FacePlant of the Day - Christian Apologetics: Hitler can't help you. - YouTube

I've had an epiphany. I have discovered a different way to respond to videos that I get from YouTube, like the one that is the subject to this post. From now on posts like these may be done this way in the future. YouTube has the feature of captioning videos for you and there are browser add-ins for Chrome and FireFox that will allow you to download or copy/paste the captions creating a transcript - complete with time stamps. It occurred to me that I don't just have to provide a video but I can directly interact with the transcript. Unfortunately, the transcript is not perfect. I've made some corrections to it where I could, but it's still serviceable.

This post is about video posted by nonstamp collector in attempt to counter Christian apologetic arguments that attack the lack grounding of objective morality in atheistic worldviews. His attempt is a cringe-worthy faceplant. Interacting with the transcript is almost watching it in slow motion. The video is provided below and in the following transcript my comments will be in red font.

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I'd like to address a Christian argument that I've heard many times

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it's a certain way of framing the moral argument for God and is particularly

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interesting to me in that unbeknownst to the person using it

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actually refute itself in a unique way yep

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I'll show you what I mean now in order to accurately present and discuss from

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talking about here I'm gonna quote verbatim from a Christian podcast

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without telling you long quoting because I think that it'll be familiar enough

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that you recognize is something that many people said so

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choosing just one person to pin this on is what I want to do but for the sake of

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accuracy I will quote directly

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now forget to speak at the start of nature this he was on the radio at the

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time

Interesting enough, the video author sets up a decent introduction and very clearly lays out what his goal is: refute a popular Christian argument against atheism. Let's see how his argument holds up. 

0:36

what do you think about that example the concentration camps have Nazi Germany

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does our moral revulsion at those concentration camps

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is that because there's an objectively real fact about the matter

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the treating   people that way is wrong say Hitler had won the war

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and we now live in a society where because of that and the propaganda

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ever believe that anti-semitism was good and gassing jews was fine

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with that mean then that that was simply the morality that we accept

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is morality simply at the end of the day

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what society thinks about a matter or would still be wrong

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even though nobody thought it was wrong would actually still be wrong because we

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can be wrong about moral facts

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and if that's the case does that suggest that there is a moral dimension that is

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in part a natural world

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that somehow transcended could this be the evidence

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for God now to the speaker's credit

I have even used this argument and I think of it as a sound argument because it points out that without an objective moral standard there is no logic we can use to conclude that Hitler was wrong. Without that standard, it's just our opinion versus his and the argument forces you to think about if there is a circumstance where Hitler could have been right if the majority of humanity agreed with him. 

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its word is a series of questions but since we've all heard this word

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less rhetorically and more as a series of facts and conclusions

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I'm gonna take the liberty of interpreting the quote as an argument

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for the Christian God is the answer

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okay it was on the Christian podcast so that's where I'm coming from

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because I say I've heard exactly this kind have what if hitler had one

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as a very strongly argued case for what amounts to Christian theism for many

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people

I would agree that the God of the Bible is the only resolution of this argument. 

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so the Hitler things very interesting ask you to imagine how society

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excusing or agreeing with the holocaust I'd imagine anyone doing it

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in our real world today obviously the pretty much an extremist and certainly

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an outcast

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what kinda crazy awful dystopian world with this be if we all thought that way

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well let's investigate the hypothetical scenario

This will be amusing. 

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in little more detail the first thing the picture is that in that world

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we wouldn't condemn hitler for having done what he did that's a basic part the

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analogy I know but it's worth stating again as a starting point

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this is a world in which anyone who condemned or criticize him during the

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Holocaust would be the social outcast a lunatic fringe or extremist

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Hitler would be admired by many in the same way as america might reveal Lincoln

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or the British might remember churchill even prominent and respected people

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would look back and admired Hitler for having carried out the Holocaust

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try to imagine hearing Hitler being praised as a hero the 20th century by

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someone that you admire

The thing is that  even if the world was that backward that off, Hitler was still wrong and so would be all of us if we agreed with him.

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now I'd say that not everyone would be an enthusiastic fan if hitler

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the extent the killing might still be off-putting to some but the illustration

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does ask is to imagine that even the lilly livered bleeding-heart lefty

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liberals that the world would at the very least

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have an acceptance of the holocaust having been carried out it would have

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their supporters having been the right thing to do at the time

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even if they wouldn't want such a thing to ever happen again remember

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the review of Hitler any more critical than that would put people over the line

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is being considered an extremist

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at odds with the prevailing moral sense this imagine society

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every bit as much as the opposite is true in the real world so everyone would

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think that the holocaust had been rights

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and at very least necessary and justified that would be the nature the

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propaganda that the speaker mentioned

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which would most likely be based around an argument that the Jews had deserved a

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genocide

I think the video author understands the consequences of  such a world and does not like it as much as any Christian.

