God is a Delusion | Oxford Union Speech - Alex O'Connor

Thanks to the @OxfordUnion for permission to repost this speech.

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[ordinarycynic]

Meeting another philosopher on a boat by chance and being invited to a debate feels very appropriate for a philosopher

[DanSoloha]

“You’re about to find out as you meet your maker” actually got a chuckle out of me… you nailed the delivery on that one

[OniLeafNin]

Seeing the Oxford Latin slogan in the thumbnail, “The Lord is my light”. I can’t help but see the irony here.

[gridLAZER]

if he continues on this trajectory of philosophical discourse, Alex will easily be listed among this generation's greatest orators and thinkers. phenomenal work, sir.

[akashsrivastava]

I'm a simple guy. I see a video of Alex, I watch it.

[MrSenserus]

Alex so impressed with all that you're doing lately. Nice to see you getting big and mainstream well known. Keep it up!

[hopelessnerd]

Religion is different than any other way of thinking. If you tell somebody, "I don't do cosplay, or I don't play chess" it's not likely to upset them in the least, but if you tell somebody "I don't worship any gods", they get deeply upset, almost as though it's a physical attack. Then the irrational fears show up, and threats of Hell and eternal torture follow.

[ged]

What an exceptional role model and public speaker!

[hayleyanna]

Impressive. I miss Christopher Hitchens immensely but with brilliant young orators such as Alex, someone dedicated to the truth, give me some hope that it did not die with him. 🥂

[Tesserex]

There were moments here where I heard Hitch's voice coming through. Very well done, and you have an exciting future ahead.

[scyphrre]

I appreciate Alex's videos as he seems to at least be respectful of people of faith. That being said, this argument is rife with logical fallacies. He starts off with a straw man, proposing that since "most" of the conversion stories we hear are experiential in nature instead of evidential, that we should then not trust the conclusions of these people who are converting. This is a fallacy: there are countless stories of atheists converting based on their interpretation of empirical evidence or philosophical conclusions. It would be quite absurd actually to believe that if God exists, that he would only reveal himself in one way to all of humanity. It makes far more sense that there would be a variety of ways that people would at least learn about his existence. So claiming that the experiential way is untrustworthy, and therefore the conclusion (God) is equally untrustworthy is a false claim, although quite typical amongst atheists/agnostics who hold the belief that something cannot be true unless it is found in a laboratory.

Alex then asks: What would you expect to see? Then proceeds to set up a false dilemma by proposing that there could only be two logical options to explain what we see in the world - one where God exists which should presumably not lead to suffering, and one where God does not exist which Alex asserts makes better sense of the suffering we see. Obviously the first option is not what we see so we're forced to accept the 2nd option. Therein lies the fallacy. There is a 3rd option which Alex actually alludes to: one where God exists, while suffering also exists. He acknowledges this as the "standard" theistic rebuttal and dismisses it as if it is not a viable explanation for what we see in the world, forcing us to only choose between the two he setup. But the 3rd option is completely congruent with reality and makes perfect sense for us to expect if people were the ones responsible for the suffering in the world. Furthermore, believing in natural selection does not necessitate a disbelief in God - the two are not mutually exclusive, but that is a larger discussion that can't be tackled in this comment.

Lastly, he closes with a bunch of ad hominem fallacies. Did many theists rely solely on non-empirical experience to validate their belief in God? Absolutely! Is that evidence that they are wrong? Nope (see the first point above). Have there been countless acts of evil done in the name of God throughout human history? Of course, without question. But for every one of those examples we could find an equal example of atheists doing evil and of people of faith doing good - all of those examples prove nothing, which is why ad hominem arguments don't work. All the examples he gave are of people claiming Christianity as a title, but then not actually doing what the author of the faith (Jesus) said. This is not a strong argument to disprove the claims, especially when Jesus (again, the author of the faith) said that following him requires a daily denial of your own desires to put his way of life above your own - something the people Alex cited were obviously not doing.

This is already long so I'll just fire off a few more things without diving into them:
- Theists do not claim that a belief in God is a prerequisite for reason, science, morality. The claim is that if the Christian God exists, then he created humans to be hardwired for those things, whether you believe in him or not.
- People of faith are not claiming that science belongs to them. However, if God created the world, then, yes, that means he did create all the laws and attributes that science is used to discover.
- Alex misdefines the word "faith" here, in what I'm assuming is a reference to Hebrews 11. There are actually two different kinds of faith described in that chapter, but neither of them amount to "belief without evidence" as Alex proposes. And the teaching "Blessed are those who believe without seeing" (I assume a reference to John 20:29) is used here out of context and is not meant to be taken as "believe with no evidence." The Bible is actually full of stories of people providing evidence SO THAT people would believe.

To top it all off, I'll just briefly mention the irony in some of the words Alex uses:
- "unfortunate" social realities
- species that have inhabited this planet have been "brutally" wiped from existence
- the "noble" pursuits that humanity entertains
He certainly is assigning a lot of moral judgment to activities that, by his own words, are taking place in an "amoral arena of accidentally existing organisms" ... interesting indeed.

So, yeah, as eloquent as it may be, there is a lot to clean up in this argument if it is to be taken as a serious rebuttal of theism/Christianity.

[Remiel_Plainview]

Alex, looking ahead for your debate with Dinesh D'Souza. Keep up the good work man.
Love from 🇮🇳

[jphottroddlincoln]

Since i discovered Alex I am always impressed by his candor, I have become a better conversationalist listening to him connect thoughts and ideas. But it also reminds me that I need to organize my studies and focus more on tasks. Cut out Television and activities that aren't related to my work.

[Terron]

Delighted to see Alex making it big. Hes a great clear speaker.

[MissBlennerhassett]

The three in the background look like they've been up all night at a wedding reception and are miserably starting to sober up.

[Filipe]

I met your channel when you were speaking from your room, and now you’re on tv and big debates. So proud of you, brother. Keep up the good work 👏🏻

[warrencolegrove]

Amazing ! Thanks for all you do Alex !!

[Datokah]

An erudite and concise speech, as always, from Mr O'Connor.

[greggerypeccary]

Well, this comment section turned into a toxic dumpster fire. As usual when someone criticizes Christianity.

[proddreamatnight]

Dude you are popping off right now, 1 million subs for sure this year