Steven Pinker vs Nick Spencer: Can atheists believe in human rights?

37 thoughts on “Steven Pinker vs Nick Spencer: Can atheists believe in human rights?”

1. Atheism is useless it has nothing to offer it just takes away till everything becomes meaningless

2. Jordan Peterson perception is much more rich and full. His reduction of thought and actions in so far to history and science is just mind blowing. Steven Pinker is fascinating to listen too, but I feel Peterson is much farther in thought on this subject. Jordan Peterson probably is in modern times the farthest deep thinker in religious phenomenon.

3. Life is still amazing without God. Think of how lucky we are to have consciousness in this moment. It's a bewildering privilege to be a conscious human.

4. Looking forward to the full debate between these two

5. Atheism is all about having a personal relationship with reality.

6. Low-key hoping that this was Nick Spencer from Marvel getting an ass-whooping from Prof. Pinker.

7. Nick Spencer thinks humanism has no deep foundations, but opposed to what? Christianity? Where are the deep foundations of Christianity? People say the bible, but we're far beyond that,…A lot of of Christianity has been been undermined by science. Even if it had foundations, do you really think that people would jump back towards it? Christianity is also based on faith what do you mean, deep foundations..,.

8. The religious nut conveniently ignores that Christian theology was also used as the basis for maintaining slavery. A book that can justify both good and evil does not a firm foundation make.

9. Nice tie Pinkie

10. 0:22 I don't want to come off as petty but… slavery?

11. Imbecil.

    Man, in his arrogance
    https://youtu.be/EWPFmdAWRZ0

12. "we have the ability to reason." Without the supernatural, that "ability" is an illusion. True freewill necessitates the supernatural.

13. Pinker is way out of this guys league and he is trying to not patronize, but he is really dumbing it down for the Christian.

14. I don't see how human rights follow from human beings being made from the same stuff or being sentient.
    Nor do I buy into the attempt to ground human rights in any religious metaphysics by the way.

15. What is the foundation for Christian humanism?

    I always hear Christians claim that atheists have no foundation for morality or ethics. The main problem with that statement is that it implies that Christianity actually HAS some kind of foundation. Except it doesn’t. It is completely empty and barren in that regard. It claims to have a foundation, but that foundation is built on feelings, hopes, and wishes. It’s an empty sack, and they don’t seem to realize it. Very strange.

16. seems like Pinker will do a better job at debating this guy than Blackmore did with Peterson

17. Steven, completely un-phased. Always ready to respond like a boss.

18. You cannot reason your way to the human rights Nick Spencer claims? They have no discernible benefit, value or worth to the people who employ them whatsoever?

19. So basically moral relativism Steven?

20. Get Muslims on your show like Hamza Tzortzis, Ali Dawah, Mohmmed Hijab etc.

21. He changed the point he was trying to make but pretended that he didnt. I love when theists do that. Makes you seem real intellectually honest.
    The man doesn't even know what hes trying to say to Pinker.

22. Humans can't use reason to establish morality? Hmm all the while Christians (presumably humans) are using their arguments or reason to justify why Christianity is the only morally good system. Therefore Christians can't argue for morality but they just did…A vicious cycle of nonsense if I ever heard some.

23. Will the full video be available on youtube, or just the audio?

24. For the full debate, more episodes and bonus content sign up at http://www.thebigconversation.show

25. so because we are all similar we all have rights?
    sorry, i do not see how that follows.
    and no, i am not a theist.

26. Europe is flooded by low Iq immigrants who will outbreed and take over the democratic system opening the gates wide open, the future isn't looking bright at all!
    The masses are propagandist to cheer this on and all oposition are shut down except for the internet.

27. God isn't supernatural, God is nature itself. There is no such thing as supernatural or unnatural. They are scientific myths

28. Why did it take 1700 years for this "deeper basis" for humanism that apparently exists in Christianity to manifest itself?

