Comments by "Andrew Bowen" (@andrewbowen2837) on "Academy of Ideas" channel.

  1.  @Alex-hu5eg  is your goal now to attack my credentials instead of my argument? Where I'm from has no bearing on anything. And I never claimed to support totalitarianism. My sole purpose is to challenge what is said in this video, and particularly the echo chamber it causes in the comment section, so-called free thinkers who all think alike.
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  2. Why couldn't you do both?
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  3. Modernity.
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  4. Have you seen videos or read any on Dostoevsky? Perhaps your dogmatism to reason, rationality, and science blinds you to why such a movement exists in the first place
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  5. For the past 2 or so years, you've been stanning Jung a ton. It gets tiresome after a while
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  6. You act as if science, technology, and innovation are themselves not dominating masters over the human race
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  7.  @Alex-hu5eg  if this channel is not telling you the truth, and you do not think in the same manner as this channel, why else would you call it a "bastion for truth?"
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  8.  @Alex-hu5eg  it's telling you what you want to hear instead of getting you to ask questions. You obviously do not question the truth of this channel, ergo, you are not thinking. Thus, you are in agreement with this channel that "totalitarian bad, capitalism good" and support its message, as evident from your original comment. As such, the channel is telling you what to think, and you are gobbling it up
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  9.  @callmelegendawight8298  hedonism existed long before capitalism. Fulfilling biological and psychological needs/desires existed long before capitalism. But you act as if I cannot place anything above myself, which is simply not the case. People often put their children, community, and spirituality above themselves. Totalitarianism (particularly fascism) is just another form of this, where the nation is seen as a large community to be placed above the self. If what you say is entirely true, then these regimes would never get off the ground in the first place. They obviously have some appeal
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  10.  @M64936  he doesn't have to stop with Jung, but at least diversify it a little. Suggestions for improvement never hurt anyone
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  11. The individual is made by the community and environment they are born into. You can't control yourself until you somehow can control those
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  12. I learned about Nietzsche in two classes in college in the past year... Maybe you're so victimized that you paint every institution as a boogeyman
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  13.  @stillawake76  you said "it was so obviously untrue. Returning would require me to live a lie." You made the claim that religion is untrue and a lie. Where is your evidence? In life, you can't accuse someone of lying without evidence to support you. Why is this all the sudden different? If you want to admit you live by a double standard and have no proof, just admit it and I'll leave you be
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  14. Why does life have to be judged by utilitarian standards?
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  15. Half truths maybe
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  16.  @Alex-hu5eg  shallow in terms of thinking you say? Is shallow thinking to study opposing views and seeing why they came to be and what appeal they had, what philosophical basis they had? Shallow thinking is saying "my way or the highway," which is what appears to be the case here. But I'm sure from your ethnocentric view from the outside that these other places do look bad, and in some instances they are bad. But what place isn't bad in some regard? Democracy features perhaps the strongest tyranny known to man: that of the majority. Does it mean I should defect somewhere else if I think it's being done wrong?
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  17.  @callmelegendawight8298  I'm interested in where you got all those ideas from in my statement, because absolutely none of it applies. If you can quote where I said anything about politicians being better and more sin-free than the average man, or where I endorsed totalitarianism, we can discuss further. I merely stated why fascism was appealing to people, people who were disillusioned with liberalism. Mussolini's own writings explain these things
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  18. This is hilarious. Did you pull this directly from r/Atheism?
