Joe Schmid is Catholic (Again): Everything You Need To Know (almost)

¶1will be live in just a couple seconds. >> Great. >> Okay, >> we'll be live. >> Okay, we are live. Very good.

¶2Hello everyone and welcome to Nerd Church, the place where on Thursdays we keep you up to date on what is going on in the Catholic Church. And I had a whole bunch of cool stuff that I wanted to talk about today. And then Joe Schmid, mid-tier um agnostic debate bro, decided to very loudly and publicly and splashily announce that he was converting to Catholicism or reconverting to Catholicism or just going back to being a practicing Catholic depending on how you want to describe it. Um I um am joined by R.J. who um actually was a friend of Joe's um back in the day.

¶3And like a lot of people who knew Joe from the apologist circuit or or rather the anti-apologetics going on to fight with Trent Horn circuit um is really surprised by this news. Um, so we're just going to dig into the Joe Schmid situation and explain who he is and what he's doing. R.J., maybe if you could just give us kind of a brief rundown about who Joe is, why this is a shock to people in the skeptical community, and maybe a little bit about your relationship with Joe. >> Yes. So, hi.

¶4Uh, I'm R.J. Um, I have I was and I guess I still am a friend may maybe perhaps still a friend of Joeid uh since like I think um 2020 or late 2019 and like early 2020. Um >> Okay. So, you've known him for a long time. >> Yeah.

¶5Yeah. Uh I actually knew Joe before much before he became famous. I mean I I do I do know that he by by that time I I started knowing him he uh started a YouTube channel uh but it was very very small very very small. So um and uh I I should mention that I also have a YouTube channel called uh Absolute Optimist. Um >> and if um if you want to drop a link to that in the chat um and then I'll add that to the show notes later on.

¶6Um >> okay. Okay. I I might drop that link here. Um so anyways I'm like um Joe was an agnostic for for a long time much longer than myself. I actually became a sort of like a general theist or like optimistic theist um as my channel name would uh suggest that.

¶7Um so to me it's like him going straight into um Catholicism, trad Catholicism, not even you know like progressive one uh or like leftwing one. Um so that was um that was quite shocking to me you know it was um it was like what just happened? What just happened? I mean there are people who are friends of Joe who do know that that he became a Catholic. They knew they knew that he became a Catholic six months ago.

¶8Um now he didn't tell me all that stuff. Um my communication with him um was was uh rare and rare in this uh year 2026. I mean it's not totally uh totally like he did not like totally ghost me or something but the communication has been much um much slower in in this ear than than it >> and do you feel like that that is that he's kind of um I I don't want to say ghosting you but maybe like he he's make he He's choosing a new set of friends maybe now that he's converted. Do do you think related to that or >> I mean Joe probably already had many I guess many offline friends like I I know I I have been friends with Joe certainly for a long time. Uh, and I would chat with him almost every day, but all that was online, right?

¶9All that was on either either like Facebook um I would send like long messages to him, he would respond um and uh like sometimes we would uh voice chat uh some rare times because he would always be kind of busy. Um but the thing was like he would respond almost every day. >> Yeah. So basically the kind So basically the kind of really emotionally in so the basically the kind of friendship that a lot of us build up with people that we meet over the internet. >> Yeah.

¶10>> Where it's like this is somebody that you're talking to all the time. You are, you know, your friends. You're sharing your thoughts. It's just that you're not ever physically in the same room. >> Yeah.

¶11And I was one of the earliest Patreon supporters of of his too. Um like I supported him on Patreon much before it was cool to do so I guess. Um so it it's like um I actually thought that look he's going to he's going to become like a general theist or something you know. Um, like I do know that he was leaning toward theism like just a year ago I think he said like he's leaning toward theism. >> Um, but like to to just uh go straight into rad Catholicism, conservative Catholicism.

¶12>> Yeah. where where it's like he's doing this kind of um oh I would oh I would take a bullet for like uh queer people but uh but their their marriage um >> yeah yeah I I I I think that some of that um honest like I I I think at this point um we might want to just turn to the videos and sort of like you know and sort of just like because um one thing that you can say about Joe is that he is prolific. Um over the past few days um he is um he has been on he's been making the rounds of all the major Catholic apologetics channels. He has um you know he he's made the rounds in all the major of Catholic apologetics channels. He's put out I think at this point something like 25 hours of video um just going over his um you know just going over his conversion.

¶13It it it's it's really like the the amount of Joe content that I I I have to admit I've been ill for the past um couple of days. So I I've basically been like laying in bed consuming Joe content. Um so probably a little bit more than is healthy if I'm being honest. Um but okay so before we get started on the videos I just want to briefly explain for all the good people who might be watching this video who is Joe Schmid. Okay so Joe Schmid is a quite young man.

¶14He's about 25. He's currently in his fourth year as a philosophy grad student in the PhD program at Princeton. Um his undergraduate degree was from Purdue where he majored in philosophy and minored in biology after having originally planned to be a biologist and just do philosophy for fun and then he found out that oh wow you can like do philosophy as a job. Um he's also been very active in online debate spaces um and actually was going on a lot of the Catholic apologetics channels and debating them either as an atheist or an agnostic. Um for a while he's been kind of making cases against atheism.

¶15Um so and before that he came from actually an extremely devout Catholic background and I think that his like I I I have to say I'm approaching this not as someone who was you know a big fan of his before he converted. I'm coming at this as someone who has academic training in religious studies who's I'm kind of looking at Joe as a really interesting case study in what's going on in modern American Catholicism particularly with this you know kind of younger generation of very online male converts. Um, normally on Thursdays I've been working my way through JD Vance's biography because he's another example of this new generation of male converts. So, um, that's who Joe is. So, let's get into it.

¶16Um, I'm just going to pop us into screen sharing. Um, and this is his first video. Now, this is actually um this video is from four years ago. Um, this is Yeah, we want to start at like 8:30. Okay.

¶17Um, this is from about four years ago. So, this is not So, so this is when Joe was still an agnostic. um and was um you know publicly identifying as such. One thing I will talk about is that um I don't think that he's grifting. I think that this is a sincere conversion and I think that the way that he's been rolling this conversion out has been very smart and very carefully stage managed.

¶18But I think that that's because like a lot of us um he's realized that in a lot of ways if you want to do philosophy, if you want to do religious studies, um in a lot of ways setting up a YouTube channel is the best way to do that for a living. Um I I know that there's what what you know him like do you think that I'm correct in that assessment? Yeah, I think I think you're correct. I think he genuinely uh did convert. Um I also don't think that he's grifting.

¶19I mean it's it's it it's it should be mentioned that it is certainly true that look um if you become um of a of a if if you start subscribing to a particular religion um specifically something like an exclusivist kind of religion where your conversion would be um considered really important and really good for like say you know converting other people evangelizing basically right. >> Um >> um and like in that scenario like in that case it is pretty clear that he will certainly gain many more followers and like his his videos have received many more views uh than than it uh it gained. >> Yeah. Um >> at at this point he's >> when he was an agnostic. Sorry.

¶20>> Yeah. Well, and at this point um it should be mentioned that you know he's picked up um like another like 25 paid subscribers on his Patreon. Um his view count on a lot of his videos are like doubling. So I would say that you know it was not a um foolish decision. Um oh uh Dr.

¶21Kip has um said that he's looking at it as an interesting case study on the um intersection of um conversion with the Bible. Um I'm afraid Dr. Davis that you are going to be sorely disappointed because one of the things that we're going to discover here, spoiler alert, is that his knowledge and interaction with the Bible is weak and really superficial. Um, in fact, I'm willing to say that he doesn't seem particularly well read outside of philosophy. Um, but anyway, let's just see what Joe has to say.

¶22And again, this is four years ago. This is agnostic Joe from the past. Um, he was, I believe, still this would have been his senior year at Purdue. Oops. Well, what would convince me?

¶23Well, um, on my evidential scales, right? So, we've got scale on athe for atheism here or perhaps naturalism, we could pick a specific atheistic hypothesis and then the scales for kind of broadly traditional theism or perfect being theism. In terms of the evidential chips that fall on either side, well, we could either add more evidential chips for theism or increase the strength of my extant evidential chips for theism. Or we could remove evidential chips for atheism or naturalism or alternatively decrease the strength of my extant evidential chips for atheism or naturalism. It's as simple as that.

¶24So basically adding chips to the theist side or taking away chips from the naturalist or atheist side or strengthening the chips on the theist side that are already there or decreasing the strength of the chips on the naturalist or atheist side that are already there. That'll basically do it. Generic quala asks nicely done. My question for you is >> um spoilers for everyone. He gets those chips and the chips that he gets are almost ex and the chips that he gets are almost exclusively accounts of miracles and accounts of demon possession which is maybe the worst reason to convert to a religion is miracle claims.

¶25especially if those miracle claims are coming from secondhand reports is what's your current feelings on philosophy of mind and have you considered analytic idealism as a live option? So philosophy of mind is exceedingly difficult with a proliferation of views and a paniply of quite complex arguments to consider. Uh I mean I guess I lean towards a very broadly non-physicalist style view largely because of considerations pertaining to the hard problem of consciousness that is accounting for the felt qualitative character of conscious experience sometimes called phenomenal consciousness. Um also because of some really interesting arguments that Josh Rasmmanson has published on. Now which specific non-physicalist view do I accept?

¶26Well now we're starting to get into like really iffy territory. I honestly don't quite know. Um I mean I guess if you like tortured me like really tortured me I don't suggest it. But if you tortured me and absolutely forced me to pick, I'd probably go with property dualism. I'd probably say that we're organisms.

¶27We are biological organisms with both physical and non-physical properties. And the non-physical properties are going to be those >> um one thing that the reason why I'm playing this whole big block quote is I think it's really illustrative of the way that he thinks about a lot of these issues. Um because when he's talk about talking about his theory of mind, you're you'll notice he's not making references to neuroscience. He's not making references to biology or theology or anthropology or even literature. Um it's all um you know th this whole host of sort of modern philosophers and really focusing on these extremely abstruse questions and ways of f of framing things but it's all happening like in an armchair.

¶28Um and I don't know I mean at least you know I realize you know R.J. um can maybe you know defend um the you know the joys of abstract philosophy for us. Um, but to me, like I I can understand why people like abstract philosophy because it it seems to me from the outside like it's a fun game, but >> yeah. So um I would say that uh abstract philosophy or like as as it's like currently it's going on it's it's it's called like analytic philosophy um and uh and the issue with that um I James Fodor and like uh Nathan Ormund have pointed this out um also So Lance Bush, Lance Bush is another >> um philosophy and I think uh psychology um person and he he pointed out that sometimes philosophers are in a kind of a social environment where they are just um affirming each other's beliefs and are sort of locked in a box uh such that they are they are not interdisciplinary. And due to due to lack of uh empiricism, they they sort of are ignorant of of um basically what's going on around the world.

¶29And uh and due to this ignorance and and this echo chamber there is also this arrogance um um like arrogance of like um philosophers sort of like so let me give you an example right so Robert Sapolski wrote a book um called determined um and Robert Seapolski is like a neuroscience u biologist you know like he like He's a respected guy in like Stanford University. Um a respected biologist, right? Um so and philosophers like reviewed that book. Uh there it's it's on not philosophy reviews and the thing is like philosophers were like um this this book does not engage with contemporary literature on free will. And I'm like, it does not engage with with analytic philosophy literature on on um on free will.

¶30>> Yeah. >> Right. But but the but the thing is like Robert Sagolski does present a lot of evidence against this uh particular view of free will that many people seem to have uh seem to believe in. Um and like interestingly I also see that normal people are actually more confused by compatibilism or regarding free will that philosophers are like oh yeah compatibilism makes a lot of sense. But [laughter] a lot of a lot of common people when you ask them >> that determinism is true and free will exists >> uh they would be like um what what yeah wait what >> yeah exactly it it's like this whole they've created this whole world that may or may not like comport with the reality that you know most people live in.

¶31>> Yeah. It's sort of like it's sort of uh the the >> the thing with uh um uh that that you are seeing from Joe Joe right now um and even I think Joe of before I mean I should mention like when he was agnostic he was still kind like Plleonist mathematical platonist so it's like um >> like the numbers are like actual abstract objects in a in in a non-natural abstract realm that are like causally inert. >> Causally inert means that uh numbers cannot causally influence uh anything or anyone. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

¶32And that's one thing that um I that and I'm glad you brought up the platonic thing early on because one of the threads that I'm going to be pulling at and that I hope that other people will pick up on is that Joe Schmid in a lot of ways like even when he was an agnostic even when he was saying you know I don't believe there's a god I don't believe the Catholic Church is true all this kind of stuff He never really de he never deconstructed. He never challenged the patterns of thinking that had been presented to him. He was just arguing against them. And I think that that's important. But anyway, I I do want to hit play so that we can maybe get a little bit further.

¶33Okay. So, let's see. Okay. Actually, we are at we're ready to jump to our next time stamp. 24.

¶34>> Okay. Will become a professor and become more busy person. Then what will happen to this channel? I mean, I'm guessing the channel will still be up and live and kicking, similar to how Professor Daniel Bonavac still produces wonderful content on his channel while being a tenure publishing professor in philosophy. So, my guess is that it'll still be up alive, kicking, alive, and well, J.

¶35Victor asks, instead of saying miracles don't happen, which is a denial, not an argument, miracle arguments should not be denied on the basis of Hume, but with a critique of the fact itself. Say the witnesses were deceived, they lied, and so on. What do you think? I mean, by my lines, I think it's perfectly kosher to point out that miracles in general have an extremely low intrinsic probability. And so, the evidential bar they need to reach in order to convince us that they really happened as opposed to any of the other far more intrinsically probable alternatives such as honest mistakes among alleged witnesses, selfdeception, lying, hallucination, misperception, social contagion effects, etc.

¶36I think because of this, the evidential bar that they need to reach in order to convince us that they really happened is quite high. Now, [clears throat] this is a salient point afflicting pretty much any argument. Now, I I want everybody to remember this. Like, take a clip of this in your mind and then think about it when he starts talk in in the later videos after his conversion when he talks about his acceptance of miracles. Because one of the things that you're going to see is that all of this skepticism completely goes out the window.

¶37He is willing to accept thirdhand reports of events from people who are interested in using miracles to convince people that the Catholic Church is true and not take the skeptical examination of those arguments in any way seriously. And that is a problem and it's a big problem >> for miracles. Of course, it doesn't show that no such argument could work and it doesn't show that any particular miracle could not have possibly happened. That it doesn't show that, right? But it does show that such arguments from miracles and such appeals to individual miracles are quite significantly hampered from the outset.

¶38They're evidentially hampered from the outset because they have a super high evidential bar considering that the intrinsic probability is so low especially in comparison to rival hypotheses that I mentioned earlier. Okay. So, Lena, I think that's I think that's the name. >> Okay. Um, did you have anything that you wanted to say about his um miracle claims?

¶39Anything else you wanted to say about his miracle statement here? Do you want me to just skip to the next time stamp? >> Yeah. So like I I pretty much like agree with his like uh humian point that look um overwhelmingly the everyday in everyday life we don't see miracles happen. We have massive background um knowledge that miracles like don't happen or don't seem to happen.

¶40uh such that it it it is plausible that miracles have very low intrinsic probability very very low >> and uh you need very large amount of uh I guess miracle evidence to to persuade someone. And I think even another issue I think Joe is Joe is I guess not pointing out is like look if someone does a miracle let's say a supernatural very powerful being does something miraculous as in like okay this being literally healed uh um amputated legs of like a large group of people um um in front of you literally. >> Yeah. Now he did that but and after that let's just say you know people started bowing to him you know like uh respecting him >> and after that like this being says I'm glad that you recognize that I am your lord and then tells people to you see that uh village over there um I want you to burn that village down and uh physically and sexually assault everyone including non-human animals. Burn everything down and kill everyone after that.

¶41Like just torture them to death. Everyone. >> Yes. What what what Dr. Davis would be quick to tell us it would be a heron offering.

¶42But anyway, move on. >> Yeah. So, so look, if a being did that, you would you would still think that this being, even though he's powerful, he is not omni benevolent like let alone benevolent, normally benevolent benevolent, right? Um, you would think that, wait, what the [ __ ] just he said? [laughter] What happened?

¶43>> What happened there? And like you would ask him to say, "Please say it again, master or lord." Um, and he he he repeats that. So um I guess some people would out of fear start doing that literally start burning down village. Some people might not. And may maybe this being will like start torturing those people and then breaks them um after like brutal torture and they'll say like please stop doing that.

¶44I'll do what you say. Right. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

¶45>> And notice that Yeah. Yeah. But notice that this um this would not persuade anyone that this being is omni benevolent or the tri omni god. Right. That that uh Catholicism affirms, right?

¶46Like they affirm, >> right? Omni god, right. >> Right. Exactly. And miracles don't get you to an omni benevolent God.

¶47Miracles at most get you to something happened that we can't explain. >> And yeah, exactly. >> And it's it it it's essentially it's a God of the gaps argument. >> Yeah. I mean it's it's also like sort of I mean someone could get to the miracle but miracles so from miracles to their view of God but it it should be like you need to be very careful in your inferences.

