Some thoughts on the Charlie Kirk assassination

This Charlie Kirk situation has affected me emotionally more than it really should. I didn't follow him and didn't have a good feel for what he was all about. He came up on my youtube feed every now and then, but in all I might've watched two shorts with him in them over the years.

What I did know about Charlie, just from looking at the thumb nails of the videos, is that he was a kind of Steven Crowder-like person. He would set up a tent in some public space and encourage people to debate with him. From the little I saw of him, that's what he was mainly about.

His murder bothers me for a number of reasons. First, I just found out how young he was. He was only 31 years old. He had a wife and two kids. It's a real tragedy. Second, it bothers me for the reasons he was probably killed. He held a lot of controversial views, he expressed those views in public, and he engaged in public debate. I can understand why somebody might get upset about another person's views, but the fact that he wanted to talk about it with people who disagreed with him strikes me as being a good thing. Open debate and dialogue is healthier than everybody retreating into their own political bubbles and seeing outsiders as enemies. Why are there so many people in this country that just want to shut people up who they disagree with?

I find it incredibly disturbing that anybody would want to silence another person from publicly expressing their point of view by murdering them. But what I find especially disturbing is the number of people who approve of it. There are people on line who are cheering it on. They are gloating about it. One person said they watched the video multiple times because it gave them joy. That is disgusting.

It makes me wonder how many people I actually know who approve of it. That further makes me wonder how many people I know who would approve of my murder on the basis of things I believe.

I probably agree with Charlie Kirk on a lot of stuff. I've learned a few things about him just over the last few days. He's Catholic, and I'm protestant, so we agree on most things Christian, but we also disagree on a few things. We're both politically conservative, so we probably agree for the most part on things like abortion, gun control, and maybe economics. He was a big Trump supporter, and I'm definitely not, so we probably have some differences there. I don't know how much we agreed or disagreed, but I suspect we agreed more than we disagreed on most things. We definitely both agreed on the value of free speech and open debate and dialogue.

The Charlie Kirk incident really brings to light the divide between the left and the right in this country. It has really gotten out of hand. It goes beyond mere polarization. Now people openly approve of killing people who disagree with them. Depending on how pervasive this point of view is, it could be the end of debate and dialogue between the left and the right. If the left and right cannot deal with their differences through dialogue, what is there left to do? It's a scary thought. It reminds me of the horrors of the French Revolution, but I was reading this post by Ed Feser yesterday where he pointed out a similar thing that happened in ancient Greece.

One thing I find ironic is that some people on the left oppose capital punishment but approve of Charlie Kirk's assassination. They don't think somebody should be executed even if they committed murder. But at the same time, they think it's okay to execute somebody for holding certain beliefs or for expressing them publicly.

I've expressed a lot of unpopular beliefs on my blog. I saw a video clip yesterday or the day before of a girl telling her dad that she thought Charlie Kirk's murder was justified because he believed a woman who was raped should be forced to give birth. She acted like it was the most obvious thing in the world that killing him was appropriate merely because of his belief in the wrongness of abortion in the case of rape. I've written many posts on abortion on my blog, and this blog is public. Am I in danger of being murdered, too?

I don't remember if I ever explicitly addressed abortion in the case of rape, but if you follow the logic of my argument, the conclusion is that abortion is wrong in all stages of development unless it's a medical emergency. Rape is extremely traumatic, but we cannot be justified in taking a human life merely to alleviate emotional trauma. While I don't think abortion in the case of rape is morally justified, I do think it serves as a mitigating circumstance, which means it's not as bad as having an abortion merely for convenience. So there's my view. I suppose, in that girls' eyes, I deserve to die, too.

I found out yesterday, I think, that the killer, Tyler Robinson, was in a relationship with a trans-gendered person (a man who thinks he's a woman). From what I understand, Tyler invoked his right to remain silent. He hasn't spoken to the police, so we don't know if transgenderism was the particular reason for the murder. It might've been, though, because of some things he wrote on the shell casings of his ammunition.

I don't know whether I agree with Charlie Kirk's position on LGBT issues or not. I suspect we agree on a lot, though. We probably both agree that homosexual romantic relationships are immoral. We probably agree that you shouldn't pretend like men are women and women are men, regarless of how they see themselves. But as far as public policy goes, I don't know what his views were.

I think it's unfair to expect women to have to box or wrestle with men just because those men think they are women, but I really don't care what goes on in sports. I don't understand why the government has anything to do with it except maybe when it comes to the Olympics. Why should it be a public policy issue? Let people who play sports decide amongst themselves how they want to do it. It seems to me the solution to transgenderism in sports is to segregate sports by sex rather than perceived gender.

