Michael Huemer, philosopher at U.C. Boulder, joins me for a wide-ranging discussion of arguments for and against the existence of God, with special focus on his new argument for atheism: the impossibility of an infinite God. Check out Mike’s book, Knowledge, Value, and Reality: A Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy.

Video of this interview is available on YouTube.

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EPISODE CHAPTERS:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:42 Huemer’s research on consciousness

00:05:42 Could LLMs be conscious?

00:08:11 Physicalism and consciousness

00:14:36 Why physicalism became so popular

00:17:16 Metaphysics and scientific evidence

00:21:01 Could God be empirically detected?

00:23:37 Why Huemer is agnostic

00:25:48 Philip Goff’s limited God

00:27:23 Can a limited God explain evil?

00:36:03 Divine psychology and skeptical theism

00:38:37 Can theism make predictions?

00:46:54 Scientific confirmation and theistic arguments

00:51:59 Which theistic arguments fail?

00:53:14 The ontological argument

00:58:06 The modal ontological argument

01:01:03 Necessary beings and modal intuitions

01:07:23 The Kalam cosmological argument

01:08:54 Could time have a beginning?

01:12:22 Can God create time?

01:18:22 Cosmology and the Big Bang

01:23:48 Actual and potential infinities

01:26:00 Huemer’s new argument for atheism

01:29:28 Divine infinity and omniscience

Is it even possible to have empirical evidence for God's existence? What if the stars realigned to spell out "I exist! Sincerely, God." Wouldn't THAT count as evidence for God? It seems that the answer is yes. But then, various objections to arguments for God seem to imply that even this extravagant, awesome evidence for God would not be any evidence whatsoever for theism. To many philosophers, that implication implies that these objections prove too much, and must therefore fail. In this debate, eight philosophers go head-to-head over these fascinating questions.

Video of this interview is available on YouTube.

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EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Introduction

00:02:10 Miles Donahue’s opening statement

00:07:46 Brian Cutter’s opening statement

00:13:16 Noah McKay’s opening statement

00:18:30 Travis Dumsday’s opening statement

00:23:30 Paul Draper’s opening statement

00:29:15 Alex Malpass’s opening statement

00:35:18 Nathan Bray’s opening statement

00:40:41 Kevin Scharp’s opening statement

00:47:15 Miles Donahue’s cross-examination

01:03:22 Alex Malpass’s cross-examination

01:20:15 Brian Cutter’s cross-examination

01:33:41 Nathan Bray’s cross-examination

01:49:03 Paul Draper’s cross-examination

02:01:21 Travis Dumsday’s cross-examination

02:10:54 Kevin Scharp’s cross-examination

02:24:49 Noah McKay’s cross-examination

Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships, joins me to discuss the revised version of this now classic texts. Has Matt has changed his mind on any major issues? What, in the end, would Matt conclude if he determined that the Bible did prohibit same-sex relationships? Listen to find out!

Video of this interview is available on YouTube.

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EPISODE CHAPTERS:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:05 What changed in God and the Gay Christian

00:03:28 Endnotes, footnotes, and writing for different audiences

00:05:02 How Matthew Vines’s views have changed

00:05:51 Romans 1 and female same-sex relations

00:07:48 Arsenokoitai, Malakoi, and Paul’s meaning

00:10:22 Same-sex marriage in the biblical world

00:13:45 To whom is the book written?

00:15:06 Expressive individualism and affirming theology

00:19:37 How the American church has changed

00:20:23 Affirming churches without guardrails

00:25:45 Conservative backlash and slippery slopes

00:27:55 Being between Christian and queer spaces

00:29:11 Queer theory, polyamory, and sexual orientation

00:30:55 Transgender Christians and biblical interpretation

00:34:48 Gender dysphoria, transition, and Christian ethics

00:39:08 What if the Bible prohibited same-sex marriage?

00:49:44 Moral intuition, inerrancy, and Jesus

01:00:05 Biblical authority, inspiration, and inerrancy

01:08:21 Where evangelical churches may be headed

I discuss and debate the merits of drug-induced experiences for one's religious beliefs, the difference panpsychism makes, the distinction between God's essence and energies, and giant purple platypuses floating over New York City.

Video of this interview is available on YouTube.

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EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:32 What is 5-MeO-DMT?

00:02:07 Why Philip Goff tried toad venom

00:05:02 What the experience was like

00:07:13 Can you experience yourself not existing?

00:13:00 Was ego death terrifying?

00:17:03 William Lane Craig’s reaction

00:19:57 What is a structureless claim?

00:22:52 The content of mystical experience

00:25:39 Does 5-MeO-DMT support panpsychism?

00:33:15 Why trust a drug-induced experience?

00:40:08 Experience versus interpretation

00:43:54 Is Goff projecting panpsychism onto the experience?

00:46:03 What would defeat the experience?

00:51:25 How does this fit with Christianity?

