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¶2>> Inspiring philosophy, where faith meets understanding. We built our world alone. Now we choke on the silence we destroy. We lost the truth from me. Sold our souls to silver screens by choice.
¶3We call it free. Now we burn in our own desire. can build the world. Can you hear the dying? We save for constant war.
¶4Now I know what love was for. Where the light underground? Heat. Heat. We build my last SHEL before the life.
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¶6We fear the cross and break the chain. MY FREEDOM in the ruins a whisper standard and radant pierced hand The silence the dark the king reing Heat. Heat. Heat. My face where he says We are alive.
¶7I'm back at my parents house, but >> not not in the normal spot that I'm in there. What? >> Why do you look so grumpy already? >> Well, because I was setting up in my father's office. >> Look grumpy.
¶8I feel like you're always No. No. Once you know Mike long enough, there's like there's the baseline level of grumpiness. And then there's ascended grumpiness. And it's like a tiny tiny difference in his facial tone and facial structure.
¶9And and now Mike has reached even beyond further beyond ascended. >> I'm very grumpy. Yes. But this is this is me smiling. So just so you're aware.
¶10No, I was setting up in my father's office and he's like I actually have a meeting. So then I got pushed to the corner of the house. So yes, but I'm here. >> Uh yeah. >> Awesome.
¶11How's everybody doing? >> I'm living a dream, man. >> That's awesome. We have uh Joe Schmidt here with us today. If you don't know who Joe is, he just recently converted to certified grifting.
¶12He has become another certified grifter along with all of us grifters here, as you know. That's what we do. We grift. So, welcome to the grifting club, Joe. We're happy to have you.
¶13>> I appreciate it. I just received my, you know, certification in the mail and I even brought it. So, um I I've got the I've got the receipts. >> Got the receipts, ladies and gentlemen. Yes.
¶14So, so yes, we have Joe Schmid with us. He was agnostic for many many moons and then he recently uh converted to Catholicism, which Stan knew about. I didn't know about till like two weeks ago. So, he did a really good job keeping that private. Thanks, Fan.
¶15Uh, I I Joe was a friend and I promised I wouldn't say anything, including you, Mike. Sorry. >> Yeah. You know who also didn't tell anybody? Matt Frad.
¶16Matt Frad was like, "Someone converted, but I can't say who it is." When I was there with him in like April or March, it was. And I'm like, "Oh, okay." And I was like, "Can you give me a hint?" He's like, "No." I'm like, "All right. All right. Fine. Whatever." >> Oh, thank you, Matt.
¶17Wonderful. Yeah. Absolutely. >> Totally didn't say anything. So, I'm very disappointed in both of them.
¶18Uh, other than that, everything's good. how you doing today? Welcome to the channel. You I don't think you've been on here. >> No, I mean we've had conversation well at least one conversation in the past, but yeah, uh I don't think I've ever been on this channel.
¶19So, yeah. No, I'm excited. Thanks for having me. I am doing uh wonderfully. >> Excellent.
¶20So, >> what were you going to say then going? >> Well, nothing. I I was going to suggest that for people that are like the people that are watching right now live probably know who you are, Joe, but our audience does reach to other people that might not know who you are. So, can you kind of give just like a a brief 30 second rundown of who you are um and why and >> yeah, let's just stay there and then we're going to kind of go into your journey a little bit. This what I wanted wanted what I wanted to do.
¶21>> Yeah. So, I'm currently a philosophy PhD candidate at Princeton University. I uh got my undergrad at Purdue University and I run a YouTube channel called Majesty of Reason where I host discussions with philosophers and I make lecture videos um that like are usually on my research but also sometimes about like a conversion and sometimes they even get up to like you know 12 hours long and you put them together they get like 25 hours long. So, u I I do like the kind of in-depth content on my channel. And so, yeah, um for a long while, I had been an agnostic, very public critic of um arguments for theism, Christianity, etc.
¶22And then, um relatively recently, I was just like inundated with evidence for Christianity and for Catholicism. And so, I was like, okay, I got to give it up. I got to submit my life to Christ. And so, then that happened. And then I spent uh roughly six months under the radar um just you know quietly trying to you know immerse myself within the sacramental life of the church >> before I was ready to go public um and then I went public and then the world exploded and here we are post explosion >> yeah it really did I did not expect it to explode that much I was like yeah I'm sure there'll be some people that are upset I did not expect that >> I knew it was coming I knew it was coming >> so what what so so Joe how have you been Did you think you were going to get this kind of backlash when you converted to Christian?
¶23Really? So, you knew this was coming? >> Yeah. I mean, I don't I I've been within the skeptical community and yeah, like I figured that this would happen and like you know it's one thing if you know you go into a kind of I mean you know I I love my uh you know liberal uh Christian brothers and sisters but you know it's one thing to go into like kind of like a very liberal loosey goosey kind of Christianity u where you know maybe you think like the Bible is super errand and you know you have like super uh progressive um ethics and you know you're like a universalist and you know you just go down the list of like hot button issues. If I had done that then I don't think there would have been much push back and whatnot.
¶24I think people would have just been like oh yeah you know he was sometime you know he was always kind of sympathetic to some arguments for theism so you know >> meh uh but you know if you go to a more conservative form of Christianity like I have um then I think the blowback was going to be inevitable. So um and yeah I mean like I can't like hold back my convictions and you know I think other people should become Christian. I think other people should become Catholic. So you know I'm going to voice my views and so that's you know always going to be uh personally you know personally charged shall we say. >> Uh so I knew that there was going to be blowback.
¶25>> Mike were you were you were you surprised by the blowback? I honestly expected people to be more interested than angry and it seems though a lot of people are angry about this. Like I thought we were past this phase where people were to be like >> you know like oh my goodness he like I like new atheism is dying and by new atheism I mean like that that militant anti-religious view. So I I thought a lot of like non-believers would have been like oh okay interesting. I would be curious to see why.
¶26I did not expect the hate that was coming in. I honestly did. I apparently there's still that rage, that young ra atheist rage around that still needs to die. Uh so yeah, I did not. >> Just got to pray for him, my friend.
¶27We just got to pray for him. >> 100%. >> Oh. >> So on that, >> Go ahead, Mike. >> Yeah, on that.
¶28So you obviously converted because you just didn't really study the evidence. You don't know anything about what is the term philos philosophy or something like that. You don't know much about that but you just you just got sad one day and decided to convert. This is the obvious this is the obvious thing that happened if I'm correct >> basically. Yeah.
¶29Yeah. No, I mean yeah. No, I mean like listen um yeah I've been an agnostic for quite some time. So I mean I grew up Catholic. Um you everyone's like oh you know you referred to his childhood religion.
¶30It's like, yeah, I mean, it's one of the biggest religions in the world, one of the oldest institutions. Like, it's not that coincidental that maybe the true religion would be one that I was born in. Like, especially if it's like, you know, one of the biggest, baddest, best religions on the planet. So, I don't know. Um, you like if God's going to institute some kind of cultic system, we would expect that it would kind of be successful, right?
¶31So, like we would kind of expect that it might be among the biggest institutions in the world, right? Okay. So, um it's not that surprising, not that coincidental, but um >> but yeah, no, so I grew up Catholic and then I guess around 9th grade or so, maybe nearing the end of it. I don't know, the problems for theism kept mounting and mounting and I was exposed to the problem of evolutionary animal suffering. And I was like, "Oh man, seems like God just instituted this horrific means by which he creates biological diversity in general and humans in particular." And it seems like he could have done so much better and it seems like he should have done so much better.
¶32Um and then I had all these other problems for you know the Bible and various other things. And so as a result of all that I deconverted uh became a kind of naturalistic atheist thought that you know fundamentally reality is just blind, pitiles and indifferent as uh Richard Dawkins says. >> Um you know I did listen to the new atheists and was influenced by them some in high school. Um, but I don't know that kind of phase didn't last too long. And I'm not even I'm not sure about the extent to which it could be described even as a new atheist phase because I I just sort of graduated from that relatively early on to people like Paul Draper and Jeff Louderder and various others who were Yeah.
¶33How old were you when you went from the new atheist to like the Draper? >> 10th around 10th grade or so. >> That's wild. >> I made this like YouTube not YouTube. I made this like Instagram account.
¶34Um I I don't think it Yeah, I don't think it exists anymore. I hope it doesn't exist anymore. Um but I did make this uh Instagram account. Now everyone's going to be scouring where I was just like, you know, like putting almost like essays on Instagram and then debating people back and forth and back and forth. I was always just like debating people online so much.
¶35Um even way before YouTube. Um so but yeah. Okay. So then, uh going into 10thish grade, I was a little bit more of a sophisticated naturalist. Then I guess near the beginning of my uh senior year, so it was actually this summer right before my senior year, I came across the work of like Josh Rasmmanson and I was like, whoa, whoa, man.
¶36This is like new and interesting and cool stuff that he's publishing. These are some like good arguments. And so I was like, oh man, I think I prematurely judged the question of God's existence. I think like, you know, there's much more to the I thought. I read his books.
¶37um I read his I read Alexander Pruz's work and I was like okay I need to become agnostic and so then that persisted for quite some time all throughout college and you know through maybe the first year of grad school or something like that and then you know somewhere around first or second issue year of grad school um you know I just started coming across some like new and interesting arguments for theism that were like kind of thorns in my side. So one of them was like you know psychophysical harmony like the seemingly fortuitous pairing between consciousness and the physical world. >> Others like moral knowledge um it seemed kind of difficult to explain how we have moral knowledge and other like opior forms of knowledge under naturalism. >> Um and some some other considerations that started pulling on me. You know I tried fighting back against those for the longest time.
¶38you know, like was like emailing Brian Cutter and then I you know, he would come to our colloquial he was one of our colloquium speakers and I would like go up you can even ask him like I went up to him after his his talk at the one like when we were in the tower room and I was like okay let me know what you think about what do you think about this objection or something like that. I I remember we were talking about um psychophysical harmony at some point um on his visit here. Uh so yeah and I just kept on trying to fight back and uh eventually I sort of was like oh man there's much more to this argument than I thought and I was even getting other arguments and I was finding new responses to the problem of evil and then so I was starting to maybe and I was losing lots of my objections to the fine tuning argument. Uh and so I started leaning towards theism and then I just started becoming inundated with like really good evidence for miracles and then that ultimately together with a whole concoction of other factors >> that ultimately won the day. But have you ever considered the argument if bad if God exists why bad thing happened?
¶39But have you ever considered that? I don't think you have obviously I don't think I've heard of that. Do you want bound upon it? >> No. No, I don't.
¶40Anyways, Sam, what were we going to say? And I was going to say like I think the fact that you and this is coming from a perspective I think for me at least where I've been pushing the argument from miracles with Caleb um and Cameron and them for quite some time about two years now and in my personal experience the it's the argument that gets met with the most hostility. Like it's almost like somebody is offended that you would use that argument and they're like how dare you use such a bad argument against me. What do you think? Like like you are just so intellectually responsible to even talk about this.
¶41Like that's how it feels. I'm not saying that's what they're saying. I'm just kind of painting my experience. So I that's why I'm not too surprised about kind of how it's broken the internet too at the same time. But I what I before we get into the argument for miracles, I think what I really want to know is like if people people before your announcement, Joe, they would have looked at you and they probably would have thought maybe he'll become a Christian one day, but he'll most likely stay an agnostic his whole life, right?
¶42And it sounds like there was this process where there was these arguments for theism that you were getting convinced by and then the argument from miracles comes along. It was psychophysical harmony, nomological harmony, a prior moral knowledge. Is there anything else in there that like >> Yeah, fine-tuning um like the empirical side, but also just like the opiori side of fetine tuning. I covered this in my um you know my recent video on like the best ever. I mean obviously it's a YouTube t it's a YouTube video, right?
¶43So people call them, right? But you know I got to play the YouTube game. So, you know, my best ever argument for God's existence, whatever. Um, yeah. So, I covered the opori fine tuning and I mean a number of other considerations, but um yeah.
¶44>> Um, is there something wrong with my mic? Somebody in the chat just is saying that my >> there was a little bit of feedback. Yes, because it's I just assumed it's because you suck, but um it's it's fine now. Oh, it it might just be because of my very masculine voice. So, I turned down the So, what what did you change your mind on?
¶45>> What did like is there something if you had to list like the top things you've changed your mind on, Joe, in terms of philosophical arguments for theism? Maybe even some of your objections to models of God or anything like that? Like what are what would be the biggest things you've changed your mind on? >> Yeah. Okay.
¶46So yeah, in terms of arguments for God's existence, I mean, fine-tuning is one of them. So, you know, I previously didn't think it was a particularly successful argument, and I don't think I ever thought that it was like silly, but um I don't know, I didn't find it too forceful. I just thought that there were a number of criticisms um that that kind of pulled on my mind. Uh, and as a result of studying it in more detail, I was like, "Oh man, I don't think those criticisms work." Um, and you know, it's funny in my um that best ever case. I went through like 17 different objections to the fine-tuning argument and I was just like, "Okay guys, like let's just go through all of these because like this is super it was super helpful for me in like >> just like learning the mechanics of um basian reasoning and just like seeing how >> just just like a lot of objections misunderstand even like the formal machinery >> where it's like listen no it doesn't need to be probable under theism that God would >> put the constants within the life breeding range.
¶47That's not how like evidential confirmation works. It just needs to be not as prohibitively and grotesqually and ludicrously unlikely as it is under naturalism. Um and then you know you start to see that like oh man lots of the objections to this argument >> would also imply >> that if we saw in the initial conditions the atomic soup spelling out made by God with love in every human language that that would be no evidence for theism. And you're like okay that's a bad result. Um and so then I don't know it was just gaining a deeper appreciation of that um and the the basy machinery underlying the argument where I was like okay this seems pretty forceful.
¶48So fine-tuning is one of them. Another one would be uh yeah I mean like listen uh you know my views on models of God have changed like I previously would have liked a kind of divine temporality a view on which God is within time and he's passible and um he's complex or at least not like simple in the way that um Catholics don't understand. Um, but yeah, no, I mean just I think that there are ways to resolve my previous objections there and now I think that God's timeless and impassible and simple. Now there's a lot of leeway um in exactly how we understand for instance divine simplicity. Um but like yeah no I mean there and people have been publishing responses to my work that I now think are you like there there's there's at least way more going for them than uh I would have liked to admit in the past.
¶49Uh, so yeah, models of God have definitely changed. Um, now I like a a classical theism. Um, the fine-tuning argument. I mean, we could just like go down the list. I've changed about a lot of things.
¶50>> No, it's just super cool to hear. Go ahead, Mike. >> Yeah. So, it was like a cumulative case. It's like the pen it's like a the pendulum starts swinging that way.
¶51It swings more and swings more and it's finally it's like bam and then the argument from modern miracles pushed you over the edge now. >> Yeah. Yeah. Oh, definitely. That's exactly.