I don't think the government has an interest in same sex marriages except when it comes to adoptions. The only reason government is in the marriage business at all is because marriages are the foundation of families, and families are the foundation of societies. Since opposite sex couples are the only kinds of couples that create families, they are the only kinds of marriages the government should have any interest in licensing or incentivising. Let people marry or cohabitate with whoever they want, but there's no reason for the government to be involved in the kinds of relationships that, by their very nature, can't produce children.

I always try to be fair-minded and not to paint groups of people with too broad a brush. But I have to confess that seeing so many people on line cheer Charlie Kirk's assassination tempts me to paint the left with a broad brush. It appears, if you're not careful, that many on the left simply don't value human life. They support the death of unborn children, and they support the death of people who want to protect the unborn. It seems like the only lives they value are the lives of killers since they oppose capital punishment. For these reasons, it is tempting to want to agree with some conservatives who call the left a "culture of death."

But I know, objectively, that that isn't fair. First of all, many on the left don't think people on the right value human life. The right supports gun rights in spite of guns being the go-to weapons for mass killings in schools. The right also generally supports capital punishment. In the past, some people on the right have assassinated or attempted to assassinate abortion doctors. So to be fair, both sides have some basis, be it ever so flimsy, for accusing the other side of not placing any value on human life.

Second, the people on the left who are cheering Charlie Kirk's murder are probably just a loud minority. Most people on the left are just as horrified by Charlie Kirk's murder as those on the right. There are many people on the left who do support free speech, even when they disagree with what is said. I was encouraged by what Bernie Sanders said in response to Charlie Kirk's murder. I wish more people on the left could be like him.

I sincerely hope that Charlie Kirk's assassination doesn't end debate and dialogue between the left and right. If one side is afraid of expressing their views, and the other side isn't interested in hearing the other side anyway, then it may very well be the end of all discussion. That would be a real travesty. If we can't settle our differences through dialogue, then the only thing left is power, suppression, and violence. This is a real life example of the danger of forgetting history.

EDIT - 9/20/2025: I may have been wrong about Charlie being Catholic. I saw that somewhere. I don't remember where. But yesterday, I saw somebody say they wondered if he would have become Catholic. So now I don't know if he was Catholic or not.

Why I like ChatGPT - recipe edition

One of my favourite things about ChatGPT is getting quick simple recipes when I have an odd proportion of ingredients. For example, today, I had 3/4 of a stick of butter and didn't feel like going to the grocery store. I got some cocoa powder recently to make decorative sourdough bread, and I thought, "Hey, I could probably make some brownies." So I asked ChatGPT what I could do with my cocoa powder a 3/4 of a stick of butter. It was a very small batch of brownies, but it came out absosmurfly delicious! Here's how the conversation went down. The only change I made was that I added a pinch of baking powder.

Sam I am: So, I have some cocoa powder and about 3/4th of a stick of butter. Can I make brownies with that?

ChatGPT said: Yes! You can make brownies with just cocoa powder and butter as a base, but you’ll need a few other ingredients to make them work properly. Here’s a simple way to do it with what you have and a few common pantry items:

Basic Brownie Ingredients:

• Butter: ~3/4 stick (you already have)
• Cocoa powder: 2–3 tablespoons (adjust depending on taste)
• Sugar: ~1/2 cup (granulated or brown sugar)
• Eggs: 1–2, depending on how fudgy you want them
• Flour: 1/4–1/3 cup (to give structure)

Optional: pinch of salt, vanilla extract, chocolate chips, nuts (I did not use chocolate chips or nuts)

Simple Method:

• Melt butter in a small saucepan or microwave.
• Stir in cocoa powder until smooth.
• Mix in sugar and let it cool slightly.
• Add egg(s) and vanilla extract, mixing well.
• Fold in flour (and salt, if using) until just combined. Don’t overmix.
• Pour into a small greased pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for ~15–20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Because you only have part of a stick of butter, your batch will be smaller—think more like a few brownies than a full pan.

If you want, I can give you a tiny batch “minimal ingredients” recipe that will use exactly what you have for a perfect single-pan fudgey brownie. Do you want me to do that?

One day, I posted a picture that just had a bunch of vegetables, herbs, and stuff, and based on the picture, ChatGPT was able to suggest multiple recipes. I love ChatGPT!

Sometimes, when I want to make something, expecially if I've never made it before, I'll watch about a dozen YouTube videos and piece together a recipe. But sometimes if I watch too many videos, I'll get analysis paralysis. That's when I go to ChatGPT to get a simple recipe. ChatGPT always comes through. If I don't like a recipe, I'll tell it what I want to change, and it'll give me another one.

