Two years ago, as an atheist, I began searching for logical arguments that would put theists on the defensive. Thereafter, I became a theist.

Sir, Several years ago a kid of mine caused a car accident that took his life and the life of a young lady in another car. I was completely and utterly devastated. I fell into a deep depression. That depression worried my wife intensely. She sought out help for me. I went to a camp. And in that camp were some very smart theological counselors who where psychiatrist as well. The whole time I was there I really couldn’t sleep very well. One night I quietly got up not to disturb anyone else and walked outside. I thought I had walked far enough away from the camp that no one would hear me. But one of the counselors heard me crying. He asked what troubled me. I told him and in the dark I could see him nodding his head understandingly. His answer shook me to my core and still does to this very day. “Why do you assume he was your child, alone? You and your wife made the physical body, now I ask you, where did his soul come from? It takes three to make thee.” Then I asked him not really expecting an answer, “He took another life and I am worried about the soul that God made.” His answer came without hesitation, “Who are you to question how, why or when anyone is called home.” By the time the sun come up I was on my way to recovery. Some may call this a incomplete answer. To which I would say, perhaps. But it was enough for me then and it still is enough for me now. Sincerely, Robert

A wise kind incredibly honest and one of the greatest philosophers of our current time.

I find it sad to see so many angry comments that seem to purely dismiss this man, and anything he has to say. I do know that he is widely respected among professors of philosophy, and not just among those philosophers that happen to have a belief in God. It seems that a more sensible form of argumentation would be to list a point you disagree with, and then explain why. It seems there is just a lot of unreasonable dismissal and derogatory name calling happening. It is very sad to see because it makes the discussion go absolutely nowhere.

This is crazy. Plantinga is awesome.

When good things happen to Men, its God the first they forget, when bad happen to Men, its God the first they blame.

There's a ton of edgy people here in the comments.

Grateful for this great Christian thinker.

It is really encouraging to see intellectual intelligence people defend faith.

When we had God “in our face”, either as a wondrous sign, or in the flesh as in Jesus, we still rejected him. We don’t have a lack of belief because of lack of evidence, we reject him because we are sinful and fallen. We want to think we can have the moral authority to dictate our lives and or we love our sins too much.

What is the point of bone cancer in children?

speculations don't bring you closer to truth they just leave you in a fog of uncertainty. You realize God through the one thing that is most intimate about you that is related to God, and that would be your consciousness because truth is something realized not seen.

the reality is a lot of people don’t want god to exist. We don’t want an authority over us. Is it reasonable to not believe in god, of course. But if you are truly honest with yourself and listen to the rational logical arguments you should come to possible conclusion he exists, whether you want it to be true or not. All the atheist comments seem to be angry bitter people who won’t listen to any argument because they don’t want god to exist.

At 11:15 Kuhn asks Plantinga "Do you ever have any doubts?" Am I the only one who finds Plantinga's answer really really unsatisfying, even evasive?

Interesting discussion.

I was expecting a perspective affirming life's spiritual dimensions... :-/

We can't see the point of why God would do X, but without a doubt we can be sure about all of his characteristics as long they're the ones we like........

Many of these arguments are regarding a particular type of God, not God

A "wish" is a desire. We desire what we believe we are missing and when attained will make us more complete. If God does exist and our essence is a part of God, then it would he natural for us to "desire" to reunite with God, where this "desire" is built into us...

If you don't mind me asking, who in your opinion is not a hack philosopher? And why?

So he just says all arguments that are inconvenient are “not much of an argument.” That’s handy. I don’t really see the purpose of arguing for the existence or non existence of God, since it’s unfalsifiable.

I would say this presenter asks all the right questions.thanks to him

Great video! Just one suggestion: Rename it to "Alvin Plantinga dismisses atheist arguments". Cheers

What is your argument exactly?

but if something has to be logically possible in regards to God (he mentions, God cannot create a stone that big that he (an omnipotent being) cannot lift), doesnt that mean that he cannot be God because he is restricted by logic? if logic is a "higher realm" than God, than God by definition is not God.

A summary:it be like it be.

plantinga is 87 y o. when was this filmed.

Mr Alvin Plantinga simple doesn't have any argument at all.

Be suspicious of anyone who says you have to die before you get to meet their god in person.

Towards the end even Plantinga acknowledges the force of the argument Called the problem of evil.