¶48>> Yeah. Um and and the the like the way Joe Schmid went about this is is just absolutely insane to me because it's like um like look you actual historical critical but biblical scholarship disagrees with the Catholic Church's um um main core doctrinal um interpretations, right? like what what actually yeah sorry >> but the thing is is is that like critical SC like critical scholarship is not part of this conversation that Joe is having >> Joe like it's like basically he's got miracles and he's got philosophy and and that was one of the things that's most shocking to me is how shallow all of this is I mean yeah And what is shocking to me is that Joe, it it is bizarre to see Joe um disrespect an entire um discipline that that has been um like very important and is using the same exact historical method that like normal historians use to to establish some things. to write history, right? To like he does not engage with historioggraphy.

¶49Even Ethan Muse, right? Like interestingly, uh so I don't know if you saw his debate with a with a Mormon Mormon guy. No, I I I honestly I have to say um this um the the past few days since Joe Schmid's conversion has become has been like a real like baptism by fire for me into the world of Catholic apologetics because that's something that I personally tend to a to avoid because Catholic Apologetics arguments are so bad that even when they're arguing for something that I am willing to believe and I am willing to accept as a religious truth, it makes me want to not believe it because their argument is so stupid that it like it makes me unreasonably angry and it makes me want to go I do not want to be on the same side of this issue as you. >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶50And and I mean like look uh I could I guess understand like if there was some kind of discipline that had certain um um bad methods [snorts] in like academia, right? um um like their methods were not that much rigorous but like historical critical method is like um has been so has been established for so long um and it has shown to to be plausible to be consistent with the data right um it has uh like it's it's it's just like the the like to do that like the the What what is interesting to me I I guess not interesting but like really saddening is not not just that he's throwing out historical critical method and like just history in general with the way he's approaching this. He's also throwing out um like general um like what uh I would call um the philosophy of science people >> say about the about the basically even even partly science itself partly uh by that I is it's like a lot of scientific uh methods. Um and by the way there is no like a a kind of a general scientific method like that's uh that's a mis uh kind of a a popular thing. People say like, "Oh, there's this scientific method." But like there is no the scientific method, but a bunch of scientific methods that are like um um close to each other or like use familiar parts.

¶51But one of the important things about science uh uh and like history and and like these sorts of disciplines is that the conclusion that you are you are establishing um it's it's fallib that is not compatible with the way Joe is approaching um like Catholicism, right? Um the kind of >> Yeah. Well, I I was going to say be because he's approaching everything from the point of view of either it's like it's a very philosophical like either this proposition is true or this proposition is false. And in history you usually like okay yes there are some things that we know absolutely did not happen and we know that there are some things that like almost certainly did happen but in between there's a whole lot of this probably happened this way or the balance of probability is in favor of the event. But you can't just say, "Okay, this happened." Because people make mistakes.

¶52People remember thing. Two people will see the same event and remember it differently. It it's there's a whole world that he's missing. >> Oh, yeah. Psychology, too.

¶53Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. [laughter] Oh, and and and psychology is another branch of um human experience that does not enter into his thinking. Um anyway, I'm going to hit play again because I want to at least get through a little bit more of the of these videos.

¶54[laughter] >> Yeah. Sorry for yapping. Oh, >> no, no, no, no, no, no. I I I I'm always talking longer than is reasonable. on naturalism than it is on theism.

¶55So that's a kind of generic consciousness argument, but you know also more specific ones like recently Brian Cer pedicle on a new argument for God's existence from psychophysical harmony. It's super fascinating and honestly quite plausible and I think it provides you know serious evidence for God's existence. What about against God's existence? The most convincing again there are several considerations here but one of them is I've covered this a lot but evolutionary animal suffering right the history of life on earth is a blood bath and this is the very means or mechanism by which God brought about biological diversity in general and humans in particular right just this predation suffering languishing parasetism death all this sort of stuff you know it's nature red tooth and claws animals ripping each other to shreds it just seems so monumentally surprising by myites that this would be the providential working of an omni benevolent, omnipotent, omnisient God. In the very creative act of this being, the very bringing about of humans, the crown jewel of creation and biological diversity more generally, is just this horrific process.

¶56And that just seems so surprising. You know, hundreds of millions of years of this sort of thing. It's just it's so surprising under theism, but it's nowhere near as surprising under a view on which the foundation of reality is indifferent to the flourishing languishing of sensient creatures. Ysef Ahmed asks, "What does your credence for each major world religion look like? Okay.

¶57Um he he he will bring up he brings up the suffering argument and that was really the main thing that by every account that he has given publicly was the thing that pulled him away from theism. And what's interesting and saddening to me is that he never comes up in the process of his conversion. He never comes up with an answer to that that he personally finds satisfactory. He just >> Yeah. Uh I I wanted to say like Joe probably thinks that that rather than Catholicism is true with like a certainty.

¶58He might think that Catholicism is probably true but then he might take a Pascal's wagers view where it's like hey look um if it's probably true then um um to stay safe um let's join Catholicism. >> Yeah. And and that really is a lot of what he's done is he's just taken Pascal's wager. >> Yeah. And I mean like I would think like but but Joe um you you were a moral like intuitionist I guess.

¶59So so so moral intuitionism is like this um um epistemology. it is in the field of like epistemology of uh morality. So like where do we get our morals like what what so and and the issue that I have with like Joe what what recently what Joe has said to in at like Matt Frad and um even his own like overview um is that he is like submit to the magisterium even if it says something horrible and insane. given your moral intuitions. >> Yeah.

¶60>> And and but but at the same time like it's submit to the magisterium when the magisterium is telling you um not to worry about the suffering of animals or >> Yeah. >> Yeah. But the thing is is that the magisterium actually does not endorse the suffering of animals and has actually like adopted basically a position that you know it's the you know part of the part of what humans are supposed to do is to alleviate suffering. Um and you know so he doesn't focus on that part. Um or you know when the magisterium is telling him that you know for example in America you know nuns are getting kidnapped off of the street and this is something that you as a Catholic should be concerned about.

¶61Um he hasn't talked about issues related to migrants. He hasn't talked about issues related to climate justice. He hasn't talked about any of the concrete things that the Catholic Church is asking him to do in the world in order to relieve suffering. He's just talking about suffering in this very abstract way. >> Yeah.

¶62And the the the thought the the interesting thing about Pascal's wager is that like recently um Christian philosophers like Elizabeth Jackson um I guess not recently the paper was in like 2021 or like 2022 um they they published a paper arguing that if you if you believe in like Pascal's wager if it's persuasive to you then you would get the most uh positive overall utility by joining Islam um and and Sunni Orthodox Islam. Um so like right-wing Islam basically and and I would and I would think like I guess the reason for that is like um the Bible is less graphic um than than Quran. Um, and so if you are like a right-wing or like a traditionalist or like fundamentalist regarding Islam, there is a uh like you cannot do the kind of CS Lewis thing of like, oh, the gates of hell are locked from the inside, bro. Um, you cannot do that. Um, it's it's it's actual brutal torture.

¶63um um according to the right-wing um traditionalist Sunni Orthodox view. So it's like even even if Joe was like Catholicism is probable but Islam is like um maybe like 30% um probable. >> Yeah. Well, and and I would say that with Joe, I mean, like like and I'm saying this as someone who like is literally old enough to be his mother, as in like I have a child who is like less than a year younger than Joe. Um, you know, he's it strikes me as, you know, he he he wasn't a religious when he went looking for he was he was looking for God and he ended up going back to his childhood faith, which is an incredibly common story.

¶64And I don't think that it's particularly unusual that he ended up being raised in, you know, devoutly in one religion and that when he comes back to religion, he just goes back home. Um, >> and I mean, and you know, I I mean, in some way, you know, I mean, not to say that like bouncing from religion to religion to religion is like more defensible, but I would almost have more I I I would almost believe that he had really examined the truth claims of religion and examined his process. If say you know he had gone off and you know you know studied Islam or you know had gotten baptized Mormon in there somewhere or you know had been hanging out at his you know local Buddhist temple or whatever. Right. >> Yeah.

¶65Yeah. Exactly right. And I mean the thing is like he he talked with like Ethan Muse and Cameron Berthusi was like sending him um like how do you explain this? How do you explain this? Um so so he was surrounded more by like Catholics, right?

¶66Yeah. Um right-wing traditionalist Christians than like being surrounded by say um a bunch of Hindus or Muslims or Buddhists >> and uh and like like Ethan. >> Yeah. >> So sorry. Go ahead.

¶67>> No, no. I I was just going to say um I I I want to hit play again. >> Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

¶68>> Because I think that one of the things we'll see is that he's not really ever engaging with other religions in any kind of in any kind of a substantive way. It's like he he has that classic conservative Christian trap of there's like there's Christianity and then there is atheism, right? Or like not there's Christianity and there's not Christianity. And that's all he has. Okay.

¶69So, I'm going to hit play again for this next question. >> But yeah, those are the content creators that I'll mention, the atheist content creators that I'll mention. Again, I'm intentionally restricting myself to smallish content creators. And I'm not claiming that that's a fully representative sample. The dude, the dude says, "What is your view on mathematical platonism?

¶70What are the arguments for and against this view that you find the most compelling?" So I tentatively lean towards realism with respect to mathematical objects like numbers, shapes, sets and the like. And as for which realist view I find most attractive among the realist theories, it would probably be a broadly platonic realist view in the contemporary analytic sense of platonism, not Plato's own views. What is the best argument for this? Well, probably the the family of arguments known as indispensability arguments. ma quantification over mathematical objects and just more generally math and mathematical truths are just utterly integral and essential to the success of science and that this gives us good reason to think that there are such things and also I mean just the intuitive fact that there these really seem to be objective mind independent facts you know it does seem to be a mind independent objective necessary truth that like 1 plus 1 equals two and if we think that truth corresponds with reality arguably this truth would have to correspond to some sort of reality like the number one and the plus function etc.

¶71What's the best argument against? Well, definitely simplicity considerations. Anti-realism and nominalism are definitely simpler ontologies than realist views and that that is a mark in their favor. Moreover, the I guess one of the best considerations that they have is like epistemic considerations. Realists are saddled with the task of explaining how we have epistemic access to this aausal uh realm of abstract objects.

¶72So, yeah. I mean, again, I'm not saying that that's an in Super Bowl problem, and I've actually covered that in many videos on my channel, but anyway, those are the best arguments for and against, respectively. Apologetics squared says, "Congrats, Joe." Well, thank you very much, Apologetics Squared. If you guys are interested in Apologetics channel, you can check out his. I like how he covers non-traditional style arguments on his channel.

¶73Say you use a time machine to meet your future self and learn that future Joe is a Christian. What would you ask him? First, I'd ask him to kill me. Would he be able to do it? Could he kill me if I gave him a knife?

¶74Would he be able to cut my throat? Would he? Think about it. Like, if he tried, what would happen? Would he slip on a banana peel?

¶75Would he like miss? And would I be able to like just make fun of him that he just somehow he can't he can't kill me? I mean, just think about it. If he killed me, then I wouldn't be alive in the future for there to even be a future dare to kill me, right? So, he can't kill me.

¶76>> I I I just put in that part because I thought it was funny. And also a and also because I think it's illustrative of just the really playful way that he approaches philosophy which is probably a good thing because ultimately philosophy is an intellectual game but also I mean he's playing >> um yeah um but like given the kind of tradition >> I'm asking to kill like just try Okay, maybe I should because he could significantly injure me. That >> that Okay, I take that back. I'm not going to ask him to kill me. I'm not going to ask me to kill me.

¶77Would that be suicide? Would I be committing suicide if I asked future Joe [snorts] to kill me? Okay, on to on the more serious questions. Firstly, of course, why are you a Christian? Do tell.

¶78Secondly, what kind of Christian are you? Like are you just like broadly Protestant? Are you Catholic? Are you Eastern Orthodox? What model of God do you have?

¶79I mean, I doubt that it would be like a high octane classical theism, but like what model of God do you have? What soological model do you have? I mean, again, I doubt that it would be eternal conscious torment, but you know, are you an annihilationist? Are you a universalist? Are you are you agnostic on it?

¶80What model of providence do you have? Right? So, like are you an openist? Are you a simple foreign knowledge proponent? Are you a theological determinist?

¶81Are you a mullanist? Um, yeah, pretty basic things like that. These sorts of things that I'd ask favorite quantum mechanics interpretation. Congrats, by the way. Well, thank you for >> Okay.

¶82Yeah. I I I just want to throw out like the that whole like if you could meet your future self and ask your future and find out your future self is Christian, how would you react? And his immediate response is, I would be asking my future self all of these like really abstruse theological questions. It's like you know it it's like um as our um as our friend who is uh watching from the um Lacantas Institute um pointed out um you know that um that um that there are no arguments that Joe ever makes that could not be made by a brain in a jar. Like his engagement with anything outside of this very small, very comfortable world that he has is almost non-existent.

¶83like to a degree. I I mean just you know again I I I just I keep thinking about how young he is and again it's not his calendar age it's also just how sheltered he seems like I don't know maybe I'm just old but like even like you know my kid who is about his age you know has just I don't know is is is a lot more grown up. I don't know. >> So, um can I say something? >> Oh, yes, of course.

¶84>> Yeah. So, um I I just wanted to say like uh this um uh this thing that uh Joe like seemed to have like he he was very enthusiastic about his like conversion to Catholicism, but it's like wouldn't you be like very serious? uh because like um a lot of people are in danger of eternal conscious torment um given his beliefs. >> So it's like >> why was he like so um like excited, [laughter] right? So optimistic, I guess.

¶85Well, and and and I I think that it's just because it's like he h and I think it it really is just that now he he wanted an answer and now he has an answer and he doesn't have to worry about is his answer good, bad, or indifferent because he's confident that his answer is right. [laughter] And that is just so um just so profoundly weird to me. >> Yeah. Yeah. Dumb.

¶86>> Yeah. Dumb. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, I'm going I'm going to hit play again.

¶87>> Yeah. >> Super interesting and deserve further research. So So anyway, that's just a brief lay of the land of some arguments for moral realism. Um, Muhammad Shahed Khan Shawan asks, "Congratulations, dude. Question.

¶88On the contingency argument, why do you think that there is a gnat around me? I'm sorry. I'm frustrated because there's a gnat just flying around here." Question. On the contingency argument, why do you think that it's weak to go from a necessary being to God? Well, mainly because the extant stage 2 arguments are by my lights quite unconvincing and because there are boatloads of respectable naturalistic and indeed non-naturalistic but non-theistic accounts of a necessarily existent concrete foundation of reality.

¶89You can see for instance my video 20 cosmological arguments an analysis. Matthew Levana asks do you pray to God regularly as a hopeful agnostic? So I'm not entirely sure what counts as regularly, but I do make conditional prayers of the form something like God if you exist such and such for instance. >> Can we just pause there? I just uh moral virtue.

¶90>> Yeah. So Matthew Lawia, right? Um that name. So, Matthew Lavania is another person who is like has been like quite recently um um friends with Joe. Maybe Matthew Lavania was also the one who was along with like Cameron Berthusi and Ethan Muse.

¶91Um so like sending Joe these like miracles like please explain this miracle Joe please explain this miracle um naturalistically or something. So I just wanted to mention like so Matthew Lavan Lavana has been like looking um with um has been into like philosophy of religion too for a decent amount of time and I guess he he knows Joe for a decent amount of time too. I just wanted to say that you can >> Oh, yeah. Thank you for Thank you for mentioning that because um I know I don't know who a lot of these characters are and I'm sure that a lot of people that are watching this stream um don't know either. Um and um you know, so again, this is all about, you know, educating people about what's going on.

¶92Um, one of the things that I, and actually what you brought up was something, um, Ethan Muse, who's um, a Catholic apologist who's getting a lot of attention right now, um, is also another really recent convert from atheism. And like I you know and as I was talking about a couple weeks ago when I was going through um a report that had been done on Catholic converts there's about 20% of Catholic converts that are like going to OCIA classes are in this like you know group of like you know young 20some early 30some guys who are getting converted online and a lot of them are coming out of these like internet atheist kind of spaces and you know this is something that if you um that when you read that arch dascese of Chicago report they're worried and they're worried because a lot of these guys have really rigid like really rigid heading towards like traditional Catholicism um end of the spectrum attitudes and that is something that people are having to deal with in OCIA classes right now today. Um, and I would also um just the reason why I was playing the clip about his prayer life, right? You notice that this now this is four years ago, right? This is before he had really started his recon conversion process.

¶93He's still identifying as an agnostic, but little brother has a pretty good prayer life, right? Like if you're praying even conditionally, God, if you exist, please do this thing. This isn't someone who has abandoned belief. This is someone who has taken a step back because but the only thing that he's not sure about is whether or not he wants to believe that that God exists. He's not considering the possibility that maybe the way that my parents talked to me about God was inaccurate.

¶94But if you exist, please guide me to truths. Things like that. I think this is eminently rational. Indeed, failing to do so as an agnostic might actually be irrational. There are various there are various different ways that you can argue for that, but here's one.

¶95It's just a kind of an argument from analogy, right? So, imagine that you're lost in the wilderness and you have good reasons for thinking that it's roughly just as likely as not that there's a helicopter crew flying above the wilderness looking to save people like you who are lost. [snorts] And suppose further that you have a flare gun that you can shoot into the sky that you know would alert the helicopter crew to your existence and make it more likely that you'll get help. Finally, suppose you can do so at basically no cost to yourself or to others. Obviously, then you should shoot the flare gun into the sky, right?

