Richard Carrier DEMOLISHES Mike Jones Claims About Objective Morality

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]So, let's do the same thing I did before. Let's put all the evidence in that Michael's leaving out. So, atheism predicts that moral rules will only come from human beings and thus will begin deeply flawed and will be improved by experiment over a really long time, each improvement coming after empirically observing the social chaos and dissatisfaction and waste that comes from flawed moral systems. Atheism also predicts that will that that will happen only slowly over thousands of years because humans are imperfect reasoners.

[00:00:23]And that is exactly what we observe.

[00:00:25]Just Hey everyone. Welcome back to the channel. Genuinely glad you're here for this one because this might be one of the most thought-provoking clips I've reacted to in a long time. So, what you're about to watch is Dr. Richard Carrier and Mike Jones going head-to-head in a full philosophical debate about one of the biggest questions humans have ever asked. Does God exist or does naturalism explain everything we see around us? And what makes this particular exchange so fascinating is that both of these guys are not just throwing opinions around.

[00:01:01]They are bringing philosophy, science, probability theory, and even moral history into the ring. This is the kind of debate where your brain actually has to work. Do yourself a favor and stick around to the very end because the way this argument develops, the best moments are not at the beginning. They build and the payoff is absolutely worth it. Also, I'm genuinely curious where in the world you're watching this from right now.

[00:01:28]Drop your location in the comments. I always love seeing how far this community reaches. All right, let's get into it.

[00:01:36]All right, a lot to get through. So, he says space-time is the underlying thing.

[00:01:40]Well, then we need to start asking questions comparable to the the God hypothesis.

[00:01:44]Uh what type of relations, properties, or underlying terms? Is it one field? How many excitations? How complex is its geometry geometry? Is it unlimited? How many properties? What do these properties have? Does it have any boundary conditions? Does it have arbitrary limits? These are all assumptions that go into a naturalistic explanation that need to be explained.

[00:02:04]Whereas with theism, we have a far less brute facts. Just God is a perfect being who is unlimited explains where value comes from. Very simple. He said death stars and rabbits are improbable, but he but again, according to his own research, he says all and he just said there are infinitely many things that can come out of the nothing state. So, how could he say they are improbable?

[00:02:27]What in nothing, your nothing state that gives rise to the universe, what in there makes this kind of rule that says death stars and rabbits are more improbable? Nothing. So, you unfortunately it appears you're contradicting yourself there. And again, nothing cannot produce everything or something. His nothing state is completely illogical. It cannot give rise to anything because there are no things there to cause. So, as he but he said somehow nothing collapses to nothing naturally.

[00:02:54]What?

[00:02:55]That doesn't make any sense. Nothing is nothing. It doesn't collapse into anything. He brought up the paper spontaneous creation of universe ex nihilo which he cited, but there can what they're saying actually more aligns with my view. I'm not saying they're theists, but I mean they say the notion of bit-based information at the core of the universe evolvement is not new. This trend suggests that the physical world is made of information with energy and matter as incidentals. They're not saying the universe came out of nothing.

[00:03:21]Saying it came out of information processing, which is not nothing, it's something. And that's more in line with the idealist perspective. I'm not saying they're going that far, but I'm saying this is not in line with with his nothing state. It doesn't even logically follow.

[00:03:34]He said that God is so complex, why posit that? Well, again, now you have to just posit solipsism. Cuz if you're going to if you're going to say we need to just go with the simple, you should just posit your mind and we're all figments of your mind's imagination. Why posit a bunch of extra complex minds out there, billions on this planet, if we just are going with simplicity here.

[00:03:51]It's more about parsimony.

[00:03:53]Now, again, you could say his explanation is simple, but it's not explaining things. It just is. Okay? We need still need to account for why the universe exists, why brains somehow produce consciousness, why there is moral realism, and many other aspects.

[00:04:06]This is not an actual full explanation at this point.

[00:04:09]So, that needs to be talked about. And again, positing complexity is not wrong.

[00:04:15]We do this all the time in science to explain phenomena we see. But again, if we read, for example, many philosophers, like Gage and Dority, they say this. But of course, many theologians have thought that God must not reason discursively as we reason, but in a simpler matter.

[00:04:31]Following Augustine, Aquinas thinks that God knows everything that can be known in a single timeless act, and has a single all-conjunctive thought. Dawkins could quibble with the theology, but this just shows that one simply can't do philosophy of religion without doing theology. This is the moment where Mike Jones walks straight into a trap he built himself. Because watch what he does here. He spends the first half of this clip demanding that naturalism answer every single detail about space-time. How many fields? What geometry? What boundary conditions? And then turns around and says God is simple because, and I quote, Mike Jones said this. Just God is a perfect being who is unlimited explains where value comes from. Very simple.

