Atheist in the Dungeon! (Atheist in the comments section of an Ascension (Catholic) YouTube video on homosexuality)
responding to the arguments of an atheist whose boundaries were violated by a catholic
Updated 12/19/23
To everyone,
I just had to make a "Harry Potter" reference. It's the fangirl in me. It's a line in the books and the movies. If you're a Potterhead like me, you'll get the reference. Ascension has a wonderful video featuring Catholic speaker Jason Evert about the Catholic Church's stance on homosexuality on YouTube. I encourage every Christian (at least every Christian who does not live a life of separation from the modern outside world) to watch it if they have not seen it.
There is an Atheist in the comments section. He told people that he is there to decry, debunk, and denounce the "nonsense" that is presented in the video.
His name is Gavin Alexander. He is an Atheist who claims to have been a Christian once and to have studied and read the Bible. He has been commenting on the video for a little over two years now, asking people to prove that God exists and trying to get people to see that the video's message is manipulative and abusive.
While I understand that a fellow Catholic didn't respect Mr. Alexander's boundaries, I don't appreciate the fact that he has spent two years replying to people.
At the same time, I've been where he is when it comes to boundaries being disrespected. I get upset when my boundaries are disrespected, too.
I am aware that he sees the Jason Evert Ascension Homosexuality video as mentally and psychologically abusive. But I don't see it that way. I'll need to write a Part 2 to explain my position. I understand why he thinks Christianity is manipulative, condescending, and tone-deaf. There are times when I've been condescending and tone deaf, and I shouldn't have been.
I don't appreciate this attitude. I appreciate respect for other people's points of view and civil disagreement. As for the "manipulative" and "condescending" descriptors, I have some information that will hopefully satisfy those who are for LGBTQ+ labels and those who are against them: A Few Notes on the Ascension Press Homosexuality Video
I feel offended by this comment. It wasn't directed at me, but he has replied with this to other Christians.
Mr. Alexander says evidence persuades him and says he is willing to listen to what Christians have to say. Let's see how that stacks up, shall we?
OK, fair enough. Evidence persuades him.
Paladin Christian speaks the truth that video links sometimes get banned in the comments section on YouTube. I took a video proving that it's true.
So I used a Phantom of the Opera video because I wanted to, but as you can see, after I went back to the home page and then the Ascension Press video, my comment with the video link was gone. So in this case, opting not to link the video playlist in a comment is a valid reason to not directly provide the evidence.
It's not shirking the burden of proof. Rather, it's finding a way to present the evidence when the primary method isn't necessarily reliable. It's eliminating any possibility of the primary method backfiring when there is a reasonable belief that the primary method will backfire. Let's see the next part of the thread.
Now, I'd like to point out something that neither of them considered: You can type "Inspiring Philosophy Resurrection" in the search bar on Youtube. In fact, here's a video that I took of myself doing it timed.
I know I was kind of slow, but 15 seconds is not bad for me.
So because YouTube bans video links in the comments section sometimes, it is perfectly reasonable to search for video evidence when the person tells you about it.
So when someone has a valid reason for not presenting evidence directly, don't accuse them of shirking their burden of proof and just go look at the evidence, please, even if it's not how it usually works. And no, I don't want comments from anyone saying I employed a logical fallacy, please.
But there's one more point of his argument on this issue that should be examined. And that is, "so providence at least one shred of evidence, if not then, you clearly have no grasp on this topic and would rather let someone else do the talking for you. If that is the case, then you shouldn't be here challenging someone."
So to help demonstrate why this isn't sound in this case, we need to ask ourselves: what is evidence?
Well, Joe Schmid, an agnostic YouTuber with a philosophy background, explains that with a demonstration. I understand this myself, but Joe articulated it way better than I could.
Go to the 6:29 mark and then he'll give his demonstration.
So there we have it: evidence is what's more expected on one argument over the opposing one.
The playlist on the resurrection from inspiring philosophy meets this definition. One of the videos in that playlist is the historical evidence for the Resurrection.
There were 500 witnesses to the resurrection. And it would be more expected that those witnesses were telling the truth than lying.
Why is that?
Because we know that people have been killed for their Christian faith over the centuries. And we can conclude that people don't willingly die for something they know or believe to be a lie.
So if Mr. Alexander were to ever ask me for burden of proof, I would say something like, "I don't feel comfortable with presenting evidence to you."
And if he were to make assumptions about why I'm not comfortable providing evidence to him, I would merely put my foot down and say, "I am not obligated to provide you with evidence and I don't appreciate it when assumptions are made about why I have not provided evidence. I have my reasons for choosing not to and I would like my boundaries to be respected."
What you choose to do in such a scenario is your choice. If you feel comfortable with presenting evidence, then do so. If you don't, then politely say so with one of these statements:
"I don't feel comfortable presenting evidence."
"I'm not obligated to present evidence."
"My personal policy is to not present evidence to hardline skeptics."
But just know that either way, you don't owe him evidence. He's forfeited the right to ask for it on the basis of his thread with Paladin Christian. And as someone who knows argumentation, logic, and fallacies, he should know better than to use "Argument From Silence" fallacy when the evidence isn't good enough for him or you've opted not to give him any.
I've had the following thought more than once while watching the Ascension Press video and other videos in general: a private DM feature on YouTube would be nice. It would be nice to DM channels and people because there are just times when one-on-one conversations with nobody else involved is better than leaving a comment or a reply to a comment. Blocking people from replying to your comments and replies in the comments section would be the nuclear option and I wouldn't use that option unless it was absolutely necessary for my mental and emotional wellbeing.