Leo D.M.J. Aurini - May 15, 2016


Three Arguments for Christianity： Ontological, Moral, and Historical


Episode Stats


Length

24 minutes

Words per minute

128.00034

Word count

3,093

Sentence count

283

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

21

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I discuss the three steps that led me to believe in the Catholic faith, and why I am a Catholic. I also talk about the problem of "infinitesimal mathematics" and how it relates to our understanding of mathematics.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Music
00:00:10.000 Music
00:00:12.000 Music
00:00:16.000 Music
00:00:20.000 Music
00:00:24.000 Music
00:00:28.000 So about a year ago, the science fiction author, John C. Wright, posted a three-step argument arguing for the Catholic faith.
00:00:41.760 And I found it very influential. If I can find the specific article, I'll link down to it below.
00:00:47.820 I'd like to provide my own version of that, based upon the arguments, the process that brought me to the Catholic Church.
00:00:58.000 And it's the three steps, my three steps, are the ontological argument, followed up by the moral argument, and finally, the historical argument.
00:01:11.040 And this, briefly, is why I am a Catholic.
00:01:16.980 Now, the first is the ontological argument.
00:01:22.960 And I've mentioned Gödel's incompleteness theorem before, okay?
00:01:26.580 And there's other issues that come along that have the same core problem, inadequacy.
00:01:37.780 Black box, if you will.
00:01:40.340 The halting problem is one of them, although it applies more to...
00:01:44.820 Well, in my mind, in the philosophical sense, it applies more to the mind, and what is the mind, although it is about computers.
00:01:53.940 But I'm going to stick just to Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
00:01:57.220 I could make this a lot more complex, but I want to boil it down to the points.
00:02:02.380 The major points.
00:02:03.220 Because here's the thing.
00:02:05.580 If you use logic, if you use rationality, if you believe in debate, if you believe in the scientific method,
00:02:16.760 then you have faith in a supernatural entity.
00:02:21.860 Think of a big claim.
00:02:27.100 I get that.
00:02:28.340 And it's kind of hard to wrap your head around.
00:02:30.980 But Gödel's incompleteness theorem relies upon it.
00:02:36.600 So what is Gödel's incompleteness theorem?
00:02:39.280 What is it if we put it into words?
00:02:41.120 Because it's actually a very complex mathematical formula that, heck, is above my understanding of mathematics.
00:02:46.620 But what it boils down to is that the math that we use, okay, everything that, the Cartesian coordinate system,
00:02:55.420 the arithmetic that you learned in school, the math that goes into both Boolean algebra,
00:03:01.620 which is the basis of electronics, and is nearly indistinguishable from the philosophy of logic.
00:03:09.320 The only difference is the philosophy of logic has a few extra parts that we don't really use in electric circuits.
00:03:14.140 All of this is based upon set theory.
00:03:20.120 Now, in high school, you probably learned about the whole set of numbers, which is 1 to infinity,
00:03:30.440 the integers, which is 0 to infinity,
00:03:35.120 and the natural number system, which is all numbers positive and negative.
00:03:41.280 And I hope I'm not getting that backwards, actually.
00:03:45.360 I might have the whole and the natural backwards, but regardless. 0.83
00:03:50.240 You see, all of these are sets of axioms of statements that are taken to be true.
00:03:58.840 We start off with these axioms.
00:04:01.200 We're going to say, you know, we're going to create a system by which 2 plus 2 equals 4.
00:04:06.740 You know, we're going to say it's a base 10 system.
00:04:08.980 We're going to have axioms such as, you cannot divide by 0.
00:04:14.940 Because as soon as you start dividing by 0, the entire thing falls apart.
00:04:21.420 All math stops working if you allow dividing by 0.
00:04:26.440 So that's one of the axioms that we use in day-to-day set theory.
00:04:32.040 And, of course, there's other aspects of this as well.
00:04:34.260 There's infinitesimal mathematics.
00:04:40.160 And I'll give you a brief example of this, which I'm completely stealing from Eliezer Yudkowsky.
00:04:46.520 How do you add two infinities?
