clear, what is better other than a set of preferences that you guys hope to agree on that could always change? So if it's the case that a secular humanist could adopt an awful position—by the way, a secular humanist could adopt all of the Christian ethical prescriptives and deny God itself. He's still using reasoning. He just happens to adopt

a Christian paradigm. He just doesn't believe any of the things. How would Craig argue against that? How do you argue against the secular humanist approach who takes all of the bigotry from the Bible and takes all of the sexism and everything you're listing, right? How would you argue against a secular humanist who said, "No, I actually determined the best for society is in fact the Christian paradigm. I just don't believe in God."

So the secular ethical system reduces to individual preferences, so why would it be wrong for a collective set of preferences to use force to deploy their preferences and enforce it on everyone else? How could it be possibly wrong from the secular view?

From a strictly naturalistic view, there is no injustice in that. There's no injustice in the force of water eroding a mountain. There's no injustice in a lion eating the face of a baby gazelle. So what could be possibly wrong from the secular view with taking the

everything that nature gave us, brute strength and force and weapons and technology and executing dominance over everyone and everything. Secularists would have to appeal to something above nature, like justice. Now, just as Craig used the word dignity, which is meaningless under the secular view, justice is something that's assumed. That means there's a

a special order to things that the moving away from that order would be wrong. A society is, is built on the order and the, and it's buttress by force. So when we refer to order, we're referring to that is good. So what is the good for secularism? What is justice?

other than merely preferences actualized in the world. We often hear the seculars talk about social justice and inclusivity and all of these bumper stickers and platitudes, but what would be the highest achievable peak of that social justice? What would it look like? What's the standard?

Is it equality? Is it everyone feels good? What is the metric for justice or goodness under the secularist view? From the Christian view, justice is an alignment with a divine order. So punishment and discipline is actually setting things in order. It's not just about punishing and brutality. It's about setting order.

presuppose order. So the debate, keep in mind tonight, isn't what system is true. The debate tonight is which system is better. Now, obviously,

Secular humanism and Craig is going to define better by his paradigm and Christianity is going to define better by ours. So the term better doesn't really do anything. So the question is really, can you account for all of the things that you assume under your paradigm? I would point out first and foremost, you can't account for justice.

You can't account for the good, you just have to go by what we prefer. You can't account for dignity, which you mentioned in your opener. There's no dignity in nature. Where are you finding this dignity from? I would argue that he's borrowing from the Christian paradigm in that regard.

Justice also assumes violence. A moral system without the threat of and the active use of force is a fantasy. The reality is a functioning society relies on the use of force to fight against injustice and disorder, and it assumes disorder is actually a moral wrong.

Does the secular system have a normative authority to tell us what's morally good and morally wrong? Let's take Christianity out of the equation for a second. Let's say there's two secular systems that live right side by side. One says force wins. We prefer to dominate. That's what nature says.

Craig comes up and says, no, you guys aren't real secular humanists. Well, why not? Who is the objective stance? Who is the arbiter? Who is the normative authority to tell one group of secularists? I don't know. We can call them instead of Israelites. We can call them communists.

Who's to say the secular communists were wrong for completely obliterating their opposition to the death? Who's to say from the secular view? No one. A functioning society must be willing to physically throw someone in a cage or excommunicate them from a society if it's necessary.

If violence is justified to keep the order of the nation, then violence is justified to keep the order of the world. The question becomes which paradigm can best justify the use of force, maintain order and decency, Christianity or secularism?

The other thing is duties. How can you argue something's morally good or wrong and actually police it in a society without a duty and obligation to keep the ordered society? So under a secular system, where do you get your duties from other than preferences? Is there any source for duties? Do they change? If they change, they can change next week, right? So secularism could be on its head tomorrow, completely antithetical to everything secular.

Craig says tonight. So getting into duties and obligations, we now can list the Christian duties, service, love your neighbor, procreate, help those in need. I've never heard a secular duty or obligation. I hear secularism has rights. Those are just entitlements without any duties. So where are these duties coming from? A society that provides a system of duties and obligations is more cohesive and more sustainable than one that has no obligations or duties at all. But instead, an ever-changing landscape of material preferences.

You see, a society also relies on a maintained population. It's a Christian duty to procreate. It is not a duty for secularists to procreate. In fact, the common secular position today, it's seen as a duty to not procreate, which shows in the disproportionate

reproductive rates between the two. In fact, the messaging from the secular society is to not have kids. It's a selfish act. And I would argue it's quite the opposite. It's selfish to not have kids. It's selfish to live your life entirely based on your own desires, leaving nothing but wrappers and Amazon boxes in the wake of your death.

Now, I expect my opponent to bring up a set of items under Christianity that he doesn't prefer, maybe even some he's appalled by. However, I'm appalled by pineapple on pizza. From his view, I can call that immoral. Is it actually immoral?

The debate topic isn't about who is more disgusted by the other system. The debate is who's got a better system. And from my standard, better has to be judged by how coherent the system is and if it can justify the assumptions in the statement that's immoral. If Craig takes the position that things are immoral just outside of his preferences, he's basically saying he's the arbiter and he's trying to get everyone to follow his preferences.

If he's going to equate something I don't like with something that's evil, then I could just as well go to the nearest restaurant, have a dish, and write a Yelp review that the chicken was immoral tonight. We all know that doesn't make sense. He might say, well, that's a category distinction. Well, I don't understand how a secular humanist view can distinguish between the category of things you like, things you don't like, and things you deem moral and immoral. With that said, the key question here is,

Let's pretend that there is a secular humanist. Ten seconds. The question is, how does Craig respond to a secular humanist taking on all of the Christian virtues and ethical prescriptives without the belief in God? How would Craig argue against this position?

All right. Well, thank you so much, Made by Jim Bob, for coming out and making the opening statement. We are going to kick it into an open discussion. I'm going to fire a poll in the chat, which has the better foundation for ethics, Christianity, secular humanism, or other debate in the comments there, guys. So maybe this might be a chance if you have like a...

Oh, sorry. If you have a physical camera that's plugged in right there, Jim Bob, maybe try taking the USB out and plugging it back in. Maybe it'll re-recognize the source. I'll give it a shot. I'll try. I'll try as we go. Oh, yeah. It's good if people can see your expressions and stuff like that. It helps shape the argument, right?

less people know where you're at. So yeah, that was a lot of fun guys. We're going to get into the open discussion. Hopefully we can get Jim Bob back on camera here so you can get some visual insight as to where Jim Bob's at as the conversation progresses. But yeah, let's just go into it and we'll hopefully get that resolved sometime throughout the debate. So go ahead there, Craig. I'll let you respond to some of what you just heard and then feel free to jump in there, Bob, when you're ready.

Yeah, well, first of all, your final question there, how would I talk about a secular humanist taking on Christian values? Well, I would disagree with your entire premise and say it's a bit of a straw man as just because some values may appear similar.

doesn't mean that they've taken on Christian values. Two different views can have similar values without one literally stealing from the other. So your question there was a bit of a loaded question with a straw man attached because it's not a position that a secular humanist would hold. My question to you would very simply be, why didn't you tell us why Christianity would be better for an ethical foundation

Because I didn't actually, in your intro, hear any reason why it would be. Could you just... Sure, yeah. The...

In my intro, I mentioned that you don't have a standard for better. So if your determination for better is merely preferences, then you don't even agree with other secular humanists of what better is. So I'm actually doing an undercutting sweep here is that there are two potential secular humanist views. One can take a force-wins approach.

Completely absent Christianity just says force wins. We're going to dominate and we're going to use force to implement our views like Stalin did. Right. Completely secular. And by his by his metric, better for him, better for him. So if that's the case, how could you possibly argue against someone else's view of what better is if better is defined by their preferences? Well, first off, Stalin wasn't a secularist. He was an authoritarian.

He was godless. That doesn't mean that he's secular. He was part of, he was a secular humanist. He was an authoritarian, which is kind of against what secular humanism talks about. Why can't seculars be authoritarian? Because it's about empathy and making the world better for each other. Now, force...

If you could please not interrupt me whilst I'm trying to get a thought out, I'd very much appreciate it, Jim Bob. That would be appreciated. I'll let you know when I finish the thought instead of you interrupting me. Thank you. So, secondly, humanism prefers voluntary cooperation over coercion. When people understand the reasoning behind rules and see the benefit to society, they're more likely to follow them willingly.

For example, public health campaigns are based on education, like promoting vaccines. They're preferable to mandates unless the situation becomes critical, like a pandemic.

authoritarian rule isn't secular. Using force to impose ideology or suppress dissident violates the principles of freedom and autonomy, which is kind of what secular humanism is about. So when you bring up people like Stalin, wait, let me finish my thought. When you bring up people like Stalin, that isn't a secular humanist. That is an authoritarian. Yeah, he doesn't believe in God, but that he doesn't hold the value secular humanists do. Okay.

Okay, so the definition of secular is denoting attitudes, activities, and other things that have no religious or spiritual basis. Yes, but that's not what the definition of secular humanism is. I get it, I get it, but humanism would be a subcategory of secularism. So I'm asking you, how does a secular humanist argue against secularism?

Once again, I do need to address your point there that's a bit of a straw man.

Stalin was not a secular humanist. He may have been secular, but he was definitely not a humanist. He was an authoritarian that wanted to rule by coercing and force and power. That is not what secular humanism is. I feel, Jim Bob, that you are, you know,

You're correlating secular humanists with secular being not believing in God, whereas they're not the same thing. Just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean that you are a secular humanist. Secular humanists don't believe in authoritarian rules. They understand what you don't believe in. I'm asking you, who's the ultimate authority in determining what humanism is, and could it change based on preferences? Yeah.

As I explained in my intro, secular humanism adapts as society changes to make sure that everyone is included and happy and looked after, that everyone's needs are met, that no one is chastised because of the things that they believe or the things that they, you know, their race or their gender or their sexual orientation changes.

Secular humanism isn't what you seem to think it is. Secular humanism is simply about allowing humans to thrive by letting empathy and reason be what allows that to happen. Craig, I understand. Please don't say, "Craig, Craig, Craig," so let me finish my point and then you can talk. Thank you. Okay, Craig. So I understand what you're saying secular humanism is. I'm saying is there any normative authority for keeping those principles or could they change?

I've already answered that. I don't know why you didn't listen. I said, as in my intro, secular humanism adapts to society as society evolves. So hold on. If society evolves to reject humanity,

your platitudes of empathy and inclusivity, and it calls it secular humanism. That's what I'm asking you. You're basically saying secular humanism is this thing until it's not. I'm asking you from your perspective, what maintains that it stays that thing and doesn't change? You just basically ended your own debate by saying

It could change that secular humanism's platitudes about inclusivity and humaneness could actually change with the times if society suddenly says, no, we don't really do that anymore. No, again, that's a bit of a straw man of what secular humanism is. You can't get away from the fact that secular humanism is based in empathy, reason, and everyone being included.

um and why don't we follow that jim jim bob please i would really appreciate if you didn't keep interrupting this is a back and forth there is room for like i will be fair that jim bob is usually just throwing something quick in there which is generally conductive to the conversation but uh i understand that you want to have a second to get a thought out so let's let's make a little space but let's let's do try to allow for those little interjections just to allow the context that's uh

But I would rather that I'm allowed to get a thought out before he interjects something, otherwise that gets in the way of my thought. So yeah, I understand interjection, but let me finish a thought before you interject. To help prevent straw hands, of course. I know I'm interjecting now, but go ahead, Craig. Right, sorry. Could you clarify your question again, Jim Bob? Yes.

If I grant you what you deem is secular humanism right now, being empathetic, kind, inclusivity, humane, I'm asking you what is or what or who is the normative authority that says that ought to maintain or that that can't change? The manifesto of secular humanism explains how it can adapt. Just because, um,

humanity and society can evolve doesn't mean that we want to get away from the empathy and the reason and the looking after everyone. What we mean by when society evolves is, for instance, same-sex marriage becoming a thing when it wasn't before, LGBTQIA+ and including them in society when that wasn't such a big thing before.

Secular humanism is about, as society advances, allowing that empathy and reason and good for all to advance and adapt. You're never going to get away from empathy and reason and human society thriving being a foundation of what secular humanism is. It can just incorporate new things as it goes.

I understand. It sounds like you're saying the manifesto, which was arbitrarily defined at some point, says be good, be empathetic, be humane, right? And I'm asking what ultimately keeps that in place? Is it possible for a secular humanist to craft a new paradigm that's contradictory to that one?

If they didn't include empathy and reason and things like that, then they wouldn't be a secular humanist. They would be something else, like an authoritarian or a dictator. Let me finish my point. You are trying to say that, oh, well, secular humanism can just completely and utterly change, whereas that's not the position that I hold. And as I explained in my intro and as I have said to you,

the foundations of secular humanism aren't going to go away. But what can adapt within secular humanism is the inclusivity and the new things that society brings. But we can't reject things like violence and killing and murder and things like that. We've got to make some space, so go ahead there, Bob. Okay, I'm wondering if when you say inclusivity, how did you determine who's excluded from the secular manifesto?

I didn't say anyone's excluded. We said everyone is included. Okay, so why doesn't it include people who want to use force to deploy their own system of ethics?

They wouldn't be a secular humanist. They would be against the secular humanist. It's not inclusive. Here's the thing. It's inclusive, but it's not inclusive. For tolerance to exist, for the ability to be tolerant, you have to not tolerate the intolerant. Okay? And that's just kind of a basic for life. You know, we allowed Nazism to expand because we tolerated intolerant. Definitely.

Secular humanism is always going to be for empathy and inclusiveness. But if people that are trying to say, well, we don't believe in that, we don't want that, and we're going to force it and be nasty, then they're not a secular humanist. They're going against what secular humanism is. We're not going to include somebody that is trying to destroy everybody else because that gets intolerance in total. Okay. How do you know you're including them or excluding them then?

Well, we would say, no, we don't want you coming here with your violence and authoritarian rules. We would, this is the way that we like to have society. And we reject what you are saying with your authoritarian nonsense. Secondary humanism is about empathy and reason and you're not getting away from this. Okay. So would you use force to keep other people you don't agree with out? Secondary humanism uses force as a last resort.

No, I'm saying specifically... But let me clarify my point. We would start with trying to get a decent, respectful dialogue about what is going on. Why are you being intolerant? What is your problems here? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If it came to it to...

Keep society happy and healthy. Yes, force would be used to stop those people that are trying to force their ways onto you, but only to protect everybody else. And it is, again, within secular humanism, always a last resort. Okay, cool. So in your system, you do use authoritarianism to keep other people out of your society who don't agree with your ethical norms, right?

No, no, we don't use authoritarianism. We use force as a last resort. That's authoritarian. That is authority, though. No, force as a last resort. It is authority, though. Force as a last resort.

I don't care if it's the first or the last. The point is you'll use authority. So force as a last resort, as a protective measure. No, we're not going to allow you to attack us and destroy us and ruin our secular humanism. We use force to defend that.

We're not going to do an attack. We will defend. Let me ask you, if a Christian nation exists and they want to keep out secularists, you're okay them keeping them out using force, right? Why would Christianity want to keep secularists? I didn't ask why Christianity would want something. It's not a thing to actually say one or the other. Because, no, not uh-oh. Big uh-oh. Big uh-oh.

- So Bob, Jim Bob, if you want to-- - You must have reversal dunk under the legs dunking. - Jim Bob, you wanna let me talk and explain why you have just dunked? - Answer the question. - Okay, so you just have to

Jim Bob, you're just going to keep interrupting me. Is that what's going to happen here? All right, let's just because there's a lot of people talking right now. I just want to let Jim Bob clarify the question and then let's give Craig some space to answer. I'm trying to answer the question. No, no, let me ask it again. Let me ask it again because the audience may not have heard. There's a lot of over chat. So let's let Jim Bob ask the question. Then I just ask Connolly to let Craig answer that question. And then you can clarify any thoughts that pop up halfway through.

halfway through, especially if you think he's hanging himself. Like I say, it's better to let him talk if that's how you feel he's doing. So go ahead there, Jim Bob, I'll let you clarify. The question is, if there's a nation that's predominantly or wholly Christian, can they use force from your secular paradigm? Can they use force to keep secularists out of their Christian nation? Yes or no? That's up to them. Yes? Yes.

- But that's up to them. If Christians want to do that, then that's up to them. If they don't want secular humanists to go there, then that's their right. But you are equating one thing that is not the same as the other. And this is why you've just dug yourself a map. - The same exact thing.

See, once again, Jimbo, I'm trying to talk and you just keep interjecting. This is this is a very pathetic and childish way to engage in a debate by just over talking constantly with someone. I've been trying to be nice and respectful with you. So I'm going to ask you politely if you could please take a breath and calm down and stop interrupting me when I'm trying to get a sentence out. Thank you very much. I'm going to now explain why you dug yourself a massive hole.

because you are not equating the right things to each other. Secular humanism wouldn't stop Christianity coming in. We allow you to believe whatever religion you want.

We would only use force to defend ourselves against someone trying to destroy us. That is not the same as a Christian nation going, you can't come here and we'll kill you if you try to. That's an entirely different thing. And what you've done there is dug yourself a hole by showing how Christianity is

doesn't care about society as a whole only keeping Christianity as it is. Where secular humanism does the exact opposite and will allow Christianity to be part of their society and believe what they want because it is about inclusivity. Force will only be used to defend ourselves. Thank you for digging yourself a massive hole there explaining how Christianity is not good for society.

Well, we haven't determined what's good or not. You just don't like Christianity having a stronghold in society. So I'll ask a different way. If a bunch of Christians move into a secular society and by population, by increased population, by multiplying and by taking seats in office, do you have any problem with them taking over the government and informing law based on their – based on majority? Oh, absolutely. Religion should never – you –

Yeah, I'm about to explain, Jim Bob. Once again, while I'm in the middle of a sentence, I got three words out there. There's a lag, dude. There's an audio lag. Take it easy, little guy. Take it easy. Jim Bob, you need to be calm, and when you ask me a question, allow me to respond without interjecting, okay? You ask a question, let the person respond. To be fair, he wasn't talking. It was just an echo that was repeating what he was saying.

So he was giving you the space, to be fair. But like I say, let's try to give each other, like I say, a little bit of space. Do you mean to ask the question again?

