Debate: Trent Horn vs. Raphael Lataster - Does God Exist

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eggs00

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Here is a link to the debate:

youtube.com/watch?v=gFaW01dZ7m0

It is about 2 hours long. I was wondering what everyone thought of this debate.

I got frustrated with Lataster because it seemed like he wasn’t really making any arguments, but was just brushing everything off as if it didn’t matter.

Also, is anyone familiar with the probabilistic theory Lataster kept pushing? I have never heard about it (or maybe I have but not as an actual theory) and would like to see what he meant by it.
 
eggs00 said:
Here is a link to the debate:

youtube.com/watch?v=gFaW01dZ7m0

It is about 2 hours long. I was wondering what everyone thought of this debate.

I got frustrated with Lataster because it seemed like he wasn’t really making any arguments, but was just brushing everything off as if it didn’t matter.

Also, is anyone familiar with the probabilistic theory Lataster kept pushing? I have never heard about it (or maybe I have but not as an actual theory) and would like to see what he meant by it.
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Listening to the debate now.

But this might help answer your question:

catholic.com/encyclopedia/probabilism
 
eggs00 said:
I got frustrated with Lataster because it seemed like he wasn’t really making any arguments, but was just brushing everything off as if it didn’t matter.
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You’ll find this is really common when debating atheists. Some have well reasoned arguments, others just assert things without evidence.

thanks for posting the debate, I look forward to listening to it.
 
MT1926 said:
Listening to the debate now.

But this might help answer your question:

catholic.com/encyclopedia/probabilism
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Thank you very much for the article. It helps out a lot. It was just a new term and I wanted to make sure that I understood what he was looking for in Trent’s answers, since he was always repeating how he wanted probabilistic arguments and such.

Also, Go Pens! I saw your location was from Steeler Country and I grew up in the Pittsburgh area.

Thank you again!
 
cornbread_r2 said:
I’m reasonably certain that Lataster was referring to Bayes’s theorem and Bayesian probability and not to the Catholic concept of Probabalism. Basically, Lataster is applying a mathematical formula by way of assessing the probability of the Christian God’s existence given all of the various concepts of god and super-naturalism.
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Thank you. To be honest this idea is a bit confusing. I understand the idea of using probability because when we make rational arguments we base them, in some cases, on probability with the outcome. Do you know if, within these theories, is it just a different set of language that is used or do they look for an actual formula to explain the probability? As in do they try to assign numbers to the probability of this or that?

At least at first glance (grant it I don’t know anything about the theories really) you could articulate the existence of God as Catholics believe using this language. It would just take a shift of our classic understanding of our language. I may be wrong though…
 
eggs00 said:
Here is a link to the debate:

youtube.com/watch?v=gFaW01dZ7m0

It is about 2 hours long. I was wondering what everyone thought of this debate.

I got frustrated with Lataster because it seemed like he wasn’t really making any arguments, but was just brushing everything off as if it didn’t matter.

Also, is anyone familiar with the probabilistic theory Lataster kept pushing? I have never heard about it (or maybe I have but not as an actual theory) and would like to see what he meant by it.
Click to expand...
Wow can’t believe you made it through the entire debate. I am on day 3 and only at the 1 hour mark. I see what you mean by frustration. I honestly believe that was his plan all along, he wasn’t their to prove anything he was just their to cause confusion. He keeps throwing out the term “probabilistic theory”, fine but I don’t really think probability can be considered the conclusion he makes it out to be, probability just helps us decide the best point to start from. The stupid part of his stance on “probabilistic theory” is he actually stated he wouldn’t accept a “probabilistic argument” when he stated he would only believe God existed if God revealed himself to him personally.

In my opinion the person that uses the he needs to show himself to me defense is a person that just enjoys arguing and isn’t really searching for the existence of God.
 
I listened to this at work yesterday. Wow. It’s like Lataster didn’t realize the debate was actually going on. His opening statement sounded more like what he would say to someone if he was asked to comment on Horn’s opening in some casual setting after the fact. “Well, there’s this rebuttal, and I could say that, and then there’s this other argument over here.” Um, yeah. MAKE those arguments, guy. You’re not just at the debate, you’re in the debate.

