Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "OxfordUnion" channel.

  1. I don't do heroes; so few public figures are worthy. But damn, I feel the deepest admiration and respect it's possible for me to feel towards any human being for Stephen. His intelligence, humanity, and fundamental decency are virtues that would trasform the planet if they were shared by our politicians and business leaders.
    150
  2. Self conscious laughter there when Bill said that nobody should be elevated just because of their bloodline. And then silence whilst he suggest that we should treat animals ethically. Beginning to think that even the liberal students of Oxford are pretty far removed from mainstream Britain.
    14
  3. "He's at Oxford and you're not. You're not in a position to criticize." That's the weakest argument ever. Bill Cosby was America's top entertainer and I'm not. Does that mean I can't criticise him? Dave Rubin is confused, malleable, low rent intellectual light weight who sold out his principles when he hit the age of 40. Just like Jordan Peterson, he realised that there is big money in pretending to be a part of the new conservative/libertarian leaning white oppressed.
    14
  4. BLUEBIRD And I can never trust Christians because they're hypocritical and are only moral because they are ordered to be so under pain of death.
    5
  5. She added nothing of substance that might convince a non believer, or even cause a non believer to go through some rational steps that might consider her experience to be indicative of truth, but at least she was honest about the fact that all she brought was personal experience.
    5
  6. ***** Because you can cite countries that have worse attitudes towards humanity is in now way convincing. We are all members of the human race, and through NO personal effort of yours, you had the good fortune to be born in a decent country. That's a reason to be MORE compassionate not less.
    4
  7. That HAD to be the most puerile, artless apologetics I have EVER heard, and given that it was prefaced by such ridicule for the other side, I can only assume that Peter was on medication. Why would atheists want their not to be a god? Because if there was one, he'd have to be a psychopath. And atheists just want to do evil? Seriously Peter? And you accused the other side of 6th form level of argumentation? TBH, I'd quite happily watch this pompous ass take one in the face with a cricket bat.
    2
  8. skat1140 Oh no - you're not using the "There would be no morality without Christianity" argument are you?
    2
  9. CountZero78 Empathy comes from having things happen to you, and then imagining how it would be if you did it to someone else. It is also delivered culturally by parents "How would you like it if they did that you?" It is also a biological trait that enables us to anticipate the response of another person. Cultural norms come simply from prevailing cultural attitudes, which is why Christians in the 1600s were more than happy to burn their neighbours as witches, or in the 1700s have slaves and treat them as subhuman. Laws, like cultural norms are nothing more than a society, often  its leaders, attempting to impose their ideas upon people. Like cultural norms, they are in no way good, simply because they are societal. It was legal for Catholics to castrate homosexual teenagers in early 20th century Holland. That was certainly not right by any standard of modern decency. Now I realise that your questions are all leading to you trying to make a case for OBJECTIVE (or God given) morality, but there really is no case to make that cannot be shot down in flames in less time than it takes to sneeze.
    2
  10. ***** What's so bad about the USA? Apart from endemic racism, an utterly corrupt political system, a regressive educational system, a legal system that belongs in the 1800s, police murdering your citizens in record numbers, the fact that the country is owned by business, gun ownership, the fact that you would sooner destroy the entire planet's atmosphere rather than limit your pollution, you are anti-science, superficial, militaristic, insecure, have been at war with foreign nations for all but 20 of the years since independence, and you are a child nation with the emotional and ethical maturity of a 14 year old? Nothing.
    2
  11. "so just calling him a right wing sellout is the most convenient way to attack him." It's also absolutely accurate.
    2
  12. ***** I absolutely agree that the other member states of the EU should share their burden in supporting migrants from other nations (proportional to their ability to do so - would be no point flooding Greece for instance!). As for non-EU nations, we have no control over their policies, so it's fruitless to become irritated by their unwillingness to share the check. Personally, I would simply ensure that in return, those nations are not recipients of OUR goodwill when they need it. Of course all cultures are not created equal, nor do all nations have the same attitudes towards human rights. Does that mean that we should follow their template? Clearly not. We rightly pride ourselves on being better than say Turkey, or Russia, or Bosnia, or perhaps even Japan, and in my opinion, we should continue to be the beacon for decency on the planet.
