Sean Carroll - Arguments for Atheism?

Turn the tables on God's existence. Start with atheism, not with theism. Atheists take their best shots at disproving God; theists in turn defend God, deflecting anti-God arguments.

[objective_truth]

This is the point. "Universe doesn't care whether you are craving for a certain meaning for your life or not."

[alicantino]

Sean Carroll has the patience of a saint.

[cundavis]

I would simply like to express my thanks for the manners in this series. In too many discussions such as these, the participants are constantly cutting each other off, talking over one another, or each is trying to prove who has the biggest pecker of knowledge. I can't stand sitting through such productions! This has been very easy to watch and I just appreciate it! Thank you gentlemen and producers of this series!!

[MatthewShute]

It's a bit silly to suppose that, if science can't answer a particular question, we should simply fall back on the bare assertions of any given religion. When science gives us answers, they're real answers, supported by empirical data. All religion has ever had is untested (or flat out false) assertions.

[JakeBiddlecome]

There are few people I can really trust anymore but Sean is one of them. There's hardly an example where he doesn't make very clear what science has and has not revealed to us. He happily jumps to the conclusion that we simply cannot know some things but we take the best answer and run with it till it leads to a dead end. I was deeply religious until I picked up a copy of The God Delusion about ten years ago, and while it made me realize how arrogant Dawkins is, it helped me know what to look for in a reasonable person. I love to see cosmologists/physicists with the balance that Sean conveys to his audience. Religion seems to be more of a non-issue to him only to the point it interferes with what is taught in science class. I have a tendency to be a militant athiest because of how religious people have treated me but videos like this remind me what's really important - the joy in progress of real scientific discovery.

[OmniGuy]

I would rather admit that I don't know than to pretend I do.

[geshtu]

What really frustrates me about the interviewer's questions is the assumption that religion HAS an answer while science does not. This is false, and the biggest difference between science and religion when it comes to making claims about reality is that only science provides a way to turn a guess or an idea into knowledge. Religion can say all it likes about "why" the laws of physics are the way they are, but it has no way to confirm its answer. Anyone can make untestable claims. It's much more difficult to say "this is true and here is how we know" - and that is solely the domain of science.

I'd love to fire back the questions to the interview and ask "how do you know X?" where X is any single claim religion has made. Religion doesn't have answers. It only has guesses at answers. The analogy is something like if you imagine a school exam. Religion can fill out the exam paper but there's no one to mark it, and so there is no way to tell how well you did at the exam. Since no one knows the real answers (and perhaps no one CAN know them), it therefore follows that religion's answers are only random guesses. On the other hand, science is both the exam marker and the student, and it only answers the questions for which there is a knowable (i.e. testable) answer. The other questions are beyond our reach (for now, and perhaps forever), and perhaps even meaningless. For those questions, it isn't the case that religion offers something that science does not - but rather that religion is on the same footing as everyone else - and no one has any clue. We don't even know if the questions make sense.

[eckhartmaister]

“Leave your convictions and you will be free.” Epictetus

[thebatmanover]

Sean Carroll helped free me from the matrix.

[SolidAir]

Keep in mind that laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. We're merely saying that this is the way that things _do_ happen, and they happen with consistency rather than inconsistency. So the question then becomes why do things happen in the same way all the time rather than in different random ways? I think then it's easier to see why the question might not make sense or might not be worth answering. Why should things happening inconsistently be any more likely than things happening consistently?

[nikolaneberemed]

"Everything else you've conquered, but now you are not going to conquer these..."
That is exactly what every theologian said in their own time in history. Probably that exact sentence. That's the god of the gaps argument at its purest.
Scientific understanding was at its pinnacle during the life of every person that ever lived, that's just the way time works.

[oscarg]

Glib? Carroll responded with dignity and generosity to a personal attack.

[phillynott]

Every question about the universe and it's contents (including human consciousness) is a question for science, not Religion. Period.

[crazyprayingmantis]

Saying 'God did it' still would explain NOTHING.

[LukeSumIpsePatremTe]

Q1: Where did the laws of the universe come from?
A: Magic
Q2: Nature of human consciousness?
A: Magic

Logical fallacy used: argument from ignorance a.k.a. god of the gaps.

[NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself]

eww, a Joel Osteen ad right before the video. 😕

[maxnullifidian]

Science is based on methodological naturalism, the view that nothing supernatural exists. Methodological naturalism is not a "doctrine" but an essential aspect of the methodology of science, the study of the natural universe.

[HakWilliams]

One does not need an argument for atheism. I'll be just chilling while you come up with some extraordinary evidence to back your extraordinary claims.

[folcwinep.pywackett]

"....but the universe doesn't care what I think is better or worse." - Sean Carroll VS "I know what the universe is all about." - any theist or atheist. Now then who is more humble!

[patbrennan]

as long as money is involved religions will never go away. can you blame the religions of the world for putting up such a gallant fight when there are billions of dollars on the line?