[00:05:21]That's the answer?

[00:05:23]That's the explanation that's supposed to beat naturalism? You just spent 2 minutes listing every question that space-time needs to answer, and your counter is unlimited being. No further questions?

[00:05:37]You have to understand what's actually happening here. Mike Jones is applying a completely different standard to each side. Naturalism has to answer everything in precise detail. Theism just gets to say unlimited and walk away like that closes the argument. And here's what people don't realize about this move. It's actually a very old debating trick. When you can't match the explanatory detail of the other side, you reframe simplicity as a virtue. You say, "My explanation is elegant." But elegant and explanatory are not the same thing. A blank piece of paper is simple.

[00:06:20]It doesn't explain anything. Then Mike Jones says this, and this is the part that got me.

[00:06:26]He said, "Dr. Richard Carrier's naturalist explanation is not actually explaining things. It just is."

[00:06:35]But think about what Mike Jones just said about God 2 seconds earlier.

[00:06:40]God is unlimited. It just is.

[00:06:43]How is that not the exact same move he's criticizing?

[00:06:48]This is what philosophers call special pleading. You demand justification from one side while granting your own side a free pass.

[00:06:57]And the wild part is Mike Jones does this so confidently. He's not even aware of the contradiction as it's happening.

[00:07:06]He then starts pulling in Aquinas and Augustine and Swinburne to back up the idea that God reasons in a single timeless act. Which is interesting because now we've gone from simple to requiring a theology degree to understand.

[00:07:22]So which is it?

[00:07:24]Is God simple, or does he require this entire theological framework to even begin to describe?

[00:07:31]And he does not seem ready or willing or able to do the requisite theology. Also, Swinburne argues that some in detail that attributing infinite power is simple simpler than attributing a finite quality. He illustrates this from the history of science. So, it's much actually simpler as form of an anthology to posit a being that's just unlimited in power, knowledge, goodness, than having some sort of arbitrary limit. Why does it only go this far? Well, you need an explanation for that. So, when we posit perfect being theism as Brian Leftow, Joshua Sitjuwadis point out, this is a very simple anthology. You're just positing a mind that's unlimited. So, for example, to give an analogy, many, many, many, you know, centuries ago, people used to think that, you know, you you just keep going faster, infinite speed. Well, that's that's just a reasonable assumption until we found an actual limit with Einstein for like the speed of light, for example. We have a reason to posit a limit.

[00:08:24]But without that, there's no reason to posit a limit. That is a simpler explanation, that's more parsimonious.

[00:08:28]Same with God. God is a simple explanation, although a simple a simple anthology uh that of the mind can have a complex thought or do complex things. It's still a simple anthology which can account for the data that we have in a much better way than positing something like space-time somehow is the explanation, but it also appears emergent, appears to come from a mind, somehow creates conscious minds and moral realism, and has all these weird arbitrary limits, arbitrary properties. We're complicate This is about a very complicated explanation. We can't confuse explanation and ontology with the actions or the the thing or the beyond that kind of aspect of it. So, again, it's about a simple anthology. As philosophers have noted, the mind has a very simple ontology. And again, we can account for all this data.

[00:09:14]Unfortunately, when it comes to the data I presented, we still have not got a better explanation that can account for all the data I've presented in a more parsimonious manner.

[00:09:22]Thank you very much for that 5-minute rebuttal. Final rebuttal.

[00:09:26]5 minutes from Dr. Richard Carrier.

[00:09:28]Floor is yours. Yeah, I'll start with the I'll start with the last one. Um I think again, Michael's misunderstood the argument. So, let me let me give it in in a different form.

[00:09:37]>> [clears throat] >> So let's say you have a collection of all possible things is infinite and there's got every possible God is in there. Every possible Godless world is in there and >> [clears throat] >> if you look at like the possible worlds and there there there could be a world that you choose that has one universe in it only a world that you choose that has no universes. That would be nothing and nothing stays nothing or you could pick you pick out of that hat essentially a mass you know like 10,000 universes or whatever the number of universes that exist the multiverse you pick out of there. These are all these possibilities are in there each one each any one of them could be any possible multiverse or single verse and so on.