00:57:19 Divine essence, energies, and simplicity

01:04:19 Why Christianity specifically?

01:08:26 Why not deism or another religion?

01:14:23 Does Goff believe in an afterlife?

01:16:43 Near-death experiences and consciousness

01:18:37 What is Goff most uncertain of?

Talia Mae Bettcher and Tomas Bogardus join me to debate the question, "What is a woman?". Is gender biologically grounded, socially constructed, or something else entirely? If you're looking for a cordial and substantive exchange from two thinkers who fundamentally disagree on these issues, look no further.

Video of this interview is available on YouTube.

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EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:17 Bogardus opening statement

00:02:03 Dictionaries and ordinary usage

00:03:41 The ambiguity view

00:07:09 The resistant concept of woman

00:08:12 Circularity and self-identification

00:11:23 The relevance objection to ambiguity

00:13:47 Non-human men and women

00:16:17 Bettcher opening statement

00:18:29 Woman as a philosophical question

00:19:44 Folk concepts and biological definitions

00:22:13 Folk concepts vs. theoretical concepts

00:24:45 Adult, human, and female

00:28:14 Open discussion begins

00:28:57 Bettcher on the ambiguity thesis

00:30:28 Family resemblance and trans womanhood

00:35:16 Political concepts and same-sex marriage

00:52:25 Are folk concepts biological?

00:57:47 Souls, bodies, and female identity

01:04:31 Twin Earth, Superman, and non-human men

01:13:13 Stone lions, Batman, and conceptual analysis

01:26:44 The husbandry argument

01:29:44 Sex, function, and biology

01:34:35 Why the question matters

01:39:44 Closing statements

Keegan Kjeldson of the Untimely Reflections YouTube channel returns to the podcast to discuss the merits of continental philosophy. While he is largely in favor and I am not, we both agree that Hegel is abysmally obscure.

Video of this interview is available on YouTube.

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EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:18 Hegel vs Plantinga: obscurity and clarity

00:03:07 Keegan’s defense of continental philosophy

00:08:38 Why continental philosophy feels impenetrable

00:11:15 Spinoza and intuitive knowledge

00:14:25 Nietzsche, style, and philosophical insight

00:18:07 Logical positivism and ethics

00:22:21 What is metaethics?

00:27:17 Utilitarianism and moral intuitions

00:30:17 Do arguments bottom out in intuition?

00:36:39 What is philosophy for?

00:44:41 Moral realism and objective moral truth

00:48:59 Judith Butler and the charge of gibberish

00:54:10 Clear continental thinkers

00:55:57 Heidegger and justified obscurity

01:02:00 Is clarity always a virtue?

01:06:49 Can poetry give us rational grounds?

01:12:52 Moral knowledge vs moral persuasion

01:15:29 Motivated reasoning in ethics

01:25:21 Ethics, emotion, and objectivity

01:28:14 The Nazi example and moral realism

01:32:26 Abortion, personhood, and moral disagreement

01:38:44 Objective truth in morality and science

01:41:17 Has humanity made moral progress?

The great, the one, the only Joseph C. Schmid returns to the podcast to offer a comprehensive reply to (almost) every objection to the fine-tuning argument for theism. Ever worried about puddles? Inverse gamblers? Stalking horses? Boltzmann Brains? Alex Malpass? Well, fear no more: we define, describe, and dispel (or defend!) all these concerns and more. Not gonna lie guys, this is one of my favorite discussions so far. Hats off to Joe for being 10/10 great.

Video of this interview is available on YouTube.

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EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:45 #1 The puddle analogy refutes the FTA

00:05:49 #2 Other forms of life are possible!

00:08:58 #3 The multiverse explains fine-tuning

00:53:08 #4 Electrons in love

01:16:06 #5 We couldn't have observed a non-fine-tuned universe

01:21:09 #6 Maybe the constants are metaphysical necessary!

01:33:38 #7 Our universe is hostile to life

01:42:00 #8 Alex Malpass and the stalking horse objection

01:47:54 #9 We cannot get a grip on divine psychology

Dan Linford returns to the channel to offer his reply to my recent discussion with William Lane Craig, wherein he replied to critiques of his case for a cosmic beginning. We discuss probability theory, the BGV theorem, emergence of spacetime, and the relevance of quantum gravity to our scientific inferences about a beginning of the universe.

Video of this interview is available on YouTube.

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EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:24 Craig's modest claim

00:10:27 How to calculate the probability of a conclusion

00:15:21 The probabilistic fallacy in Craig's scientific case

00:21:56 Craig - "I'm ruling out classes of models"

00:26:33 Exceptions to the BGV theorem

00:29:22 Do theories of time make a difference?

00:42:28 Inference to the best explanation and low probability

00:51:25 Craig's inconsistency: temporally finite models of the universe

00:59:18 Why we need a quantum theory of gravity

01:12:04 The emergence of spacetime