Secular Ethics Vs Christianity, Which Is Best for Society? Max Vs MadeByJimbob
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Hey everybody, tonight we're debating secular humanism versus Christianity, which is best for society. And we are starting right now with Max's opening statement. Thanks so much for being with us. Max, the floor is all yours. All right. Thank you so much. I'm going to share my screen. Let me know when it's up. Perfect. Ready for you. Right. So, uh,

We're talking secular humanism against Christian ethics, which is better for society. So we need to start finding some ground, some common ground for the conversation. So the first question I would like to ask is, Jimbo, do you accept that our intersubjective experiences are equivalent? So at the most foundational level of reality, are we all experiencing the same thing?

And I would think that the answer to the previous question would be yes. So objective facts can be determined through the discovery of intersubjective experience. That way, that is basically how we do science. And I would hope that you would also agree with that. Four of the pillars that I would

consider most important for secular humanism are the no harm principle or the reduction of harm principle, consent, bodily autonomy, and democracy. Democracy, I think it's an important value because it allows for non-authoritative ways of government. So

One thing that I regularly see confused in the debate is a little bit shoehorning the idea that with secular humanism leaning towards the side of scientism, that science is the only way and the only method to discover truth. And I kind of disagree with that because when it comes to ethics and morals and philosophy and that kind of stuff, we cannot do science on that. So, yeah.

What are some of the effects of secularism in society? The EI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And if you don't like that, then I would like to ask what part of it is it that you, is it the diversity? Is it the equity? Is it the inclusion that you don't like of this? I would assert that secularism

secularism leads to a better understanding of the world through the many resources and intellectual pursuits that we have. It conserves freedoms, has an ability to adapt to the modern challenges that we're facing and which right now are potentially unknown, but in 20 years. So the ability to adapt is very important when

We're talking about such a fast-paced world like the one we have today. It is very needed, that ability to adapt our beliefs and to adapt our approaches to the nuances that develop moment by moment. And then, of course, not be limited by an ancient book's perspective.

And I would think that some of the challenges to a theocracy, and I'm willing to discuss this, these are just some thoughts that came when I was preparing my opening statement. Persecution of different sects of Christianity while the hegemony

would last, how would a theocratic Christian society deal with those issues, blasphemy laws, prohibitions, schisms in theology? And I see all of those as drastic problems to a Christian society being implemented in today's world in full.

So some other challenges that I would pose to the position of Christian ethics would be how do you approach the nuanced problems of the present where stuff is no longer generally black and gray? It's usually, I'm sorry, black and white. It's usually some shades of gray. So how would you also address the plurality of religions, cultures, lifestyles, etc.?

and how some very real problems that we have in the world today, like drugs and abortions, how would you deal with that? And how do we care for the people that we already have here? Because a lot of emphasis is put on the birth rates. But what about the people that we already have here and that are currently not being cared for?

And finally, a warning about presuppositionalism. When I give my arguments today about a prescription for a secular humanist ethical claim, if you want to undermine the argument, you have to engage with the premise. You have to engage. If you go down the presuppositionalist route of saying you have no justification for what you're telling me,

It doesn't develop the conversation further. It's just like trying to grab the ball and take it away. So that would be all for my opening. We'll see what Jim Bob brings and I'm looking forward to it. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for that opening statement, Max. We will kick it over to Made by Jim Bob. Do want to do a couple of quick housekeeping things. First, folks, if it's your first time here at Modern Day Debate, I'm your host, Dr. James Coons. We're a neutral debate platform hosting only debates.

on science, religion, and politics, don't forget to hit that subscribe button as we have many more debates coming up, including, we just announced yesterday, DebateCon 6. Our sixth in-person debate conference will be in Nashville, Tennessee, this fall. You don't want to miss it. Stay tuned for updates. And with that, Jim Bob, thanks for being with us. The floor is all yours. Thank you. All right. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Max, James. Thanks for showing up, everyone.

All right, well, the topic of the debate here is what is better for society, secular ethics or Christian ethics? What we're doing here is I want to look at the word society, first of all. So society is defined as an aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. The definition of secular is denoting attitudes, activities or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.

Notice that in the definition of society, it assumes the word order. When we ask what is better for society, we're already assuming societies themselves should exist in some ordered way, which is a normative position on having an ordered system. That is to say, we should have an ordered system.

That's a precondition for even examining what kinds of systems are better than the others. Now, if you've been following the trend of debates around secularism versus Christianity, you'll have noticed that the secular position includes only descriptive bullet points. The secular position does not produce any prescriptive claims about creating or maintaining an ordered system we call a society.

The reason for this is that the secularist worldview has no moral obligations or duties. It's merely a descriptive lens. What it does have is a set of descriptions followed by a set of grievances followed by a set of requests. Let's take marriage, for example. The secular view demands equal marriage status for all, but has no duty to marry or remained married.

Secularism demands the opportunity for same-sex individuals to outsource children, but it has no duty to form a family or keep the family together. The secular view often advocates for welfarism and charity, but it has no duty or moral obligation to be charitable or philanthropic.

There is no contradiction under the secular view in being selfish, uncharitable, gluttonous, being a good standing and being a good standing representative of secularism. So in other words, you can be a secularist and completely fail to abide by any code of conduct, do anything in the world, help anybody, seek equality and inclusion.

That's not something that's required of you as a secularist. That's just something you smuggle into the secularist view. There are a variety of arguments against the secular ethical system, but I believe the following argument is a knockdown argument against the secularist in regards to tonight's prompt, which is, what is better for society, secularism or Christianity? The argument goes as follows.

Premise 1. Society depends on order to maintain itself, function effectively, and flourish. Premise 2. A sustained ordered society requires a set of duties and obligations. Premise 3. Secularism lacks an authoritative set of duties and moral obligations. Premise 4. A better society requires a foundation for sustained order.

Conclusion, secularism can neither achieve or recognize a better society because there are no duties or obligations. Now, if I read the same exact argument here, if I read the same argument but swap out secularism with Christianity, it goes as follows. Society depends on an order to maintain itself, function effectively, and flourish. A sustained ordered society requires a set of duties and moral obligations.

Christianity has an authoritative set of duties and moral obligations. A better society requires a foundation for sustained order. Christianity has a foundation for sustained order. Now, like Max requested of me to engage with the premises, I'm going to ask him as we move along to engage with those premises.

If your ethical system does not provide a set of duties and obligations, then there is no standard for individual responsibility. From a Christian view, a Christian can call out another Christian for not fulfilling their duties and obligations. We can say, you're not being a good Christian. In contrast, a secularist cannot call out another secularist for failing to fulfill on their non-existent duties. There is no being a bad secularist.

To further illustrate this issue, I'll present a hypothetical I will refer to as the Pine Creek Problem.

Let's say there's a man named Doug who has a secular atheist view, but based on his preferences, he advocates and aligns with the Christian ethics and policies. He votes for conservative Christians. He prefers to live around Christian conservatives. He just doesn't believe in any of their ideology, but he values the outcomes of those views. The question I have for my opponent and the audience who holds a secular view is, is Doug being a properly good secularist?

Can a fellow secularist argue against his position from the secular framework? I don't think they can. Why is this a major problem for Max here in the secular ethics system in regard to what's better for society? Well, if the secularist can't hold another secularist responsible for being a bad secularist,

then there are no duties or obligations under secularism. Then on what basis can they argue one system is better than the other? They could be both secularists and they still can't tell you which system's better. In other words, if you swapped me tonight

With any other secularist in the audience, let's say the Pine Creek problem, who advocates for Christian ethics but remains secular in his belief in God, non-belief in God, you'd have a debate between two secularists who have counterintuitive views and systems on what's best for society. Well, who wins? It's secularism versus secularism, and they have contrary positions.

So now if a secularist can't argue against a fellow secularist about what is better for society, how can he argue against any other system including Christianity like he's going to try to do tonight?

Now let's move into another problem secularism has. Given that society requires children, which secularism has no duties or obligations to make, by the way, it follows that what we teach children would be included in the metric for what constitutes a better society. So let me ask the audience a question here.

Which is better to teach children? The Christian view that they were made by a loving creator with purpose, obligations, and duties, that their life has meaning and moral value, and that forgiveness, humility, and patience are virtues, that helping the poor is an obligation, that participating in the world and keeping degeneracy down is an obligation, or do you teach them that

That they're the result of a cosmic accident followed by a long process of unguided chemical reactions we call existence, which is utterly meaningless and has no greater purpose. All of your thoughts and actions are determined by strict material causes, and there are no moral truths. It's just a matter in motion. Now please do your homework, Timmy. It's really important.

Now, it doesn't matter if Max here holds the position I just presented specifically. He's just a secularist. However, all that matters is that whether or not a secularist view could include the view I just espoused, that position, that –

Utter nihilism. There is no purpose in the world. You're just a skin sack moving in motion. All of your views and opinions and actions and voiced concerns are just epiphenomenal, completely dictated by pure biology and neurology. Okay?

Now, if someone said that from a secularist view, it would be totally fine and consistent with the secularist view to teach every child that view. There wouldn't be a contradiction. Would that be good for the child to teach him that view? Would it be detrimental to society of raising a bunch of human beings who hold a nihilistic, empty view of the world? So how can a secular system be better for people if it has no duties or moral obligations?

to reject any other view, including secular positions. Now, we might get into deeper conversations, but I think what I presented tonight is quite the...

the meal to bite in for my opponent. And we'll, we'll obviously explore this, but there are other issues under the secular view, which include the assumption of dignity of human beings, the value of human beings. How from a secular view, are you going to assume any sort of value from one creature to the other from that view? You have to, you have to have basic,

basically believe in things you don't actually can't demonstrate empirically. This gets into human rights, which I'll add that Max here probably thinks it's a good thing to assume human rights exist and to use force and operate a society based on the assumption of rights. Whereas human rights, I mean, where are these found under the secular view at all?

Now, he did say in his opening, me asking for a justification is some sort of cheap trick or move. That's actually not a presupp. The question of can you justify something is not a presupposition. It's merely asking you, okay, you're a secularist. You hold –

the view of X, Y, Z. Can you tell me under your view how you came to X, Y, Z as a, as a, some sort of rational belief? That's a, that's a fair position, uh, for either of us to take and cross-examination. I just want to let, uh, let you know that. So, um, with, with, uh, without further ado, uh, I think we can move along. Thank you very much for that opening as well. And folks.

I do appreciate that support. And we're going to have a Q&A after the open dialogue. So if you haven't had questions, you can submit them either by tagging me with at Modern Day Debate in the live chat, or if you do a super chat question, your question gets pushed to the top of the list for the Q&A. With that, thank you very much, gentlemen. The floor is all yours. All right. Can we agree on the question of the underlying base of reality? What do you mean? What's the underlying base of reality?

that you and me right now, two humans, you're in your house sitting in front of, and this is actually what's going on. Yeah. I agree that what's happening right now is what's happening right now. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry, James. I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt Max. Is there a cross examination or not? Or is it just open? I don't know. Only open dialogue. If you guys wanted to do something like that, we could, it's spontaneous. Oh,

Oh, I sort of missed that. I'm sorry. I must have not read the thing. I kind of assumed there's that section of cross-examination. That's fine. Max, do you agree we can just do a cross-examination question back and forth? Yeah, if you want. No problem. That's fine. Yeah, we can do that. You guys want, let's say, 10 minutes each? Sure, yeah. Sure. Okay. Cool. Let's do it. So this will be my examination, my time to ask questions, right? That's right. Interrogate them hard. Okay.

I kind of called in my opening that when you're judging secular humanism based on your paradigm of the duties and that kind of stuff, you are judging secular humanism based on your paradigm. It's an external critique, not an internal one. How can you deal with that? I would disagree. I think my premised argument actually descriptively tells us that

that society, being that it has order in the definition, I'm actually arguing, I'm critiquing what a society requires, not just what a Christian or secular society requires. I'm actually making the argument that...

you're judging secular humanism based on those and not of finding a problem with secularism itself.

I disagree. I think that the problem that I'm pointing out with secular humanism, which would be a problem in my Pine Creek hypothetical, would be if a secular humanist took on and adopted the Christian ethical paradigm without any of the beliefs of Christianity, a belief in God, he's still a secularist. How can you, Max, argue against another secularist who just happens to prefer a Christian ethical paradigm? We go by the argument.

Because you seem to think that we're not even qualified to even sit at the table and we have no basis to make any moral prescriptions with. You are factually incorrect on that because we do have. That's what I was pointing towards the presuppositionalism that I don't know how presuppositionalism. I'll give you a chance to finish, Max, but I don't know how strict you guys want to be in terms of that 10 minutes being devoted for cross exams.

If you, Max, want to ask another question after this. I was under the impression that Max would be. But I know that Jim Bob also asked you a question in return, Max. It's okay. It's all good. We're flowing. You said you have a moral... You can make moral decisions. Right. We can make... Because the arguments for...

why we consider things to be immoral are there. The problem is that we never get to that specific part of the conversation because we're always stuck in my presuppositions reject you even have an opinion on this topic. How would you deal with that? I didn't say that. I said that if, again, Max, if I just presented a hypothetical where two secularists disagree on the obligations...

