- 7 months ago
Follow me on X! https://x.com/stefanmolyneux
In this lecture, Stefan Molyneux examines the theme of indifference among Christians during his childhood experiences of violence and trauma. He highlights the contradictions between Christian moral teachings and the inaction of those professing these values, reflecting on a pervasive neglect he encountered from supportive figures. Molyneux discusses the challenge of evil as a critical issue for humanity, arguing that both religious frameworks and atheistic nihilism fall short in addressing this problem. He introduces his ethical system of Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB), which aims to provide an objective moral foundation independent of religious beliefs or governmental authority. Central to his discussion is the protection of children, with Molyneux critiquing existing moral and educational systems for failing to ensure their safety. He concludes by urging exploration of concepts like peaceful parenting and UPB as pathways to a more moral society.
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https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025
In this lecture, Stefan Molyneux examines the theme of indifference among Christians during his childhood experiences of violence and trauma. He highlights the contradictions between Christian moral teachings and the inaction of those professing these values, reflecting on a pervasive neglect he encountered from supportive figures. Molyneux discusses the challenge of evil as a critical issue for humanity, arguing that both religious frameworks and atheistic nihilism fall short in addressing this problem. He introduces his ethical system of Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB), which aims to provide an objective moral foundation independent of religious beliefs or governmental authority. Central to his discussion is the protection of children, with Molyneux critiquing existing moral and educational systems for failing to ensure their safety. He concludes by urging exploration of concepts like peaceful parenting and UPB as pathways to a more moral society.
GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!
You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025
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LearningTranscript
00:00Yo, yo, Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain. How are you doing?
00:03A couple of points. Thank you, everyone, of course, so much for this amazing conversation that's going on on X or Twitter.
00:10You can join it at x.com slash Stefan Molyneux. I'll put the link below.
00:14Great conversations. I really, really appreciate everyone's feedback.
00:17I just want to sort of clarify a couple of points, and we can continue on with this great interchange or exchange.
00:24So, when I say I suffered under great evils as a child, and violence and madness and all kinds of stuff,
00:36and one of the things, of course, that was kind of impossible to miss was that I was surrounded by Christians.
00:43I, of course, I went to church many times a week when I was in boarding school.
00:47I was in the choir, and I was surrounded by Christians.
00:53We were in apartments with paper-thin walls, and the violence and all of that was occurring.
00:57Everyone could hear it and so on.
00:59And, you know, we're not talking sort of personal confrontation, but, you know,
01:01a phone call to the authorities would have probably changed things quite a bit,
01:05and possibly for the better, I think, to some degree for the better.
01:09And so I was surrounded by family members who were Christians, extended family who were Christians,
01:14priests, teachers, neighbors, for the most part were Christians,
01:19Christians, and hundreds, maybe even a thousand, because I lived in three different countries,
01:25all of which were Christian, mostly two, a little bit in Africa.
01:29And there was no movement, no solution.
01:33Nobody asked me what was going on.
01:35Nobody asked me how they could help.
01:36Nobody called the authorities.
01:37Nobody talked to my mother.
01:38Nobody, like, anything like that, right?
01:40Now, these are just facts.
01:45And, of course, I've talked to thousands of people over the last 20 years on my philosophy show at freedomain.com
01:49who've had, you know, similar sort of experiences of indifference from all those around.
01:54Now, I understand that's a self-selecting group,
01:57and it's not any kind of objective metric of the general human experience any more than
02:02if you just look at a doctor's waiting room, you'd say,
02:05my God, everyone's sick, right?
02:07It's like, well, no, it's a self-selecting group.
02:08I get all of that.
02:09But nonetheless, these are sort of facts.
02:12As a moral philosopher, I'm analogous to a doctor who is trying to cure one disease and one disease only,
02:20and that disease is evil, right?
02:22There has to be a cure for evil.
02:25Otherwise, we are doomed as a species to self-destruction.
02:30There has to be a cure for evil.
02:32Now, just because I feel that there has to be a cure for evil
02:34and I don't want the entire destruction of the people of the planet
02:38doesn't mean that there is one,
02:40but I'm certainly going to bend every moral and mental fiber of my being to be in hot pursuit of one.