If being alive and well are miracles from God then, all people are alive and well but homeless, poor and sick are blessed with miracles. If all evil deeds are God allowing free will, then evil people are certainly exercising their free will to the full extent. If having to accept all of the above, then what is the use of prayers because praying to get out of poverty, illness and evil doesn't work.

I think I've responded to both of those points elsewhere, so I'll let those threads continue separately (if at all) rather than duplicating them here. Aside from that, I apologize for the "genius" comment and any other obnoxiousness. I too was a bit put off by your tone, but that's a poor excuse. In any case, much of it seems to have arisen from misunderstanding. I think we generally agree or, as you have suggested, see the other's point or intent.

Can see how Alvin Plantinga just repels all these arrows like a giant brick wall. That's amazing considering the context in which he has brought God back into the scene in his time where positivism and these atheistic presuppositions were all the rage.

Perhaps we know of no minds other than those embodied by brains, but we also know of God through the embodiment of creation.

Interesting 🙏

Who is the interviewer? He looks familiar?

Ask Willy Craig these questions..

Such an honest man.

What other reasons do you have? 1) The possibility doesn't have to be true, it just has to be possible in order to prove non-contradiction. God could have plenty of reasons to remain hidden. 2) What in particular do you find absurd? 3) Again, the purpose is freely entering into a relationship via love. Knowledge and free will are not sufficient on their own. Actual love cannot be forced. BTW the scripture reference says the demons know and tremble (but the context is discussing faith+acts).

If you don’t know evil, how would we know love?

Manages to use two arguments that directly contradict one another in a three-minute span. Why would God create a universe that seems so vast, inefficient, and random? 7:45 "Arguments of that sort all presume that the arguer knows what God would like, or what God would want to be the case... and there's no reason to think that we know those things." How do we know believe in God isn't simply wish fulfillment? 10:13 Maybe it is, because God "would want us to know about him" and maybe wish fulfillment is just the ticket to get us to believe. So we can't know what God wants (which is why it's no problem at all believing that an all-good, all-powerful god created a world that contains horrifying, pointless suffering) until we can (because he would definitely want us to know about him, even if he has to take the bizarrely oblique route of literally tricking us into believing the truth through - once again - intense suffering). Mehhh