I'm asking under your own view, without Christianity being in the mix at all. There's no one pre-supping you right now. There's Pine Creek who wants to adopt a Christian ethical system without any of the beliefs. I'm asking from a secularist position, how can the secularist argue against the fellow secularist if the fellow secularist adopts a Christian ethical system? On the merit, on the merit of the argument, so...

For example, let's take those two guys want to talk about abortion, and one would make their case for being anti-abortion, and one would make their case for being pro-abortion. Well, no, the argument from the secularists that you're debating against would just simply be, I prefer Christian ethics. It's a preference. There's no argument. No, that's...

It's not a preference. It's not a preference? You're being dismissive. What is it? You're being dismissive of the argument. It is a whole argument as to why someone would consider abortions as morally permissive. It's not just a preference. Max, listen. If Pine Creek stands in front of you and says, I want...

society organized according to my preferences. And my preferences happen to align with Christian ethics. That's his statement. I'm asking you, how do you argue against that? That's what I'm telling you, that you keep getting stuck on point zero. You have to grant me my worldview. This idea that I cannot make a moral...

prescription because I don't have any basis and whatever. It's just a diversion away from the conversation. So it sounds like you're not willing to engage with the hypothetical. No, I am willing to engage. Let me ask you a different way. Is Pine Creek still a secularist if he adopts Christian ethical systems? Yes. Okay. So if he's still a secularist...

You as a secularist can't tell him he's being a bad or inconsistent secularist. That is meaningless. No, it doesn't mean anything. What it means is that a bunch of secularist Macs could adopt the Christian ethical system. Sure, yeah. So it doesn't mean it's superior. This is taking us nowhere. Okay, so how do you determine the Christian ethical system wouldn't be superior if, under your own view, Christian ethics would be permitted under secularism?

Because you have to face each of the arguments on the merit of the argument itself. You have to have the conversation. You can't just a priori say, "I accept all of this." Okay, so let's do the argument then. Pretend I'm a secularist and I say, "Hey, Max, do you agree with premise one that society depends on order to maintain itself, a function effectively to flourish?"

No, it's way more noise than that. Wait, you disagree with the premise one that society depends on order to maintain itself, to function effectively, and to flourish?

It's more nuanced than that. I didn't ask if it's nuanced. It's reductionist, so I wouldn't accept why you're not going to engage. So you tell me from your view, what is dependent on something? Because in the definition, do you agree with the definition of society being an aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community?

Sure. Okay, so if you agree with the definition of society, then premise one is society, being that it's defined by a set of orders. Do you agree that society depends on order, being that it's definitionally true?

Sure. Okay. So you do agree with premise one. Okay. Do you agree with premise two, that a sustained order society does require a set of duties and obligations? No, I reject that. Okay. So if you can present me a vision of a society that doesn't require a set of duties and obligations, can you tell me what that looks like? Well,

Where do these duties even come from? That's not what I asked. I asked you, can you give me an example? That's a problem. No, no, this is a dodge. So if you're arguing premise two is false, that a sustained, ordered society doesn't require duties. For instance, you believe in human rights? Do you believe humans should acknowledge and abide by the law that's derived or informed by human rights? Sure. Do humans have an obligation to acknowledge human rights?

Let's say, let's go with yes, sure. Okay, so you agree that a sustained order society, according to your vision, does require a set of duties and obligations.

But where are the obligate, like, where are the duties? Nowhere in secularism, that's for sure. So that's what I'm getting to. You answered my question properly. That's what you keep on asserting. Where are they? You said it, where are they? Like, where's Waldo? Where's Waldo? You already accepted that through intersubjectivity, we can arrive at data. I didn't agree with any of those statements.

Well, you did agree that we have an underlying reality. No, the question of whether or not we have a duty to achieve or apprehend accurate interpretation of data is the different question of whether we're capable of it. Do you understand that? That wasn't my question. Okay. Do you understand that there's a difference between the ability to acquire data and the assumed moral obligation to come to true conclusions about data are two different questions? But I wasn't talking about that.

Well, we're talking about better societies, right? Yes. So a better society is an evaluation of data, right? Right. But they're not trying to get my – let me get my – what I want to say out. Okay. So –

Through the acknowledgement that our intersubjective experience can lead to objective results. So we can both measure through our own subjective lens that water boils at 100 degrees at sea level, right? Yes. So we can arrive at objectives, objective facts about the world. That's right.

With that in mind, what we can also do is arrive through intersubjective dialogue at what we societally consider moral prescriptions. Oh, just arbitrarily.

Not arbitrarily. Why are you sneaking arbitrarily in there? Hold on. Did you just say that a bunch of people can get together and agree on outcomes they deem as morally good, right? Yes. Okay. That's arbitrary. So if Stalin determined outcomes and he got a bunch of people to agree with it, is that your model of ethics?

That is a very sneaky example. That's a sneaky dodge. I asked you a direct question. Notice how your direct questions I'll answer. Max, Max, Max, let me ask you. I can't answer the question because he has a lot of baked assumptions. Wait a second. Wait a second. Gentlemen, I hate to do this. Hold on one second. Hold on. Gentlemen, just take a deep breath. Is...

Everybody wants to hear each of your guys' ideas. And once we have you guys speaking over each other, they won't be able to. So I just want to reset. I want to, Max, for the sake of argument, if you can explain to James very in a pithy way...

I'm sorry, Jim Bob in a pithy way. We're both James in a way. So if you could explain, you won't answer the question. Is that what you're saying? Like, is there a way in which you could humor the question? Right, because I have to reject the terms because it has a lot of baked assumptions. Like what? He didn't tell me if he got all those people to agree.

Be with him by force or was it just that they got convinced? Okay, let me help. Very important. Oh, convinced is different, right? So are they the victims of being convinced? That's not a victim. People can change their mind. That's a good thing. Hold on. If he keeps people's evidence. Okay, hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. And convince them of a position. Why is that bad? Hold on a second. If...

If Stalin or Mao or anyone else, the French revolutionaries convinced everybody that they should use force to annihilate a group of people, right? If that's the, if they arrive at that conclusion based on the data,

Again with the sneaky example. What is sneaky? It's literally word for word what you're saying. Hold on, Max. Just give me a second. Max, I'm still, for crying out loud, Max, when I'm trying to jump into officiate and you still keep talking, Max, it drives me nuts. I want to let Jim Bob finish his question. Go ahead. And Max, I need you to hold, just sit on your hands for 30 seconds at least.

Okay. Max said a group of people can like boiling water, look at the data and arrive at moral prescriptions based on agreement of the data. If it's true,

What follows from that is that a group of people can look at the data and come to moral prescriptions they agree with that says, do away with all the farmers and all these other people, right? Mao Zedong, Stalin. For me to bring up Stalin as an example of something that's consistent with groups of people coming to conclusions about data, pure data, and coming to value judgments, moral value judgments of what they ought to do,

Your system doesn't tell me why any of that's inconsistent with secularism. They are secularists, right? Like Stalin was a secularist? Well, he was more of a communist. Is that secular?

It's secular, but it's not secular humanism. Well, here's the thing. If you're going to go with secular humanism versus secularism, that's fine. But the thing is, if secular humanism is a form of secularism anyway, right, your variation of secular humanism is still under the umbrella of secularism. And if Mao and Joseph Stalin are secularists and they use your own— No, they're communists.

Communists is a... Dude, you're interrupting. You're assuming authoritarianism is bad under a secular view. Yeah, why? Because it undermines all of the principles that I gave you that I consider valuable about secular humanism. Yeah, but can't a secularist still deny to have a godless view and come to contradictory value judgments than you?

No. No, you're the true secularist. Okay, so... No, I'm not saying that. You're being very disingenuous right now. Oh my gosh, dude. Are you serious? Yes, I'm serious. You just agreed in the Pine Creek hypothetical that if Pine Creek...

comes to Christian ethics as a preference for prescribing law and informing society. I reject the preference. Hold on, dude. Stop interrupting. I don't care if you reject it. You admitted that is, when I asked, is Pine Creek still a secularist? Even if he adopts these views, you disagree with. You said yes.

Because all of this is meaningless. It's not part of it. This is just you trying to dodge the debate. Talk about a projection. Dodge the debate. This is the foundation of the debate. Look, it's a simple debate from my view. We're talking about whether or not secular ethics is better for society. But I just presented a hypothetical where two secularists could have completely counterintuitive positions on how to run society. Yes, absolutely.

How could that happen? I just told you, Pine Creek Doug can adopt a Christian ethical system, which you don't agree with. You're interrupting. You asked me a question and you're interrupting. Hold on. To be fair, Max, you did ask him how. So let's let Jim Bob finish exactly how. The question is, how is it possible for two secularists to arrive at counter counterintuitive, contradictory positions on how to run a society? I just told you.

A secularist, the Pine Creek Doug experiment, can adopt a Christian ethical system and all of the norms and customs and informed policy that come with it and hold a view that he still doesn't believe in God, but he prefers the Christian ethical system. I asked you from a secular position, how do you argue that he's not a secularist? You said you can't. He is a secularist. I just don't agree with his prescriptives. I'm saying from the secular position, I don't even need to be here to do

to defeat secularism because you guys can't even come to some sort of normative authority. Why? Like I put in my opening. You guys have no... Why? Why? Again. I'll tell you why. No, let me finish. No, let me finish. Don't interrupt me. How long? No. How long? The reason you can't... Jim Bob, can you let me know? Am I summarizing accurately?

And if you want to correct me, you obviously can. But Max, I think he's saying that if you have like two secular humanists who are like completely like seem to be at their core in disagreement.

And they're still saying they're secular humanists. One of them is like the conventional secular humanist who rejects Christianity. And the other one is like Pine Creek, who's like, well, I'm a secular humanist, but Christian ethics are pretty practical. They work pretty well. So I suggest we use them. I think made by Jim Bob saying like there's a serious problem with secular humanism. If you can have those both exist, because I think earlier you said, Max, that.

you think it's possible that you could have a secularist like Pine Creek, who's a secular humanist, and like I said, is arguing for... And it's a conservative and still would have abortion be illegal. Yes, that can exist. But how do you deal with those? And you have to go to the merits of the argument. But Jimbo rejects that I can have an argument about morality that has merit. And that's where we're getting stuck. I never said anything.

I never said a damn thing about you making a moral judgment at all. I pointed to the premises of my argument, which you're not engaging with, which is society depends on order to maintain itself. If you want a flourishing society, you need order. If you want order, you're going to have to lay out a set of basically duties and obligations for the populace to follow. In your case, it's like human rights and all these things, right? Well...

What I'm pointing to is that a secularist lacks a normative system of moral duties and obligations. In other words, if a secular humanist rejects all of the diversity and inclusivity and the LGBT stuff and the trueness stuff, all of these things, right? There are secularists who completely go against all of these things.

So if they go against it, you, Max, can't represent the secular humanist position and say you're not being a good secularist. They're actually being completely consistent with secular humanism. Why? Because secular humanism doesn't have a set of moral duties and obligations.

Okay, here we go again, repeating yourself. I don't know how much more clear I can make this. You're judging secular humanism based on your arbitrary preference that what your paradigm says is the proper measuring tool.

No, I'm judging it based on both of our agreed premises that an order of society requires duties and obligations. Right, but hold on. I didn't say which ones. If we have this guy, and this guy does not support, you know, DEI, and is not okay with gay marriage, then the more of those you have, the less secular is that person is actually because they don't care about their friend of humans. Based on what? Nope, nope. Based on what?

On the intersubjective agreement that we have as a society, you can call it social contract. There's many ways in which we justify it. So the agreement can change then? Yes. And that's a feature, not a bug. Hold on. If the agreement about secular humanism can change week to week, day to day, hour to hour, from supporting DEI to not, are they still secular?

Why would they change that? Because I didn't ask. I mean, dude, dude, I didn't ask why. The problem is with the hypotheticals is that they have to match what we're talking about. So you're just telling me if a position does a full 180 and one day they don't, they stop believing in that people have value, then why is that even important?

Max, you dodged the hypothetical and now you're crying. Hypotheticals shouldn't matter. Do hypotheticals test your logical consistency? Yes. Okay. Let me test your logical consistency. If you just said currently the secular humanist view adopts and encourages DEI and all the rest, I asked you a question. If it's,

if it's arrived at by pure agreement, can the agreement change tomorrow? Hypothetically? I read that there's so many baked assumptions. I reject the question because you reject the question. Wow. You're a soap. It's not that. Are you sure? Like, why can't I just, I don't understand what assumption is built. They have, they have, what's the assumption? Name the assumption. So, um,

For example, it's not arbitrary. It's not just because we feel like it. There's a deeper conversation, but we can't get past the point. Like you can justify through pragmatism. You can justify a moral description through egoism, through empathy, through their societal cohesion, social contract. There's so many ways.

And you can take your pick and choose. What was the assumption? I don't understand what was built in, though. The choices that are made under secularism are arbitrary. That's what he's trying to say. Aren't agreements arbitrary? Yes, but they have an underlying argument behind them. Wait a second. If agreements are arbitrary, why does it require an underlying argument if you can just arbitrarily agree on things?