Yeah, please do ask the question again and then make sure you're quiet afterwards. Thank you. So if a bunch of Christians go to a secular society and they make a lot of babies and in three generations, they take up such a large portion of the population that they start taking seats of office, crafting law to reflect their ethical norms. What would be wrong with that?

That goes against what secular humanism is. Secular humanism has a complete separation of state and religion. So even if a Christian person came into office, then they don't get to craft laws that are based on their religion, because that's not how secular humanism works. That would be trying to force their way upon another, and secular humanism just wouldn't accept that. But they use it.

Would they use force to stop it then? If you say that we're accepting it... They would just reject it. They know those laws are not going to happen because we're a secular, humanist society which separates church and state. So any laws that are enforced by religion are just not going to happen.

Okay, so, well, no, they could very well happen with the numbers. So I'm asking, you're saying you'd reject it, but I'm asking you, would you use force to stop it?

If they try to force it upon us, then forced to defend ourselves, absolutely. Because again, force is a last resort to defend within secular humanism. What you're doing is trying to say, well, we could just turn up and take office and then change all the laws to make them religious-based. Well, then that's no longer a secular humanist society. That is now a religious society because secular humanism has a separation of church and state.

Now, I'm simply going to ask you the question, Jim Bob, why is Christianity a better foundation for ethics when Christianity bases its ethics on a fear of hell or a reward of heaven?

You have no standard for better.

You have no position to even say the word better because your term for better reduces to do I like pizza or not? So I think it's better from my perspective because of our virtues that we actually have duties. You have no duties. You have an old religious, by the way, the Secular Humanist Manifesto was explicitly called a counter-religious document.

And so you don't have any duties, right? These things can change, whereas a Christian foundation doesn't change. You just don't like some of the things. But to say that the duty to procreate, the duty to maintain society and decency and order, that's a thing that doesn't change with Christianity over 2,000 years. And so given that's the view, I would take one approach is that

Because you guys have no duty to reproduce, and in fact you actually propagandize the opposite, Christianity is superior because we outproduce you. And so would you agree, Craig, that at least on one point you'd concede that Christianity is superior in reproducing children because a society, even a secular one, would need people, right? Yeah.

Yeah, well, you've just strawman secular humanism again, whilst ignoring the questions I asked you, which is interesting. Secular humanism doesn't say, no, you shouldn't have children. That's just a complete strawman of secular humanism. We don't propagate, propagandize against having children. That's just the complete and utter strawman of secular humanism. Secular humanism allows for children to happen. I'm a secular humanist and I have two children. Now, is it true that

that secular humanist countries have a slightly lower birth rate than religious countries. Yes, absolutely. But does that mean that the country's population isn't increasing? No, absolutely not. Secular humanism doesn't say you shouldn't have children. And I'm honestly not sure where you've got that from, because it is one of the largest strawmans that you've brought up.

Well, you asked what is better, right? What's better, right? I mentioned the duties. You totally dodged that and pretended I didn't answer you. You guys have no duties. There's no duties, right? The other thing is, I've heard you say, Craig, that you are fine with people being religious. You just don't want them to use force to force their beliefs on you, right? Absolutely. Yeah, that's wrong. You should never force your beliefs on another person. If you want to be Christian, then I've got zero.

Zero problem with that. Okay. However, I'm not done. I'm not done. I'm responding to it. I have a line of questioning, dude. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Just hold on. Not your question. I'm responding. I know, but it's a simple question, right? You just say yes, right? So if you believe that... Jim, hold on. I was responding to what you're saying. Okay. Yeah. So you don't believe... It's a yes or no question. It's a yes or no question.

- No, it's not yes or no. - You don't believe-- - I don't get stuck into yes or no, so that's not how that works. - You don't believe-- - I would not answer yes or no and leave out context. - I'll ask again. - To be fair, there was reiteration, but I will let Jim Bob ask the question again there. Let's try to wheel it in there, if you don't mind. - You don't yes or no. You don't believe that people should use their system and enforce their beliefs onto others, right?

Again, I'm not going to answer yes or no because that leaves out context. Answer how you'd like. Will you let me without interrupting? Will you? I'm just getting your permission to talk without you interrupting, Jim Bob. Is that okay? If we need to go into, like I say, time back and forth, we can, but let's just give you the space to answer the question. That way there's no confusion. Let's try to keep it under 45 seconds if we can. Yeah, like I said several times, if you want to be religious, cool.

no worries if you want to go to church and pray and worship god no worries but when you start coming to me telling me that i'm wrong and i'm going to go to hell because i don't believe the things that you do that's when i'm going to say no and

go away, stop being stupid. And if you then try and force that on me, then to protect myself, I will use force to go against that. That's what secular humanism would do. We would not allow you to force your beliefs on us because, you know, force includes violence. I got you. Well, I said nothing about heaven or hell. I'm just wondering if you believe anyone should force anyone's beliefs on each other. And it sounds like it's just a clean no, right?

Again, there was a lot of context there you missed out. I just want to get the gist of it, okay? So do you believe in human rights? Absolutely. Second humanism is founded on human rights, whereas Christianity is really not. Christianity is based on... Holy shit. Holy shit. Hold on a second, dude. I'm asking you a simple question.

Jimbo, can you please- Dude, chill out. I don't need nine minutes for every question. I'm asking you yes or no because I'm leading you. So yes, do you believe in yes or no? I'm going to respond to everything you ask. Jimbo- I don't need all the extra story, dude. I'm just asking if you believe in human rights. The answer is yes. Okay, hold on a second. I do want to let him ask his question there, Craig. So let's try to do that. Hold on, hold on, Craig. Just one second. Don't panic. Don't panic.

I did send you an email. I see you're trying to fix the situation. So if you do need to take a second and maybe want to reset, I can pitch the live event and maybe we can get you back on camera. I'm trying all these things, dude. Even while I'm talking, I'm trying everything right now. I know. Yeah, I can see that. That's why I sent you an email just saying if you want to step out for a second, I could probably pad some of the live event there.

I might need to do like a browser reset or even like a computer reset. I'm not sure what happened, but it might be, I'm not, I was gonna say, I think it's on your end, but it's probably my fault just because I pulled you into one situation.

Space and okay. Okay. Okay. Let me let me give it a shot. Let me see what happened here All right, let's hope it works down and get back. Okay. All right, cool. No picture thing now We'll be back in just one second there guys. All right, let me just get the window fixed up here Hopefully we can get the echo sort of guys No, it looks like it's still happening a little bit. So that is bizarre You don't have any speakers on you don't have any speakers on right now

Nope. No, I've got my headphones in and I'm not what I've not the things muted. There's nothing happening here. Yeah. Okay. I'm not hearing any echoes from either of you. All right. I'll just do my best to keep back. It just seems like if we get overloaded on stuff here, why don't, yeah. Yeah. The audience can still hear me. So I'm just going to close it down. I'm just going to disconnect it and relaunch my browser as well. And let's just jump back in this room. Okay. All right. We'll be back in just one second.

Goodbye to me. Goodbye, everybody. All right. You can still see me. You can still hear me. I'm just going to pop us over here. The Bacon 5 is coming up, and I'm just going to close down the browser there. Like I said, this is probably my fault just because I pulled the fellas into a couple spaces trying to work out and get some audio issues sorted, but...

Obviously it hasn't worked out too famously, so we're just gonna try to reset everything, jump back in the room. I'm hopeful that it will fix itself, hopefully. Alright, maybe Jim Bob is back. Alright, I am jumping in the room, and I do not have an echo. Perfect. Hello, hello. Hello, hello! Looks like we might be back.

It seemed like the echo was only there between you two and Jimbo was in the room. I'm not sure. No, it did happen just a second ago when I was speaking. Just all on its own. So, yeah, always little things to sort. Hey! Yes! Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. Can you believe it, everybody? We've done it. All right. We're going to go over here. Yeah.

And I'm going to remind the audience, as I should have been pitching it while you guys were out, but we really didn't spend much time out. We are going to take Super Chats at the end of the discussion. So if you have questions for either of our speakers, get them into a Super Chat, and we will definitely ask them whether you want to say good job, bad job, or like I say, help progress the conversation. Those are the most useful ones. So without further ado, let's get back into the conversation while I get our screens reclipped. So I'll hand it over to – I think Jim Bob was asking another –

leading question there. So let's continue on. Okay. Are we back? We sure are.

Okay, cool. So the question, the reason I ask Craig if he believes in human rights, and that's leading after he said he doesn't believe in using force, enforcing his beliefs on people. I don't actually believe in human rights. So, Craig, would you say that you're forcing your beliefs on me if I don't believe in human rights? Okay.

No, you cannot believe in human rights or all you want. You're just not a secular humanist. I didn't ask you if it was a secular humanist. I asked if you believe in, you don't believe in forcing your beliefs on people and you believe that's a belief in a human right. And I don't, are you okay forcing the belief of human rights onto other people?

I'm not going to force the belief of human rights into you. If you don't want to believe in human rights, then that's your problem. It's a pretty pathetic and disgusting position to hold, but you want to hold that position, dude, you do you. I'm not going to stop you. Okay, but if a society exists which has human rights, and I live in the society, and I say I don't believe in these human rights, it sounds like you're perfectly fine using force to force your beliefs of human rights onto me who doesn't believe in human rights.

No, as long as you follow the rules of that society, you know, you don't... Those are rights. As long as you believe in human rights, yeah, yeah, of course. If you would allow me to finish my sentence, Jim, but that'd be wonderful. I understand you have some impulse control issues, but you need to let me get more than two words out before you interrupt. That'd be wonderful. Yeah, so you can believe whatever you want, right?

if you don't follow the rules of a society then the consequences of not following those rules exist so if you want if you've got

and murder and rape people, then there's going to be problems for that. Just because you don't believe in human rights isn't going to be an issue within secular humanism unless you do something that is against other people. I get you. But do you understand that when you say, if you don't follow the rules, what you're saying, the reason I asked about rights is because if the rules are informed by the precept of human rights,

If I don't believe in your rules, you're basically saying you're going to use force. That means your belief in your rules, the construct of your rules, you're willing to use force, which is a contradiction from your position to say, believe what you want. Just don't force your rules onto us. Well, I've demonstrated right now that you are willing to use force to enforce your rules if people don't agree with them.

Once again, Jim, but as I explained earlier, quite succinctly, force is a last resort. If you are going to go against the rules and try and hurt other people or do things that are a problem within a secular society as a last resort to protect that secular humanism society, force will be used. But that's not forcing their beliefs on you. That is forcing

the law of the land and you meeting the consequences for breaking those laws. You can believe what you want. That's not a problem or a crime. Unlike Christianity, however, let me just point out there that within Christianity, thinking what you like is a crime.

And it has been throughout history. It has resulted in people getting murdered. It has resulted in people getting stoned to death and more horrible things. Within Christianity, thinking what you want is literally a criminal act that can result in death. Secular humanism, you can think what you want as long as you don't try and harm other people. We're cool.

Okay, so the thing is, as long as you—what you're saying is, translation for the audience, as long as you believe my beliefs and believe the beliefs that are enforced by the arm of government that enforces my beliefs, I'm totally fine with you, bro, which is not even different than a Christian view or even an Islam view or anything else because—

Craig here is pretending that he has some sort of neutral ground to say, I just don't force my beliefs. Well, I've demonstrated pretty explicitly here. He does, in fact, enforce his beliefs. If I don't believe in the rules he believes in, he's willing to use force. If I don't believe in human rights, he's going to use force, right? That's pretty much it. I don't know any other way to reduce the contradiction here.

Let me clarify. I said the exact opposite of that. You can believe what you want. I mean, maybe there's some problem with the hearing. I'm not sure. But I specifically said several times, you can believe what you want. You can not believe in human rights. You can literally believe what you want.

And secular humanism isn't going to have a problem with that. A secular humanist society isn't going to have a problem with that. However, if you start to do things that are harming other people, if your beliefs cause other people harm as a last resort,

Again, a last resort. They will protect themselves. If your beliefs are, I'm just going to go and murder people because that's what I believe I should do.

then you know what? We are going to stop that because that will harm people. And as a last resort, the last resort, we will use fourth to protect. Okay, cool. Thanks for that. So if you're going with harm reduction, if you, let's say hypothetically, people got a little wild with their sexual fetishes, which isn't foreign to secular...

Let's just use coded language if that's where we're going. Sorry, sorry. I don't know how to code it. Okay, so let's say someone, Grandma Mildred, with her consent, before death, signs a waiver saying anybody who's interested can toy around with my posthumous body for rent. The money will go to the family. The family agrees to it.

it. Your secular position, because there's no harm, you couldn't stop a company from renting out a cadaver because no one's harmed and it's fully consent, right? I don't think anyone would rent. I don't think any company would. I didn't ask if someone would do that. I said from your secular world foundation. You literally did that. Once again, Jim Bob, you allowed me to get three words out before I shoot. I'm still talking. I'm still talking.

Once again, you allowed me to get three words out before assuming what I was going to say and opening your mouth because you have impulse control issues. Now, Jimbo, no, there is no company that would rent out a cadaver. No, Jim, I'm going to keep repeating what I'm saying. You're dodging. It's a dodge. Every time you interrupt me, I'm going to start dodging in the chat. Dodgers in the chat. Maybe I'm just...

but you're not gonna let me because again, Jim Bob, you have severe impulse. - Hold on, we're not, let's not, all right, we're getting way too into the metal weeds here. So Craig, I wanna let you answer the question and let's try to carry on. - I've been trying. - One minute, you want me to state the question again so you understand, so you can't dodge it? - No, no, I'm okay. I understand the question completely and I'm going to respond. - What is it?

I'm going to respond to the question. You be quiet. I need to know that you got the question. Jim Bob, I'm going to respond to the question. You be quiet. Now, there's no company that would rent out a cadaver. That's not something that is going to happen. Even if the person said, yeah, I would allow this to happen. You're coming up with hypotheticals, which are, you know, you're literally using the fallacy of absurdity. People have sex. Do people do cadavers right now? Sorry. I'm sorry.

Did I finish what I was saying, Jim Bob? Did I finish my sentence? Or did you want to have some impulse control issues? All right, let's see. Maybe we'll be getting there. So I guess the main point of course being that is, you know, the morality of the situation. No, I didn't say people wouldn't. I said, no, companies wouldn't.

- You seem to have severe comprehension issues. It's like you want to hear- - Let's add on, let's get to the argument, right? The thing you're dodging.

That's an observation. No, you're using an attack of my character and my mental state to avoid the question. It's obfuscation. I'm trying to answer the question, but you can interrupt. You're not answering the question. Okay, all right. So the question would be, how is... Hold on, Craig. So the question being, how can you explain that this is immoral from your secular worldview? Just harm reduction, which means no one's being hard. Hold on, hold on. Just to clarify.

No one's being harmed. It's fully consent. And his answer is no one would do that. The problem is people have...

Actually, still to this day, right now, someone is diddling a cadaver. Okay, right now. Would they pay, if it were legal, to fiddle a cadaver based on Craig's moral position, which is secular humanism? It would be permissible. Whether or not someone would do it is not the question. The question is testing your logic that it's totally permissible. Bite the bullet, Craig. It's over.

- Once again, a fallacy of ad absurdum. You're taking things to a ridiculous level of something that wouldn't happen. - It's not ridiculous, it happens, dude. - Oh, no, Jimbo, once again.

Once again, I got three and a half words out. I don't want to have to lie. All right, hold on. I do want to give chance for people to respond. I don't want to do muted rounds. You know that. But yeah, if it is the case, like you said, you're not talking over me. But if it is the case that he's lying, like I say, just just, you know, make make a mental list or even a physical list. And we'll try to give a little space to.

Like I say, let either Craig raise his sword on his own or fall on it by himself. That's kind of how we want to do things. So go ahead there, Craig, if you would. Yeah. It's just not something that would happen. No company would rent out a cadaver for people to have sex with, even if it was legal. It's just a disgusting thing that you have made up in your head saying, well, secular humanism would allow this. Whether it would be allowed or not is irrelevant as to whether it would happen or not.

I got no, dude. Thank you for making my point. It's irrelevant whether or not it would happen. Once again, once again, Craig, you also want your space. He's got his space too. Let me answer. If I ask you, Craig, if I ask you. Excuse me. I have to interrupt. I haven't finished what I was saying. You didn't answer my question. That's why.

Maybe, Jim Bob, if you let me finish my thought, I will answer your question. But you have impossible issues and you don't let me get there. And that's not an ad hom. This is an observation. If it feels like it has a natural stop, I'm going to stop you this time because it did feel like you naturally stopped. I'm not going to lie. But go ahead, Craig. I don't want you to feel like you're going to get straw banded in the aftermath. So it's only fair. But go ahead. And yeah, let's carry on.

Well, I feel I've answered the question. If he wants to do the fantasy of Al-Absurdi, then that's fine. Secular humanism doesn't say you can have sex with cadavers. That's just not something that secular humanism says. No, it's not. It doesn't. You are making that up because... You didn't answer the question of why it would be wrong. Let me answer. You talked. Let me answer. So you didn't actually...

Say why it would be wrong. Shut up for a second. If I asked you. You don't like being interrupted. Is that a problem? Let me know when I can talk. We're just both doing it. I got to figure out how to beat these guys on the old chat. I can meet you, of course, through just OBS. That's always fun. But nobody likes that. Ah, see, I don't want a pop-up video for just Craig. Oh, look, it's just me now. To be fair, that's the only time I've interrupted. That is literally the only time in this conversation that I've interrupted him.

See, I gotta fix this now. Can you guys still hear me? Yeah, you can. Yeah? Yes. Yeah. By the way, Craig, ad absurdum is a conclusion thing, not a hypothetical thing. You got your logical... No, yeah. You are taking it out. See how that almost had the chance to reset us. So I think we've explored this one. We know where you guys disagree. Hold on a second. Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan. Hold on a second.

If I ask Craig, how would you feel if you ate breakfast this morning? And he says, and he said, oh my gosh, dude, I don't care. So if I asked him, I don't care. I'm talking, Craig.