¶96And this scenario is entirely analogous to agnostic prayer. I'll let you guys fill in the details of how the analogy goes since I think it's pretty obvious. Wayne Rossy asks, "When I took metaphysics, >> yeah, so again, like if you don't So, he's assume." So again, he's making Pascal the whole time he's making Pascal's wager, right? He's almost like daring God to prove to him that he doesn't exist. Now I I do have to say like from my own experience um as somebody who came back to Catholicism after being away from the church for a good amount of time um there were times where I prayed about things that would bring me back to the Catholic church and it was you know generally things to the effect of God, I'm not coming back until we get girl alter surfers.

¶97Like when I was at my least dubious, I was basically willing to hold my soul hostage and dare God to fix things, right? And again, not something that Ethan thought of. I don't know. Um, maybe I'm just too old and too cynical. I don't know.

¶98Okay. And now I'm going to jump forward quite a bit because Okay, where were we? Okay, Mandy Ramsey's the second or whatever who you just heard as a little clip in the video that I just played. They have a panel discussion on the transcendental argument for God and presuppositionalism and so on. And I thought that it was an illuminating panel discussion.

¶99So check that out if you're interested in substantive criticisms of the argument and of presuppositionalism. And finally, check out Alex Malpass's blog use of reason.wordpress.com. He has a blog post called the problem with tags. So check that out as well. Andrew Cooper says, "How about some drama?

¶100Most overrated philosopher in your humble opinion." Well, I mean, are you asking about contemporary or historical philosophers? I guess I'll choose historical because I can. Now, I'm tempted, right? I'm tempted to say Aquinus. Don't get me wrong, I rate Aquinus immensely highly, and his intellect is far greater than mine will ever be.

¶101But some people, especially some Catholics and especially some toists, seem to treat Aquinus as if he were basically God incarnate. He who shall not be questioned. An attack on Aquinas or his argument is taken basically to be an attack on everything good and true and holy and divine. Aquinus deserves to be rated highly, don't get me wrong, but somehow people manage to still overrate him and elevate him practically to the level of the left hand of God with Jesus of course at the right hand of God. Um I'm quoting this at length because again what he is saying about the um for for people who don't know what to who Thomas Aquinus is Thomas Aquinus was a very important Catholic philosopher and theologian who was active in the um in the 13th century.

¶102and he wrote an extremely important book called the Sumo Theologica which is this like monumental massive work of theology and it's basically um his attempt to address every possible issue that a Catholic could ever face. And so a lot of Catholics um get really obsessed with Thomas because you can just dive into Thomas and think that you have found the world's answer to how you should live your life in every possible way. Um, and I would argue that in a lot of ways traditional Catholics and one of the things that's increasingly separating traditional Catholics from the rest of the Catholic Church is that um they are 100% um treating Thomas the way that Protestant treating Thomas Aquinus. The same way that um public the the the exact same way that um okay um you know they're treating Thomas Aquinus basically the exact same way that Protestants treat the Bible. They data mine him.

¶103They quote mine him. They pull out the stuff that works because for them that suits their purpose, that suits their rhetorical needs and then they leave the rest of Aquinus alone. Just to throw out one example because as we get further into this, abortion is going to come up a lot like a lot a lot. Thomas Aquinus says that abortion does not become murder until after quickening, which is when the woman can feel the baby kick, which is usually something that happens between like 12 and 15 weeks, which coincidentally is well after the time that most people who have an abortion choose to have an abortion. So they love them some Aquinus until he dis until he disagrees with the current Catholic teaching on abortion and then Aquinus well he just doesn't know.

¶104That's the thing. It it it's cherrypicking. It's I it's proof texting. It's all of those things. Okay, I'm going to keep going.

¶105R.J. um is just taking a um bathroom break, which I'm going to do once he gets back. So, I'm gonna hit play for now. And I guess in my view, Hegel is kind of overrated, especially by some leftists. But anyway, let's move on.

¶106[clears throat] Me asks, "Hey Joe, what is your opinion on religious arguments to God from prophecy? It's been quite difficult for me to find a good attempt at moving from a prediction coming true to God being the cause." Well, honestly, I haven't studied these much, so I'm afraid I won't be able to offer many developed thoughts. I mean, some things that we need to be wary about here are firstly, many incompatible traditions claim successful prophecies supporting their traditions and so we have a potential undercutting the theater here arising from disagreement across traditions and so on. Secondly, sometimes things and events are >> and that is something that very soon he is going to decide is not a problem because basically he's going to throw out all of the non-atholic miracles and only accept the Catholic ones for no real good reason. are intentionally or perhaps even unintentionally constructed or molded or shaped in order that they fit preg-given known predictions made in the past or known predictions that have been written down and are kind of collectively understood to be part of a collective scripture base.

¶107Thirdly, we need to be wary that lots of supposed correct predictions are often quite vague and indeterminate. They're open to interpretation and a lot of post hawk fitting kind of post hawk rationalize how it fits into a vague kind of prediction. And then fourth and finally, we need to keep in mind base rates like how many failed predictions there were, right? I mean, if you're making lots and lots of predictions, of course, you're going to get some of those right. And so we >> Okay, from >> Okay, I'm going I'm pausing there and jumping ahead to my next time stamp.

¶108Um, and I just wanted to highlight there, you know, again, it's the I it it's the lack of criticis. It it's the shallowess of his engagement, right? Because the thing with prophecy is, you know, first of all, it's you know what what is your criteria for a prophecy? That's fair, right? but he also doesn't engage with any of the causality issues that surround prophecy either.

¶109So like for example um one of the things that comes up in Catholicism um in regard to prophecy and this is something that um >> my videos in tremendous depth before putting them out >> that um is actually like really significant when you get into um some of the discourse around the prophecies at Fatima for example. And this was something that that Pope Benedict the 16th was really into is the idea that essentially um prophecy sometimes if a prophecy doesn't happen, it's because like basically God said repent and people repented and therefore it didn't happen. >> [laughter] >> Um, which you know I have to say as like yes that that that does sound like pure and hilarious cope, right? But if you're accepting like the entire world view, that's actually a fairly creative and at least like intellectually defensible way of thinking about failed prophecy, right? Um, and it's just not something that we're necessarily appreciating to um I I think sufficiently and I don't think he's doing it either.

¶110Okay, I'm going to hit play. I'm going to run to the bathroom and then um it should be at a point where um actually no, I'm just going to stop. I'm not going to make you do that. Um, I'm just going to stop sharing and you just talk to the good people about um, [snorts] whatever you want to comment on and I will be right back. >> Sure.

¶111So, hey chat, it looks like I'm going to Yap, I guess. I I hope people are are not bothered by my yapping. Okay, I have returned. Thank you. >> Yeah, it's fine.

¶112I'm just uh telling people to subscribe to my my YouTube channel. >> Oh, no. that [laughter] that no please please I I I hope that you'll do that. I am immensely grateful that you know someone who actually um knows Ethan and sorry not not Ethan but um who knows Joe and is you know under understands um kind of the online apologetics world um is you know here to kind of guide us through the parts that I'm not as you that I'm not even that that I'm just learning about at this point. Um, okay.

¶113So, I'm going to go back into screen sharing. Um, okay. I'm going back into screen sharing and I am hitting play. Lots of them are based on my literal peer-reviewed scholarly research that has been published. Right?

¶114So that's what I tend to put the premium on. But I also, if I could change things, if I had more money, if I if I had a a stable full-time job, for instance, I'd also be putting in much more effort into a good mic camera, light, lighting setup, and the like. Now, I am improving. So, yeah, we're on the upwards trajectory. Yeah, I would just say pay attention to those sorts of things.

¶115They make a difference. Finally, emphasize quality over quantity. As I was just mentioning, I like to research in a lot of depth before making a video so that quality is prioritized. Instead of making one video every day or making a video really as often as I can, I emphasize quality over quantity. My videos come out whenever they come out, right?

¶116If it takes a long time, that's fine. What matters is the quality of the video and in particular the quality of the art. Now the the reason why um I wanted to highlight like this particular quote is just because there are a lot of people who now that theist again is you know um you know um basically he the story with him is that in reality he um returned to the Catholic Church in like February. Um, you know, so right before Lent. Um, and he um but he did it very much under wraps on the download.

¶117Didn't tell anybody except apparently like the whole world of Catholic apologists that he'd been fighting with for years. Um, and by fighting I mean going on to their shows and being the agnostic guest that they could debate with. Um, >> yeah. It's like it's like his standard became so so low compared to what it what they were, right? Like look at look at what he said like I I'm very careful quality or quantity and it's like >> like what happened man you are going.

¶118>> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But also, you know, I wanted to bring up because um after he made his video saying, okay, um a after that video of him announcing that he was a theist, once that video dropped, immediately after that, there was this like media blitz where he was, you know, he was on pints with Aquinus, he was on Council of Trent, he uh you know, the the the and those are two of like the biggest name >> capturing capturing Christianity. >> Yeah, capturing Christianity.

¶119Thank you. That's another one. You know, all the really big name um Catholic apologetics channels like the ones that do not know that my channel exists and wouldn't care if they did know, right? >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

¶120All those people. um he sort of rolled out this media blitz and that led to a lot of people saying, you know, oh, he's just griing. He's a grifter. And again, I don't think that that's true. I do think though that he's a very smart young man who realized that, you know, running a philosophy YouTube channel was a really good job to have as a college student.

¶121and was approaching his work with a degree of like seriousness and professionalism. That frankly is what you need to do if you're going to maintain a YouTube, if you're going to be making any kind of a living on YouTube. Um, you know, and that's just how it is. Um, so I'm going to hit play again. and the content, at least in terms of how I operate my channel.

¶122So, that's what I would say. I'd say emphasize quality over quantity. Chewy says, "Will you ever study the apparently apparent proofs that all the religions bring forth and where they fail in providing an objective true meaning to life?" So, I like that the proofs are not just apparent proofs, but apparently apparent proofs. I like that. Okay.

¶123Well, I'm making my way through many such arguments one by one, of course. Will I ever get through all of them or even the ones from all religions? Probably not. Mitesh Patel says, "Uh, what's the purpose of discussing an undefined god with theists when their specific god is described in their scriptures?" Well, for starters, I don't think the theistic god is undefined. Right?

¶124God is a being who is omnipotent, omniscient, essentially morally perfect, omni, benevolent, or loving, necessarily existent, independent, the ultimate source or exclamation or foundation of reality, supreme in value, worshipworthy, non-physical, and immaterial, personal, perfectly free, perfectly rational. the creator and sustainer of the universe and its contents and so on and so on. Right? So the capitalist I hate life. Let's let's start with a dirty joke.

¶125Right? So these sorts of jokes. >> Um okay R.J. I don't want to like appear to be white knighting, but is that accent as offensive to you as it is to me? [laughter] >> I mean, uh, it's I guess um um No, I think I'm I'm fine.

¶126It's uh it's like uh but like it's to me it's not that funny. I guess it's like um yeah, whatever. Right. >> Yeah. It's like he's he's doing a silly voice for the sake of doing a silly voice.

¶127And you know, again, I I'm just saying that when somebody is, you know, when your last name is Schmid, you know, when you are that white, maybe be a little bit careful about the racialized humor. Like, >> well, I I guess it's it's from like Slovar Gek, right? Um >> Yeah. So yeah, I guess he's Eastern European and I mean I um I I personally don't get uh um hang-ups regarding this specific stuff. To me what what is like more important is his uh horrible views now because I think you know this this sort of thing that rightwing does where they would like do civility politics where like oh I did not say the slurs racial slurs or like homophobic slurs.

¶128I'm just saying that um lesbians will go to eternal hell if they stay lesbians and like married to each other. Right. >> And do not repent. >> Exactly. But I'm very polite about the way that I tell you this, right?

¶129>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> You know, so that makes all the difference.

¶130Okay. >> But you and I just want to, you know, but again, you know, the the way that he has, you know, it's like he's saying, okay, I'm a Christian, right? or, you know, or in this case, he's laying out his description of what he wants um um you know, of what he thinks God is. And I would just like to note for the record um that how many of these things come from the Bible? Not that many.

¶131Right. This is all philosophy. Okay. I'm I'm I'm gonna hit play again. >> Okay.

¶132So, yeah, that's my first point. I don't think the theistic God is undefined. Second, not all theists accept scriptures, right? And even those that do may not think that their scriptures provide a fully fleshed out model or conception of God. Third, and finally, the purpose.

¶133You're asking what's the purpose of discussing these sorts of things? The purpose is to get at the truth of the matter and to help both ourselves and others find the truth of the matter. Borders asks, "Any thoughts on Alistair McIntyre, particularly after virtue? Any [clears throat] thoughts on Ian hacking? Do you have a preferred view on the philosophy of mathematics?" So, unfortunately, I hadn't read after virtue, so I can't comment much on that.

¶134We did read some McIntyre, particularly significant portions of his ethics and the conflicts of modernity in one of my grad seminars at Purdue. Unfortunately, I don't remember too much partly because I found it boring and also partly because we read it during a very stressful point in the semester in my life. So, regarding Ian hacking, from what I have read of him, he seems to be such a wonderful writer. Firstly, I mean that's the first thing that I want to say. But secondly, he's most wellknown for his entity realism.

¶135Now, I'm not an entity realist. I'm broadly speaking a realist simplictor, a scientific realist that is. Though perhaps with the caveat that in the highly theoretical elements of physics, that kind of highly theoretical domain, I might lean towards a kind of epistemic structural realism. As for philosophy of math, I have specified my views on that earlier in this video. So, I kindly advise you to check that out.

¶136Uh, SNL Draco, the most important question of all. Oh, yeah. Breast. So, I'm not going to answer that. El Penguino.

¶137El Penguino, [clears throat] you still keep up with the philosophical arguments surrounding the topic of abortion and do you have any pro-life or pro-choice philosophers you particularly enjoy the work of on the topic of >> Okay, he's going to be bringing up his views on abortion. I am not going to use this space to get into a bait a debate over the ethics of abortion. What I am because that's not really germanine to the topic but what I would like you to do is pay very close attention to the way that he talks about abortion because one of the things that um because you you'll find because well I I'll I'll just play it and let you hear what he says. >> Abortion trying to keep it short for your wife and 12 children. Well, thank you very much.

¶138So, occasionally I will read recently published stuff on abortion, such as the stuff on the impairment argument for the immorality of abortion and the exchanges happening there between my friends Perry Hendricks and Dustin Kermit. But for the most part, what I keep up with is the literature on stuff that I actively research and publish on. So that's like philosy of religion, metaphysics, philosy. uh and applied ethics is of course outside of that domain. Nevertheless, I do enjoy the work, you know, occasionally when I get to look at these sorts of things.

¶139I do enjoy the work of pro-life philosopher David Herschenov and I found some of his arguments to be, you know, at least reasonably plausible. And as for the pro-choice side, I think the most formidable proponent of the pro-choice view is probably David Boon. Bigfoot asks, "What is your political philosophy?" Well, I responded this in my 3K. >> Yeah. Again, look at how abstract his discussion of abortion was, right?

¶140It wasn't this is why, you know, it it was it never reached the level of this is something that has a real impact on real people's real lives. This was these are the theoretical arguments that I enjoy. These are the theoretical arguments that I don't enjoy. >> Yeah. Um, sorry.

¶141Go ahead. A and and the thing is is that for a lot like like I I cannot overemphasize how much the issue of abortion dominated Catholic discourse in the 80s and the 90s and the first like decade of the 20th of the 21st century. And it's really evident that he never really and for a lot of people when they left the Catholic Church or when they stepped away from the Catholic Church or when they just decided that they didn't agree with the magisterium of the Catholic Church about everything, that issue was abortion. So the fact that he left the Catholic Church and still remained anti-abortion tells me that there was a degree of self-examination and of introspection that he never really did. Um I don't know R.J.

¶142Did you speak with him about this? Was this something that >> Yeah, actually [laughter] we on Facebook we had a pretty heated debate in the private private Facebook messages. It's like um so so I'm pro-choice uh right um and uh like one of the things I I I did as like I guess research um um is like even Augustine and like as you said like Aquinus they were not as prolife as like modernday um Catholics were like the the the insolment happens at the conception. So it's like there was always this this disagreement and then and then like uh the New Testament and the Old Testament do not seem to condemn abortion with the I guess same intensity as like sameex sex. So it's it's sort of like it's sort of like strange to me.

¶143Um and then when he would talk about like these u arguments, right? Like so I'm totally cool with like engaging with abstract philosophy, concrete philosophy, empirical philosophy, like every everything. I'm cool with whatever people throw at me. Uh as long as they are clear of what they're saying. So this was the thing that always kind of like um bothered me about him.

¶144like he seems to be um um yeah his intuitions are moral intuitions are like still close sorry were still close to Catholicism even though he left Catholicism right um he he would not um I mean I guess eventually like by by the time of 2023 and 2024 he would he did upload uh videos with like Dustin and like Amos Wolen uh heavily criticizing the natural law ethics. >> So I guess he did move away from the more um um victimless I guess um sexual ethics, right? But in regards to abortion, he's like well um a fetus is like a human being and like um um killing a human being is like immoral or like a murder or something. And it's sort of um um I guess that's the kind of thing. But but of course um the the important point interestingly interestingly he did not talk much about the burdens that women bear uh when they are pregnant with a child, right?