[00:10:14]But if you look at when you pick through all of that the probability of picking a zero universe in other words nothing is infinity to one against right picking one single universe by itself also infinity to one against and even picking either one of those zero or one is also infinity to one against because there's always an infinite number of larger number larger multiverses to pick. So in fact if you pick at random out of that hat you are going to almost certainly pick a Godless multiverse because of all the possible things that are in there those that's the most common thing by far there's infinitely more of those things and more rare things like a God.

[00:10:48]Now God is has infinite specified complexity because he has absolutely like literally a left omega you can look this up of all the connections that he could possibly make in his mind to be omnipotent or to be omniscient is the most specified complexity that you can even have it's like there's no nothing can be logically more complex than that and more specified complex than that. But there's only one of those out of all the things in the hat there's only one of those is that God but almost all in fact infinitely many in that hat are Godless multiverses. So if you're picking at random you're not going to get a God you're to an infinity to one you're going to get a random Godless multiverse of vast size. Okay so Mike Jones just said Dr. Richard Carrier is not ready or willing or able to do the requisite theology.

[00:11:34]And I want to sit with that for a second because that is a fascinating line to draw.

[00:11:39]The argument has now shifted from evidence and logic to you haven't studied the right theology.

[00:11:47]That is the moment you know someone has run out of scientific ground to stand on.

[00:11:52]When the defense becomes you need to read more theology, not you need to look at more evidence.

[00:12:00]And then Dr. Richard Carrier does something that I think is genuinely one of the sharpest moves in this entire debate.

[00:12:08]He doesn't get defensive.

[00:12:10]He doesn't argue about theology at all.

[00:12:13]He reframes the entire question using probability.

[00:12:19]And you have to understand why this works so well.

[00:12:22]Mike Jones spent the whole debate arguing God is simple.

[00:12:27]Dr. Richard Carrier's response is essentially, "Okay, fine. Let's test that claim mathematically."

[00:12:35]He lays out this thought experiment.

[00:12:38]Imagine every possible thing that could exist is in a hat.

[00:12:43]Every possible God, every possible godless world, every possible multiverse.

[00:12:50]Now pick at random.

[00:12:52]Dr. Richard Carrier said this.

[00:12:55]There's infinitely more of those things and more rare things like a God.

[00:13:01]This is not just a clever analogy. This is actually how Bayesian probability works in philosophy of science.

[00:13:09]When you're trying to figure out which explanation is more likely to be true, you look at how many ways the evidence could have come out that way.

[00:13:18]And Dr. Richard Carrier is pointing out that godless multiverses vastly outnumber any specific God by an almost incomprehensible margin.

[00:13:30]Then he lands this.

[00:13:32]Dr. Richard Carrier said this.

[00:13:35]God has infinite specified complexity.

[00:13:39]The most specified complexity that you can even have.

[00:13:44]Think about what that means.

[00:13:46]To be omniscient, you have to have a connection to every possible piece of knowledge simultaneously.

[00:13:53]To be omnipotent, you have to have access to every possible action simultaneously.

[00:14:00]That is not simple. That is the most complex configuration of information that logic can even allow.

[00:14:10]And Dr. Richard Carrier makes it plain.

[00:14:13]He said this.

[00:14:15]If you're picking at random, you're not going to get a god.

[00:14:20]This is why the simplicity argument for god doesn't just fail.

[00:14:25]It fails in the exact opposite direction Mike Jones intended.

[00:14:31]The more you define god precisely, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, the more complex god becomes.

[00:14:42]And the more complex something is, the less likely it is to just randomly exist as your starting point.

[00:14:51]And so the Lincoln Worser model, they don't actually have any positive of limits. There's no ad hoc anything in there. Uh they just say that if you start with a state that has no physical laws governing what will happen, it logically necessarily follows that what will happen will be random. It'll be a random pick out of that hat. Uh and they should they build this out in terms of describing in terms of field theory.

[00:15:12]There are no assumptions that are plugged in there. There's nothing's ad hoc. It's just simply once you define the state, the conclusion follows necessarily. And I bring this out in my multi many articles about this, but the best one to start with is "Nothing is a Field State" is where I talk about Lincoln Wasser and tie it into my other argument. So, if you're picking at random, you're going to get a multiverse, and therefore, it's actually a much simpler explanation. God is a much more complex piece of information.

[00:15:36]So, Swinburne was actually wrong about that. Uh so, that that argument does doesn't work. It actually works the other way around. God is actually the most complex thing that you can pick. A multiverse is the least complex because of all the random things that you could pick at random, and that's the simplest thing you can do is pick at random.

[00:15:51]You're not specifying anything. It is zero specificity. You're picking at random, you're going to get a godless multiverse of all every all possible things in that happen.