If I asked him, oh my God, if I asked him, well, how would you feel if you ate breakfast this morning? And he says, well, I did eat breakfast this morning. That's how he answered my hypothetical. The reason he won't answer this is because he knows it's consistent with his harm reduction principle.

that he's arguing for as a moral standard tonight for his foundation for ethics. He has to say yes if there's no harm in someone renting a cadaver out. He says it would never happen. I didn't ask if he thinks it would ever happen. I asked if it happened. By the way, people, little corpses right now, if there was an option for a company to rent it out,

Shut up. If there was a company who rented it out and made it possible to do that and it was legal, secular humanism, according to your model, would have no way to argue against it. Toast. I'm going to take Craig off mute here. Your audio is back up. And I just ask kindly not to interrupt there, Jim Bob, or else I will do the same on the other end. So over to you, Craig.

I think I've already covered this. It's just not something that secular humanism would do. Jim Bob seems to think that people want to, for some reason, screw corpses, but that's, you know, a thing that seems to be in his head and isn't secular humanism. The claim that it would have no harm, I would disagree with. That's a mentally scarring thing, and there is no way that everybody in a family would agree with that, and that would be mentally harming for people.

So you are just making something up in your head and worryingly, it's about having sex with cadavers, Jim Bob, which is... That doesn't happen, Greg. It's not something normal people think about, Jim Bob, to be honest. Does it happen? Why do you think...

Let me ask you a question. Why are you thinking about having sex with a cadaver, Jim? Test your shitty logic? Nice try. All right, we are so far away from Christianity or secularism, which has the better ethical foundation. We can... I don't want to jump into super chats too early. We do have a lot of them coming in, and they might be able to help push you guys along in the debate.

But I do want to give a chance if we haven't gone to unpack maybe something that's beyond this, because it does seem like we're hitting a wall and we're repeating ourselves at this point. So, you know, make of that what you will. It'll have to be up to the public opinion as to how that has gone down. So would either of you like to present an argument or maybe something that we may have not gotten to unpack that, like I said, is an ethical impact that

Yeah, totally. Let's do this. Do we want to have final thoughts on this bit first? Because I can clarify. I think we have final thoughts. Everybody knows where we think. I have something we can explore in the ethical paradigm. Craig, hold on, please. If we can move on, I'd really like to. He started the last conversation, so now I would like to start the conversation. Okay.

That is a fair criticism, I suppose. Yeah. Rather than just being Jim Bob running this conversation, I would like my thought to be held now. So Jim Bob, do me a favor. Can you define Christianity? Because you said you don't believe in heaven and hell and stuff. So can you define Christianity?

- What did you say? Could you say on Christianity and your position on heaven and hell please? - Just to clarify, Craig used the straw man before against like a fire and brimstone Christianity. He said, I don't want you telling me I'm going to hell. Actually my Christian ethical paradigm doesn't actually know or claim to know judgment of the afterlife or what people will, where they will be. That's what makes my particular church unique.

among many other things. So when you say, what is Christianity? Christianity would be, in practice, the participation in the energies of Christ through the Church.

But why is your Christianity better than another Christianity? Because there's more than one Christianity, right? No, there's not more than one Christianity. There are many heterodox claims of Christianity that splinter out from heresy that are ancient heresies. Are you going to let me answer or what? Are you going to let me answer or not?

So no, I was just wondering. Okay, okay. Hold on, hold on. Let me know when you're showing your flabbergasted mouth. Nobody can hear. So yeah, Jim Bob was right in the middle of what he was saying. So continue there, Jim Bob, if you can.

So Christianity, uh, pre-canon, a church existed and we can in the church gave us canon, right? Through practice, through tradition, that tradition today maintains, even though there are these, all these other heterodox positions that splinter off and try to interpret, uh,

the Bible themselves and try to come up with sort of like progressive Christianity, try to reinterpret. They try to assume some sort of authority, but the problem is I could just as well swap you out right now with a Protestant or a progressive Christian and argue against their position. Why? The same problem they have is the problem you have, Craig. You have no normative authority.

practice, for duties, for any participation in society. You have your own preferences, which can change by the week. We could change by the month. Next year, basically everyone could be selling little kid dolls that you can buy. No harm, no grandma, no harm, totally fine on your paradigm. Whereas the church is 2,000 years plus in its tradition alone, still maintaining today our participation. And we look at justice as an

an order through the system and you have no order. You don't even tell me, you can't even tell me when a system was in order or not. I do want to give Craig at least a minute to respond to that. So go ahead, Craig. Yeah, you never answered my question as to which Christianity...

Let's try to give him a minute. You notice everybody there that I got three and a half words out and Jim Bob opened his mouth because of the impulse control issues. Let's stop the meta. Like I say, I'll place Jim Bob on a mute like I did for Jim Bob as well earlier, but let's just try to stick to the subject, okay? Yeah.

I find it interesting, first of all, that he would talk about church and kids when, you know, the amount of priests that did all kids is insane. But he didn't answer my question as to which Christianity is right. Yes, there's splinter groups, and each of those splinter groups says that their Christianity is correct. So

So how do we know which Christianity is correct? And then you talk about duties. Well, each of those Christianities have different duties to put upon people. So can you tell me which is the ultimate correct Christianity version of the Bible and duties to follow, please? Okay, cool. Yeah. Am I on mute? Yeah, you are. The true church is the Orthodox Church.

That is the true church. All other churches after that are heretical. We can actually debate that they're heretical. We can actually debate them, and we always do, that their system, their Christology, their esoteriology, their eschatology, their ecclesiology is all incoherent when put under the knife.

and they have no normative authority, like I said before. So when I ask another Christian who says they're a real Christian and yet they're like a Mormon or a Protestant, and I ask them, well, what's the ultimate authority? And they say something like Bible alone. I simply ask them, who interprets the Bible? They say it's self-interpreted. You and I, Craig, could team up against some of these Christians and completely wreck them from this same question. And you would agree with me that, okay, well—

How do you know your interpretation is correct? And we would say, well, we have to go back in time. So I would argue, Craig, church history, apostolic succession, and the continuation and the unchanged practice of the faith through tradition, liturgical practices. We don't have a church that goes home and reads the Bible, meets up at Starbucks, and reads

reads it like it's some sort of book club. What did you get? What do you think of this? We reject all of that. So you've never really been up against. As far as your little snide comment about the attacks of children, well, that's Catholicism, so I'm against that, but I'm not Catholic. Further, the amount of abuse, by the way, Craig, hold on, the amount of abuse...

Oh, great. All the audience should hear it anyway. The amount of abuse that exists in secular programs, that is schools, right? They're secular run. You know, Craig, whoopee, we have secular schools. The amount of child abuse that occurs in the schools, in the secular programs that are predominantly secular, 100 times the abuse of any church you can list. Get the hell out of here. Yeah.

I see literally drops. Oh, that's so funny how that actually all worked out. I think Craig's going to come back. It seems like he had some sort of crash on his end. We are just loving it tonight as far as the tech issues, but that was too perfectly planned, Jim. Do I call you just Jim or should I call you Bob or just Jim Bob? Jim Bob. Jim Bob's good. I'm trying to remember that.

But yeah, no, Craig dropped out just to get the hell out of here. That was too kind of... Yeah, I mean, you can't deny that was kind of funny, guys. Craig will be back, though. He's probably just resetting. He also may have had a crash. They've had some weather events there on their end of the world. So we'll just hang out here for a second. Yeah, FTFE is offline on Discord right now.

He's messaged on the Facebooks saying, "Starlink is updating. How long will that take?" Boys oh boys, I tell ya, Starlink decides to update at just the greatest time. Either way, thanks for seeing us through it there, Jim Bob. It's been one tech issue after the other, I swear. We're just having all the good fortune.

Hello? Hello, you're back. All right. I think Elon Musk had a fit and decided to update my Starlink for some reason. He loves doing that, old Elon. I'm going to have to have a word with him. I know you've got to keep it working properly, but no matter how many times I tell it to not update,

It forces the updates anyway. Exactly the reason why they lost the 2013 in Antarctica. - Well, I was gonna say, we've got almost 1400 people watching right now live on modern day. People are digging the conversation. They're having a lot of fun. Let's try to keep the audio cleaned up

as best as we can and not over talk each other and yeah we should be able to carry on nice and smooth maybe we'll get another you know maybe 40 minutes maybe longer of discussion and then jump into that Q&A so if you are hanging out in the audience it only takes a second to hit the like button help boost us up in the algorithm let's see if we can get past 1500 watching live tonight that would be great if you guys can help us out it's up to you so smack the like button

Well, says 1400 watching things a good idea to mention that on the 15th and 16th of February, there's going to be a live debate con in New York, New Jersey. Oh, I can I can mention that, I suppose. Well, we're at the peak. I will mention. Yes, of course. On February 15th, 16th, we're going to be doing live debate con five. So if you haven't seen notifications for that, they're all up in our modern day debate YouTube page. So you just click on our icon there. Check out the live notifications.

Of course, Craig's super excited. I'm super excited. We're all going to be there hanging out in New Jersey where it's legal. Anyways, I'm just kidding. I'm a Canadian. First place we're going. We're taking a rest. I'm going straight to Rice Suspensory. There you go.

So yeah, on top of that we do have an Indiegogo link in the description. So that's what the thermometer is on the side of my screen. So if you can help make the event happen, you know, we do appreciate all the support. But yeah, even better if you're participating in the conversation, you put in a super chat, we're going to ask those anywhere between 40, maybe an hour, just depends on how much longer these guys want to unpack. So let's get back to it there, fellas.

Jim Bob, actually... Yeah, apologies for dropping that out there, Jim Bob. You were... Yeah, I want to give it back to Jim Bob. You were explaining... You got to the Orthodox part. Yeah. Yeah, he told you to get the hell out of here and then you dropped. It was so funny, I'm sorry. But it was. Jim Bob, I cut out literally as you were saying about why the Orthodox Church is the true Christianity. Could you just continue from that for me, please?

Uh, yeah, let me get my camera in a second. See if it uploads again. Sorry. Again, apologies for dropping out there, Jim Bob. No problem. No problem. No problem. Um, so yeah, I would say, uh,

When you trace Christianity back, right, so before canon, there was a church, and church existed in its practice and traditions before canon. And so the Orthodox Church, the tradition of the Orthodox Church determined canon through its practice, through its traditions. And when you argue against someone else today, like Craig, that you probably argue against these people all the time, they're Mormons or they're Calvinists or Protestants, all these people who use the fire and brimstone theology, by the way.

Um, they actually ran with their own heterodox positions and they don't actually have a normative authority. So when I ask them, what's your normative authority, they usually say like the Bible. And, and, and if you're interested, Craig, you and me would actually team up and obliterate one of these people who just say, well, the Bible, well, the Orthodox position, we don't just say the Bible. Um,

The Bible is actually a liturgical tool for praxis. The people today who were born into the Western culture after the Enlightenment, after Protestantism, they think that the Bible is something you just pick up and then you read it yourself and figure it out like a decoding book. We work against that. We say, no, you don't even have the church history behind you. You don't have the practice. You don't even know what you're doing with this thing. You think it's like some sort of self-help book.

Hence Jordan Peterson and all these people. So the answer in short, Craig, is if you trace apostolic succession all the way back, look at which church was there before canon, which church was there throughout the councils, which church today, everywhere you go in the West, you're practicing the same exact liturgy at the same exact time on every single Sunday. It's the Orthodox Church. No stand-up comedy there, no smoke machines, no bass solos.

I like those kind of churches. They're more fun. Yeah, me too. So those, yeah, no, not those. I mean, I'm kind of interested in the position. I'll be honest. I'm not, you know, totally, I don't know everything about the Orthodox Church. And it's interesting for you to tell me about a bit of the history there. My question would be, out of all the Christians in the world today, whatever sect they may be, what percentage would you say are Orthodox like yourself?

It's generally smaller because of the traditional aspect. It doesn't really conform to modernity or do Starbucks in your seat and all this stuff. So it's not as good as advertising because that would be sort of counterintuitive. But it is the fastest growing in the West right now, I think mostly because people are rejecting pure materialism and consumerism. And they're looking for something more

that's strong and maintains the test of time and something they can teach their kids through generations. And so people are flocking back to traditionalism. And that's true even for Protestants, that they're leaving those churches. Calvinists are leaving their churches and they're moving closer to orthodoxy. So you'll see a giant spike in orthodoxy in the next couple of years. We already have. Now, obviously, I don't want to strawman you, Jim Bob. So could you please clarify your position on heaven and hell for me?

Sorry, I got to echo. From my position, heaven and hell is not like this place. The orthodox position, just generally speaking, is that

Everybody who dies experiences the same God, the same fire. And people who are close to God, who participate in his energies, who what's called practice theosis, who are not in sin, who repent, they experience God's fire as love, as beauty, as all of those things. And the people who are separate from him on earth are...

are exposed to the same exact fire, they just feel it differently. So there's not like a place like the modern view you guys usually argue against is this place, like there's a location and then you're in hell over there and someone else is over here and it's like this Cartesian eschatology. We just reject that wholly.

Okay, I appreciate the explanation, Jim. Bob, thank you very much for that. So my question would be, along the same lines then, where obviously, correct me if I'm wrong, so you hold the position that if you follow the teachings of the church and you follow the duties and the normative authority of the Orthodox position that you hold, then...

you get to experience God's light as a good thing. However, if you don't, you experience it as a bad thing. Is that a fair assessment? It's a choice that you have the choice to experience it how you want to experience it.

But I have to wonder, hold on a second, hold on a second. This is not a class on orthodoxy. So can you figure out how to tail it into a moral foundation, please? That's where I'm going with this. I was just, I didn't want to strawman you. So I wanted to make sure I understood your position first before I went there. And for me, it still goes along the same lines of, if you don't do this thing,

you are punished by, in this case, experiencing God's fire as a bad thing. So it still goes along the lines of, well, it's a fear of punishment and a promise of reward.

No, no, no. That's not how... We wouldn't... Especially, we're talking about moral foundations. Arguing for an ethical position that's derivative of orthodoxy in this position would not be leading with you're going to go to hell, especially for people like you who just don't believe in it. That's just ineffective. So all those fire brimstone Christians are like, you're going to go to hell, Craig. They are...

they're doing a disservice to themselves and you. That doesn't get you better to understand anything about the faith, doesn't get you to understand the positive things that you might even from your secular view understand and like about the faith. They're doing everybody a disservice. So you and I just both agree that we would, that's not a lead. We wouldn't lead with that. That's a terrible lead, especially because we don't have access to judgment.

these Protestants you guys talk to, they claim access to knowledge of judgment. That's why they're saying you're going to go to hell. Well, no, we don't say that.

We don't say that to people. That's a terrible thing to say to people. That's cool. I mean, I came into this debate not understanding your exact position because the title of it is simply Christianity. I suppose it should have been Orthodox Christianity, and I could have maybe prepared against your arguments better. But for me, it still sounds like...

If you don't do this thing, you are punished. Whether that's a lead or not is kind of irrelevant. The fact is, if I don't follow the rules and the duties and the things set by your version of Christianity, then I will experience God's light as a bad thing. Why is that bad, though?

Well, because I don't want to experience a bad thing.

I have you have the threat of throwing me in jail if I don't follow your rules. So I don't understand how even in the temporal sense, if we're not talking about soteriology, even in the temporal sense, we've already been through this. You admitted that you'd be willing to put people in jail if they don't follow the rules that are arbitrarily crafted by a secular society. So I didn't.

please don't strawman me. Uh, I specifically said that they would use force to defend themselves against harm. Not if you didn't follow the rules, whereas the position that you're holding is, is simply the, um, you will experience this bad thing if you don't do as you're told, which is still like jail. So no, but, um, again, jail is jail. Uh,

is only reserved for those who you know do harm and stuff in in this case you know we're talking about you know um whether you want to harm right so let's look at it this way for for you you would not rape and murder because if you do then you will experience god's light as a bad thing there's me that's not true it's

So are you saying that if you – Hold on. Let me answer. Let me answer. I'll answer. He's saying you're strawmanning, so let's let – So no. Christian virtues is in a consequentialist view because, as I said, I don't know judgment. I can't assume judgment. That would be blasphemous. So virtues –

So actions in alignment with God is faith-based. It's not consequential-based. For instance, would it still be bad to do something you believed was immoral if suddenly you realized nobody really knew? Like you steal from a large company. Me and Craig, we get together. We're like, dude, Google is so rich. They don't even notice a million's gone. And you and I go, oh, what if we take it? And you go, well,

What if it harms someone? If we determine it didn't harm someone, that wouldn't really change the fact that it would be immoral, right, from our position, just because you couldn't track it harming. What's that? I wouldn't do that. Not because of the harm, right? That's my point. I want to clarify. I want to clarify something, because, again, I don't want to strawman you. So if you, within your religion, murder and rape, how will you experience God's light?

Hello? Hello? Oh, sorry. Sorry about that. I'm trying to get my camera to work and it keeps taking over my audio. Oh, that's a shame. No, again, that's...

That's an assumption of judgment. Again, we don't take a position. We do a moral position because it's aligned with God's will, not because we know or we're betting about our experience in the Eshkaton. We are aligning with goodness. We're participating in goodness faithfully without any knowledge of where we're going to be. So we don't hedge bets. Yeah, but why are you being good?

Because we're following God. I mean, what do you mean, why? And what if you don't follow God, what happens? We don't know exactly. We could assume from Revelation and the rest that we're gearing on separation and spiritual death. So there's definitely a promise of death.

The question is, where are you in relation to God, like when there's unity, right? So we don't, but again, I don't, we don't go around in our daily routines, right? And participate with our Christian duties, thinking about fire, avoiding fire and brimstone. We don't think about the outcome. We do it because it's good. We just do it because it's good. But no, you do it because God told you it's good, right?

Yes, because it's good, but that would be the same as it being good from our heart. Not because we're avoiding something. But, no, again, it's not because it's good. It's because God told you it's good. Sure. That doesn't mean that it is good. That means that God told you that it is good. I just told you it's faith. I just told you it's fully faith. I mean, what do you want? It's incredible.

you did say to me earlier that when you don't follow God's will and you don't do those things, that's how you then experience God's light. You said the ones that are further away from God are the ones that would experience God's light as a bad thing, right? Right, like you. So basically, then it still comes down to if you don't follow God's will,

You're gonna experience God's light as a bad thing. It's your punish. No, they're understand but that doesn't follow dude If you describe look look look look if you do you think that under your paradigm? You didn't steal because you're afraid to go to jail or you don't steal because you find it wrong. I

I don't steal because it's the wrong thing to do. Here's the thing about me. That's the end of their point then. I mean, that's exactly the point. I was in the middle of saying something there. Let me finish, please. You're not conceding the point, though. No, if you let me finish my... I'm not going to concede the point because I'm trying to explain why I don't agree with you. All right, go ahead and explain. Yeah, thank you. So here's the thing about me, Jim Bob, right? I have a tendency to reign for murder as much as I want. Literally, whenever I get the urge...

