Rational Theist Matt

Basic Description

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   <default>Rational Theist Matt</default>
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</image> <group> <header>Information</header> <label>Gender</label> <label>Scientific Name</label> <label>Positions</label> <label>Debating Against</label> <label>Skills</label> <label>Links</label> </group> </infobox> Matt Bell, or "Bellend" as the Brits call him, is a cantankerous old fart from Scotland that relishes in destroying conversations for the sake of his own amusement. He's recently attained a remedial level of knowledge in philosophy to which he uses as a bludgeoning tool in discussions. Bell relies almost exclusively on the Kalam Cosmological Argument yet is unable to sufficiently connect it to the Christian god. This may be why he's now changed his theological position to somewhat of a nondescript theist. Matt has a fascinating crevice on his forehead which has been likened to Great Britain's Cheddar Gorge, a fat prostitute's bone hole and the Grand Canyon.

MutaKallim Matt

Matt believes himself to be the Grand-master of the Kalam Cosmological Argument on Google+. Occasionally, Matt strays from his great passion to transcribe hangouts nobody watches, or shout at people, or tell us why men have nipples etc., but the focus of his work is almost exclusively the Kalam. In the past, Matt has re-branded himself as 'MutaKallim Matt' but he soon changed his name back - once he realized nobody understood why he'd done this, or remotely cared. During his MutaKallim phase, Matt posted on the wonders of the Kalam Cosmological Arguments roughly twenty times a week as opposed to the usual fifteen times a week. But during this phase, Matt failed to offer up any good inferences or new arguments for why anyone ought to accept the Kalam as a successful argument.

Matt has repeatedly tried to rehash William Lane Craig's arguments in support of the Kalam hoping nobody would notice he hadn't added anything new- and yet still claims to have created 'his own version of the argument'. Matt considers arguments to be improved by adding premises rather than adding in supporting arguments. Matt also considers the Kalam 'a good argument' that might be sound, depending on whether or not you are 'open' to accepting it's soundness - as a theist, Matt of course is. But atheists presumably are stubborn and desperate to avoid its awesome soundness so he can't say that all the premises are sound to the extent he'd like to, so his 'research' continues to find the perfect formulation of the argument, such that even the low hanging fruit that inhabits the gutter of Google+ must bow down to the power of the Kalam.

Matt's own attempts to bolster the case for his beloved Kalam have though been unsuccessful, often ending up in reification fallacies (reifiying nothing) inductive fallacies (the first event of the Universe more plausibly had a cause as all events within the Universe have a cause, despite that first event, if there was one, being clearly dis-analogous) or with appeals to scientific plausibility (whilst positing a supernatural transcendental cause that is by definition beyond scientific enquiry) or an appeal to incredulity or an appeal to intuition (when we have good reasons for thinking intuition fail when considering highly un-intuitive cases like Universes 'beginning to exist' if they ever did).

Matt has been unable to offer up reasons for his belief that actual infinities are 'absurd' but he insists they are. Matt has no good reasons to believe that timeless causation is coherent beyond stipulating it is, or insisting that it could be 'simultaneous' with its effect (which is incoherent as 'simultaneity' is a temporal concept). Matt also thinks that God is a personal agent with a mind, despite not thinking God has thoughts. He also thinks God has knowledge, but does not have beliefs, despite knowledge being a subset of beliefs on the account of knowledge he ascribes to.

Matt and Science

Matt has a troubled relationship with science. He has a collection on his profile page (of which he is immensely proud) entitled 'When Science gets it Wrong!' Where Matt seems to indicate the self correcting nature of science is an indication that science isn't all it's cracked up to be. Matt also thinks that popular science articles which are somewhat sensationalised are evidence that fundamental scientific theories may be far shakier than atheists think. Matt obsesses about 'low hanging fruit atheists' who worship 'scientism'. Matt prefers 'metaphysical' arguments when approaching the issue of the nature of time (as per William Lane Craig) and yet Matt loves to invoke science when he thinks it offers him any advantage when arguing for the Kalam. For instance, Matt insists Alexander Vilenkin's interpretation of the Borde Guth Vilenkin Theorem is a fantastic reason to think the Universe had an absolute beginning (despite one of the other authors of the theorem, Alan Guth thinking otherwise) if you disagree, Matt points out you disagree with Vilenkin, who is more informed than you, therefore you are wrong. Matt will also invoke the second law of thermodynamics as proof of an absolute beginning. Matt of course disregards the scientists who show models of an eternal universe as being 'fringe' or non consensus views, desperately trying to avoid the BGVT (see Sean Carroll vs Craig debate). Matt also, to his credit, accepts evolution, albeit theistic evolution, and that the Universe is 13.8 billion years old. He flirts with the idea of meta-time, though he's not sure what it is or how it works. He also thinks Craig's notion of an 'ether' resolves issues with the presentism the Kalam relies on to make it compatible with the special theory of relativity despite being unparsimonious and unverifiable.