00:04:49.680 Easy.
00:04:50.040 Imagine you have a hotel with infinite rooms.
00:04:56.140 And infinite people come on a bus.
00:04:59.920 And so you put the infinite people in your infinite rooms.
00:05:03.740 And so the infinity filled the infinity.
00:05:07.360 But now a second bus of infinite people shows up.
00:05:10.480 What do you do then?
00:05:11.980 Well, it's quite easy.
00:05:13.020 Because you have infinite rooms, you ask everybody to jump over one's space.
00:05:17.580 So the first infinity fits into all of the odd-numbered rooms.
00:05:22.500 And the second infinity goes into all of the even-numbered rooms.
00:05:26.600 Okay, and this is not just some sort of mental trick or puzzle or riddle.
00:05:31.840 These are actual mathematics that you do need to use to accomplish certain things. 0.93
00:05:37.940 Aside from just being a pretentious git.
00:05:39.480 So all of the math we use has certain assumptions, certain axioms, certain statements that are taken as a priori truths.
00:05:52.820 And see, we know that this math works.
00:05:58.240 Okay, this math builds computers.
00:06:00.140 This math formulates arguments.
00:06:04.060 You know, without this math, this camera would not be working.
00:06:07.360 The electronic circuits would not exist without this math being existentially true.
00:06:13.700 And so Gerdel went out to take all of the true math that we know.
00:06:19.260 Because we can prove some of it, but we can never prove all of it.
00:06:22.680 And he tried to prove all of it.
00:06:25.240 He tried to demonstrate that the math that we use is consistent and coherent.
00:06:33.280 That it does not contradict itself, that it all fits together.
00:06:36.660 You know, he tried to basically take all of this stuff and wrap it into a circle that would prove itself.
00:06:44.840 You know, that this circle demonstrates that the circle exists.
00:06:49.320 What he accidentally did was he proved.
00:06:53.480 And again, this is not prove like a scientific proof, okay?
00:06:56.640 There's no such thing as a scientific proof.
00:06:58.620 All you ever do is disprove things in science.
00:07:01.640 Right?
00:07:02.580 It's, heck, you go try and fix your car.
00:07:05.900 Oh, it won't start.
00:07:06.720 Let's change the battery.
00:07:07.880 You put a new battery in and it works.
00:07:10.140 You didn't prove that the old battery was dead.
00:07:12.420 For all you know, an invisible gremlin could have been messing with your car and it just happened to leave at the same time.
00:07:18.020 Point is, the car works.
00:07:19.020 It's good enough.
00:07:20.200 You know, good enough for government work.
00:07:21.720 That's what science is.
00:07:24.740 Mathematical proofs can't be argued with.
00:07:28.120 Okay, science can always be amended.
00:07:30.600 We can always discover something new that tells us the universe works in a completely different manner than we thought that it worked.
00:07:39.940 Not so with math.
00:07:42.060 When you prove something mathematically, there's no more argument.
00:07:47.140 There's no capacity for argument.
00:07:49.780 Okay, you're never going to take a logical syllogism and prove it wrong.
00:07:55.700 You could possibly prove Einstein wrong.
00:07:59.520 You know, but you're never going to prove a syllogism wrong.
00:08:03.940 And Gerdel proved that we can't prove math.
00:08:15.000 We can prove part of it.
00:08:17.500 Some of it.
00:08:18.980 But not all of it.
00:08:20.160 And so, if you use logic, if you believe in the objective truth, if you believe in science,
00:08:29.440 then you are taking as a matter of faith that there is a supernatural entity that declares math to be true.
00:08:44.020 God of mathematics.
00:08:45.160 Now, this God is a very small God.
00:08:49.880 Doesn't need to have any political or moral opinions.
00:08:53.860 Doesn't need to have a mind or a personality.
00:08:57.820 But it is a supernatural truth.
00:09:02.220 Okay?
00:09:02.540 Super natural.
00:09:04.560 Above nature.
00:09:06.200 And ergo, not something we can directly observe.
00:09:12.320 Not something we can directly inquire about.
00:09:16.580 Not something that can be tested or proven.
00:09:19.360 Because you need to assume its existence before you even get to the whole testing and proving thing.
00:09:23.960 So, everybody that's not part of atheism plus.
00:09:30.180 Everybody that is an atheist, skeptic, rationalist, scientist, etc.