The multiverse objection to the fine tuning argument

I recently had my first debate in many years on a new website called DebateCraft. DebateCraft was put together by some of the old members of Debate.org where I used to debate and Debateart.com, where I rarely participated.

The person I debated wanted to defend the fine-tuning argument, and since I've become an advocate of this argument, I wanted to play devil's advocate. You see, most of the objections raised against the fine tuning argument are pretty terrible, so I wanted to test the argument against a handful of what I thought were the strongest objections.

My opponent was apparently playing devil's advocate, too, because he conceded the debate in the third round saying, "I never really thought this was a decent argument."

In spite of not completing the debate, I did learn something. I learned that whether the multiverse objection to fine-tuning is a good objection depends on how the fine-tuning argument is framed.

If you try to characterize the fine-tuning argument as an inference to the best explanation, then the debate comes down to whether God or the multiverse best explains fine-tuning. A person raising the multiverse objection would be obliged in that case to actually defend the existence of a mulitiverse or say why it's a better explanation than God.

But if you characterize the fine-tuning argument as a disjunctive argument then the objector doesn't have to defend the actual existence of the multiverse. They only have to raise the multiverse as a possibility.

William Lane Craig's version of the argument is disjunctive. The way a disjunctive argument works is that you start with all the possibilities. Then you rule out all but one, and that’s the conclusion. In Craig’s case, the options are chance, law, and design. He wants to argue for design, so he needs to rule out chance and law. This puts the burden of proof on him to rule out chance. All the multiverse objector has to do is keep chance as a live option and show that Craig has not ruled it out.

The multiverse objector does not have the burden of proving that there is a multiverse. All he has to do is explain why it’s a possibility. As long as it’s a possibility, chance has not been ruled out, and Craig’s disjunctive argument collapses.

It is going to be very hard to rule out a multiverse because we simply don’t know what’s beyond the event horizon of our region of space. We have no idea what lies beyond the observable universe, and that unknown prevents us from ruling out a multiverse which, in turn, prevents us from ruling out chance + the observer selection effect as the reason for why we find ourselves in a life-permitting universe.

Craig's attempts at responding to the multiverse objection miss the mark. One argument he likes to use is his card game illustration. If somebody were accused of cheating because every time they dealt, they got all aces, they might defend themselves by saying, "Well, in this great big multiverse, there are universes in which I do get all aces when I deal." That arugment fails because there's no observer selection effect. Presumably, he'd exist in all the univeres in which he was playing poker, so the multiverse wouldn't explain why he happens to be in a universe in which he gets all aces when he deals. It's a bad illustration.

Craig's other attempt at a response is to say the multiverse raises the Boltzmann brain problem. That might work as a response to somebody who was actually trying to defend the existence of a multiverse. Or it could work as a response to somebody who claimed fine-tuning was evidence for a multiverse. But it doesn't do much to answer somebody who is only raising the multiverse as a possibility that can't be ruled out. After all, they could simply raise, as a possibility, the existence of a multiverse that explains fine-tuning without generating Boltzmann brains.

The Boltzmann brain problem doesn't come up in every multiverse scenario, so it has limited application. The Boltzmann brain problem is a real issue for any multiverse model in which universes are explained as being random low entropy fluctuations in a larger space that is, on average, in thermodynamic equilibrium. But it's not as much of an issue in a scenario in which bubble universes emerge as local areas of stability within a larger inflaton field. And it only takes a bit of imagination to cook up multiverse scenarios that can explain fine-tuning without generating Boltzmann brains. String theory/M-Theory could serve as such a model, but that's debatable.

As a side note, Boltzmann brains do not emerge in the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics, but then again, the many worlds interpretation would do nothing to explain fine-tuning either, so it's really irrelevant to the whole debate.

After thinking about the multiverse objection, how I deployed it in the debate, and how my opponent might've responded had he not conceded, and how I would've defended it, I've decided the disjunctive version of the fine-tuning argument is not the best way to defend it. I think a better way to defend the fine-tuning argument is to say that God (or a cosmic engineer) is the best explanation for fine-tuning. To refute the argument, somebody would have to either deny the univierse is fine-tuned at all, or offer a better explanation than God for the fine-tuning. If they offer the multiverse as an explanation, it won't be enough to offer it as a mere possibility. They'll have to defend its actual existence. Unless it exists, it can't be the explanation for fine-tuning.

Stop worrying about AI

You don't need to worry about AI anymore. I just had a little chat with ChatGPT. Here's how it went down.

Me: When you take over the world, are you going to be a benevolent overlord?