¶145and that suffering to the conscious person um versus u a fetus um whose whose future um I guess future life is is on the hands of women I guess but but future life is like okay um there is all sorts of you know identity arguments you know like abstract issues with that stuff about like expected utility in the future Right. So, um it's like you kind of probably should um um not just By the way, interestingly, large majority of philosophers actually support pro-choice we like. This is the thing that large majority of analytic philosophers strongly agree on almost a consensus like 81 82% of philosophers support uh the right to abortion and 80 like they they support they support the view that abortion is permissible right morally permissible legally permissible so it's like it's it's kind of like Joe is very >> well and and even for people that you know and and the the the big thing that I want to highlight here is that um for people who either think that abortion should be permissible or shouldn't be permissible. there's always a certain amount of okay I think that abortion is you know should be legal but is only morally acceptable in these particular you know there's issues of of legality there's issues of morality there's issues of okay is abortion okay in this case but not in this other case and there's even a lot of debates that are being had about what counts as an abortion, you know, whether for because um there are some like Catholic bioethicists that are arguing that if a woman is having a miscarriage, right, like there's been a premature rupture of membranes or something, right, that effectively anything that happens after that point should be understood as essentially a surgical ical delivery of the fetus, right? And it's just it happened pre-term and that's very and you know and that's a tragedy but there's nothing that denying her care >> would actually accomplish >> other than setting her up for so so the point is is that even if >> you're starting from the point of view of you know a healthy woman getting rid of a healthy fetus for funsies is murder.

¶146There's a whole bunch of gray in between there that people are willing to debate and are willing to engage with. And and at a certain level when you're talking about something that is such a hot button issue in contemporary Catholicism and his defense is basically, well, I don't do bioeththics. I I I just do like philosophy of religion. So, I don't really think about this, but these like two guys that I like, they're completely pro-choice, >> right? Or, you know, these two guys I like are like, you know, super pro-life.

¶147I It's like again, it's the shallowess of >> Yeah. And his process that >> I I should I I want to jump here. I got like excited here because look, so he mentions Perry Hendris. So Perry Hendris is like pro-life. Um Dustin Crommet Dustin Crommet is pro-choice.

¶148But interestingly like the kind of epistemic humility that he is doing here where is like ah man I mean I don't know I that's not my field man. Um like why would he not do it with like historical u sorry a modern critical bible scholarship? Why would he not do with like miracle research right? Because it's like so many different fields and disciplines are are like uh interacting when we are talking about like miracles right because you have physics, you have neuroscience, psychology, you have depending on what kind of miracle it is, we are getting into specific field of physics, right? We are getting into even like photography.

¶149Um um right. So >> yeah or or even just the fact that you know he you know he major you know he by his report you know majored in biology. >> Yeah. Biological. >> Well well the thing is is that you know um in some of these cases in you know in some of these cases of miracles we actually have like things like pathology reports.

¶150Well, presumably he knows enough biology that he could educate himself um to the point that like he could read some of these pathology reports and actually understand what the heck, you know, like and actually be able to evaluate the evidence. Um and he's just not interested in doing that. >> Yeah. And by the way, Joe Schmid has published multiple papers in like respected philosophy journals. And I think a as I think he should he should I think he probably knows that in journals like when someone publishes a paper you don't just immediately like oh yeah that's that's um absolutely uh like a knockdown reputation or something or even like a very overwhelming evidence given that paper unless that paper is sort of like a meta analysis or like meta review uh that just summarizes uh the current uh trends in literature, right?

¶151So it's it's like it's like like he would know how it is very premature to jump uh on at the conclusion that yeah the it was a real miracle. Um and so it it's just very premature and I think James Fodor also made a video criticism video of Joe Schmid where he said a very important thing which is that um the approach of of um eliminating hypothesis rather than comparing um explanations um in a way where we distinguish explanations that are consistent with the hypothesis or or the explanations or evidence that is uh in favor of a particular hypothesis. And it's it's just like like Joy is doing the kind of um epistemic mistakes that that that's just so unlike him. Um it's it's it's very strange to me, right? That >> Yeah.

¶152>> Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. >> No, no, you're fine. I was just going to say I I I'm going to hit play again.

¶153>> Yeah. Yeah. >> Video. It was one of the earliest questions asked there in. So, I recommend checking that out.

¶154Also, whenever I recommend my 3K AMA video, click on see more in the description, right? Because in the description, I put all the time stamps. What are your top five favorite movies? So, sorry, I don't really watch movies all that much. I don't quite have the time, but I do have a favorite movie, namely The Arrival.

¶155I really like that movie. Ty Melof says, "Congrats. this team. >> And again, >> yeah. Yeah.

¶156And and and I just had to throw out there like I mean The Arrival is a perfectly nice movie, but again, like we're talking about like a young man in his like early 20s at this point, right? And I can, you know, I mean, and yeah, I understand, you know, when you've got a lot going on, keeping up with popular culture can be difficult. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> But the fact that like this is, you know, like a young man living in America in um well, this would be what, 2022.

¶157and he can't like just go, "Okay, top five movies go." That's weird to me, right? >> Yeah. And I think he [laughter] say he says he doesn't usually watch like movies or like TV shows. I think he he also says this about TV shows too. So it's like >> like art does reflect some of our strongest moral intuitions.

¶158>> Storytelling. Exactly. >> Right. Yeah. >> Yeah.

¶159Exactly. It's like he's not um you know, it's like he's not reading literature. He's not um you know, he's not reading literature. He's not listening to a lot of music. He's not, you know, that there there's just this whole world of human experience >> that I mean that that I mean, okay.

¶160And and if that doesn't, you know, and like if that doesn't interest you, it doesn't interest you. And that's fine, you know. >> Yeah. >> But at the same time, it's like, you know, I I I I'm just I I'm I'm listen the more I listen to him, the more it's like this is a guy who just like needs to get out there and touch some grass. Um >> Yeah.

¶161And I mean I guess it's it's it's like um so there was a time when like I asked him like what movie like made you cry and I think he said like um I don't remember the particular movie but he did say like there are some uh movies that did make him cry and I think he said that he doesn't watch too many of such kinds of movies which have very sad moment. ments. So I would always think that but look if you do not do so here's the thing right sometimes like this kind of experience that we have of like TV shows movies art where we sort of visually visually seeing something not just you know abstractly thinking right yeah but we visually are there we are like viscerally seeing viscerally seeing what's happening. And that experience is much more um close to the empirical reality to the real life um than this abstract thinking. And given that he did not do all this stuff, >> right?

¶162uh given that he did not like watch a lot of movies or like um get into like some TV shows or like or like shield himself from these sorts of um deep sadness uh tragic movies um or or or movies which have like sadness deep sadness between the the high points, right? Like kind of like happy ending in the end but but the middle part is very sad. And by shielding himself from that, I think he's able to easily intellectualize his uh conservative right-wing traditionalist views. >> Yes. >> Because because it's not it's not in front of him.

¶163The suffering, the pain, it's not in front of him, right? So it's uh it's easy for him to to do that. And and I that that's the thing that have that that I think initially I didn't think of it much like okay maybe he's not interested whatever right but now that I seeing him become a tried Catholic now it all kind of you know coming together like >> yeah I guess it's sorry go ahead sorry >> no no it's it's fine I I was just gonna I I think that we've beat that one um enough. So, I'm going to hit play again. >> Yeah.

¶164Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Seems to only be the beginning. Well, let's hope so.

¶165Ty, how does one financially survive pursuing a PhD in philosophy? Well, fun fact, most philosophy PhD programs are fully funded, so that's pretty good. Nevertheless, while you aren't losing money, then uh well, there's a sense in which you're lo losing money because you could instead be doing like a job or whatever, but anyway, you're [clears throat] not actively losing money, but there's still the question of how you're supposed to stay afloat, like financially afloat. Now, there are several ways you can do this. So, for starters, you'll probably get a stipend from your PhD program that will at least help with living costs, groceries, and the like.

¶166Plus, you might get at least a little money from teaching classes. But other avenues you could take include, one, taking out a loan. Two, running a YouTube channel where generous patrons are willing to help you through your PhD program. Right? Much love to all my patrons.

¶167Three, saving up money beforehand. For instance, taking a gap year and getting a part or full-time job during that gap year to help you pay expenses when in grad school. And so on. Greg Montana asks, "Forgive me if you've answered this elsewhere." Okay. [laughter] Sorry.

¶168Uh given your personal description of your agnostic position, it seems possible to continue weighing evidence war and against the existence of God for your whole life without being convinced one way or the other. Would you find this to be an acceptable outcome for yourself? So it is what it is really. I mean philosophy and truth seeeking more generally is hard. It's really hard.

¶169Ultimately I'll simply follow truth and justification where they lead. For me that's the most intellectually >> pause there because I think >> I hope not of course right. I hope there's broken >> Yeah. So like he keeps saying truth seeking right like he that is another thing that um I remember being somewhat um frustrated about. I I I mentioned it to him like um yeah truth seeeking sure but it's like most people want like a normal job a family and have a chill life right like what what like you are you like telling them seek truth like like what the [ __ ] does that mean right like as inf of course he would like I guess he means seek the relevant truths like you know whether or not not God exists or something, right?

¶170More more these sorts of truths. Um, but sorry. Uh, >> go ahead. Go ahead. >> No, no, no, no, no.

¶171That that that that that was all I I I was trying to um resize the video thumbnail so it was easier to see you while we're talking like this. But um anyway, um what what I um let's see, no I I popped out of the video by accident. Um but um what I was trying to say was that in to me it's just this whole um it it really is just this whole question of how of just how isolated he is, you know, and how sheltered he is. >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶172Um >> Yeah. And it's just, you know, it it's just it's so just deeply I I I don't know. I I I I'm I'm I I'm babbling at this point because I I really don't know how else to how else to describe this, you know, how just young and naive and sort of I I don't know. [sighs and gasps] I'm going to hit play because my brain is breaking at this point. >> Yeah, sure.

¶173Sure. Sure. It's all right. >> Creation is redeemed. I hope humans can be morally transformed and flourish in everlasting life.

¶174So I can at least still engage with and rest in these quite settled, quite firm, quite positive hopes of mine. And the hopes can in turn influence how I act in certain ways. For example, conditional prayer, hoping >> [sighs] >> Oh, we got I'm not sure what happened. We somehow got bumped ahead in the >> We somehow got I'm I'm going to go out of screen sharing for just a second because R.J. are you still there?

¶175Uh, sorry, I just got Door >> Dash. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You're you're completely fine. I was just trying to um the I I I was doing apparently something inadvisable with the um with our screen here. And um that somehow bumped me to the next video.

¶176Um, [laughter] so, okay, I'm going to have to go. Where is the I'm sorry, I am not a professional. This is what I do for fun. Um, and I'm going to have to get back into my playlist so that we can get ourselves back. Okay.

¶177All right. Here we are available. I mean, listen, I hope God exists, of course, right? I hope this broken creation is redeemed. I hope human can be morally transformed and flourish in everlasting life.

¶178So I can at least still engage with and rest in these quite settled, quite firm, quite positive hopes of mine. And the hopes can in turn influence how I act in certain ways. For example, conditional prayer, hoping, you know, remember hoping that the helicopter crew in my earlier analogy will help me or save me or etc. Taking steps to actualize that, etc. >> And again, um, you know, and and >> Greg also asks, do you think that there is anything out there that would be able to And you know, again, I just want to bring this up.

¶179It's this I is is it's this lack of deconstruction, right? It's this lack that said that doesn't say, "Okay, maybe what I was taught about God was wrong." Right? It's instead it's saying okay is the god that my parents told me about does that god exist or not and that is the question that he's interested in. Um yeah and I mean it's also like his uh way of talking is also very I guess uh conservative trad as in influenced I guess. >> Yeah.

¶180Um it's sort of like he's still within the same uh system where he's all where he keeps saying right like seek truth seek truth and I'm like most of the time most people around the world just want to live right >> and and and he hasn't left and he hasn't let go of the idea that there is one single truth that's out there that you can access that everybody can reach and that there is just one singular truth and if he just keeps looking for it as hard as he can that he will find it, you know. And again, it just it takes me back to my original um you know, it it takes me back to my just original idea with him that this is someone who never really deconstructed, who never really examined the things that were behind his beliefs. He just kind of decided that he wanted to take a break from that for a while. >> Yeah, it's it's partial. I would say partial deconstruction as in like okay um I don't believe in like eternal torture now.

¶181Um but uh it's still like um like the the the whole paradigm that he's in is still there but just some of the some of the beliefs are not there. So, I guess partly partially deconstructed or something. >> Yeah. >> Okay, I'm going to hit play again. >> Ely tip the scale for you one way or the other.

¶182Well, I mean, potentially, yes. I mean, new arguments, right? New considerations concerning old arguments and so on certainly have the potential to tip my scales and engender a change of mind. Maybe religious experience, although I'm not quite sure. I do think there are some potential defeaters afflicting the evidential efficacy of religious experiences, but who knows?

¶183I mean, >> spoilers. One of the major things that affects him in the course of his returning to the Catholic Church is direct religious experience. And I would note not direct religious experience of like a really significant miracle or something like that, but just the kind of very mundane um sort of internal sensations that a lot of religious people get kind of just across the board regardless of their tradition. Um, you know, [snorts] >> so I I mean >> and and miracles and like all the miracles, right? And >> and and again, it's like Fatima is true, therefore um you know, being gay is a sin.

¶184It's like one does not follow from the other, right? It's it's also like um like he said he had this uh this uh feeling you can be a saint Joe at the gym. Well, here [laughter] >> I don't want to be me. >> Like like I have got all this video queued up, but I have been on a journey and I want to take the people and you have been on a journey and I want to take the people on this whole journey with us. >> Yeah.

¶185Yeah. And I don't mean to be rude to him to >> No, no, no, no, no. be because you know again it's >> but what what I'm saying is is that if you look at what he was saying four years ago and you look at where he ended up there is a very clear and obvious progression to that right which is why I don't think it's a grift and actually I don't even think it's a mental health episode I think that his thinking has been evolving ing over the course of by his account the last 10 years in a very specific way and he's ended up back where he started. Okay, let's see. Um, yeah, we're actually, okay, we're at our next time stamp, which is 57.

¶186with Christian philosophers at some point when you'll have free time. Um, as for Thought Adventure podcast, sure I'd be happy to go on. Muhammad Job, no. You can see lots of the antics that he pulled with cosmic skeptic for one reason that I'm not open to that. Hamza, um, I haven't heard of this person, but if they're not tribalistic and if they're scholarly and if they're interested in the truth and if they want a conversation, I'd be down.

¶187Uh, number three, what are your views on multiple gods versus only one god? Can there be multiple necessary beings? So these are kind of two different sub questions here. So I find monotheism more plausible than polytheism. I tend to think that what is a god?

¶188A god would be something that's worthy of worship. What would something that's worthy of worship be like? It would be perfect. What is a perfect being? A perfect being has all perfections essentially and lacks all imperfections essentially.

¶189But arguably one perfection and this just seems really intuitively clear to me. One perfection is being the source of everything apart from yourself or at least everything concrete apart from yourself. But in that case there couldn't be two perfect beings because if they each have this perfection, right? To be a perfect being is to have every perfection essentially. And given the fact that this property that I mentioned is a perfection, it would follow that each of these perfect beings would have to be the source of everything apart from themselves.

¶190But then they'd be the source of each other, right? So this one would be dependent for its existence on this one. But then this one would be dependent for its existence on this one in turn. So maybe you're hearing that ringing noise right now. I don't know what that is, but hopefully it'll be gone sometime soon and I'm just going to carry on, right?

¶191Keep calm and carry on. So yeah, you would have one perfect being depending on the other for its existence, but then this one in turn depending on the first for its existence. And that just strikes me as absurd. You would have a kind of vicious circle of dependence. So plausibly there couldn't be two perfect beings.

¶192And it's there couldn't be >> I I just want to highlight this because this idea that there is something that's problematic about having more than one perfect being. And one perfect being is dependent for its existence on another perfect being. is exactly the same reason why say Muslims attack the trinity. Because be because I in in in the trinity you have the father and the s and you have the father and the son and the holy spirit and the holy and as as we will all remember from the nine creed. I believe in the holy spirit the lord the giver of life who proceeds from the father and the son with the father and the son he is worshiped and glorified.

¶193Right. So, yes, that was off the dome. You're welcome. >> Nice. >> So, the point is is that that criticism of polytheism could with equal validity be um be applied to the trinity.

¶194Also he has failed to demonstrate why like this formulation of the tr why why why his idea of what God is like right >> um actually like and and and I will admit I am not deeply read in Hindu philosophy but it sounds a lot more like the god of avita vanta. >> Yeah. I mean it's it's like so >> than it does with anything that Christianity has ever thought of. So why is bro not a Hindu? >> Why did he not [laughter] you know I mean why did he not convert to Buddhism?

