Can atheism really be reduced to “I’m not convinced”? In this episode, Trent Horn joins Matt Fradd to respond to some of the most popular atheist clips online, including arguments from Ricky Gervais, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Matt Dillahunty, and Alex O’Connor. They tackle bad definitions of atheism, burden-shifting, the “one less god” objection, fine-tuning, divine hiddenness, and the problem of evil from a Catholic perspective. Whether you’re wrestling with belief yourself or want better answers to common atheist objections, this conversation is packed with sharp arguments, clear distinctions, and practical ways to think through the debate.
Matt Fradd (00:00):
Trent. Matt. How are you?
Trent Horn (00:02):
I’m doing well.
Matt Fradd (00:04):
Answering atheism, how has it held up, your book?
Trent Horn (00:08):
It is the worst book I have written.
Matt Fradd (00:11):
No.
Trent Horn (00:12):
Well, it’s my first book. I’ve learned a lot since then, both in how to write a book and how to approach the subject of atheism. It’s not a bad book, but it’s one where I think I might try to approach the subject of atheism again. I’m glad I wrote it because there wasn’t a similar treatment on atheism from a Catholic perspective at the time. That was back in 2013 when I wrote it. And I really wanted to help Catholics have a solid response on the issue. So it’s definitely a subject I’ve learned a lot about since I’ve written the book and I want to revisit it at some point in the future.
Matt Fradd (00:41):
I’ll tell you something that I’ve never told you before.
Trent Horn (00:43):
Okay.
Matt Fradd (00:44):
I was sitting in a sushi restaurant in San Diego and I spoke to you on the phone and we’d never met before. So you hadn’t yet started at Catholic Answers. And you were talking about wanting to get into debates because we were talking about Dr. William Lane Craig and you said something like, “Yeah, I think I might throw my hat in the ring.” There was a slight part of me that was like, “All right.” I mean, I’m sure I don’t know if you’re that good to throw your hat in the ring.What do you mean throw your hat in the ring? And no, you’re that good. You’ve done an excellent job of debating atheists.
Trent Horn (01:12):
Yeah. It’s been a good experience and I’ve really enjoyed the quality of atheists that I have engaged over the years. I would say it’s increased. My very first debate was-
Matt Fradd (01:21):
I was there.
Trent Horn (01:21):
Yeah, you were?
Matt Fradd (01:22):
Front row.
Trent Horn (01:22):
In San Diego, yeah, was Dan Barker, Freedom From Religion Foundation. Dan and I debated again later in Minnesota. And I think his arguments really do lack in substance and he mirrors the evangelical Christianity that he despises in just not as intellectually rigorous position. And since then, I’ve debated other atheists and other people. And it’s something I definitely want to continue doing for sure.
Matt Fradd (01:46):
But the question is, can you refute these TikToks that producer Maria has chosen for us to watch? We will see. Let’s see. So let’s look at the first one.
Ricky Girvais (01:56):
This is atheism in a nutshell. One person says, “There’s a God.” An atheist says, “Can you prove that? ” They say, “No.” The atheist says, “I don’t believe you. ” That’s it. That’s all it is. You see, if you took every holy book, every holy book there’s ever been, every religious book, every bits of spirituality and hid them or destroyed them. They went away and never … And then you took every science book and destroyed that. In a thousand years time, those science books would be back exactly the same because the test would always turn out the same. Those religious book will either never exist or they’d be totally different because there’s no test.
Matt Fradd (02:40):
Oh my gosh, this breaks my heart because Ricky Givaz is so hysterical, but that is so sophimorically awfully bad. Have you ever spoken to a Christian? Anyway, what do you think?
Trent Horn (02:52):
Yes. I don’t even think … Well, he played … In his version of The Office, he played his name David,
Matt Fradd (02:58):
I think.
Trent Horn (02:58):
David
Matt Fradd (02:59):
Brent.
Trent Horn (02:59):
David Brent. Yeah. And I don’t think David Brent could come up with a take as bad of trying to say that. So there are two things that I noticed there. First, this is atheism in a nutshell. Excuse me. This is atheism in a nutshell. Well, how do I get in this nutshell? What’s happening to me? No, he has an inadequate definition of atheism. Very common. I’ll see among new atheist arguments. Well, atheism is just saying, I’m not convinced of theism. That’s not atheism. Philosophically, you look at the internet encyclopedia philosophy, Stanford encyclopedic philosophy. The best defenders of atheism, like Graham Oppy will say that atheism is the denial of the existence of God. So you look at it this way. There’s a question, does God exist? There are three ways to answer it. Yes, no, I don’t know. So yes would be theism. No would be atheism.
(03:49):
I don’t know would be agnosticism, would be saying, “I don’t know. ” And that’s the position that you should have if you are completely unaware. Even if you’re not sure if theism succeeds, you can’t say no. All you could say at that point would be, “Well, I don’t know if there is a God or not. You’re not justified in saying no yet unless you have other additional arguments.” So right there, he’s shifting the burden of proof. And also, I don’t know any philosophers who would say, “Oh, well, I can’t prove it. ” Yeah, maybe I can’t prove in the sense of a mathematical proof like an arithmetic, but I could make an argument that satisfies proof because the premises of the argument are more likely to be true and than false and there’s no logical fallacies in the reasoning. So I could call that a proof.