02:46If I love humanity, I love you all,
02:48and if you have a loved one who is going to die of a disease,
02:55it seems to me quite likely that you'd be heavily invested in trying to cure that disease,
02:58and that is my goal as a moral philosopher is to cure evil.
03:03Now, of course, in the curing of evil, I have two major competitors,
03:09religion and a kind of evolutionary nihilism.
03:12So the evolutionary nihilism is the atheists and the fedora wearers who say,
03:18well, morality is a kind of reciprocal altruism that evolved in tribal contexts
03:24in order to mutual aid and help and so on.
03:26There's just a description of Darwinism and a description of that
03:30which is advantageous towards the success of a particular tribe,
03:33which usually comes at the violent not-success of every other tribe around them,
03:37conquering and, you know, sort of that indigenous North American constant churn of violence and predation.
03:44Now, that's not a description of morality.
03:45That's just a description of brute amoral natural advantage.
03:50So that's not a cure for evil.
03:54That is a mere description that cooperation sometimes allows one evil group to triumph over another.
04:01An alliance among thieves, an alliance among murderers, is not a description of morality,
04:08but of momentary criminal advantage.
04:10So no, that's not the answer.
04:14So, of course, the other is religion.
04:17And all due respect, I view religion as superior to atheist nihilism in almost every conceivable metric,
04:23so I sort of want to be clear about that up front.
04:26But the other competitor with what I'm doing with regards to morality, the cure for evil, is religion.
04:36And the general argument that I would make is that people who believe in God believe in the moral rules of God, right?
04:48God gives you these moral rules.
04:49So people who believe in God believe in these moral rules,
04:53and therefore they should be better than people who don't believe in God.
04:56Of course, if you accept and believe in the rules of the road,
05:02follow the speed limit to reasonably closely obey the yield and the stop and the one-way signs and so on,
05:08if you accept and believe in the rules of the road,
05:11you should be a better driver than those who reject and disbelieve in the rules of the road, right?
05:20If you accept and believe in the rules of chess, you should be a better chess player than people who don't believe in the rules of chess because they're not even playing chess.
05:30They're just throwing rooks and pawns around, right?
05:33So people who believe in the rules of tennis should be better tennis players than those who don't believe in any rules of tennis.
05:38Or we'll change the rules for their particular advantage, which is the sort of Darwinian argument for reciprocal altruism or whatever.
05:47Well, if it benefits me materially to ally with this person rather than this person, I'll do that, right?
05:52It's just a description of criminal collusion.
05:54So if God's plan for the world is the moral improvement of mankind through the provision of moral rules and then the salvation or damnation of the eternal soul based upon the provision and following of those moral rules,
06:12then people who believe in the moral rules of God and who believe that they will achieve either salvation or damnation for eternity based upon their following of these moral rules,
06:24they should be better, right?
06:25Jesus says, whatever you do to the least among you, so do you also do to me.
06:30If anyone harms the little ones, the children, it's better that a millstone be hung around his neck and be thrown into the deep ocean.
06:36It's an analogy, but it's saying that you should protect children at all costs, at all costs, right?
06:44And this is what the people around me were raised with.
06:47And this is with the threat of eternal salvation or damnation hanging over you.
06:51You should protect the children no matter what at all costs at the peril of your eternal soul.
06:56Empirically, it's not enough.
06:59It doesn't work.
07:01It's a cure for evil that doesn't work.
07:06Now, if a doctor prescribes a pill for a particular ailment and the pill does not cure that ailment, that doesn't mean the doctor doesn't exist.
07:18It doesn't mean that medicine doesn't exist.
07:23But what it does mean is that pill doesn't work.
07:29And the pill of follow the rules of God under threat of heaven and hell for eternity doesn't work.
07:40Because the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people around me with knowledge of the harm and abuse that I was suffering
07:52didn't even make a phone call, didn't ever ask me how I was doing, didn't make any plans to improve things and so on, right?
08:02Well, if a moral rule from God called protect the children doesn't have you even make a phone call
08:10when you repeatedly hear a child being harmed, then it doesn't work.
08:15Look, if religion worked in terms of protecting children, I'd be thrilled.
08:22I would be thrilled because it would mean that, although I didn't understand the mechanics of the pill,
08:28you take the pill and you get better, then the illness is cured.
08:32But atheistic Darwinian nihilism doesn't work.
08:38We know that, of course, because the combination of atheism plus the power of the state.