Whenever I get the urge, I just go raping and murdering, right? But that's exactly none. Not because God will that that isn't the right thing to do, because I just know it's not the right thing to do. How do you know? I was in the middle of explaining. Okay. Please, impulse control. Okay.

Because it will harm people. It will hurt people. It will harm society. It is not a good thing for the future of society. That's why I don't do it, because it's just the wrong thing to do. I know it's the wrong thing to do, because I wouldn't want it done to me. Not because...

If I don't do it, then I'm further away from God. Therefore, I would experience God's light as a bad thing. That is still, at the base of it, a reward-punishment system for doing the right thing. Are there people who like other people harming them? They get off on it? Yeah, they're not secular humanists, though. Well, forget. No, some of them, you don't know that. The question is, from your paradigm...

If your harm principle is consistent, then as long as someone likes to be harmed by other people, by your own logic, they can then harm other people because then again, they like to be harmed, right? That's a straw man because – Why would you be wrong then? Why would you be wrong then?

I was in the middle of explaining, Jim Bob. You know, I was in the sentence. Listen, bitch tits. It was, there's a lag. Do you want to, sorry, what did you just call me? There's a lag. Yeah, no, sorry. Could you just repeat what you called me, please?

Alright, we all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all heard. We all

Female act. Still doing it. All right, all right. Before this becomes a little less tasteful. Like what? Please define how a female acts, Jim Bob. It's feminine. Let's carry on. Please define how I'm acting feminine, Jim Bob.

Just feminine and mouthy. In which way, Jim Bob, am I acting feminine and bitched? Just avoiding, just avoiding the topic. I'm not avoiding it. I'm not avoiding the topic at all. Now we're talking about women, right? That's how quickly you go off topic. Just like women. You said that I'm, I'm, I'm acting like a woman. So you're the one that brought that up. I just like exactly how I'm acting like a woman and how I'm bitched it. If, if,

Let's get back to the topic. We can even continue to talk about, you know, if we want to talk about women in the course of like the subject that we're talking about right now. Let's do it. Let's actually let's do it. Women's rights. Let's do it.

Let's, let's get into that. But before we do, before we do there, guys, we've got like, hold on just one second there, Greg. We have like, I say almost 1300 people watching live right now still. And I do want to take a few opportunities to do a few extra pitches just because I have to let people know, uh,

Craig is going to be there, Andrew Wilson is going to be there, and a whole lot of other people. And I'm going to put them up on screen right now. Let's just see here. So I'm going to do share my screen. Oh, boy. I'm going out on a limb here. Oh, look. Your stream is still running. We've paused to save resources. Oh, you guys can see my screen, but the audience can't. You know what? That's not going to work.

You know what? I'm going to have to just go by the book, guys. So Discord's not going to allow me to share the screen the way I want to. I'll get to it in the OBS in just one second and pop it up here. I do want to show everybody...

our live events that are coming up. And also we do have, of course, tickets linked in the description, not just the regular tickets for the one day event or, you know, one day or the other, but you can also get the VIP ticket, which will sign you up for both days. We also have early bird tickets until February. So if you haven't checked out, the VIP tickets for the first day have been sold out there, right? Completely. Yeah.

Oh, wow. That's some good traction there. So you heard it just there? There are VIP tickets for the Sunday, which includes a VIP lunch with the speakers, a VIP lanyard, signed pictures and a thing from all of the speakers. But the VIP tickets are only available for the Sunday one.

See, I love this. I got some help here, guys, to pitch the event. It's very appreciated, honestly, because there's a lot going on. So I can pop this up right easy here, guys, and then we're going to talk about women's rights under the secular, the Christian worldview. So...

Here you can see on my screen, those are the live events coming up. Now if you can't be in the Newark area, let me know in the live chat where you are going to be for these epic live events. So if you're following along, if you've got a finger, you can pull the main screen that we're on right now down if you're watching on a phone and go onto our YouTube page and just check all these off. See, I'm going to have to undo them so that my phone's not going off the whole time.

We're getting ready to stream these while I'm into work. But as for yourself, go hit the notification bell so you don't miss these live events if you can't make it. But also let us know in the live chat where you're going to be. And yeah, let's get back into the discussion. And those tickets are linked in the description. As you can see, Andrew Wilson, Leo Filius last time was kind of like our MVP. I think he did three debates. Andrew Wilson is going to be doing two debates here.

And then Alex Stein is also doing two debates. So a little bit of a split between those two guys sharing the MVP there. But it's going to be a lot of fun. Let's get back to our main discussion, guys. I'm doing two debates as well. Come on. Well, yeah, of course. I was going to say, you're going to be doing a debate. Yeah, you versus Andrew Wilson. Alex Stein gets three then, right? Alex Stein actually has three debates then. So I guess he's still MVP. Oh, there you go. Like I said, last time it was Leo Filius. But we're going to get back to our main screen here.

There we go. All right, perfect. Keeping an eye on the live chat and upcoming speakers. Love it. Let's talk about women's rights, guys. Let's get to it. Okay. Well, the question is if – because I heard in Craig's opening he's like Christianity, it's like makes women lower than and does all this stuff or misogyny and all these things. I'm just wondering –

Do you think men and women, as far as their duties, Craig, under a secular humanist foundation, that women and men, their duties are equal in society? Apart from the fact that women have babies and men don't. Are you saying women can't have babies, Craig? Biological females are the only people that can have babies. This is just a fact. Okay, so under the secular view, do women have a duty to have babies or no? No, they don't have to have babies. They can choose to have babies if they like.

Okay. And it's about, um, and yeah, so, but within secular humanist societies where they have the choice, there's no problem with population. It might be slightly lower, but then again, problem. No, the problem is the overpopulation actually. And the lack of resources for it. Yeah. Oh, I thought when last time I checked almost every developed country is, is under replacement by a lot of,

And there's actually a major problem of replacing each other. That's why some of the smaller countries that are secular, by the way, who have basically taken the bait on not having kids, have to import all of these other kids from nations that are primarily Catholic and Christian. And so they're basically borrowing from the Christians who reproduce way better. Now, would you admit that... Before you go, let me just...

That's not true. They don't import people. Do Christian people move into those countries and help increase the birth rate? Absolutely. But there's no importing of Christian societies and Christian populations to help boost the population of others.

Is it true that secular humanist societies have slightly lower populations? Yes. But do they have population issues? No, not really. They're still birth rates within or just below the norm of the world. For instance, Scandinavia, which is the happiest country in the world and the secular humanist, has about 11.6 births per thousand, which the global norm is 18 births per thousand. Okay.

Gotcha. So women don't have any obligation or duty to have kids from the secular human view. Now, when we talk about women's rights, what kind of rights do you think they should have? Is there any that they don't have from your view? No, because thanks to secular humanism, women's rights have advanced significantly. So as far as I'm aware now, women have all the rights that men have.

Okay, and so do you think men and women should be treated equally then? Absolutely. Okay, do you think that women should be drafted then to equalize equality?

if women are physically capable and the need of the country is that people should be drafted, then there's no women, no reason why women shouldn't be drafted. I'm ex-military, Jim Bob, and several of the fittest people that I've ever known and the most savvy combat technicians I've ever known have been women. So there's, you know, there's no reason why women couldn't be drafted to war because you know what? Um,

Women get angry and I wouldn't want to fight a bunch of women.

Okay, so the question is though, do you think all women should be drafted? If they're, if they, uh, not all women because drafting is not a whole thing. Drafting is based on physical ability, age, intelligence. Um, not, not all women and not all men should be drafted. Should women that are capable when the need arises be drafted alongside men? Absolutely.

Okay, and then, so, do you think women can collectively uphold and defend their rights? I don't see why not. Well, you just explained why not. The fact that you would only need the fittest women, the strongest women, to be able to be drafted. The rest, mostly, the rest, that would be the minority, for the most part, women themselves, who are not fit to be drafted to the military. If you asked, can women collectively defend their own rights with force,

It's just an entailment that they couldn't because collectively they're not strong enough the same way collectively they're not strong enough to go fight in a war, right? But Jim, what you've missed is that I set the same standards for men. Not all men should be drafted. The disabled men, the men that aren't able to do the things that are required when you are drafted, they, the same as women, shouldn't be drafted. It's not a...

different thing for women as it is to men. And there is strong people in society and there is less strong people in society. That's just how it is.

Okay, but if women collectively can't wholly defend their rights and rely wholly on men when it comes down to it, for instance, women could never collectively take over men, right? The force of men, they couldn't. Let's say a bunch of women said, we're no longer following the Bill of Rights. We're doing away with it. Collectively, women couldn't actually make that happen against men, right?

Would you get back to the topic of women's rights, please? That's a relevant question. Because rights assume some type of equality. What I'm getting to, Craig, here is that if you defend human rights or rights in general, you have to kind of be sexist because you wholly depend on men collectively to uphold and enforce rights, correct?

women and men are equal. I'm sorry to cut you off. I do want to give Jim Bob just a second here just so that we can pull this back into the subject. And I just want to ask if you can explain for our audience and for Greg as well, how the Christian worldview solves this problem so that we can get back into the... I would say...

Gotcha. Yeah. I think the entirety of feminism, which secular humanism swallowed that pink poison pill wholesale, um, is a lie. It's on the assumption that egalitarianism is possible. Um, no ordered society is possible. Um,

from an egalitarian position. I'm saying that women voting potentially indirectly for wars that men predominantly have to fight and die for, the fact that most of them can't actually do it, it would be a complete anomaly for someone to be a woman and to be able to make it. By the way, no women has really gotten into the Marines or I don't know if it's the Marines or Special Forces, incapable of passing the test, right? Several women in Special Forces.

I might be miscategorizing. There's a section of the military where women can't actually pass the test. So the point is, if under... Can I ask a question, please? Because I don't believe that's true. I'll look it up. As far as I'm aware, there isn't any military force...

that has had women apply that they haven't been able to get into it that maybe was not recently uh women are a lot stronger than than you than you can ever imagine my wife has done several um you know

- Well, of course she's stronger than me, but my wife also doesn't have these guns, Jim. - Nice, nice. So the question is, in regards to what rights, this is kind of my argument is like, I don't think women should have the right to vote, but I also don't think all men should have the right to vote. Just in case, I said, I don't think women should have the right to vote, but I also don't think all men should have the right to vote.

And the reason is... I'm not sure if I heard that right. I just want you once more to tell me exactly what you're saying. No, I wasn't... Do you think I heard you right? Because I don't think any sane person can say... You just repeat that once more. Calling me insane is not a counter-argument. So here's my argument. Women, when a man votes collectively with other men, they're agreeing to not...

take over the government with violence basically they're basically saying i'm outsourcing my violence that i'm capable of collectively with men other men and instead i'm going to offset and outsource the violence to a standardized monopoly of violence called the government which is also men

And I'm just wondering if it's true that when a man votes and when a collection of men vote, they actually trade their initial immediate potential for violence for a standardized use of violence that's monopolized. What is it the woman is trading when she votes? Which voting system are you referring to? I know you're not in America, right? Just any voting system that has men and women voting equally on things.

Any voting system that has men and women equal voting on it, what was your point, sorry? My question is, when a man votes, do you agree when a collection of men vote in an organized society, they're agreeing by voting to not use immediate force and to try to overtake the government? It's basically a trade for violence. They're saying, no, the government has a monopoly on the force. We're going to vote on policy, and then men in the government

are going to enforce the policy instead of us throwing a rebellion. Voting is an alternative to a rebellion, right? No, not necessarily. So you're saying voting is not an alternative to a rebellion?

It's one of the alternatives, but it's not just the only one. Here's my question, Craig. Let me run my line. Let me run my line, dude. Let me run my line. Let's let him wrap his point. If you can hold your thought just one second there, Craig. If it's the case that when men vote, they're basically trading their potential for rebellion, what is it women are trading when they vote? Same thing.

No, but collectively women can't rebel against men, so they can't be trading the same thing. Because women can't collectively take over men. Why not? Show me an instance where it's ever happened, when women collectively took over the government full of men. Well, I was just going to say, just before you respond, rather than talk about more of like an overall broad analysis, I would, like I say, like to bring it into how Christianity works.

would account or solve that specific thing. Just so that we can get back to Christianity versus secular. Yeah, that's fine. This is the thing. I think that the man being an extension of the church is the leader of the house and the women being the neck of the head, the man being the head, the woman being the neck, the best possible place in any given society for a woman is to be focusing on having children, raising good people for the next, uh,

the next generation of society. That would be the Christian position. That's the ultimate. Women following their nature and what they're good at actually has them at home raising good people, keeping the homes and families flourishing, keeping communities flourishing.

And the opposition to that is this egalitarian fantasy that Craig likes to push, which is everybody's equal. Everyone's interchangeable. Send the women into society. Put them in debt. Make believe that they're going to be the eat, pray, love character on HBO. And what do they end up with? They're alone with cats, 49 years old with no kids, nothing to show but debt.

And the only thing they have is a lanyard because they worked at Nike, right? And so the secular view has nothing to offer, right? They have nothing to offer women except debt and consumption. Okay, can I talk now? You've literally spoke for about three years. Brian, is it okay if I get like a minute and a half to respond?

Well, all right. But to be fair, I wasn't keeping track before. So if you're going to ask me to keep track now, I've got to give him a full minute and a half after. So I'll give you a minute and a half. Well, I mean, I was keeping track and he literally spoke for about two minutes.

You need a tissue box? No worries, no worries. I'm just giving you the parameters. I'm giving you the parameters. That's how it's going to go down. So a minute and a half, and then I'll give a minute and a half to Jim. Rather than doing that, Jim Bob, do you think you can give me a minute and a half without interrupting?

Absolutely. Is that possible? Absolutely. Yes, Craig. Right. We don't need you to time it then, Ryan, if that's okay. If Jim Bob is willing to let me speak for a while without interrupting, that's wonderful. I will anyway. So Jim Bob holds the position that women just stay in the house and have babies.

because that needs to advance society. Well, I'm just going to quickly go over a list of groundbreaking discoveries and achievements by women across various fields, highlighting their invaluable contributions to science, technology, medicine and society. Rosalind Franklin discovered a double helix structure of DNA through X-ray crystallography, which was crucial to Watson and Crick's work.

Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium leading to the development of radiation therapy for cancer. Barbara McClintock discovered jumping genes, transposable elements in genetics, earning her the Nobel Prize. Henrietta Lacks, her cells taken about her knowledge became the first immortal cell line revolutionizing medical research.

Gertrude B. Elion developed life-saving drugs for leukemia, organ transplants, and autoimmune diseases, earning a Nobel Prize in Medicine. Florence Nightingale revolutionized modern nursing and hospital sanitation methods. Virginia Apiger created the Apiger score, a method to assess the health of newborns immediately after birth.

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin discovered the structures of important biochemical substances like penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin. Got Alice Bell, got Rachel Carson, astronomy and space, Annie Jump Carson, Selenium Payne Gapaskin, Vera Rubin, Katherine Johnson, Jocelyn Bell, physical chemistry, Lisa Mensah, basically all of these amazing women and discoveries and advancements that they have created in society would never exist under Jim Bob's

that the women should stay in the house and have babies. Yeah, women can have babies, but

They can also not have babies and advance society in the ways that these... I've actually got a list of 34 women. I didn't get to go through all of them. So Jim Bob, your position would have meant none of this would have happened. Your position would have meant we don't have penicillin. How do you feel about that? That was two minutes. So two minutes for you, Jim Bob, and you can cut off whenever you're ready.

Yeah, he mentioned a bunch of exceptions to the rule, which Craig, we don't structure society based on exceptions, dummy. We base society on the norm, and the norm is that women, for the most part, are geared toward and even want to have kids.

absent the massive propaganda machine telling them that they can do otherwise and they're going to be happy is actually a failed system. So you listing a bunch of things that women who are the exception accomplishing things says nothing about the overall structure and infrastructure of society, what makes it thrive. Okay. Pointing to these little feats that women have done over time, that they're peculiar. And you know, the fact that you, the fact that you list them as peculiarities proves my point that,

There is, we don't base, uh, our structure society based on exceptions. That's basically your argument. Look at these exceptions. Look at these exceptions. We're not talking about the exceptions. Plus you have no basis to say, um, massive, uh,

feats based on peculiar women who have peculiar interests wouldn't happen under the view that predominantly holds that women should be at home as mothers raising the best of the best in society. You just made it up out of your head. You just said, if Christianity, if, if, if we had a Christian view and everyone was at home, there would be no women doing anything. That's actually not true. Women at home have developed all sorts of ways of, uh,

of making clothing. They've figured out all sorts of machinery. They've figured out how to actually maximize utility in the house in regards to all sorts of operations. They're extremely innovative. The point isn't whether or not women are innovative. The point is,

- If they're more innovative in the home and they're raising the next generation of kids, is that better than a bunch of Amelia Earhart's, right? Running around, right? And accomplishing the world, yet there's no kids. Like what is the point of having women being pushed into society and trying to be equal with men in their regards to their achievements if there's no freaking kids? There's no society, dude. - All right, let's bounce another two minutes. Op two, let's go.

I mean, we really, really don't need... Okay, sorry. Massive, massive, massive straw man. I never said women can't have kids or shouldn't have kids. Women, they're absolutely geared towards having children. Does that mean they have to? No. Just because some women don't stay at home doesn't mean society is going to fall apart.

Yes. Do some women want to be homemakers and have babies and, you know, make a home and be stay at home mothers? Absolutely. Do some women want to go and have a career and advance themselves? Absolutely. Your position, which you have now moved the goalpost on, was that the duty of women is to be in the home and have babies.