After listening to his closing statement, I finally understood why he did it. He wanted to get everything out of the way to talk about this other line of argumentation that he thinks has been neglected. And I kind of agree with him, and I look forward to reading his work, but it was bad form for him to derail a debate just so he could talk about his pet project.
 
Love the debate!

One thought: Lataster kept asserting that Horn’s arguments only presented the case for supernaturalism. Fine. Even if this were the case, he (Lataster) needs to argue against supernaturalism.

Horn is just fighting the war one battle at a time.

Once supernaturalism is proven, then we can argue for the Monotheistic God.

Once that is proven, we can argue for the Christian God.

Once that is proven, we can argue for the Catholic God. 🙂
 
PRmerger said:
Love the debate!

One thought: Lataster kept asserting that Horn’s arguments only presented the case for supernaturalism. Fine. Even if this were the case, he (Lataster) needs to argue against supernaturalism.

Horn is just fighting the war one battle at a time.

Once supernaturalism is proven, then we can argue for the Monotheistic God.

Once that is proven, we can argue for the Christian God.

Once that is proven, we can argue for the Catholic God. 🙂
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I think Lataster has a point there. Of course you are correct, and Horn could progress in the way you suggest, but that is rather what Lataster was saying: Horn wasn’t doing that because a lot of his arguments could be applied more broadly than than to just Classical Theism.

Saying the Lataster needs to argue against supernaturalism depends on how the debate is being approached; both debaters seemed to have different ideas of what was expected of them and what was required of the other party. This happens a lot and is one of my frustrations with debates like these and a large part of why I don’t watch many these days. Really it should be up to the organizers to decide these things and then find people suitable to do it (don’t invite and agnostic or “weak” atheist and then expect them to defend “strong” atheism) and to explicitly state them during the introduction. “This is the definition of ‘God’ we will be using. This is what the theist is trying to do, this is what the atheist is trying to do.” Instead, we tend to get two speakers trying to have different debates.
 
KnowtheSilence said:
I think Lataster has a point there. Of course you are correct, and Horn could progress in the way you suggest, but that is rather what Lataster was saying: Horn wasn’t doing that because a lot of his arguments could be applied more broadly than than to just Classical Theism.
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Ok, even if I concede that Horn wasn’t doing that, it still doesn’t solve Lataster’s problem.

He is a naturalist. Horn presented some very good arguments for supernaturalism.

Lataster needed to refute Horn’s arguments.

He did not.
 
PRmerger said:
Ok, even if I concede that Horn wasn’t doing that, it still doesn’t solve Lataster’s problem.

He is a naturalist. Horn presented some very good arguments for supernaturalism.

Lataster needed to refute Horn’s arguments.

He did not.
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This is where the lack of clarity comes in. Was it Lataster’s job to refute all of Horn’s arguments and to promote naturalism, or was it his job to try to refute Classical Theism (which would not require him to refute arguments that did not specifically support it)? As far as I can tell, the organizers of the debate did not make that clear, and the debaters themselves didn’t agree. Was the lack of agreement known beforehand, or did it come as a surprise? Did one of them intentionally try to refrain the debate in order to make their position easier? I don’t know, but in any case, the organizers could have made it more clear and the moderator could have tried to keep everything on track.
 
A man named after an Archangel denying the existence of God. What utter irony. One can almost sense the irreconcilable inner tension.
 