08:44Since atheists worship power, because Darwinian evolution is all about power and dominance,
08:50the atheists worship power, which means atheists worship the state,
08:52which means the combination of atheism plus the state produces communism,
08:57which has killed 100 million people in the 20th century alone.
09:02So that doesn't work.
09:04And does religion work to protect children?
09:11It does not.
09:12It does not.
09:14And if you see there are two doctors prescribing a medicine,
09:22and one doctor's medicine makes the illness worse,
09:28and the other doctor's medicine doesn't make the illness better,
09:32then you're going to look for a third possible cure.
09:37If atheism and Darwinianism doesn't work,
09:41if religiosity doesn't work,
09:44what is left?
09:47Well, you need rules that people are willing to follow.
09:50They need to be objective and clear,
09:51and they need to be explainable to children.
09:53Atheistic Darwinian descriptions are not
09:56explainable to children,
10:00because then it would be to say,
10:01well, if you can push that kid and get his food or his toy,
10:04you should do so,
10:04because that's what evolution would teach.
10:07So that doesn't work.
10:09You can explain religious morality to children,
10:13do this or you'll be punished for eternity,
10:15although I think it's a bit high stakes,
10:17and it doesn't seem to work in the practical long-term sense.
10:20And the other thing, too, of course,
10:22with religion,
10:24if you believe in God,
10:26and therefore you follow these moral rules,
10:27the problem is that you can escape
10:29these moral rules
10:31by ceasing to believe in God.
10:35And therefore,
10:36since the moral rules come from God,
10:38if you cease to believe in God,
10:40you cease to believe in these moral rules,
10:42and then you just end up with
10:44atheistic Darwinian dominance,
10:47which is a state of nature,
10:49nature red in tooth and claw.
10:51Nasty, brutish, and short
10:53is the life of man in a state of nature.
10:59So there has to be another cure,
11:01or we become nihilists and despair
11:05that there's ever any cure,
11:07and then we view the illness
11:08not as a deviation from health,
11:11but as sort of the inevitable decay
11:12of aging and death.
11:14You can do something to resist it,
11:15but it's going to get you in the end.
11:17And I don't accept that.
11:21I don't accept that.
11:23So,
11:24empirical rational philosophy
11:26has not been tried.
11:28And this is why I've worked very hard
11:29on a system of ethics
11:30that is secular and rational,
11:33and you can't escape it.
11:34You can't escape.
11:35Universally preferable behavior,
11:37my rational proof of secular ethics
11:38is inescapable,
11:39and I've had,
11:40I mean, it's been almost 20 years,
11:42I've had countless debates
11:42about this stuff
11:43with people who are entirely skeptical.
11:45They can't overturn it.
11:46They just can't.
11:47I mean, it is in the
11:48two plus two equals four territory,
11:50and you can get the free book
11:51at my website,
11:52freedomain.com slash books.
11:53So, you can't escape it.
11:54Now, does that mean
11:55you have to follow it?
11:56No.
11:57I mean, you can go to
11:58a mathematical conference,
11:59and you say that
12:00two and two make five,
12:01or two and two make
12:03an invisible whale,
12:05but they won't take you seriously.
12:07I mean, you can have
12:08your crazy beliefs,
12:08but you're ejected
12:09from any serious conversation
12:10about these matters,
12:11and you can reject
12:12the basic logic of UPB,
12:14but then, I mean,
12:15not yet,
12:15because it takes time,
12:16but you'll just be like,
12:17well, you're not part
12:19of the conversation.
12:20You'll be sort of ostracized
12:22as being foolish.
12:24So, yeah,
12:25we have to protect
12:26the children.
12:27We have to protect
12:27the children.
12:28Christianity has failed
12:29to do it.
12:30Atheistic nihilism
12:31has failed to do it.
12:31The ancient pagan gods
12:32failed to do it.
12:34Postmodernism,
12:35relativism,
12:35subjectivism,
12:36pragmatism,
12:37utilitarianism,
12:38have all failed
12:39to protect the children.
12:41And if we can't
12:41protect the children,
12:43we cannot have morality.
