Speaker A
North America, I'm coming for you. We're doing a small tour, just six shows at some really cool venues. We're going to talk about philosophy, we're going to talk about God, about consciousness.
Alex O'Connor discusses why he would believe in Christianity over Islam, focusing on historical evidence, personal experience, and the nature of divine revelation.
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Key Takeaways
- Personal religious experience is crucial for belief in God.
- Christianity has stronger historical evidence for Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection than Islam.
- Belief in God does not require complex philosophical arguments accessible only to the educated elite.
- God reveals himself differently depending on individual disposition and life circumstances.
- Existential crisis or anguish can be a catalyst for encountering the divine.
What the video covers
- Alex O'Connor announces a North American tour discussing philosophy, God, and consciousness with Q&A sessions.
- He highlights the mystery of the fine-tuning of the universe as pointing toward the divine.
- O'Connor explores what it would take for someone to become a theist, emphasizing personal transcendent experiences.
- He argues Christianity is the most plausible traditional religion due to better historical evidence, especially regarding Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.
- He contrasts Christianity and Islam, noting Islam denies Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.
- O'Connor believes religious experience is the primary way people come to faith, citing biblical examples like Jesus' baptism and Paul's visions.
- He critiques the idea that belief requires complex philosophical arguments, suggesting that God meets people where they are.
- He shares that personal anguish and existential crisis often lead to experiences of the divine.
- O'Connor discusses the nature of religious experiences and their impact on belief, including physical encounters with Jesus.
- He reflects on biblical stories and the physical presence of the Trinity at Jesus' baptism.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Tour Announcement
- 00:37The Mystery of the Universe and Divine Indications
- 01:08What Would Convince You to Believe?
- 01:46The Role of Experience in Coming to Faith
- 02:26Historical Evidence for Christianity vs Islam
- 03:28Experiencing the Living Jesus and the Trinity
- 04:00God's Accessibility Beyond Academic Arguments
- 04:56Personal Experience and Divine Encounters
- 05:58Reflections on Religious Experiences and Biblical Stories
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
We're going to talk about whatever you want to talk about, because there will be an extensive Q&A at every show. The dates are on screen, the ticket link is in the description. Be there. We can explain the complexity of biological
Speaker A
organisms, but we can't explain the complexity of the fine-tuning of the universe, those constants. That's something that's outside of our purview, you know? And that's still a mystery, but I would just remind people to keep in mind that
Speaker A
there can be things which are inconceivable, and yet are the case, like the reducibility of computers for the person 500 years ago.
Speaker A
They literally just wouldn't be able to comprehend what you're talking about, because even to be able to organize metallic objects on that microscopic level for any reason would have been impossible to them, let alone doing it in such a way that brings about a
Speaker A
perfect representation of somebody across the globe who can then talk back to you. They just would not believe you. They would not believe you. And yet it can be done. There are greater things in heaven and earth
Speaker A
than are dreamt of in your philosophy, you know? Which would always consistently point me toward the divine, but what would it take for you to become a theist?
Speaker A
Would it take increased understanding? Would it be an argument? Would it be some kind of scientific proof?
Speaker A
You know, on some kind of molecular level or some kind of string theory or unified theory or something like that, you know, being proved that kind of has a light bulb go off for you, or would it be some kind of lived
Speaker A
experience, some kind of transcendent experience that you had with either psychedelics or falling in love or through tragedy or a vision, or would it take some combination of all of those or could it ever possibly happen to you or someone like you?
Speaker A
I think it would be the second. I think it would be an experience. For a few reasons. The first is that I think that the most plausible of traditional religions is probably a form of Christianity because I think
Speaker A
it has the best historical evidence, especially if you don't need to swallow the idea that Jesus is God. He's just like all this kind of stuff. I think that's kind of plausible.
Speaker A
And within Christianity it's quite clear that the way that people come to God is through experience.
Speaker A
Why Christianity over Islam? I think it has a better historical case for the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker A
Both of which Islam denies. Would you need a miracle like a resurrection to kind of prove to you the divine truth of Christianity?
Speaker A
No, I think that if the resurrection of Jesus happened as it was recorded, that would be a pretty good indication that there's something really special about this Jesus guy and we should be taking what he says very seriously.
Speaker A
Like Muslims will say the same thing, that Jesus is a very serious guy who needs to be taken seriously, but they don't believe he was crucified. So if we knew that he was crucified and resurrected, we'd know we'd need to pay
Speaker A
attention to him in a way that Muslims have misunderstood because they don't believe in that.
Speaker A
Of course, I don't believe that Jesus did rise from the dead. I think that there's better evidence for that as a historical case for this worldly religion than there is for other world religions.