¶52I mean it's almost like um you know a dam and initially you know the water wasn't anywhere near the top of the dam but like you know people just kept on pouring like a small bucket in every once in a while you know and then the buckets just over years right this is a yearslong process people just kept on pushing buckets in right >> um and at some point if you get enough buckets in there >> the water's going to overflow the dam or the dam's going to burst and you know when it bursts it's going to be pretty rapid and pretty dramatic right Yeah. >> And people may not have seen it coming. Uh but if you step back and look at like the broader trajectory of like the gaining of the cumulative considerations and like losing arguments for atheism, finding new responses to the arguments that I thought were convincing for atheism and then like >> just like gradually piling on the miracles. >> So then it's like Lords and it's like Fatima and it's like St. Charbell and then it's like uh like all this stuff and you're like oh man.
¶53And then finally at some point, you know, the cognitive dissonance is just mountains and mountains and mountains. And at some point you just lose. You just like, "Okay, man. I I give up. I I can't keep on fighting back." Uh, and yeah, that point that point for me happened when I would looked into um Padre Peio.
¶54So, >> okay. >> It was Padre that did it. Yeah. Well, >> that was like basically the cherry on top of the cake. Yes.
¶55Which was like I mean there was huge concoction of factors that came before that. Interesting. So, let's get into some of those. We'll do some super chats first, uh, and then we'll jump into some of these specific cases here. So, thank you for the, uh, Jules.
¶56We appreciate that. How can Joe be Catholic and support Arsenal? Is that That's a team. You don't actually support arson. That's >> I do not support arson.
¶57>> Um, unfortunate. Well, now that's fortunate. Um, yeah, I'm not I'm not a fan of arson, but I am a fan of Arsenal, of course. Yes. I mean, I've got I've got everything here.
¶58I mean, like, you guys haven't even seen seen all of it. I mean, I've got like I've got so much. Um, >> is this a cricket? >> What' you say? >> It's cricket.
¶59>> What is this? >> It's it's it's football. I mean, soccer. >> Soccer. >> Um, >> okay.
¶60I don't watch any soccer. >> I mean, I can maybe I can see how people could find attention there because I don't at least last year a lot of people were complaining that we were um >> No, we weren't we didn't cheat. We certainly didn't. I mean, we played within the rules of the game, but it was kind of it was kind of ugly and we just we wasted time at various points intentionally. Uh, and >> so maybe it's like not fully virtuous >> and you know, is all about maxing, right?
¶61>> Right. Yeah. I mean, you got you got to you got to play within the rules of the game. And so, yeah, I can I can see some tension because like Yeah, Catholicism is all about like virtue maxing. So, um divine glory maxing.
¶62So, uh, I can see maybe a little bit of tension, but I'm sorry. I got to I got to support my gunners. >> Sounds super boring. I don't know. Anyway, uh, James wants you to know that Joe, you're the love of his life.
¶63So, um, just want to let you know, I very much appreciate you. Love you, James. >> Hi, Joe. I Hi, Joe. IP Aan, you're cool, too.
¶64IG, who is IG, >> dude? Are you serious right now? >> What is going on? I guess. IG stands for I guess.
¶65>> Oh, >> you're so old. My gosh, dude. >> People need to use punctuation here. I He's like, I don't know what's going on. I hate when there's no there's no commas.
¶66There's no periods. I'm very angry now. I'm even grumpier now. So, there we have that to deal with. So, welcome.
¶67Yep. Punctuation saves lives, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, this is a long one. This is like a like part four of one. So Joe, you say if Catholicism is false, God lied because the apparitions converted many.
¶68It doesn't follow unconstrained effects of miracles as weak evidence of intention. Many many heresies trace back to Jesus. Uh what is your response to that? >> I'm not sure if I have said if Catholicism is false then God lied because the apparitions converted many. It's more so that uh if there is a genuine divine miracle which is performed in God's name and it's not a demonic deception.
¶69So you can use the various scriptural tests for uh whether or not it's a demonic deception. So you know like the fruits test, the Deuteronomy 13:18 test, whether you're not you're invoking God the creator, uh the kingdom divided against itself test. Um so if you if we can determine that it's like a a divine deed instead of a demonic deception. And if it has doctrinal content, then God's lying if the doctrinal content is false in performing the the miracle in witness to that that that sign, right? Yeah.
¶70So, um, yeah, I may I mean I probably, you know, to get to the root of this person's concern, I may have to sit down with them. But, uh, you know, it's not just that God lied because the apparitions converted many. I mean, I agree that certain, um, miracles can, uh, lead to as like later effects, uh, mistakes for instance. Um, but that's very different from the sort of reasoning that I profer in my case. >> Yeah.
¶71He goes on, he's got more to say. He says, "Assuming consequentialism and any all heretic and or all hereticals can stipulate God vindicated us post miracle, but the vindicated message of Jesus's resurrection wasn't posthed beforehand." Jesus's message was public and specific. Even Jewish leaders guarded his tomb because he said, "I'll rebuild the temple in three days." Apparition message usually are private, vague, if anecdotal at all. But that's just my research ideas on determining intention from acts. A journal desk rejected my paper due to the number of reviewers needed.
¶72It'll be a bit uh till I publish this. God bless you, Joe. There's a lot. >> Thank you for your blessings. Yeah, thank you for your blessings, Apollos.
¶73I I very much appreciate it and um I appreciate also the intellectual humility and your message. And you know, I would just you know, Fatima, for instance, was not just like some vague sort of thing. It was like 3 months in advance the exact date, time, location of a spectacular miracle was prophesied and then you know like >> between 30,000 and 100,000 people show up including like skeptics, hostile witnesses, etc. People from Osako, this anti-clerical newspaper like we're going to go there and debunk it and then you know the OCO people put like they write their newspaper report like a few days later and they're like yeah okay it happened. I mean so yeah >> that's interesting.
¶74Yeah I love that kind of stuff. Yeah. Thank you, Pastor Tony, for gifting 10 inspiring philosophy memberships. This is Fan's pastor. I'm pretty sure.
¶75Keeps doing this stuff. This is your pastor. >> It's not my pastor. >> It's his pastor yet, ladies and gentle. Don't Don't let him lie to you.
¶76Okay. Uh, praise God for his work in Joe's life. Yes, >> indeed. Praise God for this. This is not my own working, right?
¶77This is grace. >> Yeah, it always is. And we never can take credit for this kind of stuff. Absolutely. But you are apparently a gooner theist, whatever that means.
¶78Well, just just move just move on. You don't >> Okay, listen. No, no, I can I can give the good No, because people might think that we're like immature like Okay, gunners. That's a name for Arsenal. Okay, uh that's like our nickname cuz there's a cannon.
¶79There's a cannon on our our crest, right? So, we're called the gunners. And I kid you not, before the term, as far as I understand, it came to be associated with a particularly intrinsically evil activity, which is, you know, damnable mortal sin. um before the term became associated with that actually we the f the fans of Arsenal were called Gooners and there's like a song where it's like uton >> okay you guys got to change that immediately okay I don't make the role >> reclaim it reclaim it um against the evil the evilness that it represents >> just just I just give up on that one uh so so if you consider that Matt Gill Hunty isn't convinced So Joe didn't convert. I That's a good argument.
¶80Matt Dilly is not convinced. Therefore, your arguments don't work. That's that's generally the argument they try. So sorry, you lost. >> You know what's really funny, Joe, I I forgot to tell you about this.
¶81the amount of people that went up to me after your announcement happened and told me either in comments or in DMs or like tagging me in a ser like a Discord server or something. The amount of skeptics that were like Joe's lying to you just wait and it's like I I had no clue what to do with that because I'm like I'm friends with Joe. I've known this and watched him grow in the Lord and I've watched him grow in the Catholic faith. How the amount of people that were just like I actually convinced that you were lying to me and I'm going to like learn. I did not know what to do with it.
¶82I don't know why that comment reminded me of this, but >> Oh, there's a ton of comments when it came out. It's like they were going through the five stages of grief. Like people were like, "Yeah, he's e he's obviously making this up." Like I mean I just put a bunch of stuff and they kind of have been like first they were in denial and then there was anger. Now there seems to be moving into depression or bargaining. I don't know where they're at right now.
¶83But I see a lot of them going through the five stages of grief. It's it's quite interesting. I don't I don't I don't Yeah, they were totally in denial for the first when you first did it. Like this is a huge troll or he's just doing an experiment or something like that. a social yeah social I saw one comment where was like it's a social experiment for his PhD.
¶84That's like that's a that's kind of funny. Um you know I mean I just I find it funny and we just gota got to pray for these people you know and um >> I mean one thing that I found is like you know grace can reach >> even the most hardened of hearts. I mean I know this from personal experience. So like >> people pray do it. Yes.
¶85>> Speaking of that, still praying for Matt Dillanti's conversion even though like the rich young man in the Bible he has a lot of baggage to dump and sacrifices to make. Based >> based everyone right now either pause the video or after the video pray for Pat Delhunty's conversion. >> Yes. >> Yes. I find the argument uh from nomological harmony more ethereal and less intuitive than psychological luck contingency or fine-tuning.
¶86Can Joe explain why he find what he finds so is so convincing? Well, maybe to make it less ethereal, I could give you an analogy from Brian Cutter and uh Brad Sod. So, for people who aren't aware, this is from like a a paper in Noose N US. I think it's open access. Um you can correct me if I'm wrong about that.
¶87>> I think it is. I'll I'll check for you while you're talking. >> Um but anyway, it's called like the problem of nomological harmony. And this is like one of the problems that I'm covering in my dissertation. Um, okay.
¶88But the analogy that they give that hopefully might concretize it for you is uh, you know, just like listen, imagine for any game, right, that you go to like Target and you buy a game, right? It's got like a board. It's got pieces and then it's got a rule book, right? Which tells you how the pieces are supposed to like operate on the board, right? So, um, you know, chess has a particular rule book, checkers has a particular rule book, go Monopoly, you know, go through it.
¶89Okay, so like imagine imagine that like we just randomized the game pieces and the rule book. So like out of all the possible conceivable rule books that you could have and out of all the conceivable game boards and game pieces that you could have, imagine it was just like a matter of chance or just like a brute fact, which of those were actual? If that's the case, then it would be pretty striking if there was like a convergence between the rule book and the game pieces, right? Such that the rule book actually specifies how those particular game pieces on that particular board are to behave, right? That would be pretty striking if you're just like randomizing out of all the conceivable different rule books in all the conceivable different game pieces and boards.
¶90Uh and so it's something very similar with um the fundamental dynamical laws. So these laws of nature which specify how the universe is to change or evolve over time. It would be pretty striking if out of all the conceivable fundamental dynamical laws uh and out of all the conceivable initial conditions we got ones that matched each other such that the laws actually serve as a kind of rulebook that tell you how those particular pieces within the universe are to behave. because we can imagine that like maybe you know the initial conditions contain X's and Y's but the rule book the laws only tell you how Z's behave and there are lots of different conceivable fundamental properties lots of conceivable different kinds of particles um and and just the more you're looked at it's like oh man whoa there actually is kind of like a pretty striking coincidence here um that needs seems to call up for explanation now of course there are like ways that you can try to explain it um as a non-theist you could try to posit like some kind of interesting multiverse you and try to pause it. You can you can get kind of creative with like Well, I shouldn't say creative.
¶91You can like get I'm I'm wondering how in-depth I should go. I I'll just I'll I'll I'll stop the thread pretty soon. I'll just say there are certain views of laws of nature which purportedly help with this problem. Just check out the nomological harmony section of my uh video, the best ever argument for God's existence or whatever um for for more on what I think about those responses. But I hope that was at least helpful for like making it less ethereal and more concrete for you.
¶92>> I put a link to the paper too in the chat for people that want to read it because it is open access. >> Yeah. I mean when you even combine that with like the f with the work like Seth Seth Hart is doing and like fine-tuning in biology >> that maybe even like the evolutionary processes are fine-tuned and structured in a way to bring to certain forms of life out. It just he adds to the cumulative case in a lot of ways. >> Interesting.
¶93I need to look into that more because I haven't studied that. Um. >> Oh, really? >> Yeah, dude. I mean, you know, >> dude, I'll send you some stuff.
¶94It's pretty cool. >> I'm just like, you know, my mind's in harmony problem mode. >> We got a video on the channel, was evolution inevitable, where I just go through a bunch of different processes showing that ev a lot of evolutionary processes came about not from chance, but because they were just there were fine-tuned processes in nature that brought them about. There's a lot of self assembly processes. So, yeah, there's a lot of that stuff happening right now.
¶95Uh Seth Hart is is writing about it. I know uh Saigart has written a couple papers on it. Uh so he's got some interesting stuff out there. Yeah. And there's another guy I think his name is Crap.
¶96What's his name? It's Zach something >> Ardan. >> Ardan. Yes, there he is. There it is.
¶97Yeah. Zachary Ardan. Yeah. He's done some stuff as well on that. Yeah.
¶98So So let's let's get into some of these miracle examples that really like pushed you over the edge. What are some of these miracles that led you to Christianity specifically? Because Fan has been doing a lot of work on this. We've making a ton of shorts about various miracles that have occurred. Uh what how did this get you over the edge?
¶99>> Yeah. Good. Well, for those interested, I have 11 hours on this. >> Yeah. >> Um let's see.
¶100Okay. Maybe I will pick maybe I'll pick like two or three that have a kind of special place in my heart. Okay. So, one of them which has a special place in my heart is Our Lady of Zetun or Zaiton >> because I was aware of this even when I was like agnosticleaning theist and I I just was like dude I don't know what to do with this and it's like >> it's like a good it's like a really well-ec oh my gosh. Okay.
¶101So, you know, this is between 1968 and 1971 in um I think it's a suburb of Cairo, Egypt called Zetun. There is a church or uh it's like St. Mary's Coptic Orthodox Church. And um you know, one evening, I think it's in April 1968, like a few Muslim transit workers are like, "Oh gosh, there's like a nun on top of the building and she's about to end her life. I'm not going to get you demonetized, so you're welcome." Uh she's she's about to end her life.
¶102So, uh they go and like they knock on like the priest and they're like, "Dude, like your nun, your sister is like on top and she's on top of the Coptic Orthodox Church and she's about to jump off. Like, come on. What are we going to do?" Uh I think they also like called the cops or something like that. Um, and then like when they look at this apparition in more detail, they're like, "Oh, wait a second. This like luminous female figure is actually like it started to like float and they're like, "Oh, that's not a nun." And they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is the Virgin Mary." And, um, so that was just like the first night.
¶103Uh, you know, the crowds started gathering because this happened more and more often um different nights. Uh, and you know, like they shut off power to the neighborhood. That didn't stay the operation. In fact, like it it lasted like hours when they did that when they shut off the power to the neighborhood and then yeah, like things just blossomed and the apparition kept on happening and then basically like later on within this 1968 to 1971 period uh there were literally hundreds of thousands of people in the the crowds that gathered around this church. Um, and we just have thousands, that's not an exaggeration, thousands of contemporary like detailed eyewitness reports.
¶104And they're also these like super striking like independent convergences and undesigned coincidences between people at like different sides of the church and different um, and you can like coordinate them in really striking ways where it's like and they're describing like intentional movements on the on the uh, part of this. >> Yeah. There's literally testimonies where you like somebody on one side of the church will talk about being able to see the figure and then the figure goes away and then somebody on the complete opposite side of the church ends up seeing the figure and those testimonies converge and everything. >> And you can even go down to like the time and like how >> tiny details and they'll even mention like specific like structural details of the church, right? Where it's like okay well there's no way >> this dome.