00:09:37.920 They believe in the supernatural.
00:09:39.420 They believe in that supernatural God that just said one word.
00:09:45.440 Two plus two equals four.
00:09:47.300 And just made all of that fact before the universe began.
00:09:52.320 Before there was time for before to happen within.
00:09:58.600 Gödel proved that math cannot contain itself.
00:10:02.160 That it needs to be contained in a greater container.
00:10:05.960 And so, our entire understanding of the universe is predicated on the supernatural existing.
00:10:15.380 Something before.
00:10:17.040 Something above.
00:10:18.500 Something grander.
00:10:20.420 Something more infinite.
00:10:30.060 So, that's the ontological proof.
00:10:31.760 If you believe in math, you already believe in a supernatural entity.
00:10:38.300 You believe that there is more to reality than what we can directly observe.
00:10:46.060 And as soon as you start to acknowledge the existence of the supernatural.
00:10:52.520 Well, that God of math.
00:10:55.800 Could he have done other things?
00:10:57.180 Could he have been a bit more than just a God that says two plus two equals four?
00:11:04.240 Could he have opinions?
00:11:06.100 Could he have, for instance, beauty?
00:11:10.580 We can't really nail down what beauty is.
00:11:13.280 But we know it's out there.
00:11:16.320 You know, we can try and point to it.
00:11:18.600 Composition, for instance.
00:11:19.700 I'm going to, very soon, I'll have the live stream for the backers of my Patreon.
00:11:27.360 And one of the things I'm going to be talking about is the composition of one of the shots I use.
00:11:33.340 And composition, you can't really put your fingers on it.
00:11:37.100 Okay?
00:11:37.760 You either get it or you don't.
00:11:39.520 And yet, if you get it, you can talk reasonably about it.
00:11:44.980 There is something to beauty.
00:11:48.340 And that kind of suggests that maybe there's a supernatural truth to beauty.
00:11:53.640 Sort of like Plato's forms.
00:11:56.580 And what about morality?
00:11:58.340 Is morality merely herd instinct?
00:12:01.480 Or is there some higher calling?
00:12:05.900 It's still something that we're learning about as a species.
00:12:08.160 We certainly haven't figured it out.
00:12:10.060 And quite possibly, we'll never figure it out.
00:12:12.580 Because, like math, it's bigger than us.
00:12:15.060 That it requires this faith in the supernatural.
00:12:18.000 And you see, this is my second argument that eventually leads to Catholicism.
00:12:27.800 The moral argument.
00:12:28.860 One of the brilliant statements in Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back, I believe.
00:12:41.260 You know, Luke asks Yoda, is the dark side stronger?
00:12:45.460 And Yoda says, no.
00:12:46.680 It's faster, it's easier, but it's not stronger.
00:12:49.540 And this is, I've brought this argument up in the past.
00:12:55.700 But this is the thing about evil. 0.99
00:12:59.360 In one moment, you know, go buy a gun and then go walk down to the mall and go shoot a bunch of people. 0.98
00:13:08.440 And you will do more evil in an hour than you can pay back in a lifetime. 0.98
00:13:16.620 If you devoted the rest of your life to trying to heal the hurt that you caused, that's not enough.
00:13:22.020 It would take a hundred lifetimes.
00:13:24.280 You know, it would take an infinite number of lifetimes to heal the pain that you caused by doing that.
00:13:30.300 In one moment, you can do more evil than you can ever pay back.
00:13:34.380 And in fact, I think all of us have already done that.
00:13:39.160 Just with subtle things.
00:13:40.860 The cruelty we showed to one another in high school.
00:13:46.660 Hurt feelings.
00:13:49.520 Romantic heartbreak.
00:13:52.080 You know, we've all used people.
00:13:55.840 We've all done very bad things to other people. 0.65
00:14:00.540 And maybe just not, I'm not saying you murdered somebody or raped somebody.
00:14:04.760 But you've hurt people in a way that you can never repay it.
00:14:10.000 You can never take away the injury that you did to that person.
00:14:13.940 Not if you devoted the rest of your life to it.
00:14:17.120 And so, yeah.
00:14:18.180 Faster.
00:14:19.200 Easier.
00:14:20.320 It only takes a moment to do evil.
00:14:25.720 And yet good can do so much more.
00:14:27.720 Evil can just tear down, destroy, and break things.