Speaker A
Okay. I might be wrong about that, but I do think personal experience is the way to bring it about. Even in the Christian tradition, people come to belief through experience. The disciples see the miracles. Jesus himself arguably
Speaker A
is a visionary when he sort of at his baptism he sees the voice of God.
Speaker A
The dove. Yeah. And interestingly, the only place, if it's not just a vision, I think the only place where the Trinity is all physically present
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is at his baptism: the voice of God the Father vibrating the air. So the voice, you got the dove as the Holy Spirit, and you have the Son there as well. They're all physically present in this space.
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Paul's vision of Jesus is a bright light. And Paul also elsewhere talks about going up into the seventh heaven and having these visions.
Speaker A
It seems like there's something about experiencing the living Jesus that brings people to faith. The other problem is that if God does exist and is the kind of God that wants you to know he exists,
Speaker A
it'd be a very weird place for him to hide his existence, like in some premise 48 of one of Ed Feser's 200 premise arguments for the existence of God.
Speaker A
[laughter] If I'm going to turn a page and turn it and then go like, "Ah, there he is. I found God."
Speaker A
Firstly, it tells me that am I supposed to think that people who are like me, who are convinced by the same kinds of things as me, but don't have the time or the education to read an argument like that because
Speaker A
they're too busy being a single mother bringing up a family somewhere and they haven't got time to just sit around reading books, that they're not going to meet God?
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Because, you know, they have to sit down and read this 200 premise syllogism.
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That would seem totally unfair and like academically elitist, which doesn't seem in keeping with the character of God. I would expect that the thing that convinces you of God's existence would be a religious experience of some kind, but that if you do want to do the
Speaker A
syllogisms and the arguments, God's there too, of course, because God's everywhere. And if you're interested, then yeah, you'll find him there, but that's not what it takes to believe in God, you know what I mean?
Speaker A
Mhm. But then there's also the truth that just meets you where you're at. Like if you are an analytical person who likes argument and debate, then that's where God will place himself for your discovery. But if you're not, if you
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just care about having a nice time with your friends and your family and loving each other, then that's where God will place himself to be discovered, too.
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So, it's possible that I would discover him in argument, but if I did, I don't think that would be a universal course that everybody should take.
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In my case and in so many people's cases, God comes out of anguish. Mhm. So, your only hope left is to be on your knees and throw out a lifeline and you then have an experience of God because you feel like you're going to
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die if you don't have it. I haven't had a vision of the divine, but I've had an experience of the divine in terms of it: I was lost and now I'm found. I was blind and now I can see.
Speaker A
I'd want something that is an experience that I can identify as an experience of God or, you know, divinity, let's say, that is distinguishable from what I would expect to feel if I were like a confused ape subject to hallucinations.
Speaker A
Because like [laughter] that, like, when I meet people who have had religious experiences and they say like I met—I spoke to someone just the other day who said that she met Jesus and she gave him a hug and I'm like, I
Speaker A
can imagine somehow your brain tricking you into that experience or something maybe. I don't know. But if I met Jesus physically embodied, gave him a hug, and afterwards was convinced that that's what actually happened, even if my brain was just going haywire, there's
Speaker A
just no way that I'm going to just dismiss that. I'm going to believe in Jesus, right? And so if that happens, then it happens. So, it needs to be an experience, but it
Speaker A
also needs to be a hug or an actual tangible hug? As I know, she—she—she actually, like, people report. And what was he wearing? Was he wearing contemporary clothing or like an archaic robe?
Speaker A
What he was wearing. I didn't get the chance to ask because I'm always fascinated like what would you mean?
Speaker A
Like did he knock on the door? Did he appear? Like was he? Cu
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We don't know, but there is an interesting point. You know, Zacchaeus has to climb up a tree to see Jesus because he's short.
Speaker A
There's a there's a story that Jesus is short or Zacchaeus is short. It's ambiguous in the Greek. I mean, it's quite clear like it's probably implying that Zacchaeus is short, but just interestingly it could be the case.
Speaker A
You know, the the the the Greek sort of the average height back then of the Yeah, but even even for average because it says that like Jesus is preaching and and it says that Zacchaeus had to climb up a tree cuz he couldn't see Jesus
Speaker A
because he was short. And the implication is that Zacchaeus is short, but it could mean mean that Jesus was short.
Speaker A
Jesus was short as well, you know, that's quite funny. We don't know, of course.
Speaker A
Which is another reason why the Pharisees didn't buy Jesus as the Messiah. Yeah, well, it would it would be in keeping with the idea of Jesus being born into a sort of life of of poverty and being you know, ascetic and and all this kind
Speaker A
of stuff cuz you know, maybe he's maybe he was a short king, short king of the Jews.
Topics:ChristianityIslamtheismreligious experienceJesus resurrectionphilosophy of religionfine-tuning argumentdivine revelationAlex O'Connorfaith and reason
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