Why do you need an argument? You're the one baking in the assumption you need an argument for arbitrary decisions. You don't. No, it's not. Do you need an argument for an arbitrary decision? It's not arbitrary. That's what I'm rejecting. Look, if an agreement you say in premise one are agreements arbitrary, you say yes. In premise two, you say agreements aren't arbitrary. You have to choose. You're being disingenuous again. When we make a moral prescription on abortion, for example...

It's not arbitrary. There is an argument behind it. Why do we allow abortion? And there's a full development of the argument. Would you like to discuss that? No, because if your system, if someone just says, I don't prefer those, the secularist view, including yours, you're making an assumption right now under your own secular view that people ought...

produce arguments in order to use their preferences to inform policy. Well, no, that's a baked assumption. It's not actually true that you need an argument to inform policy. You could actually just use force. You can use population. You can use majority rule. You can basically procreate and make as many people as you want, and you train them to think the way you do, and you have them vote

on policies that inform policy or vote on policies, right? And you don't need an argument. Do you need an argument to vote? No, you don't need an argument to vote. But in order to make a valid moral prescription, it has to have some kind of supporting argument. There has to be a reason why. Otherwise, you're just

That's great. That's great. That's great. Let's use your own reasoning on yourself. Why ought secular humanists abide by the currently agreed on page of Secular Humanist Manifesto up to 15 years?

Bullet points or whatever. Let's say 15. Yeah, 15 bullet points. Why, Max, ought the secular humanist who disagrees with your the humanist manifesto, this arbitrary agreement, keep and abide by the arbitrary characterization? And you're going to continue to look, look, look, Max, I'll prove that's arbitrary. Is it possible for the secular? Let's say the American Humanist Association. Good without God is their subtitle here.

Is it possible, practically, logically, hypothetically, for the American Humanist Association to change their 15 bullet points?

Yes. Really? That's not a bug. It's a feature. No, no. Now, on the basis they can change these, doesn't it follow that they can arbitrarily change it? It wouldn't be a contradiction? No, it wouldn't be arbitrary. What do you mean? Because, for example, all of the changes that you propose, let's say one day they go against the

or they go back to racism is good and that kind of stuff. That stuff will go directly against. So even if you do that, then you're starting to be out of the fold. Wait a second, wait a second, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. You're human.

I asked you, is it possible logically, practically, that the American Humanist Association, who has the 15 bullet points, to change their views? And you said, no, that would go against the views, right? No, no, no. Hold on, hold on. You're misquoting me now. Hold on. I will clarify. No, you quoted me incorrectly. That's not what I said. Okay, what did you say then? That...

They can change, yes. But what cannot happen is that we go back, that we go to lose rights, to less liberties, to less freedom. You're trying to make it sound like they could go all the way back, do 180 degrees and say the exact opposite. Is it possible? Why not?

It is logically possible, but they will go against it. But being logically possible is just an appeal to possibility. It doesn't mean that it's either going to happen or... I didn't ask if it's going to. I asked you if it's logically possible to happen, then there's nothing objective. Yeah, but a unicorn is logically possible too. If it's the case that it's... Look, we'll ask a more brutal way of asking this. The first is religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. Right.

Okay, let's say the secular, the American Humanist Association decides that through the data, your own empirical analysis, if you came to the conclusion that it was better for society on net balance after many years of trying, it was better for society to adopt a Christian ethical system even without the belief in God.

Isn't it possible for the American Humanist Association to include adopting the Christian ethical system without the belief in God? Why does that matter? Unbelievable. Why does that matter? You've seen it here first, folks.

Why? Why? It's like, OK, what if you don't do your position, but then rather do my position and answer to me that instead? He's like, no, I don't have to do. You don't have to answer. So is it logically? Is it a contradiction for the American Humanist Association to add in a bullet point that says adopting a Christian ethical system without the belief in God is still a secular bullet point?

How would that even come about? I didn't ask how. Unbelievable. How do you have a Christian? Why is this relevant? This is a stupid question. He keeps on asking the same question that I don't want to go down this route. Because it's the end. Because it's the end of your system. No, it's not. Yeah, it is. But you asked how does it come about. I think that...

Jim Bob's not trying to make the case that it is going to come about. He's trying to use it as an example of getting at like your underlying logical reasoning. Like it's not meant to, it's not about whether or not it's going to happen. It's about, he's trying to see the underlying inconsistency.

What he's saying is, what about you don't argue for your thing? What about if in the place of your thing, we put my thing and we call it that? No, you can't. No, that wouldn't work. That wouldn't work. Why? That's why Christian ethics... That's exactly what you're saying. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. We can do that to you, and it actually works as an argument. You can't do it to us. It doesn't work. Why? Because we have set moral duties and obligations.

So if we have set moral duties and obligations, we can, like in my opener, Max, I can go to another Christian who proclaims to be Christian, and I can say, you're not fulfilling on your moral duties and obligations, dude. And we can do that too. No, you can't. We can't. No, you can't. We can't, yes. Okay, watch. Watch. I'll demonstrate how you can't. If Pine Creek Doug adopts a Christian ethical position without the belief in God, he's still secular. That's awesome.

You tell me. You tell me. He's against all the DEI stuff, right? How do you, as a secular humanist, approach him and tell him he's not a real secularist? Well, he's going against the flourishing of a group of people that's inherently immoral. So he's no longer within the fold of a secular humanist. Oh, really? We said that before. Really? I don't want to get stuck on this one. You think you have one point.

It's the only point needed. I already answered, and we need to move away. We need to have the actual conversation. The conversation. Why, for example, why would we say that abortion is morally permissible? Why would we say that necrophilia is not morally permissible? You would say that abortion is morally permissible because you have no due to your obligation to procreate.

No. You attempted to give my argument. Okay, let me ask you. You failed. Okay, cool, Max. Just saying I failed isn't an argument. But Max, do you guys, does secular humanism have a duty and a moral obligation to procreate? No. Why? Why should it? Okay. Do you value flourishing society? Yes. Is a flourishing society possible without procreation?

Ultimately, no, but there are quite a few levels of that. Oh, wait a second. You can incentivize reproduction while at the same time making sure that people who do not want to take that route are still able to live their lives. Okay, great. So under the secular humanist manifesto in your system, what's better for society?

You actually have a system that could very well, without the use of coercion and force, could very well have the society that you're calling better, could actually die out in several non-existent generations, right? In how many?

This is a ridiculous argument. Oh, really? I actually preempted that because, again, why do you care about the amount of people being born when right now, right now, in the U.S., who is mostly Christian, you have homeless people.

That's a total red herring. Actually, does... Oh, okay. Look, look, look. Max. That's enough. Nice try. No, no, no. Max, does secular humanism have a moral obligation to help the homeless? Yes. Where?

Because we consider humans' life inherently valuable. Nope. Because of our shared intersubjective experience. So, yes. Well, hold on a second. Where in the secular humanist manifesto is it an obligation that you ought and have to help the homeless or else you're not a secular humanist?

No, I reject the framing of that. I love how every question has a bunch of names. Now you're doing meta. I'm just asking you a simple question. Is it possible for a group of secular humanists to be secular humanists and not help any homeless people? Yes. Okay. So if it's not a requirement, it's not a moral obligation. Done.

Well, here we have the... Here we have a meta-analysis of what I just said. I'm sorry, are you just going to keep pumping yourself up while I'm speaking? Go ahead. So here we have a typical thing of the thing that I talked about, the nuance. They can't discuss any of the nuance of the conversation. So would we...

foster, would we encourage people to help the less fortunate? Sure. Would we compel and force people to help other people? No. Really? Yes. Okay. Well, no one said anything about force. We're asking under your ethical system, which is the debate, under your ethical system, which is about normative claims, you don't have an ought that you ought to help the homeless. Right.

Yes, you should help the homeless. It's not mandatory. It's not going to be enforced by force. Okay, cool. So, Max, if a homeless person has the choice between going to a Christian society whose obligation is to help them and goes to, or goes to a secular society who has no obligation, and that's the only thing they know,

Whether or not the society they're choosing, one has an obligation morally to help them and one doesn't. Which society is better for the homeless? I would still say secular. Yeah, you would. Yeah. Why would you say that? Because in general, the charity that religious...

people go comes with baggage. So they force you to listen to a sermon, maybe come to church on Sunday. Oh, and that would be bad? Yeah, that would be bad. Why is that bad? That would be bribing. Why was that? Wait, wait, wait, hold on. So your reasoning is the homeless person should go to the secular society, even though the secular society has no obligation to help them. But the Christian society does have an obligation. And you're saying the homeless shouldn't be helped because they might get to know the theology.

Yes. Wow. So you're and you're the guy who's for humans flourishing and being helped. Correct. Yeah. That's funny. The thing is that I actually see as very immoral that when someone is in need of a loaf of bread and a glass of water, you come and you tell, hey, here, join my little club. We'll give you food. That is bribery. And I see that as immoral. Well, you're assuming that that's the thing that's happening. What if that wasn't happening and they still helped him?

If that didn't happen, then okay, I do support people helping each other. Great. So if it was a Christian society where they helped the poor and didn't do a bait and switch with the food, but they had every intention for the person to know their theology, and you had a secular society that had no moral obligation, which society should the homeless go to in that instance? Wait, how are they not giving...

The sermon as a part of the of the trade. Is it what there's not a trade? I just told you I just told you the church goes out and helps the homeless. If there's a society where the church goes out and helps the homeless and the homeless person knew that that society has an obligation to help the homeless. Right. By the way, Max, guess what?

In a society that's Christian, it's not just the church that helps the homeless, right? Can you be a Christian and help the homeless without being a sort of authoritative position in the church?

Sure. So can you if you're a secularist? Well, no, the secularist has no obligation. We're talking about obligations. It doesn't matter, but can they help by themselves? Sure. There's tons of people who help for themselves. So I think we've established that even, Max, in these hypotheticals where there's a clear distinction between a society that helps the homeless, I remove the caveat that they needed to convert in order to eat bread because that obviously occurs in some places, but that's not what I'm referring to.

He still would choose the secularist and not the Christian. Now, I have another question. Do you think children are an important aspect of society? Yes. Okay, why? Because they become the adults of the future. That's right. And so do you believe it's important in judging what's better for society to judge what you teach your children?

Sure. Okay. Should, do you think it's a good thing to teach kids about homosexual activity as an option for sexual intercourse? Yeah. Why is that a good thing? Because they might be gay. So they might doubt about that. Okay. So someone might also like children and be attracted to children. So you teach them how to interact with children because they might be PDF? Yeah.

No, that's different. We consider that to be immoral. Why? Because it produces harm to the child. And we have agreed that we make a distinction between people who are underage and people who are

adults. Oh, okay. You make a distinction. We have made a moral prescription that it is not morally permissible for an adult to engage with a minor. Right, but you can stop a minor from reaching puberty. What is that? What aboutism? Are you okay with stalling a child's development because they think they're in the wrong body?

Yeah, you are okay with that. And yet on the same principle that they're not old enough to consent, you're okay with violating the consent of the child to stop their development, right? But you're totally not okay with stopping. Okay, so under your view, it's okay to violate the child. Can I use my argument? Hold on, hold on.

It's okay under your view to violate the child's... I reject that it violates the child. It actually goes with the consent of the child because when that happens... Oh, childs can consent now. You heard it here. Max just said childs can consent. When that happens,

Child's consent, did you say? You're not smart enough to get a gotcha like this on me. You just said children can consent. Chill down. Yes. It's clip, bro. Nuance seems to be lost on Jim Bob. So, yes, because this is a medical decision in which the wishes of the child, the parents, and the doctor are taken. It's not an individual choice. It's not... So the child consents?

The child, the parent, and the doctor. So children can consent? Do children consent to have their appendix taken out? No, but the question is, are you okay with children consenting to you think children can consent?

In this way, in this very nuanced and very specific way, yes, the same way that a child consents to having their appendix taken out. So should children be able to get tattoos then? With the consent of their parents, yes. I got this when I was 14. Okay. So if a child, if a three-year-old wants a tattoo and I believe him, I can tattoo my son?

Sure. Great, great work. So if children are important to society... I love how you think it's like, oh, great work, I got him, guys, I got him. No, now I got you. This is just like stupid questions. Okay, I understand. So I'm just saying yes so we can move on and talk about the actual stuff. Okay, cool. The actual stuff is also... Do you think it's a serious question to ask, can I tattoo my three-year-old?

Yeah. So is it also important what we teach children about their ontology and their status in the world? Like what the world is? Okay. So if there's two options and one option is teaching children that they were made with intent, they were made to be loved, they were made with duties and obligations, they were made with purpose, they were made with a higher purpose, teleology, right?

Um, and that they're responsible for their, their, uh, their actions, right. That they're growing into a world where responsibility, um, if you teach them that they were created in love, uh, by God, uh,

Is that a worse thing to teach children than teaching them that there's no purpose, no value in the world, and no ultimate meaning?

Which is worse. I reject all of the terms of your question. It's a stupid question. That's like the 15th rejected question. Yes. Let's say that just for the sake of argument, Max. I will go ahead and detail why I reject the question. Good. But can you, for the sake of argument, let's say that if you're like, let's say you were like, I don't think that I am doing what you're suggesting in the question.

