I sat down with philosopher and author Peter Boghossian to wrestle with one of the defining questions of modern American life: Can human rights, equality, and morality be justified without a belief in God? As a Catholic, I’ve come to see our 21st-century social breakdown as largely the result of secularization. Without a broadly Christian cultural foundation, the classical liberal approach to government might not work. Peter, who shares many of my classical liberal values, takes the opposite stance—that morality can be grounded in secular reason. We had a great conversation and took it as deep as we could in just two hours: atheist vs. Christian, but more importantly, friend to friend.
Follow Peter on X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/peterboghossian
Peter on Substack: https://boghossian.substack.com/
Peter on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drpeterboghossian/featured
Outline:
[0:00] The world changed when Trump got shot
[6:02] Is the woke reign of terror over yet?
[11:35] Gen Z gets that mainstream media is all lies
[20:56] Let’s get America back to functional sanity
[31:27] Cognitive liberty and error correction
[39:49] Is Christianity necessary for liberalism?
[50:26] Is human dignity a human invention?
[1:07:45] Why I actually believe in God
[1:23:46] Science, faith, and utilitarianism
[1:30:04] The atheist case for human dignity
[1:39:38] Equality of opportunity is a myth
[1:48:33] Giving the Islamic world it’s due
[1:52:40] Agreeing to disagree is what friends do
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/95jWAOhS0dY
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I should apologize to John. Pretty sure.
Loved the conversation and the fact that the controversial ares were addressed with wit and grace. It's great that the conversation did not devolve into a mental josting over who is more "brilliant". So, not trolling here or thinking I'm smarter, but there is one idea here that I believe could simplify this conversation. It's this Leibnitz quote, "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." In my mind he's saying it's silly to assume that God did not create a self-sufficient universe which does not require his interference. Now, we can argue as self-categorized Atheists or Catholics from a certain ideologic standpoint. It's a bit more difficult to argue that God is not capable of creating this "best of all possible worlds"
John, stop talking. Limit your interruption to a finite number of syllables, and just listen FFS. Youre not the brilliant one. I'm out.
The alcohol wasn't helpful to the quality of conversation