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  19.  @mashumichelle  "demonstrably" huh? First off, what do you mean by religion? Second, do you mean all religions, including Taoism, Buddhism, Stoicism, etc.? Third, how is it demonstrable? Is it the sense of community that it fosters, the philanthropic accomplishments, civic activism, the moral compass that guides behavior, or the hope and peace of mind it provides? Furthermore, I can tell you've only selectively cherry picked that which fits your own agenda, and have ignored the things you are dogmatic to. I don't have to know you personally to know how you think and what you revere; you're no different than thousands of others in the world, many of whom I've had this exact conversation. So I'll repeat the same lines I give them: all forms of epistemology and ontology have been abuses for terrible ends throughout history. Have you ever heard of Juan Gines de Sepulveda? He used philosophy from Aristotle to argue that indigenous people in the Americas should be destroyed and/or enslaved. How about someone like Herbert Spencer, Earnest Hooton, Samuel Morton, Francis Galton, Josef Mengele, and researchers all throughout the twentieth century who committed or justified all sorts of atrocities in the name of science and its advancement? How about people like Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and so many others who slaughtered millions or forced thousands to migrate out of the same anti-theist dogma that you profess? And don't even get me started on the many unprovable assumptions that are required for a belief in science in the first place... You and your likeminded echo chamber are not exempt from atrocities throughout history, and you are not exempt from the same pitfalls that all worldviews share. The fundamental problem with all of them is an assumption of superiority to the followers, and inferiority to the others. You're no different. How about that for "free thinking"?
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  20.  @mashumichelle  "Religion is the opiate of the masses."
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  21. So the Ubermensche is someone who must be an active nihilist? I see why it is something so rare
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  22.  @ickster23  there is much that goes into it, such as what you said, bias of the observer and audience, relativism, etc. But what I was getting at was the idea that people are not "piano keys" or "organ stops," whichever wording you prefer. We are not machines, and thus can never be truly 100% rational unless we become physical machines. I hate to emphasize Hume, but it ultimately falls back on the idea that the passions guide our reason
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  23.  @bungus87  the main thing is from Notes from Underground, just the first section/part (about half of the work). It's a monologue from an intelligent man who cannot act because he always contemplates, and has become bitter about it. He describes how mathematically and rationally oriented lifestyles tend to turn towards irrationality out of spite, where they choose 2 times 2 is 5 just because they can, out of boredom, spite, and the desire for free will. He claims men aren't piano keys. Another instance, albeit less explicit, is with The Brothers Karamazov and the contradistinction between the Grand Inquisitor, the embodiment of reason, and Jesus Christ, the embodiment of freedom and love. I won't spoil that for you though, but it's something to keep in mind when you read it. The movement I was in reference to is "Post-Truth," as defined by the original poster. I think people have become disillusioned with the project of Modernity to establish the hegemony of science and reason, and thus have turned to emotions more. It is reactionary at the current state, but I think we will eventually balance out in a way similar to ancient Greece and find Sophrosyne
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  24.  @seansmith3058  I think things will balance out because people will find the two extremes to be infeasible. We have experienced the one extreme for the past few centuries in the form of pure rationality, and in reaction to that, we will likely have a little while of pure emotion (I can't estimate how long though). However, I think people will find that neither by themselves can properly explain everything about humanity and phenomenology, leading to a reconciliation where both rationality and irrationality are used simultaneously. At least, I hope this is the case, because I think both extremes can be disastrous for us. I find evidence for this stance in examining the history of political movements. Where there is an era of progressivism, it is followed by an era of traditionalism, and vice versa. I am unsure, though, if there is a balance between those two extremes, so we may just be in an endless cycle of that. If there is a golden mean, it will require a revolutionary country to set the standard for everyone else to follow on a global scale. But I digress; to summarize, I think there has been some dialectical aspect to history. Things have been like a metronome or seesaw, back and forth at different extremes. You are probably asking how this leads me to thinking a balance can be made, since this evidence tends to show the opposite. With the ancients, Reason/philosophy reigned, then with the medievals, irrationality/theology reigned (I hesitate to say "irrational" here because they did use philosophy to argue for their religions - Aquinas, Averroes, Erasmus, Calvin, were all philosophic - but they all stopped their questioning at a certain point). Now we have seen rationality/science reign, to be replaced by irrationality/post-truth. Doesn't this seem to imply that there will be no balance, and everything continues to follow the reactionary, dialectical model? Yes, it does, up to our moment and the near future. However, I cannot comprehend where the next stage will be, after Post-Truth, if it continues on this model. Perhaps this is an issue on my end then; and I would be unable to deny that possibility. What I think, though, is that we will have seen the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, that reason is too powerful a tool not to use and that irrational intuitions serve their purposes as well, and decide that we cannot return to any of the ways of the past in their entirety, as a whole extreme by itself. We will not be able to embrace philosophy alone once again, nor religion alone. That leaves two options then: forge a new way of understanding beyond rationality and irrationality, or to combine the two. I cannot think of what the former might be, so the latter seems the only real solution. There are a whole lot of thoughts I have on the "hows" of this approach. One is the structuring of the psyche, like in Plato's Republic, except a Venn diagram perhaps, and a reintroduction of telos and teleology. One is using Nietzsche's approach and making each man master of himself (which could be post-truth to an extent too. I also have a very big hang up with this approach, but that's another topic). But I think the most fitting would be something from Dostoevsky: to be able to combine impulse or instinct with prudence, solving the existential, intellectual, and free-choice anxiety that the Underground Man suffers. In other words, to make each person both a man of thought and a man of action.