00:14:33.120 With good, you can actually build things.
00:14:38.160 But see, there is such a moral debt.
00:14:41.800 The amount of suffering that exists in the world.
00:14:46.400 That we have put upon one another.
00:14:49.560 There is just so much of it.
00:14:51.420 And if you make an honest, moral accounting of yourself, and everybody you've hurt, everything
00:14:57.040 you've screwed up, everything you've failed at, you're not able to pay for it.
00:15:04.780 But somebody's gotta. 0.83
00:15:05.920 And so, in ancient times, you know, the Jews, they used to sacrifice the scapegoat. 0.77
00:15:17.100 Right?
00:15:17.560 They'd say, the goat, we're gonna put all of our sins, all of the evil that we did to
00:15:21.780 one another this month, we're gonna put it onto the goat and send it out into the wilderness 0.98
00:15:24.740 to die. 0.83
00:15:27.260 Other places, other religions, you find similar practices.
00:15:30.060 Human sacrifice and cannibalism, these are inherent to our species, because we are such
00:15:40.440 nasty people to one another, that we can never pay back the debt.
00:15:45.480 And so we need to take that, we need to take that guilt and put it onto somebody else, an
00:15:49.620 innocent person, and make them suffer. 0.93
00:15:52.680 If you look at Hollywood culture, you see this playing out all the time.
00:15:56.280 Where you get somebody like Britney Spears, or whomever, you get one of these teen idols.
00:16:03.340 Right?
00:16:03.620 And everybody just worships them like a god, you know, when they're a kid.
00:16:09.460 And then when they get older, and they're in a rough patch, they become a laughingstock.
00:16:14.920 It's effectively cannibalism. 0.77
00:16:19.320 And if you go back to Ireland, you had the kings that would be married to the land, and if
00:16:24.380 you had a bad season, if you didn't get enough rain for your crops, well, put the king to
00:16:27.860 death. 0.75
00:16:28.060 It's his fault.
00:16:30.800 Same thing.
00:16:31.780 Human sacrifice, animal sacrifice.
00:16:35.600 The moral debt has always been blood.
00:16:38.780 And it always will be.
00:16:39.840 So all of a sudden you can see why having God himself, that completely good and innocent
00:16:55.120 God, condemned to hell and bleeding blood for that moment on cavalry.
00:17:04.460 You can start to see why that would be necessary. 1.00
00:17:09.020 Because we are some pretty shitty people. 0.99
00:17:13.680 And only the death of the true innocent, who knew our temptations, could possibly pay back 0.99
00:17:21.420 that debt.
00:17:26.660 And the final argument is the historical.
00:17:29.920 There isn't a lot of evidence that Christ existed.
00:17:36.660 It's not a lot.
00:17:38.200 But there's a little bit.
00:17:40.000 It's just enough.
00:17:41.960 No amount of evidence is going to convince somebody that doesn't understand why Christ
00:17:47.400 needed to exist.
00:17:48.800 But it's enough to convince somebody that finally sees that he needed to.
00:17:53.300 You know, Christianity is the only religion that can be scientifically disproven.
00:18:07.860 You go climb up Mount Olympus in Greece, and you don't find the Greek gods.
00:18:14.560 And you come back down and you tell everybody.
00:18:16.520 They're like, well, what do you think?
00:18:18.480 You know, the gods exist in a lofty realm.
00:18:21.180 The same thing goes for the Hindu gods. 0.64
00:18:25.320 Okay?
00:18:25.580 They supposedly live atop Mount Everest.
00:18:28.660 But nobody's found them.
00:18:30.000 That doesn't change any...
00:18:31.140 That doesn't detract from Hinduism.
00:18:36.800 Judaism.
00:18:38.100 You know, you go back and it's like, well, the Bible's not completely accurate.
00:18:42.640 It's a...
00:18:43.120 Well, it's a...
00:18:43.780 It's an oral history that got written down.
00:18:46.900 Okay?
00:18:47.100 Of course it's not completely accurate.
00:18:49.940 Native American legends.
00:18:54.260 You know, yeah, okay.
00:18:55.440 Coyotes don't actually talk.
00:18:56.820 We get it.
00:18:59.400 Christianity, though.
00:19:02.520 And if you go to a good church, they really hammer this home.
00:19:05.960 If Christ did not live, die, and then live again, if he did not rise from the dead, then our faith is in vain.
00:19:20.820 It means nothing.
00:19:21.940 If there was not a historical Christ, not some moral teacher, okay, not some guy that performed a few miracles, that, you know, cast a few magic spells.