I wrote this as a response to Karstine Berry below, who commented on pipertripp's top-level comment, but I'll enter my response here also, as a top-level comment (edited by me to remove blank lines:) Atheists are rational people, and their claim is simply this: if God is transcendent or unknowable in a scientific way, then for all intents and purposes, the claimed entity does not exist, because the entity cannot reproducibly be shown to exist. And by reproducible, I’m referring to the scientific method, a well known and understood process for repeatedly establishing results (with acceptable margins of error, naturally, given that we live in a probabilistic universe.) Similarly, if God is immanent, and is everywhere present in the universe, then reproducible proof of the entity’s existence is a reasonable expectation, but no such proof exists. Gravity, as a counterexample, is everywhere present in the universe, it abides by certain laws, and all of our investigations into gravity have resulted in reproducible experiments with consistent results. Gravity waves, an effect of gravity, serve as an interesting collateral counterexample - they have only recently been physically proved to exist, whereas the mathematics for the proof of their existence has been available to us since 1915. Gravity waves bring up an interesting point about the scientific method. Physical proof is different from theoretical proof. Once one accepts the soundness of a theory like General Relativity, then one should - rationally speaking - accept even the most outrageous implications of the theory, like gravity waves, but we still cling to the need for physical proof, as an alternate means of corroboration. Let me be clear in saying that this physical proof is itself very abstract, and is not as cut-and-dried as the dropping of an apple, as in the classic Newtonian anecdote on the discovery of gravity. So - and the following is critical to the worldview of atheists - the non-existence of a single reproducible proof of a “god” is both sufficient and necessary for the claim that a “god” does not exist. In the event an experiment, or proof that a “god” exists was brought to atheists, then atheist scientists would do what they always do - they would run the experiment many times and in many different configurations, and they would come up with counter-experiments, etc. to challenge assumptions, and prior results and outcomes. If, after all this, the experimental and theoretical proof for the existence of the “god” were shown to be consistently reproducible, then atheists would say - they would be bound to say - that this “god” exists, and is real. But no such experiment, with the standard rigorous requirements, has yet been devised by those who claim a “god” exists. Until that occurs, it is rationally sound to say: a godlike entity is not known to exist anywhere in the universe. (When “known to exist” is equated with “I can feel god is there”, etc., rational people understand the human tendency to do this, but discard the statement for not being a meaningful argument.) As for a “god” existing outside the universe, well, given our current theories on the origin of the universe, and on the bounds of human knowledge prior to the birth of the universe, it does not make scientific sense to say we should know something that “exists” outside the bounds of universal existence. Which brings us back to Transcendence and Immanence. In the case of Transcendence, a “god” in no way touches the physical universe, so claims made by humans that a god at some point did come into the universe to inspire the events that were written in the holy books of the world rules out a Transcendent god: it would imply an Immanent god, but an Immanent material god would be identifiable and knowable to science in the universe, and again no such experiment has been presented by those who claim there is a god. (Aside: Is it possible that “god” is like gravity waves - which is why I mentioned them - and this entity will be discovered later on? No, because one of the implications of General Relativity is that gravity waves exist, and we have no similar consistent theory for the existence of a god. Is it possible that “god” is like General Relativity prior to 1905, i.e. not yet known about but a valid theory waiting to be discovered? No, because General Relativity was a response to Newton’s theory of gravity, and thus was built on the foundation of an established, reproducible scientific method of mechanics, whereas no such prior theory and experiment exist in the case of a claim of the existence of a god. Is it possible that proof of “god” is awaiting an as of yet unknown theory of the universe, as say, was the case for the world 10,000 years ago, prior to the dawn of organized agriculture and society, when science was not yet known? Yes, it is possible, but no more possible than the speculation of the opposite, that no such “as of yet unknown theory” exists, in which case both speculations are equally likely and unlikely at the same time, and neither one is favored over the other as a possible future, and so, statistically, neither one carries any more weight than the other, and in a summation of all possible futures would in each case cancel each other out. Relativity, at least in terms of speculation of its possible existence 10,000 years ago was very much more likely given that it eventually came to be built up from observations in the physical world, whereas an immaterial god requires a completely new system that also would need to interact with systems that we now know do exist, thereby lowering the probability of that likelihood, i.e. in a closed system, a greater number of dependent unknowns lessen the likelihood of an outcome being true, or provable.) Three final things: Certainty: science at present considers the universe to be a probabilistic place, and hence “certainty” holds no privileged position there. When something is proved, it is proved to be the case within an acceptable margin of error - the proof does not need to claim X is true 100% of the time. So, in the universe, certainty is not attainable and, hence, is not a meaningful expectation in terms of outcomes in the universe. Followers of religion often resort to certainty in claim X or in claim Y, and when discussing this with a scientifically trained person there will be immediate disagreement regarding the terms that are being used. In a scientific universe, certainty has no practical meaning. If you ask an atheist whether she or he is certain a god does or does not exist, you are asking that person a meaningless question, as the attribute of “certainty” doesn’t have any meaning for them. The universe, based on all of our experiments, is not made that way, whether we like that attribute or not - it is as it is. Positive statements: When you say that it is incumbent on atheists to prove that a god does not exist, then no, this is not meaningful in terms of how science works. When something does not exist, it does not exist in an infinite number of ways. When something does exist, it need only be shown to exist as one consistent, reproducible thing. A positive statement, then, is a statement about attribute Y of a known extant entity X; a positive statement is not a statement about non-existence. So it makes much more logical sense that those who believe in a god prove to atheists that a god exists, as one consistent, reproducible thing. Atheists, in turn, will examine that proof and put it through the same rigorous set of tests that all other proofs require, and should the proof be shown to be true, then atheists will accept that truth, which would, of course, be subject to the usual scientific revision and improvement over time. Miracles, for example, are sometimes given as proof for the existence of a god; however, the proofs are not reproducible, or the data (aka, “evidence”) is not always consistent, or complete, or meaningful. That is, when a proof does not meet the requirements for the definition of a proof in the scientific sense, then the proof is not a proof at all, and is dismissed. So, to date, no such scientific proof has been presented to atheists. And, until such proof is presented, there is no data with which a meaningful discussion of the existence of god can be had, which leads atheists to the statement that their confidence in the existence of god, based on data and experiment, is as close to zero as is scientifically meaningful. That is all that is required of atheists to know that a proof for the existence of god has not been responsibly presented to them. Agnostics: Their logic is flawed, because the statement “insufficient evidence exists” directly claims that “some evidence exists”, and evidence is evidence, and can only be called evidence when it can be used as input to a rigorously verifiable mechanism that is itself logically and scientifically sound. However, it appears that agnostics equate “insufficient” with “misunderstood” or “supposed”, because either we have some sound data or we do not, and sound data we can work with, without controversy. But that sound evidence, little as it might be to agnostics actually does not exist. Hearsay, superstition, myth, tradition, rumor, etc., all exist, but are not sufficient constituents of scientific data.