If that duty for all women, as you prescribed, is the case, then all of the things that I listed, which isn't just the exception, by the way, it's just the tip of the iceberg of the amazing advancements and discoveries by women. Those under your paradigm would not have existed because women have to go and have babies.

you're saying it is their duty therefore they're not going to get the time to go to college to university to learn all this stuff to spend the years working on their research to get these discoveries so no you literally move the goalposts by saying well no you know some women can can be allowed to do it but but most women have to have babies yeah most women still are having babies but

But some don't. And some, even if they have babies, make amazing advancements in science and technology. But some of them, if they had babies and were homemakers, those advancements would never have been made. Jim Bob, you can't hold both positions. Either women have to go home and have babies or they're allowed to go out. So you need to kind of pick a lane here, dude.

That's actually completely wrong. If you look at the statistics, even for the women who you are saying are accomplishing things because they don't have babies, they're actually waiting and they accomplish things later in life because they put having babies off. It's actually not the case that if women had babies, fulfilled their duties as mothers from 20 years old where it's optimal to have kids, right? They punch out a bunch of babies. They raise them. Guess what, Craig?

they're 30 or 40. That's the time when all of these women, uh, are, are starting to figure out their new careers. It's because they've totally forfeited having kids. So it's actually more true that from a Christian lens, that if women were pushed to have babies and they were, um,

The same amount of propaganda for having kids was equal to that of not having kids in our Western society. Women could have kids at a young age like they should. And at 30, 40, you know, they can leave and actually do all of the things you just mentioned. Why would that be impossible from a Christian paradigm, Craig?

I never said it would be impossible. You just said on a Christian view it's not possible. I just demonstrated that if kids had, if women had kids earlier, fulfilled their duties creating humans, great human beings, good human beings for society, they fulfill their duty in producing those.

at age 35 or 40, they're all out, they're at school, right? They're doing their thing. The woman could then pursue exactly what you just said they should be able to. Both are possible. My Christian paradigm, what I'm prescribing actually has both. Yours doesn't have both. No, mine absolutely does have both. You're totally strong-willing me. You said that the women have to be at home and have babies, all right? Now, I'm just going to go through a list of five people

women that did not have children. Lais Maitina, I probably pronounced that wrong, never married or had children, dedicated her entire life to science and nuclear fission research. Vera Rubin had four children, all of whom pursued scientific careers, demonstrating her ability to balance family and work.

There's many who didn't have children. Emmy Norfair did not marry or have children, fully dedicating herself to mathematics and teaching. And maybe having children would have got in the way of that. Now, you're saying that these women could have had that early in their career, but then have babies later. What if they don't want to have babies? I didn't say that. I said the opposite. I've got a very important question for you. What if we can just clone people?

And we don't need to have babies. Does that work for you? No. Why not? Didn't you say it's about having humanity continue? What if we could just clone people and we don't need to have sex? That's anti-human. No, it's not. It's still human. It's still human DNA.

I mean, from my perspective, you don't really have a definition for humanity. You really don't even know the difference between a human and another beast other than capability. From my perspective, a Christian perspective, you can't. I could ask you right now and you wouldn't be able to do it. You just have to use taxonomy and that's it. You don't have a basis for human dignity.

Human value, uh, basically like that. Yeah, one of the foundations of secular humanity. No, you don't have any dignity. Dignity is a metaphysical term, Craig. Where's dignity? Where do you find human dignity from the empirical tradition, please? Tell me. Right, um, let me go through my notes here, one second. Where do you find human dignity from an empirical position? Bear with me one second. In your notes, in your notes.

Yes, because I write notes as I go along. This is a relatively new debate to me, so I am making sure that I get my thoughts proper, and I made a lot of notes specifically about dignity, and I'm just trying to find that, if you bear with me. Where does it say humans have dignity in my notes? Okay. I'm sorry if you didn't make notes, but I'd like to prepare for things. I didn't need notes, obviously. Sorry? I said I didn't need notes, obviously.

Cool story, bro. You've probably done this debate a lot of times. Waiting for dignity. Waiting for dignity. Oh, yeah, cool. I mean, I tried to start talking. Chat GPT. Chat GPT. You opened your mouth. You opened your... Chat GPT. I can still hear you guys. I can turn my speakers up. So hold on a second there, Jim Bob. Let's let him bring up what he's got there.

You guys are having no trouble trying to go to each other. Actually, before you bring it up, Craig, if you don't mind, I can do one last little pitch for our upcoming event. I know everybody loves the little sidetrack, but I want to give Jim Bob a chance to maybe drop out of the call, close the browser and come back because it seems like he's really trying to get back on the camera, which we do want to see you. It's just really giving you trouble there. Yeah.

You pop out for a second there, Jim Bob, if you don't mind. That's all you need. Look at this. This is all you need on camera. Oh, get out of here, Craig. I don't think you want to compare our looks, Craig. Yeah, you're right. I would win quite clearly.

Oh, get out of here, guys. All right. No, I'm just – all right. I'm picking. All right. All right. So if you want to drop out for a second there, Jim Bob, you guys are – you're both fantastic-looking gents. Don't get into that now. Let's – did you want to drop out there, Jim Bob, or do you want to just carry on? I don't want to – Hey, let me try. Let me – I didn't want to –

be like, hey, you've got to leave. I just want to give the opportunity to maybe fix this since it does seem like Jim Bob really is trying to get that fixed up. And that is...

How do you make an Airbnb a Vrbo? Picture a vacation rental with a host. The host is dragging your family on a tour of the kitchen, the bathroom, the upstairs bathroom, the downstairs bedroom, and the TV room, which, surprise, is where you can watch TV. Now imagine there's no host giving you a tour, because there's never any hosts at all. Ever. Voila, you've got yourself a Vrbo. Want a vacation that's completely and totally host-free? Make it a Vrbo.

Yeah, that is good. So yeah, we still have what about 1200 people watching definitely participate in hitting the like button. It really helps boost us up in the algorithm. We're going to throw up another poll in a second here. It was closed earlier. James closed it on me. He was picking on me in the live chat and

saying it was going to make it hard for me to remember what the numbers were. I meant to copy and paste them. I think it was 62, 68% odd for Christianity as the win. Now here comes Jim Bob. Hopefully we can get Jim Bob back on camera and that would be nice so that we can kind of get a feel for how Jim Bob is. I found it interesting comparing looks. I didn't mention about comparing looks. I don't know why he went there.

Oh, we were just having fun.

I thought you said it's better to look at the dots than me. I thought you said that. No, I didn't say that. He said that he was all the man that they need to look at on screen or something. I just said I'm all they need on screen. I'm sorry. I misinterpreted that, Craig. I apologize. Oh, yeah. You've done that quite a few times today, Jim Bob. That's cool. No worries. It kind of goes with the way that you act in general, really, I guess. So is it okay to have Diddle a cadaver? I still didn't get that answer from you.

Yeah, we've covered that. If you have a fascination with cadavers, you can keep that to yourself. Whatever is in your mind, Jim, is totally consistent with secularism, by the way.

Totally not, by the way. Why is it not? Somebody in the live chat... I don't need to recap the argument I've already destroyed you on, Jim. That's fine. Just one second, guys. So you're going to explain something. That's great. I'm going to pop out right quick myself because somebody did say that when I popped out earlier, it seemed to work again. So I'm going to pop out and then pop back in and see if it helps. Okay? If that's all right by you guys, sorry to the audience. I'm just going to join back in.

I'm sorry, Craig. I just had to pop out. You know, I was going to say, the actual audio echo is coming from your end. It's your screen that's lighting up that's saying that we have that feedback. Feedback? Me? Yeah, you're where the echo's happening. I see it now. Why? I mean, I'm just...

Got a mic and there's nothing feeding back. I don't know why it would do that. Your guess is as good as mine. Like I said, it's probably just because we went through so many mediums to try to get here, and then you followed because of the internet update, and now Jim Bob's doing an update. Well, he just, yeah, he's probably going to return in a second. Let me just make sure our screen looks normal to the audience. Normal to the audience, yeah.

Alright. We're working through it, guys. We've got some tech issues. It's, like I say, something we do want to make sure you're getting the arguments coming across compelling. And also, Jim Bob does want you to be able to see himself as well because it, like I say, helps convey

where he's at in the conversation. So Craig's talking to his audience right now. So it's a good opportunity for me to talk to you guys and remind you about the early bird tickets. So as Craig said earlier, I've got to reconfirm that the first day Saturday is sold out, but Craig's saying we're all sold out. So I'm going to go look that up. James said that in the stream with AP and Central Dower.

Okay, yeah, awesome. So yeah, definitely. If you haven't checked out the link in the description, the tickets are linked there. I think James also pinned a message there with the tickets. Still no luck with the camera there, eh, Jim Bob?

Just there. Nope, that's not it. Oh, no worries. Hopefully we can get that sorted. It's just, it's been real fun. Get the, some of the tech issues sorted, but there's no problem. So yeah, if you haven't checked the live event that, you know, we're going to get there eventually, but in the side here, you see the little thermometer that is actually for our Indiegogo fundraising. So I definitely,

I can put that up here in a second but yeah if you guys it really is important because um James puts out a lot of you know money for this he pays for everyone to come and fly it in he pays for the hotels there's VIP dinners with the speakers which he has to pay for all the speakers and the people that bought the VIP tickets you know he's paying for security that James he

He doesn't want to make money on this, but he kind of at least be nice to be broke even. And he has put a lot of effort into organizing this and spent a lot of money and time. And, you know, to help the channel and to help further debate cons, you know, reaching that target is a really good thing.

Yeah. And man, like I say, I appreciate you. You are just, you're ready to let the audience know, not just our audience, but your audience as well. I know that you're streaming as well on your end and you're super excited. I'm super excited. We've got lots of great speakers that are coming out. So yeah, definitely. If you do have the means to help out with the Indiegogo, check out the link in the description, but more importantly, if you can be in New York and,

purchase tickets for the event we are still selling tickets so yeah on our first day it's gonna be Saturday February 15th we have

Yours truly here, Craig versus Andrew on pretty much the same topic. We're going to be debating secular humanism versus Christianity, you know, foundation for ethics. That's going to be great. My debate with Andrew Wilson is not on ethics. It's on what is better for society rather than what is a better ethical foundation. I believe Lawrence Krauss and Inspiring Philosophy are debating the ethical side of it.

So if we do click on the event right now, it does say Christian or secular humanism, which has the best ethical foundation. That is yours. I thought it did say what Craig said it said. James said that he'd mixed up the subjects and mine is society and Lawrence Krauss's is ethics.

- No worries. - Yeah, so I don't mind because I feel like there is overlaps. Although honestly, I feel like the society one would be slightly easier than the ethical one for me. But yeah, I'm debating what is better for society. Lawrence Krauss is debating what is better for ethics.

Yeah, so Lawrence Krauss is going to be going up against Mike Jones and it's going to be, yeah, Christianity or secular ethics or which is better for society. That's going to be great. Then is Muhammad a true prophet? So that's another thing we put out an announcement the other day. There was a...

cancellation for our speaker against AP. Go check out the debate that was happening there. Craig, behave yourself. Yeah, there was some stuff that was said, some things that were on camera. So unfortunately, yeah, we had to make a change to our schedule. So if you are...

If somebody who's watching right now and you want to defend, is Muhammad a true prophet, definitely send James an email at moderndaydebate at gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. Also, did Jesus claim to be God? That's also going to be happening on that day, and it's going to be cosmic skeptic Alex O'Connor versus David Wood.

And that's also going to be a really juicy one. That's just day one. But before we talk about day two, let's get back into the debate. We've done everything that we can to try to solve the issues, guys. I dropped out. Jim Bob dropped out.

I really apologize. It's obviously on my side. It's just not... Everything's just not falling into place, I should say. So don't worry about it. We're not going to think about it too much. Let's just focus on the arguments. So let's see what we've got here. Just make sure you don't let Bob turn his camera on. We should be good. Yeah, cool. Yeah, you're doing well. Shit, am I... No, I didn't mean myself. Are you talking to the Muslim guy who got cut from the debate? No, I was joking.

Right, yes. I wanted to go back to what you said about ethics in regard to secular humanism because, sorry, dignity, because you said that there's no such thing as dignity in secular humanism. Could you please clarify your point on that? Sure, yeah. Yeah, I would say that secularism relies on reason and empiricism in its tradition.

And from that view, things that are transcendental that are not found in nature, like dignity, goodness, virtue, these are not actually grounded in empirical knowledge. There's nowhere in nature you find these things. So they're metaphysical assumptions. And from my point of view, they ought be grounded when comparing two ethical positions, two moral foundations. You want to ask, okay, well, if we both agree dignity exists, why?

We can compare our accounts from each of our worldview, what dignity. I just don't know where else you're going to go from an empirical tradition to produce a foundation or an account for dignity. It seems like a it's almost like a I feel like dignity would be as illusory or fictional as as like angels or something, something else you would reject from another view.

Okay, well, I spoke to a secular humanist society in North Queens, where I live, and the pamphlet they sent me basically said this: "Dignity in secular humanism says that dignity is derived from shared humanity. Secular humanism sees every person as inherently valuable because they are human, not because of their relationship to a deity or adherence to a specific religion.

This perspective avoids the conditional worth and instead affirms unconditional worth. You are valuable because you are a human being with the capacity to think, feel and contribute to society rather than, you know, the alternative, which is you are valuable because, you know, God loves you and tells you you are. Does that make sense?

Um, yeah, I heard what you said. It almost seems like it pushes over the value to humanity itself, but it doesn't tell me why humanity itself is dignified, has any higher value than other thinking creatures. Like, for instance, Craig, from your view, do you think, do you debate like vegans or at all? No, if vegans want to be vegans, then you're not vegan though, right?

No, I'm I mostly in protein. Yeah. Yeah. So they would go after you and they would say, Craig, well, why are humans so special? And they try to do this thing. And I would be interested because this is a good kind of a decent way to figure it out. Like, what do you say to the vegan, not the Christian, the vegan who says, Craig, these other creatures, some of them think look at the pig. Some of them cry. Some of them do this. And yet you and me are, you know, cheersing a beer and eating some wings.

What do you say to them as far as what makes humanity, humans, individual and collective, unique, peculiar in their value being dignified where the other animals aren't?

Some of them are smart, right? Some of them do things, right? But we don't assign the same value to them. From your view, what do you say? Do you just take it like humans because I'm human? What would you say? Well, first off, Jim, I would have to say that it goes outside the confines of this debate because this is about secular humanism, not about other animals. But if I could briefly just answer your question, for me, it's a personal thing.

And I don't think secular humanism has something to say about what you want to eat. They're not going to tell you this is right and this is wrong. For me, I will eat an animal and I will thank the animal for the nourishment that it's given me. I will...

appreciate the life that it has lived and the gift of nourishment and continued life that it has given me. Whilst that animal is alive, I would treat it with dignity and respect, but I also understand the imperative need for me to survive by eating that animal.

I'm human, the animal isn't human. That's how, I mean, I don't know if that goes within the secular humanism argument, but I just, as the way that I view towards animals, that, you know, yes, I'm going to eat it, and that means the animal dies, but whilst the animal's alive, I treat it with the love and respect so that if it is intelligent enough to understand, it thinks that it's had a good life. I'm also going to eat it because I want to continue to live.

Right. So it means that we value ourselves really, you know, straight up. We value ourselves over them. I'm asking, what is it about humans? It sounds like, well, you're a human. You just prefer to live. And these animals, you know, if I need to kill one and eat one, I'll eat it. It's not a big deal. It is. And it is tied in, Craig, because in my opener, I brought up three pillars of free of free will, basically. Do you believe in free will? I forgot to ask you.

It's a hard question. It really is a difficult question because I think free will can be an illusion within the society that we're in because we have certain biological imperatives, right? We have to drink. We have to breathe. We have to have nourishment. There's no free will for that. You know, we, yeah, there's certain things that we have choices for the, you know, define who we are and our ability to progress in society and, you know,

yeah, that is free will, but I don't think there's an absolute free will because as biological beings, we have imperatives that are outside of free will. Gotcha. Yeah. The reason I ask is because if you denied free will, it would be hard to argue for like culpability for actions. Um, I didn't get to share this, uh, now that you don't, you know, you don't have a, um,

I don't have a camera, but I can at least share this. And I wanted to get your take on this, because if someone says they deny free will, which honestly, you wouldn't say it's is it inconsistent for a fellow secular humanist? They said, Greg, you know, I don't I deny free will. Do you would you debate him on that? And you because here's why I'm going to share something here.

Because regards to justice and morality, we're talking about systems in which we use force to put people in jail for doing what we call bad things, right? And the reason I ask is if you look at this meme that I made here, is it coming up on the screen? Yes. Can you share it? I don't see anything. You don't even have a shareability. You should in the middle of the screen if you hover over our chat. Share. Share.

I tried to share it. It's not even sharing. Well, that sucks. Anyway, it's what I'll describe with the images. It's a it's a man in a jumpsuit for lying, you know, waiting to be waiting to be sentenced. And his lawyer says is saying to the judge, there's no free will, your honor. And which brings up a big point, because if you, Craig, have a.

a bunch of people in the secular humanist view, which they do exist, I'm sure you've talked to them, they deny free will. They think that all of our actions and thoughts are completely mechanistically determined. I'm wondering, like, how could we possibly say, well, you deserve to go to jail if your very nature mechanically had you completely determined to do the horrible thing? And how...

How could someone be culpable? Because like we make allowances for people who are like, you know, mentally unstable in the justice system for that very reason. We say, well, they're not entirely there. They're not really in control of their position. But if free will doesn't exist, you can't say someone's fully in control of their positions either. So it's almost like.

If a free will denier really took the took the logical end of their position consistently, they would probably say a justice system is incompatible with the view because it assumes that there's culpability, which there can't be under no free will.

I don't think that secular humanists deny that free will exists in certain conditions. Like I said, you know, we're biological beings. We have imperatives that need to be met. There's no free will about that. If we want to live, we have to breathe, right? There's no free will involved in that. We can't just decide to not breathe and still live. It's something we have to do. Yeah, but we don't, though, because we can just die. Right.

You could just like, I actually talked to a vegan real quick. I promise I'll let you finish. But I talked to a vegan once and I was like, would you eat a porcupine if you needed to live? And they said, yes. And I was like, okay, but aren't you just saying you need to live? Like, why do you need to live? So couldn't someone just start like start from death? Well, if they want to, but if they want to continue living, then there's no choice is what they have to do. Right.

you know, you can't just stop yourself breathing because you want, unless you stick a cloth down your mouth or something, I guess. But if you want to continue living as a being, if your being wants to be, then there's certain things that, you know, you have to do. I guess, you know, on reflection of what you just said, you're right. People can obviously, you know, unalive themselves whenever they want. And

I suppose that is a reflection of free will in relation to the biological imperative. You don't want to continue that biological imperative, right? Free will and secular humanism is about autonomy, the ability to make decisions and then take actions based on like personal values and empathy rather than like external forces, divine commandments, rigid doctrines, right?