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  25.  @joeltunnah  "it's not real capitalism"
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  26.  @mashumichelle  tips fedora
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  27. Based lol
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  28. Paraphrasing Dostoevsky: "people don't want freedom, they only want to be fed." A key component of having freedom is taking action into one's own hands. Nobody here does that. Nobody here is ready for freedom. We are all weak men. Perhaps in a generation or so, strong men will come about and flip the hourglass back over... Or perhaps, like in ancient Rome, the Republic will gave way to an empire. We think things are totalitarian now...
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  29. Perhaps humility and self criticism are the cause of looking outward for approval
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  30. That's the project of modernism, to make heaven on earth
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  31. For one, you can't prove that it's a lie. But also, is truth better than a noble lie?
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  32.  @stillawake76  if the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, you made the claim that it's untrue. So prove it
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  33.  @stillawake76  a key aspect of scientific positivism is falsifiability. But I'm just going with what you yourself said, that the burden of proof lies on the person making a claim. So prove your claim that religion isn't true. Unless you are now starting to go against the very principle you mentioned earlier out of inconvenience?
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  34.  @stillawake76  you made the claim. Defend it. If you walk up to someone and claim they're lying, and when they ask you for proof and you can't provide it, all it does is make you look like a fool. Any claim requires evidence. Or is it a double standard where it only applies to religion?
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  35.  @TheMrfrodough  noble lies do indeed exist. Plato's Republic examines them in detail. We live with tons of them. For example, that we have unalienable human rights. While truth is valuable, it can also be harmful. If one were to live happily, I would argue that less knowledge would be better.
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  36. It's interesting that this interpretation seems to respond to Buddhist philosophy. Desire is suffering, never being satisfied is suffering and an unfulfilling life, according to that lifestyle. However, Nietzsche seems to propose that these never ending and ever growing desires are the root of greatness. Which wins out in the end, or which does experience tell you is more correct?
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  37. "Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god" -Aristotle. Humans are social creatures. We are born into a community, we exist first as a name among other names, and are dependent on others not only for sustenance, but for psychological needs as well. You cannot tone out the opinions of others; it is not natural for your species. Ostracism and exile have been means of punishment for a reason. Look no further than our ape relatives to see we are meant to live in communities, and have evolved behaviors to suit the group. These cherrypicked philosophical quotes will lead you into the deepest nihilism and solipsism, the great destroyers of the western worldview
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  38. This whole idea of people as individuals is a modern development, used to justify classical liberalism. There is no way humans were individuals by nature; look at our relatives, the monkeys and apes, who live in groups. What evolutionary advantage would there have been to leave these groups and become individuals? People were parts of groups and communities for most of human history, being Spartans, Israelites, Romans, Persians, Christians, etc. Not until Locke and the enlightenment did the narrative start changing, when thinkers began using the "individual by nature" as a means of arguing for individual rights and freedoms. Perhaps only now are we starting to see the facade of liberalism and individualism collapse because they contradict our nature
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  39. Science is a religion
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  40. There is an entire manual on mental illnesses. The only differences in them are how they are expressed within different cultural contexts
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  41.  @Alex-hu5eg  is this channel not telling you what to think?