Matt and Free Will

Matt sometimes indicates that libertarian free will is a coherent notion - despite offering no good reasons for thinking it is. Famously, Matt argued that ''the reason an agent chooses A over B, is because it chose A over B'' .

The 'Theist Experience Show'

Matt has a difficult relationship with the Atheist Experience call-in show, and in particular it's regular hosts Tracy Harris and Matt Dillahunty. Matt considers them 'unphilosophical' despite neither claiming to be philosophers. Either because he is unable to operate a keypad or unable to afford the phone bill, Matt has never rang the show to express his displeasure with it and its hosts; preferring instead to snipe from the sidelines on his profile page. (Correction: Matt has called-in to the show, a number of years ago and spoke with Matt Dillahunty. He indulged in his usual behaviour of interruption and obfuscation until Dillahunty swore at him... whereupon Bell clapped his hands like a child because he had achieved his trolling goal.) In 2017 Matt launched 'The Theist Experience Show' as a counterpoint to the Atheist Experience. Matt wants the show to be in part a relaxation soundtrack, with large periods of total silence punctuated by mouse clicks. The show is intended to review the Great Debate Community, informing everyone why they are 'fuckwits' and idiots and why Matt's view is correct.

Controversies

In the past Matt has pledged to Jesus, on his profile page that, were he to continue to dive into the gutter and indulge in aggressive, bullying behaviour in future, he would quit Google+. Matt however failed his God when he continued, within days of making the post, in his usual aggressive, bullying behaviour. Despite making the solemn pledge to his God, Matt remains a member of Google+.

Matt has begun to block people on his threads who he deems 'trolls' even if they have been commenting on his pages for years. Matt also regularly fails to address the bulk of substantive replies and criticism to his posts.

Matt has had a troubled relationship with the Paltalk group- initially rejecting them as philosophical ignoramuses, bullies (despite being a bully himself), and unworthy of his time. However Matt has recently softened his approach to the group, now only occasionally insulting them.

Matt has a distinct dislike of most other theists. He has particular disdain for presuppositionalists, like Darwin's Deity of whom he considers an ineffectual 'fuckwit'.

Matt and Memes

Matt views humorous memes atheists make as serious arguments worthy of his intellectual engagement. Matt has an entire collection 'Stupid things some Atheists say or believe' devoted to tongue in cheek memes atheists make, where Matt attempts to maul the arguments implicit in these memes. Occasionally, Matt even succeeds at this.

Matt's Turn Off's

Matt considers flat Earth conversations, and discussions on Communism or race realism, as beneath his intellectual level.

'The 50 lines of evidence'

Matt considers there to be (at least) fifty good arguments for the existence of God. Of these 50 arguments, Matt considers these the best: 

1. Cosmological arguments, the Kalam and Liebnizian being the most presented. 

2. The modal ontological argument by Plantinga and W. L. Craig. 

3. The design argument from the fine tuning of the fundamental constants, what Sean Carroll calls the best hope theism has with an argument. 

4. The argument from morality - objective morality. 

5. The abductive argument from facts about Jesus. 

Matt has said this: 'The dismissive wave of the hand some atheists give to these is simply not good enough or ought not to be for any rational mind interested in the truth of the matter and that would still leave another 45 at least!'

Despite thinking these arguments are awesome, Matt focuses mostly on the Kalam, only occasionally referring to the persuasive power of the other arguments, rarely if ever informing his followers why the proponents of these arguments have won the day against their opponents.

Way less as 50 isn't "over 50"

When challenged (for weeks) to supply a list so we could look together whether there's over 50 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive reasons to support his habitually repeated "50 proposed lines of evidence for God/Christianity" claim, Matt eventually compiled a "List of Arguments for Theism" which was comprised of 41 lines. Despite the problems that it's another example of how he always moves the goalpost slightly enough so most won't notice (theism simply isn't Christianity) and that it's not relevant to the actual claim he always makes that he has over 50 lines of reasoning for God/Christianity - there's the not insignificant problem that 41 is less as 50 - even before looking at the list for overlapping arguments or looking at what's purported to be an argument ("39. Pascal's Wager Argument" that's an argument? ) let alone which would not be valid etc. Yet still he'll repeat he has over 50 lines of reasoning.