And, you know, qualifying, like, would you answer his question? Like, let's say there was some sick person out there like Iron Horse from the live chat who was like, yeah, I am, you know, where we knew he was teaching his children that life is meaningless. Like, would you be OK with it?

No, but the problem is that that makes, if I accept the terms of that question, that would imply that the exact opposite is what we teach people in a secular society. And no, yes, true. Life doesn't have a higher purpose.

Life doesn't have a higher purpose. We teach people that they're valuable. We teach people that they can make their purpose, that they can choose their own path in life, and that they're responsible for their actions. We can teach them the difference between good and bad, and what is morality, and why it is wrong to steal. Max, why are you... Okay, this is like...

I don't understand why you wouldn't just be like, I don't think I am doing that. But if someone else was like Iron Horse, I would say it's wrong. Like why? I don't understand why. Like the question isn't saying Max, Max, please let me ask. The question isn't saying like, Max, you are doing X. Do you think X is wrong? It's just saying, do you think X is wrong? Sure. It's wrong to teach a child that their life is meaningless and doesn't have any real value inherently. Right.

No. See? So it is wrong or not wrong? You're thinking that it's okay to teach nihilism. Is it okay to teach? Okay, cool. Is it possible, isn't it consistent that a secularist can actually teach nihilism and still be a secularist? Yes, but nihilism is not...

Okay, cool. All of the nuance is lost to you. All of the nuance of the conversation. Yeah, you wish you could rely on nuance, but the problem here is it's totally consistent under secular humanism to teach a child nihilism. Yes, sure. Cool. That's all I needed from you. But...

But that's not what most people, it doesn't, just because it is a logical possibility, it doesn't mean that it's a prescription. Not everyone who is a secular humanist is a nihilist. Yeah, but you can't tell. I didn't say that. You can be a nihilist in the sense that there is no higher purpose.

But on a lower level, when it comes to your personal life, you can choose what is your actual meaning. Great. So let's... Again, great. So let's look at the similar hypothetical with the homeless person. Someone's looking for a society to live in where they're...

They want to flourish, right? And they want to be a part of a society. They can't decide. One society is secular, and they promote nihilism, that life is meaningless, that everything's accidental. There's no real morality, true morality. There's nothing real truth about the matter. There's no moral facts.

We're just beasts, animals, iterations. And another society is Christian and they teach, hold on, and they teach that you're made in the... Dude, stop making sounds, bro. Dude, stop. This is so immature. This is immature. You can just let him finish, Max. We'll give you a chance to respond.

I didn't ask if you hold the position, Max. I just told you and you agreed that a secular humanist can hold the following position. The debate isn't Max's opinions or views, understand? The debate is secular ethics versus Christian, not Max's version, secular ethics. Now, if you include— Yeah, not your cartoon characterization. Stop, stop, stop.

It doesn't matter if it's a cartoon. I know nihilists who don't believe in any higher purpose, who think we're just beasts, who don't believe in any moral facts. There's nothing really wrong with doing X or Y in their view. They are secularists. They hold your ethical system, okay? They're not inconsistent with secularism, okay? That's the point. No, again, you're putting so much into the melting pot that it doesn't... Unbelievable. Dude, listen to what I'm saying. No, no, no. Stop meta. Stop doing the Yelp reviews. Stop doing the Yelp reviews.

Engage with what I'm saying, Max. Isn't it possible that right now exists a secularist who holds a nihilistic position, doesn't believe in any moral facts, doesn't believe there's any purpose, there's nothing good in the world or bad in the world? Isn't that possible? Sure. Why does the existence of that person undermine my argument? Because it undermines your position because you're representing a view that inside your view... There's also Christians that burn witches. Forget it.

What? Burned witches? Yes. What are you talking about? There were no Christians that burned witches. No. Well, we can discuss that, but that's irrelevant. Oh, there were no Christians that burned witches. Well, you can say they called themselves Christians. That's about it. Oh. Guess what, Max? Guess what, Max? No true Christians. No. No, that's actually not a fallacy. So, is it possible that the topic is just nuanced? That, yes, there were Christians that killed witches. They were wrong. Max.

Max, look, Christianity, from my perspective, has a normative authority. So I can actually, if I could swap you right now for, say, a Puritan or a Protestant, I can... And that is the orthodox church. I am talking...

I could swap you out right now, Max, with a Puritan or a Protestant or a Calvinist, and I can argue against them just as well as I'm arguing against you. You pointing to witch burning. By the way, first of all, it was witch hanging, right? You have your entertainment and your propaganda wrong.

First of all, by the way, if you want to do it. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, they didn't burn the eyes. That is so much better. Max is going to have some objections to some of what you've said. Sure. Max, what are you going to say?

So now the problem is that, oh, guys, they didn't burn them. They just hang them. It makes it better. No, I didn't say that. So I didn't argue that. So that's a lie. Because I'm demonstrating. You're going to ask me a question and it won't let me answer. Yeah, to be fair, if you ask him why he brought it up, then it's good to give him a chance to answer it.

So I brought it up because people actually wholesale digest a bunch of narratives. By the way, like let's look at the entire –

the moment in time where the Catholic Church went out to try to reduce heresies, right? The totality of the trials, let's say, during the entirety of that time, by the way, was about 125,000 people, 1% of which ended in some type of death. Now, compared in the wholeness of that entire Inquisition, which, by the way, I'm not a Roman Catholic, and here I am defending their pursuits, in contrast to the entirety of the Inquisition,

The French Revolution annihilated more human beings in the first month of the revolution. Are you aware of that? Do you know, Max, that the French Revolution was entirely secular? Yes, it was about bringing down the monarchy. Got you. So were they real secularists or not true secularists? Well, yes. Yes, what?

Yes, they were. They were real secularists? Yes. The problem is that when it comes to taking down the monarchy, they were the ones that had the power. They were the ones that had the money, the armies. So it's justified? Sometimes throughout the course of human history, some revolutions have had to have a bigger cost of fighting and war. Okay, cool. And it's not that we want to promote war. Uh-huh.

I wouldn't advocate for the violent expropriation of the bourgeoisie today because it's a different world. But when someone has a grasp on power...

It was a required thing. Pretty much, you can think of it as when someone cuts their feet and they just let the wound go and now that they have gone green, okay, we can choose to either do nothing in which they die a lot of harm or we can cut their foot off.

We do a little bit of harm, but then we give them life on the long run. So it's a choice between harm and harm. Wait a second. Wait, no. I'm talking about the French Revolution. They didn't give the option of life in the long run. They annihilated...

Yes, the bourgeoisie. Why? Because they would have plotted to continue back. Is it excusable? No. But it's an evil action that had to be done for the sake of the society. Okay, so you're okay with Malthusianism then, under the secular view. Is that true? Right.

Okay, so look, if it were the case that under your view that the amount of resources was far less than the amount of people and you have a choice to eliminate a third of the people

and save the two-thirds so they can flourish, or maintain the population and have them all slowly starve to death. So under that view, isn't a necessary evil under secularism to annihilate the one-third so the two-thirds can flourish? What's wrong with that? There is no real answer to any of this. It's either face extinction or do something unbelievably cruel.

And most reasonable people, when faced with that, they would say like, okay, yeah, the cruel thing would be the best because it ensures...

But again, you have to go to all of these fringe sites. No, no. We can talk about like regular everyday prescriptions of morality. Well, no, regular everyday prescriptions we've already covered. You have no obligation established through secular humanism. There's no obligation to procreate. Okay.

Okay, if I've already established everyday things, including how do you repopulate your society such that it flourishes, you would have to have a moral obligation and duty to reproduce, but you don't. You don't have a moral obligation to maintain the tenets of secular humanism. Christianity does have a moral obligation to maintain the tenets of Christianity. Secular humanist doesn't have a moral obligation to stay married.

Yeah, why would you? If that relationship is not working anymore, the moral thing is to go and rebuild your life again. That's the moral thing? Yes.

Do you think that living 60 years of an unhappy marriage is the moral thing? Because your little fictional fairy tale book says that... You didn't answer my question. No, you didn't answer my question. Why is that the moral thing? Why is it the moral thing? Because the moral...

thing for people is to go where I'm in pursuit of happiness. Oh, happiness is the moral thing. So, so if it makes me happy to take over the government and inform all policy by Christian ethics that I should do that, right? No. Why not? That makes me happy. Again, you're hijacking. Oh no. What do you mean? You're hijacking an argument. I'm using your logic, dude.

You're hijacking an argument to try and put it somewhere else where it doesn't go. No, I took. No, no, no. Hold on. No, no, no. Stop it. Stop it. You're not going to make a general prescription of someone divorcing themselves to go in pursuit of their own personal happiness. You just said so. And you're taking a personal argument which applies to that person who's getting divorced.

And you're abstracting yourself to, I want to dominate all society. That's not abstract. That's the opposite of abstraction. If I get a group of people, Max, that share my ideology and my prescriptives, and we all share that it's going to make us happy, right? We all agree it's going to make us happy to take the government and the legislative body, populate it with Christian ethicists. You see, this is rude. Like, what are you doing?

I'm asking you, under secularism, how is that wrong, given that we're actually following your view of pursuing what makes us happy? Again, you're taking what I said was the pursuit of happiness of someone escaping a bad marriage, and now you're taking that position and abstracting it to the world of society. It's your position. You said it's moral to pursue what makes you happy. We're talking about society. We're talking about humanity.

Society's made of individuals, dude. Society's made of individuals. Premise one is individuals should pursue what makes them happy. Premise two is a group of individuals makes them happy to take over the government and use their ethical system to inform law. It follows that C, according to your own paradigm, that they should do so. It's logical.

Yes. Why would that escape the fold of secular humanism? Because they would be imposing their will on the other. Oh, really? They would be violating autonomy. Oh, great. Great. Let's discuss this, Max. Do you believe that people have every right to believe what they believe so long as they don't enforce it on others, right? Yes. Okay. I don't believe in human rights.

Okay. So do you believe that your belief in human rights, you should be able to use the government to enforce the view of human rights on me? No. Why not? Because we don't police thought crimes.

It's only a problem. I didn't say it. Dude, I'm not talking about a thought crime. Unbelievable. Not believing in human rights does nothing. It only becomes a problem when you take an action to undermine human rights. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, dude. What is wrong with you?

Nothing. If I don't believe if I don't believe if I don't believe in human rights and I act on what I believe, this is this is the disbelief. Right. If I violate someone else's, quote, human rights, you, Max, believe in for using force to enforce your belief in rights onto me who doesn't believe in it. Right.

In general, yes. That's part of the social... That's a contradiction. So if you're... Yes, it is. You just contradicted yourself. Now, everyone in the audience can hear it. I'll say it again. Max said...

That is, you can believe in whatever you want so long as you don't enforce it on other people. I said human rights are a thing that you believe in. And if someone doesn't believe in it, in their ordinary behavior, then if they violate your belief, you're OK throwing them in jail. That's literally the description of using force to enforce your view on your beliefs and rights on other people.

Well, of course, the nuance is always more nuanced, right? Just say nuance over and over again, Max. Yes. How is it nuanced? There has to be someone that has in general. We agree intersubjectively that the state has a monopoly on the use of force.

That is a part of the social contract. When someone doesn't believe in human rights and also goes and does something, like locks someone in their basement and keeps them like a little pet there, that is actively going against

the rights of someone else. It's violating their bodily autonomy, their consent, etc. Do you believe in sin, Max? No. Okay, so if you don't believe in sin, but you're capable of acting, and there's no consequence, I can't jail you for sinning, right? That... Right? No. Why? Because you don't believe in sin, right? Well, we don't...

Yeah. Right. I mean, OK, no, not really. No. Well, hold on. I know you're feeling trapped. I know you're feeling trapped here. No, I know you should. You should feel trapped. Nuance is lost. More nuance. Yeah, yeah. I got it. You're telling me if we're in a Christian society and the social contract right now states that it's a Christian and then I do something that is perceived by the authority as Christian.

Sin? As sinful, then it doesn't matter what I believe. I would still get in trouble. That's right. But that's what I'm reversing on you. Your sin is actually the violation of rights. That's what the secular has as a sin, right? No. Yeah, it is. You believe in rights. They're totally imaginary. No, I reject the characterization.

Listen, listen, you believe that rights, the concept of rights should we should be using the force if people don't believe in rights and their actions demonstrate a rejection of the existence of rights. You believe in coming in with a gun and jailing them.

That's forcing your beliefs on people. Now, Max, the difference between me and you... - What, wait. - Look, look, hold on. I'm almost finished. I'm almost finished. You get to talk after. The difference between me and you is I bite the bullet and I accept that I do want to force certain levels of my own beliefs on society to maintain decency and such.

The fact that there might be gray areas for both of us is irrelevant to the questionnaires. You're trying to act as if secularism doesn't hold a position where they want to force their beliefs on people. But you have to just bite the bullet. You have to bite the bullet, bro. You do believe in enforcing your beliefs because you believe in rights. No, I don't have to because, yes, there is some level of coercion in the fact that

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Yes, but that doesn't mean, in that sense, it's both the same. What I'm not...

That doesn't mean that I would want to educate everyone in the world to be an atheist. No, again, you're hijacking. I didn't say that, dude. No one said educating anybody on atheism, dude. You're just making shit up at this point. I'm pointing out. I is a simple line of questioning, right? It's very it's I feel like you're at the dentist. I'm trying to pull your teeth here. It's simple, Max. Yeah, I asked you, do you believe?