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the fax packing that I might be a bit tenuous but the narrative would be

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something along the lines of how back in the early 20th century

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things have gotten so bad or about to take such a serious turn for the worse

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the drastic violent action against Jews had become appropriate

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and murdering the mall had become at the very least unnecessary course of action

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and that hitler had done the right thing in following through on

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now I understand appointed the speakers making because to me this does feel like

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a less moral world

Definitely not the kind of world I would want. If people thought that Hitler was on the right track they might want to follow his example. I'm sure me, and a lot of people I care about would be on that undesirable list. 

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whatever meaning you get to that word it just seems wrong a whole society

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celebrating or even excusing the Holocaust simply because hillard one

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does seem to violate something very basic uneven primal

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and as a speaker suggested does that indicate that they are incontrovertible

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moral facts

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in condemning the Holocaust as we do in the real world we drawing on an

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objective morality that is never subject to human opinion

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or is a moral version to the holocaust something that we came up with ourselves

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and perhaps partially because Hitler did in fact lose

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but it seems deeper than something that we discover invent doesn't it

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so where does a morality have its foundation outside of humanity

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maybe in a god well

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I've said before in previous videos I'm happy to go there

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i'm open to being convinced but as yet I'm not conclusively convinced

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and despite the thought has gone into these questions across the centuries and

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recently as much as I'd like an answer on resigned to sitting in the I don't

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know camp on the issue of objective morality

So, the author of the video agrees that objective morality has to have grounding outside of humanity, but he is unwilling to call that ground God but does he have better alternate explanation for how we know Hitler was wrong?

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but this illustration and the questions that it raises for certain things that I

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do know

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this dystopian world that we're looking at is a hypothetical

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as remarkable and discomforting as it is doesn't look strangely familiar

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do we not actually live in such a world now a world of people looking back into

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history in making excuses for massive genocides

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justifying the murders by arguing that they were necessary

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and rather than condemning the people who carried them out instead looking

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back to them with admiration

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and reflecting that the people who were wiped out had actually deserved it

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we should be very familiar these are exactly the kinds a response to the

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Christian apologists key when confronted with the barbaric Old Testament

Alternate answer?  Nope. Instead, NonStampCollector tries to argue that Christians pretend that the Conquest of Canaan told to us in the Old Testament can be equated with what Hitler did. He asks why Christians don't condemn them but condemn the Holocaust.

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genocides

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carried out on their gods orders and with its help

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and in his name all yes I'll tell you genocide and mass murder a bad

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absolutely objectively immoral that's how come we know that the Holocaust was

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immoral

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it's just it in say the case of the armies of the is our lights going

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through the promised land killing every single man woman and child in a possibly

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code is a invaded city after city

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genocide was actually Morally justified and necessary

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the people who were killed did actually deserve it souls okay to totally destroy

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them

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it was the right thing to do with the time the military leaders who carried

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out those invasions were actually heroic

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people to be remembered in admired not condemned so much so that you can even

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read to kids bedtime stories and sing them little songs about the heroism of

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these particular genocidal mass murderers

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there's nothing immoral and what they did see these genocides have to be

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viewed in the correct context to be properly understood Marley

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and if you see a problem with any aspect of them the net can only mean the you're

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looking at them

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out of context I do you heard all this before haven't you

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faithful believes excuse the hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of deaths

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carried out by violent extremist Israeli military leaders as having been uniquely

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justified and necessary

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the right thing to do at the time perfectly Morally permissible

This would be a viable counter argument if the destruction of the Canaanites, Ammonites, and the others was not genocide. It was judgement for the evil done by their cultures. Things like child sacrifice. Idol Worship. And things that we would not want in our culture any more than Nazis. Recall that God said that their time was not up and gave them more than 400 years before the Israelites came and replaced them in their land. It was revealed to Abraham that this would happen in Genesis 15:12-21.It was morally permissible because Israel was acting as an agent of God. It was not genocide. Hitler was not acting as an agent of God. Recall that God also blessed Israel. Anyone who tries to destroys Israel works against God.