(04:34):
People can always bite at the premises, but I could still put forward a proof or a case at least that I would say this provides good reasons for believing that God exists. It’s
Matt Fradd (04:44):
Like the only Christians, it sounds like he’s ever encountered of people who are like, “It just seems like it. I just feel in my heart.” That’s the kind of straw man he’s attacking. And that’s
Trent Horn (04:52):
Not what Christian-
Matt Fradd (04:52):
Which is sad because he’s so intelligent. All right. It seems to me. I don’t want to go to the next one yet. I want to talk-
Trent Horn (04:58):
Yes. The other part about the science books, that’s probably the silliest part of it
(05:03):
Because he’s a few things he’s wrong about there. First, if we got rid of all science books, there isn’t a guarantee that they would come back because many scientific discoveries were historically contingent on societies reaching certain levels of development or having discovered things like you left the Petri dish out of things discovered like penicillin or many other things were discovered by happenstance in certain historical contingent facts. And that would explain why, for example, not every society on earth has achieved scientific progress at the same level. I mean, medieval European science was very different than medieval East Asian science, for example. So that’s not the case. We also know in a lot of the sciences, there’s something called the replication crisis where you can do an experiment and you can’t replicate it. This happens a lot in social science, social sciences. Also, the question about the holy books not coming back, well, a few things there.
(05:56):
One, I guess you’re correct that the historical facts in those holy books probably would not return again if they were all destroyed and all memory of them was lost, but so what? That doesn’t prove it didn’t happen. If you destroyed every history book on earth, they wouldn’t come back, but that didn’t mean history never happened. Also, many religious texts, the things that are in there that are trues of the natural law, do good, avoid evil, understanding moral duties that we have to others, many of those would return because the moral law is written on our hearts. The fact that there’s this universal witness to it is evidence in favor of theism that you don’t find comparable to atheism. I’m
Matt Fradd (06:36):
Going to put you on the spot because he says, I’ll say to a theist, why do you believe in God? And they say, “I just do or whatever. I have no arguments for it. ” If he was to say to you and you had to give a very quick answer, why do you think God exists? What would you say?
Trent Horn (06:49):
I would say that there are many things in the world. There are many things in the world that make much more sense if God exists than if he doesn’t exist. And the atheist converse explanation doesn’t follow. So the fact that there are things that exist and do not have to exist, the fact that a beginningless past would create contradictions if there were no God, the fact that we live in a universe where the odds of it being right for life are on par with finding a randomly marked Adam somewhere in the universe. The fact that there are universal moral laws and that human beings have moral features like moral responsibility and moral knowledge and that there have been so many experiences of God. I would say to him that for atheism to be true, every reported claim of a religious experience or a miracle must be false, but I need only one miracle fortheism to be true.
(07:48):
So which one’s more likely there?
Abraham Piper (07:50):
Nobody believes in God, and I can show you. First of all, I don’t mean believe in God exists. Lots of people believe God exists, but nobody believes that he’s like the ultimate determining factor of the universe. We’ll use run of the mill Christianity as an example. You’ve got God and you’ve got Satan. God, the source of all light and truth. Satan, the opposite, the deceiver. So what’s his job as the deceiver? Well, it’s to trick us. If he’s any good at his job and rumor has it, he is. It’s going to be hard to tell the difference between God and Satan. So who decides? We do. Nobody believes that God is the ultimate decider because that would mean deciding that God is the ultimate decider, making you the ultimate decider. Whether you think you’re believing God or your priest or you’re women’s Bible study leader, you’re not.
(08:27):
You’re believing yourself that they are worth believing. We are our own authorities, not because we’re arrogant and set ourselves in that prominent place, but because there’s no other option. If you have decided to follow Jesus or whatever other God, you are subordinating that deity’s authority to your own decision making. So yeah, you believe they exist, but they’re not in charge. You are.
Matt Fradd (08:51):
What Do you think?
Trent Horn (08:52):
I would say that he’s half right, but he’s discovered something that’s trivial and he’s making a big deal out of nothing. So yes, ultimately the entity that decides what you and I believe is you and I, God doesn’t make decisions for me. I have to decide what I am going to believe and what I’m going to do. The intellect can comprehend things and the will can choose to act or not act on that. But while you and I are the ones that decide what we will believe and do, we are held accountable for those beliefs and decisions by other people. So the point he makes is just rather trivial. So what? This term, I don’t know any Christian who says, “Well, God’s the ultimate decider.” What does that even mean? I think God is the ultimate foundation of reality. I’m sure he believes that there is something that’s the ultimate foundation of reality beyond himself, like atoms or molecules, but he has to make decisions.
(09:52):
What is he going to believe and how is he going to live his life? And then he would say, “Well, when you choose to make beliefs or decisions, you’re going to be held accountable for that. ” If you choose to live virtuously or viciously, he’s going to judge the decisions that you make where society’s going to judge them. But what if he’s wrong or society is wrong? What is the ultimate standard that we judge our decisions against? If it’s just ourselves, then we can never be wrong. If he doesn’t like what I do, well, hey, man, I’m the ultimate decider. Who are you to tell me if I’m right or wrong?
Matt Fradd (10:24):
I see.
Trent Horn (10:24):
I’m the ultimate decider in my life. You’re the ultimate decider in your life. But if he’s going to say that we can be held accountable for bad beliefs or bad actions, there has to be an ultimate standard beyond us that we subordinate ourselves to. So the question is not, who is the ultimate decider? Well, we have to decide for our lives. The question is, what is the ultimate standard that we conform our lives to?
Mehdi Hasan (10:46):
Before we go any further, I just want to check something. Are you an atheist?
Richard Dawkins (10:52):
For all practical purposes, yes. Nobody can actually say for certain that anything doesn’t exist, but I’m an atheist in the same way as I’m an alepricornist and an afariust and an apic unicornist.
Mehdi Hasan (11:05):
So you’re not 100% sure God doesn’t exist, but you are sure enough to make it practically-
Richard Dawkins (11:10):
I’m as sure as you are sure that fairies and leprechorns don’t exist.
Mehdi Hasan (11:14):