Simple here. I demonstrated for the audience that you said you believe that everyone should have their beliefs. They just shouldn't force it on other people. Now you finally accept after five long minutes that you do, in fact, accept a level of coercion of your own beliefs onto people.

Yeah, but that was never the, I would have never said no to that. Oh, you know. Oh, yeah. We're talking about different things. No, we're not, dude. You're just a nonsense machine at this point. You're just like saving yourself. You got little floaty devices on at this point. You have these little stupid strategies that you think. I do. That's completely destroying you. Oh, it's destroying you. The only point is to try and avoid the conversation. What conversation? Because it's not giving you the moral argument as to why.

abortion is morally permissible tell me why you don't want to go there you just want to have this surface level no tell me why I didn't know this was about abortion but go ahead no it's just an example as one argument dude you talk about just get on to the argument bro and just to be safe let's call it medical procedure A okay discarding Bibi

So the woman is the carrier. So in a sense, it is the medical proxy for the fetus so that they have the right there. Then the consequentialist argument as to why is that when abortions are banned, they still happen and they happen underground, which poses a risk for both. So the fetus will be discarded too

And now the woman also has a chance to die, right? So if you make murder illegal, people will still do it underground. So we shouldn't make murder illegal. Great argument, bro. You want to start again? I'll give you another chance. But I reject the characterization of murder. The characterization? If it's illegal, do you think it should be illegal to murder people?

It is illegal to murder people. So do you think it should be? Are you making a legal argument that's not a ethical one? Good job. No, legality is informed by ethics, dummy. So do you believe it should be illegal? Yes, but you don't make legal arguments when you're doing ethical debates, buddy. Do you think it should be illegal to murder people? It is illegal to murder people. Do you think it should be?

Yes. Okay. So if I make the same argument back at you, if you keep murder illegal, people will still murder. So you shouldn't make murder illegal. Does that make sense to you, Max? Giggle away, buddy. Huh? Giggle away. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're really funny. Now, I reject the characterization of an abortion as murder. I reject everything.

Yes, yes, because that's all you have. You have like little silly strategies. You mean putting your terrible reasoning back on you? Cool. Why is it morally okay? I called it in my opening that all you would do is try not to have the conversation saying you don't have a standard for morality. I didn't.

I didn't say that. That's all you've done. I didn't say that. I actually used your own standard against you. I didn't actually question your standard. I actually used your standard, gave you your standard, and used it on something else. Now, can you tell me why it's morally permissible to eject the baby? All right. I already said a couple of stuff, but, for example, sometimes it's absolutely medically necessary or it will kill. So when it's not, we grant acceptance.

We grant exceptions to a bunch of cases. So now, why should we extend that? I'm sorry, is the middle of my sentence interrupting your interruption? So we grant exceptions to ectopic pregnancies, underage people who get pregnant and that kind of stuff. Now, if we can grant those exceptions, those are not murder because they're in the spirit of preservating the...

main person, right? Why wouldn't we also extend that to someone who electively does not want to have a child? Well, you're making a distinction without a difference then. If your argument is a woman should be able to terminate the growth of their child at any point in time based on any reason, then why not just extend it outside of the womb as well in the first week of the baby's life?

Why not? Yeah, why not? Because, number one, my position is not at any point at any time. Yeah, why not? No, why not? As always, there are caveats. I'm asking why not? Why are you arbitrarily arranging different times, right? Why can't a mother who's in their first week of the child's life outside of the womb, why can't the mother...

just decide, well, this is going to be a harm to me in the long run. I should stop this right now. I'll give you a chance, Max. I got to let you know we've got a two-minute warning before we go into the Q&A. Go ahead, Max. All right. We don't assign personhood to the feeders, but once someone is born and they're viable and past a certain stage of development, I think it's

what, 12 weeks? Then we grant that fetus personhood. Good. So first week, I don't want the baby. Baby's out crying and breastfeeding. It's already a person, yeah. You said 12 weeks. Yeah, 12 weeks of pregnancy. Oh, pregnancy. That you're calling it a person. Okay, and why is it at 12 weeks you're calling that a person? It's a developmental thing.

That's your answer? Maybe you could have went into being a doctor, Max. Sure. Could it be 11 weeks? It could be, yeah. Why isn't it 11 weeks? Some even go up to 16 weeks. It depends. Why isn't it five weeks? I mean, five weeks is just a clump of cells. You're a clump of cells right now. I'm a clump of cells. I'm asking, what's the difference between five weeks and nine weeks?

that the development. I am a clump of cells. We're still development. We're still development. I am a clump of cells who's already aware of their own existence. Oh, a baby, a firstborn baby isn't aware of its own existence. Doesn't even make the distinction between it. How do you know? Well, that's what your own studies say.

They seem to be aware that they're hungry. No, not that they're hungry. That could be an automatic response is that their distinction between themselves as an entity versus the external world, like self-awareness, that they're having thoughts about their own entity. That comes later as we develop language and thought. So are you saying... A child is aware of itself. It feels itself. It's discovering. Of course, it's in a process.

And the process starts when? When you're born. No. When does the process of the human life begin? The process of the human life? Yeah, when did your human life process begin, Max? Um...

You technically begin at conception, but we don't award those. Oh, you don't award that part because that part's not necessary. So it's the clump of cells section of development isn't necessary, but the development from... No, I didn't say it wasn't necessary. No, you're being sneaky again. No, stop. Stop. I'm not being sneaky. No, why would I let you be sneaky? I'm very specific. Look, look, I know you're in trouble here. I'm not in trouble. Look, I know you're dealing with the guilt and all that of having a terrible worldview. I'm not dealing with...

Listen, listen, the development is... Don't do it in your own heart. The development in this view is totally arbitrary. You're basically saying... Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is, because you can't tell me the difference between five weeks and 11 weeks in some meaningful distinction. And then you can't tell me the difference... Yes, developmental.

You can't tell me the difference. Don't shush me. Saying developmental says nothing. You can't tell me the meaningful distinction. Dude, shut up. You can't tell me the meaningful distinction between 16 weeks and the first week. I did. You just don't understand it. What's the difference between this? You're not too bright. What's the difference between 16 weeks and the first week of birth, after birth? Obviously, the development of the fetus. Meaningful distinction.

That why isn't that mean you don't get to decide if it's me or deciding. No, you're deciding. That's why it's on trial right now. You're deciding by saying, yes, it's no, no, no, no, you're deciding. You're not. You're deciding at 15 weeks, 14 weeks that something's of value. You can't tell me why.

Developmental. That doesn't tell me why. That's a process. We're still in development, right? We're constantly moving in a direction, right? So look, dude, saying developmental doesn't tell me the meaningful distinction at 12 or 14 weeks that gives human beings, by the way, from the secular view, don't even have moral value even after they're born. They do. You keep saying that, but they do. Why? Why?

Because we intersubjectively agree that humanity has value. Oh, so we can agree not. So we can agree otherwise. Great work, Drew. I'm done. Always.

So we can agree otherwise. You heard it here. So we can agree to kill everyone and that would make it okay. Is it true? Max, is it true if it's inter... Max, if it's true that intersubjectively we just agree that we have value, isn't it true that we can intersubjectively agree that we don't? You agree that we don't? Yes or no? Isn't it true that we can just genocide all of humanity and that would be okay? No, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. I said, again, let's hear it. You're losing your cool here. If it's true that...

If it's true that human value is just an agreement, intersubjective agreement, isn't it true that humans could intersubjectively agree that we don't have value?

we do want to say folks thanks for your questions we have a lot of them so we're going to jump and move through these fast if you want to submit let's see what

We've got a lot, but we could still take some that you put in. This first from TikiTak says, D-plane, D-plane. This is some sort of inside joke. I don't get it. Okay. Wi-Fi Gospel says, forced diversity is stupid. The best person for the role should get the role and nothing else should matter. Max. Sure. So I guess the diversity is the part that they don't like about DEI. Okay, got it.

Well, I didn't get to this in the argument, but a workable society, regardless of whether you agree with the value judgments or the aesthetic or anything else –

homogeny is actually more workable as a system than diversity. Diversity, actually, if you look at society as some sort of blanket, a Christian view or even an Islamic view or any other view that has some sort of cohesion to their views and values is going to make a blanket that's strong with uniform thread, thread count, the right material, whereas the secular view has not only against Christians, but it includes the diversity, as I demonstrated tonight, of the Pine Creek hypothesis

hypothesis, which is to say a secular human system could include a bunch of antithetical, contradictory secular value judgments that they all have to figure out themselves. Diversity is a lie. Diversity doesn't add any value. They're basically borrowing from the biological ecological sphere and trying to assign it to the human sphere. And it's a category error. It's a joke. Because he said so.

This one from Jordan says, are you doing questions at the end? Yes, we are. Wi-Fi gospel. We got that one. Says, speaking of Christians calling out Christians, Jim Bob, you're not being very Christian beating up on this poor European lady. Oh, that's adorable that you spent five bucks on an insult and you didn't realize that you included women, plural.

Were you trying to call me a woman? If you're going to insult me, be creative. Max, you guys don't have a distinction of what a woman is anyway, so don't be insulting. Oh, yeah, we do. Speaking of insults, they also called you a European. Someone from Jordan says, question for Max.

In your opening, you supported abortion by saying to focus on the people already living. By that secular standard, are you anti-immigration? If not, please reconcile your contradiction. There is no contradiction there. Again, you're in another display of dishonesty. You're hijacking my argument.

Because I didn't say support abortion to focus on the living people. No. What I pointed out is that they always go to as a way to undermine or to try to undermine secularism. They always go like down the route of the birth rates. But then once those little bastards are born, fuck them. We don't care. We only care that to force them to be born. Then

What are we doing about people in poverty? Max, I wanted to ask you this question. Do you believe you want to enhance general welfare and socialism kind of just generally or –

What's your view on that? You do? Okay, so I want to ask you a question. If a bunch of Christians got into the legislative branch and they, from their Christian paradigm, wanted to expand from their theology the expansion of welfarism and socialism, would you reject it because it was theocratic?

Does it have any, like, strings attached? No, they just want to use their Christian ethical paradigm to expand and enforce the welfare state and the movement of money. Yeah, if it doesn't have, like, any caveats of, like, shoehorning, you know, more religion in there, if the pure utilitarian view is that, okay, we end up with people being better, and it is just a coincidence that a Christian...

Using Christian reasoning gave us that, but the result is that you get better overall. I don't really know I would care much about the motivation. More about the results. Well, interesting. Well, that's why I asked, because if it were the case that you found out that adopting a Christian ethical position from a secular view actually produced results you liked...

that you would have no problem with a Christian ethical system running society so long as it produces the results, right? And here we have, you get a little concession and now you make a molehill out of it. No, I didn't say... What would be the contradiction? I didn't say like a full... Like if the outcome is that we get better taking care of people of less resources...

But it doesn't underpin the whole... You can't hijack the theological argument and leave out the theology part outside. This is not how you do things.

No, you can do that. That's what the Pine Creek hypothesis is about is hijacking the Christian ethical system and leaving out the beliefs. What do you mean? How can you divorce that? You can. If the Christian worldview is rooted on the belief in God, then you can't have one with the other. Because otherwise it's like, okay, murder is wrong. Why? Because X is wrong.

says that it is. And it's like, what is X? Oh, no, it's not part of the discussion anymore. It's like, okay, how do you say this is immoral because it goes against God's law if you don't have God there? This one might be a good opportunity to move forward. Jordan says...

Question for Max. In your opening, you supported abortion, I mean, procedure A. This one was the one that we were just talking about. Oh, sorry. Long day. Wi-Fi Gospel says, question for Max. Six guys and a doctor on an island. Five guys need life-saving organ transplants. One guy has all five organs. Why is it not okay to unalive one guy to save the five?

trolley problems. They don't have a solution. There is no right solution. Unfortunately, what secularism requires is that you actually go and think, it's like, okay, in this particular situation, what is the moral choice? Maybe it is okay. That's what I'm saying, that maybe it is okay to do the transplant and get five living people rather than one.

You've got it. Anne says, Max, if life is about progress and living a better life, why would you oppose eternal life Christianity offers, which promises not only an afterlife, but also a better one, more meaningful life on earth? So, translation, why don't you like my fantasy? Because, buddy, newsflash, this is the only life that we have news about.

And this is the life that we should make it so that it is best for us and the following generations. That other life, we don't even know it's there. So why would I prepare for it? Wait a second. You said to make it better for following generations, but under your... We should make life better for following generations, but you don't have a moral obligation under secularism to produce following generations. Yes. Roe.

Yeah, but we again. Are you OK? Do you need to take a pill or something? Where were you having those crystals that you talk about a lot? Are you drunk already? Can I finish my answer? No. What have you got, Max? No, he doesn't want to hear it. But don't worry about that. Just answer it anyway. Why would you defer to him? Like, don't be a soy boy. Just go ahead and say it.