[00:15:59]So, that's [clears throat] that's why I'm saying that that's a simpler. So, it also hits precedent. Again, there's we have no precedent for supernatural causes. God is the least likely explanation for anything you run into.

[00:16:10]It's always been thousands and thousands, millions and millions of things have been explained with natural causes, and so the the probability is going to be one of these natural causes. Lincoln Wasser is an example of this. So, so that's we got precedent. Then we've got simplicity. The Lincoln Wasser model is vastly simpler, has vastly fewer posits, and requires less specificity of choice in terms of what happens than the God hypothesis does.

[00:16:34]And so, I do want to revisit What's my time on that?

[00:16:38]1:21 Okay, let's see if I can get through the moral argument cuz I think that's been he mentioned that a little bit and I should hit that some.

[00:16:44]So, let's do the same thing I did before. Let's put all the evidence in that Michael's leaving out. So, atheism predicts that moral rules will only come from human beings and thus will begin deeply flawed and will be improved by experiment over a really long time, each improvement coming after empirically observing the social chaos and dissatisfaction and waste that comes from flawed moral systems. Atheism also predicts that will that that will happen only slowly over thousands of years because humans are imperfect reasoners.

[00:17:07]And that is exactly what we observe.

[00:17:09]Just look at the examples of endorsing slavery and the subordination of women in the Bible, 1 Timothy 2 for example.

[00:17:14]By contrast, theism predicts a universe directly governed by justice laws or a kind and just stewardship or the enacting and teaching of divine justice and mercy everywhere from the start. But we observe no such laws built into the universe, no stewards or law enforcers but us, and no perfect moral code has existed anywhere throughout history. The best moralities have always just slowly evolved from human trial and error.

[00:17:36]That's exactly what we would have to observe if God doesn't exist, but it is weird, it is not what we expect to observe if God did exist. If God did exist, we should see perfect moralities taught from the beginning for the last 40,000 years or 2,000, 4,000 years of writing and so on.

[00:17:51]>> [clears throat] >> And so that's why morality establishes my position. This final section is where Dr. Richard Carrier stops playing defense entirely and goes on full offense. And the target he picks is the one Mike Jones was most confident about coming into this debate. The moral argument. Dr. Richard Carrier first wraps up the simplicity point cleanly.

[00:18:13]He said this.

[00:18:15]God is a much more complex piece of information. So Swinburne was actually wrong about that.

[00:18:22]No drama, no long rebuttal, just a clean direct correction.

[00:18:27]Swinburne was wrong.

[00:18:29]That's it.

[00:18:30]And the reason that land so hard is because Mike Jones spent considerable time building Swinburne up as his philosophical authority on simplicity.

[00:18:39]That authority just got dismissed in one sentence.

[00:18:43]But then Dr. Richard Carrier does something that I think is the single most effective moment in this entire clip. He turns the moral argument completely upside down.

[00:18:53]And here's why this matters so much. The moral argument is supposed to be one of theism's strongest positions. The idea is that objective morality points to God. Dr. Richard Carrier's response is that the evidence of how morality actually developed in human history points away from God.

[00:19:12]He said this, "Just look at the examples of endorsing slavery and the subordination of women in the Bible. First Timothy 2, for example.

[00:19:21]Now, think about what that citation means in context.

[00:19:25]This is not an attack from outside the text. This is pointing to the actual content of the book that is supposed to be evidence of divine moral perfection.

[00:19:35]If God exists and is perfectly good and cared about justice from the beginning, why does the foundational moral document of one of the world's largest religions contain explicit endorsements of practices that humanity had to painfully evolve away from over centuries?

[00:19:52]Dr. Richard Carrier frames it precisely.

[00:19:55]He said this, "Theism predicts a universe directly governed by justice laws, the enacting and teaching of divine justice and mercy everywhere from the start. But we observe no such laws built into the universe." And then he closes it.

[00:20:12]He said this, "That's exactly what we would have to observe if God doesn't exist.

[00:20:20]But it is weird.

[00:20:22]It is not what we expect to observe if God did exist."

[00:20:28]That structure right there is devastating because it's not just saying God is unlikely.

[00:20:35]It's saying the specific world we actually live in is the world naturalism predicts and not the world theism predicts.

[00:20:46]That's a completely different level of argument.

[00:20:49]It doesn't just poke holes. It flips the entire burden.

[00:20:55]The evidence of how morality developed throughout recorded human history becomes a data point against divine authorship rather than for it.

[00:21:07]So, what do you guys think of this?

[00:21:09]Leave your thoughts down in the comments. Please like and subscribe, and I will see you in the next video.