Yeah, I go to the empathy thing. I'm wondering why people keep bringing this up, because in my experience and even some of the scientific literature, empathy, for the most part, is like an involuntary response to some external thing happening that has us recall background knowledge that's similar. So that kind of makes sense. Like if someone's if Craig's crying and it feels like

the last time I was sad or something, I might like go, oh, you're crying. And it could be the case that you're actually happy and it's like not clear. And it showed that like a lot of times empathy is a projection of our own bias and background knowledge of our own experience. I'm not saying it can't be correct. I'm saying a lot of times it's wrong. I'm going to agree with that. I do think that your empathetic response is built by your experiences, right?

You know, so say that you are used to being beaten up or whatever. You see someone else getting that treatment. It's not going to affect you in the same way. Right. So, I mean, you are you are right that empathy is kind of a thing that is based on experiences that you've had. But that's where secular humanism comes in, because secular humanism wants everyone to be safe and happy and, you know, not have harm come to them.

So the consequence of that is that if we follow on from the same logic, the empathetic response would be, oh, well, we don't want that person to have harm and stuff. And the hope is that secular societies are not places where violence and things like that are commonplace. So maybe the empathetic response would be,

a better thing than the, do you see what I'm getting at? - I understand, I understand, but then there needs to be some threshold because you said your father, we have to bring our kids to the doctor and dentistry and there's all this horrible experience and we even look at their experience and we're like, "Oh, I hate that I have to watch this happen." And yet we don't respond based on their empathy

the empathy of feeling their pain to determine to suddenly take them out of the dentist chair. We just go through with it, even in the instance of them suffering and us feeling their pain. And so if that's, if that's the possibility that empathy has,

doesn't actually tell us what we should do. It tells us what people might be feeling, but it's not ever consistent. Like, you know, like, like the perfect bad example. Like if you, if you watch your kids grow up and make mistakes, we empathize with their mistakes. We remember our own mistakes, but we don't stop them.

them from making the mistakes. But if empathy was ultimately, I'm not saying you're arguing this, but a lot of times it comes up, they go, well, no, morality is based in empathy. And I look at those examples and I go, well, it can't be because us as parents don't literally shield our kids from suffering because we know they actually have to grow and go through suffering. So we don't actually minimize suffering. We allow it and we have to use some sort of navigation system. So it can't be empathy.

Ultimately. But in the long run, isn't that then for the better? You know, letting your kids like have a little bit of, you know, I don't want to use the word harm. You know what I'm getting at. Is in the long run going to make them so that they don't have harm in the future? You know, school of hard knocks and all that, you know, you teach your kids to get back up once they've fallen down.

Yeah, you're going to let them make that mistake. You're going to let them fall off their bike and get hurt. But then in the future, that means that they're less likely to come to what could be even greater harm. Now, I don't necessarily think that falls within the perfumes of secular humanism or Christianity. That's more just, you know, being human, right? And wanting another person to not be hurt. And I think as a father, are you a father, Jim? Yes, I'm a father, yeah.

Yeah, I think as a father, you know, you never want to see your kids get hurt. But at the same time, you realize that they have to kind of go through hardships to make them a better person to stop further hardships down the line, right?

Yeah, that's fair to say. It's just that if harm reduction ends up being the standard, we have this—from the secular view, has this very blurred area. Whereas a Christian view, you don't take a harm reduction approach to things because—

we believe that you could actually do immoral acts to yourself and others, even if it doesn't cause harm, which brings up a good point. Like, do you think from a secular approach that harm itself or suffering is still kind of ambiguous in its really nailing down when it's occurring and when it's not occurring? I don't think so. I think harm can be clearly defined as to, you know,

linked to suffering and the negative impact of the things that are happening. Unless you're like a sadist or something that enjoys pain, do you still see that as harm?

But I think in general, harm can be defined as harm by both of us in basically the same way. Don't you? Yeah, I would say harm, what you call harm, I would probably equate with pain, which would just be a sense data experience. But I would separate it from suffering. The only reason I say this is because if you have two people who are like undergoing the same amount of inflicted pain,

we know that one of those people logically has the capacity to overcome the pain and not experience suffering. And yet the other person is experiencing the exact same thing

but doesn't overcome it. So there's this will aspect to overcoming suffering. That's why a Christian paradigm actually presents a paradigm to interact with this. It's like it's embedded in Christianity that suffering, it's not to say causing suffering is a virtue. It's that when you experience suffering, you have an opportunity to transcend above it. And if two, like I said, if two people experience the same exact sort of like torturous experience,

It's amazing to me that one person can have a paradigm that transcends the suffering and the other person is stuck on reevaluating the pain and reliving the only sense data. So that's why I get into like there's a metaphysical aspect to suffering isn't actually identical to pain.

No, I think suffering can be an individual thing, right? I mean, I'm going to use myself as an example here. I'm a disabled military veteran. I've got a pretty bad shoulder injury and a really, really bad leg injury, right? I spend all of my time in pain constantly. It's got to be a norm for me rather than, you know, a suffering. If there's extra pain, then I kind of feel like I'm suffering, right?

You know, so, so for me, the definition of what I would, because my life is, is full of pain and that's just how I am. Yeah. The definition of what I would then consider suffering has slightly shifted. If you know what I mean. I understand, but there's people just like you, let's, let's just grant you like a bunch of pain. I don't know. It's like it becomes subjective, like how people process pain, but there are plenty of people who, I don't know if I can say they just end it, right. They end it because of the pain. And if there was someone like you, Craig, who,

that had the same amount of pain as you and almost had the exact sort of like ailments from your, from your experience. Um, what's the, what do you think the distinction is between you being able to overcome that pain and another person just literally just succumbing to it and just, just kind of ending it? Like what's the difference? Right. For me, I feel like the support structure that I have in my life, um, has allowed me to

not overcome because I still struggle. You know, I'm still in pain. I still get angry. You know, I'm still struggling with it. But the support structure I have in my life has allowed me to, you know, lead at least a semi-normal life. You know, there's a lot of willpower involved. I have to will myself to just deal with the pain. Right.

but I've been dealing with it for a long time. Whereas maybe if someone just got injured today, like I have, they would see it as a completely different thing, a life-ending, devastating thing. Because to have that pain start when you're not used to it is a very different experience than for me, I've been living with pain for nearly 12 years, right? - Yep, yeah, and I'll ask you this. Do you think someone in your position with pain

next to someone else in the same exact position, but you have children. Is there anything about being a father that calls you your will to overcome your pain because the sacrifice is there to be there for your kids against your own preferences? No, no, no. Yeah. So for me, I,

I want to overcome what I go through. You know, my anger issues, my, you know, the constant buzzing in my head from the pain that I'm in. I want to overcome that so that I can give my children a better life and a better experience, right? But for me, that almost, well, that really aligns with secular humanism views because it's about, you know, just making sure that everyone else is happy and well looked after, you know, and...

How I deal with it is hard, but because of the society that I feel like I'm part of and the support structure, I've been able to deal with it. And I feel like a secular humanist society will be that support structure because they want everyone to be happy. Yeah. The thing is... For religion, people can be...

chastised and shunned because of certain things they've done or ailments they might have historically. Maybe not now. This is why I bring up duties so much because I think it's so important beyond rights. I think duties are more important than the concept of entitlements because

Isn't it more important as a father to fulfill your duty to provide for your father, for your kids more than pursuing your own preferences and feeling good? So like if it's the case that a father has to live a life of kind of in and out of that sort of like just not agony, I'm not saying like pure agony. I'm saying like that even if they lived a life where they mostly don't prefer it and they're not happy, right?

Isn't it still more important for their kids to be provided for? I think secular humanism, I think Christianity accounts for that as a duty. It actually is a perspective, whereas I don't think secularism, because it's the pursuit of everyone being happy. If someone's not happy providing for their family, what do you say to that man, Craig?

You take that person to therapy, you find out the issues, you work with them, you try to resolve the issue and make it better. Hey, maybe that man doesn't want to be in that family, right? So in that situation, you then find another way to support that family that will keep them happy.

You know, relationships are going to break up. It happens. You know, families, families break up, whether it's religious or secular humanists. But it doesn't mean that then you can't support those people. Yeah, there's going to be heartbreak. Yeah, they're going to be upset. Maybe the kids have lost their dad. Right. But secular humanism can then provide that support structure to people.

make people still have a productive life and have a support structure and be happy and look after them because that's what you would want for yourself. And that's kind of what secular humanism is, right? It's how you would want to be treated yourself. You want to be happy. You want to be loved. And

You know, well, for me personally, that's why I treat my loved ones the way that I do, because that's how I would like to have it. And I know that it makes me feel happy and I want them to be happy. Yeah, but I guess what you're saying is that if a man looks at his family and he goes, I'm not happy, I'm leaving.

From your secular view, he should pursue first and foremost his own happiness, right? Because that's the standard. Every human pursues their own happiness preferences above all, everyone all together. No, no, no. There's no duty under secularism that says, no, even in the face of you not being happy, sir, you have a duty under secular humanism to put your unhappiness on a shelf.

parry the cross and fulfill your duties as a father it sounds like you're saying hey it just happens there's no actually pull to make it correct in that in that sense you just like i said to you my first point of call would be to you know try and find out where the problem is so let's say there's a problem between the wife and the husband marriage counseling is a thing therapy is a thing you can try and resolve the problem right but

Do you want a family with an unhappy husband and father that doesn't want to be there, that resents it, that, you know, those emotions are going to be there? You are human. We can't stop those emotions being there, regardless of if it's our duty or not.

a house with an unhappy person in doesn't want to be in that relationship is not going to make a good impression and society, right? Well, I understand your position that like, if you just get a grumpy dad and maybe a kid's experience of the dad is just so foul that, that you're saying it might be better that the dad's just not there. I think, even if you imagine that as, I, I, just because we haven't,

for a little bit. I do want to check with you guys to see, you know, how much longer you want to keep going. And I do also want to...

You know, I'm a father, so I do also want to maybe talk about, not the regardless of, but what would be the opinion of what is the duty of a father. You know, we can maybe try to hone in on that, you know, and focus on it. That's great. Enjoy that. But I did put in our Discord right now, not right now, sorry, a little bit ago, the Indiegogo

promo link. So I don't know if you've shared that with your live audience yet there, Craig. Uh, but if, if you would, that would really, uh, be a, yeah. Please take that link and spam it in my, um, in my chat. I'd very much appreciate it and put it all over my discord. Um, I know you guys are on that. So thank you very much. Um, Jim,

Jim Bob, I'm quite enjoying this conversation. Are you happy to maybe go for another 10 minutes of back and forth and then go to Q&A? Yeah, definitely. Okay. So before we go there, I do want to remind our audience as well that yes, if you can help us out with the live event coming up, our Indiegogo link is in our description. And yes, I put it in our Discord chat here, Craig. So if you can pull that from our chat there too. But yeah, if you're watching on Craig's side too, and if you can help us out,

You know, we are flying Craig out for the event as well. You lucky bugger. And me as well, you know, and a bunch of other people, you know, it's going to be a wild time. It's going to be an amazing time. There's going to be amazing debates going on and

Honestly, it's going to be better than what money could pay for at the end of the day. So if you can help us out and put in the Indiegogo, we do appreciate it. But let's try to home back into the subject that we were talking about. So we did talk about women's rights earlier. Now we're talking about the duties of a father.

Yeah, let's try to – yeah, let's get back to it. Go ahead, Jim. Well, generally speaking, I think that a society, which is really easy to exact today because of all the consumerism, it's really easy – I think Craig would agree that it's really easy to give people what they want to sort of make them, quote, happy in the short term very easily now, right? Yeah.

Amazon on demand, all of their fantasies fulfilled. It's really we're pretty much on a conveyor belt society now with with with consumerism and getting the things we like. And it brings up a good question is that like what what ultimately are we supposed to be doing if the secular view is to say, well, what you're supposed to be doing is making yourself happy.

That leads itself to pure materialism. I'm not sure what else on top of managing your own wants and fleshly desires there actually is to offer from a secular view. Is there anything that's in a higher order? Is there anything higher than material? Just to clarify, it's not making yourself happy. It's making society happy. You know, the ones you love, the people around you. You guys don't use secularism to make me happy, though.

Well, that's because you're religious and you don't think that my point of view is correct. But everyone that I know that holds the positions that I do is happy. And we support each other and we love each other. And we don't need a divine doctrine to say that. Well, I disagree. I think love itself, from your view, is a pure chemical reaction, isn't it?

I mean, that's what love is. Love is a biological, a chemical and electrical reaction. That is what love is. - Okay, Craig, listen, listen, dude, listen, hold on a second. Dude, you're in trouble here. You're in trouble here. - You need to let me finish. - No, I need to clarify. - Fair enough, fair enough. - Yes, biologically, that's what love is. You know, how could I define my love for my wife? I don't think I could.

adore my wife. We've been married for 18 years and I still get butterflies in my stomach when I see her in the morning. My dreams are about her. You know, I obsess over her. And that, you know, yeah, I'm a simp for my life. 100%. She is my world. I want nothing more in this life than my wife and my kids to be happy. That is all I want. I worship the ground my wife walks on because I've fallen in love with her that much.

Does that come from a biological and electrical reaction in my brain? Yeah, but that love itself was a collection, an evolution over time. You know, that chemical and electrical reaction couldn't have existed without the experiences that created those.

Greg, if you just said love is a chemical reaction, if the same chemical reaction was produced in a human who did something horrific to like, I don't know, someone else, whatever, the worst thing you can think of, if it's the case that the same exact chemical reaction and experience could be produced, I doing one action that's horrific, you would actually have to bite the bullet and say that was love, wouldn't you?

Those chemical reactions aren't the same, though. You're just making hypothetical that doesn't exist. The chemical reactions that, you know, the chemicals released for love are very specific. You know, they're not the same chemicals that are released for doing horrific things. It couldn't be hypothetically reprogrammed to feel like we already know from from neurology. You can actually do anything.

I'm saying you're just trying to come up with an argument that doesn't exist. You talk about love in a certain way. Now, how would you know that someone like Jeffrey Dahmer didn't experience something chemically parallel to what you experienced with your wife by doing the things he did? How would you possibly know that? Because the chemicals released for love are very specific. There's love chemicals? Yeah.

Yeah, that's what love is. That's what makes you feel love. Can I tell your wife you chemical her? My wife understands that my love for her is a chemical and electrical reaction. That doesn't make it any less real. No, it makes it material. No, it doesn't. It doesn't make it material. Because when I look into my wife's eyes, I get lost. When I see my wife in the morning and she gives me a hug, I feel better than I...

Okay. Oh, man. He feels so good he froze. Oh, my goodness. He froze. He felt so good he froze. Literally, you get lost in your wife's eyes. You got lost in the internet. You have an experience, Craig. You have an experience that's chemically driven. I'm just saying, isn't it possible, Craig? Hold on. Craig's back. Let's wrap up this point. Hold on. Okay.

Am I here? I didn't drop out on my end. That was weird. Okay, you did drop out for a second on our chat. So let's let you wrap your thought there. So you were saying about when you look at your wife and whatnot. Nobody can deny that there is a chemical and electrical reaction in your brain that makes you have those feelings. It sends it to your body, right? But it doesn't make it any less real. It's not materialistic.

It is materialist. It's actually literally materialist. Literally. No, again, it doesn't make it any less real just because it's caused by that. You know, I only have those feelings for my wife. No one else makes me feel that way. That's a real thing that I experience every time I see. Seriously, you don't understand the thought of climbing into bed next to my wife makes me happier than I could ever explain to you.

Yes, that is a chemical and electrical reaction in my brain, but it's no less real than if it wasn't a chemical and electrical reaction. I know, but things that make other people happy, right? There are these people who are so like, you know, they experience a massive amount of euphoria from doing really horrific things to people, to animals, to all sorts of things.

Because we don't want harm.

No, but it doesn't harm the animal. It does harm the animal. No, no, if you've demonstrated that you don't have to harm an animal. For instance, it doesn't actually harm an animal to artificially inseminate an animal, so why would it harm an animal if you just put another object inside the animal? Why would you bring up animals when the conversation is about... Because it's about chemicals that are produced, Craig. But we're talking about... But again, this is about secular humanism, not about animals. Yeah, about chemicals. Yeah, about chemicals.

No, secular humanism. Which reduces humans to chemicals.

No, no, no, just because there's a mechanism behind things doesn't reduce it to that. What more is a human than a meat sack under secularism? What more is a human other than a meat sack?

I do notice that you've asked me a question, but you won't let me respond. You just keep saying, what more, what more, what more, what more? What more is a human under secularism than a meat sack? Chemical meat sack. Let's let Craig answer that. I've been trying to actually, Jimbo, I have been trying to answer that question. Hold on, hold on. I'm going to let you answer it too. So I've been hanging out with the live chat. You guys have been really just riffing really well, but I see that we're getting to a point where like we're having trouble, but I, I'm just letting you know, Craig, uh,

I want you to answer the question and if he interrupts you, then I'll put him on the mute. That's how she goes. So go ahead there, Craig. - Thank you very much. Yeah. So we are not just a meat bag. We are a collection of shared experiences

Yes, there is a mechanism behind it. Our bodies work by biological and chemical reactions. That's what causes everything in our body. But those are set off because of a collection of experiences that we have had. And as society, we are a collection of shared experiences. It doesn't change the fact that there is a physical mechanism behind

behind emotions and feelings. I don't think even a Christian can disagree that when you're in love, you release chemicals. That is what makes you feel love, right?

Yes, but you can offer love under Christian view that hurts, that doesn't produce good chemicals. So the problem is when I ask you what more is a human being under your secular view than a meat sack, you said, I'm a meat sack with chemical reactions as if you've skipped a category. It sounds like you're saying, I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking.