¶105Yeah. Yeah. >> It's crazy. And they and some of them they're like, "Yeah." Um, they're like, we got two of them where it's like, "Yeah, she was wearing a crown and she was slightly tilting her head." And it's like both of them say that and you're like, "Whoa." And there's another one where it's like, "She slowly extended her arms to bless and greet us." And like both of them said that. I was like, "Oh my gosh." So yeah, just like thousands of testimonies to this like luminous female, distinctively female-shaped uh figure engaging in intentional movements, bowing to the cross, kneeling before the cross.
¶106um all these like anomalous um seemingly like dove-like objects which seem to be like luminous. They seem to be like radiant and they would just like spontaneously form fly sometimes in formation of a cross and like also like seemingly spontaneously fizzle out and they would fly without flapping their wings. Like we got lots of testimonies of this. There were like billowing clouds of incense on top of this church as well that people testified to. um like we had the the Coptic Orthodox Church set up like this commission to uh investigate um healing miracles and there we just had like medically documented healings of like cancer and like uh hernas and like thyroid disease and I think also like blindness and muteness like >> like dude like the paralyzed are walking, the blind are seeing, the deaf are hearing.
¶107Like uh it's like all the same sorts of like vindicator miracles that are present in Christ's ministry. It's like we got them here with like medical documentation it seems. So, um yeah, um it was it was a silent apparition. Um and so, uh you know, the the best offender of the um our lady Zetune these days, Dr. Travis Dumay.
¶108I've got his book right over here. Um which I highly recommend people check out. It's called the Marian Apparition Zetune. Um an evidential inquiry. Definitely check it out.
¶109Um but he he thinks it's a kind of ecumenical miracle that it doesn't like vindicate um like Coptic distinctives. You know, it's not like she's saying like this particular Coptic doctrine is true and in witness to that I'm going to perform a miracle in three months. You know, it's like that's not what's happening here. >> Even if like, you know, the context is suggestive. I I don't think it's dispositive or anything like that, but um Right.
¶110Yeah. So, I think this the original one, so I suspect that this image is slightly touched up. Um but we do have the original image of this and at the very least for a number of the images, we had Dr. John Jackson look at them and say he found no signs of tampering. Even though for some other images he did find signs of tampering.
¶111Um and uh one of the people who took an image also uh had a pretty dramatic healing as illustrated in um Caleb Jackson's forthcoming article on uh Zetune on his Substack. So anyway um so yeah, we also have like at least suggestive photographic evidence as well. So yeah, like this this thing happened and it it was a real source of cognitive dissonance for me and um because like there's just so much testimony. so much evidence and it's like all converging. It's like you got to explain away the healings, you got to explain away the billowing clouds of incense, you got to explain away the doves, you know, doves don't don't tend to fly at night.
¶112Like um you got to explain away the apparition phenomena for like hours on end, multiple times, hundreds of thousands of people in the the crowd. So it's like, okay, um what am I supposed to do? Like um well, I don't know. you just file it away and say maybe something weird happened but then you know you just you can't keep doing this. It's not a sustainable strategy and then the cognitive dissonance will mount and mount and mount and mount until a conversion happens.
¶113So um yeah that that just has a special place in my heart. Our lady of Zetun. >> Yeah it's interesting even like Mike Lacona who will say yeah there there's something hap something supernatural happened there. Uh there there was definitely a miracle of some sort. Uh so and you know he he's I don't I wouldn't say he's anti-atholic but he's just a vocal evangelical for example.
¶114So I mean like you do definitely have other people recognizing that and these are kind of the things that are like yeah that not only would that confirm Christianity this is happening in association with the church and I believe there was a guy that even predicted this was going to happen like he was told to build the church and then a miracle would occur. Uh and so this confirms Christianity uh over and against other religions even uh because again it's it's happening in that sequence of someone being told to build a church building the church and then the miracle occurring on the church supporting again >> he's the mother of God as well. I mean like you know how how much clearer can it get? I mean um yeah but anyway uh you know I'm I'm with you. I think it's uh you know pretty good evidence for for for Christianity.
¶115So, >> go on. >> I was gonna say, what was the what was the next one you wanted to talk about? >> Okay. Another one that just has a special place in my heart and and this this is one of those where it just seems properly basic to me once once you like learn the facts that like okay, you got to become Christian and it it just is like Padre Pio. Um so, yeah, Ethan Muse has a really nice Substack article on going through like the evidence for his mystical charrorisms.
¶116But Padre Pio was a 20th century Catholic um saint, stigmatist um and mystic. And in the early 1900s, it's at like 1918, 1919, sorry I didn't memorize this stuff, but um he has this like complex vision, I think after mass or something like that, of Christ. And Christ says, "I unite you to my passion." And then thereafter he supernaturally reduplicates Christ's passion wounds on his palms, on his feet, and on his side. And like we have so much documentation to this, it's insane. So like Father Benedetto, I think one of uh it might have been his provincial superior, but someone um associated with the comment was like, "Examine them early on." And there are lots of reasons why they they seem to be naturalistically inexplicable these stigmata.
¶117But um they examined him early on and Father Benedetto is saying, "Yeah, there was a perforation such that I could literally read stuff on the other side of his hand if I if I put stuff behind his hand." It's like, "Oh my gosh." Okay. And then you go on later, Dr. Romanelli is examining him multiple times over the course of his stay, right? So this is a doctor examining him multiple times. Complex multimodal experiences multiple times.
¶118And he literally not only visually inspects them, but palpates them with his hands. And he describes in extensive detail how he does it. And he's like palpating both his hands and his feet. And he's like, "Yeah, I feel a palpable void and there is no muscle or bone where I would normally expect it. And there is just uh on the outside there are these like thin membranes that I press in between.
¶119And it causes them a lot of pain when I do that. But um so like this extensive complex multimodal interaction repeatedly. It's like we got other doctors who examined him and like there are all sorts of reasons why um like they persisted without getting infected. They smelled that it has this beautiful scent and fragrance just emanating from the wounds and from the blood. Um they they didn't they didn't have any swelling regional swelling around them.
¶120That's like a unanimous uh feature of all the like the doctor's testimonies. Um where you know if you're applying carbolic acid or if you're crucifying yourself it's going to swell. And also I mean there are just all sorts of reasons why those um explanations don't work. But um and then you know he also has lots of different healing miracles and whatnot, but like that I just couldn't couldn't live with the conspiracy that I'd have to posit in order to explain away the data. >> Um and like dude I just for some of these cases I just feel like God has given us a kind of sense >> uh a sense of his work like you you just kind of know when the hand of God is operative.
¶121And I think this is what like Christ was expecting the Pharisees um to pick up on when he did when he said like you know so that you may know that the authority of man has sorry so that you may know that man has the authority to forgive sins like get up and walk like he expects them to just kind of intuit it that like okay paralytic gets up like this is the hand hand work of God but no they sort of rejected it and like for me I was like okay I just have this almost properly basic sense it just seemed manifest to me that like if the dude is supernaturally reduplicating Christ's passion wounds in the context text of a vision of Christ saying, "I made you to my passion." Christianity has to be true. How could you how could you look at that and be like, "Oh, well, maybe it was just like some complicated prank by the aliens." Or like, you know, there's just like lesser there's just like this lesser spirit running a muck which like kind of likes Christianity, but but Christianity is ultimately false. And there's this lesser spirit which is going around just like happening to almost like induce this in him. It's like guys, it's properly based like he's reduplicating Christ's passion. It's like what?
¶122What? Anyway, so that's the one where I was just like I just had that palpable sense that like if I grant that this is miraculous, I got to become Christian. >> Yeah. >> So, what do you think of some of the criticism you've gotten from skeptics since you've presented this evidence to miracles? Like, did you like do you think there's been any good push back?
¶123Is there anyone you want to address specifically? There any arguments you want to address? What is your overall take on how this has been handled when you've been presenting this evidence and like do you feel like they're handling it or responding to it appropriately? >> Um, well, people haven't had too much time to fully digest it. You know, I posted like 25 hours of content, so, you know, to be fair.
¶124And also, um, I have >> kind of been staying off the radar of social media just because I I kind of need to do that. So, >> Got it. >> Yeah. Um, so I haven't really been paying too much attention to what people are saying now. I I to some of the things I mean it just sounds like a lot of it is just like a kind of smoke screen.
¶125It's like, oh, you know, like um Joe did this thing that I don't approve of in the past. Uh so, you know, let me criticize that thing that he's done or you know, uh instead of like, you know, getting to the getting to the core of the issues. Um, but that's not to say, so this is firstly I just want to say like I haven't been paying too much attention to it and I I kind of need that because I just received so much stuff. Like I'm not going to spend hours upon hours on this um on like Twitter and whatnot. I mean that's like a cesspool of like intellectual waste.
¶126Like I'm not going to do that. Um okay. Uh now just in terms of like the miraculous case more generally yeah there have been like you know um sophisticated individuals who have you know tried their hardest to respond to some of some of the miracles. So like for instance someone who deserves like a shout out with respect to to Fatima is you know like Scott Alexander like he just >> he spent a ton of time just like researching Fatima. He tried his hardest in uh you know a response piece to Ethan Muse's original article to offer like like the briefest inklings or semblances of a naturalistic explanation which you know even like for Scott Alexander himself like someone who like this is really good high order evidence for people who like don't take this stuff seriously.
¶127Scott Alexander himself was like looking through the miraculous evidence and I think he even like noted that he just like genuinely felt like nervous and scared at some points in his research. He was like whoa. Um, now again, he doesn't ultimately accept it, but uh it just shows you like how seriously some of the best skeptics take some of this stuff to the point that it was almost kind of like scaring him researching it uh in some in some doubts. Um, maybe scare is like the wrong word, but like just feeling a little nervous and like he was not fully uh contented um in investigating Fatima uh by his own accounting it seems. Um, if I recall correctly, >> yeah, >> you know, someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
¶128Um but okay so like he deserves a shout out, you know, like a sophisticated skeptic tries to, you know, offer his responses, you know, ultimately um after having examined the issue and like read Ethan's responses and like going back and forth with Ethan and just like, you know, talking about this stuff. Um I'm not convinced by his responses. I'm convinced that it is miraculous. Um but like I just want to highlight that yeah, no, people haven't been silent about this stuff and it's not all just jeering and ridiculing. people actually have rolled up their sleeves and attempted to offer sophisticated responses and you know um that's a much better response than just like you know the heaping upon contempt and derision and whatnot to the case.
¶129>> Yeah, >> I'm I'm really excited to see what I don't know how long it'll take but I'm excited to see what some thoughtful skeptical thinkers will do in response to your 25our series. Um, especially I mean I I'll I'll I'll do a little Josh Rasmusen thing here because most of the time those objections tend to even light up the uh the the light of reason. It's he what what does he say again? He says like objections sometimes are like the light of reason that actually help us um make those arguments better. You know what I'm saying?
¶130So I'm actually excited to see that. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I mean just just so you know so people know you know like for it's going to take me a while because I know you know people probably will respond but it'll take me a while to offer my thoughts on the responses because like firstly the responses themselves will probably be very long but also the semester is starting and um my there's going to be a lot on my plate. So you know people are just going to have to be patient but that's okay.
¶131You know I'm going to have to learn patience myself. Um >> that's fine. In response to a lot of the ridicule in jeering I mean we should expect this. I mean, Jesus is casting out demons in front of the Pharisees. And they say he's doing it from Beelzebub.
¶132You have the children of Israel being led out of Egypt and by a pillar of fire and a pillar of smoke. And they're like, you know, maybe we should go back to Egypt because they had they had meat and zuc and they had, you know, cucumbers. I mean, we should just have You're gonna get it's amazing the way humans kind of respond to some of this stuff sometimes. It's like it's like this why I say we're only saved by grace. It's the Holy Spirit moving that does it because the way the human heart would respond to this kind of stuff is like God is doing like blatant miracles before our eyes and so many people are like I don't I don't know I don't think so Egypt sounds a little cooler you know.
¶133Yeah. No, and that's the thing like prayer can break down those barriers, right? >> Um so like you can put you can put the evidence out there. Um but you know ultimately >> yeah um getting into a saving relationship with God is a matter of cooperating with God's grace and you know prayer can be a helpful conduit of grace. So like we got to pray for people.
¶134So that just I issue people I sorry I urge and uh and join people to to pray. >> It's still so cool hearing you say stuff like that now Joe. >> It's so cool. >> Yeah. So, let's let's do some more super chats here and then we will we'll look at a a short little video of someone trying to respond to you.
¶135Uh IP, did you see what your pastor didn't tell you? Say that the trinity is made up and enforced by Christians like young earth creationism. Well, if he made that argument, it would be a very stupid argument to make because it's not like that at all. All the Bible clearly teaches the trinity. I I cannot wrap my head around non-trinitarian readings of the Bible.
¶136They were so ad hoc, absurd, ridiculous. The way they try to deal with some of these passages, it's just like there's a reason the overwhelming majority of theologians have been trinitarian for the past 2,000 years. It it's just obviously taught there. >> Yeah, knowing Zach, he probably had a lot more nuance than what the super chat >> is portraying. But >> yeah, I would in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
¶137I mean, there are lots of passages, >> the two power stuff, all sorts of stuff. >> Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Um, let's see here. I'm sorry, but Matt Dill Hunty is not convinced.
¶138You've been refuted. >> That's that's literally like in my debate with him, like I present all these arguments for God's existence and he's like, "Well, I'm not convinced." And I was like, "I don't care. Who cares if you're not convinced? That doesn't refute my argument." But yep, that's what he that he resorts to when he doesn't have a response. Uh Joe clearly would have converted if he knew if he knew about the Hindu milk miracle.
¶139Welcome to the faith, brother. >> Joe, do you know what the milk miracle is? >> That's the one with like the capillary action, right? >> Yeah. Yeah.
¶140Um okay. Yeah. No. Um thank you old iron eyes. I very much appreciate it.
¶141I'm so glad I brought you joy and praise God because you know it's not my own doing but uh it's God's. >> Uh thank you for hosting IP. You're very welcome. Where do you disagree with Oppy and why? >> It's a very general question.
¶142>> Yeah. I mean um you know so Oppy is a metaphysical naturalist. He thinks the natural you know the natural world is all that there is. Natural reality exhausts causal reality. Um I think that's mistaken.
¶143I think that you know God exists. Um, >> yeah. >> I mean, I'm Catholic. He's not Catholic. So, you know, I ascent to everything that the church teaches.
¶144Um, Grandma Mappy does not. Um, I mean, like, if you wanted my my thoughts on particular argument, you know, like I don't know. I um I briefly cover at least uh an argument resembling one of his main arguments for God's existence. You know, one of his main arguments for God's existence is that like, well, you know, it seems like naturalism can explain the data roughly as well as theism and naturalism is simpler than theism, so we should go with naturalism. Um, I mean my like best case for theism is I mean the whole thing is kind of like a response to that.