The problem of evil is not really a problem. If God should stop all evil, the next question would be, where would he draw the line? By definition, God is all holy, so that line is drawn next to pure righteousness. Hence, God allows evil for a limited time with the gift of free will to deny doing it ourselves.

I didn’t quite understand his rebut argument for the evil part. 3:8 Can someone please explain to me what he is saying ?

His argument against Freud was weak.

this video just blew my mind

I don’t think of God as an individual being but more a property of the universe. Why does evil exist? It doesn’t, it’s just a concept of man.

2.34 Which glod? On the other side of the world this sounds jibberish.

After listening to all of this, I'm pretty sure that we can't currently know whether Cthulu is asleep.

Warranted rejection requires reasons to reject. Rocks are atheists in the same way they "lack belief in God". The semantic game is tiring, I think you can agree. So why don't you tell me where you personally stand on the issue?

Evil is not a mystery, rather God's mercy is the real mystery-- How God turns water into wine, or our lemons into lemonade.

it all depends on what kind of creature God is...

Unless God tell you what the purpose of evil is, the problem of evil is still a problem.

Whether there's a need for something or that the mind can construct something has no bearing on whether that something exists or not

No doubt the variety of life is good

No one disputes that poorly evidenced propositions are capable of being true. The question is whether we have any particular reason for supposing them to be true. In other words, insufficient evidence bears not on the abstract truth of a proposition, but on its justifiable believability. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, it may be abstractly true that there is a teapot in orbit of the sun, but one is not thereby justified in believing such a thing.

Have any of these commenters read his God and Other Minds, I wonder?

Good stuff

Although this was probably not Godel's intention, the essential import of his work on the question was to clarify once and for all that any sincere attempt at purely ontological argumentation for the existence of a god can only be viewed as sophistry. Yet this is the sort of project Plantinga views not only as naively achievable, but as deeply persuasive and compelling. This is a perfect embodiment of the deeply perverse warping effects which faith in revealed dogma can have on the intellect.

So he believes in a god because there is something 'wrong' with you if you don't?

5:22 ... you see even alvin plantinga admits that for god to be omniscient is to be able to do what is only LogicallyPossible.

If god really did plant knowledge of himself in all humans, why did he make this knowledge so vague that the vast majority of humans that ever lived worshiped the wrong gods. Being omniscient, one can only conclude that for some bizarre reason he wanted it this way

2/2: Even if "it" carries a depersonalizing connotation (in English, by which God is evidently constrained), surely "he" also has its own baggage, which God seems eager to reinforce. God is a "father" who fixates on patriarchal bloodlines (through which sin can be passed, which also seems to depersonalize our relationships with God). (Again, I'm intentionally sticking with Platinga's presumed God, not others. Talking about all possible gods would be like trying to nail J-ello to a wall.)

Is evil a problem or the motivation to seek God? How do we recognise what is evil and who is to judge what is evil? Evil or death is the last enemy according to the Christian tradition. Was it not Jesus claiming to be God who did not find equality with God something to be grasped but clothed himself with humility even to death on a cross to be our redeemer from judgement of the evil in the world that we caused and continue to cause?

I think that by posing the questions as "What do the arguments against God get wrong?" the interviewer framed the issue as a false dichotomy. Moreover, I think some of his questions were directed at topics that are often met with arguments from ignorance (i.e., a God of the Gaps)... not that I've heard any "pro-God" arguments I think have merit.

from a photon to the overwhelming expanse of universe, an atheist's blind heart can not see His signs just as he can not tell us (out of scientific discovery) wherefrom all this came, nor has an atheist scientist been able so far to CREATE a photon out of nothing.

Technically the title of the video is misleading. This is not an affimation of the existance of God, rather it is a negation of the arguments against the existence of God. It is a subtle difference, but a real and important one if you analyze the context of the interview.