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but on a second in the hypothetical hitler analogy out we asked to imagine a

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society that excuses millions of deaths as having been justified and necessary

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and to ponder what a messed up idea of morality would take for society to do

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that

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the hypothetical hitler analogy mentions the power propaganda and asked where the

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military victory in propaganda could be all that would be necessary to twist

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people's thinking

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towards having them agree the genocide was moral

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quelled apparently the answer to that question is yes yes they are

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just ask a billion or so Christians now tell you what they've had drilled into

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them repeatedly

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that invading city after city and utterly destroying everything in them

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that breathes

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it was the right thing to do and was completely justified

The problem is that the cringe-worthy thought that the conquest of  Canaan is the same as the Holocaust

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I'll go along with its explanation it look with horror and disdain at a

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hypothetical society that

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without a firm foundation for its morality could have its morality swayed

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by mere propaganda towards
 

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yeah excusing genocide Christianity

Maybe the video author should look up "genocide" and explain how he's getting that viewpoint.

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you are and always have been that group that's been brainwashed by propaganda

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into excusing barbaric acts of war and violence

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you don't see it do you you ask us to imagine a culture that excuses and

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justifies appalling injustice cruelty and violence

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without realizing that you are describing yourselves

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you paid a startling picture a population that's had its morality

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hijacked by the victory

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and propaganda the sadistic mass murderer well you are a population that

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has had its morality hijacked

Nope. Where is the "injustice"?  Where is the "sadist"? He offers no example. No proof.  Nothing at all in the war Israel waged in Canaan mirrors the Holocaust nor the war the Nazis brought to the world.

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by the Victorian propaganda have a long list a sadistic mass murderers

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men who simply the hitler's have their own day just for the different ideology

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in less effective weaponry

Okay, he's just trying to appeal to emotion now. In the next section he tries to take the argument and replace some words to make it about Israel conquering Canaan instead of the Nazis and the Holocaust.

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right allow me to replace just a few words the example to demonstrate

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where'd you dare Christianity fits into this

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safety is our lights had won the promise land wars

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and we now lived in a society where because of that and the propaganda

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everyone believed the destroying all the season came in had been good

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and that utterly destroying everything that breeds had been fine

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with that mean then that that was simply the morality that we accept

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is morality simply the end of the day what society thinks about a matter

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all with the invasion and conquering the promise land still be wrong

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even know nobody thought it was wrong

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does mr. revulsion at those blood baths

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is that because there's an objectively real fact about the matter

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the treating people that way is wrong

Here the transcript has some mistakes but again he equates the war that Israel fought with genocide and that can't be substantiated. 

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eitan calling bullshit on this having Christian apologist imply that not

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basing morality firmly in season as they do

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could lead to a terrible moral degeneration into an unrecognizable

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world of moral chaos

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in which even genocide could be excuse and tolerated cheese apologists

The Bible does not condone genocide on any level. Why can isn't there any proof of that given? 

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imagine that I'm also calling bullshit

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even more emphatically on something that I guarantee is going through the minds

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of none too few believers who listen to this right now

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and the very thing that will no doubt dominate the discussion in the comments

Straw Man. Christians are not accepting his definition of  Canaan's conquest as an example of genocide, and he argues against that. 

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even though not on the head right here

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it what happens whenever a nonbeliever implies that the murderous violence and

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brutality the Old Testament

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are quote immoral the Theiss will demand that we name the standard by which we're

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judging the morality the Bible

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the implication is that as non theists we can't because we apparently don't

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have one because we disbelieving the only possible thing that could qualify

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as one

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therefore our morality must be this flimsy subjective cultural negotiable

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thing that shift all over the place at the whim society

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so we lose and we have to stop making any kind ethical or moral judgment on

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the content to Scripture

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because our moral judgments have a poor foundation or no foundation

Exactly! What rebuttal does he offer to say to show that this conclusion is an error?

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well look if you argue that way let me tell you this very clearly

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once and for all whatever bases a non-believer has for calling out the

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actual the Old Testament genocidal war lord is appalling barbaric any moral

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its automatically a better and more reliable standard than the one that

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you're using to justify them

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because yours is entirely circular

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you're using the Bible and the morality inherent in the Bible

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to judge the morality of the Bible

Just because you think that God has ordered genocide or barbaric actions, does not mean God did.  It shows that you don't understand the Bible.As human being you cannot judge the morality of the Bible because it's not just the story of people and what they did, but even more primary of God and why things happened the way that they have.