¶145Like I I would um probably reject both of those premises. I mean I think there's lots of data that theism just explains way better than naturalism. Um and then I also just don't think that um or at the very least I'm not convinced that naturalism is simpler than theism. I think um we should look at like the at least primarily the simplicity of your fundamental posits. Um, yeah.
¶146And I think theism has a a very simple, compactly stable, elegant, uniform fundamental posit whereas I think naturalism is going to be uh >> arguably at least um not as elegant, uniform, simple. >> I'm glad you said that because I was going to say like um the first thing that comes to my mind when it comes to opies and disagreements with them is how he kind of looks at simplicity and the way I would look at simplicity. So >> yeah. >> Right. So there are some like methodological considerations as well um or like you know metaargumentative considerations that we would disagree about but you know like I love grandma.
¶147He's yeah he's taking me under his wing and he's uh been so generous to me so >> he's really for the community love argument for the trinity. How would you respond to the oneness response of God is outside of time so he could still love creation before it was created? God bless you. Uh there are different ways to go about it. One way you could go about it is simply the argument that that still makes God part something essential to his nature contingent upon creation of itself.
¶148So he would require creation for part of his intrinsic nature. Now that would modify the argument in terms of how you seem to be using it. Uh I'm not sure if these guys have any other thing they want to add but that that's one way to look at it that you would be submitting to the idea that God is contingent upon something in creation. Um, so when depending on I don't know what the community love argument is, if that's a new thing people are running, but typically if you're going to run some sort of a love argument and people run this type of an response. Um, putting aside the jargon, I'll just say there's two ways to like talk about God and his love.
¶149Um, one is going to be within the divine life and one is going to be exterior or relationally outside of the divine life. And so the type of love that we're interested in when a type when it comes to a prior arguments for the trinity is going to be inside of the divine life. So um there has to be a particular um architecture to this to God in order to actually satisfy perfection. If that makes sense. >> Nothing you say makes sense.
¶150>> I think Joe probably understood what I said. Yeah, stop that face. >> Uh, they want to know why you converted to Catholicism over orthodoxy. >> Ah, well, I do have a section in my Well, yeah, I I should maybe I shouldn't expect people cuz that's maybe an unreasonable demand, but I do have a section in my my latest video on basically like alternative explanations of the miracle record. Uh, and I I just think that Catholicism has a much better explanation of the miracle record than orthodoxy.
¶151I think that there are particular miracles which seem to vindicate like not just like apostolic Christianity distinctive doctrines but like Catholic distinctive doctrines over and against orthodoxy. So like you know Fatima you know she's asking for um the holy father to consecrate Russia outside of his supposed jurisdiction to my immaculate hearts. That's the immaculate conception which only we dogmatize the holy father. So that's the holiness of his office right and he's the father. So the father to the spiritual church to the the un universal church.
¶152uh and then consecrating this thing outside of his supposed jurisdiction. So, I don't know like it seems to mesh much better with um Catholicism and also she's like agreeing to convert named individuals to Catholicism uh which orthodoxy under its like orthodox understandings teaches that um outside of the Orthodox Church there is no salvation. Uh and you know you got to asterisk that for like you know inculpable ignorance and whatnot. But um but even still uh what that shows is that I think Catholicism is a licit object of conversion. Um, and that's not going to be the case if orthodoxy is true.
¶153Um, because they teach extra ecclesia nasalis. Um, so anyway, uh, and that's just Fatima alone. I mean, you go to things like Maur and various other things and we got like, you know, purgatory and we've got, um, the importance of Petrine, uh, the importance of Peter being the rock and the call for unity and, you know, I go through this in my video, but if people are interested, you can check it out. I mean, there are other objections that, you know, like probably have some force, uh, and wait on me a little bit. um you know like people object uh that the Orthodox struggle to explain why Florence was not um ecumenical.
¶154Uh and there's a video >> people don't people don't realize it but that's one of the reasons John was running a lot faster to the tomb is because the rock was about to drop the people's elbow and he had to get out of there. So people don't realize that. I just want to put that out there. >> John. Yeah, we should.
¶155Um I I wonder who would win a race among all the apostles. probably John because he's the youngest, wasn't he? The youngest. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's probably why he was youngest, >> right?
¶156Yeah. Um, so anyway, you know, you could check out my video for more on why I chose Catholicism over orthodoxy. >> Mah. Yes. Uh, let's see here.
¶157Um, I recommended Old Testament cosmology in divine accommodation, a relevant uh theory approach by John Dr. John Hilber. Excellent. Thank you for the recommendation. The Bible isn't trying to be a modern science textbook, but it is telling truth.
¶158There is no conflict between science and the Bible. I totally agree. Yes. >> Very much. >> So true.
¶159>> Yeah. It's it's it's working within a culture. It's inspired texts. This is not the uncreated speech of Yahweh. It's working through authors in their cultural context and they're going to write within their cultural millu.
¶160Yeah. Uh why does a probabilistic universe support free will? Can't randomness be deterministic? Um, the first thing I would say is that we're not I don't I wouldn't argue that this route I think that the underlying question is there's a presupposition in there that that's just inaccurate. We don't say there's the universe is probabilistic, therefore free will because we're not arguing that the consciousness and the will are products of the universe in and of itself.
¶161They are they are not. So we don't think we're just entirely material or physicalist objects. So the that is there's an assumption in the question that's just inaccurate that we would reject. We don't think we get our free will from the universe. >> Yeah.
¶162I mean it may well if I could add something I mean it may need to be the case that like um >> you know the total past state of the universe does not in order for us to have libertarian leeway freedom um the total state of the past state of the universe can't like entail or necessitate or guarantee a unique future. that may need to be the case. Um but uh so I just want to say like there are certain models of free will which may require there to be a kind of objective indeterminism in the world. Um >> but even then I mean you might think that uh no actually like the laws of nature specify how like closed systems go and maybe like the the systems actually aren't closed if there is um you know like an immaterial intellect or will which can influence them. So even even there you might actually think that there could in some sense be deterministic laws of nature.
¶163So, you get to really cool stuff about like metaphysics and philosopy of mind, which we don't need to go into, but um I just wanted to add that commentary. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, >> uh at the end of No, no, no, we're not doing that. No.
¶164>> Anyway, not saying that Joe Don't worry about it. We're protecting your poor sweet little innocent mind. Don't you worry. >> Uh not saying that Joe is doing those. I sometimes see people who pretend to be Christian for 30 days or so and end up confessing Jesus as Lord.
¶165Yeah, that's a trend. >> It's a trend. Joe, do you know about this trend? >> No, I've never heard of this. >> It started it start it started with one guy.
¶166He was he wasn't a Christian and he basically started this Instagram video series real thing where he's like, I'm going to pretend to be a Christian for 30 days and see if it makes my life better. And then through the process of actually like genuinely engaging in the spiritual practices, genuinely participating in Christian in Christian truths became convinced and it started a trend of a bunch of other people basically doing the exact same thing and a bunch of other people now are like, "Oh my gosh, this this is crazy." >> That's pretty cool, dude. I've never heard of that. That's awesome. >> Yeah, it's a trend right now.
¶167It's really cool. It's pretty awesome. I'm going to wait to see a little bit more of how it unfolds and then I'm probably going to do a video on it. Uh like because it's not like it's a fake it till you make it thing in and of itself. It's we have pointed out that Jesus is very clear, you know, ask and it shall be given.
¶168Knock and the door shall be open and you seek and ye shall find. It's like if you seek God, he will show up. >> That that is a promise made in the Bible. So these what these people are doing is they are seeking God and he is showing up >> that and I would just also argue that God made us embodied creatures and and that the spiritual practices that the church has if historically given us to participate in is such for a reason. In other words, like the the body is not this disconnected thing from the spirit, right?
¶169And so, for instance, Joe, right, there's a reason why Catholics will pray the rosary because the tactile, right, the tactile aspects are actually going to be a part of the spiritual practice. Joe, what I mean, do do you want to talk about that a little bit there, too? But like, I think that's a huge part of this process that why this trend is working for people. >> Yeah. I I don't know.
¶170I mean, I just think like God loves loves using secondary causality. Like he uses us as secondary causes and bringing about other people's conversions and salvation and whatnot. And so like that's why we have like sacramentals because it's like I don't know it's involving creatures in the process of I don't know saving people and you know being um uh effective with respect to graces. Um and yeah. No and I I I love the tactile element of it because I don't know at the very least for me it keeps me focused.
¶171It gives me a kind of grounding. Um and you know as as you like work through the different um beads you almost just like you surround yourself in vocal prayer so that you free up your mind to engage in the meditative and the contemplative prayer so you can immerse yourself within the mystery you know contemplating the scourging at the pillar you know and you just like you see how how disgustingly joyful um Christ's executioners and torturers are as they're just like lashing him and just like ripping out his bloody flesh and then you know you think you you catch sight of let's say Mary on the side and she's just you know horrified and weeping and you know she's also offering up her suffering and I don't know you can just like enter the mystery so much better when you have you're really just like involving your whole being right um we aren't these like disembodied cartisian egos right like we have bodies we are body and soul composits and um when you involve your whole body in the prayer I know, it just it effectuates this whole reorientation of of you as a being toward God. Um, and I find that just beautiful and transformative. >> Yeah, that's very that's powerful. So on on that note, I did want to ask you, so you've been Christian for about 6 months.
¶172How is it do you feel like you there's been like change in your life? Because with on those Instagram people, the guy that did it first said when he was pretending to be a Christian, by day 22, he was like, "My life has just gotten better. I feel closer to God. I feel like he is real. I feel like I've had this personal experience.
¶173How has it been for you? Do you feel like there's been some sort of like internal changes? >> Yes. Yeah, there have been lots of internal changes. Um I mean, listen, I am still a massive sinner, right?
¶174I need grace just as much as the next guy. And you know, I'm very thankful that I have access to, you know, the sacraments of confession and um, you know, the Eucharist to help me on in the spiritual life. Um, but, you know, I'm still a sinner. That's what I want to emphasize. But, um, I just have noticed that it effectuated this reorientation in my focus.
¶175Like, in the past, and I I'm not saying this is necessarily true of everyone else, but it was just about me. like you know my life was about me you know my interests were number one and of course I cared about other people and I did nice things and you know and whatnot but I don't know still there was always just some kind of self-referentiality in all of my actions in all of my deliberations in all of my just doings and I've noticed that that's at the very least less pronounced since the conversion I'm more other oriented I don't get me wrong I'm still selfish and you know again I'm a sinner but um I've noticed that I I I I am turning toward God more and I'm thinking about like now I'm going on this like almost discernment process where I'm like okay hold on a second like what am I supposed to do with my life and that's like actually a thing that like I need to I don't get to invent that I just sort of discovered right there's a kind of like personal calling or voc um and so like I've been attuned to that more and just like attuned to like okay hold on a second how does how does God want me to to act in this moment um and just like focused on that way more and then focused on you know the the concerns and problems of of others more and just trying to you know crucify the flesh more than I previously did certainly um with you know Christian aesthetical practices of you know fasting and and various other things like that. So, I've noticed that um there has been at least a gradual reorientation of my focus toward others and God. But again, I still need to I need to stamp out my um my selfishness because it's still definitely there. >> Don't get me wrong.
¶176Do not get me wrong. But um but it it's it's been a noticeable change. >> Um so that that's one thing. Um, and it's been one of the biggest things just that reorientation of focus, you know, like what are my actions for just fundamentally? Uh, like what am I doing here?
¶177Mhm. >> Um and that's just reverberated throughout everything you know like uh it reverberates through like food like now you know you say grace now before eating like you know you can't eat before you know without saying grace like what do you do when you got to pray over it and like thank God for it you know um and like you know uh it's like not a day for me personally it's it's not a day without um the rosary right or it's not a day without you know some morning prayers um at the very least, you know, like I I haven't been able to be faithful to that every single day since my conversion, but it's like a goal, right? And so, like, I don't know. Um there have been lots of different reorientations and changes that I'm very grateful for. Um and of course, that's not to say that there haven't been been struggles.
¶178I mean, of course, like, you know, one of the things that I have struggled with, and I would appreciate your audience's prayers, is uh scrupulosity. So just um like you know anticedently I had anxiety and I have medicine for it and it helps but it doesn't totally get rid of it. >> Um and yeah the anxiety can latch on to a lot of different things. Um but uh you know since my conversion it has kind of latched on to just like being worried about you know um sin and various other things like that. Um, and so I would just like appreciate, you know, people's prayers for not just myself, but anyone who suffers from religious OCD because it's real and it, you know, it does it it it hurts people, right?
¶179So, um, I'd appreciate prayers about that. And I' I'd also encourage you to pray for anyone else who suffers from >> forms of religious OCD. >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
¶180We just had somebody on a uh because we do call-in streams on Thursdays and I think it was last week um there was a person that came on and as some as somebody who also has anxiety joke uh I I was able to clock it pretty quickly that this person that came on our call on stream was struggling and then um I told when long story short kind of opened up the possibility that she was struggling with religious OCD and we actually she got the help that she needed actually she's in therapy now But the amount of people that emailed me after that stream asking for resources on this was astounding. Like I just could not keep up actually to the point that like Mike, I'm even considering making a video on the topic at this point. Um >> Okay. >> But yeah, so it's it's it's it's tough. So yeah, definitely everybody should be praying for you for that and anybody else that's struggling with it >> and everyone else, right?
¶181Yeah. Not just me. >> Yeah. Yeah. With that, I also want to take a look at a a short little video of somebody.
¶182I believe it's might be an atheist or agnostic, a woman on Instagram trying to address your conversion to Christianity and just kind of get what you think about what she's saying here. If she thinks she's she's got you down well or if she doesn't know what she's talking about or if it's somewhere in the middle. But yeah, let's put this up and see where this goes. talk about Joe Schmid from Majesty of Reason who was an agnostic atheist who converted to Catholicism. I have a theory on this based on just hearing so many stories of atheists who go back to their childhood religion.
¶183And in my experience, again, just my experience and hearing many of these stories during their time as an atheist, they didn't have existential tools for meaninglessness or isolation or death. They didn't have community. They didn't have ritual in their life. They didn't have ways to prioritize love and service. They didn't have story and narratives that were really driving their life.
¶184They they weren't cultivating wisdom. They didn't have opportunities for awe. >> Yeah. Because when I think of Joe Schmidt, I think of somebody not cultivating wisdom. What >> Well, to be fair, she said I think she does say that she's not talking about Joe when she's talking about this pattern of person.
¶185So, I don't think she's saying >> Yeah, but she's trying to say that he's falling into that pattern kind of. It does kind of sound like yeah he's like I've seen this pattern and >> it's very >> she does make the requisite caveats which I appreciate. You know one thing I love about this which I should say you know she's very cordial about this. So that's something I very much appreciated. Um >> but yeah go on.
¶186What were you going to say? >> I was just going to say it I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt but I am suspicious about the plausible deniability move. That's all I'm saying. >> Mhm. opportunities for awe or states of transcendence or contemplation or meaning or purpose or all these things that religions give you.