Plantinga is arguing from hypotheticals. In other words, anything is a possibility. But hypotheticals don’t make something real. We should not judge things by some possibility but should instead draw conclusions that can be supported with empirical evidence. Possibly does not make for actuality. Hypotheticals has the tendency to exit the bounds of probability and actuality to imbue the imaginary with authenticity.

I have just one question: What is God? can you at least define it before arguing it's existence? I've seen many videos in this channel about this and you people talk as if it was a well defined concept, which is not.

Can't see it, hear it, taste it, touch it, hear it, explain it, or reconcile it with what we know... Faith takes a lot of faith.

Alvin plantinga’s fav words “and the like”

The same sentence but we have faith, follow one and fear,deny the other only because of a name change that doesn't make sense

Thanks for sharing. Really, I honestly appreciate it. First, first. It's important to note God can desire all men to enter salvation and knowledge while purposing they do it freely through love. This possibly requires a certain amount of hiddenness, and possibility proves non-contradiction. The contradiction can only be made manifest via explicating a better method of achieving His purposes, which ultimately comes down to speculation. Have you done much looking into the Evidential PoE?

....so this guy believes in God but we can't say anything about him. "God is good, but when we say 'good' in God's context we don't really mean 'good'"

"[T]o be omnipotent ... is to be able to do what's logically possible [from a perception and reason focused epistemological perspective?]" (5.14 s)

Alvin Plantinga explain God as something mechanical, something that word can put together.

Every philosophical argument that man has ever posed for the existence of god, fails.

Was there supposed to be some proof of god's existence here? I certainly didn't hear it.

Let's get to the crux of it, most people do not want to believe in God because it is more convenient to ignore his existence and not obey his rules. However when you are about to drown, or get into a bad car accident, who do you call out to for help for? Instinctively you call out to God. Now why would God listen and respond with help when you have ignored him and hist existence all your life. I believe that God's Mercy is greater than his wrath so in many cases miraculously you do survive that near death experience. But will you take the same path as before or embark on a journey to get to know God in your daily life? Does it have to come to a near death experience to change your trajectory?

All he says is that we can't disprove the existence of god because we have no idea of what god would look like.

A maximally great being would have true scriptures, if it needed such things to convey its message in the first place. So let us do a little bible study: *Matthew 17;20* _NIV_ *20* _He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."_ *matthew 18;19-20* _NIV_ *19* _“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven._ *20* _For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”_ *Matthew 21;21-22* _NIV_ *21* _Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done._ *22* _If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”_ *Mark 11;23-24* _NIV_ *23* _“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them._ *24* _Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours._ *John 14;12-14* _NIV_ *12* _Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father._ *13* _And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son._ *14* _You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it._ All of these scriptures from your bible say _"Truly I tell you."_ They are all supposedly quotes from a demigod that couldn't lie like a normal person, and since _"Truly"_ means "In accordance with fact" and it does not mean "Symbolically" or "Metaphorically" or "Allegorically" we should be able to trust what they say. matthew 17;20 puts a limit on these scriptures: *Faith.* I posit that if you believe in any of the supernatural occurrences detailed in the christian bible, you have plenty of faith. I posit that if you believe that an obviously fictional, obviously evil being as yahweh is both real and good, based on your faith, you have more faith than you'll ever need to do what comes next. These scriptures would indicate (To anyone reading them with a shred of honesty) that prayer _always_ works: _“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven."_ _"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”_ _"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."_ _"You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."_ They also indicate that prayer can accomplish the impossible: _"Nothing will be impossible for you."_ _“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them."_ If these were the words of a maximally great being's demigod, they should be true, so let us test prayer: 1: Grab a christian friend _(“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.")_ and a video camera. 2: Find an amputee. 3: Turn on the camera. 4: Both of you -Wish upon a star- Pray that this amputee regrows their lost limb/s. Be sure to pray in the name of your demigod. _(Very truly I tell you… You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.)_ I posit that a maximally great being would re-grow an amputee's lost limbs when petitioned to do so, because helping people is greater than not helping them, and a real, functioning, natural limb is greater than any prosthetic made by men. Any _excuse_ or _dodge_ is your admission that your god will not restore that poor amputee, and thus is not maximally great, and therefor does not have to exist. It would also be an admission that your demigod is either a liar that hates amputees, or (more likely) it never existed in the first place. Good luck, christians!

