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“I think that there are very good arguments to believe that there are some kind of foundational principle of the universe, some necessarily existing being, some first cause.”
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Instead of treating belief as a private preference, philosopher Alex O’Connor examines how our moral positions shape institutions, obligations, and the ways we justify our choices.
His arguments invite a closer look at why we hold certain principles, and whether those principles survive contact with their real-world consequences.
00:00 The lure of meaning
01:15 The strongest arguments for and against the existence of God
03:38 Hierarchical causes and borrowed causal power
06:33 Sustaining causes and necessity of foundation
10:04 How classical thinkers framed the first cause
14:27 Suffering as the challenge to God
17:42 Between classical theism, deism, and atheism
20:58 Understanding nihilism and the human condition
24:36 Self-justifying motives and meaning
28:00 Meaning in a materialist world
31:41 Ecclesiastes and the first nihilist
36:38 Why stories explain what logic can’t
48:55 Emotion’s grip on belief
54:20 How emotivism shapes ethics
1:05:18 Where morality meets emotion
Read the video transcript ►
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About Alex O’Connor:
Alex O’Connor, also known as Cosmic Skeptic, is an English public speaker and content creator recognized for his work on philosophy, ethics, religion, and secularism. He hosts the podcast Within Reason
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You completely misrepresented Deism in this video with an entirely innacurate definition. Deists don't believe that a Creator God "went away" or "died".
What is a common belief is that a Creator God doesn't directly intervene in human lives or human affairs. As well as to reject revelation and people claiming to speak for God or the Divine. Deism has the concept that the true "Word of God" is the Creation/Nature itself, so the best way to understand the Divine is through the study of Natural Science.
There are lots of kinds of Deists, there is no dogma or holy books so people can believe whatever makes the most logical sense to them but the foundation is always science and reason. A lot of historical Deists including some Founding Fathers of America, but especially a lot of French Deists did in fact believe God or intelligent Divine beings could and do interact with humans.
The best book on Deism as well as the best anti-Christianity book of all time (sorry Richard Dawkins) is The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine.
1:13:02 at least we know how fundamentally true is that wetherspoons brunch is a banger
Why, even with the hierarchical concept, must it act like a node-edge triangle? In my mind, I think of the universe and cause & effect like a neural network. A self-contained node edge nebulously distributed structure, where connections overlap in 4D, rather than linearly moving up hierarchically. Similarly with the example of why you might be motivated by having healthy children, there will also be many other motivations of an individual which stand at similar weight, all disparately connected but nevertheless there, and not just linear. I’m at 27 mins so not sure if he tackles this concept later on but that’s at least how I think of it, and why i have never been fully convinced by the cause and effect, and aristotlean unmoved mover concept.
10:40
Doesn't fundamental forces like strong weak and gravitational (which is now not a literal force thanks to einstein)
Already explain everything of the hierarchy infinitiely ? And since it's infinitely there's no first cause from where the power was borrowed? So the power is actually jumping from each point to the next infinitely?
I’m sorry I just wish I was smart enough to understand these videos. I am so uneducated. I wish I had somebody at my level explain half of the stuff. I really believe this is why religion actually excels because most of the people are like me and really cannot understand. And that’s where religious people really excel because they act like they have knowledge in some an ancient book and people of education don’t know how to speak the language of the Normie’s. The educated usually don’t even address the religion side of things because it’s so silly and stupid to them. I’m not saying that you think that we’re stupid but it’s just we’re out here trying to defend ourselves. We know we’re being fooled, but we don’t know how to stand up for ourselves because we are uneducated and for some of us were so far behind and we want to excel and catch up but we really don’t know how.
If everything needs a cause, then what caused God, and what caused whatever caused God? And if the universe had a beginning, what does “before” even mean if time began with it? To me, it shows that whatever created or underlies reality must exist beyond the laws and concepts we understand — which makes me doubt that any religion could truly have the full answer or that we are even capable of understanding what created our existence
`philosophy is deeply stupid
im not even kidding ts is genuine brain nourishment listening to this guy speak
Why do you keep using “he” for god…it’s pretty presumptuous
Some people preached the Norther Star, Some preached the southern star,
Thus forming respective Tribes. Those stars become their Guiding Souls.
That's the 'Heirarchal causal argument' that Alex describes here.
For Example, in old ages the Religious texts were limited to Kinships thus they were called "Gods" (घुड़सवार) contrary
to this, the King who conquered the reign with the help of Preachers texts were called "Deities" (दैत्य), and their Kings were called 'Lords' instead of 'Gods'.
Some og the greatest thinkers are from the east. Also inspired a lot of western thinkers, i would love to hear your reflections about that. Also I'd like to hear about your relections on Islam and the islamic understanding of God
17:45 sin = suffering, I think..So by that logic – its mans fault..
Me explaining why I didn’t turn in my homework
The answer is Nothing. Nothing is God. What is? Nothing 'is'. The is is existence. Nothing is not the absence of everything. Nothing is Nothing. The answer has always been Nothing. This is Truth. Nothing
Boring
The best argument for it is simple.
It's better than the alternative.
But really, its turtles all the way down and to think WE are the height of existence is not only sad, but pretty darn egotistical.
This is the reason why people who are intellectually honest might not make good politicians.
Not to disprove Alex, infact I understand and relate to a lot of his stances but observe that almost nothing is carved in stone.
Wow – I don’t think I’m going to watch this whole video because the first point – the casual chain argument is a really complicated way of asking “Why does anything exist?” The real answer is “We don’t know” Positing the existence of a divine being or multiple beings doesn’t solve this problem in any way. It just adds one more element to the causal chain. “Why does god or gods exist” can’t be answered either without invoking their creation. Any circular or non causal argument about god creating himself or just existing can just be applied to the universe itself. And calling the universe god is intellectually disingenuous mental gymnastics that assigns an anthropomorphic character to the physical world. The divine doesn’t explain anything – and worse – it requires additional explanation.
The word "god" means a being, possessing supernatural powers, imagined by human mythology. None of these entities are named "God." Arguing for or against its existence is meaningless. As with religious apologists, the question remains: Which god? If it's the "deist" concept, then it both doesn't matter (because its just an abstract speculation) and is not what theists are arguing for. They ALL declare that there "must be a creator."
Theists are arguing that THEIR gods and mythology are REAL, not any of the others. (They reduce objective human knowledge to a "religion of scientism" so they can dismiss it with the same wave of a hand). Those "gods" DON'T exist: we KNOW that. There is NO argument for them – only assertion, speculation, and intellectual dishonesty. The very real danger they pose to humanity is evident EVERY SINGLE DAY, all across the world. There is perhaps a no more meaningless, yet simultaneously dangerous, word than "god" in all of human language.
The capitalized "God" almost always means the Christian father god. That's akin to calling him "Dude," instead of using his name. "Jehovah/Yahweh" is not "God." He's a mythological figure, and needs no more debunking as a "god" than Zeus or Thor. The inherent intellectual and personal dishonesty of ALL religious apologetics should be the focus, not arguing details of human superstition. The purpose of religious apologetics is political, not spiritual.
This guy can make interesting topics so fucking boring. We should have james may deliver it.
What about two potential kids girl and boy , they produce another kid potentially in future