¶187So for example, when I talked to Rain Wilson who went back to his childhood Bahigh faith after after a time in atheism, I flat out asked him like, "If you would have had all those things, would you have gone back to the Bahigh religion?" Because at the time when he was an atheist, he was just miserable and also abusing alcohol. So for Joe, what I'm seeing is that he had a childhood faith of Catholicism. By the ninth grade, he was really convinced of evolutionary arguments. He was really bothered by the problem of evil and the problem of suffering. Got into kind of new atheism and had some like surface level atheist arguments.
¶188He's young. And then as he got older and >> you're just a young little fella over there, just not really not really experience the real real world. I'm just I'm sorry. this really came across as like like it's almost like the backhanded compliments. Uh or it's sort of like what would be the opposite of that.
¶189It's almost like a pat on the shoulder insult. Like it's like you're just such a young guy. You don't get it yet. I was like come on let's not let's not do that. >> He went into philosophy and theology.
¶190He actually understood and Alex Okconor had the same arc. He actually learned that there's a lot better arguments to theism than what he originally thought and that Christianity was more plausible than he originally thought. So I would say that arguments determine which worldview is intellectually viable for us. It gives it gives us some options of of what is available to us or not. But then our existential needs are the things that are driving which worldview you actually want to inhabit.
¶191So what seems to have happened is as soon as theism and then Catholicism just passed a basic credibility threshold that oh there's more sophisticated arguments here than I first realized all of a sudden then he was able to talk about things like love and prayer and beauty and God and relationship and purpose and that he didn't have those things before in his life. So once his childhood faith became intellectually plausible, the existential needs and existential advantages of Catholicism actually kind of accelerated this conversion. And by the way, this isn't from a judgmental place. I also did this too. Like I also came back to a nuance form of Mormonism and also a nuance form of Christianity when I had more sophisticated arguments.
¶192But it wasn't because the arguments were so great. It was because I had existential needs under that. And as soon as I got a few sophisticated arguments, that was enough for me to stay on board. But it was for deeper existential reasons. And my goal here with nononsense spirituality is not to shame people who are religious.
¶193I was religious for most of my life. It's to give existential tools for people so they don't have to go back to religion to get those tools. >> Well, just on a quick note there, uh, no one's going to disagree with you, ma'am, on the problems of arguments for Mormonism. We we are all on the same page there. Uh, but I I don't know, Joe.
¶194What What do you think? Do you think this is like It It seems like again, it seems like she she's trying It seems like she's kind of doing the same kind of what she's accusing you of. Like, you rationalize this to make it make sense, but she seems to be doing that with you. She's rationalizing it to make it make sense in her worldview. It's almost like the the she's just projecting her own issues onto you.
¶195like she's got a rational she's trying to rationalize your conversion because it doesn't fit within or her non-religious worldview. So therefore that's what you had to be doing. So it is interesting I mean because here's something that people do gain uh when they find out that someone converts um they gain higher order evidence right so higher order evidence is evidence about first order evidence. So like you know first world order evidence is like you know like the facts on the ground that like support the different hypotheses right so like the facts that support Catholicism and the facts that you know support different hypotheses. So like that's the first order evidence right that like points in different directions of different hypotheses.
¶196Second order evidence is like evidence about the evidence like it's evidence that there may very well be evidence out there. There might be a there there. And when you hear that someone converted right you just gain some second order evidence. You're like oh man maybe there is something there. maybe I am kind of required to kind of inquire into this further and look into it.
¶197Um, and you know, people have different responses to the high order evidence, you know, if if they don't want to inquire further or if they don't and I'm not accusing this lick, but um I'm just saying like >> people have different responses to the high order evidence and some one way that some people go is to discredit the individual, right? So like okay, no, I nothing to see here, right? Um just I actively try to discredit the individual and so then this is evidentially neutralized and I don't need to worry. Um, >> so that that's one kind of response that people do. Um, and it's a kind of way of trying to deal with this newfound high order evidence.
¶198So, um, and this is just a way this as in this video is a way of trying to deal with the high order evidence, right? To be like, okay, this is how I can assimilate this new evidence into my pre-existing framework and my worldview. Um, and at least uh deal with it in that way. Okay. So, then going to like the the content of the message.
¶199um or the content of the video. Yeah. I mean, I have a number of things to say. Um I mean, once again, I was very grateful that this woman was very, you know, cordial and she was not meaning to shame people, right? Um so, I was grateful about that.
¶200Uh but like, yeah, I don't know. I I had a lot of meaning and love and relationships as a non-theist. I was actually pretty comfortable to be honest. I was very comfortable. >> Yeah.
¶201>> Things were just very comfortable in life. I just have to be very honest with you. Um, and >> part of your story was part of your story was literally, oh no, Catholicism might be true, >> right? Like the cognitive dissonance of like, oh gosh. Um, and yeah, listen, dude, I I just was comfortable and like I just got to be honest with you guys.
¶202Like >> for the most part, I mean, not everyone, but for the most part, everyone loved me, you know? Like that's that's how I felt, right? because I was this middle ground kind of like sensible voice, you know, like, oh, you know, I sometimes beat up on the atheists, sometimes beat up on the theists. And so, like I didn't have the kind of worldly enemies who kind of, you know, detested me or things like that. Um, or who were, you know, just heaping flack upon me.
¶203So, I was so comfortable in terms of like social dynamics and whatnot. I was comfortable in my my discipline, right? Because like, yeah, if you're agnostic in the discipline, you're you're going to be respected. you're going to be along with the majority atheists um who are in you know secular academia um especially in like yeah like uh um departments like you know philosophy and STEM sorry philosophy and like English and whatnot like there just are like a lot of atheists in those disciplines. Um so I was very comfortable in my discipline.
¶204I was very comfortable with uh my situation in relation to you know friends. I was comfortable in my, you know, career prospects. I was comfortable with respect to like my public perception. Everything was very comfortable. >> Mhm.
¶205>> You know what's not very comfortable? Um, yeah. I don't know. Just like having to take so much flack on all different sides for, you know, converting and then basically like going massively against the tide of my discipline such that like like I don't know um maybe even my career prospects are going to be hampered by that. I mean like who knows?
¶206Um but uh yeah like I I visiated certain connections or relationships that I had and um there was a lot of discomfort trying to follow the way of Christ, right? Uh just this past weekend the gospel passage was in Matthew and it was you know you got to pick up your cross and follow me. Uh and like what good is it if you gain the world >> but lose your life, right? >> Um and I had the world, man. I had the world.
¶207I had all these different fancy pants publications and whatnot. I had, you know, I'm at like a fancy pants institution and whatnot. Um, I had the world. I had it all. Um, >> but I didn't have Christ, right?
¶208I didn't have the truth. and gaining Christ and gaining the truth was yes liberating and beautiful and freeing but also very uncomfortable for a long time and it remains uncomfortable in various respects. So I don't know um I just want to say like there were lots of lots of considerations just like pushing in in the other direction um that like people who are trying to psychoanalyze this like may not realize right. >> Yeah. Um, and for the longest time, as Than was pointing out, I didn't want Catholicism to be true.
¶209Like, like obviously, you know, I've made these videos about like universalism and whatnot. Like I didn't want to believe in hell. Um, but like listen, I just have to conform my mind to the facts. So, I'm sorry. Um, so like I had a lot of even coitative barriers, so desire related barriers um to Catholicism.
¶210Um so yeah, I just wanted to say a number of those things. I mean one one other thing that I want to mention is that um you know when if we're doing this uh if we're doing this with respect to theists and conversion um don't complain when theists turn around and do this with respect to deconversion or persistence in non-theism, right? if if we're pointing out various like >> yeah uh non-intellectual psychological factors um that are kind of under the hood and that are either driving or influencing the process right so that's like a double standard that we might see in some people who are you know the psychoanalyzing type um you know like they'll they'll be fine doing that with respect to conversions or maintenance or persistence in theism but then when theists try to do something similar with respect to persistence in atheism or deconversion you know, they're going to get their panties in a twist, right? Um, so I do want to call out that double standard. Um, I'm not saying that this lady is doing that, but it is this is a common double standard.
¶211Um, >> okay. So, that's another thing that I wanted to say. And then, um, and then finally, I just want to end with like a kind of admission. And the admission is that yeah, to an extent, to an extent, she's right. Changes in view and even persistences in views are almost never solely intellectual.
¶212They're almost never solely intellectual. We were just saying earlier, you know, like we're these composits of body and soul, right? We've got emotions, we've got uh values, we've got existential needs, we have all these things. And so, >> yeah, changes in view, either conversions or deconversions and persistences in views uh are almost never solely intellectual. Even if intellectual factors are like foremost or primary like there is stuff there is other stuff going on whether we like it or not and whether we want to explain it away or not on all sides right uh and so like that's something that you know there's like an element of truth here which is that yeah I'll be the first person to admit that my conversion was not solely intellectual.
¶213>> Yeah. >> Yeah. And and it it'd be silly to act like that's a bad thing cuz then you would just be pretending if if people think that it needs to be purely intellectual otherwise, you know, it it's you're you're misleading or you're misled or you're mistaken or blah blah blah blah blah. it. You're either just lying to yourself or you're just solely like sorely out of touch with your own inter inner mental life and how you actually go about changing and updating and persisting in your beliefs like this is just the human psyche, >> right?
¶214Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Absolutely.
¶215Um yeah, to totally agree with that. We've so pointed on this channel before many times that, you know, no one ever converts or deconverts for purely intellect intellectual reasons. It's always a mix and that's just the human psyche, I guess. Uh Joe, uh Joe needs to make a too long didn't read videos for the Tik Tok channel. Yes, need to make a shorter version perhaps for some of these low attention spans we have today.
¶216>> I just I'm so resistant to that. I mean, it's like my whole ethos is like >> no holds barred, >> 12-h hour long videos, 25 hour long videos. Like, no, I'm going to leave like almost no stone unturned, you know? It's like, but like you want to condense this into 30 seconds, but then people are going to have all these objections that I'm not going to address. And then you know like I'm also just like I don't know bowing to the algorithm and just like bowing to the fact that you know our attention spans are just dwindling and dwindling because of our you know uh I don't know our capitalist overlords or something.
¶217>> I I did a 40inute video on John being an eyewitness account the gospel of John and Muslims were like yeah it's too long I didn't I'm not watching you need to do something shorter. like this is this is where we're at. 40 minutes. That was too long. So, this is what we're dealing with, ladies and gentlemen.
¶218About two years ago, I also went agnostic. One of the key arguments that drove me back was how the apostles died horrible deaths for what they saw. Yes. Yes. There's a lot of early evidence that, you know, Peter and Paul, for example, did.
¶219Yes. So, >> yeah. Yeah, I mean like these guys are basically willing to undergo utter torture for what they saw, right? So like they have a way I mean they're basically certain that they're right. Right.
¶220And and they seem to be well positioned to know that they're right. Right. So you know I do think that that's an evidential consideration. >> Sounds like a based Mcgrupian take right there. Joe.
¶221>> Hey Joe, super happy for you. Is there a reason you don't address the problem of evil in your cumulative case? So, he apparently watched the whole thing and didn't see it. >> Ah, but you just got to go back and watch again because it's in there. Yeah.
¶222So, um yeah, the the problem of evil is in um two different videos. The first one, the best ever cumulative case for God or the best ever argument for God. I don't even know my own titles. Um it's in there. I talk about the problem of evil in the um one of the hours, one of the hour marks, but yeah, it's in there.
¶223It's it's called um like evidence against theism. You can see it in the the the pinned comment or in the description and there I briefly just give how I deal with the problem of evil as a kind of like bird's eye overview. Um but yeah, it's in there. And then you go to um my latest video and then there um that's the one on like answering the best objections to Catholicism or like the best objections Catholicism answered. Um go to the section on theistic problems.
¶224Uh that's like barrier number I don't know seven or eight or something. Um and uh and and then there you will see my response to specifically the problem of evolutionary animal suffering because I sort of did like a deep dive on that in one of the videos. Um >> so yeah, it's in there. >> Yeah, it's on my playlist. I'm going to go through them all.
¶225I'm just going to I got a lot of long car rides ahead with, you know, moving and everything. So I'll have some >> Oh yeah, I should also say uh they're all they're well two of them are on Spotify right now. So if you guys want to listen on Spotify, there is a Majesty of Reason podcast and the third one will be uploaded almost immediately after our conversation if I remember. >> Excellent. >> I love the channel, but fans past comment that viewing Marian apparitions as possibly demonic might upset Jesus troubled me.
¶226>> The visions don't mesh with uh Protestantism. Would I be unsaved? What are your thing? You want to do this one? >> Yeah.
¶227Yeah. So for context, we when we were doing a stream on Inspiring Philosophy Academy, there was a clip where a Protestant was saying that the Mary is a demon. >> That's that would make Martin Luther cry. Okay. >> Yeah.
¶228So I got a little emotional. Um, and I like I wish I wouldn't have been as impassioned, but I can I don't know if you can blame me for that. Anyway, so I got impassioned and I was just like I kind of went into a pragmatic argument and said, "Look, regardless of what you might think about certain Marian dogmas, do you really want to face Jesus one day and have him look at you and say, "Why did you say that about my mom?" like, and so that's what I said. Now, divisions don't mesh well with Protestantism. Um, if you're saying divisions in themselves and like whether or not they're affirming Catholic dogma or anything else like that, Mike and I don't talk about our denomination, so I'm just going to take a step back there.
¶229Aside from that though, like high marriology is not at odds with Protestantism. Um, >> right. >> Like Lutheran hold to this. >> So >> Anglicans as well, I mean they're not going to be opposed to this stuff. I think a lot of problems a lot of like Catholics and Orthodox and you know we try to be bridgeuilders here between Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox.
¶230A lot of times Catholics, Orthodox will think Protestantism is like Joel Olstein megaurches and they never they don't know about high church Protestants like Presbyterians, Anglicans, uh, Lutheran, and they just sort of go like, >> "Oh, yeah, you're all the same." And it's like, "No, there's actually there's actually some differences there that need to be recognized." So, >> yeah. So, I just pulled up the formula of Concord there, and it literally says, therefore, she is truly the mother of God and yet has remained a virgin. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I mean I I'll just very briefly say that um my own view is that uh you know like the very well not not Zetun. I think that just gets us like saintly intercession and probably Mary's queenship given that you know we got like her literally wearing a queen crown.
¶231Uh but uh >> I I do think the other primary some of the other miritions that I talk about do vindicate distinctive Catholic doctrines. So people can watch my videos if they uh want to see my case for that. Um I think it's true. So I just feel obliged to say that. So >> yeah.
¶232Yeah. No worries. Yeah. Uh Jesus devotion was novel but a miraculously vindicate but a miraculously vindicated and b corroborated by fulfilling prior revelation. Mary devotion was a miraculously vindicated.
¶233What should a Protestant do with that? >> I think we kind of just talked about that already. So that hopefully you cover that. Yeah. Yeah.