No, I forgot already with all the spurting there. I forgot. This one from Charles Lehner says, Jim Bob for DebateCon6. Wow, it's not impossible. Cinematic Jurassic says, as a fellow atheist, I think one of the biggest flaws with secular humanists is that they focus on if the religion is quote-unquote true as opposed to if it's better for society, regardless if it's true or not.

Well, I didn't get to focus on if it's true or not. Jimbo got stuck in the little point that I called in my opening. He would get stuck on and we couldn't even have the moral conversation because he thinks that we do not have any way to justify our moral prescriptions. He thinks.

Well, I didn't even get into that. I could have taken the moral approach, but ethical views are derived from some moral position on something. But my attack tonight wasn't, hey –

you know, what's your standard for morality, Max? I didn't do that. I actually pinned the secularist view against another secularist view that adopted a set of norms that you disagree with. And I just simply asked you, how do you argue as a secularist against the Pine Creek hypothesis? And you went silent.

No, I didn't went silent. I read it. You got wrecked. Repetitions of shoe horning. So it's like, I got totally wasted. The reduction of it's like, what if you don't argue for your paradigm? Yeah. You didn't have an answer. I put my paradigm in the place of your paradigm. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't my paradigm. It wasn't my paradigm. My paradigm actually believes in God. I'm talking about pine Creek adopting the actual, uh,

Prescriptives. Dude, dude, I asked you a question. Pine Creek adopts Christian ethics from a pragmatic position. He just prefers that, right? I say, he's still a secularist. You say, yes. I say, on what basis can you as a secularist argue against him as a secularist on pursuing those Christian ethical systems so long as he doesn't believe in God? Zero zip zilch. You got nothing. Move along. But you have to shoehorn in your own...

I didn't sure anything. The Christian ethics there. Otherwise, you don't have an argument. Cool. Let's swap Christian ethics with Islamic. Let's say Pine Creek Doug adopts the Islamic ethical program, but doesn't believe in Allah. Same problem, dude. You don't have a way out of this. Get out of here.

Because it's a shoehorn, it's a sneaky argument. It's not an actual argument. It's like, what if you don't do your thing and then do my thing and answer my questions with your paradigm? But it's my paradigm, really. It's dishonest. It's trash argument. What? It's literally a test of your own logical system. No, it's not a test of my own logic because if it was of my own logic, you wouldn't have the Christian values over there shoehorned into the argument. What are you talking about?

I demonstrated that a secular... It's okay that you don't get it. Max, it's for the audience. It's for the audience. It's for the audience, just so you know. Just so you know, to summarize. The thing about this whole debate was this. A secularist can adopt prescriptives of systems that are theistic without adopting the belief, ultimately, of the theism that they're adopting. I'm demonstrating that they are still secularists

But they can adopt all of these views. They can reject the Skittle stuff. They can reject the Troon stuff. They can reject DEI. That's why I call it the Pine Creek Hypothesis. The problem is you guys can't argue against him, and so instead you demonize him, and you have no arguments from a secular view. We're not importing the Christian ethical program. We're importing the prescriptives that can be borrowed

from the secularist. And the secularist who opposes Christian ethics can't argue against the secular who abides by them. They have nothing. Yes, we can. I want to give you the last word, Max, because this Super Chat was most recent one was for you. All right. So let's say they reject trans rights. Well, they would be against the flourishing of a group of humans. So there is...

I know the label is not important, but they're actively going against what secular humanism stands for. So that's why it's a nonsense position to discuss. No, they just reject your standard for flourishing. That's all. They're still secular, by the way.

Fail. Another fail from Max. Another nitpicking. You think you have something and you don't. Can a secularist disagree on the standard for flourishing with you? Without going too far. Okay, cool. That's over. We've been on this question for about five minutes. We do have to jump to this. Earnham says, if I pretended Tolkien wrote the Bible and lived my life with the same ethical framework as if it were God, would it make a difference in my life? I don't know what they mean. Or who this is even for.

Uh, either of you, if you'd like to take a stab at it, it's, it's my, it's the same argument I have is that if, if suddenly people found a 2000, let's say the Lord of the Rings was 2000 years old and they, they, the society picked up the book and,

And they looked at it. Whether or not the truth of the book was valid, they could pick it up. And if they derived some ethical principles from it and used the book as the central core of their philosophy and code of conduct in the land, how could a secularist argue against it if it doesn't include any belief in God or anything? It's still secular, yet it's based on something made up, right? So does that mean that secularism –

allows for a system set up purely on fiction? Like, so long as it wasn't a god? Yes? No? No, because one of the pillars is that to be rooted in reality. That's why I asked, and it's a very important distinction if we agree that we share...

the intersubjective reality we're experiencing. Yeah, but I don't experience human rights as a thing, and yet you assume they exist. And the reality is that humans can actually, hold on, the reality is that a human can, that's the reality. The reality is a human can look at Tolkien, the book, and a society can structure in reality around the book.

That's in reality. The fact that Tolkien and the dragons or everything else in the book isn't real doesn't actually negate the fact that there's an aspect of reality that they're driving, they're, they're, they're deriving from the book and they're applying it to reality. So it sounds like as long as it applies, Max, how could you argue against it? Cause it's the argument isn't whether or not Tolkien and everything in the book is real. The question is whether or not they could adopt it and place it in reality. Yeah.

If it lines up with secular humanism, sure, believing in token moral values, sure. But we're justifying it on utilitarianism is that the underlying premise is that, oh, it produces the same result as secular humanism without the compulsion to believe in something else. Then, okay, sure. Yeah, it doesn't get you any victory. It's like, okay.

This might be a good opportunity. Wifi Gospel says, I just scheduled my son's appointment for his first face tattoo. We're so excited. Deciding between a Minecraft or Roblox logo.

I love that you think that somehow a dig on me. It's like this dude has to go like, what if you tattoo a three-year-old in the face? He's like, yeah, okay, sure. Go ahead. So animated, Max. Let's see. I like your energy. Bernham says, why doesn't C-H duty guarantee moral behavior? Is it? Wait, what? They're talking about duty behavior? Or duties? Yes, but what is C-H?

Duty, D-U-T-Y. They say, why doesn't CH? Oh, maybe it's S-H, secular humanism. Right, because we don't, we have the duties, yes. But they're not, you're not compelled into them. It's sort of a voluntary thing. And that's the way that it should be. Because we believe in, you know, personal autonomy and all that.

Well, it should be as a duty, though. So if you're saying it should be that there's no duties, you're actually in a performative contradiction. This one coming in from Stargate Untangled says, Jim Bob, why assume pursuing happiness means going full dark side? I'd love to be rich, but that doesn't mean I'd rob someone. I'd find other ways.

That's irrelevant to whether or not testing the logical entailment of the view, pursue happiness, would necessarily include people doing things that they deem make them happy. Like, I don't know, Dahmer eating brain custard.

on a weekend. So the point is, is that they, people, because they pursue happiness will definitely do bad things. The question is if pursuing happiness is the ethical standard, you have to include people doing things that you don't like. Uh, if it makes them happy, simple, it's not a hard thing, dude.

Yeah, it's even simpler than that. They can't argue for the position, so they have to go to, you know, necro stuff and... Well, no, I mean, those hypotheticals are valuable because right now, Max, there's a company that makes little kid sex dolls right now. Under your system, that's totally fine because it doesn't hurt anyone or violate autonomy, right? Did you ask me? Yeah, is it okay?

Honestly, it's not something that I have made up my mind, but... Okay, you're just pondering it still? Okay, that's all we need to know. Let me tell you this. What if we make a study and we find that that actually helps

people with those proclivities to actually go for real life humans. Would that make it better? Yes, that is a real moral question. Oh, really? Okay, then castrating them would help them not do that too. So you have to bite the bullet on that, my buddy.

Wait. Whoopsie. Whoopsie. Made a quick response, but didn't think it through. No, I did think it through. You're not answering my question. You're dodging. No, you're in a tough position here. Listen, if castrating all those people... Hold on. Let me talk. I let you talk. I need you to talk.

You don't like it, do you? Okay, buddy. Let's do one. Okay, buddy. We can do both questions.

Max, I think you're saying that you asked your question first and you didn't feel like it was answered. Yes, and I didn't get an answer. I got another question. All right, let's give Jim Bob 30 seconds to answer it, and then we'll give him— The question was, if the science determined that giving people sex dolls would stop their likelihood of doing that to other people, real people, would then you say, oh, sure, do it?

No, because if you're going to take a utility approach that minimize the possibility, if that's the argument, you might as well skip to castration because that'll definitely stop the action from happening. Is it guaranteed? I don't think so.

Is it guaranteed otherwise? No, it's not guaranteed the other way either. Why would you go into harming someone when we can do preventative measures? That's the ultimate preventative measure. Why don't you just skip to the ultimate? No, because in my case, no one gets harmed. In your case, you're attacking someone personally.

for a condition, but they haven't actually done anything. And so, so your, your hypothetical relies on the assumption that someone engaging more in the, their proclivity will stop them from wanting more of the proclivity. Doing more of the thing will stop them from wanting to do more of the thing. That's a great reasoning, Max. That's really great. I wasn't, I wasn't,

It wasn't my reasoning. I asked you a hypothetical, like many of the really dumb ones you post today. And it was a few. Dumb ones? Like it was one of the few that I gave. No. I'm not a utilitarian, dude. I don't prescribe. I don't prescribe. From your view, that's why under your view, if you're saying, well, if X causes Y and Y is the value, then anything that X is is good enough to cause Y, the outcome.

That's just straight up what happens under that system is that so long as you produce the outcome, you can justify anything you do, which is the baseline core trend of secularism across time. But I didn't say that. You just asserted, oh, this is your position. And you've been doing that all day. You don't even really have a position, Max. I do have a position. Not really. Let me guess. It's nuanced. Your whole position is it's nuanced. I can't extrapolate it.

No, we need to discuss the nuance. It's not that you, this is not a one size fits all conversation. You know that. Yeah. That's why, that's why it won't work for society because society has to be run by an assumption of one size fits all. If you're going to order a society, the failures of secularism is that it's plural, even within secularism. Yeah.

This one coming in from Abject Fool says, Max, if a government goes against humanist values to the degree you deem unacceptable, is a revolution justifiable? Would you personally use a weapon to enforce your values on others until your side wins? Well, now we talked a little bit about revolutions in today's world.

I don't think that this type of violent uprisings and revolutions are the way to go. We have the technology to develop, and I believe that upholding democratic values is the ultimate secularist move, right? So ideally, no.

If it would become the case that the opposing view is actively harming them, I guess I would join the revolution, I would say. But only as like a last resort. In today's world, we can discuss stuff. We don't have to just fight each other. Well, Max, isn't it true that democracy, certain forms of it, could produce authoritarianism?

Well, the corruption of implement inside democracy, but there are supposed to be checks and balances that even if a president turns authoritarian, we try to minimize that. No, Max, I'm asking, Max, sorry, I'll reframe it. Isn't it possible that a more direct form of democracy can vote in authoritarianism, the will of the majority? Wait, wait, wait, what?

Isn't it true that a more direct form of democracy could have a majority vote in an authoritarian regime? They voted it in. I suspect you're not authoritarian regime. You mean a dictatorship? Yeah, voted in. Isn't it possible for a democracy in a more direct form to take the majority and vote in a dictatorship? Yes or no? I'm having trouble with the framing here. I know, I know.

Yes, because you ask really very convoluted questions. Important question. No, they're not important. They're all underlying. No, I know. Anything to not answer the question. We'll go to the new... Ask a more clear question. Okay, okay, okay.

So is it okay that I got a chance to think and now I have my answer? No. Do answers all have to be instantaneous? Pretty instant. Okay, so it would happen that a society could vote democratically, just carry on the democratic process until they vote someone and that person...

goes outside of the fold of democracy into authoritarianism. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stop it. Stop it. I said specifically, Max, isn't it possible that the majority under a more direct democracy could willfully vote in a dictator, not vote someone who becomes a dictator by going outside of the system? I said specifically, isn't it possible that a democracy can take the majority and they can vote in, willfully vote in a dictatorship? Yes or no?

No, why? No, it's not possible. Oh, really? Because the system wouldn't allow to you wouldn't allow someone to campaign on a democratic platform with authoritarianism behind it. If the people wanted it, if the democratic majority wanted it, of course they would. No.

Yes, there's no contradiction, bro. There are checks and balances. No, they vote those away, dude, from democracy, which is the method.

They vote away the checks and balances literally by voting. That's not how that works. Yes, it is. It's happened. So I don't know what you're talking about. When has it happened? I think it happened in, in, uh, one of the African countries, a more direct version of democracy ended in mob rule, leaning toward one thing, which is why, um, any form of democracy is already flawed, but, uh,

The lesser powerful the democracy, the more safe the democracy is. Case in point, the United States is a representative republic that uses democratic format but ultimately reduces the power of democracy. But if democracy itself was good, Max, then the fullest form of democracy should definitely be good, but it's not.

Laugh it out. Laugh it out, buddy. Yeah, the myopic view on politics from Americans is just... That's not an argument, bro. That's not an argument. Canublet says... Gotta move to the next one. They say, Max, my grandfather suffered from Alzheimer's for years and there were long stretches of time that he wasn't self-aware. Was it okay to unalive him like fetuses that are not self-aware?