I'm talking. I didn't say that, though. I let you talk. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. But if you didn't say that, let's let him explain what he's saying and then you can clarify. So finish up the Jim Bob. What you said is we're not just a meeting. I didn't say that. Hold on. If you didn't, we'll let you clarify. I just want to put you on mute as well. We're trying to be fair. So let's let Jim Bob explain. And if he truly is not answering the question, then you have all the chance to clarify. You know how it goes. Go ahead, Jim.

So when I asked, is he a meat sack? He said, no, I'm not just a meat sack. I'm a collection of experiences. But under his worldview, a collection of experiences are chemical reactions that are happening under a meat sack. So he didn't really get out of the meat sack problem because meat sack with chemical reactions, right? Well, sometimes, no, you literally said that. You said, I'm a collection of experiences. He's on a temporary move. Craig, isn't it?

Craig, let me ask you a question. He's on a temporary mute, so go ahead and ask your question. I'll take him off. Let me ask you a question, Craig. Under your materialistic worldview, is an experience a collection of chemical reactions? You're off mute. No, no, it's not. That's where you strawmaned me, Jim. Oh, maybe you're done. Can you hear me? We can hear you. So did you want to explain how he has strawmanned you? And like I say, likewise, I don't want to put you on mute, Jim Bob, so we're going to give him some space. So go ahead, Craig.

Yeah, so, um, no. I'll have to place you on mute as well. If that's all he's doing, then like I say, we'll have to let him either draw his sword or fall on his sword. That's the way we go. So go ahead, Craig. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not muted, right? You are not. Right, okay. Yeah, no. Experiences are not chemical reactions.

I just experienced that going to the ground, accelerating towards my hand thanks to gravity. That's not a chemical reaction. That experience isn't a chemical reaction. The way I observed that experience is via light hitting my eyes and creating an electrical reaction, which then created neural paths in my brain. But no, nobody ever says that experiences are chemical reactions. We just...

see the world through electrical stuff that is happening. Experiences still happen. That is not a chemical and electrical reaction. That's something that I am experiencing happen. So what I heard you just say is,

My experiences aren't chemical reactions. When I drop something, I perceive sense data through chemical reactions. And then I called my evaluation of the chemical reaction of sense data an experience. You kind of just said experiences aren't chemical reactions. Then you explained what an experience is and reduced it to a chemical reaction, literally.

No, no, I didn't. I said we observe it via chemical reactions. The experience is not the observation. That's just us observing the experience. Okay, cool. Craig, from a sector... I haven't finished. Let's keep it contained to 10 seconds if we can.

- Yep. Are our memories electrical and chemical things that are stored? Yes. Is that how we relive the experiences? Yes. But the initial experience wasn't a chemical or electrical reaction. That's just how our brain saw it. - Okay, okay, got you. So when you say the observation of the thing, right? Isn't it under your view that the observation itself is a chemical reaction?

Observing things is a chemical reaction, yes. The experience. Okay, so everything is reduced. If observing the experience itself is a chemical reaction... No, no, look, dude. There's sense data out in the world, from your physicalist view, there's sense data out in the world... No, dude, don't interrupt! Dude, no, listen to me, don't do this. There's sense data out in the world, it goes through your senses, which is materialism, chemical.

You have this, you give yourself, from the secular humanist view, you give yourself this unique thing called an observer. But the problem, Craig, under your own view, the observer itself is a chemical reaction. No, my, the way... What is it then? I was in the middle of explaining, Jim Bob. When you say I, what's the I? Have you finished? Have you... What's the I? What's the I?

Are you done, Jim Bob? Do you need a minute to yourself? Well, no. What's the eye that's observing other than a chemical reaction from your physicalist view? Are you okay? Are you done? Am I allowed to respond? Are you going to be quiet while I try and have a response? Or are you going to open your mouth within three words again? Which one is it? Yeah, if you answer my question and not dodge it again. I'm not going to let you speak.

I'm getting highly distracted by James, our lord and creator here at Modern Day Debate. Go ahead, Craig, and answer. Let's try to keep it going. Try to keep a flow there, fellas. I tried, but he interrupts. Nod your... Don't meta. Go ahead there, Craig. Again, no. We experience things, and then we observe that experience. Those are two separate things.

- Cool, the we under your materialist view is what? - If you want to go around in circles on definitions-- - What is the we? - That's a pointless set-- - Good, good, you're dodging again. Again, you just, look, Ryan, he just said something. I'm trying to ask him a question, he's just-- - I'm still in the middle of saying words, though. I'm still in the middle of saying words, Jim. That's the thing.

That's the "we". When you say "we" or "I"... I'm still in the middle of saying... I'm still in the middle of saying... Hold on, hold on. Alright, so he's trying to make a clarification. I want to let Jim Bob... So Jim Bob, if you've got a 10-second clarification... Sure, 10 seconds. What I'm asking is... Hold on. I'm asking... I'm asking, when you say "we" or "I", I'm asking you, under your physicalist view that you're defending right now, what is... Dude, what is the "I"?

Yeah, I've done that. I've answered the question several times. You're not going to listen. That's your problem. You just claimed what you're doing. Hold on, hold on. You claimed what you're doing. You didn't tell me what it was. Hold on, I'm just going to press on a temporary note. If you don't want to listen, then that's fine. Very quickly, just to make sure. No, I've answered it already. Okay. I've answered the question already. Okay.

if you didn't listen that's kind of your problem all right so where where do we leave off that we have we have an impasse here because uh things have been going very well for a long time guys it's been a really uh you know we started off a little bit shaky and i think a lot of that was due to the tech but uh we've really managed to come full circle and uh have a you know a pretty fruitful discussion i i i don't want to just go right into the q a where we're right at a precipice so

I'm going to hand it back to Jim Bob. Let me do it a different way. Let me do it a different way. I think this is done because I've answered the questions several times. You didn't say what it was. I have. You just keep asking the same question. I'm not going to answer it. I can just rub it in a different way if you'd like.

No, no, no, I'm not going to answer the same question. Because I'll destroy it, because I'll destroy your view. I'm not going to answer the same question. You won't let me, right? Hold on, hold on. One second there, Greg. You won't let me. He's saying that he's going to destroy you with this argument. So if he does not destroy you, let's jump into that Q&A, all right?

If it doesn't absolutely launch Pax into it. Look, look, look. I'm going to let me. He's not going to let me. He's not going to let me. Okay, so here we go. I've done it. I've done it. No, no, no. You won't be able to deal with this argument. This is a debate. This is a debate. I'm going to levy an argument and see if you can respond to it. Hold on. Hold on. No, not questions. Not questions. An argument. I put you on a temporary mute, so I just want him to state his question.

Make sure that we're getting as clear as we can. Run, Craig, run. No, no, no. I don't want the meta. I know he's done it. You've done it a lot tonight. Let's try to stick to the topic as much as we can. I want you to ask the question as clear as possible so that you don't have to make any adjustments throughout his...

you know, his statements back. Okay. So I won't ask her. I won't ask a question. I'll make an argument, direct argument. All right. All right. Let's do that so that we can, and then likewise, I'll put you on mute while he responds and hopefully we don't get into too much meta. Okay. Yeah. So premise one under physicalism reference, um, reference out in the world, actions in the world that are chemically determined are not truth apt.

Out there in the world, a waterfall is not truth apt, a flower is not truth apt. They're just actions in the world. Under the physicalist view, premise two, reference, evaluations, propositions are themselves physical events. Under this view—

Craig's position cannot tell me the distinction categorically between reference in the world and evaluations. So if we're talking about moral positions or truth claims, which this claim, this whole argument is about truth claims, about morality, under his own view, his own references are

about reference in the world are themselves just chemical events in the world. He has no access to epistemology at all. It's over for you. Chemical event.

Nobody claims that. Evaluations are themselves reference. I got two words out. Two. I got two words out before he opened his mouth, guys. Two words. Hold on, Craig. He's on the mutes right now, as you just were. So I'm giving you a chance to respond. Let's try not to get too distracted by the optics of everything and hone in on the argument.

Yeah, I already answered the question several times. If he doesn't like the answer, then that's kind of his problem. He just strawmanned me a bunch and just, you know, ignored the answers that I've already given. Nobody says that physical things happening are chemical reactions. That's a dumb argument.

I have answered his question and his premise several times. It's not my fault. He's either unable or unwilling to listen to the things I'm saying. Frankly, he is running away from my answers. So instead of going round in circles, because I've done that and answered and destroyed him several times, Q&A is probably a good point to go to.

OurRage says, Craig, can a secular humanist society have a distinct culture? Oh, yeah, we read that one. Sorry. I had to scroll up because I was looking for weird ones that we hadn't read, and I knew that there were a few ones like that one, and I want to make sure that we did hit them and nobody's complaining. Ivy Ellen says, come on, be rich.

Yes, in big, long-form letters. So yeah, you started something there that's not healthy, so let's just carry on. The Church of Four says, in claiming that Jim Bob's corpse question was ridiculous, he was using the appeal to ridicule fallacy, not Jim Bob. So were you appealing to the ridicule fallacy, Craig?

No, I was pointing out he was using the ad absurdum fallacy to take a simple conversation to the logical extremes to try and make it seem ridiculous. You know, but on reflection to the questions that he gave me, I would actually just respond with, well, if God told you it was OK to have sex of a corpse, would you do that?

Yeah, I would say that that would actually be a logical impossibility. So like I said to you, Craig, if someone poses a hypothetical that's a logical impossibility on your view, I wouldn't press you on it if it was a logical impossibility. However, that's different than testing someone's logic to say like, well, harm is what determines something's wrong.

If I could present a situation where something's not causing harm, but it's kind of gross, I think the best you'd have to say is just say, well, I got to admit, it's not immoral. It's just gross, which that's just being consistent, right? What do you mean by it's a logical impossibility for God to say it's okay to have sex with a woman?

cadaver. Why is that a logical impossibility that that would never or could never happen because you say so, right? No, because God's nature would be good and we are made in God's image. So your perversion, a perversion of sex, right? Suddenly changing what sex is, being a reflection and extension of God's creation, it would actually be an inconsistency with God's nature himself. So you can't violate nature. Exactly.

God definitely isn't good. God has done many, many, many evil things all of the time. No, no, hold on. Hold on, hold on. It's just hypothetical in the same way you're a hypothetical. You can't say God isn't good without appealing to an absolute standard that's not God. I can say God isn't good. So how is God not good if you have to appeal to an absolute standard that's not God?

Because not harming people is good. That's your standard. You're God, so you're God. Yes, I am. Okay, God. I just want to make sure. Let's move on to the next question, guys. Sorry, we didn't hear you there. Five seconds if you can wrap that point there, Craig. No, I just said that I invented a time machine in six years and I go back and start the universe. I am God. You can't disprove it.

No, that was me. What do you want about Craig? That's... No, I'm just picking on you. No, I stole your time machine. You're full of it. All right, let's see. I'm just messing. Thanks to our live chat for all your questions. Appreciate it. I was going to say, if you're going to use it, I'm going to use it. I mean, gee, why can't I? Based on what you're saying. We're going to ask you for anyone for like one trip, dude. It's either me or you. And do you know how to start a universe?

All right. Gordon Zilla says, that's all I know is that we got super chats coming in. You stop that. I still need to host you for those science debates in the future. Okay. So Gordon Zilla says, Craig's whole argument was, as always, deflect and... I would entirely disagree. I responded as well as I possibly could every time.

and tactics is a thing. Jim Bob, quick question. Did you use tactics? Yes. Yeah. Tactics is the thing in debates. There's no issue there. You can, you can do tactics. Yeah. Everybody's got debate tactics. I mean, sometimes I think that these guys are just trying to get under each other's skin, just to throw each other off just a little bit. You know, I see that sometimes and it's, uh, you know, and it puts everyone off. Oh yes. We're so intimidated. Uh,

Let's see you shred when you come out to Newark. If I can get my hands on a guitar, I swear. You don't need to play Sweet Child of Mine on my acoustic guitar right now. I will. No, I don't. You don't want to lose two debates in one night, do you, Craig? I'm just kidding. You're going to do the solo on acoustic. I was going to say, I think

I play the hardest one that I do on my classical back there, I think it's a serious land, but you know, for people that know classical music, but every once in a while I start playing it in four, four and it's three, four. I got to listen to it to get myself back in order just because I don't play enough classical guitar. So I just started that Ryan. It's what, it's pretty challenging, honestly, after learning,

20 something years on guitar suddenly telling your fingers to do this like that completely different arrangement of how you play it's like it feels like you're learning backwards actually well I was going to say the main thing is yeah you got to make sure that you're not using your thumb like this you want to use hitchhiker thumb and

And then curl your hand, right? So anyway, we won't get into flamenco or guitar talk, but yeah, that's the big thing. I cut my tendon in this hand when I was really young. So I've always struggled with like reverse plucking classical way. These two fingers want to work together. And it's always annoyed me.

Well, you guys can let us know in the live chat if you want a little Asturias Leanda before the end of the debate. And you can let me know if I'm playing it in 4-4 or 3-4 if you're really musically talented. I haven't done that, but I have to do some special things leading up to the debate con. It's going to make everybody just feel warm and fuzzy inside. Or they'll say, Ryan. All right. We'll see. Gordzilla says...

That was the last one. Thanks, Godzilla. I had a couple ones above that as well, guys. Sunim says, Jim, come to true Christianity. Love your neighbor. So is there something about your neighbor you don't love? What's going on with Sunim? I love all my neighbors. Loving a person is not the same as loving their actions. You don't know what true Christianity is. I hope you find it. I do not love my upstairs neighbor. You have an upstairs neighbor? Yeah.

Yeah, I do not love him. Oh, man. That's – yeah, I guess I saw your roof blow off. I thought maybe you had that. Wait, it was his? So wait, is it his roof that blew off then actually? No. Well, it's the whole unit. We're in a four and a block. Okay. And the front of it goes to my – and the back is his. So the whole roof of the section came off.

Mine got off the lightest. We had a broken window and a bit of water ingress, but we've been pretty much fine here.

Well, I'm glad to hear it. Uh, you know, those weather events can be pretty scary sometimes. You don't know where they're going to go. So, uh, you know, honestly, it was, it was crazy. I'd never seen anything like it when I was outside checking out what had gone. There was just debris flying everywhere. I was terrified. I don't blame you. Um, definitely not a fun time. So, uh, yeah, glad everybody's safe. We'll carry on with the super chats, but, uh, once again, yeah, uh, glad for it. Uh,

Uh, Spire344 says, I'm confused. It's good because the god of Abraham said so. The same god that said to unalive his kids and mutilate baby diarrhea. Mutilate? Yeah, even if I granted... When they say mutilate...

They're talking about circumcision there because they're saying... Yeah, yeah. Even if I granted everything he's trying to frame, he can't tell me why any of that's wrong anyway. So it's useless to even engage. Like, tell me why the worst possible thing you can think of, batter, is wrong, right? You can't tell. You can't do it. So all you have is, ick, I don't feel good about this. But you have no standard for morality, so it doesn't matter. You have no standard to judge a standard, okay?

We don't need a judge. We just know what's right and wrong. Just know. Yeah, we just know. Yeah, based on shared human experiences. Well, then it's not we just know then because now just know now is based on some shared experience. That is to say we all have the same shared experience. No.

Craig, it's my shared experience. Dude, hold on. Hold on. It's my experience. My experiences differ from yours. And my conclusion about what's morally right and wrong are different. Therefore, it's not obvious from our shared experience.

My shared experience is different from yours. Okay, so that means you're God and the only thing that you do... Hold on, hold on. The only thing that you're saying is the standard for morality is your preferences and you'll include anyone who shares your preferences. That's your moral standard.

No, it's not preferences. It's what would rather... It's what is better for society in general. You prefer what's better for society. Whereas yours are based on God's preferences. Yeah, and so...

Right. So if your standard is preferences, all you're really saying is you don't prefer God's preferences, but that doesn't mean there's an absolute standard you have. Absolutely wouldn't. I 100% wouldn't prefer the preferences of an evil, petty. You don't have a standard for evil. Deity. Oh, I do. God gave me a pretty good standard for what evil is. Now, evil. Does evil have its own ontology, Craig?

Well, God's pretty evil, that's all I know. Does evil itself have a positive existence? Or is it the absence of good? Well, no. Evil can be actions taken, and God certainly took many evil actions. Okay, cool. So you're saying God took evil actions. Against what absolute good is he taking evil actions? He caused harm.

He caused harm. He caused misery and suffering. He was evil. And if God exists, then he is still evil. Okay, so things I don't like are evil, basically. That's your standard. Things that are bad are evil. Things that cause harm and suffering and destruction are evil. So the laws of physics are evil.

No, the laws of physics don't have a mind, whereas God would be. Let me clarify my statement. Let me clarify my statement. Laws of physics are evil. Let me clarify my statement. Any sentient thing that, you know, does that is evil. So lions are evil. Lions are evil.

Lions can be evil. Really? So when a lion eats a zebra, it's evil, right? Should we put them in lion jail, Craig? I didn't say that when a lion eats a zebra, it's evil. Tell me when an animal is evil. I mean, I was trying to, but you interrupted me several times, so I guess we go to the next question. Oh, you know, you're stuck. No, I was going to answer you because you kept interrupting me. Tell me an evil action from an animal, dude. I was going to, but you kept interrupting me, so we can go to the next question now.

All right, make of that what you will, let's go on to the next question for sure because we do have quite a few of them. And I will say, I probably won't be playing any instruments tonight unless somebody puts it in a super chat. I mean... Why does your mods ban me? I'm not doing anything. I'm not violating anything and they keep banning me. You guys suck, dude. This is why your channel can't grow. This is why you guys can't grow. Because you guys take these weak-ass mods...

and you don't include people who have different opinions and you ban them for no reason. That's why you guys can't get off the ground. But they are growing. Lots of drivers and they're growing constantly. I don't know what you mean. We're not just talking about numbers, dude.

I'm not sure what's going on. We're talking about culture. We're talking about culture. Not numbers, culture. So hold on just one second there. So one of our mods is doing something. Is there a problem? Just a quick question. All right. It says, okay, well, it was done for a second.