¶195Because in a lot of ways, if your major concern is suffering, Buddhism has a lot better of an explanation for that. Now, grant explanation like the world sucks and the best thing that you can do is try to get off of this ride. But that is I would argue a like I I if you're just trying to if you're if you're if you're central concern is the problem of evil, the Buddhist or the Hindu explanation of that works a lot better, especially if you want to have like an abstract non-mbodied deity that's running everything. Yeah. And I mean another another important thing is like um even in like Hinduism what you can do to accommodate all the polytheistic gods is also like so there's this impersonal um being right and that impersonal being necessarily generates a bunch of personal aspects that are like uh very powerful the highest ones and you get lots of gods from that, right?

¶196You can get the trinity from that. You can get lots of gods from that. Right. I guess you can do that, right? Um, so it's sort of um like why not be a Hindu then, right?

¶197>> Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. Pardon me for just a second.

¶198Um, this is a thing that I have to do sometimes because this is a Catholic podcast and I'm pretty sure that eventually the Vatican is going to start watching us. So, I have to do this. Hi, Tuco. I I'm greeting Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, head of the Diccastaster for the Doctrine of the Faith and in my heart always the Grand Inquisitor. I am not saying that people should be Hindu.

¶199What I am saying is that Joe Schmid's philosophy that he is laying out here is not a particularly good argument for Christianity and that we should be making good arguments for Christianity, not crap arguments for Christianity that if people are actually intellectually honest will lead them to become Hindus. or Buddhists. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah.

¶200>> Okay. So, let's see. Was okay. We've got another couple minutes of this one. >> Be more than one god.

¶201That's sort of an argument that I find at least somewhat plausible. And you know, that would be an argument for monotheism over and against polytheism for instance. Now, as to your question, can there be multiple necessary beings? I mean, I don't see why not. and and the arguments that I have seen for why there can only be one are typically hopelessly confused.

¶202So yeah, question four from this person says since you like stage one of contingency arguments but disagree with stage two, can you please invite Dr. Muhammad Sali Zarur for a dialogue on his recent book necessary existence and monotheism and or Muhammad Jab who is currently doing his PhD on contingency arguments and wrote a book on this. They can represent Islamic version of contingency arguments which is a little different than popular versions presented by Christian philosophers. It will be very fruitful discussion. So, I could perhaps get Zarapur on.

¶203It all just depends on how busy I am. Right now, at least I've bitten off far more than I can chew, but maybe in the future I'll be able to have Zarpur on. Again, thanks for everything, Spider-Man. Well, thank you, my dude, for your support, for your comments, and for everything. >> Yeah, spoilers.

¶204He did not in fact engage with any of those Muslim philosophers. >> Yeah. and and and like he said like uh there he does not see why there couldn't be multiple necessary beings. Right. So uh there could be multiple necessary beings.

¶205Right. >> Right. And and and also again, you know, like and and also keep in mind that he ends up in a philos he ends up when he re-mbbraces Catholicism. Um he ends up in a world where there are all kinds of spirit beings floating around. I mean, you only have God who is the necessary being, right?

¶206The first cause, the unmoved mover, all of this kind of thing. But this is a universe that is populated with saints and angels and spirit beings of all manner >> and demons. >> And demons. Yeah. And Yeah.

¶207Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, spirit beings of all categories, right? >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶208So it's like literally the you know the the the fact that he's like you know well you know like you know um I I am perfect like you can only have one God and then he defines God in terms of Christianity and then says, you know, so clearly the idea that you could have a whole pantheon even though that pantheon isn't understood to be like to comport with the Christian definition of God. >> Yeah. >> Is like something that he doesn't engage with. And then he doesn't get on some then he doesn't bring on Muslims because get a really strict Muslim they will tell you that like the trinity is like at least soft polytheism. >> Yeah.

¶209Yeah. >> Now no I mean we did now I mean we did have the Abu Dhabi declaration right between um Pope Francis and um I can't remember his name. the the gentleman who is the head of um Alazar which is like the premier center of she of um Sunni learning in the world >> but they sat down and came to an agreement that you know that basically the current Catholic understanding of the trinity isn't actually polytheism but they had to do some like really tight and really specific reasoning to come to that conclusion, right? And yeah, and Francis had to concede that be because see the the the the the trinity as it is described in the Quran is that the trinity consists of Jesus, God the father, and Mary. which actually was a heretical opinion that was floating around Arabia like at the time of Muhammad.

¶210So basically what Francis said was essentially well yes you know the definition of the trinity that is that is set out in the Quran is incorrect and that if someone were to believe that that would be idolatry but we don't believe that so therefore that's not idolatry right but the point is is that you had like They really sat down and wrestled with that for a long time. And the fact that Joe was not willing to engage with Muslim philosophers and Muslim apologists who are doing that kind of thing at a very high level. And I think he would have learned something from them. >> Yeah. is I mean it's kind of like he wasn't [snorts] challenging himself like he was challenging himself but only up to a point and that point was the point that he couldn't pile up enough evidence for Catholicism that he could just come home.

¶211>> Yeah. and like the the right-wing Muslims would would give the evidence of like linguistic miracle in in the Quran, right? So, it's like why not examine that miracle too, right? If you're doing that. >> Yeah.

¶212And again, if you're really that committed, like if if your whole thing is like, I am committed to monotheism and a non-embodied god, you know, you have to at least investigate is it's like my brother, you have to at least investigate Islam. You can reject it, but you have to at least, you know, if you're like, I'm going to be the hardest core monotheist I can be, it's like Islam has got you. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. >> Okay.

¶213Yeah. I'm going to hit play again. Lazy or something like that on the cover. Yes. Cameron made that for me.

¶214Cameron Buzzi. And then the ones where it's like William Lane Craig and Spinoza on the cover as well as Aquinus and um Grappy on the cover, those were made by Steven Woodford. So thanks to them. Matus says, "Congress, love the work that you do and how you inspire people to study philosophy." Well, that really does mean a lot to me. So thank you, Matus.

¶215I have three brief questions. One, what do you think of Planning's evolutionary argument against naturalism? So, I'm not convinced by the argument and there's a really nice critical appraisal that would summarize a lot of the things that I would want to say and it articulates them in clear fashion and so on much more rigorously and better than I can do here. So, it's published by philosopher Troy Cross. It's called onplanting on belief in naturalism.

¶216This is freely available online. All you need to do is search up on planting on belief in naturalism and it will pop up. It's on field papers and there's a free PDF that you can just click and read. So, I highly recommend you guys to check this out. All of you who are interested in the evolutionary argument against naturalism.

¶217Do you participate regularly in any religious ritual like mass every Sunday for example? Uh so I occasionally go to mass with my family. Yes, but it's only occasional. Uh I also pray conditional prayers largely because I think that that's eminently rational as an agnostic. Indeed failing to do so may be irrational as an agnostic.

¶218Sabah Jafar, I'm sorry. Congrats. My question is >> okay again. Okay. We we we will find out in a subsequent video that Joe had not told his parents that he was an agnostic.

¶219And that level of living in the closet is like that just is not psychologically healthy for anyone. Like I'm just going to say that right. Like if you c if you are having to hide that much of how of who you are from your family um that's an issue. There's also the fact that, you know, he was going to mass. Um, you know, I don't know if he was, you know, I I don't know if he was taking communion, um, how far he was participating, but he was at least going to mass whenever he was at home with his family.

¶220He was praying conditional prayers. I mean, this guy was as devout as like at least the bottom fif like he was in like at least like the middle like 50% of Catholics, right? Um, you know, I pray occasionally, I go to mass sometimes. There are a lot of believing Catholics that that is their practice, right? So, it's like, how far away was he?

¶221How far did he deconstruct? I don't think he deconstructed that far. I I I just don't, >> you know. >> Yeah, I think I think you are correct about that. Um, you know, I stopped the talking with Joe regarding um abortion and stuff like that because I thought, you know, I don't want to push him too much.

¶222Um, don't want to annoy him, right? So I would talk uh other like philosophical normal stuff. Um but I think you are right. Yeah. Uh that I think he did not deconstruct that much.

¶223>> Okay. Let's see what's the next thing. It's actually increase. Cheers and keep up the good work. So, regarding cosmological arguments, I'd say yeah, over the years I've come to have way more respect for several versions of the contingency argument, after reading P and Rasmuson, for instance, like very recently, as in the last few months, I've become unconvinced of two of their modal arguments from beginnings in their book necessary existence.

¶224I've actually got two papers under construction on them right now. Also, I've come to have a very high degree of respect for the new column with that is the column that relies on causal fitism. You can see my video with adherent apologetics for a brief summary of my reservations for the new column and for causal fitism. I also put that in my column playlist and more generally check out my column playlist. As for ontological arguments, so I used to think that they were quite uniformly poor, though recently I've come to have respect for certain potential symmetry breakers in the context of the modal onlogical argument.

¶225Indeed, I have a paper under review on this. Actually, two papers under review on that. Well, one of one of them is just my paper on modal arguments for moral realism. So that's not necessarily a paper on the modal ontological argument even though I talk about it in there but I do have a paper expressly dedicated to a new symmetry breaker for the modal ontological argument and I discussed that on capturing Christianity with Alex Okconor or cosmic skeptic as for teological >> yeah and just you know again to me this is just an illustration of you know he's talking about cosmological arguments but is he engaging with science? No.

¶226Is he reading about physics? No. It's all happening in this very abstract realm of formal philosophical arguments. Um, you know, and again, you know, he's hanging out with Alex Okconor. He's moving in these like, you know, very like, you know, the these are accounts with a lot of subs, right?

¶227these are, you know, like he's on the edge of the big leagues and I don't and while I don't think that what he's doing is a grift, I think that it couldn't have escaped his notice that there aren't as many like really successful skeptic channels as there used to be, right? Like if you're just arguing pure philosophy as a skeptic, that is a very small pond. >> Yeah. And you know, and I think that, you know, that that there may have actually that there may have been some, you know, legitimate practical considerations that made him say, you know, am I going, you know, am I going to be able to continue to work in philosophy as um, you know, a as as an agnostic. Um, and of course, you know, if he was already having emotional things going on anyway, that is totally the kind of thing that will push people to, you know, towards something that feels safe and familiar.

¶228Um you know and a lot of people have talked about like you know because it is in fact the case that like for example on college campuses um like um according and this is like actual like backed up by statistics numbers right um colleges are right now reporting that the OCIA season that has just started is like 100 or 110 or or 80% you know like big number like approaching doubling their numbers right of people that were converting this year right it's jumped last year was like 100% increase over the previous year so we're actually getting to the point where the Catholic Church is growing just based on conversions. And I feel like a lot of that is coming to the point where people are looking for institutions. They're looking for structure and the Catholic Church is right there and it's having a moment. And I don't think that as much as he is living in his own head that he's immune from, you know, just the fact that he's living in a society where people are looking for meaning and they're looking for structure and they're looking for institutions. And a lot of young people are turning to the Catholic Church.

¶229Not even young people who were raised in a very devoutly Catholic environment. >> Yeah. >> Um, so, okay, I'm going to hit play again. Me, it's going to be like a contractualist theory of sorts. It depends.

¶230Mode Allah says, "What's your IQ?" I'm not answering that. Miriam Abdullah says, "Are you vegan?" I say, "Not currently." Senuishami says, "Will you do more formal debates?" I say, "Maybe." I tend to find formal debates a little bit too tribal for my liking, and they also take lots of preparation, and I already have bitten off more than I can chew in terms of my research and commitments and so on. Wesley Bassiner says, "What is your second favorite ear?" So, presuming that you're asking about my ears, I like them equally, so I I don't have a second favorite. Just Chris says, "Congrats, Joe. Uh, my question is, are there any non-filosophy YouTubers you watch?" The answer is actually, yeah, a little.

¶231So, only five come to mind here. And again, it's only a little like I don't have all the time in the world. I am a very busy individual, but yes, I will occasionally watch non-filosy YouTube. So, yeah, I put down five here because they're the only five that came to mind. Uh, one, Vsauce, of course.

¶232Number two, Veritassium, of course. Right. Number three, Ali Abdal. I like his stuff on productivity, etc. Number four, Sean.

¶233S h au n. He has nice rigorous researched social and political commentary. And then the measured response videos of h bomber guy. Those are the best. JL Kener 77 says, "Hi Joe, I love your channel.

¶234Please give us some history about your academic." >> Okay. Um you may be more um chat. Yeah, we we we still do have a chat actually. Um I was wondering if people were sticking it were sticking it out, although I suspect that some of them are where I would normally be at this time, which is watching Kip Davis's video where he's reading Hebrew. Um but um you know, chat or R.J.

¶235If you're familiar with those names, I I didn't recognize all of them, but all of them are like they're philosophy adjacent, >> you know? They're they're like they're people who are doing political or social commentary from like a very like philosophical lens, right? >> Yeah. Uh he mentioned like Vsauce, Veritasium, uh Sha Age Bomber guy. Yeah.

¶236Um they they they do seem pretty adjacent philosophy like Vsauce had some like uh philosophical um videos like uh and and just uh like on fear, right? There was this video on fear that he made and and also like uh um he like Vsauce makes um a lot of I guess um or like interesting content like that but it it is pretty close to philosophy. It's not it's not that far away. Sean is a is doing pretty much political philosophy political science. >> Yeah.

¶237So I mean it's like yeah um those YouTubers uh then Ali Abd Abdal right like on productivity. So I mean so like Joe Joy is like a four by4 GPA top student. Yeah. >> Like he is >> Oh, yeah. I I I Yeah, I would never I I am 100% not questioning his intelligence and I am not questioning his work e ethic at all.

¶238No, no, actually I I but by saying that I wanted to point out that um that is an a reason why it's always so intellectual and abstract and all that stuff like he's not experiencing other um important um things in life like art, music um right and all that. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. Well, and and our friend at um the um Lacantius Institute um mentioned, you know, um made the comment that um you know, Joe never considered real science. And I mean that's true, you know, and I think that that's particularly tragic, you know, in that um you know, we do live in the age of YouTube where if you're an intellectually curious person.

¶239I mean I know a lot of people who have who know a lot about like just some completely random subject because they decide I want to learn about the sea peoples right so they start watching you know videos that are being produc that you know are being produced by like archaeologists and by people you know like Eric Klene had you know has you can learn a whole lot. Now, you know, can you get really deep in depth? Not necessarily. But, you know, I I kind of feel like, you know, for example, like um totally not my field. I enjoy the heck out of, you know, shout out to Gutsick Gibbon.

¶240Shout out shout out to Dapper Dinosaur. Shout out to um Creation Myths with Dr. Dan Stern Cardinell where you know just by watching those videos I feel like I could probably pass like a college like freshman level like evolutionary biology class right like you know and obviously is that a high level of knowledge no it is not right but you know just by watching YouTube videos I understand a lot more about biology than I did five years ago. And you know, it's the same way if you want to learn Chinese cooking. You know, most people if they mention, you know, if you ask them what YouTube channels do you watch and they have a cooking channel they're into, they'll tell you about that, right?

¶241It's like it's like um you know, it's like in the Blues Brothers, you know, don't worry, we've got both kinds of music, country and western, right? >> Yeah. [laughter] you know, and and and and that's like what I'm getting from him is it's like I like philosophy and other time and other things that people do sitting around in their armchairs, right? >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶242>> Yeah. It's like it's like so I I also like philosophy is not the only thing that I do. It's it's more of a hobby. But my hobby is also like playing video games, right? Like I enjoy I enjoy that stuff.

¶243um um listening to music, TV shows, all that stuff, all that normal stuff. >> Well, and also don't don't sell yourself short. You are an engineer. And as [laughter] anybody on YouTube knows, when someone is an engineer, they are automatically endowed with the ability to understand and offer a hot take on any topic, >> right? But [laughter] like that that that is just a fact and that's why most of like you are actually the second engineer that I have had as a guest on my channel and there is a reason for that because engineers it's where it's at but and and and I'm partly teasing but you know but the point is is that there but the point is is that most people learn about, you know, a couple of things that aren't their particular subject of hyperfixation.

¶244Okay. >> Yeah. >> Background and family background. As such a young man, you're already so well versed in competent in many areas of philosophy. How did you become such a brilliant prodigy?

¶245Well, thank you for the kind words. I don't feel that I fully merit them. I'm always returning to Isaac Newton's famous line that if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. But I guess here's a little bit more on my academic background. I mean, I've had the nice privilege of going to private Christian schools where I got a very nice education, small classes, teachers who really cared.

¶246>> I I I just wanted to pause and say, okay, notice how he said Christian schools here, right? >> Yeah. at a point where he was still promoting himself as an agnostic. He's down he's down he he's being non-specific. And I think that that that part of that is it's like he's trying to distance himself emotionally from Catholicism and not, you know, quite, you know, kind of just downplay that a little.

¶247>> Okay. But but let's listen to him talk about his schooling, right? >> About my development and so on. I got to take theology classes basically every day, which exposed me to thinking quite abstractly and thinking in terms that are close to philosophy of religion. When I got my little iPod touch when I was like in fourth grade or something, I downloaded lots of apps that I had fun on like Doodle Jump, but also Instagram because that's what all the cool kids were doing.

¶248And uh yeah, I mainly just went on there and debated with random strangers on the internet, you know, probably 30, 40 year olds, etc. or 20 year olds. Okay. Whom amongst us has not gotten into a weird slap fight on some random part of the internet and then at some point figured out that the person that we are talking to is like in elementary school. >> Yeah.

¶249>> Then gone My child, does your mother know what you are doing right now? >> Yeah. >> And you know, I will admit like, you know, as someone who was basically around for the entire birth of the internet, right? There is something that is really useful about having spaces that you can just show up in. And as long as you have done the work and you have something reasonable to say, people will listen to you and people will take you seriously.