No, generally no. We give people who have been aware the same regard as they are. But give someone with a terminal, like an accident, and they're in a vegetative state, and we know for a fact that they're never going to wake up. It's not immoral to pull the plug on that case. How do you know for a fact they're not going to wake up?

Medically. Medically. Yeah. And we know things, right? Who's Rich Purnell says, John Bob, explain why only orthodoxy can explain reality.

Only orthodoxy can explain reality? Well, I wouldn't argue that only orthodoxy can explain parts of reality. I grant that atheists can accurately describe reality. If you're talking about an explanation, I would argue that the reality itself is composed of a tripartite reality.

basically features. That is to say there's an immateriality to Maria reality. There's a material to, to reality. And then there's our minds and the conceptual, and these things are all bound together. So that's not an ant. That's not a question I can answer in this format. You probably already know that, but, um, I think that's a really good question. Even if you're trying to do a short gotcha, the, I think it would lead to, uh,

The argument, the transcendental argument for God being, is there any necessary precondition for all of reality to be the way it is? And they would include an account for immaterial things, material things, logic, regular nature, how we interact with the world. And this has to be all bound in something absolute if knowledge exists, if truth exists. And I could make subsequent arguments for why God is necessary for truth existing.

This one coming in from Capital Science says, I'm an atheist, but Max lost. It could be a sock account, Max. This one from Alejandro Vallejo says, hey, Max, do you think rim job? Oh, this is good.

Would say disobeying God is immoral. So if God commanded Christians to kill, would killing be moral? If God's commands can be immoral, then we don't need God for morality, Jim Bob. That's so stupid. And because of the name you used, I'm not even going to answer your question. Again, this is what secularism produces. It's disgusting, degenerate. There you go.

When you have to try and debunk it, you have to go to like necro stuff. What do you mean? I don't advocate. What? What? Yes. Don't you think I've seen you? Yeah, that's a hypothetical. That's a hypothetical. What about necro stuff? So wait a second. Hypotheticals are in the same category as personal insults? Nice job, Max. I didn't say that. Yes, you did say that, Max. Oh, that's adorable.

It's simple. I just won't engage. It's okay. It's kind of funny. Do you think that you're the only one that... You know you have an accent, right? I don't care. All right. You guys both have beautiful accents. Enslaved by Truth says, remember the Taco Bell dog? This is him now. This one from Even Lord. What are you talking about, Jim Bob? Okay, this one from...

You guys, like, don't worry. Well, actually, I should have asked beforehand. Do you guys want me to not read insults toward you guys? Well, if they're sexually graphic, I mean, I'm streaming on my end. I don't want sexual graphic stuff on mine. Oh, for me, you can read anything. Even Lorde says, the societies with the most flourishing in history are more authoritarian, and they are often homogeneous. Max, why are you promoting an unstable society?

Yeah, because I reject the premise. Give me a citation for that, buddy. A citation for homogeny being a necessary component for sustainable systems? No, for the thing that is a claim that flourishing in history are more authoritarian. Citation needed. This one coming in from

Aisha's Goat says, Max, if morality is subjective and based on human consensus, what makes something truly quote unquote right or quote unquote wrong beyond cultural preference? Well, there may not be an objective right or wrong. It is subjective.

that we decide and we change with the times what we consider right and wrong. And the funny thing is that they will criticize, it's like, but your morality is subjective. And then they will tell you that God's morality has never changed when in fact it has changed. It changes from denomination to denomination. What? That's so stupid, dude. What are you talking about? If denomination... And on top of that...

It is something based on the interpretation of who they consider the authoritative view of their church. Forgive me for interrupting. They specifically did ask me, they said, just please be sure he actually answers it. So I understand that you would say that Christian views are subjective, but they're asking about yours. So they're saying if morality is subjective and based on human consensus, what makes something truly right or wrong beyond the cultural preference?

In one word, what would you... Again, this is the... It's nuanced. Are you Danzberging? Am I allowed? Is it a correct to your position? I don't think you have the position tonight to call someone else's Berg, dude. Sure, buddy. So there may not be an objective right or wrong. That is what happens when you're dealing with the subjective experience.

But again, what I try to highlight is that you're using your preference for an objective system or a perceived objective system to judge the people on the other side. That is an external critique, not an internal one. I get it that you don't like Jim Bob's position, but what I need is they're saying what makes something truly right or wrong beyond cultural preference on your view, whether morality be objective or subjective.

I already answered there may not be an objective right or wrong. Okay, they're saying whether they're saying either granting moral subjectivism or moral objectivism, what makes something right or wrong beyond cultural preference?

Fourth time, there may not be an actual objective right or wrong. If it's not, they're saying if there's no objective right or wrong, is there anything else other than preferences that would determine the rightness or wrongness, they're asking? Anything other than that? But it's...

It's not about preference. We discuss it. There's moral intuition, pragmatism. There's so many ways in which you can... So you prefer pragmatic. That's a preference. You prefer to follow your moral intuitions. That's a preference. What else would it be other than preferences, Max? Those are not...

saying that all of those are just preferences. They are. If you have a moral intuition and you say, my moral intuition says to order society this way, you're actually saying you prefer to order society aligned with your moral intuition. That's a preference. What else would it be? No, but the concept of moral intuition is the fact that humans, at least at surface level, seem to agree that murdering someone

is not the correct thing to do. We all then later justify those things on a deeper level. But for example, when a little kid like a three-year-old is playing around and hits the dog and hears the dog whimper, they understand that they did something bad, right? That's what we call moral intuition. We seem to have

At least on a most basic level, an understanding, a priori understanding of morality. And you can justify it like that. That's not justification. Coming in from Swampy Pube says, since the entire debate was Max trying to defend secular humanism, can we take a bit for Jim Bob to support that Christianity is best for society?

Sure, yeah. Well, the argument goes something like this. Society depends on order to maintain itself, function effectively, and flourish. A sustained, ordered society requires a set of duties and obligations. Secularism doesn't have any authoritative set of duties and moral obligations. Christianity does. A better society requires a foundation to sustain its order using...

duties and moral obligations. Christianity has a set of moral obligations that we follow. We have an obligation to procreate, that sustains society. We have an obligation to put thieves in jail. We have an obligation to not lie. We have an obligation to go to church. We have an obligation to feed the hungry. We have an obligation to...

to focus on people in need. We have an obligation of tithing. We have an obligation of being married. We have an obligation of staying married. None of which exist under the secular position. Christianity is better. Why are those arbitrarily selected criteria? Because we evolved to. Because we evolved to.

Can I finish the damn question before you start answering? Okay, sorry. Why are those arbitrarily chosen criteria the measuring stick that you use in order to judge a paradigm? Because

Because I established in premise one that we both agree society depends on these things, whether or not you agree with what the duties are. You can't deny that some of the duties are required to even have a society. That's why I structured the argument, Max, to say society depends, whether it's secular or something else, depends on order to maintain itself, its function, and its flourishing.

For society to exist, you need to maintain the population of the society or else there's no society. So the Christian view has an obligation to procreate. The secular view does not. We're already winning. The Christian view presents a moral obligation to stay married.

to make strong family bonds that also tie to other family bonds. The secular view doesn't have that. The secular view doesn't even have a moral duty to acknowledge rights. You guys can't even have a moral duty in your own system to acknowledge rights.

Oh, yes, we do. No, you don't. You just keep saying we don't. Where is it? Where is it? Yeah, where is it? What's the duty? So you're... No, I've already established, folks, that a secularist can deny human rights and still be a secularist. So... No, no. Yes, they can. No, we never established that. Yes, we can. Stop denying it. Tell me how, if secularism, Max...

Secularism is defined as denoting attitudes, activities, and other things that have no religious or spiritual basis. If they see human rights as a fiction and a made-up fiction, a spiritual concept, rights, some ethereal thing, and they reject it, they're still a secular. You can't tell them they're not a real secular if they deny human rights. Get out of here.

yeah this is get out of here get out of here what if a glow birther of course here he goes here what if an actual glow birther actually believes the earth is flat what would he be a glow birther can you be no no that's a no no that's a country stop spurging that's a contradiction no yes and that's what you're doing you're setting up

No, I didn't. Tell me the contradiction. Tell me the contradiction then. Let's hear what Max, what were you saying that you wanted to be sure you weren't interrupting? Yes, and I would just, I used to talk a lot to Flat Earthers, so I jumped to that. I wasn't poisoning the world or anything like that.

I was just doing an example. So what you're saying is, what if a secularist human does the opposing things that would make him a secularist human? Is he a secularist human? Yeah, that's a contradiction. What's the contradiction? What's the contradiction of a secular humanist denying human rights exist? Because part of the acknowledgement of secular humanism is the acceptance of human rights because we all have inherent value.

Yeah, and I established that the American Humanist Association could come together and disagree and find out that... Oh my fucking God. They can. What do you mean? Dude, just spurging over me doesn't stop the point. I'm not spurging. You're stuck in... I have vinyl, scratch vinyl that repeats itself less than you. I'm going to repeat it for the audience, not you. The American Humanist Association, good without God, could actually come together in agreement in a couple years

And they find out that the denial of human rights might actually be better in the short term for human flourishing. That's a logical possibility, and it wouldn't contradict the secular humanist view. It could just be arbitrary. And it means nothing. This is what happens when someone does

and have an argument. They have to play all these stupid little games instead of actually debating the topic. What if we go to the fringe of this very unlikely scenario? Let's see if you can answer one question directly. You don't have a lot of questions yet.

Okay, just this important, this really important question, really short. It's a yes or no question. Is it possible for the secular humanist view in the short term for the flourishing of well-being adopt a view that rejects human rights? Is it possible? Logically...

Sure. Great. That's all I needed. Move on. It would have to be, you know, at the brink of extinction. It doesn't matter. That's all I need, dude. No, it's not all you need, dude. Because a platter of cheese is appealing to the fringe of a condition. So mad. Can I finish my point? He's so mad.

I'm J-Bob. I like your animated... Appealing to the fringes of positions to apply in, you know, an apocalyptic scenario to what we have to ensure martial law in order to...

Make sure that humanity survives. That doesn't make an argument because that is the fringe of the situation. We don't legislate based on the fringes. Oh, you don't? Oh, really? You don't legislate based on the fringes, really? Do we want to explore your policies on transgenderism and tell me you don't legislate based on the fringes? Get out of here, dude.

Get out of here, dude. You're trash. You're trash. Oh, toot your own horn. Stroke that security blanket a little more. You're trash. You're trash. I'm J-Bub. You're trash. This one. Toast trash. Are you drunk already? No, no. This is kombucha. Word2Attack says, quote, Is it excusable? No. It was an act that had to be done for the sake of society. Unquote.

Max, those are your own words about people who were told weren't worthy of society. I'm wondering what you would think of someone that said that about Hanukkah Harry, or is it Hanukkah Harry? Hanukkah Harry, that's right. Thank you. Hanukkah Harry.

What is this? Hanukkah Harry is a character. Max probably doesn't know the character. It's like an old Saturday Night Live reference. Hanukkah Harry. I think he's referring to the bagel people. Who was the question by? Maybe if I read it, I can... They said...

Ford to attack. That's the name of the... Okay, is it excusable? No, it was an evil... Oh, okay. Yeah, this gets into the topic of the greater good. But the problem is that all of these cases are life and death situations. So, faced with human extinction or maybe temporarily giving away rights in order to prevent extinction...

That would be the moral thing to do, sure. But we don't base our moral system based on the extreme case that we're about to go extinct. That's not how we do stuff. Wait a second, but you said the French Revolution, the revolutionaries were just anti-monarchy and they weren't facing, you couldn't argue they were facing definite extinction in that scenario, would you?

No, but now you... Oh, now the standard changes. Oh, I see. That's all I need. No, no, that's max. That's all I needed, sir. That's all I needed. Because you're like a horse with blinders. No, no, that's all I needed, sir. You don't see anything except what you have in front. No, no, I just see all of your inconsistencies, and so does everyone else. I said I was talking about extinction because the previous thing you were talking about an extinction event.

When it came to the French Revolution, people were having a really bad time. Oh, that's enough, right? So were the Nazis. It wasn't about immediate extinction, but it was about... You were having a bad time. Guys, you heard it here first. If you have a bad time, then you can organize a complete directed effort against people and literally eliminate them. I wonder how people...

I do want to, I just want to hold on one second. I want to read this one more time.

Because for to attack, I feel like they want to be sure. Max, give me a second. As they say, they want to be sure it gets a proper response. Quote, is it? For some reason, they don't like that I rubbed my eyes while I was reading it. But they say, is it excusable? No, it was an act that had to be done for the sake of society. And they're saying, Max, those are your own words about people you were told weren't worthy of society.

I'm wondering what you would think of someone that said that about Hanukkah Harry. I'm not addressing that part because I don't know the reference. So I don't know what they're talking about. I'm trying to talk about the question. Let's hear from Jim Bob. What do they mean by I think I think they're referring to the Jews.

Oh, are they talking about the Jays? The Jays. On YouTube, I have to say. Sorry. Oh, the Jays. I was going to say bagels if you want to work around. We'll make it even more. We'll say the Blue Jays. The Blue Jays. What the hell? I'm lost. What does this mean?