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  42. @Uncle Flotsam I'm not even going to address anything you said because no thought was put into any of it, it's completely wrong, and unrelated
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  43.  @davidhall9273  your conception of totalitarianism is heavily favoring only one ideology and not its full breadth. You're attacking "Bernie Bros" and what you've been told of Marxism from the Cold War era propaganda. I've been talking about fascism, which is completely different in every regard. But I can address this topic as well if you would like.
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  44.  @davidhall9273  communes and totalitarianism are antithetical. The constitution originally had constraints to limit the threat of totalitarianism from the only source it could come from in America, but then the 17th amendment was passed. The fact of the matter is that American society has been tyrannical since it has been united as one nation. What is the tyranny I'm in reference to? That of the majority. It's the topic that James Madison spent the most time addressing in the Federalist Papers, and it's something the average person (you) does not think about. You have never been free. Alexis de Tocqueville provides an excellent explanation on how majority tyranny destroys the soul of any free thinking person, making it worse than any dictatorship that merely harms the physical body. Your thinking is too narrow. You've zoomed in to focus on Red vs. Blue and not the bigger picture. It's laughable that you try to claim that I "can't see what others can," but I would gladly take my position outside of the herd, outside of the cave, if it means I have a better perspective on how things really are
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  45. @Uncle Flotsam I'm not wasting my time on the wilfully ignorant
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  46. Why should I conquer these natural things? Is it not human to experience them just as well?
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  47. The great thing about comment sections of videos of this type are the accumulation of faux free thinkers. The googling of relevant quotes and the echo chamber of ideas would lead one to think that perhaps if so many people are so inclined towards thinking there is a problem in the world, that at least one would go about seeking a change. However, that has not been the case. Why is that? Why do the people preaching "dangerous freedom over peaceful safety" in the comments live by the latter in all circumstances except the anonymous comment section on YouTube? Because they know it a lie; these weakest of men, these Last Men, embody nothing more than what the Grand Inquisitor preaches in the Brothers Karamazov - bread and circus for their peace. These so-called free thinkers preach from their pulpit, but when they are challenged to come forth and practice what they preach, none dare step forward. They are sheep in their own accord, where joining a herd and following is easy, but creating their own or becoming a shepherd is outside of their capabilities. They will speak in unison with their group, as seen in these comments, but will not do so when the cards are on the table. Am I to derive hope from these comments, seeing people profess their concerns? Or despair, knowing they will neither take action nor formulate ideas outside of the anonymity of YouTube? To the topic at hand then: the conflict of utilitarian morality and the western liberal metanarrative. How strange it is, first, that both of our contemporary conceptions of these ideas originated in England. To take a page from both Aristotle and Marx, it appears that democracy and liberal thought forged the weapons that would be their undoing. To clarify the two positions, for those very few who will read this: utilitarian morals seeks the most good for the most people, knowing that not everyone can be satisfied. So if 51% of people derive benefit from an action but 49% do not, then the utilitarian view would follow through with said action for the "common good." Liberalism, on the contrary, values each and every individual as equals, personified by the motto "a good soldier never leaves a man behind." When practical politics come into play, the liberal perspective runs into pitfalls. How is it that you can satisfy every individual equally? The only way is by unanimity. However, we all know this is not feasible. The amount of time taken to continuously compromise to satisfy everyone would be the death knell of the government itself. In other words, is the soldier really good if he goes to save one comrade and ends up jeopardizing and killing the entire platoon? If one who is dogmatic to liberalism were to ponder on this issue for longer, they would also come to the horrifying realization that we have been living under utilitarianism the whole time. Democracy in itself is utilitarianism incarnate; for aren't the majority the only ones who see the benefits of such a system? To allude to Rousseau, the general will decides what is good for it, and everyone else is "forced to be free." Furthermore, such provisions are the established goals of the US government, as established in the preamble of the constitution: "promote the general welfare." The one rebuke that will undoubtedly be bleated to no end is: "Look at how collectivism caused such destruction in the 20th century; it will never work!" There are several rebuttals to this claim. One is, if the liberal system were perfect, why did we see (and continue to see) people attempt to be rid of it? You may retort "because people are ambitious and power-hungry." Nay, they