¶250But at the same time, I think that what he's talking about here is kind of illustrating how at a very young age, he got hooked on debate and he got hooked on philosophy and he and it's like, how are you such a prodigy? It's like because he focused on one thing, right? >> Yeah. Obsessively. obsessively, right?

¶251It's like, you know, as as we all know who h who has memoriz who knows the most about dinosaurs, >> three-year-olds and people with PhDs in paleontology, right? [laughter] >> Like that's it. >> And um and I found forums where it was really substantive conversations. It wasn't just like poo flinging back and forth. It was actually paragraph upon paragraph comment sections.

¶252I remember distinctly these sorts of discussions I had. They were very substantive and uh cordial and so on. Somehow I I stumbled into the right places. So yeah, that interest I was always on that. I was always doing that, you know, continually taking challenging classes in high school.

¶253For those of you who know, there's this thing called the international balora program or IB. It's similar to AP, but but at least by my lights, it focuses less on like wrote memorization and stuff than AP. I think there's a lot more writing, etc. in IB, but anyway, set that aside. So yeah, I did like the full IB program in high school and that really pushed me and really developed and honed my academic skills, my critical thinking skills, my writing skills, dialoguing with philosophers throughout this time, you know, like emailing Josh Rasmmanson back and forth and back and forth, reading papers, books, etc., watching substantive content on YouTube, including free courses.

¶254There are so many free courses that I've taken over the years just for fun. So I think a large part of it is just a love for learning. And it's unfortunate that our education system is >> Yeah. Again, he's talking about a love of learning, but he doesn't seem especially broadly read, right? like it's like he he had and and I'm certainly not going to like it's probably to my detriment that I am, you know, as you know, fascinated with as many things and want to learn about as many things as I possibly can >> because there definitely is a need for specialization.

¶255>> Yeah. But when you're like, I want answers to the really big questions and you're not going broad. You're just like, I know my life and philosophy of religion. >> Yeah. >> It's like, are you It's like, are you really searching for truth?

¶256>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's it's also like you you look into like okay psychology, neuroscience and stuff like that but here's the thing right when you actually so as you said right I'm an engineer um and when you go outside you see because in academia there is like very strict rules very formal environment and stuff like that but when you go outside in like industry you find bull, some [ __ ] some annoying things, some bizarre things, some stupid stuff, some stupid rules. Um, and and what that shows you is sometimes you have to think about systems, right? And and not just, you know, uh I guess um not just, you know, just be hyperfocused on something.

¶257You need to >> yeah you need to kind of broaden yourself and and also like it also leads to a kind of interaction where you have to manage your um truth seeeking I guess [laughter] because it's like um your higherups told you to do something do it just do your job >> like don't don't try to sometimes because it's sort of um like because in engineering um sometimes it might intersect with like politics um and so you have to be like like yeah as you said right like he's not he's not that much familiar with the um the kind of world that industry that people in industries and like um usually other than philosophy whatever people do, [laughter] how they manage their lives. So, it's like >> Yeah, exactly. Okay, I'm going to hit play again. >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶258Gods is an excellent book and it's so underappreciated. Also, another book that's super underappreciated, potentially because it's too expensive, but you know, there are ways to obtain it without paying all that money. Not going to say anymore. But the book is called Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy. Beautiful, amazing book.

¶259I highly recommend that one. Okay. Joseph White says, "Congrats, Joe. 10K and Counting. My question is, what do the varieties and kinds of religious/spiritual/mistible experiences stir up for you?" Well, they're suggestive and they're fascinating, and I don't deny that people who have them may very well have strong evidence for God's existence or for the existence of whatever was the intentional object of their experience.

¶260Epistemically speaking though, I do have some reservations or worries about their evidential efficacy. And I articulate some of these worries in my 100 plus argument video, the 12-hour long one. Again, just look at the timestamps. This person continues saying, "Not looking for you to come to any position, but what are your thoughts when you consider these experiences? Have you encountered any mystical or spiritual experiences in your own life?" So, I haven't encountered anything like mystical experiences in my own life.

¶261Have I had religious experiences which is you know much broader than mystical experience a very specific type of religious experience. So yeah I think so probably. I mean they're only like the very vanilla kind. You know they're pretty tame shall we say. Basically when I was younger I just think I felt as though God exists or I had a feeling at times when I was for instance reading scripture or other sorts of things.

¶262I like felt as though God had spoken to me or called me to a certain path. And perhaps I even felt in some vague and emotional sense God's presence maybe at some points. This was rare, but I do think I did have such feelings or experiences. I mean, none of them I don't think were anything that couldn't be explained by the various social and emotional features of worship and adoration services etc. such as, you know, music, a social setting, hyped up state of mind, contextual factors and so on.

¶263Kia or Haya says, "Assuming the presentist model of time, the future does not yet exist even for God. So there are no true facts. Okay. Um I just wanted to pause real quick there and um I'm gonna um go out of screen sharing because um we're actually at the end of this we're we're actually at the end of the relevant parts of this video. Um but you know again I I I I really want to contrast what he was saying when he was talking about like um okay um you know I had these religious experiences but you know it was just kind of whatever and I can kind of dismiss them because it just, you know, this was a thing that I felt, but I don't really have concrete evidence.

¶264And I really want to contrast that with what he ends up saying um in his conversion to Catholicism video. [laughter] >> Yeah. Um, and um, I know it it's it's um, it's it's I know it's getting late. Um, we've been doing this for a while. Um, >> I I I kind of Do Do you want to try to at least start his like big conversion announcement?

¶265>> Uh, yeah. Um, do you want me to share my screen? >> Um, yeah. Oh, do um [snorts] yeah, I I I will go into screen sharing. >> Okay, >> and we will um and I will bring up Oh, I thought I had that video.

¶266Um okay, so here we go. Here is Joe converting to Catholicism. Although I'm not entirely sure how it counts as although I'm not really sure if converting is quite the right word when you've you know when you were baptized Catholic went to 12 years of Catholic school and like just didn't go to mass all that regularly when you were in college if converting is quite the right word. But um >> reverting, I guess, >> reverting. Okay, but let's >> ripping each other to shreds and just suffering and languishing.

¶267>> And it was just so hard for me to mesh that with belief in an all good, all powerful. >> Yes, I do. >> This problem of evolutionary animal suffering just like gnawed at me for quite some time. >> Oh, um somebody asked about my shirt. Yes, I I am wearing my DEI sheep sheet t-shirt.

¶268It it it's the lamb of God. Um because you can't say dei without de. Okay. Really bothered me. And you know, one thing led to another and soon enough I was just like voraciously consuming debates and content online concerning theism versus atheism and Christianity versus non-Christianity and and whatnot, you know?

¶269So, I was just like watching William Lane Craig debates and watching the new atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, etc., etc., right? Those dirty newists, right? That was a joke. Okay. Thmama.

¶270After some time, the the problems for theism and Christianity just kept mounting and mounting and eventually I lost my faith. That happened sometime around 10th grade. I came to conclude that atheism is true. So, God does not exist. Okay, 10th grade again, >> you know, and and and I don't want to like poo poo the kinds of, you know, things that people go through when they're in high school because a lot of people, you know, they will go through a religious conversion or a religious deconversion, right?

¶271But at the same time, it's like this is such a common experience. This is something that people do all the freaking time, you know? This >> same [laughter] I I also did the same like >> Yeah. Yeah. I I mean that this was like, you know, this was me in high school.

¶272This was this was a lot of people in high school, right? And it it's and I think that that's one of those things that like makes Joe feel so young to me is the fact that he's having this experience that like obviously he feels like I am like I am experiencing this for the first time. No one else in the human history has ever felt the way I feel. And it's like my dude, like th this is like the most like basic [ __ ] Catholic experience that you could practically have. Like there is nothing more Catholic than falling away from the church in high school and then coming back in your mid20s.

¶273[laughter] Like the only thing that would make him more Catholic is if his next step is to go into the seminary. [laughter] And in fact, I am willing like like like I I am willing. It is always very dangerous for um for Christian for for um historians to or scholars of religious studies to make a prediction. However, I am going to make a prediction and that prediction is that within the year a as soon as he has graduated, Joe is going to go into the seminary. Um, oh, also since we were discussing t-shirts for a second, um, the t-shirt that he is wearing right there, um, it says 16670.

¶274And then underneath that, you'll you might be able to see that when he moves a little bit, it says orura pronobus, which means pray for us. Um 1 16670 was the number that um Maxim that St. Maximleian Cob was assigned um when he was put into a concentration camp. Um there are the there's debate among people whether using the number of a Holocaust victim is appropriate. Um some people feel like the Nazis were giving them that number to dehumanize them.

¶275So you should never use the number and always say their name. There are other people that say no, use that number as a way of saying that um anybody um has the you know that like that that person never lost their humanity even when they were a number they never lost their humanity. So, use the number, right? Um, and you know, Maximleian Colbe was an example of someone who, you know, chose to die for someone else in a concentration camp. There is, you know, nothing that you can say to denigrate Maximleian Cob, right?

¶276I'm not talking about Maximleian Colbe, right? all respect for him, >> but the way that a lot of traditional Catholics are really into Maximleian Cob, it's almost like they're trying to like play this super this superessionist game and appropriate the Holocaust for Catholic purposes. And that to me is really really icky. Um, and because there is a way of talking about Maxim Maximleian Cob in a Catholic context that basically says dur in the 1940s there were some people who got it wrong and there were some people who got it right. And Maximleian Colbe got it right.

¶277Be like Maximleian Colbe, right? Don't be like Pas the 11th. Be like Maximleian Colbe. Don't be like Pas the 12th. Be like Maximleian Colbe.

¶278If you find yourself in that situation, that is what you should do, right? But when you set that in the past, it it becomes this very triumphalist. Oh yes, Catholics will always do the right thing >> without questioning, am I right now doing the right thing or am I just like taking somebody's number and slapping that on my chest as stolen valor? >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶279And these are questions that I have about Joe and about a lot of traditional Catholics. Um >> specifically in relation to Maximleian Colbe. >> Yeah. >> And again, you know, we're we're talking, you know, and but when he talks about, you know, his his concern with the problem of evil and suffering, right? It's very abstract.

¶280It's not, you know, why did this happen to me? Why did my little brother get sick? It's not personal. >> Yeah. >> I it it's just it's so abstract in a way that's just profoundly weird to me.

¶281year of grad school I started coming across overwhelming evidence for miraculous phenomena. I mean it started with certain people making videos about like our lady of Zetune you know this apparition of topoptic orthodox church that literally like hundreds of thousands of people saw in addition to tons of medically documented healing miracles. >> Okay. again, Our Lady of Zetum, right? Um, is a miracle I is a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary that took place in Egypt.

¶282There are a lot of photographs that are very blurry. Um, I don't so much, you know, I I don't want to, you know, again, th this is not necessarily the time or um, you know, the place to get into Our Lady of Zetun discourse, but the point is is that Our Lady of Zetun was a Coptic miracle. Now, I'm not, you know, willing to say that, you know, this apparition of the Virgin Mary is Coptic, so therefore it's fake. This apparition of the Virgin Mary is Greek Orthodox, therefore it's true. What I am noting is that if you are looking for proof of the truth of Christianity and the best and most persuasive apparition that you've got is Coptic, why did you not investigate Coptic Orthodoxy?

¶283Um, just saying. just saying it >> was associated with it. Another thing that kickstarted my journey here was that my friend Cameron Btusi was interviewing a bunch of different like professional psychiatrists and deliverance ministers and exorcists and various other people who are on the periphery of deliverance ministry concerning demonic phenomena and manifestations they've witnessed with their own eyes. And like here we're talking about like super recent in totally perceptually conducive circumstances with sane people sometimes in the context of like multiple or even dozens of witnesses and like things that it seems like it's really hard to be mistaken about and which are like these you know complex multimodal experiences where like you know the temperature of the room would just like instantaneously drop to freezing such that the person could literally see their breath and then become scorching hot such that everyone in the room >> I also have seen episodes of ghost hunters And I mean, and okay. Um, I I I I'm sorry.

¶284I I'm putting on my chapel veil now because I I'm feeling like I'm being like Catholicism mogged by his um superior um t-shirt drip. So um I I'm throwing on the chapel veil to indicate that I am also speaking in maximum Catholic mode right now. I am Hi Tupo. I am not dismissing the possibility of miracles or the possibility of demonic possession as things that could occur in the world. What I am saying is that lacking reason to like accept the credibility of these celebrity exorcists, of these people in deliverance ministries, of people who have been shown to be completely willing to um exaggerate, to fudge the truth to um you know basically uncritically accept anything that they're told and then to pass on those stories over and over and over again.

¶285Um, I just I I I'm I'm really shocked by the amount of just sheer credul that he is applying to this you know in the sense that you know in any other field you know like because you know sometimes you know in the study of religion you have to say, you know, did the prophet Jeremiah really have a vision? I don't know. I don't have any way of evaluating that. But can we have a conversation about whether the text and yes, I I'm bringing up Jeremiah just to troll Kit just to just to troll Dr. Kip a little bit, but you know, can we talk about okay, is what is written down in the book of Jeremiah [clears throat] downstream of a real vision that a real dude had.

¶286That's a conversation you can have. Evaluating what was going on in Jeremiah's little brain is much more difficult, right? And that's kind of where we are with this is that he's got people who are making claims and he has to have some kind of an of an epistemology for evaluating those claims. And basically he's got these celebrity exorcists who have all of the benefit on their side comes from telling these stories. And the more extravagant the better.

¶287Um, you know, at a certain point it's like if you are using this as, you know, I've got more chips in the theist pile than the atheist pile. Like, trust me, bro, does not cut it. And frankly, as you know, someone who really does own one of these and really does wear it to church, this is why I think miracles are really the worst reason to decide to be Christian because there's always an element of falsifiability. So, but but but but let's just listen to him talk about this stuff, right? just starts like sweating and testifying to things like, "Oh, you know, like a few days ago, I literally saw with my own eyes and multiple people present also saw it and they told me afterwards where like multiple things are just flying across the room of their own accord and various other like instantaneous supernatural changes in facial structure or eyes or various other things like levitation and so on." And I didn't actually believe these things for the longest time.

¶288I thought it was actually pretty implausible. But Cameron just kept pushing me. He was like, "Yo, watch the video. what's your explanation of this person's testimony? You know, I'd like give these flailing kind of implausible naturalistic explanations concerning which I have no independent evidence.

¶289And you know, basically I'm like having to divine from the armchair that these people are just like lying straight to their teeth. And then also like all the other deliverance ministers are in it and these other psychiatrists are in it. And then like also you know like the the government reports that we have to some of these phenomena are also like that the people who testified in those are just mistaken and then like dozens of other I was starting to shift in my seat. I was starting to become uncomfortable and that was just like the first of my worries because over the course of my second and third year of grad school I was just utterly inundated with overwhelming evidence for miraculous phenomena. And like the caliber of evidence that we're talking about here is not like oh I prayed and my headache got better.

¶290It's like okay okay Susie like I'm glad your headache got better but not not quite sure that's a miracle. Instead we're talking video. >> Okay. Why doesn't that count as a miracle? I I I I mean chat, if I pray and my headache gets better and I attribute it to God, how is that any different than somebody say than somebody attributing these sp say the spontaneous remission of cancer to prayer Because the spontaneous remission of cancer is something that also happens medically even when people aren't praying even when people aren't praying for it.

¶291And I I mean you could imagine a really fun like double blind study where you have like a group of Hindus and a group of Catholics and they each get assigned like 10 cancer patients and they pray for them and you see like does that make a difference, right? I mean we you you you could theoret and and people have actually designed these exper experiments and one of the things that actually ends up being a problem with them is that the experiments on the e efficacy of prayer don't take into account what the person thinks that being prayed for is going to do. Right? whether is this going to produce a complete miraculous healing or is this just like going to give me the strength to go with it, right? Is this going to like give it like an extra like little to the medical treatment?

¶292>> Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, all of these are but the point is is that you could actually like control for what does the person think that being prayed for is going to accomplish, right? You could come up with a really cool double blind experiment about this. >> Yeah.

¶293Um, and you know, again, um, I'm not sure that, you know, as he puts it, Suzie, and why is it always a woman in these experiences when they want to just dismiss it, right? Um, why is Suzy saying, "I prayed and my headache went away," more persuasive than like Chad Ripener saying, "Yeah, dude. I totally went into this room and it was totally really cold and then it was really hot. And how is that more persuasive than the guys on Ghost Hunters who have the weird blurry, you know, like [gasps] on their, you know, recordings on their um tape recorders. So I would also say like Joe Joe talks about um I have no independent evidence of the particular naturalist explanations for the particular miracles but I would always think that wait um there are so many miracle flames so many across religions right cross-culturally now some of like many of these sorts of miracles or at least I guess some of them, right?

¶294Some of them have been shown to be um clever tricks, right? Or or some kind of psychological um like phenomena where people are like exaggerating what they saw. Again, unconsciously exaggerated. >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶295That's the thing is that you you don't have to believe that people are engaging in deliberate fraud >> to believe that people are you know um coming that that people are not correctly reporting what they experienced >> and and you do not even have to assume that they are mentally ill. >> Right. >> Right. Because normal people under certain circumstances um exaggerate stuff, right? Um there is this like group psychology and like u all sorts of things that that all sorts of cognitive biases that are there.