12:47And we certainly
12:47can't have social cohesion
12:49or structure,
12:50because children
12:50who are not protected,
12:51which is children
12:52in society as a whole,
12:53not only are they
12:53not protected,
12:55they're tossed
12:55in these horrible
12:57brain abuse mills
12:58called, quote,
13:00public education,
13:01it's monstrous,
13:03where they're drugged
13:04and propagandized
13:07and taught to hate
13:08themselves,
13:09and the culture
13:09of their history.
13:11So,
13:13all prior
13:14medicines
13:16against evil
13:17have failed
13:19in the protection
13:19of children,
13:20and if you fail
13:20to protect children,
13:21they have no
13:22foundational allegiance
13:23to their society.
13:25Why would you?
13:25monotheism
13:31has failed,
13:32polytheism
13:33has failed,
13:35Darwinianism
13:36has failed,
13:36atheism
13:37has failed,
13:38statism
13:39has failed,
13:39the welfare state
13:40has failed,
13:41all of it
13:42has failed
13:42to protect children.
13:45And the protection
13:45of children
13:46is foundational
13:47to morality.
13:50If children
13:51are protected,
13:51they respect
13:52the rules.
13:52they respect
13:54society,
13:55they have
13:56gratitude to society,
13:58and evil
13:59most often
14:01originates out
14:02of amorality
14:03plus child abuse.
14:05And I
14:07actually read
14:08Lloyd DeMoss'
14:09great book,
14:10The Origins of War
14:11in Child Abuse.
14:12You can get that
14:13for free,
14:13again,
14:14freedomain.com
14:14slash books,
14:15you should listen to it,
14:15it's fantastic though,
14:17obviously disturbing
14:18book.
14:20So,
14:21if we can protect
14:22children,
14:22we can get
14:23a moral world.
14:25If we can protect
14:26children,
14:26we get a peaceful
14:27world.
14:30And
14:31the fact that
14:33belief in God
14:35and the threat
14:36of eternal
14:36punishment and
14:37reward has not
14:38been enough
14:39for society
14:40to protect
14:41children means
14:42we must find
14:43another way.
14:44That is
14:44Peaceful Parenting,
14:45PeacefulParenting.com.
14:46It's a free book.
14:47Please,
14:47please,
14:48please,
14:48I'm begging you.
14:49Just start it.
14:50Just give it
14:5110 minutes.
14:51Just give it
14:5210 minutes.
14:53It will blow your
14:54mind and open
14:55your heart.
14:56It doesn't matter
14:56if you're a parent
14:57or not.
14:57It helps if you're
14:58a parent,
14:58but we've all
14:59been children,
14:59so you need to
15:00understand the moral
15:01nature of the
15:01ways in which
15:02you were raised,
15:03both well and
15:04badly.
15:06PeacefulParenting.com.
15:07Just give it
15:0710 minutes.
15:08That's all I'm
15:08asking.
15:09Just give it
15:0910 minutes.
15:10But
15:10everything
15:15but
15:16objective moral
15:18philosophy has
15:19failed.
15:23Does that mean
15:23that moral
15:24philosophy will
15:25succeed?
15:26Well,
15:27I have created
15:28objective moral
15:30rules that can't
15:30be escaped by
15:31disbelieving in
15:32God.
15:35And it requires
15:36neither gods
15:36nor governments
15:37for the
15:38understanding and
15:40the enforcement
15:41of morality.
15:45It's a cure
15:46that is
15:47logically consistent,
15:48has certainly
15:49worked in my
15:49own life,
15:50has worked in
15:50the lives of
15:51the people who
15:52have followed
15:52UPB and
15:53Peaceful Parenting.
15:54So I have now
15:55almost 20 years
15:56of data gathered
15:57from this,
15:57and it
15:58works beyond
16:00the efficacy
16:03of anything I
16:04really could have
16:04conceived of when
16:05coming up with it.
16:06It works far
16:06better than I
16:07had ever
16:07imagined.
16:09So if all
16:10prior cures to
16:11the maltreatment
16:12of children have
16:12failed,
16:13and we have one
16:14now that has
16:15overwhelming
16:16empirical
16:17success and
16:19logical
16:19consistency,
16:21philosophy
16:22rescues us
16:23from societies
16:26which have
16:26failed to
16:27rescue and
16:27protect children,
16:28PeacefulParenting.com,
16:29I beg you,
16:30please check it
16:31out.
16:32And thank you so
16:32much for the
16:33conversation.
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