have seen through a flawed system, or were part of the minority group that did not reap the benefits of the liberal system, and instead seek something more just, or more effective. Another rebuttal is the issue of overcoming dogma. The West has dogmatically accepted liberalism, rights, and individuality for centuries. Where can one find any rights in nature? There was license perhaps. Where have we ever seen humans, or even primates or hominids, ever live as individuals? They have always been a part of a community. So why is there such reverence for the falsehoods of liberalism? Because it has been ingrained, and it makes the individual feel important. So when there were attempts to shed the yoke, of course there was resistance. The last rebuttal I will mention is the flaw of using the words "can't" or "won't." Just because something has not worked, does not mean it cannot or will not work. When you were learning to ride a bike and fell off, scraping your knees and elbows, did you forever give up on learning? Even then, one only has to take a quick glance at history to see that there have been collectivist, utilitarian regimes with success, some we call the greatest civilizations in history: Sparta and Rome. One can not help but to look in awe at the Horatii and be envious of their civic nationalism, or their devotion to a higher cause that gives them purpose. These things are not found in liberal societies, lest those in these comments would have already taken the role of Brutus. Just so this little sheep is not left out of its herd, here is my pertinent, researched (but sadly not via Google) quote on the topic: "... a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing Demagogues and ending Tyrants." - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 1
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  48. There is always an unfounded assumption at the core of thought. What would make one any better than another?
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  49.  @foreverbooked2964  you really believe that? That's blind faith if I've ever seen it. You profess a scientific ideal, but that is rarely how it is actually practiced. Hypotheses themselves are conclusions. Scientific work starts with a conclusion, then showcases evidence for that conclusion. However, they never showcase failures, cherry picking what they publish and portray to the public. Additionally, the very topics scientists research and what methods they use are the result of cherry picking. The only difference for them is that it isn't subconscious, but actually conscious. And by the way, the only thing that distinguishes a hypothesis and a theory are how many people accept it. If the majority of scientists agree on a hypothesis, it arbitrarily becomes a theory. If we apply the same concept to all people as a whole, belief in God has been extremely popular throughout history, which would have made it an accepted hypothesis, and thus, a theory.
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  50.  @foreverbooked2964  and everything you have typed tells me you are disconnected from the scientific reality. The entire postmodern movement established these very critiques. And today, every scientific field is having a crisis of replication. You either are, or choose to be, ignorant of these problems because you esteem science as an infallible thing, the same way a religious person considers their faith and God infallible
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  51.  @foreverbooked2964  replication is the core to the scientific method. If studies cannot be replicated, the validity of your esteemed method is questionable, and its results no longer valuable. Call it whatever name you like, but it is deeply flawed, and differs starkly from the ideal you were taught in high school
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  52.  @foreverbooked2964  the scientific method is not necessarily the issue, you are right. But the idea of starting with a question is an incorrect one. The scientific method is a cycle, not a linear progression, as much as it is conveyed that way as a heuristic. You can start anywhere within the process and then complete the circle. This leaves open the possibility of both inductive and deductive reasoning. For this reason, a question is never the starting point. It is almost always an observation that occurs first, after which a hypothesis is formed to explain that phenomena. This is why null hypotheses are rarely accepted in academic writings. All it becomes is inference, and it is in no way objective. Every aspect of it is subject to the bias of the scientist, and cherry picked to fit their explanations
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  53. The only issue I have is with pride being the end goal. Pride is something that is dependent on others; it requires someone else to realize it. To be proud of something, even oneself, means that a) this object reached a standard established by an other, and/or b) that someone else actualizes that pride (i.e. it is shown off/celebrated by someone else). Imagine a hypothetical person who lived without any other human contact for their entire lives; would they take pride in anything they do? This is an issue that Rousseau tackles in his works, especially the two discourses, if anyone is interested. I agree with the premise, that creativity is a tool to reach human purpose, but I think the end goal would be self actualization, autonomy, and productivity (i.e. producing something with your own hands that yields results that you can enjoy, such as planting a garden and enjoying the food from it), rather than pride, which would be a byproduct.