¶234And just very briefly, I also just wanted to briefly say that I I I I do think that it's um >> corroborated by prior revelation. Uh you know, like we don't want to beg the question against the Catholics here. Like >> we think that the Marian dogmas are part of divine revelation, right? Um so and you know, we have various typological considerations that we appeal to in the Bible and various other things that you know, of course, Protestants may have divergent interpretations of, but you know, Catholics don't think that um it's in conflict with prior revelation or even that it's not even contained in prior re revelation. We think it's it's in there.
¶235>> Uh, hey Joe. Uh, do you think theists should apply something like natural theology to metaphysics like Joshua Siguati advocates for? I noticed a lack of those arguments in your videos. Just curious. >> Okay.
¶236So, um I know Joshua Suiati has um his recent book on uh theism with uh is it Routlitch? Um >> yeah. >> You know, I I have not read it. Okay. I'm just just gonna be honest with you.
¶237Okay. I haven't read it. So, I'm sorry. If I haven't read it, how dare you? >> Then, yeah, I I'm not >> I I will just currently refrain from commenting on it.
¶238I'm sorry. Um, but you know, I love I love metaphysics and you know, the tools of metaphysics are great and I think if there are, you know, we can show that a certain metaphysical system is true or we can show that at least certain metaphysical claims are true, then yeah, by all means, wield those in arguments for God's existence so long as those arguments are successful. Yeah. Um, that that sounds great to me. Um, now I you got to realize we all have different temperaments here, right?
¶239And I think, you know, God in his wisdom has given each of us different temperaments and like different arguments that appeal to, you know, each of us. Like you'll see in my video, I don't talk about a lot of these like super high flulutin abstract metaphysical theorizing arguments. Like I don't go into the five ways. I don't go into um ontological arguments in any depth. I don't go into yeah lots of metaphysical arguments.
¶240And that's just because God has given me the intellectual temperament of being just like a little suspicious about my ability to figure out abstract highutin metaphysical matters and basically you know like settling like really abstract highfulutin like deep metaphysics. Now I I study metaphysics but like I don't know it's like such a it's like this morass to me. It's like it's very difficult to figure out. And so as a result um I like lots of other like basing arguments which yeah I mean they have like commitments but I think like they're ones which I think I myself can get a purchase on and that I think like are at least more metaphysically minimal than by my lights. They're more metaphysically minimal than some of these other arguments that I just mentioned.
¶241Um and so given my temperament those are the arguments that convinced me and so I'm going to defend those. Um but like yeah I mean there there's this book coming out. I'm actually commenting on it at an upcoming conference by um uh Coons and Bon Dan Bonavac on um just like their renovated defense and interpretation of Quinus's five ways. So um it's like a 600page book. So like I'm excited to dive into that.
¶242Um so you know, we'll see. Who knows if there will be a change in my thinking going forward, but um at the moment, you know, given my dispositions, um it wouldn't be too surprising that I would omit those sorts of considerations from my uh my video. But by all mean, you know, by all means, if you've got like good arguments for your metaphysics and it's true, then you know, I love defending the truth and I love good arguments. So, >> glad this guy came to the faith. Al also wondering, has any scholar who grew up non-Christian converted due to the evidence?
¶243You mean like CS Lewis, Saig Saigard is will be a biochemist. I don't know if that's what you mean specifically. Uh but those are the two I can think of as well. I mean Francis Collins is also a scientist as well, but it depends on what you mean by scholar, but yeah. >> I'm sure there are like thousands.
¶244That's my guess. >> Yeah. Hi Joe. I'm so happy you're Catholic. Uh, especially because I'm not spec especially because I'm going into my senior year of philosophy now.
¶245I don't have to worry about debating you. Also, what are your thoughts on Plato's argument for God's form of the good republic book 6509b? >> Well, I'm sure you have Plato memorized. So, >> right. Yeah.
¶246Um, >> I was listen I have had one ancient philosophy class at Purdue and I remember talking about the form of the good. Um, but I'm sorry, dude. I I don't I know, right? You're just astounded. >> Oh my god.
¶247I was like my favorite philosophy. >> I I I almost I almost hate getting asked questions like this, Joe, because I feel like I should remember these things, >> right? >> And then I'm like, do I look stupid? Like, >> no. No.
¶248It's a good mortification, right? This is a good mortification to my pride. God has intentionally put this question on our radar so we can mortify my pride and make me show my ignorance. of um you know Plato's arguments. So listen yeah I'm sorry my friend I have taken one ancient philosophy class and it was in undergrad and to be completely honest to fulfill my scholarly duties and publish in the kinds of thing domains that I publish in I don't need to study um ancient philosophy to do that.
¶249That's not to say that I think ancient philosophy is not valuable. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. I think it's incredibly valuable. Okay.
¶250Um but um that that that's at least a psychological explanation or a biographical explanation of why I'm not really able to intelligently comment on this to be honest. >> Yeah, I I I had a professor Resza hadi when I was at University of Arizona. He just was so good at teaching uh ancient philosophy. So I loved it. It was because he I had a really good professor.
¶251I think he moved to University of Toronto. So if you go attend that college anyone take some courses from Reszah DCI. He was a great professor on ancient philosophy. Uh, as a Protestant, I'm not bothered at all by Joe's Catholicism. What bothers me is his nerdiness.
¶252Yes, we are all bothered by that. Yes. >> As am I. >> Uh, Messi stepped down from Argent Argentina and Joe stepped down from agnosticism. It sounds like some weird soccer joke.
¶253>> It is. It is soccer. >> It is soccer. >> Yeah. God bless you.
¶254Uh Joe, I've noticed some Catholic converts can be too zealous and unfairly straw man Protestants before critiquing them really understand the specific tradition. Eric Yabara is a good example. Thank you for your appearing. >> I agree we should avoid unfairly straw manning. I just think like you know so I am not like a you know a super high octane um understander of each Protestant tradition you know um and I don't pretend to be.
¶255I just think that there are uh arguments for Catholicism that don't require um being an expert on those uh arguments for Catholicism over Protestantism. And so I I feel totally comfortable defending those arguments which don't require being an expert on what exactly Yeah. I don't know like the Waldenzians were saying or something. >> Yeah. Yeah, I know.
¶256Well, I get you. Yeah. I mean, you could you could have an argument for Christianity like the resurrection argument and not know much about like Hinduism or Buddhism like you know similar kind of thing. Yeah. I'm not convinced, Joe Schmid.
¶257Very rude. Very rude of you, sir. How dare you. Hello, IP. What scholar Elijah's Jeremiah 23 interpretation?
¶258So, hold up. That's not just like he's using that has been used by the church. It was used by church fathers. It's not like he came up with this. So, if you want to know what that is, if you go to Jeremiah 6, it says here that uh the this the king that has to come, aka the Messiah, his name shall be Yahweh is our righteousness.
¶259Excuse me. And those uh those kind of theophonic names, theophoric names uh are only ever used of Yahweh that use the full tetetrogrammaton. So it's suggesting the king is going to be named Yahweh. So I reached out to a bunch of scholars and asked them about this and they were kind of like cautious to comment on it. Um here here's for example like what I can't say who this is but this was his reply.
¶260I can't answer that question with certainty. Off the top of my head I'd say yes that points to the Messiah's divinity. So a lot of the times scholars when they look at passages like this, they're not doing theology like the church fathers or theologians would be doing, they're doing they're just talking about the scholarly take or the cultural take of the time. And yeah, it's sort of like a pun or attacking the king of the the time, Zedekiah. But it could also be a way that could very well be God working through Jeremiah to point to the Messiah's divinity because yeah, he w will be called Yahweh is our righteousness because Jesus is Yahweh.
¶261So that that could very well be the case. But a lot of scholars are not really concerned about that. They're asking different questions about the texts. But uh from what I've been asking around, poking around and emailing, I'm getting a lot of feedback. To be fair, they are Christian, but they're saying, "Yeah, this this does seem to be a weird passage that could point to the Messiah's divinity." Yeah.
¶262Uh, laughs and Protestants as I look at the 95 thesis displace on my wall. I kid, God bless all three of you and welcome to the light, Joe. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Was it?
¶263Yeah. No, sorry. Go on. >> Oh, look up um a a can a painting of Jesus near-death experience confirm this. I'll look that up.
¶264I don't know much about that one specifically. Uh why are so many people in the clinical testing field saying these standards of the miracles are problematic? Well, I they're not with some of them. Some of they'll point out some and say they're problematic, but some they're they're not and those are the ones we've highlighted. >> Well, clinical testing field of what?
¶265Like clinical testing is a very huge discipline. What are they testing for? And why why clinical testing people are not going to be the people that are going to be philosophers that have both the medical knowledge and the philosophical knowledge to actually be able to judge miracles and all this other stuff. What are the problems that they're bringing up like >> yeah I mean there are just a lot of things to take into account when uh answering this question. So I mean it depends on I mean who's saying this?
¶266It depends on that. Yeah. It depends on their expertise. Secondly, it depends on um whether or not there are other people in the clinical testing field who disagree with them. That also depends on that.
¶267It also depends on whether or not um like are they holding the relevant miracles to an unreasonably high standard. So are they for instance demanding like a peer-reviewed study of something which only requires you know a kind of forensic examination in order to determine its identity or its character, right? Uh so for instance like identifying a sample um as like heart tissue for instance you know you don't need to have like a >> three peer-reviewed studies in order to do that right like >> um like you can well anyway I'll just leave it at that. So like it depends on actually what uh what sort of standards they're holding it to and whether that's actually a reasonable standard um or whether or not like you know again we could just go in for what's the best explanation of the data right like explain the data even if it doesn't meet the standards of like a peer-reviewed study explain the data right what's your explanation is your explanation that a conspiracy happened or that a fraud happened with no independent evidence so it depends on that um yeah it depends on like how wellounded their criticisms are um like oftentimes I've found that some of these criticisms have just misplaced um even if the people come from uh a clinical testing field doesn't mean that everything they say with respect to standards is correct. Um and then yeah I mean I just think I could go on but oh yeah and also the things that you said um this is only going to apply arguably to a limited number of some of these miracles.
¶268I mean we got like so many different kinds of miracles from like yeah saintly miracles and stigmatists and marin apparitions and like the healing miracles. So yeah there are just so many different kinds of miracles and this would presumably only apply to some. >> Yeah. Yeah, like I'd be curious to know what, you know, a clinical testing field specialist >> would have to say about, you know, a leg being reattached in the middle of the night um after it was buried for so long. >> Just tuning in now.
¶269Hey Joe, welcome to the Catholic family. Glad to have you. Just wondering what do you do with Bible difficulties, internal conflicts, archaeology? It's simple. He watches this channel that fixes all of that.
¶270We have all the archaeology videos and Bible internal conflict issues right here. >> Yeah. So I um I commend people working on that like you guys. Thank you for doing that. Um you know I I'm very glad you're doing that.
¶271Um yeah. So I mean in my video I have a one of my barriers. I forget which barrier it is but it's my latest video on answering the best rejections of Catholicism. I just give you like my general strategy for handling biblical difficulties. Um I don't go into like well I do talk about Old Testament violence and slavery.
¶272I talk about those specifically. Um, but that's more of like, you know, moral objections and whatnot. But I also talk about, you know, some of these objections to, um, inherency that people raise. Um, and I think like, you know, at the very least the sort of inherency that I'm committed to doesn't commit you to like this like rapidly literalistic like grotesqually conservative kind of view that that some people hold where it's like >> well anyway I'm not going to go but like yeah uh I'm only committed to a kind of inherency which allows for taking significant account of genre context literary devices audience etc. Um, so anyway, check out my video for more on that and then also just like watch this channel in more detail and you know, Testifies videos talking about like biblical tensions and conflicts and whatnot and like Yeah, I mean >> lots of videos that you can check out.
¶273>> Yeah, Testify is also great. Yes. Uh, Joe, oh, we by the way, we do have a video coming out just so the audience knows we have a video coming out on Deuteronomy 22:28. Did God command women to marry their rapists? And after that, we'll do Numbers 31.
¶274Did God endorse Moses' command to keep the unal alived ver virgins? And so, yeah, we'll be covering that and showing people have misunderstood the >> time. We got that video out. >> Yeah, I got I we got some good scholarship on that. So, uh Joe, I didn't get why you said divine.
¶275>> Sorry. >> Yeah, that's with Joel. Joel's helping with that stuff. Who's a pretty base scholar? Yes.
¶276Anyway, I was reading uh >> Sorry, I got excited. I saw Joel and then I just you know how you know about the bromance we got. >> I didn't get why you said divine hiddenness explains many of the many apparent biblical errors. The miracle case for Catholicism seems more epistemically coercive compared to a cohesive Bible. >> Yeah.
¶277So I mean the purpose of um the hiddenist model is at the very least to like temper the evidential force of some of these um you know like objections. So basically like for the audience like the hiddenist model uh that I talk about in the video and that's inspired by Ethan Muse, but it also just like kind of goes back to I mean I think it's like it's in there at least in Pascal where he's like um God provides enough light for those who wish to see and enough darkness for those who are wish to remain of a contrary disposition or something something like that. Um >> and that is about the uh like the overall pattern of objective evidence, right? And so at the very least um what that leads us to expect to at least some extent to some non-negligible non-silly extent conditional on theism is that you know like the total evidence would not be uh psychologically coercive and one like reasonable way for God to implement that is to uh yeah allow there to be um pretty epistemically forceful miracles but also to have the like the central text of the relevant tradition not be prespicuously inherent and inspired. That's like one way, one like reasonable way.
¶278I'm not saying it's the only way, but it's like one reasonable way that we can see God going about actualizing this plausible divine modus operandi for the various reasons that I talk about in my video. There are lots of goods that this kind of at least somewhat obscurity of God's existence enables. Um, and so so long as like this general pattern of evidence such that the relevant holy text is not prospicuously inherent or inspired together with like pretty epistemically forceful miracles. So long as that's like one reasonable way for God to go about actualizing um this kind of hiddenness, I think it's not going to be terribly surprising conditional on theism that the Bible would then not be prespicuously inherent uh and inspired. And so I think that's then just going to like lead us to expect that there are going to be some at least apparent difficulties with the Bible.
¶279Um even after, you know, we we go through some diligent scholarly examination. Uh I'm not saying that that's the only way that God could do it. You know, like um >> there are other ways that God could do this. And you know, it could have been that um you know, different things were more epistemically coercive or whatever. Um but I don't know.
¶280I I think that that's what I'd say. And you know, Koopa can let me know if I' I've misunderstood the question, but um the point is like even if the miracle case for Catholicism seems more epistemically coercive compared to a cohesive Bible, the point is just that like the pairing of yeah, pretty epistemically forceful miraculous evidence together with a notspicuously inherent or inspired Bible is like a reasonable way for God to actualize this divine hiddenness model. >> Um >> so it's it's not saying that there's going to be no evidence. um other than the Bible which is like yeah very pretty epistemically forceful that that's like not part of the model and it allow and you know even the model posits that there is objective evidence that is super epistemically forceful it's just not going to be like psychologically compulsive um at least at least in general for people. So anyway I know I've been rambling a little bit but I I don't really think that there's a significant tension here.
¶281>> Have you considered that 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 3 checkmate? >> Oh my gosh. Uh, defeater uh Pedro Pio was nanotechbased android. Oh, okay. I didn't think of it like that.
