01) Making Sense with Sam Harris #160 – The Revenge of History (with Michael Weiss and Yascha Mounk)
“In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Michael Weiss and Yascha Mounk about the state of global politics. They discuss the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, the prospect that democracy could fail in the US, Trump’s political instincts, the political liability of “wokeness,” the Left’s failure to re-think its support of Chavez, the dangers of political polarization, the attractions of extreme partisanship, cancel culture, and other topics.
Michael Weiss is an internationally respected investigative journalist who has covered the wars in Syria and Ukraine and published widely on Russian espionage and disinformation. His first book, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (co-written with Hassan Hassan), was a New York Times bestseller and named one of the Top Ten Books on Terrorism by the Wall Street Journal as well as one of the Best Books of 2015 by The Times of London. Weiss is a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC, the BBC and Real Time with Bill Maher. He writes a column for The Daily Beast.
Yascha Mounk is a writer, academic, and public speaker known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. He is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and a senior advisor at Protect Democracy. A frequent contributor to The Atlantic, the New York Times, and Die Zeit, Mounk is the host of Slate’s The Good Fight Podcast. He has written three books: Stranger in My Own Country, The Age of Responsibility, and The People versus Democracy, which explains the causes of the populist rise and investigates how to renew liberal democracy.”
01) The Watchmaker Argument – Debunked (Teleological Argument – Refuted)
“As most famously presented by William Paley in his theological work titled “Natural Theology”, the Watchmaker Analogy (teleological argument) is a recurring argument for a designer, which, by way of analogy, asserts that complexity requires a designer.
The way Paley put it is essentially as follows: if you were walking across a field and saw a watch lying upon the ground, you wouldn’t assume that it had come together by chance because it’s too ordered and complicated. Rather, you would assume that it had a conscious and intelligent designer. By way of analogy, Paley then went on to argue that because life and indeed the universe is ordered and complicated, it too must’ve had a conscious and intelligent designer.
Throughout the video I pint-point several flaws and fallacies that those who use the Watchmaker tend to commit, but for a very brief summery (extremely brief), they are as follows:
1. False Analogy:
An analogy is a comparison between things that have similar features for the purpose of explaining a principle or an idea, and in this case, Paley insists that a comparison can be made between the complexity of a watch and the complexity of the universe, which both imply that they had a designer.
2. False Cause Fallacy:
Essentially, like all False Cause Fallacies, the Watchmaker Argument mistakenly confuses correlation with causation. It recognizes a relationship between complexity and designers, and then concludes that one necessarily implies the other.
3. Ignores Evolution by Natural Selection:
It completely ignores evolution by natural selection. Without getting into it too deeply, natural selection has been completely and utterly proven to be an unconscious process that has given rise to countless complex and purposed organisms. The watchmaker argument ignores this in the attempt to substantiate it’s black and white fallacy (deliberate designer or randomness).
4. Special Pleading:
Its core premise asserts that purpose and complexity requires a designer, and so if we draw the Watchmaker Argument out to its logical conclusion – that there is a god and that it created the universe and everything in it, then by applying the argument’s logic to itself we must conclude that this god too had a designer, and so on and so forth for infinity…
5. Contradiction:
The Watchmaker Argument is self-contradicting. The argument first assumes that a watch is different from nature, which it indirectly claims is uncomplicated and random. However, it then states that since the universe is so complicated and ordered it too must have a creator. Thus, it gives the universe two incompatible and contradicting qualities.
6. Shoemaker:
The Watchmaker Argument doesn’t imply a designer – it implies that there are many designers. After finding that watch upon the ground, imagine if you then saw beside it a shoe. Would you assume that a watchmaker made that shoe? Of course not – you would assume that a shoemaker made it.
7. Ex Nihilo The Watchmaker Argument acts as if a watchmaker creates a watch from nothing, when this simply isn’t true.
A watch, like all human creations, is a rearrangement of energy and mater that already existed.
8. Doesn’t Support Theism:
The Watchmaker Argument doesn’t support theism. Even if it were accepted as a sound argument, it would only prove that a universe had a universe designer – and that’s it. It wouldn’t prove a particular religion to be true.