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  54. Perhaps their reality itself is a lie
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  55.  @mashumichelle  that's why you repeat the same old tired lines, like part of a hive mind?
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  56.  @mashumichelle  you're no exception. Humans are mimetic. You've read one Karl Marx quote and seen all the edgy BS on the internet, and followed that same mindset. Nothing you have said is original or indicates free though
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  57. This deals only with discursive, intentional lies to the self that then become believed as truth. It does not factor in the unconscious lies, the ones we are not aware of, the ones that actually structure our existence and allow for the other types of lies. Our memories and conceptions about ourselves and the world, all misrememberings, incorrect assumptions that we know no better about. No matter what one does, there is no escaping from them
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  58. Spoken like someone who has never gone to college
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  59.  @oldgysgt  do tell, how many philosophy and political science courses did you take for your drafting degree? And how many did your friend take for computer science?
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  60. Robert Paul Wolff talks about this in his pamphlet "In Defense of Anarchism." He says that if we are to give up hope on trying to reconcile the moral autonomy of the individual and the legitimate authority of the state, it would be better to retain autonomy. Otherwise, we are no better than children, who lack dignity and can't weigh the merits of actions
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  61. How is middle school going?
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  62.  @ickster23  I don't mean any sort of animosity by asking further questions, but to simply challenge your values. Why is being more emotional necessarily a bad thing? Can we look at the product of reasoning and rationality (at the expense of emotion) and claim that it has been unequivocally good?
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  63.  @seansmith3058  perhaps you're right that psychology could explain why people tend to have irrational behavior, but do you think there is a solution or "fix" to it? Or that there should even be an attempt to resolve irrationality?
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  64. Water is wet
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  65. Ah, "humane," one of the greatest misnomers ever created. We should of course make the standard be the creature that does the greatest evil
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  66. This is such a large and deep topic, and I should've guessed you would narrow it down and thin it out to where it only applies to the "enemies" of democracy. Every civilization, every state, every nation is built upon lies. This is something known since Plato's Republic, shown both in the allegory of the cave and the concept of a noble lie. This is why philosophers can never be kings, and why they distance themselves from the rest of society. All politics, even democracy, is built upon lies. You and the people in the comments do not see the whole picture and think yourselves immune, to be living in the greatest era of the greatest freedom. It simply is not the case. You all do not turn the mirror to yourselves and your society to question what lies we live and accept: inalienable, universal human rights; that all men are created equal; that democracy is the best regime; that freedom and equality can coexist. If you take this approach, you will come to the conclusion that anarchism is the only form of politics that may not be built upon any lies.
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  67. In a similar manner, all systems of justice are built upon injustice. This is knowledge known at least since Machiavelli's The Prince. It takes injustice to have the desire for justice, and it takes injustice to establish and institute a form of justice. What, then, should be done about the legitimacy of such systems?
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  68. And how is relying on the self any better?
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  69.  @AllAhabNoMoby  do you automatically know yourself? If so, why did people bother with placing an inscription at the temple of Apollo at Delphi with the phrase "Know Thyself"? Do you think that you can know your unconscious, your habitus? And is it possible to understand a person without first understanding their environment and upbringing, meaning that you have to know the outside to know the inside? Can you control the unconscious and intuitions? Are they not shaped by the outside world as well?
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  70.  @AllAhabNoMoby  how does knowing yourself translate to meaning and purpose?