    1
  13. ***** Judging by the behaviour of many Christians, belief in God does not instil fear, modify violent tendencies, or improve conscience. I could probably list a thousand examples of amoral, violent Christians, but I'm sure you already know them. We'll start with Catholic priests, Ted Haggard, and George W Bush. 'Nuff said.
    1
  14. CountZero78 The exact same place as Christians - personal empathy, cultural norms, and laws.
    1
  15. CaliDude1996 "Do you disagree with ANY of the 10 commandments?" Well of course I do. The first 3 are simply about respecting an imaginary being. Number 4 says nothing about whether or not your father and mother are WORTHY of honour. Number 5 is specifically commanded by god numerous times in the Bible against innocent neighbours. And numbers 9 and 10 say that you should not have any desire for things that you do not own. It's simply not true that "is no proper way to study morality without the fundamental teachings of God", or do you think that China and India have no morality?
    1
  16. ***** "Any state or society that is Godless, seems to be pretty shitty (case in point, soviet union)" Nonsense. You choose one state that for entirely different reasons, is bad, and use that to make your case. Bhutan has the highest happiness index on the planet AND it's a dictatorship, and they are primarily Buddhist. Sweden is one of the most civilised nations on the planet, with a very high standard of living, and they are almost totally secular. On the counter, Pakistan is Muslim - chaos - Syria Muslim, chaos, America Christian - corrupt, amoral, chaotic and shallow, Nigeria, Christian, Boko Haram. A lack of religion takes away a major cause for strife. Having one in theory modifies behaviour to be kinder, but in reality, as most Christians and Muslims are hypocrites, is a polarising factor. I can point TO religion as a cause of misery on this planet in a dozen different countries, but you can't point to irreligion as the cause in even one. Russia is not shitty because Putin is irreligious (in fact he is a highly religious orthodox Christian). Russia is shitty because Putin is a corrupt, insecure, power hungry, lunatic who is clearly suffering from mid life crisis and homosexual panic. The fact that he can reconcile his behaviour with religious beliefs tells you all you need to know about Christianity's so-called morality.
    1
  17. Emily Rose No, it's because all of the religious rhetoric is so tired and thoroughly debunked that it's almost impossible to come up with an argument that is fresh. So when someone simply tries to repackage the same, tired old dogma in new ways, with appeals to emotion, or worse still, personal anecdotes, it fails to impress. Imagine having an endless series of arguments with a seven year old about their bedtime. After a few months, you've heard every possible effort that they can offer, and even at their best they are not particularly convincing. That's how Christian apologetics sounds to me -an endless cycle child-like rhetoric and justifications.
    1
  18. Tim Trewyn That was a beautiful monologue Tim, and I don't dismiss experience the importance of her experience TO HER. However, eye witness experience is notoriously subjective and unreliable, which is why it counts for almost nothing in a court of law. and that's when people are even  willing to relate the details of that experience to others, which she is not! I'm sure that you can appreciate somebody saying to you, "I've had an experience that I  found completely transformative but I'm not going to tell you what it is" would not meet your scepticism in a casual conversation with a friend, but in a debate where you are functioning as an apologist it's utterly lacking in merit. As for what I would accept from my children, I would no more accept my children's word as true, than I would this woman. Children cannot distinguish imagination from fact very often, are notorious liars and fantasists, and their brains are as fallible in interpreting reality as mine is. That said, it would depend upon the stakes. If my son told me he saw a pixie, I would ask questions, maybe engage in the fantasy, and share some fun with him. If on the other hand, he told me that monsters were following him to hurt him, I would immediately discuss and get to the bottom of the real cause of his concerns, disassembling his belief to take its power away from him. I feel exactly the same about "Road to Damscus" type experiences and the beliefs of Christianity. In my experience, Christianity is a compensatory belief system used to take the edge off the pain of our mortality and the lack of justice and fairness in existence.