00:19:34.400 No, a man that died on the cross for our sins, and then rose from the dead, and then ascended to heaven.
00:19:43.340 If that didn't exist, we throw out the church.
00:19:49.700 Okay?
00:19:49.900 Maybe we keep the New Testament, because it's got some cool stories, and it's got some good homilies in it.
00:19:54.620 Yeah, sure.
00:19:55.780 But nobody's a Christian anymore. 0.97
00:20:02.400 Paul was absolutely clear about this.
00:20:05.180 There was an objective event that happened.
00:20:10.020 There was something that happened.
00:20:12.020 And if that didn't, if it's based upon a lie, if it's based upon a fable,
00:20:16.420 then everything else he said in his life, his whole life was wasted.
00:20:25.340 Dog's moving around.
00:20:28.880 And if you're a Christian, that's what you believe.
00:20:30.560 Not that he was a great moral teacher, but that he was God incarnate, and that he died for our sins.
00:20:39.540 And see, here's the thing. 0.91
00:20:40.480 People, people were not stupid 2,000 years ago. 0.87
00:20:44.500 Okay? 0.96
00:20:45.820 You know, you say, oh, yeah, yeah, this guy totally got raised from the dead.
00:20:50.440 They'd say, yeah, and I've got some swampland in Greece to sell you. 0.98
00:20:54.460 People were not stupid. 0.99
00:20:56.340 Okay, they knew that this stuff was nonsense. 0.98
00:20:58.200 And in fact, if you read, if you read the Gospels, time and again, the apostles doubt Christ.
00:21:08.400 Because, like, this, this stuff doesn't happen.
00:21:11.200 Okay? 0.98
00:21:11.400 Like, God coming, that's ridiculous. 0.98
00:21:12.740 Like, they wanted to believe him. 0.98
00:21:14.200 They followed him.
00:21:15.440 But they constantly doubted him.
00:21:17.780 Because it just, this, this doesn't happen.
00:21:20.240 This is BS, okay?
00:21:21.200 This is like a science fiction story.
00:21:22.580 You know, it's like, okay, yeah, we understand that, you know, cult of Mithras, you get high, and then you douse yourself in blood while, you know, people are beating on drums and chanting.
00:21:33.980 Really cool experience, and you see some trippy stuff.
00:21:37.560 But it's not real, okay?
00:21:39.220 That stuff doesn't really happen.
00:21:41.220 And even after the resurrection, at first, they didn't recognize him.
00:21:48.300 Which, again, it's a really weird thing to put in there.
00:21:50.380 Because you would think that if you just saw your friend get put to death, and then you ran into him, you'd be, you'd be shocked.
00:21:55.920 Like, what are you doing here?
00:21:58.180 But that's exactly it.
00:22:00.520 You know, I had this experience.
00:22:01.800 Where I was, I was back in high school, I was dating a girl in, um, the next town over.
00:22:07.540 And I was just walking through the hallways of my school, in between classes.
00:22:11.540 And she was just standing there in the hallway.
00:22:14.200 And I kind of looked at her, and I knew that I knew her from somewhere, so I just kind of nodded at her, and I kept walking.
00:22:19.320 Couldn't remember her name.
00:22:21.020 Fifteen seconds later, it comes to me that that's my girlfriend.
00:22:24.440 See, I hadn't expected to see her there.
00:22:27.720 You know, like, why would, you know, she lives, you know, like, a half hour away.
00:22:31.420 Why would she be at my school in the middle of a school day?
00:22:36.520 And so those, those bits, where after the resurrection, you know, they don't recognize Christ.
00:22:42.280 He's talking to them.
00:22:43.760 And then, and he's like, why are you guys upset?
00:22:46.440 Because Jesus got killed.
00:22:52.180 So there's these bits that really ring true.
00:22:55.740 That if you were trying to create a cult, if you were trying to pass this off,
00:22:59.260 this is too idiosync, idiosync, idiosyncric, sin-trick.
00:23:05.420 It doesn't fit if you're just trying to put together a really good story.
00:23:10.060 But when you start talking about something that, something impossible that actually happened,
00:23:15.340 it starts to make a lot more sense.
00:23:17.040 So those are my strongest arguments, folks.
00:23:24.220 I might expand that into a larger philosophical work at some point.
00:23:29.460 But those are the basics.
00:23:35.300 Thanks for listening.
00:23:37.220 Deus volt.
00:23:39.280 Irini out.
00:23:39.860 We'll see you next time.