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  71.  @AllAhabNoMoby  so do you think all people have the same purpose, since knowing thyself would lead to knowing others?
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  72. So if you have to defend others' freedoms, is that a freedom you had in the first place? Your two choices are to defend others, or submit. Neither one sounds free to me
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  73.  @Shootskas  freedom is to have choice. If we don't have a choice in the matter, or if we have some half-choice like you proposed, is it really freedom?
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  74.  @Shootskas  when have I once said individual rights should be suppressed?
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  75. @Uncle Flotsam sorry that you can't understand basic English. It's not my fault though
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  76.  @Shootskas  let me paint you a scenario: Someone puts a gun to your head and states "you must either choose A or B." Would you call that freedom? The choice doesn't matter, but the fact that you are forced into choosing, and are only given two options when there is a whole alphabet, does not seem like any kind of "freedom" I would want
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  77.  @Shootskas  it's reflective of your original comment. You gave me only two options, so if that is a dumb approach to you, you can only blame yourself for supplying it
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  78.  @Shootskas  the "don't defend" option encompasses several different options. For example, removing oneself from any coercive ditution, or one could endorse the coercion even. But a third option entirely is that there is no coercion - it has either never threatened to exist, it was prevented from existing, or it was stopped after existing - in this hypothetical instance. My goal is to reiterate a point made by Jacques Ellul: if your "choices" are between living or perishing, it isn't really a choice, especially a free one, since you really only have one option. Nowhere have I endorsed anything else.
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  79.  @Shootskas  your intentions were binary yes and no, as you've made clear. You left options off the table that aren't clearly one way or the other. Since this video is concerning lies and truth, have you ever considered that your "liberties" are such lies? Are you willing to accept them because they offer some perceived benefit, while you perceive others as not?
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  80.  @Shootskas  freedom and liberty are not the same thing. Also, you straw man and put words in my mouth I never said or typed. And here I thought this comment section was full of intellectuals...
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  81. That was indeed their purpose. It has been that way for all time, all the way back to the Iliad
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  82. All this means is that people practice the Christian morality without the Christian God. You've taken the spirit of it away, rendering it fundamentally inept and meaningless.
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  83. Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Maimonides, Martin Buber, Averroes, Avicenna, and plenty others, were all unenlightened and unreasonable, you are completely right! None of them ever used logic or rationality one day in their whole lives. All they did was eat their curds and moo. You perpetuate the greatest propaganda campaign in history. Speaking of thinking for oneself....
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  84. @RandomUser123 because science is rooted in faith, you just choose to ignore it. For instance, it presupposes linear time, a necessary link between cause and effect, that nature is subordinate to man, that natural selection has been a guiding hand for all species, that all organisms act economically (for resources only), and that matter has always existed (much like religion notes that God has always existed). Are any of these things provable?
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  85. I hope you do not post more videos like this. All the surface-level "thinkers" crawl from the wood works when you have posted things that verify US ideals. This video and the one about freedom and the state have thousands of comments. Yet the real philosophical works, like the ones on Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, etc. barely have 300. Every member of the herd claims himself a philosopher and above the herd.
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  86.  @roderickmathison5245  then don't interpret it literally. You don't interpret other epic poems literally. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have meaning or value
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  87. A victim of lies of religion? How does that work? And what great truth have you figured out with undeniable proof that bypasses the wisdom of thousands of years of human experience?
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  88.  @roderickmathison5245  non-theists believe in one truth: that theism is a lie/untrue. So, I ask them to prove it
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  89.  @roderickmathison5245  according to who? The onus is always on someone making a claim, no matter its substance. If you claim something is false, why should I believe you if you don't offer proof?