¶282Makes sense. Uh, hey Joe, even as a pro-life Christian, I was sad that you deleted the best example of an abortion debate that I could show proers to prove that we need to get better. Will you ever host a high quality debate again like that? >> Yeah, I may host that again. I mean, um, we'll we'll have to see.
¶283I mean like listen um there are certain private reasons that no one knows about and which I don't feel comfortable disclosing. >> Yeah. >> Concerning why that video in particular I enlisted. >> Uh and I can assure you that at the very least if you were in my situation you would under you would understand my reasoning better than you do. And I I I would prefer to keep that relatively nebulous.
¶284You don't owe anybody an explanation, Joe? >> Yeah. No. Yeah. You guys just don't know my situation.
¶285Um, and also, you know, we just got to keep in mind that like I do suffer from sculosity and that affects my decision-m and it makes me a little bit too cautious about things that I I may not be need to be as cautious about. And I see sin where sin isn't present and I see mortal sin where it's only venial sin. And so like um but also um yeah there just are other considerations that I know about and that no one else does. >> And it just trust me. >> You just got to trust me on this one.
¶286>> Uh he just wants you to know James wants you to know he's praying for you. He says he feels you. So good on that. Winjo praying for your brother. Welcome home.
¶287uh left-handed assess and says anxiety is a manifestation of a lack of trust in our God. He doesn't fail ever. He keeps all his promises always. I would cautious against that kind of reasoning. >> Not all of anxiety is going to be a spiritual thing.
¶288It can be come from physical things, trauma in someone's life. >> Uh the check out system is wired like >> Yeah, my friend. Anxiety can be a mental health issue. Um >> absolutely. Yeah.
¶289Check out my video on depression on this channel where I explain that the Bible teaches that depression, anxiety can have different manifestations, different causes, physical, spiritual, mental. So check that out. I was raised both Catholic and Protestant. One of my religious struggles is choosing a single denomination. I can see the best of both.
¶290I feel you. I feel you. That's where I feel. That's where I land a lot. >> Joe, you can you can say what you want to say.
¶291>> Well, I'll just like at least recommend. So, okay. So, I'll recommend two things. One is even if you have to spread it out over the course of days, just please, you know, watch the 25 hour. I know it's a big mask, but just, you know, just watch the 25 hours and consider it with an open mind, right?
¶292Consider my case, right? Consider my case with an open mind. Um, and I think I think you'll learn a lot. I think it'll be super beneficial and helpful to you. Um, so that's one thing I would I would recommend.
¶293Um, a second thing I I would recommend is um, yeah, just like pray a single, you know, it's two to three minutes. Just pray a single decade of the rosary every day. Um, and just ask God to lead you into religious truth. Okay? >> Pray a single decade of the rosary.
¶294And, you know, if you're worried about that being uh, idolatrous or illicit or inappropriate, just say beforehand, just say, "God, I'm going to I'm going to do this." And, you know, my intentions are pure. I just want to seek you. And if this is idolatrous or illicit, I'm sorry. I trust that you forgive me. Um, but then, you know, pray the rosary and then you just entrust yourself to God that he understands your intentions, right?
¶295He understands that you're not trying to do this to blasphem him or Yeah. Right. Exactly. He He He God is all knowing, right? He understands your intentions.
¶296So, if your intentions really are pure and to try to understand what he wants for your life, >> then just make that conditional point like, "Hey, if this is blasphemous, I'm sorry, Lord. You know my heart. you know, I desire you. You know, I love you above all else. >> Um, and then yeah, you afterwards, you can say, "God, again, if that was sinful, I'm sorry." And then, yeah, just I would just recommend doing that once a day.
¶297Um, it's again, a single deck of the rosary takes two to three minutes. Um, and you can meditate on, you know, the mysteries of the passion of Christ, right? Like that. It's ultimately meditation on Christ and and Christ's life. Um, so yeah, anyway, that's what I'd recommend, those two things.
¶298>> Joe, it's great to see you return to the church. It it has been very disappointing to see some of the Christians regarding uh degrading that you joined the church saying you left the frying pan for the fire. We will pray for you for them in their hardened hearts. I agree. >> Yeah, we just got to pray for them.
¶299>> I mean dude like you know I just have this like dude if like Augustine and Aquinus and Padre Peio and St. Marie Geredi and St. Damian Machai like if all these guys are cooked then I'm way more cooked, right? Cuz I'm not as saintly as them, right? So, like, you know, and if like everyone basically for the first like thousand or 1500 years of Christianity is cooked, then yeah, I'm I'm cooked.
¶300I've got I had no chance to begin with then. >> Hey Joe, can I get a Hail Mary? >> You know what? Yeah, let's do it right now. So, for for Sky Knight, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen.
¶301God, please um save Sky Knight. Please bless Sky Knight. And I pray uh Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
¶302Amen. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. >> Uh Mike oscillates the same three shirts. Yes, I do.
¶303And I I don't I don't waste money on excessive shirts. You're welcome. Uh 430 for the like button, everyone. Lots of people watching. Not enough likes.
¶304Yeah, everyone. 430 for the like button. >> And we're not going to tell Joe what that means because >> just >> we want to keep him innocent. >> Yes. Uh, hey Joe, I finished your 11-hour video on miracles when you when is the 20our video on the Shroud of Tan, >> dude.
¶305Yeah. I mean, I I actually saw a comment the other day um where it was like they said something like, "Oh, I'm disappointed you didn't go into the shroud and the Guadalupe Tilma." I'm like, "Guys, I just haven't really studied those." And like, listen, they're just there is a lot of I mean, I'm aware of a lot of disagreement among scholars on those things. So, I'm just like uh I I would need to study it in order to form like a first- order opinion that I'm very confident about. and then studying it would require at least for these for the shroud in particular I would have to just read so much scientific literature. Um yeah so yeah I mean who knows maybe maybe if I ever get some time like a summer and to study this stuff and I'll come down on the shroud.
¶306Um but right now I just have some high order evidence from people whose intellect intellects I respect. Um some of whom take it very very seriously and think it is miraculous. Um but I also just have some high order evidence from like other smart people who disagree with them. So, I don't know. I'm kind of like for those cases um whereas for lots of these other cases like like the Zetune and whatnot like you know I I I've dug into these things and so I am um you know much more confident in in those.
¶307>> Yeah. C what is what is Tim saying? Christ pill meta methodologist mog shedite tik tok I'm done. Okay. Thanks Tim.
¶308Joe Schmid I fully understand and resonate with your scrupalicity understanding that even someone as smart as you can still be human. keeps me going is knowing that in my heart I yearn for Christ. >> Yes. Yes. That's something that scrupulous people we just need to continually remind ourselves like you know ultimately we just need to trust we need to trust in Christ and love him and he will get us through this dark patch.
¶309You know Joe a deep diver and you want him to swim in the kitty pole. Yes. Joe, if you could write a book about your conversion journey, would you? Uh God bless you and happy uh for you finding the Lord. Maybe.
¶310We'll see. I mean, I don't know. Um, I'm open to that. Uh, I've kind of already written a book. I mean, it's in audiobook form and it's 25 hours long.
¶311So, um, >> that's true. That's true. Uh, do you guys have any genuine hard questions for atheists that make you struggle with I'm tired of online atheists discrediting the rationality of atheism with their hor horrible arguments. Not an atheist, by the way. Uh, not makes me struggle anymore.
¶312I mean, in the past, yeah, things like problem of evil, a little suffering, divine hiddenenness, and then the more I worked through them, the more they I I don't think they were they they they stood up. Uh that stuff sometimes, uh arguments against the Bible, like was Jesus a failed apocalyptic prophet? Uh so we have videos on that. Some other issues that we work through, you know. Uh glad to see that you came to Christ even if you are a no good filthy papist.
¶313But in all seriousness, I hope you grow in faith, love, and I'm glad and encouraged the apologetics played a role in coming to Christ. >> Thank you. >> Uh Joe, how do you make a sense of Rome teaching that we worship the same God as Muslims when they reject Christ divinity as an Orthodox? That's something I can't wrap my head around. >> Yeah, good question.
¶314I mean, I think it's just it goes down to like the the sense reference distinction, right? So like um >> uh you know, a conservative, think about think about Donald Trump, right? Um, conservatives and liberals in this country, especially if they're like, you know, have been, let's even like radicalize, like let's talk about far rightwing and then far leftwing, uh, when they use the term Donald Trump, they're referring to the same dude, the same guy, right? But if you look at the cluster of descriptions that each of them associates with Donald Trump in their mind, it's radically different, right? I mean, of course, there's going to be some overlap and there's going to be important overlap, right?
¶315So, they're both going to be like, "Yeah, okay, ma'am." um like you know over six feet tall or however tall he is um you know president or whatever but like you know one of them is going to be like you know basically Hitler like you know one of the b you know orange orange skin um you know the the like the worst conceivable thing and then another one is going to be like you know basically like the second the second incarnation of Christ and like you know like it's going to be like this crazy >> souped up view of Donald Trump. So, like they're going to have radically different conceptions of of Donald Trump. Um, and they may even have different conceptions of like things that they take to be like core and essential features of of like what Donald Trump is, you know? Um, but nevertheless, when they say Donald Trump, they're referring to the same dude, right? Um and there are different theories of reference uh that can try to make sense of how exactly that is the case given that they have different um pretty very different conceptual um dossas that they associate with um Donald Trump like basically different packages or clusters of descriptions and attributes that they kind of attribute to him or associate with him.
¶316Um but at the very least this shows that there can be significant divergences in sense or like the kind of like meaning or cluster of descriptions that you associate with a name. Uh there can be pretty significant divergences between those even though they share a reference. Um and it's basically the same thing that's going on with respect to um uh Muslims, Jews and Christians. Uh you know like we have different clusters of descriptions in our mind with respect to um the triune God, right? I mean only Christians have it right that he's triune.
¶317Um yeah, but Jews and Muslims, these are Abrahamic traditions, you know, they go back to Abraham. They we can trace a causal history to their usage of the term God, which goes back to a genuine divine revelation of God himself to Abraham, right? Um, and so yeah, although there's been some like conceptual pollution that's gone on with respect to um the Muslims and there's been like some conceptual isolation with respect to the the Jews, um we're all referring to one and the same God, you know, like God the creator, the omnipotent, simple, all powerful, ultimate source, the perfect source of everything else, right? Like um and you know, we kind of can all trace this causal chain back to um an event that goes back to God himself. So yeah, I mean we just have different conceptions of it even pretty starkly divergent conceptions of it and even with respect to some like core and essential attributes that we attribute to the being in question but again like you can have that even though you refer to the same being and that's like the case with Donald Trump.
¶318>> All right Joe what would be a vindicary argument for Protestantism say Lutheranism or Anglicism Anglicanism also what do you say to the argument that Pedro's wounds were in his hands rather than his wrists? I mean I would answer that one is that based on medical research and historical research the nail would have gone in like right around there. it would have been in the hand from what I remember from reading about uh this. Uh so I don't think that's much of an issue if it's not in the exact location uh because it's very clearly meant to be sim similar but I don't know what >> no no that is the thing right um so he is an icon of Christ right so like it's it's meant to be um a representation of Christ and so all that really matters here from God's perspective is that it's clear what he's representing even even if the representation isn't exact and like oh well you know uh well technically you know um Christ's given given the size of the nails it would have been actually you know 75 in long but if you look at Preio's wounds it was one inch long it's like no I mean you're sort of missing the point like everyone can understand if you just look at this it's very clear what it's representing right and so he's he's meant to be like an icon of Christ even if it's not and icons right what do icons do they oftentimes contain slight divergences from what exactly they're representing right I mean like you look at some of these icons I mean I've got icons okay I've I've got icons out the wazoo, right? But here here's an icon.
¶319Do you think Christ's hands were that like his arms were that emaciated and like long? Like no. But like come on. Like we all know what this is representing, right? Uh and so uh and that's what like divine that's what miracles are supposed to be.
¶320They're meant to be like signs to the faithful that are discernible and that are kind of obvious what what they're what they're meant to represent. So I don't think it's like I don't think it's a challenge that like you know it doesn't exactly correspond how Christ's wounds would historically have been. And even there, I know that there's some people who dis disagree about the exact nature of Roman crucifixion. I'm not a scholar on that, so I'm not going to comment on that. Um, okay.
¶321What would a vindicator argument for Protestant look like? Um, I assume you're asking about like a vindicatory uh miraculous argument. I mean, you know, if like for instance, um, you know, Martin Luther is appearing to three shepherd children and says, you know, I I am speaking, you know, I'm speaking on behalf of God the creator. The papacy is false. Solid is true and you know like these are like contemporaneously documented by the shepherds and we have all these like interrogation transcripts and whatnot from people like so yeah he came from this direction he was like he was wearing this he had all this okay so and then in witness to this private revelation that I'm giving to you that the papacy is false and that solid is true I'm going to call forth this sign in exactly three months come back to this exact date time location I'm going to make everyone believe okay and then everyone gathers and then it happens and It's like naturalistically inexplicable.
¶322Okay. So that that is what it would look like for there to be a vindicatory miraculous argument for um for example Protestantism. Um and you know we could sprinkle in some Lutheran or Anglican distinctives if we wanted to just like uh make it different. Um or yeah I mean like if if uh for instance yeah eucharistic miracles were only happening in Anglican contexts um then that would also be a pretty salient argument for Anglicanism I think. Um, so anyway, yeah, there are lots of different ways that the uh it could go.
¶323>> Uh, no issue with thinking Mary was a perpetual virgin or that she's the mother of God. Rather, that Lords and Fatima make explicit Catholic claims. If I deny them as a Protestant, would I be unsaved? Okay. So, the church teaches that um there are two things that we need to hold.
¶324And I talk about this in the um outside of the church there is no salvation portion of my latest video. Okay. So, uh and I go through exactly what that means. That's a dogma that we teach. Now, it doesn't mean what you think it means with your 21st century contemporary mind.
¶325Um you know, just hearing that, okay? Uh what it means is that if you're saved at all, it is through being incorporated in some way uh into the mystical body of Christ which is his church which is the Catholic Church according to Catholicism. But incorporation does not necessarily require so being incorporated or united to the body of Christ uh does not necessarily require being an explicit formal visible member of the Catholic Church. We do teach that there is such a thing as um you know uh being united to the church by explicit desire as in catechumans or being united to the church by implicit desire as in those who firstly through no fault of their own um do not know the truth or necessity of becoming Catholic and secondly who moved by gra who moved by grace um desire to do God's will and just who don't know that it is God's will that you become Catholic um through no fault of their And those people provided that they don't have other mortal sins on their conscience for which they haven't adequately repented. So, you know, you're not like a a gooner as we've talked about, you know, or if you are, you've you've adequately repented.
¶326Um, and you know, we have a bunch of conditions on on that. Um, so provided you're not in another, you know, other kinds of performing other kinds of mortal sins, um, and you meet the condition that I just met, then you can be saved by being united to the Catholic Church, um, implicitly through kind of implicit faith. And so that's why we teach that, you know, you read Vatican 2 and we teach that yes, Protestants can be saved. That's what you go read Vatican 2, that's what we teach. Um, so whether you say, um, whether you know, you're asking if I denied them as a Protestant, would I be unsaved?