Just wanted to add my two cents here.
  1. It seems to me that there is just no way to get a modern atheist to take any responsibility whatsoever for presenting arguments in support of the view that God doesn’t exist. The debate was titled “Does God Exist?” Raphael was there as the con side (does God exist? No he does not!). Trent took a good portion of his opening remarks to explain that while he was going present arguments in favor of God’s existence, Raphael would need to present arguments that showed He does not. Nonetheless, Raphael scoffed at the idea that he would need to provide any sort of evidence or reasoning for God not existing. All he has to do is stand up there, listen to Trent, and then wave his hands and say “Not good enough; not convincing.” At this point, it’s a dogmatic stance that no amount of reasoning will do anything to shake an atheist of. Perhaps it would work to say, “For the sake of this argument, I’ll grant that you are under no obligation to do so. But, could you just humor me and give me some reasons God doesn’t exist?”
  2. It really struck me that most of Raphael’s arguments seemed to be “Hey, supernaturalism may be real, but it could be that the universe is god! Or there are many gods! Or some other concept of god other than monotheism!” Ok, sure. But that’s not the debate! Whether God is our Christian one or a pantheistic force or whatever, we are debating whether god exists at all. It seemed a very odd thing for Raphael to try to discuss, and I thought it odd that Trent didn’t address that. He may have been thrown off by how out of left field it was.
  3. I would really like to learn a bit more about the probabilistic arguments that Raphael was trying to make. I had never heard of them before, and I would dare say neither had Trent, since he never addressed them in the debate. I tried googling the terms that Raphael used, but couldn’t find anything useful. I found some of Bayes’ stuff, but I don’t think that was exactly what he was using. I could be wrong, of course, but I couldn’t find anything on the prior/consequent probability dichotomy that he kept bringing up, and claiming that the theistic arguments raised one but lowered the other.
Ok, 3 cents I guess.
 
dahbeegs said:
Just wanted to add my two cents here.
  1. It seems to me that there is just no way to get a modern atheist to take any responsibility whatsoever for presenting arguments in support of the view that God doesn’t exist. The debate was titled “Does God Exist?” Raphael was there as the con side (does God exist? No he does not!). Trent took a good portion of his opening remarks to explain that while he was going present arguments in favor of God’s existence, Raphael would need to present arguments that showed He does not. Nonetheless, Raphael scoffed at the idea that he would need to provide any sort of evidence or reasoning for God not existing. All he has to do is stand up there, listen to Trent, and then wave his hands and say “Not good enough; not convincing.” At this point, it’s a dogmatic stance that no amount of reasoning will do anything to shake an atheist of. Perhaps it would work to say, “For the sake of this argument, I’ll grant that you are under no obligation to do so. But, could you just humor me and give me some reasons God doesn’t exist?”
  2. It really struck me that most of Raphael’s arguments seemed to be “Hey, supernaturalism may be real, but it could be that the universe is god! Or there are many gods! Or some other concept of god other than monotheism!” Ok, sure. But that’s not the debate! Whether God is our Christian one or a pantheistic force or whatever, we are debating whether god exists at all. It seemed a very odd thing for Raphael to try to discuss, and I thought it odd that Trent didn’t address that. He may have been thrown off by how out of left field it was.
  3. I would really like to learn a bit more about the probabilistic arguments that Raphael was trying to make. I had never heard of them before, and I would dare say neither had Trent, since he never addressed them in the debate. I tried googling the terms that Raphael used, but couldn’t find anything useful. I found some of Bayes’ stuff, but I don’t think that was exactly what he was using. I could be wrong, of course, but I couldn’t find anything on the prior/consequent probability dichotomy that he kept bringing up, and claiming that the theistic arguments raised one but lowered the other.
Ok, 3 cents I guess.
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Great thoughts!
 
I was hoping Trent Horn was gonna nail him on appealing to the mystery, unknowable, unforseeable. This was his excused to dismiss Trent and it was so awful listening to that and him getting away with it that I just wanted to stop the video.

He is quoted as saying “we dont know the universe had a beginning” um yes we do and all the evidence points to a beginning. The furtherest stars we can see are 14 billion light years away. Hypithetically, if theres a galaxy 18 billion light years away and out universe is eternal then the light had literally eternity to reach us. So i see this as failing argument.

Infact, Lataster didnt address any arguments at all. He just appealed to the hypothetical (argument without evidence) has his clutch then appealed to supernaturalism if he granted it. Infact, he did conceed away from naturalism twice so i would have pointed that out. Why are we debating and what are we debating? The existence of God because you granted that already. After that, the debate was pointless because he refused to address anything.
 
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