Yeah, no, I was just curious if there was a specific mod that was doing something that was... I don't know. I don't know what happened. All right, go ahead. Okay, well, we'll just carry on. No worries. Just making sure that everything's copacetic. You know, I don't like to leave any stones unturned. That's kind of where I'm usually at. So let's carry on. Thanks to our live chat. Thanks to our panel. You guys have been fantastic. Like I said, we had so many issues getting rid of the...

on channel tonight, so really appreciate it. Gordonzilla says, yeah, we did read that one. FB, is Craig afraid of women? No. Why would I be afraid of women? I mean, they can be terrifying, absolutely. I live in a house with two women whose peer just synced up and I fucking tell you that can be terrifying. But, you know, so can a male going through emotional turbulence. You know,

Are you afraid of women? See, I'm married. I've been married for 18 years. I lie in bed next to a woman every night. Are you afraid of women? Is that what this is? Let's carry on to the next question. I feel you. I had three older sisters, a mother, and even the fish was laying eggs for crying out loud. Like, there was...

You know, it was, it was always like, I, you know, I go to one sister and be like, mom's acting crazy this week. And they'd be like, get out of my room. And I'd be like, why is everybody so angry this week? All right. I'll just carry on. Uh, thanks guys for, uh, for entertaining our live chat. Uh, you guys have been fantastic. Um,

Let's see. Good question. Says Jim Bob disqualified himself to speak about women with his misogyny. So yeah,

Ooh, feelings. They're saying that what you've described is misogyny, so do you want to clarify whether that is correct or not? Misogyny? No, no, no. A Christian paradigm properly places women and men in their duties, which are different. And so it's not in a woman's duty nor in their capability to defend, to sacrifice their life in battle.

They're not placed there. And so women are basically at the mercy of men in society, and that's just how it is. There's no way of changing this. Men are a holy...

the force applicator. That's just the way it is. So misogyny would assume that there's some sort of like ontological status difference, uh, value. No, that there might be some crappy Christian so-called Christian approaches to that. No, I, I think all people, all races and men and women are all made in the image of God. We're all equally valuable. We're of equal value, but we're not of equal, uh, um,

We're not placed in equal duties. We're not equal in the hierarchy. Why did God make us in such a useless image? Why did he choose this form that doesn't work properly? I mean, I bite my tongue. I bite the inside of my lip. Greg, that's not what image means. Why did God choose this image?

That's not what image means. Image is a metaphysical status, not a form. All right. Are you asking why did God put us in this form? That's a more, a better formed question anyway. We need to slow down on the back and forth just so that we can try to get you guys out of here. I've had you for more

well almost five hours now especially with the tech issues like at minimum the audience has gotten like four hours of you guys having your back and forth so i do want to get through the questions and uh try not to like i say respond um i know that there's temptations i mean during the big cap though ryan i think they've got me having 122 hits of my dry herb vape um they're keeping up nicely

I mean, somebody said I was... Anyway, we won't get into that. Question for JB. So it is your view that women should be focused on raising kids for the next generation instead of unaliving them in the womb and mutilating the kids who survive the womb.

Yeah, actually, I wanted to bring this up. I don't know if, Craig, you just kind of generally take a cultural approach to secular humanism, because I read the bullet points in the last one, number 15, was all about like preserving life and like, you know, no matter what, preserving life, enhancing humanity. I was wondering, did you all do you also take a somewhat unorthodox position within your secular circles on abortion, too, or?

Secular humanism supports abortion when needed. Yeah, but just, I mean, not needed, just if someone determines, I don't want to have a baby and they say, I need an abortion because I just don't want it. Is that a need? No, if that person didn't want the baby, then there should be a need to not have that baby because that baby wouldn't be raised right. Oh, okay. So the need is based on convenience. It's not really need, it's out of convenience.

No, it's a need. The need to not have that child be raised by something... You need to kill the baby because you think you can take care of it. Right, gotcha. You need to kill the baby because you think you won't be able to take care of it. Gotcha. Alright, we've unpacked, I think we both unpacked our thoughts on this one, guys.

And I think that does highlight the difference between those World views that we have highlighted on the screen Christianity or secular humanism, which has a better ethical foundation so

Yeah, let's carry on to the next question here. Robin Webster says, 2021, first woman completes SEAL training. I own my house, no debt. Do not need a man to support me, nor do I need an imaginary friend. So Robin Webster is saying that they are an independent woman with no debt, and they are an atheist from what I've gathered in this. So what would you like to say to Robin? Not.

You live in a luxurious society that's completely upheld by the brute force and work of men, including plumbing, including underwater welding, including military, including police, including infrastructure. You sit upon your throne of fake feminist glory. And if shit hit the fan, Robin Webster, whatever the fuck your name is, you'd be begging the nearest man to help you out, help you carry all your bullshit out of your shitty apartment full of shit.

That's a lovely assumption you just made about that person. It's actually true. No, it's an assumption you've just made. No, no, no, no. If society collapsed, little Robin Webster, whatever her name was, her luxurious position of being independent would go out the window immediately. Say that's an assumption that you've just made. No, if society collapses, what's the status of women, Craig?

whatever they want it to be. Oh yeah, they just, right, yeah, yeah. They're just not at the mercy of like brute force and like gangs and people with straight up guns and yeah, society collapse. Women are just totally liberated. You guys are so delusional. Women can have gangs and guns just as much. Oh yeah, against other men. Well, you're delusional. You're delusional. Too much fantasy. Too much fantasy.

Too much hiring people to step on your face. Hold on, hold on. Too much hiring people to step on your face. Hold on a second there, Jim Bob. During my military training, the three top sharpshooters were all female. Oh, really? Sharpshooters? That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand that, dude. I've...

into many gun ranges and it's true that a woman can naturally shoot a point and shoot gun right from just naturally the problem with that is that's not equivalent to a high pressure situation okay

All right. Let's ask the next question there, guys. We've, like I said, both unpacked where we disagree on that. You know, people can go back through the debate. And I don't think there'll be any question where you guys disagree on this particular topic. So even Lord says, Craig, Scandinavia does eugenics and is racist. Is not racist. What is? Say that again, Ryan. Scandinavia...

Things are both false. So hold on, I'm going to repeat it for Jim Bob, but yeah, I'll let you respond. Craig says, Scandinavia does eugenics and is racist. Scandinavia is what they're claiming. Those are just false claims.

Actually, I don't know what he's referring to. Is it like some sort of program? So they're saying they're ethnically superior. And so are they are they doing away with anyone who's not their ethnicity? Like, I can't.

No, no, but he basically he's trying. I made the claim that Scandinavia is a secular country and it's the happiest and healthiest country in the world. And he's going back with, well, Scandinavia is actually does eugenics and is racist in the history of those countries. They are currently not doing eugenics and are currently not racist.

Is there dark past in those countries? Yes. But are they currently those things? Absolutely not. All right. Yeah. Let's move on. Like I said, I think we've unpacked there. Even Lord asks, what is morally wrong with misogyny when men can physically and mentally dominate women? Evolutionarily, male animals often essay females to breed sexually. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

essay. But let's look at some of the insect kingdoms, shall we? Or, you know, the arachnid kingdom where, you know, the women are 10 to 30 times bigger than the men and eat them after sex. So just to keep us into the realm of what they were trying to ask, if you can make a commentary about, like, humanity just in that retrospect. That...

I don't think Craig has. Craig, you didn't have any commentary about humanity, what is morally wrong with misogyny when men can physically and mentally dominate women. Evolutionarily, males, male animals are sexually... Yeah, I gave my point. Okay, fair enough. I thought, I just didn't know if that was all that you would want to say on that first point. So go ahead there, Jim Bob. Uh...

If the person is saying that it's descriptively – we're not making an odd claim. It's just descriptively the case that males on the most part – we're talking about humans here – that they can just dominate women. So it's like it's really a choice of men. So if men decided women don't have any rights tomorrow –

That could actually happen descriptively. So I'm not making an argument that that should be the case. I'm saying we have to really deal with the truth of the matter here. Descriptively, it's true that men could collectivize and literally do whatever they want with women. They just could. They just could do that. All right. Next question coming in. Deep End Diver says, Craig Vate Counter times 128. You were keeping track of me there, Deep End. I thought I was in the single digits earlier, but I think...

Don't know I think you're blowing up the numbers a little bit on one end and diminishing them on the other and

- No, no, 128 sounds about right. I've been tokenist consistently through the thing because I'm in quite a lot of pain after my 1,033 pushups earlier. And this is the most effective painkiller in the world. So yeah, I've been constantly microdosing on my cannabis the entire debate. - Is that what you call microdosing? - Is that what you call microdosing? - Oh, that's your microdose, you're funny. All right, let's ask the next question. All right.

Let's see. Ivy Ellen says Craig may not have blown one, but he's held on to his mouth until the swelling went down. What was that? Oh, I see. I see. We're just going to carry on. Oh, just a clarification. I want to hear it. Come on.

Oh.

Thank you so much, Jim Bob. I thought you were going to make commentary on that last Super Chat. No, sorry, I didn't hear that. I was reading something. My God, these are wild. But no, any commentary there, Craig, for the Scandinavian comment about eugenics and what Jim Bob just said? There's no one trying to make designer babies. Of course they are. Massive industry, dude. Massive industry, dude.

what's talking about scandinavia is not like trying to make a bunch of designer babies um

Making those CRISPR babies, alright, spark. Secular humanism doesn't outright genetic modification or genetic engineering. If it was beneficial for someone then, you know, like for instance if people are born with genetic diseases then CRISPR technology and stuff can help remove those defective genes. Is that what they're talking about maybe?

Well, I mean, NPR did a huge study on it. It's a breaking a taboo. It's considered a taboo. They're they're seeking to edit DNA and customize babies. And obviously people which I find nothing exactly wrong with, but people prefer offspring that resembles them. I feel like that's not a controversial statement, being that that would be the consequence of having kids.

But so hypothetically, Jim Bob, if you were going to have a child that had a genetic defect that meant that it wouldn't be able to walk and you were able to modify those genes so that it could walk, would you? That's a good question. I would actually I wouldn't have I wouldn't have a sharp answer on that. I would I would listen and think about it. It would be a tough decision. I could see both angles. I could see that.

Going with how the person was could potentially be more positively impact on more people. And the short-term fix could be more positively impact on just the person. And...

I'm not sure because you'd have to take a consequentialist approach, but you don't know the future, right? So it can go either way, you know? It's like... But let's make the assumption that it's a, you know, a perfect scenario and that they only have to edit that one particular gene that would allow your child to walk when it couldn't before with no other consequences. I'm assuming you would think that's okay, right? I'm not sure, honestly. I would have to look at what the...

the precedent was. You know what I mean? I would have to think about the precedent. Because honestly, my impulse is what you're leading to. My impulse would be like, yeah, duh, like fix, fix, fix, right? But I also know that that could be misleading sometimes and you could choose the wrong thing. It's a good question though. I think that's a big question. We're going to put a bow on that one right there because we've got lots of questions. That dude, Devin, says, wait, Devin,

Wait! No! Women in revolutionary advancements in weapon technology! His next argument for women overtaking men! Weapons have vastly been designed, created and operated by men because of strength!

That's true. People say it's an equalizer. It's really not when you think of what's required for machining, especially larger artillery. There's a lot of brute force that's not talked about. I have to inject because I think I put the wrong emphasis on the incorrect syllable if you are picking up what I'm putting down. So I think they said weight.

no women in revolutionary advancements in weapon technology. So that no was like, no. There is none. Yeah, yeah. I think I put the wrong emphasis on that, if you will. There is none. I have to say emphasis now because people are going to be like, does he not know how to say that word? But it's just a joke, guys. So any thoughts over there, Craig?

No, no, I'm sorry. My triceps getting cramp. I'm struggling to concentrate. Oh, your poor tricep. You just obsessed with yourself. I swear. No, just pick up. FB says... It's sore. Cramp sucks, man. Me, my body, oh my. All right. It sounds like Craig thinks men and women are interchangeable widgets. Lovely straw man. Congratulations.

Okay, Spart344 says, women are forcibly kept out of these fields because of people like you. That's why wrongly think – that's why wrongly – this is not punctually – That's why we keep you out of these – you can't even talk. So why wouldn't we keep you out of these industries? Get out of here. Yeah, that's why we only think brilliant women are the exception. It's only because of –

No, the problem is we aren't arguing that women can't do exceptional things. Both Craig and I agree that that's possible and demonstrably true. The question is whether...

Whether or not we look at the exceptions of that and say every woman should do exceptional things, why wouldn't we include being a mother as an exceptional thing? I think being a mother is a very exceptional thing, probably the most important thing for society on net balance, way better than –

inventing something like if you were just one woman who invented this one thing good that's amazing that's amazing let's uh i mean when we're talking about when we're talking about the wholeness of society though we have to really engage with um what the infrastructure of a society needs to be and i think mothering is one of the most important that's what's so weird

People say, you should be a mother. It's the most important thing. They go, oh, you're such a misogynist. It's like, no, we're actually saying something amazing about you. We're actually saying mothering is one of the most amazing things you can do. All right. Next question. Let's ask it. Jesus says, Jim Bob, when you stand in the presence of God and his holy presence burns you and Jesus said, you used my name, but I never knew you. What will you say?

There's nothing to say. I'm not going to negotiate. What kind of question is that? All right. Well, you heard it there, Jesus. So... Fucking questions. You guys are so low IQ. I just don't even understand. Go ahead.

Why? Well, no problem coming at the audience there, Jim Bob. As you heard there, Jesus, he's not a fan of your question. Heart Ponder says, Craig, we know you think necrophilia is wrong, but why is it wrong if your principle is do no harm? Can you please articulate this point? And then Jim Bob, can you respond? So go ahead there, Craig. Yes.

It's not good for society, it's harmful, it can spread bacteria and disease. It can be mentally damaging to people. I do not see a scenario where everybody is going to sign off on, "Yeah, you can have sex with your dead grandma, that's absolutely fine." It's going to harm people mentally, and the act of necrophilia can spread disease and harm more and more people.

All right. Oh, do you want me to respond to that? I think what we should do is just carry on. I don't need to respond. Yeah, we have gone on for quite a bit. And like I said, I think most people at this point could probably pinpoint where you guys are going to go with those arguments. So SmallFry says, Ryan, please ask Craig to read this phrase aloud. Bottle of water.

Bottle of water. You knew exactly what they were looking for. Alright. That's how you say it. What do you mean? That was... That was... That was Bawata. I don't know what that was. That's like trying to say my hometown name. Wait, say it again. Bottle of water. Bottle of water. Okay. Say it properly, will you?

bottle alright alright ZH Kane says I think Jimbo sorry Jim Bob is a sad weird little man

Oh, well, we can all be sad, weird little men every once in a while. Come on. Don't be like that ZH Kane, you sad, weird little man. Hot Dogs for Sale says, we saw peak humanism during Rona and they acted like monsters in skin suits. The obedient always think for themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly. Any thoughts there, Jim Bob? I think that's for you.

No, well, the thing is I saw plenty of people who called themselves Christians who basically lockstep went right with everything that's happening, didn't really question anything. I don't want to talk in detail, obviously, on the channel, but I wouldn't make it peculiar to secular humanism, that particular instance. All right. Let's ask the next one here. So BingeThinker says...

For Bob, how many witches have you burned at the stake? That's funny. If you look in the actual history of that, you could actually track on a map how many people burned.

in this so-called witch burning escapades. It's actually very low and honestly it was less burning, first of all, more hanging. And it was extremely low and it wasn't even, that was like Protestants. By the way,

Even going back to something more brutal that under your guys view that you say things like the the inquisition, right? The inquisition. It turns out that the number right of the inquisition out of the documented 125,000 people tried. That's just tried only 1% of those trials ended in death and compared to the first month of the French Revolution, which was entirely secular.

The first month of secular humanism, the French Revolution, astronomically topped the amount of deliberate death. So you don't have much to say. ALC says, win, Jim Bob, and shout out to all the based bigots in the chat. And then they have their salute emoji, pounded emoji, heart, and crown. So,

Yeah, that's from ALC. Binge Thinker says, For Bob, that was the one we just read. This is a weird name. Nat Pox Pixop says, Atheist doesn't understand what actual love is. Love is God letting himself suffer on the cross unjustly for us undeserving sinful humans. Anything to say to Nat Pixop? I think that's how we want to say it. I'm not sure. Nat Pox, or you know your question. Go ahead there, Greg. I thought that was for...

Jim Bob actually well they said atheists don't understand what actual love is love is God letting himself suffer on the cross unjustly for us undeserving sinful humans I think that is yeah sorry I was I was looking at the Indiegogo thing you

Yeah, well, no, that's not love. That's just being stupid. There's no such thing as dying for other people's sins. That's a lovely fairy tale that you tell yourself to feel good. Love is when you look into your spouse's eyes and you get a butterfly in your stomach. You get chemicals.

Love is being near somebody. Love is the enjoyment of another's company and just happiness to be around them. You don't know what love is, not me. Craig, could I ask you, is there an ultimate standard for sacrifice?

That you can think of, like a person. That's the ultimate standard, the highest peak of the embodiment of sacrifice. No. Sacrifice is a virtue though, right? Sacrifice is something that is done when it needs to be done. Is it a virtue though, to do it? I wouldn't say so, it's just a need.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for those shout outs, Craig. And yes, uh, we are going to be live in Newark. I'm going to be there. Craig's going to be there. Uh, as you can tell, we've been talking a lot about the fact that he's going to be having a very similar debate tonight, uh, with Andrew Wilson. It's going to be a lot of fun live, live in person. So, um, if things flow the same as usual, uh, before, I think Uncensored America is going to be coming out to do the sound for us. And, uh,

I'll probably be holding mics and taking questions from the audience and maybe sneaking in shots, doing my best to butter up the crowd. That's how I roll. All right. So in the meantime, everybody, hit that like button, subscribe to the channel. We're doing everything we can to help grow out and grow beyond what we have right now and getting into even more spaces and even more interesting debate topics.

Yeah, definitely go check out those other debates that I mentioned earlier. You know, we had a cancellation with Post-A-Profit due to the debate the other night. It was pretty intense. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. You'll enjoy. What else did we mention? Alex Stein, you know, versus Dudley, dressing up as Michael Jackson. That was a lot of fun.

Yeah, let's just close it out there, though. There's a lot of great debates on Modern Day Debate to check out. But most importantly, hit those notifications for the upcoming debates and stay tuned, everyone. We'll see you next time. Cheers. Newark, New Jersey is where our next debate conference, DebateCon 5, is happening starting on February 15th.

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