    1
  19. Tim Trewyn Tim, the eloquence and sincerity of your words, though pleasant to read, do not change the basic facts. Human testimony IS massively unreliable, and ALL memory is not a photographic snapshot so much as a reconstruction. The prisons are heaving with innocent people placed there by a jury's naïve believe in the credibility of memory. It is only when memories become corroborated by the recollections of others, preferably who have not had communication with each other, than one can start to increase one's optimism that they refer to the reality of what has occurred. But even then, group re-enforcement, and the simple unreliability of our senses makes it wise for the rationalist to question everything. You say that the idea of purposeful justice terrifies you, as well it should if the god of the Bible existed. Do you think that HIS actions have been just? For example, you say that in spite of its many flaws, one of the core principles in the Bible is "love of neighbour", yet nothing could be further from the truth. Time after time, neighbours have been destroyed, directly by God or by his agents, and even in stories such as Elijah and the bears, or the pricing of slaves and the sanctioned rape of the wives of enemies, we see a distinctly inhospitable attitude towards neighbours. Even the concept of the end times as referenced in Revelations portray an attitude towards those who choose not to believe, that is anything but the behaviour of a loving entity. Our senses and indeed the very functions of our brains and the way that we perceive reality is notoriously easy to manipulate, and whilst you describe your personally convincing experiences, I will require FAR more compelling evidence than the anecdotal experiences, no matter how sincerely believed, of a bunch of people  who are usually three quarters indoctrinated in the first place.
    1
  20. Tim Trewyn Insightful possibly, but personally I wonder is she actually wanted the credibility that she thinks comes from such an experience, without the risk of logical deconstruction that would come if she actually shared specifics? I agree completely that one's personal experience happens quite independently of science's ability to prove that it happened. I have always hated many atheists' pompous insistence that if it's not testable and replicable then it's of no interest to science. So that nice thing that a person said to Abraham Lincoln once as a child is of no interest, in spite of the fact that it changed the course of history? (made up example) But along with a prosaic understanding of the indisputable reality of personal experience, unprovable though it may be, must come the MASSIVE caveat that personal experience is a supremely unreliable litmus upon which others should base decisions. That's why studies of less than (I think) 1000 people are not considered to have any statistical merit. Thank you also for the civil and thoughtful conversation Tim.
    1
  21. No, it's my deduction based upon the lack of evidence.
    1
  22. "A classic example of a regressive leftist lazy thinker" Classic self important, pseudo intellectual, rightist response. You assume that every comment is a formal invitation to a debate and must obey the arbitrary rules that you've made up in your head. Sometimes it's perfectly okay to simply call a douche a douche without providing evidence or entering into a formal debate. Or do you provide evidence before shouting abuse at the guy who just cut you up on the road?
    1
  23. "An intellectual is in the eye of the beholder" To a degree but I think you are stretching the definition of "intellectual" in service of your argument. An intellectual is not measured by what intellectual response he provokes in his audience. You could say a single word to me and elicit days of contemplation. That's because I could be an intellectual. It doesn't make your words or thought process intellectual. I usually don't leap to dictionary definitions but in this case it serves well "Intellectual - a person possessing a highly developed intellect." That most certainly cannot be said to be true of Dave Rubin. He reasons like a young teenager or first month philosophy student. His observations on libertarianism, self regulation and the post office for example are laughably naive and show both a lack of actual knowledge and reasoning. The fact that we can debate his stupidity is a function of the fact that WE are in some measure, intellectuals.
    1
  24. Oh no, even Rubin can't be THAT stupid can he?
    1
  25. No, Rubin is the embodiment of the saying "Don't have such an open mind that your brain falls out."
    1