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  90.  @roderickmathison5245  "that's just how things are." Dogma at its finest my friend. Nobody in this video, nor myself, has made a claim that God exists. All the comments are people claiming God doesn't exist. Just like in any paper or argument, simply stating something is untrue, a lie, or doesn't exist will get you nowhere. In academic papers, if someone were to argue that the current theory is false, they would provide evidence, and then provide an alternative. You've done neither. The only argument you could even make is that you can't see or measure a God. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You can't empirically prove that society, consciousness, the unconscious, emotions, and so many other things are real. Neither can you empirically prove many of the fundamental assumptions of science, such as linear time, "progress," natural selection, or an intrinsic link between cause and effect. So why do you still believe in them?
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  91.  @roderickmathison5245  dogma to logic, my friend. Who came up with those rules? Why does everyone follow them?
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  92.  @roderickmathison5245  for one, that's not at all what science does. It's more like "huh, there's this thing that happens. I'm gonna come up with an idea about how this thing happens." Then, in an attempt to look formal, they create a "null" hypothesis where it's basically just "the negation of my theory." Then after some good old fashioned confirmation bias and data manipulation to suit their hypothesis (because getting published is all that matters), they publish their papers and it gets put into the world, never to be repeated or tested again, thus the current replication crisis. Second, the amount of staw man takes for religion is completely laughable. Of course, there has never ever been a logical or reasoned conclusion for the existence of God throughout all of history, nope, not even once. Just forget Aquinas, Augustine, Maimonides, and the plethora of other Abrahamic philosophers of the scholastic period just because it doesn't suit your argument (very fitting for a scientific person). Don't even get me started on your false equivalency either. Whenever someone proclaims a "false" idea, you don't change their mind by just yelling at them that they're wrong. Take flat earth people; they have some semblance of evidence, based on empirical observations no less. By just telling them that they're wrong and that their evidence is lacking, you accomplish nothing. That's why there is always counter evidence. Evidence is needed to prove points wrong. If I said "Carl Jung liked men," you wouldn't win an argument against me by simply stating I was wrong. You would win if you were able to provide evidence he had a wife or something similar, to which I could not rebuke. Furthermore, you make a claim, and instead of defending your claim, you simply say "provide me evidence to the contrary." That's what the entire antitheist position is based upon. You can't defend your own position. You do the very thing that theists do, yet you aren't at fault for some reason. It's both a double standard and an act of hypocrisy. In an actual debate, if people performed this tactic, it would be nothing more than a waste of time. Finally, your entire stance is built on the idea that the only knowable things of the universe are those things that are observable with human senses or machines. This concept is terribly flawed, and has been known to be so dating all the way back to Plato and possibly before. Stick a pencil in a cup of water; your senses tell you it's split in two. Walk along a road in a desert and you'll see a mirage that looks similar to water. Your eyesight is limited and can lie to you; this doesn't even consider the wavelengths of light that aren't even perceptible to humans. This applies to every one of your senses. Additionally, many things we agree exist are not perceptible. The consciousness - show me an image of it. You can't? It must not exist then. Show me proof that time exists. You can't? It must not exist. This can apply to any amount of things, but I hope you get the point, since you proclaim to be a rational free thinker. The only answer to the topic at hand is that we don't know. There's no use in pretending that we do.
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  93.  @roderickmathison5245  how so? Counter evidence is how paradigms change in science. And I agree, the onus is on the person making a claim, which means that when someone claims there is no God, they must prove it 😉
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  94.  @roderickmathison5245  my only purpose is to show that we don't know. It's impossible to be certain either way. It seems like we agree there, and that would be a good point to conclude
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  95.  @darthdadt  yeah, I have become "one who knows" because one-sided YouTube channels provide me with the truth! Not that pesky, liberal education!
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  96.  @darthdadt  of course, one such as yourself can't be indoctrinated because you watch YouTube videos! It's not the same things you learn in college at all. Of course, you must know exactly what every college is like, since you've been right?
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  97. Is your desired state of freedom not itself a utopia? Does that mean that if everyone had this perfect freedom, it too would create hell on earth?
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  98. So small picture, even you who claim to be wise don't see the whole landscape
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  99. Baaa
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  100. "I'm a free thinker, I don't need religion to behave." uses Christian ethics and conceptions of good behavior
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