If the people who had blonde hair, blue eyes had a society they set up based on their preferences and their own arbitrary views and values, and they saw that another group of people was undermining that, and they were having a really bad time...

They were having a really bad time. And based on having a really bad time and looking at their own identity potentially being extinguished, they got into a panic mode. But, you know, they're like the revolutionaries. It's just that the people who were killed

in this revolutionary act, Max happened to look a certain way from a certain place and has been documented ever since in history as a horrific moment. But yet you justify the French revolution by saying they were having a bad time and they just really needed to do something about it. He's asking the distinction between the two Max meaningful distinction. Yeah. You on it out, buddy. Yeah. Good. It's a, it's a good question.

It's not a good question. Unbelievable. This guy is the worst. Can you humor it, Max? Can you answer the question according to what you've heard? Well, there is a perceived threat. I don't know. This is such a ridiculous question. I don't even know how to answer it. You don't have an answer for it. Wait, I don't understand. You said it was racist?

I have no idea what it means. This is such a weird... Look, it's simple. Okay, if the proletariat in the... Like equating the French Revolution to what happened in the Second World War, I don't think it's a fair comparison because it's not the same situation. No, it's about Hanukkah Harry. It's about Hanukkah Harry. I don't know... Code language.

Okay. Right. But that's exactly what I was saying. The French Revolution is not the same as the...

They had a really bad time based on your standard. They're having a bad time. Yeah, but that's – were they having a really bad time? Yeah, they were having a really bad time. Yeah, there's people like – there's people undermining the culture. There's a little bit of degeneracy going on. They were having a really bad time. And so like the revolutionaries from your perspective, the bad time they were having, they thought, well, there's nothing else to do. We have to do this necessary evil to preserve the good times. It's not comparable.

Yeah, but why isn't it, though? You just keep saying it's not, but you can't tell me why. Yes, I can tell you why. Tell us. Because exterminating a group of people... Like the revolutionaries did? Yes. Yeah, go on.

Still don't know the difference yet. What were the differences? The question was, why is it wrong? That's the question. That's all we want. Just the answer to that one. The bourgeoisie were facing eventual extinction. It was not like an immediate thing, like there's an asteroid coming, but they were facing hunger and poverty. What's the short answer, though? Why was it wrong? Yeah.

this doesn't have a short answer it's not a TikTok question

We are going to, let's see the next question. Mods, take it easy on muting in the chat. Do me a solid. Unless it violates YouTube terms of service, like you can't, if someone in the chat says, I can't say it on stream, but if they say like, they type in N-I-G-G-E-R, then you ban them or whatever. But, you know, if it's just like, they make fun of my haircut or something, it's fine. Just leave it. Insults are fine.

as long as they're not breaking YouTube terms of service. This one from AbjectFool says, Max, do we intrinsically know what is wrong? No, we have a sense of moral intuition, but the world has gotten so big and so complicated that a lot of what we consider ethics has to be analyzed thoroughly. Like, for example, let's look into the future, the next 50 years. We managed to get

generalized AI. Can we really trust Christian ethics to deal with the nuance of having that be the actual world we live in? You got it. This one coming in from, I do appreciate your question as well, just came in fresh. You got it. Oh, wait, Isa, I missed yours and a few others, but Wagira says, what is the purpose of having these Christian versus atheism

slash secular debates anymore. Every debate reduces the assumed dismissal of atheists' ability to weigh in on morality. If true, what can possibly be added?

Well, I'll answer this. The value of it is if you were just listening and you did understand that when we order society, we're assuming some metaethical positions. When you vote on metaethical positions and that's what's informing your policies, you probably are seeking out something that's consistent and can be defended when you talk to other people. Because if they ask you, what do you think about X, Y, Z, and it's related to a policy and law, you want to be able to defend it from a metaethical view. The

The point is Christianity not only provides the necessary items for sustaining a society, but also gives an account and a set of prescriptions for how people ought to behave, whereas secularism doesn't. So, I mean, the value to me is immense because we have to basically teach people we have an obligation to expose horrific worldviews, and secularism is a horrific worldview. This abject fool says, Max, do we intrinsically know what is wrong?

Oh, you already asked that. Oh, sorry. M. Williams has an even better question. Max, are you Puerto Rican? No, I'm from Miralek.

This one from Max V says, Jim Bob has never had a good argument, so he relies on idiotic insults in his army of incels. Wow. That's really funny. Given that I made an argument with premises and a conclusion, and my opponent didn't make any arguments with premises and a conclusion. Proposition and logic is not the only way to make an argument, buddy. They say it's time to grow up, Jim Bob. All right. They say you're 50 years old.

I'm not. Wow. Geez. Okay. James, James, did you just admit you're 50 years old? He said, geez.

Yeah, I was like, geez, what's so wrong with being 50 years old? I'm enjoying it. These are my golden years. Bernham says, if we can obtain the same societal benefits by attributing the Bible to Tolkien, does that prove divine command isn't needed to elicit duty? If we can... He asked this twice. Wait, say that again? If we can obtain the same...

If we can obtain the same societal benefits by attributing the Bible to Tolkien, does that prove divine command isn't needed to elicit duty? No, I wouldn't say that. I would say to ground ultimately the standard of morality, right?

And, um, is different than whether or not you can construct a set of prescriptives, uh, from any book that's superior to one of you that doesn't have any, in this case, Tolkien is a good example, uh, that even a made up story pragmatically would, uh,

offer more than an absent system of duties and ethics. But the question he's asking is, if you can derive some sort of normative system of ethics from Tolkien, why would you need the Bible? I would say that's a question of whether or not you're concerned with whether the Tolkien is true or not, not whether it works or not. But this argument tonight, this debate isn't what's true, it's what works.

This one coming in from, do appreciate it as well, Bubble Gum. Oh, we missed Issa. Sorry about that. Issa says, great debate, Max and Jim Bob. There's an after show. Thanks for that, Issa. And thanks for not asking. The one and only after show on the internet. No, I'm not. On Matters Now. No, I'm having an after show. It's going to be way better. That's from Timo. It's going to be way better. That's from Timo. That's from Timo.

I have hundreds of aftershows on there, Michael. That one is a fake one. This one from Vigo says, Max, would you be more willing to engage in hypotheticals if you had eaten breakfast this morning?

Oh, that's adorable. I would be more willing to engage in the hypotheticals if they didn't have like three assumptions and three baked in sub-arguments and subplots per sentence. What? Such nonsense, bro. That's why you have to spend like five minutes setting up the hypothetical. So nonsense. Oh, wow. That's the dishonesty just like oozing out of your pores. Wow. Wow.

Yes, wow. That's what I've said all the way. Wow. VH Kane says, wow. Jim Bob, you mentioned before something about proof of the Bible. I'd like to see this proof so that society can finally own slaves again. Please elaborate. Wow.

I've never used the term proof in the Bible in a sentence. Proof is a mathematical distinction. It's not a reference of historicity. Historicity needs to be examined through the lens of paradigm. You're dealing with what you would call evidences. There can only be evidences of the biblical truth.

But I don't reduce my worldview to the Bible. I go to church history, and then I go to philosophical arguments as well as the Bible. So I don't know. The person who's saying that, I've never used the word proof. I think that's a mischaracterization of what proof is. No, I agree with him, and we agree on –

Maybe it's because I talk to philosophers a lot that that's not the correct word for that. Yeah. Cheers. Yeah, cheers. And the other day, for those of you who don't know, the other day we bonded a little bit with Jimbo over debunking some Gematria. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Even though we are like hyper opposed on many of our views, we can still have a laugh. Wait, aren't you debating him?

No, he ran away from me. Oh, man. He literally ran away. Called me a beta while running away from the debate. Beta. This one coming in from CoolV1C says, thank you for entertaining debate on MDD. Thanks for your kind words. Wagira says, what is the purpose of having... Oh, we got that one. Austin Graham says, Max is suicide. Get with that. Can't even use that anymore. Immoral.

Is self-terminating immoral? Why or why not? No, I wouldn't say it's immoral. I would say we shouldn't advocate for it. We should help people who are having those intrusive thoughts. But given that we respect bodily autonomy, and there are some cases in which it does actually seem like the moral choice.

I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that, like as a blanket statement, that that is immoral. Double Gum Gun says, in Christianity, God said the age of consent is 12. Is that in the Bible, Jimbo?

No, I don't think the number 12 is in the Bible. What's in the Bible is fully developed, a development, whereas the Quran doesn't have that. It does point to the development of being a precondition. What's it say in the secular humanist manifesto, Max? Yeah, what does it say in the secular? Yeah, exactly. This one.

The Secular Humanist Manifesto is not like... When you have a question about...

Is this moral or not? You don't just like go to the manifesto the way that you would go to the Bible to try and prove that. You have to actually do the work. You have to have the philosophical conversations and have the actual debate in society about is this position moral or immoral? You keep referring to the humanist manifesto as an authoritative thing, like you would refer to the Bible as

But it's not like that. This one coming in from Even Lord says, is communism as bad as Yahtzee-ism? What do you guys think? No, I would say Yahtzee-ism is worse. Well, Yahtzee-ism is a form of national socialism. So the dichotomy between communism and socialism, I think, emerges because it's trying to...

reduce life to a strict sort of like utility. It's trying to produce some sort of like utopian impulse that we all have as humans, by the way. I think both of them try to act on that. And in that action, they actually reject the duties and obligations of a Christian view and try to make some sort of heaven on earth through communism or socialism. I think there's a spiritual aspect to communism and socialism.

Let's try to fix humanity. Holy cow. Holy cow. What did they teach you about communism in the U.S.? What did I say? What did I say do you disagree with? Yeah, that's my view. That's my view. Yeah, but it's incorrect. How did you determine it's incorrect? How did you determine it's incorrect? Because it doesn't have... This is just like a Christian cult about...

How did you determine? Calling it a cope, Max, isn't an argument. Can you tell me how it's determined to be wrong? No, you can't. Can you tell me why it's wrong? Can you tell me how it's wrong? Can you tell me? It made a god of the leaders and it made a god of the system. Where does it say that in the Communist Manifesto?

It doesn't have to say it for me to look at the insight and say that's what's happening. You are reading into the text. Wait, wait. Let me ask you, Max, Max. What, Max, Max? Max, Max. I don't interpret the Bible, by the way. Max, can I ask you a question? Max, Max, what's your favorite movie?

Fifth Element. Okay, where in Fifth Element did it tell you explicitly why you value and see some sort of truths in the Fifth Element? That's not why it's my favorite movie. Is there any truths about the Fifth Element? Are there any truths in the Fifth Element that you like that represent something true to you?

Situationally? What is this argument? The argument, Max, is that the truth of something doesn't have to be embedded explicitly. This thing that you're mocking me for, it means that I'm smart enough that I carry inside my head two full languages, you fucking piece of trash. Wow. Wow, Max. This one coming in from... Wow, Max. You got that?

Sounded sensual in nature. The blind guy says Max says he respects. Was it not sensual? Okay. Max says he respects bodily autonomy. Then says the French Revolution and its atrocities were required.

Got it. Oh, my stars. It's like there are nuances to opposition. We generally frown upon killing other people. But if someone is threatening you, self-defense is OK. It's almost like there's not a one size fits all when it comes to morality and ethics, that the world is a little bit more complicated than it is meant to be. As long as you're having a bad time, guys.

I like your energy, both of you guys. Let me just check for any last questions. Our guests are linked in the description box. My dear friends, check out our guest links. We appreciate them. You must appreciate them in some way, shape, or form. Maybe you appreciate at least one of them. And even if you don't appreciate them, let's say you're like, oh, you know, to hell with the other guy.

You could always, there is like fruit in going to check out their channel, even if you disagree with them, because you're getting it straight from the horse's mouth. You're not hearing like someone from your own side summarize what they say. So there is actually fruit in understanding the other side by hearing it from the other side. This last question, I think this is the last. Jooms says, is the partnership between you two Jim, Max, or Max Jim?

Max Jim sounds a little bit better, right? If we were to partner up against the Gematria dudes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it would probably be maxed. It would probably be Jim Bob maxed, like ED at the end. Wow. But Max Jim also works. Even Lorde says, oh, that's right. They did ask this question. I hate this question. This comes in every debate. They said, could the debaters steel man each other? Okay. Sure.

Go ahead. So Jim's position is that under secular humanism, you can't have grounding for morality and it reduces everything to preference. But that... I'm sorry, I was going to give the rebuttal to it, but I think that's a fair summary of the broad strokes of the position. All right, Jim Bob. Max's position as a secular humanist is that...

that he thinks societies should be run on whatever empirically demonstrates the improving of lives and the maximization of well-being and the avoiding of suffering, essentially. You got it. And folks, as I mentioned, our guests are linked in the description box. They're also linked even in the title. You can click on their hyperlinks as I just hyperlinked their names in the title.

Check out their channels. We do appreciate these guys. It's a lot of fun. I know sometimes it seems like heated and it seems like, oh, it's like, you know, but it's a good time. Like, so we do, we, it's a fun, fun one. Thank you guys for being here tonight. Thank you. It was fun.

We are going to wrap up, folks. I'll be back in just a moment with a post-credit scene letting you know about juicy updates, including DebateCon 6 this fall. So stick around.

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