9. Incompetent Design:
An all-powerful and all-loving god would not create organisms with the type of suboptimal design that can be seen in nature. Meaning that either that god isn’t omnipotent or that it isn’t omnibenevolent – or both!”
01) Making Sense with Sam Harris #159 – Conscious (with Annaka Harris)
“In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with his wife, Annaka Harris, about her new book, CONSCIOUS: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind.
Annaka Harris is the author of CONSCIOUS: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. She is an editor and consultant for science writers, specializing in neuroscience and physics, and her work has appeared in The New York Times. Annaka is the author of the children’s book I Wonder, a collaborator on the Mindful Games Activity Cards, by Susan Kaiser Greenland, and a volunteer mindfulness teacher for the Inner Kids organization. All of her guided meditations and lessons for children are available on the Waking Up app.”
01) Bart Ehrman & Robert Price Debate – Did Jesus Exist
“Bart Ehrman and Robert Price meet to debate “Did Jesus Exist” which was the headliner event of Mythinformation Conference III Buzzed Belief Debate Series presented by Mythicist Milwaukee at Turner Hall in Milwaukee, WI. The event took place on Friday October 21st 2016, 1:00 PM – 9:00 PM CDT. The Mythicist Milwaukee focuses on educating the freethought/skeptic/atheist community about the mythological origins of religion. Dr. Robert Price asserts the Jesus Myth Theory viewpoint – wherein there are flaws with the evidence for a historical Jesus – and made the case that Jesus is no more than a mythological figure. Jesus while Professor Ehrman supported the stance that there is strong evidence for the existence for a historical Jesus. This was one of the most anticipated debates in the secular and theist realm alike! Two New Testament scholars coming together to discuss the hotly debated topic of the existence of a historical Jesus Christ.
Matt Dillahunty was the debate moderator who currently serves as the president of the Atheist Community of Austin. In addition, Mr. Dillahunty also serves as a host of the internet radio show “Non-Prophets Radio” and of the Austin television cable access show “The Atheist Experience”.
Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude.
Dr. Robert M. Price is a former Baptist minister and teacher in the religious studies department of Mount Olive College in North Carolina. He holds PhD’s in systematic theology and the New Testament. He is currently Professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute as well as the editor of The Journal of Higher Criticism.
01) Making Sense with Sam Harris #158 – Understanding Humans in the Wild (with Adam Grant)
“In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Adam Grant about the social science of the workplace. They discuss how teams work effectively, the nature of power, personality types and fundamental styles of interaction, the critical skill of saying “no,” creativity, resilience, the strange case of Jonas Salk, the nature of mindfulness, the power of cognitive reappraisal, reflections on mortality, the replication crisis in social science, and other topics.
Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. As a leading expert in bringing social science into the workplace, he hosts WorkLife, a TED original podcast, and writes on work and psychology for the New York Times. He is the author of Give and Take, Originals, Option B (coauthored with Sheryl Sandberg), and Power Moves.”
01) Making Sense with Sam Harris #157 – What Does the Mueller Report Really Say? (with Benjamin Wittes)
“In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Benjamin Wittes about both volumes of the Mueller Report.
Benjamin Wittes is a legal journalist who focuses on issues of national security and law. He is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he is the Research Director in Public Law. Benjamin is also the cofounder of Lawfare, a blog devoted to discussion of U.S. national security choices, and a cohost of the Rational Security podcast. His books include The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones—Confronting A New Age of Threat (coauthored with Gabriella Blum), Detention and Denial: The Case for Candor after Guantánamo, and Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror.
01) PragerU Dismantled by an Evolutionary Psychologist
“PragerU posted a video called “Why God is a He,” hosted by Dennis Prager himself. He argues that the biblical god is considered male for practical reasons. Prager asks, “Is God a man, a woman, or a genderless force that cannot be identified by masculine or feminine traits?” Dr. Hector Garcia, a clinical and evolutionary psychologist, author of Alpha God, joins me here to debunk Prager’s claims, and show how evolutionary psychology explains the biblical god’s gender. That god is a typical alpha male primate, which in the old and new testaments, acts with jealousy and aggression, like any male ape would. Thanks for working with me on this PragerU response, Doc!”
– Atheist Media Links