29. Can they? What an absolutely moronic question. Can non-stamp collectors bake cakes?

30. If determinism is real — and that is what the evidence of physics and chemistry says — then freewill can not be. Even the feeling of freewill we all have has been evidenced by determinist neurologists as a "post hoc rationalization" module (which is a determinism created chemical chain reaction that has been observed to activate moments after the action that we call freewill has been triggered by some outside-the-person environmental contingency).

    All thinking other than determinism is 'donut hole [person] builds the donut [the world]'. It is fundamentally at odds with the observed fact (so far) that the mechanical chain reactions of the universe build donuts with donut holes as symptoms of that. (Built thru energy conversion/conservation efficiency principles /statistics — i.e natural selection processes.)

    Intellectually "donut hole builds donut' philosophy is called 'theory of mind' or 'problem of consciousness.' And that subject ultimately hinges — whether its proponents know it or not (i.e many don't) — on OPEN (i.e unanswered) questions of Quantum Mech (which unfortunately get ever more befuddling with fewer answers).

    …..
    The anti determinists then start with their 'moral' demagoguery. E.g "if we don't believe in freewill then we all become murders and rapists who don't get 'punished' for our behavior."

    Those demagogues are ignorant of fact that humans are reciprocal altruists /group creatures (unlike say tigers [loner creatures]).

    Also they ignore that humans want to stop a bear coming into the village period, whether the bear is deemed to be a demon sent by the demon hill fog or deemed an organism looking for food. I.e understanding the actual reality of the situation doesn't change our survival and xenophobia instincts.

    They are also ignorant of the fact that their morals have changed substantially in the last few decades through contingencies outside their donut holes: they went from people who believed marrying young teens and hitting them was moral to new-moralists who now want to bomb other races for not being as 'enlightened' (cuckolded) as us now.

    ….
    This 'donut builds the donut philosophy' is also a mainstay of feminism, demonstrating once again how femi and creationism are natural psychological /philosophical kin. I.e they both denounce logical deduction / prediction as 'immoral' (and 'patriarchal' — i.e intelligent / logical).

31. I have no qualms with Christians as individuals (in fact, many of my heroes happen to be Christian like Stephen Colbert and Bob Dylan) but some of the worst atrocities of human rights have occurred in Christian theocracies (Islamic theicracies are experiencing similar things nowadays) such as the Middle Ages and the days of the Spanish Inquisition. These theocracies were all about Christianity front and centre and it's telling these forms of Christian totalitarianism were barbaric in their very nature. It was supernatural delusion and superstition that guided the hand of these governments. Christianity, at it's very core, focuses on where the soul goes to after death – heaven or hell. But secular humanism focuses on the here and now, and how we can improve one's well-being in the life we are currently living. Christians nowadays don't take their scriptures all that literally and have gradually come around to supporting gay rights and the end of slavery through history. I maintain that modern Christians live by secular humanistic values more than they may know or admit , with perhaps a little bit of their ancestral Christian values (i.e belief in the afterlife and the destination of the soul) left over.

32. gotta love the narcissism of the religious……without us….you cant have morals or ethics…..talk about self grandeur

33. So if human rights was truly the product of Christianity, and atheists can't use it because they're atheists; then Christians can't use computers because it was invented by a gay atheist.

34. Theism takes for it's own the evolutionary traits of shared intentionality and cooperation, then judges the very reality where it originated from. A shameless attempt to garner the positive aspects of human behavior and scapegoat the bad.

35. can atheist believe in human rights? of course they can, only religious morons can ask a stupid question like that.

36. I’ve never understood why “Rights” had to have any kind of metaphysical grounding. I think the perception of rights coming from a Christian foundation is only because of the fact that Christianity held the intellectual power for the longest time.

37. Since there is no evidence for god, how can it be a solid foundation? And, if you're 'good' because you want to get into heaven, is that really good? There is evidence for suffering, empathy and reason, that's a solid foundation.

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