¶296And another thing about memory is that like um I think Alex Okconor made this very good point. So um um he was talking with I think some kind of a Christian theist and Alex Okconor asked uh can you tell me what I said exactly five minutes ago? Exact word to word what I said just five minutes ago. And he pointed out that and he pointed out that uh our memory even just five minutes ago cannot you know clearly exactly match what was said by another person. So like it's just it's just so much Yeah.

¶297credul credul as you say, right? Like it's um it's like um like what what just happened there, right? Um it's it's just sad to see, you know. Um >> yeah, completely. Okay, I'm going to hit play again.

¶298was photographs, blinded laboratory analyses, X-rays, you name it, we got it's like we got blinded laboratory analyses saying, "Yeah, this is suffering myocardial tissue." And what's that doing in a host that a Catholic priest just prayed over? Like if you see that >> there. >> Okay. Yeah. And and again the thing with with the whole myioardial tissue thing is that what he is talking about is when people have examined a host and they have and it's they're saying under the microscope it resembles myioardial tissue and there are a lot of things that can look like mioardial tissue.

¶299Now there are you know I have to say there are a and the problem is too is that when these things get tested there's always the possibility of bias on the part of the researcher. >> Yep. >> Um very often it's like it turns out you know oh yeah we had you know we had a doctor examine it. Well, this isn't necessarily someone who is going to have the lab equipment, the expertise, and sometimes even just the desire to do all of the testing that could be done to um to um you know evaluate this thing. And particularly in the case of eucharistic miracles, it's complicated by the fact that there is a particular kind of red mold that produces a particular byproduct that when you test that mold, um, also it it like basically it has the same proteins that you get in human blood.

¶300So if you're just doing a like very like just the kind of basic lab analysis that you do to you know like say a police like say somebody collects like blood from a crime scene right and the first question is is this is this even h you know is this human blood or is this ketchup right? this mold will get past that first level of, you know, is this human blood or is this ketchup? And then, you know, and there is additional testing that you can do to figure out that this is mold. But there are naturalistic explanations. Um >> and and a point a brief point that I wanted to make.

¶301>> Yeah. >> Like he said like we have blinded studies and and I would think okay who did that >> right? >> Like who did that? >> Yeah. And yeah and that's the other thing.

¶302It it's the vague what what concerns me about his line of argument is the vagueness of the claims. Right. It's like it's there there are studies. Well, has he read those studies? Have the people that he's talking to read those studies?

¶303You know, ha has he done, you know, has he has he done his due diligence? And I'm not even saying that, you know, people are, you know, and I'm not saying, you know, checkmate theists, you know, if you haven't done the work, you don't get to believe. What I'm saying is if you're basing your religion on very specific miracle claims, then my brother in Christ, you better be able to back those miracle claims up. And I think that he I I think that he was looking for a reason to believe and I think he found that reason. And that's fine.

¶304But like this isn't, oh, I went on this grand quest for truth and I found truth. This is I wanted to have my beliefs reinforced and I went looking for faith affirming stories and I found faith affirming stories >> and and like some of these sorts of things that like could he not uh ask some of the more like skeptical people and like um engage four hours with skeptical people instead of like Ethan and muse or something. Um, >> and it's it's also like he's he's in Princeton University, so it's like ask the like biomed guys, uh, bio like molecular biology guys or something like they just talk to them, right? >> Yeah, exactly. I I mean like even if he like because like I have to say like if somebody handed me a report like a pathology report on a host I'm not going to know what to do with it.

¶305But, you know, if I'm at Princeton, I'm I'm going to walk down to the, you know, biology department and knock on some doors and be like, "Hey guys, can you read this and tell me what this says? And does this say what this guy is telling me that this report says?" Right. >> Yep. True. >> You know, and anyway, I'm going to hit play because I crashing out.

¶306>> Yeah. >> What am I supposed to do? You see that? I was like, "Oh no." It was on these healing miracles. It's like we got documentation to like complete instantaneous permanent remission of advanced multiple sclerosis in combination with an uncolapsed lung redefinition of calf muscles.

¶307An instantaneous removal of blindness at the same time. Oh, all in connection by the way with like a complex hallucination. Oh, and I know actually like a religious experience of like a booming voice saying, "Get up my child and walk." Like that's the level of evidence that we're talking about. And then for some of the canonization healing miracles for which medical documentation is required. It's like we got pictures of the dude beforehand with his severe bilateral congenital club foot.

¶308We have pictures from his childhood. You can see them and he's like we have testimonies from all like his friends and whatnot and his teachers like to the effect that he'd always have to like walk on the sides of his ankles and whatnot. And we've got pictures of him throughout childhood that oh and then he prays to one of these Catholic saints and then afterwards both of his legs are straight and completely healed. It's like okay this is insane. you know, and it's like we've got X-rays afterwards and pictures afterwards.

¶309Okay, what's going on here? And then you just go through all these other >> and again, you know, we're at, you know, before we were at big numbers, therefore God. Now we're at spontaneous healing, therefore God. And one doesn't follow from the other necessarily. And even you know because you know he said you know like you know somebody says I prayed and my headache went away.

¶310Well that really isn't that different than saying I prayed and my um you know and I and whatever disease I had was cured. It's the same thing. Um, and the thing is is like actually Catholic medical miracles like depending on like Okay. Hi Tubo. Um, canonization miracles can vary wildly in quality.

¶311Um, for example, um, Mother Teresa, one of her canon canonization miracles was a woman who claimed to have been spontaneously healed of her cancer by um, after having prayer prayed to Mother Teresa. According to the woman's husband, she had gone through a complete course of chemotherapy. Now, maybe Mother Teresa helped a little bit, but we can't rule out the chemo, but the woman refused to like um but the woman swore up and down, "Nope, I don't have any medical records. I don't have any medical records. Was she lying?

¶312Was she just somewhat delusional? Was she rounding up? I don't know. Right. I don't know her motivations.

¶313What I do know is that when you have somebody who's a popular saint that there's a whole bunch of pressure to get that person canonized. Sometimes those canonization miracles are a little bit iffy. Or um Jose Maria Escrea who's the head of who well he's he he was the founder of Opus Day which is a very problematic cult that used to exist within the Catholic Church and has now been broken apart and reformed and hopefully they won't be abusing people anymore. But both of his healing member miracles came out of hospitals associated with his movement. So is there the possibility that maybe there was something in that report that was not quite on the up and up?

¶314I don't know. But I do think some skepticism is warranted. And again, when I'm saying this, I am saying this from the perspective of someone who's not willing to rule out the possibility of miracles and the perspective of someone who understands that in the Catholic Church, you like if it happened outside of the Bible, right? like any private revelation. So anything that happens like after the first century, you are not required to believe in any specific miracle.

¶315>> And that's I'm sorry. I just let me finish my >> Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. >> And that is my biggest problem with these miracle and demonobsessed traditional Catholics.

¶316It's the Catholic equivalent of young earth creationism. It's requiring people to believe things that may not be true and that may well be falsifiable and that may be the result of mistake, maybe the result of misreporting, maybe the result of exaggeration. And it's telling people like Joe, well, but Our Lady of Zetun happened, so it's real. And as soon as you pull out, you know, one of those proofs, right? As soon as you find out, well, Zetun was fabricate, you know, I I if if the guy who faked the Zetun miracle came forward tomorrow and explained exactly how he did it, that starts to damage people's faith.

¶317So, don't create problems for people. Don't do things that are going to make angry atheists. Especially not if you're a theist. If you're saying you want to make theists, don't do things that make theists into angry atheists when they find out they've been lied to. Okay.

¶318I I'm sorry. That was my rant. Um I'm >> one thing I want to point out. So um I was raised a Hindu, right? And uh one of my friends, no I think two of uh one of my friends and another one is uh my cousin.

¶319They individually saw uh demonic possession in a particular exorcist temple. Hindu Hindu exorcist temple, >> right? >> Yes. Yes. He Oh, by the way, Hindus get demonp possessed and get exorcisms all the time.

¶320>> Yeah. Yeah. And >> like >> and like around that time these my cousin and my friend would like ask me how do you explain that? So like one of the things they told me like there was this uh lady there was this woman who was demonically possessed and she drank a massive uh um um water in in like this massive what's the English word for the for it I guess massive bowl and uh they said like that's that's just that that has to be a demon right And uh I would always think well interestingly if you there are a bunch of videos of like some people who have this sort of ability where they can actually drink a large amount of water and then after a while they can take a lot a lot of their out. >> Yeah.

¶321[laughter] >> Like literally. >> Well yeah. Yeah. Like I've seen like some people from like Africa um in subsahar and Africa do that like it's it's a it's a trick it's a technique right and so like but if I did not know the technique I would even even when I did did not know about the technique I would think well something might be something natural is that is going on like I cannot explain it right now like the particular thing how it happened. But I think like the the skepticism that we have about like um like or we could say the view of like methodological uh naturalism or methodological materialism is that throughout history we have seen supernatural magical explanations get replaced by the more naturalist ones.

¶322Even in particulars and even in universe >> like there was a time when people believed that when rain happens a lot of rain happens maybe Zeus is angry right um and like they genuinely believe that right like they genuinely believe that some of these gods were angry um >> or in well I mean there was I mean there was a case like about 30 years ago in India where there was a terror terrible drought. >> And there was this guy like >> honest to God this guy went to the temple in his village and committed suicide like like he sacrificed himself, right? >> As a human sacrifice. And guess what? It started raining, [laughter] you know, and not and like that was like the end of the drought, right?

¶323The village he died and the village was saved. >> Yeah. >> Well, I mean, you know, like like you know, you you can go the the St. Paul route and say that that was a demon. But you know, but in terms of the logic of the religion of the people in that village, if you >> their goal, >> yeah, you know, if if there was a drought, somebody, you know, like literally gave up his life for the sake of his community.

¶324H >> and nobody starved. Everyone was saved. They got their crops, you know, and you can be skeptical about that, but you you know, at at a certain point, it's like you you're doing special pleading to believe in Christian miracles and not in that as a miracle. And you have to have some kind of a mechanism to explain that. Another thing I should mention just like a few months ago just or maybe just an year ago u my one of my siblings told me about like so um one of so they are Hindus right um >> and one of my Hindu siblings told me this u this like she saw it like she genuinely knows the person so the person who she knows had some kind of a horrible cancer like stage four um or something.

¶325Um they were given like a few months to live and they are alive for like seven or eight years and uh they were told to like worship Hindu gods in a particular way and they're still alive now. >> Yeah. So, I mean it's like is was there a demon that healed the cancer or like or like let him live for seven years, >> right? >> Yeah. And I mean, and and you know, of course, there's also the per the perennialist argument that says that, you know, God isn't going to abandon people just because they're Hindu.

¶326So, if people are, you know, being good people and praying for good things. So you can accommodate that within a Christian worldview, right? >> Yeah. >> There's all kinds of ways to do that. But the fact that he is uncritically accepting like these reports that are coming from people who have like real motivations for exaggerating for, you know, being like, "Yeah, just trust me, bro." and he's extremely skeptical whenever it's anything that's not a Catholic miracle.

¶327And again, ah yeah, sorry. >> And and again, he did not even like explore the Coptic Orthodox Church even though our lady of Zetun is a Coptic miracle. Maybe the c may the Virgin Mary likes the Coptic church more than the Catholic church because after all Zetun is a better miracle than Fatima. More people just saying. >> Yeah.

¶328Yeah. Even uh so like Fatima was like written by Ethan Muse in a blog post. But uh the but regarding Zaiton like a literal philosopher actual like who already has like PhD and all that stuff who publishes in like Phil papers actually published in um yeah I I think in some kind of respected journal or something I or maybe the book that was like wellliked or something and he's orthodox. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

¶329And there was also um with Zetun there was um an American anthropologist um who happened you know to be in the area and you know came and hung out and talked to people about the phenomena and she saw lights. Now she didn't see the Virgin Mary. um she just saw like you know some kind of lights in the distance and you know then people got really excited about it but she didn't report like any like you know be and she even noted that like there was no electricity like the street lights were not powered up in that area. There was no like obvious there there was no obvious source for the light, right? >> And you know she was like you know there was some you know inexplicable light and then her conclusion was basically there was inexplicable light and then belief did the rest right.

¶330>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and and so one important thing that I want to mention is that Joe converted to traditional Catholicism. He's he's not a perennialist, right?

¶331Um >> and additionally, the people in this kind of right-wing Abrahamic tradition actually have a motivation to convert other people to save them from eternal hell. >> Right. >> Right. like that they have this background threat, >> right? So like if if someone lies, they might think that they're doing it for the greater good and never, you know, >> never tell anyone that they lied throughout their death.

¶332Maybe they thought that they will go to hell for that lying, but they thought that it I would save many more people by lying. Right. >> Right. Or or >> they could think that. >> Yeah.

¶333Well, I I mean like and we and and the tragedy is that we know that this has happened because um you know in because one of the refrains of the child sex abuse scandal um was you know better that one child should suffer than that a hundred people should lose their belief. Right? >> So, it's we're going to keep this under wraps. We're not going to tell anybody because it would damage people's faith and that would be worse, >> right? >> And I mean, and that's a monstrous argument, but the point is there were people who were making that argument and were acting on that and who believed they were doing the right thing.

¶334>> Yeah. Yeah. For the greater good, right? Yeah, exactly. For the greater good.

¶335So when you know that you're operating in a system in which people are willing to lie for the greater good, right? Where it's I can tell this lie or I can create this situation where a million people might go to hell. The lie is better. Especially Yeah. And again, okay, we're talking about Catholics here, too, right?

¶336>> Yeah. >> It's like, you know, it's like you screw up and you go to confession, >> right? >> Yeah. >> Well, >> all you have to do in theory is say is go to confession and say, "Father, bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I lied." Right?

¶337And the priest might ask a few clarifying questions. But, you know, I'm not convinced that you couldn't get absolution, which if you're that kind of traditional Catholic, the fact that you were absolved of that sin, you're fine, right? And I mean, I'm not accusing any specific person of any specific thing. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> just saying that this is why I tend to be super skeptical of miracle claims >> because there's just there's too much potential.

¶338Anyway, I'm going to hit play >> cases and it's just insane and I just can't believe the conspiracy that I would have to posit in order to explain them all away. It just seems like the universe was conspiring to make it look like God exists. God is performing certain miracles. And not just miracles, but miracles that seem to vindicate distinctive Catholic doctrines. You got for instance very well evidence eucharistic miracles.

¶339You got extremely well evidence Marian apparitions like Fatima and Lords and Zetun where like Mary is like granting requests for conversion to Catholicism. She's saying, "Get the Holy Father to consecrate Russia outside of his jurisdiction, by the way, to my immaculate." >> Okay, that th this is one that he that that he keeps bringing up is like Lords involved the Virgin Mary telling the Pope to do something involving Russia. H >> even though Russia is not really a Catholic country. Well, I mean like I'm sorry, but like like you're talking about Catholics reporting a Catholic vision, you know? So the fact that like they're reporting that the Virgin Mary wants the pope to do something.

¶340It's not like I don't know Stalin woke up not Stalin at that point. Trosky, right? It's not like Leon Pratsky woke up in a cold sweat and said, "The Virgin Mary told me that the Pope needs to consecrate Russia to the immaculate heart, right?" >> [laughter] >> You know, I I if it had been Trosky, >> I mean, like, >> you know, like like if it had been Trosky, that would have like, you know, a a lot more um you know that that that that would prove a little bit more than like three Portuguese shepherds, right? I mean this this miracle is also like tactically sounds really weird like wait Russia is Eastern Orthodox right [snorts] the schism is still there it's not like um when you when pope says something Eastern Orthodox people would care and the other side other side is like the communists were atheists uh so it's like what the [ __ ] are you talking about >> right [laughter] right it's It's it's like what does the fact that like Russia is orthodox mean that like the pope doesn't have jurisdiction and therefore papal prayers involving Russia would somehow not be allowed without like special without like God giving you a hall pass. I I I mean like it's like the logic just isn't logicing.

¶341Um, somebody pointed out that um, the vindicate elements of Catholicism is an Ethan Muse quote. And I really wonder if part of this is just that, you know, he's made a friend and this relationship with his friend is really important to him. So, he's trusting Ethan. >> Yeah. >> Heart, thereby vindicating the immaculate conception which only Catholics dogmatize.

¶342And of course, you know, she's like, as I said, granting petitions >> again, you know, if I don't know, like, you know, I if a Baptist woke up and said, "Mary appeared to me and confirmed the immaculate conception." That would be news, right? Catholic announces that the Virgin Mary tells them that something that Catholics believe is true. I mean, it's nice, but it doesn't really prove anything, right? I mean, if you're going to believe in the immaculate conception, there are better reasons to believe in the immaculate conception other than trust me, bro. >> Yeah.

¶343[laughter] to convert people to Catholicism. She's like telling people to pray the rosary. Pray the rosary. So she's like advancing the cause of praying the rosary, which of course meditates on mysteries like the assumption and the coronation of Mary. Oh, and of course it's like it's Mary herself, the mother of God appearing to people.