God is the one who introduced sin into the world....then condemns the sinner...this is drivel and bs...... And why is god considered a he? This guy is not arguing anything....he is being dismissive.

Okay, God "EXISTS" but if so, then what the hell is he made of? Because if he's not made of something then he's no-thing and can't exist! What is Good made of?

On the question about why doesn’t God make Himself known “physically” so that we would believe? It’s not just that we believe God exists, it’s about loving God and wanting to be with God. The scriptures talk about people who believe in God but don’t live like God does exist or want God to exist which is why it says, you say you believe in God, but even the demons believe in God “and obey when God says to do something like leave a person” yet they are going to hell. Why? Because even though they believe in God, they hate God and are against Him and His plan for salvation.

These arguments are disingenuous. While most people may well believe in some sort of higher power or "god", it is not the same god that Christians believe in. It's wrong to claim that your god is the one true one and everyone secretly believes in this particular one.

If you start with the faith you were indoctrinated into then presuppositions like god's existence and the veracity of scripture can be accepted without the slightest hesitation or skeptical thought. Presupposing god exists make it very easy to find evidence for god. If such a being depends on the perception of other minds to exist or not exist then it may be worth simply walking away from the issue altogether. Yahweh? Allah? Hanuman? Vishnu? It is likely that if you belief in one of these gods it is because you were raised into such a belief before you had reason to reject it.

Again, the semantic game is tiring. So where do you personally stand on the issue?

4:50 that’s called a paradox right ?

Nothing said here, brought me any closer to believing in a god.

Who are we to determine what exists and what doesn’t edit: compared to the magnitude of the universe we are nothing our opinions do not shape reality

the spirit is real.

It feels like multiple arguments here were straw-manned or not looked into enough to have a good discussion on the points. A lot of the arguments against the atheistic points boiled down to “I don’t know and neither do you” I feel like the points could be addressed in a better way. As an agnostic atheist looking for reasons for god (specifically the Abrahamic one) this was unfortunately not helpful in swaying me either way. However, that’s my singular opinion and I in no way speak for anyone else. Thank you for your time and video 💕

I think the real issue here is that this is being argued in a backwards fashion. Kuhn really should have asked Plantinga to present his case. The arguments against are being treated as positive claims and those are easy to refute with almost any statement b/c you really can't prove the negative claim. The way this should be argued is that Plantinga needs to make his positive claim and then back it up with evidence. He needs to justify his claim of an omnipotent, omniscient being with proper evidence. In the end he needs to show, with evidence, why his claim is true and the default position (atheism in this case) is not justified. He didn't do this in the interview, but that's not entirely his fault because he spent the entire time focused on refuting positive claims.

This guy came highly touted and he has nothing. On top of that he totally switches the burden of proof and the interviewer doesn't challenge it. I'll take Tielhard as at least to be taken seriously.

We haven't even figured out ourselves never mind what is God. We don't know. It's outside of our limited faculties.

Alvin Plantinga is among the most intelligent and capable theist philosophers of the past century...and even he can't do better than "if" and "it could be" and reliance on evidence-free religious dogmas like "sin" and "the fall." As for the problem of evil - "we just can't know if the evil we see is really evil" is a very slippery argument leading inevitably to having to accept that we have no idea if good and evil exist at all. If Dr. Plantinga can't do better than this, I'm confident no one else can...and that pretty much finishes the possibility of evidence for theism.

Man does this guy know the truth that God has given us. God bless Him

Summary of his arguments and responses: "You can't know that god does NOT exist, therefore, god exists" He's they guy who says one does not need arguments to believe in god and be reasonable, sensible, etc. What else could someone expect than the old classical argument from ignorance?

It is fascinating to me that throughout the entire conversation, nothing necessitates any specific religion's claimed deity -- it could as easily describe the Muslim God or the Mormon God or the Jewish God or the Hindu God. Or it could describe the Creator as envisioned in Pandeism....

Again, I haven't seen any posts here where a differentiation could be drawn between "Western references to god" and references to the Judeo-Christian god. Where are those? (Are you counting Greek gods as Western gods? I could see that, but I haven't seen references to any Greek gods, all of whom had specific genders anyway.) Or maybe it's Western people's references to all monotheistic gods. I also missed those (off-topic) comments.