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using the god that order genocide as the standard by which you judge the morality

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of genocide

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is exactly like someone in that hypothetical example justifying his

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actions by saying that they are okay on hitler's moral standard

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would you accept that logic of course he wouldn't

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the whole point illustration was to point out how bad a basis for morality

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that kinda thing he's

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and its all you've got the Bible is the only thing that you could really turn to

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justify the genocide so isn't it

Hitler cannot help you there. Think about it. By definition equating God as as standard for anything must be greater than Hitler. Equating God and Hitler is extremely silly. 

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you know why because the Bible present a morality that justifies genocide

Where?

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not much else in civilized society does anymore does it

You mean like no justification for abortions?  No...wait....

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look bring up hitler's attempted genocide or those us down on our pol pot

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does not play out in the favor by Christian view of objective morality

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against an atheistic or secular one

At this point in the video I was wondering if and when he would ever get around to explaining where his view for objective moral value come from in his secular worldview.

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you guys worship a God that you claim order to encourage kings and military

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leaders

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to do things that hitler and those guys in a way simply perfected

Still waiting for an explanation for how the Bible condones and commands genocide. 

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Moses David getting and Joshua you all gave it a pretty good shot when you

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think

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and perhaps you ought to admit to yourself that if they were recorded in

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Scripture is having killed as many people as Hitler managed to

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you wouldn't all the sudden decide that they were evil mass murderers

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you did my them no less than you do now and you praise God for the mighty power

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he displayed in destroying his enemies so thoroughly

War is not murder. In all his ranting there is not a single explanation for how he is justified to equate Moses, Joshua, or David to Hitler. I'm not buying it. 

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before you start lecturing the secular world about where we need to look to

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establish a basis for morality

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why don't you come up with one that is in fundamentally hypocritical and

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circular

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the illustration draws upon this innate sense of morality that we all seem to

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have and get us to think about where it comes from

So, let's be clear. He has no explanation for where human morality comes from or what objective standard on which it rests only that we do do have an objective standard. Further he does not believe that Christians have a right point this out because God orders genocide in the Bible although he cannot demonstrate that it was genocide. I'm convinced....not at all. 

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if you're a Christian believer let me encourage you in all sincerity

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to just admit to yourself that your commitment to this book

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puts you at odds with your own inherent Center morality

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in this video with many look to genocide because that's what the quote brought up

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but just have a quick look at some of the other disgusting inhumanity that

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fills the pages of this book that you've been taught to consider a wholly

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give credit to that since you have that tells you that no matter the context

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hurling rocks an adulteress young woman until she dies as a result ovett

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is nothing less an obscene barbaric cruelty

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then think about how you actually feel about burning people to death

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where does that deep in a conviction come from the tells you that that kinda

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thing is wrong

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was it placed there by God the same God

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explicitly ordered that people do these things to each other

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are you seriously gonna argue that even if the rally is grounded in a god

Several problems. Adultery was a capital crime in Ancient Israel. Just because you think that it should not be, does not mean that it is an immoral punishment. Also not just one person was supposed to be executed but both people.  Further, I can think of no place in the Old Testament where a method of execution included burning people to death. I think he should stop confusing wrong things churches did in later centuries with what the Bible actually told us to do.

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this God the judeo-christian God is clearly bullshit

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one simply doesn't need to have a well-defined alternative explanation

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other bases a morality

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to know that this one is an absolute failure one simply needs to be honest

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with themselves

This part really amazes me. He just admitted that he can't counter the argument but throws up his hands and says that he doesn't need explain why Hitler was wrong to conclude that he was. In other words he wusses out.  Where is his honesty?  He has presented nothing of value. He can't explain this. So instead he tries to tug on heart strings about "genocide" being commanded in the Bible but fails to demonstrate that there was any genocide.

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I'll conclude by once again suggesting that we leave this insane fundamentally

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confuse book

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outta the 21st century discussion a morality and ethics

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it's part of the problem not the solution because as we can see

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if there's a world view that leads people to excuse and condone

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appallingly cruel behavior it's not atheism

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its theism

Yeah, it's not the Bible that is confused. The Bible does have an explanation for  where our objective moral standard comes from. The video's author isn't all bad. At least he recognizes that objective moral standards do exist. He isn't willing to argue that Hitler would have been right if the majority of people agreed with him.  So that's something. But unfortunately he isn't honest enough to admit that he has no alternative explanation other than God to explain why those moral standards exist. He seems perfectly happy to steal the Christian moral standard and pretend it didn't come from God. Good luck with that. I will be praying the NonStampCollector because God is more than able to help him up from this faceplant.

Christian Apologetics: Hitler can't help you. - YouTube