¶327Uh, listen dude, I'm I don't I don't know because I don't know the state of your soul, right? Um, because like I can't pronounce on your culpability. That's known to God alone. Um, so like yeah, we do teach that if you culpably reject the Catholic Church and you don't adequately repent of it, you're damned. Like, yeah, that's that's what we teach.
¶328If you culpably if it's your fault and you meet the conditions for mortally sinning, right? So if you know you have full knowledge of the wrongness of the action or you're like gravely responsible for lacking the full knowledge of it um and you have deliberate consent and it's a grave matter and if you perform that and you don't adequately repent afterwards then you're going to be damned. And so you know uh this would all just go down to the culpability that's not my province that's God's province. Um but you know I' I've laid down on the table what our teachings are. Um that Protestants can be saved and that they can be incorporated into the Catholic Church u through kind of implicit faith.
¶329Um, and I I can only just be a faithful expositor of what we teach. >> If I Mike, if I had your nose to be an atheist, well, if I had your spelling ability, I would be one, too. Your get your spelling accurate there. Joe, I've been watching you for years. I'm Catholic and my family is LDS.
¶330Any plans to make a video in the future refuting process theology of people like Blake Olter? >> Yeah, good question. I don't currently have plans for that. Um, >> okay. No plans, ladies and gentlemen.
¶331So, uh, also, is L compatible with Catholicism? >> Oh, I think I think he means he's talking to my Yeah, he's talking about talking about existential inertia. Um, uh, no, it's not. And I know with divine and Catholic faith that it's false. >> So, >> yeah, I mean, I was just wrong in the past.
¶332I've been wrong many times. Sorry. >> Is psych physics arguments dependent on the assumption behind the hard problem such that someone can avoid the psychic argument by rejecting >> psychophysical harmony? I think >> psychophysical by mistake. Yeah.
¶333>> Yeah. So I mean the only assumption from the hard problem of consciousness that it requires is that there is a conceptual gap between physical truths and truths about consciousness. Okay. And that's really plausible. Okay.
¶334So like okay what do I mean by that? I mean basically like just by having an exhaustive knowledge of all the physical facts about humans you know all like the positions of the various particles and their momenta and you know their velocity and how exactly they're interacting you know like which neurotransmitters are crossing the synaptic gap at which particular times and at what rates and whatnot. If you had exhaustive knowledge of all that third personal scientific objective information, um you would not be able to like logically or conceptually deduce from that information alone um what the person was experiencing or even whether there's any experience going on in their heads. Um so for instance like if we can at least make coherent conceptual sense of a world that's physically like ours. Uh, so you know there are beings like Mike and Than and me here and I'm like moving my mouth in exactly the same way and the same neurons are firing in exactly the same way.
¶335If we can at least make conceptual sense, if I'm not just like speaking gibberish right now when I say like we can make conceptual sense of a world in which that stuff happens, the physical stuff happens but there's there's no one there's no lights on in here. It's all dark. There's nothing it's like to be me. There isn't like this felt subjective experience, this like rich technicolor phenomenology where I can like visually experience red and I can like feel, you know, tepid bath water when I put my hand in in in the bath or whatever and I can like yeah hear the noise of the rosary clinging. Um, so long as we can make conceptual sense of that, then there's going to be a conceptual gap between the physical truths and the truths about consciousness.
¶336And that's all the argument needs because then we can start generating like probabilities over all the different kinds of ways you could pair consciousness with uh the physical world. And it's going to be pretty pretty surprising that uh consciousness is paired with the physical world in strikingly fortuitous ways. So >> yeah, that's the only assumption as far as I can tell. The vast majority of Okay, I'd have to look at the the field papers. I will say the majority of philosophers um accept that.
¶337That's my understanding. >> Okay. It's not that Mary herself is a demon, it's that the apparition telling people to pray to her is the demon. A lot of people misword what they're saying. I think there was a response to you earlier, Than.
¶338>> Yeah. I mean, I'm just going to say makes it so much better. >> Yeah. I'm just going to say I mean like that distinction really doesn't really help in my opinion. Um >> in the same way >> and the risk argument still applies.
¶339No, no, but the risk still applies like because you know if these really are marrying apparitions like I wouldn't want to risk seeing Christ after death and being like yeah like I I said that this thing which really was your mother and had this significant importance was like a literal demon like that would I would be mortified that >> I think at best you should be agnostic about them not say they're demons that's what I would say like you don't have any direct reason to think that at this point and it would be really weird for a demon to be pointing people into Christianity >> like disguising yourself as Mary and then becoming a crit. Yeah. >> And performing all the miracles that Christ used and where people are like >> responsible for a gigantic amount of people coming to the faith and >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Not related, but because of your work, I got to share some gospel reliability and anamastic congruence arguments with an ex-Muslim Christian.
¶340That is great. Awesome. >> Great to hear. That's good to know. Yeah.
¶341Uh Joe, no worries about ancient philosophy. That just means we'll both have an opportunity for jobs hopefully. I'm also planning on doing my senior thesis on Plato's natural theology. St. Raphael, pray for us.
¶342>> Yes. What is um St. Raphael the patron of St. Raphael patron saint of >> he's an angel I believe. >> Travelers, the blind, bodily ills, medical workers, happy meetings.
¶343Interesting. Well, yeah, I know Raphael. Sweet. >> Yeah. Uh has Joe seen Kevin Nantra ditch content?
¶344Then he goes through the back stories of these miracles. Uh >> yes, I very extensively uh in thought about those and engaged with them during my conversion process. And in fact, I have uh responded to a number of the criticisms that Kevin has raised toward Fatima. Um >> we weren't responding to Kevin specifically, but we respond to lots of the criticisms that he has raised in my uh Veritatus Splender post, my Substack article with Noah McKay. So everyone can go check out my Substack Veritatus Splender.
¶345Um we have a post called in defense of the miracle of the sun. Um so you can check that out for some of my responses and I also you know respond to his charge on some some of his criticisms of um the eucharistic miracles in uh my section of my video on the eucharistic miracles. I mean, I'm very grateful to to Kevin for, you know, like basically he really has helped me in my process because he's helped me think through these objections and actually he it's helped me see actually the force of the arguments um by you know pitting them against some of the best critics and then seeing how to respond to them. So like I'm actually genuinely grateful to Kevin. Um but uh so yes, I have seen his content.
¶346I'm grateful to Kevin. Uh I call Kevin my friend. Um I hope he you know I hope and suspect that he still regards me as his friend. Um, and uh, and yes, I should. So, check out my uh, Substack, Veritata Splendor.
¶347We've got a really cool thing coming out in sometime in the future. It's going to be this huge project on this contemporary stigmatist called Mirzour. Um, so everyone, you got to stay tuned for that because it's super cool. Um, >> but yeah, Joe, is universalism a possibility? Assuming God is perfect, perfectly just, does eternal conscious torment entail that humans have an ultimate moral responsibility?
¶348How would you respond to G. Strawson's basic argument against W or UMR that is >> I don't know this >> is universalism a possibility um well listen I mean there is definitely such I mean under Catholicism um there is definitely such a thing as hell and it is a real possibility for any particular individual and anyone who dies in a state of unrepentant mortal sin goes there okay uh so got to say that like so you know it's not like everyone is guaranteed heaven um that's not the case. Uh now listen, there there is this question of whether or not it's at least consistent like logically consistent with everything that the church teaches that like as a contingent matter of fact uh everyone in fact goes to heaven. And I, you know, I just got to be like I have to study this more in order to figure out whether or not we like dogmatically teach that like there is at least one human person in heaven. I mean certainly um we teach that the demons are are there um like there's no possibility of repentance for the demons.
¶349They're going to be there for eternity. And I would just have to like look in more detail as to whether or not we could call it like contingent universalism is consistent with Catholic teaching. I have heard some voices say that it isn't. I have heard some voices say that it is. And listen, you know, yeah, I'm a neophite, right?
¶350So I I kind of just have to figure that out. Um, and so I'm not going to pronounce on it one way or another. Um, but uh, what matters is that like there is such a thing as hell and we all need to, you know, be as good as we possibly can and love God as much as we possibly can and pray as much as we possibly can so that um, you know, we can receive his graces unto salvation. Um, okay. Assuming God is perfectly just, doesn't eternal conscious orment entail that humans have ultimate moral responsibility?
¶351Um, so yes, I mean like uh under the Catholic model, hell is indeed um protributive. So then yes, uh it is deserved. And so yes, we do have moral responsibility. So um now, you know, it's it's it's been a while since I've looked into debates about um moral responsibility. There's this excellent book on free will by Durk Perboom and Michael McKenna.
¶352So, um >> Michael McKenna was one of my professors. >> Wait, seriously? >> Yeah. At University of Arizona. Yeah.
¶353>> Oh, dude, that's so cool. Um >> now, am I recalling correctly? Isn't Is this like um the kind of this is like a sort of moral responsibility that like Galen Strawson talks about? And I I just I just forget exactly the conditions under which like we are supposed to have have more ultimate moral responsibility. Is it something like you're also responsible for your character or something?
¶354Um >> I forget exactly. It is a compatible approach is what he was trying to argue for. >> Okay. Yeah. You you guys are really like pulling back the you're asking me to go back a long you you don't don't feel the obligation to get that deep into it.
¶355>> Okay. Yeah. No. And I I do recall something along the lines of Galen Strawson's argument being like, "Oh, it requires some kind of like implausible kind of self-causation or something like that. Um uh because you'd have to be like, yeah, like your character influences your choices and you like so you'd have to be respons if you're responsible for your choices, like you'd have to be responsible for your character or something like that." But like that can't be the case because you could always like trace that back.
¶356Anyway, um I forget the exact details, but uh yeah. No, I mean I I I I think that you could be totally more responsible even if you're acting under the influence of a character that you don't have control of. Um >> because like the character doesn't need to firstly it doesn't need to necessitate you to act as you do, right? Like you may still very well your character may just like affect probabilities for instance or it may afford you with certain reasons or make certain things salient. Um but you've still got an immaterial intellect and will which can um you know at least assuming you know your your faculties are functioning properly uh which can freely decide among um courses of action and then you can be responsible for that.
¶357Um, so that's the first thing I say. And I guess the second thing they say is like, well, you know, even if we're compatibilists, then I would say like, yeah, uh, just just because you're influenced by your character to act, and even if it determines you to act, so long as it like determines you in the right kind of way, so long as it goes through like your reasons responsive process and your your faculties are working properly and you're not being manipulated, then you could be morally responsible. But again, that's like with my compatibleist hat on. As you know, as it happens, I I reasonably strongly lean towards a kind of libertarian freedom. Um, but I'm like open in principle to compatibilism.
¶358>> It seems psychologically difficult for some atheists to jump to theism uh from philosophical arguments alone. In my opinion, some think concrete seems to help a ton as the last step thoughts. Um, yeah, I get where that comes from. Yeah, I get where you're coming from. I I I wasn't for me, but it may just be a psychological difference.
¶359Oakd Curtis expert. You can call and invite him. Thank you. Also, he says, "Than sent you that song, by the way, last stream." Okay, >> check it out. >> Check on that.
¶360>> How the hell will free will operate in heaven? The same way it operates here, just with boom more realize enlightened self for the same reason you don't put quarters in your mouth, even though you may have done it when you delete. >> I know. I mean, I think that's good. It's like um Yeah, like when you're in heaven, you just you have through cooperating with God's grace um and through being transformed by God's grace, you have Yeah.
¶361you've basically freely brought it about that um you basically you find sin so detestable. It's like eating a feces sandwich. So like you know there's like no chance you're going to eat a feces sandwich, >> right? Um >> can't wait. >> And >> yeah, and so it's it's something very similar like you can freely perform actions such that you get yourself to a point that there's no alternative possibilities even though there were alternative possibilities earlier on.
¶362Right. So now while we're wayfarers, while we're on this um we're pilgrims on a journey right now, we have the ability to choose evil. Um but you know, we can cultivate our character and conform ourselves into um you know, conform ourselves into into Christ essentially. Uh to the point that like yeah, no um evil is so detestable to us that we no longer even have the possibility of choosing it. >> I can't wait for that.
¶363Honestly, I I really do. I cannot wait for that feeling in that sense. Yeah. >> Uh this is on the Marian apparitions. Alex again says it doesn't matter because we use the exact same logic to prove it wasn't Gabriel who appeared to Muhammad in the cave.
¶364I no we would use the effects of that religion on reality and what it does and the false doctrines they teach as to argue to support the and the fact that >> some of even the early testimony supports the idea that it wasn't because Muhammad's first inclination the only eyewitness said it was a demon and then people later convinced him it was not. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I so I don't know about the the reliability of these traditions, but like I've heard people say >> that like this thing tried to like choke him and then he was like utterly freaked out and he was like shaking going back to his wife or something like that. Like >> yeah, he he his first inclination was something really bad had happened to him and some of the commentaries say this.
¶365>> Uh he some of the hadith even say he was a victim of black magic and then they convinced him it was an angel and he was a prophet and so it's kind of weird, you know. >> Yeah. I mean, you know, and there are lots of different tests for spiritual discernment that we can apply, you know, like look at the the the fruit, like again, um the fruits of the relevant putitive divine leate, right? So, like look at Muhammad's fruits. Does he strike you as more along the lines of Christ or more along the lines of something that's much worse than Christ?
¶366Um, and I I'll let you decide about that. I feel like the evangelicals get constantly talked down on meanwhile they make up the majority of the workforce of evangelism and the vast majority of converts from the global south brought in by them. This is statistically true. Yes, as of now evangelicals are doing a lot of the work uh in terms of growing churches missionaries being sent out. It is it is an interesting fact.
¶367Uh, I think it should probably be a sign that many like mainline Protestants, Catholic Orthodox need to pick up the pace for sure. But also, Catholics do a lot of work. There's a lot of Catholic missions. There's a lot of Catholic hospitals. It's not like it's just the evangelicals.
¶368It's just they are doing a lot of mission work as of now. Yeah. So, anyway, that is the last super chat. We got through them all. We did it.
¶369So, >> wow. >> Did it. >> I'm hungry. >> Yeah. Me too.
¶370Anyway, subscribe to Majesty of Reason. He is linked in the video title. Anything you want to say before we close out, Joe? >> No, I mean I thank you guys for hosting me. I would appreciate any prayers and yeah, I will be praying for your audience.
¶371>> We will be praying for you as well >> and we thank you for coming. We're so happy and amazed by your conversion. It's been a huge morale boost and we give glory to God for that. Uh so yeah, it's been honor having you on. uh thanks for all the work you do and we thoroughly appreciate it.
¶372And this is my happy face saying it. So >> yeah, thank you guys and and praise God for it, right? It's all God. >> Excellent. So thanks for coming everyone.
¶373I will see you Thursday for a call-in stream. Uh and then I'll see you guys next week as well. Peace out. >> You made it to the end of this video, which means this message matters to you. If you want to see more content like this reaching people for Christ, you can help make it happen.
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