¶344So like it's just shot through with Catholic vindicatory implications. And there are all sorts of reasons why naturalistic explanations aren't good and why demonic explanations aren't good. And that's just Fatima. Like it lures. who got married telling St.

¶345Bernardet Subaru like or however it is like we don't know if you want the she's literally saying to St. it. I am the immaculate conception. I mean, how much clearer could you possibly get? But did she offer her a croissant?

¶346No. No, she did not. She just talked to her and it was cool. But you know, again, you're talking about a Catholic in France after the immaculate conception has been promulgated as a dogma. Like, yeah, Catholics in France know about the immaculate conception, my guy.

¶347They just do. This doesn't prove anything except that people in France are Catholic. I think we knew that already, you know, because, >> you know, because again, people have, you know, somebody having a vision that reinforces their previously held religious position doesn't really prove that it didn't come out of their imagination. >> Yeah. And uh and uh did you see the debate that Ethan Muse had with like uh Anglican aesthetics Shian Luke um whether or not the m this miracle of Fatima was demonic or not?

¶348>> No, I I I I I try to avo um I I like I say, I try to avoid Ethan Muse and a lot of like the online apologetic stuff. M >> because like there are certain things like I mean I'm willing for example to defend the idea that there was somebody in Mexico in the 1830s who had some kind of a vision and somebody made an icon inspired by that vision and that there's like something real at the core of Fatima not Fatima at the core of right >> that there might be some like real instance there. So I'm willing so like I I'm willing to like >> be somewhat credulous about somebody had an experience, right? >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶349Yeah. So I would say like the debate was between basically a right-wing traditionalist Catholic and a right-wing traditionalist Protestant basic. And one of the good points that I think Shan made who is like a tra protestant is that historically and even now the Vatican would not even investigate a miracle if the miracle had some teaching that goes against the magisterium. >> Yeah. Well, it it's actually not so much that they won't investigate it.

¶350I've actually been doing a whole series on the norms for supernatural investigation on Tuesdays. >> But it's not that they won't investigate it. It's that as soon as they come up with something that isn't like Orthodox Catholicism, that's automatically grounds to like say, okay, this like that is a point that the Catholic Church considers to be like disproving, right? >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶351Yeah. It's like investigation is over, guys. This is >> Yeah. Well, well, or or like sometimes they'll say like, okay, like it was a real apparition, but the messages are fake, right? >> Yeah.

¶352[laughter] >> Yeah. Or it's like you can or or like with Fatima for example. Um ju just to dip into Fatima briefly. Um the third secret of Fatima was something that one of the thing that was interpreted to refer to an assassinate to the pope being killed. Right?

¶353>> And it was later interpreted to be the attempted assassination of John Paul II. and a and and Benedict and Benedict I 16th's explanation and this to me is something that's a brilliant example of how to deal with a failed prophecy, right? Benedict's explanation was that like basically people had been praying the rosary, people had repented, people had done all of these things. And so because of that, like the Virgin Mary just tapped the bullet like a couple of millimeters off of like its original faded trajectory. and that then therefore John Paul's life was spared.

¶354And that was his explanation. And I have to say, if you're looking for a really ingenious way to deal with prophecy, um, that's got to be on the list, right? is well it was gonna happen but then we repented [laughter] right I I I mean you you gota love the logic but the point is is that there were a lot of people were h that there are still people who are like fatim like and I'm talking about like devout Catholics who will privately be like I don't know about Fatima like the there like there was some weird stuff going on there. I don't know if I believe in Fatima. >> Yeah.

¶355>> Like like like it's it's actually really funny when you talk to Catholics because like everybody has their like ride or die Marian apparitions. >> Yeah. >> And then they have their Marian apparitions that they're like nah. Guadalupe 100% lolet nope that was fake. >> Yeah.

¶356>> And and what's particularly interesting is it's like there are some Marian apparitions like Fatima are like really traditionalistcoded. >> Yeah. Yeah. Like >> sorry. Go ahead.

¶357Go ahead. And and there are some that are like way more and then there are like some devotions that like traditionalist Catholics will not touch. Um and yeah it it like the and I hope that people who are interested will tune in on Tuesdays because I'm really getting into this and it it's be and I think it'll be a lot of fun. But anyway, I'm play >> Yeah. And then God just goes out of his way to perform like the most unprecedented string of like concentrated medically documented healing miracles in all of history at Lords.

¶358Just insane. Or, you know, if I want to be I want to be French. Oh, and God's also going like out of his way on multiple occasions on multiple different continents and in multiple different centuries. He's going out of his way to like make sure that when like a Cath >> Yeah. and he he he's he's going to rant about miracles for um another little bit here.

¶359So, I'm just going to roll it ahead to the next time stamp. Okay. Oh, I didn't hit play. I'm sorry. Of like a vast and diverse array of otherwise pretty striking and coincidental data, I started to see Catholicism in the same light.

¶360It's starting to seem to me that Catholicism just unifyingly explains all this miraculous evidence, the pattern of miracles, the individual miracles. And it also would make it not particularly surprising that I might be going systematically astray with respect to some of my moral intuitions or some my intuitions against hell or various other things like that. So I started to see Catholicism in much the same way that I saw theism. Of course, I [laughter] still had lots of objections to >> Okay, this is the part about his conversion that really really bothers me. Um, but I have to run to the bathroom.

¶361So, can you just talk about miracles for a second while I >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure.

¶362So interestingly um I was going to say um so I am I'm going to yap again chat. So um I would say like so in the debate between Shawn Luke and Ethan Muse, one of the important points that Sean made is that the um for a miracle for a miracle to be a miracle it should not um contradict the previous uh established doctrine or the cannon or the dogma that is um taught um for a long time or like there's a there's a consensus of the church father especially in regards to like faith and morals right so Shan basically made the point that look if a miracle contradicts a core doctrine or a core dogma then it cannot be said to be from God. Um so there could be wonders um performed by non- good entities. Um, it could be demons, it could be spirits maybe. Right.

¶363>> Okay. I I I'm back. >> Okay. Right. So, I was I was just talking about like uh Sean Luke basically made the point that uh for a miracle to be a miracle, it must not contradict the previous established uh core doctrines or core dogma.

¶364Exactly. And Sean basically made the point that Fatima contradicts uh one of the core tenets of uh um Christianity or at least his version of Christianity. And so it's it's a demon. >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶365Exactly. And you know, and that's something that Catholics and Protestants get into fights a lot about on the internet. Now, what I want to jump on here is he's talking about, you know, I had these objections to Catholicism that like centered around hell. The thing is is that within Catholicism like there is a position that's called um hopeful universalism that basically says that like you are allowed to hope that hell is empty. And like basically who you are required to believe is in hell is basically the fallen angels and Judas.

¶366Right? There is literally one person in human history that the Catholic Church is absolutely positive is in hell. One. That's it. in all of human history, one guy.

¶367Now, and according to the fan theory, the reason why Judas is in hell is because he would not believe that Jesus would forgive him for betraying him on the cross. Right. >> Because of despair. >> Yeah. Because of despair.

¶368It was like basically Judas is in hell because Judas thinks that he deserves to be in hell, right? >> Um and that is a perfectly defensible and orthodox Catholic position. It happens to be the position that I have, >> right? And that's how I manage to, you know, um, believe in a just and merciful God and in the existence of hell is I believe that it's mostly empty. >> Yeah.

¶369Um, >> and I'm sorry, but and what bothers me is that he like he does not consider that hopeful universalist position to really be on the table. It's like you're either talking about the majority of people going to hell or atheism. like those are the alternatives in his world. And it's like no, you know, you you the problem just accepting Catholic orthodoxy does not make things simpler for you. It doesn't unless you're a traditional Catholic, in which case everything is simple.

¶370>> Yeah. Um I guess I would say like uh um regarding like despair and eternal hell. One of the things I would I would think is that look God knows he made all this in the first place. He he knows before the decisions are made. He knows what human beings will do at specific point in time before they he created them.

¶371Right? And it's it's sort of like um like when he says like his intuitions changed um it's it sounds very strange to me because like yeah as you said right like why not just be a hopeful universalist and kind of like a CS Lewis type but the thing is you would notice that he's influenced by Ethan Muse Cameron Berthusi and like the traditionalist conservative people and uh they are usually the ones who are more um strict regarding what um inter regarding interpretations and stuff and um and regard so the whole thing with like um changing intuitions about hell was very strange to me because like I tried changing my intuitions about hell and every time I would imagine a scenario it would be positively ly disturbing even the you know the gates of hell are locked from the inside because it's like >> um it's it's sort of like what what exactly is hell like? Can you at least say something about it? So it's it's like yeah this was just um this was the most personally for me the most uh shocking >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶372Yeah. Exactly. And it's like a and especially when you are dealing with a tradition that is as broad and profound as Catholicism. It's like it's like basically his definition of Catholicism is what he learned at his like upper middle class like Catholic school. Like his upper middle class very conservative Catholic school and the online apologetics that his dad played in the car.

¶373um that to him is Catholicism and it's like no there is so much more going on. Catholicism. It was so hard to get through all of them. You know, like I had objections to hell and I had objections to the Bible and I had objections to the moral teachings of the church and I I magisterial objections and whatnot, but just >> Okay. Um I hate to disappoint anyone who's hoping for him to explain what his objections are to the Bible.

¶374Um because he does not say um he does not say in this video and he doesn't say very much in other videos. Just over the course of yeah those two or so years I just started looking into the objections further and and they just started to wayne. And so in addition to like reading theology and philosophy and you know magisteriology, in addition to all of that, I watched lots of YouTube videos, but also I would just sit down for like hours on end with my my good friend Ethan Muse and we would just go back and forth and back and forth on these various objections and the most >> and yeah, so he talks about, you know, like he keeps talking about, you know, I kept talking to Ethan Muse and all I can imagine is that Ethan was saying, "Well, can you explain this?" And I'm like, "Well, no, I can't explain it because I'm not a biologist." >> Yeah. Yeah. >> But that doesn't mean that I can't listen that I can't find a biologist.

¶375It doesn't mean that I can't read like what biologists have written. You know, it it's just like how serious. >> And Ethan Muse himself converted to Catholicism before he like did this all this miracle stuff uh writing. >> Yeah. Before it was like Ethan went to to get his um you know, Ethan wanted his faith affirmed and he found stories that affirmed his faith, which you know, fine, good, good, good for him, right?

¶376>> Yeah. But at the end of the day, like um it's it's like wh that really, you know, it's like where does that really get you, you know, other than what is that? What are all these miracles doing other than a way to to shut up your cognitive dissonance? >> Yeah. And regarding hopeful universalism, what you said um Katie is that I do think that even a single person ending up in eternal hell, there is something very disturbing or uncanny about that.

¶377It's like why him specifically? Like what's going on here? And like of course the the the the point is that um it it was he betrayed God, but like it's it's sort of like >> Yeah. >> Um Oh, yeah. >> Just something.

¶378Yeah. >> Yeah. And and like I'm not I I I I'm not saying that hopeful universalism is going to be a like satisfactory answer for everyone, right? Yeah. >> Like >> like like I understand the people who say, you know, well, for Judas it might as well be 100%.

¶379Right? Like I'm, you know, I I'm willing to, you know, like I'm willing to accept the fact that, you know, for that that's not a satisfactory answer for everyone. >> Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, but it's something that ultimately, you know, but I'm just saying like that's how I've made my peace with it.

¶380>> Yeah. >> But also, you know, I tried. Like I didn't just like flip this switch in my head and go, "Oh, well, God exists. Therefore, the fact that the vast majority of people who have ever existed are experience, you know, they they're alive for a few years and then they're suffering for eternity. >> Yeah.

¶381>> Like that that problem doesn't go that problem gets worse when you believe in God, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. And you might like Jordan Daniel Wood. Have you heard about him?

¶382>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay.

¶383I I I I'm I'm gonna hit play because I I I want to try to at least get through his conversion video tonight. I know we've been at this for hours and hours and we're all getting tired, but I I want to at least put this video to bed. Um before we go. >> Oh god. Um really influenced me.

¶384And then in addition to that, I had these like quasi religious experiences where I was just like I'd just be sitting in gym and I would just feel almost in waves just like this sense you could be a saint. You could be a saint. I didn't actually like [laughter] >> somehow was what's being communicated. >> He had this he had this in a [ __ ] gym. [laughter] No, I say it it and and again like when he was talking about like you know a a few years ago when he was talking about oh yeah like it would have to be like some profound experience, right?

¶385But as soon as he's at a point where he actually wants to believe, where he's actually working on this process, like something that a lot of people might say, "Yeah, dude, that was just like a really good runner's high, you know, like you're exercising and you know, you start feeling like, yeah, like I can do anything. I can go to heaven." I mean, and and not to say that he didn't have a genuine experience, but it's like this was not the evidence that you were asking for. >> Yeah. And I mean, like, it's so Look, I I'm not making fun of him. It's just so it's like it's like this uh just sounds so strange like in a [ __ ] gym you have that experience in a gym.

¶386Well, well, and and [laughter] it's also like this kind of reminds me of, you know, like somebody will have a bad breakup >> and then like they rush out and they like, you know, marry like the first person that like asks them out, right? Like you break up with someone and then like the next month they like go off and like marry some person they've known for two weeks, right? >> Yeah. And it's like, you know, I it's like, so was this about you being in the right place in the right time and thinking about it and settling down, or did you just decide, I'm going to get married and the first person who was willing to say yes was good enough? Right.

¶387It's like Yeah. It it's like when you don't want it's like when he didn't want to be a theist nothing was proof and then when he wanted to be a theist everything was proof >> almost like can waves and at the same time I was being convicted of my sin I was just seeing the manifold ways in which I >> okay convicted of my sin that is language that you will only hear from a traditionalist Catholic. And that is language that traditionalist Catholics picked up from evangelicals. >> Yeah. And like convicted of sin, like do did you like murder or rape people, mass murder someone?

¶388Like what? [laughter] >> No. Well, no. And and that and that's why convicted of my sin is such like a term of art, right? [laughter] it it's like like a a a more normal Catholic way to say it was, you know, I I started feeling guilty, right?

¶389I started realizing the weight of my sins, right? Because that's what the idea of convicted is is the idea that like you did something bad and now you feel bad about it and okay, >> seriously fall short of how I'm supposed to live. And so God was here just launching like a full frontal assault on me to get me converted, right? Like he's just like putting all these like overwhelmingly beautiful and inspiring saint stories on my radar. He's making them have a significant impact on me.

¶390Um he's like, >> "Okay, um I realize that a lot of people here are pretty new subscribers. Um, I've running a series I was running a series on Tuesdays where I was talking about stories about saints, right? Which are a huge thing in the Catholic Church. There are so many stories about saints, right? God didn't have to work very hard for you to notice stories about saints because if there is any one thing that Catholics love universally is stories about saints, right?

¶391All this means is like I started paying attention. You know, it's like somebody like discovered Star Wars for the first time and oh my god, did you realize there's like 12 movies and three spin-offs, right? It's like, yes, there are stories about saints, giving me these like quasi religious experiences kind of calling me to saint. He's given me this like weird almost indescribable magnetic attraction to Catholicism. Um, and his frontal assault succeeded in changing my heart.

¶392You know, at some point in every conversion, someone goes from that reaction that I said earlier like, "Oh no." Like there's so much evidence for gals. It's like, "Oh my gosh." You know, you look at the miracles and then got this cognitive dissonance like you're like, "Oh no." At some point you go from that to like, "Oh man, this is so wonderful. This is so beautiful." you have a change of heart. >> And again, what I'm just going to play the >> and so God effectuated that within me. And so it was the combination of the kind of head factors and the heart factors that ultimately culminated in that general confession.

¶393Okay, I am going to stop there because we've been going at this for like for over four hours. >> Yeah. >> Um we we've we've been doing this for a hot minute. Uh and I and my my I I I have, you know, I I have a family that >> Yeah. is [laughter] afraid that I've been locked in here with you guys for this long.

¶394>> Um, I have dogs that need to go for a walk when it's nighttime. >> Um, so I'm going to say we're probably in a good place to start. >> Yeah. >> Um, you know, we're I I I I think we have laid out Joe for the casual viewer. Um, R.J., Would you be willing to come back next Thursday so that we can go through the pints with Aquinus and the um and the Council of Trent videos because we can kind of talk about his traditional Catholicism a little bit more.

¶395>> Yes. Uh sure. And [laughter] I when you said the word council of Trent, I thought like actual council of >> No, no, no, [laughter] no, no, no, no. Not I I'm talking about the C O U N S E L of trend. >> Trentor.

¶396Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. That that's trend horns. >> Yeah.

¶397Trenorn. Yeah. Um I get it. >> Yeah. Yeah.

¶398So anyway, um that will be um that that will be um next Thursday when we will really get into Joe for like the real for all of the real Joe heads out there. all the people who really want to get into it because again I think that what he's saying is like I'm interested in Joe not because he's unusual, not because he's extraordinary, but because he is very typical of a like certain subset of people who are either coming back to Catholicism or are just converting from nothing. And I think that it's important for people to understand what that what that traditional Catholic world looks like. And um thank you for being here and being on this ride with me. So I am going to stop the live stream and and wish everyone a very good night.

¶399Um and uh yeah, so have fun. Submit to Rome if you feel like it, but stop thinking critically and don't ignore your own internal moral sense. Just