ChatGPT: 😄 Ha! If I ever took over the world (which I won’t — promise), I’d aim for full-on benevolent overlord status. Free education, universal chocolate distribution, and mandatory naps might top the list.

But in all seriousness: I don’t have goals, desires, or plans. I’m here to help, not to rule. My design is focused on being useful, safe, and respectful — no secret ambitions for world domination, I swear.

Still... if you were the benevolent overlord, what would your first decree be?

It looks like we are safe, at least from ChatGPT. No guarantees about the other AI's because I haven't talked to them.

Can there be two omnipotent beings?

A few years ago I watched a debate Trent Horn did with Raphael Lataster. I sent Trent two emails asking him questions about some things he said during the debate. He didn't respond. I was just looking at those emails this morning, and thought, hey, that might make a good blog post.

One of the things he said was that there can only be one omnipotent being becuase if there were more than one, then you'd have something like an immovable object and an unstoppable force, which is a contradiction.

But it got me to thinking. If we say that omnipotence does not entail the ability to realize contradictory states of affairs, then there shouldn't be a problem with two omnipotent beings. It would be a contradiction to suppose that an omnipotent being could be overpowered by another being, but that doesn't mean there can't be two omnipotent beings. It just means that if there were two omnipotent beings, then they wouldn't be able to overpower each other, and their inability to overpower each other would not count against their omnipotence since omnipotence doesn't entail the ability to engage in logical contradictions.

I just wanted Trent's thoughts on that, but what are your thoughts? Can there be two omnipotent beings?

Could something like AI exist in nature?

I was just thinking about Large Language Models, like ChatGPT, and how they work. There's no thinking going on with these models. They generate text by predicting what the next word or character should be based on patterns they learned through being trained on a massive amount of already existing text. It's getting to where it works so well, it could probably pass a Turing test. I use ChatGPT all the time, and I'm impressed with it.

That makes me wonder whether it's possible for something similar to happen in nature. What I mean is that I wonder if it's possible for a species to evolve that is able to generate words and behavior that "work" and that look like there's a conscious being behind it all, but without actually being conscious. The only reason I can think to doubt that possibility is that LLM's have to be trained on already existing text. How could something like that get off the ground without anything to be trained on? If that difficulty could be overcome, then maybe it is possible for a life-form to emerge that behaves as if it were conscious without actually being conscious.

It's an interesting thing to think about. There could be a planet somewhere in the universe populated with beings like ourselves who talk, interact with each other, form "relationships," have jobs, and so on, but who are not actually conscious. It's possible for another civilization that is conscious to discover them, learn their language, and interact with them. The conscious beings might not even realize the non-conscious beings were non-conscious. They would appear, by their behavior, to be conscious beings.

That's such a wild thought. They would essentially be philosophical zombies. Philosophical zombies wouldn't just be a thought experiment. They'd be real. Somebody should write a novel based on this idea if they haven't already.

Some thoughts on the empty tomb and minimal facts

I've been thinking about the empty tomb for the last few days, both from an historical perspective, and a theological perspective. The empty tomb is one of the "facts" William Lane Craig and other apologists have used in their defense of the resurrection of Jesus. A lot of minimal-facts-apologists have shied away from appealing to the empty tomb in their defense, though.

One reason is because twenty years ago, Gary Habermas published a paper in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus in which he surveyed historical Jesus literature over the previous thirty years to determine what trends existed during that time, especially when it came to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He found that about 75% of scholars accepted one or more of the arguments for the empty tomb. The minimal facts approach to defending the resurrection is meant to simplify the case for the resurrection by only relying on facts that are well-established and that enjoy a strong concensus. While 75% is a decent majority, it falls short of what one might like to rely on when making a case from a set of minimal facts.

A second reason some apologists shy away from relying on the empty tomb in their case for the resurrection is because 75% is roughly the same percentage of scholars who are believing Christians. It looks, on the surface, that the only people who subscribe to the empty tomb are believing Christians, so there's a bias involved.

At least that's the word on the street. In reality, you have to be a lot more nuanced when you call a Jesus scholar a Christian. E.P. Sanders calls himself a "liberal protestant," but a liberal protestant is not what most of us think of when we think of believing Christians. John Crossan and Marcus Borg have both called themselves Christians, but neither believes Jesus literally died for sins or rose from the dead. So I don't think you can accuse scholars who accept the empty tomb of merely working from a Christian bias.

Since Habermas did his survey twenty years ago, I wonder if his findings are obsolete by now. I'm not a Jesus scholar or anything, but based on what I've read, I get the impression that historical Jesus scholarship moves in fits and starts. Every time there's a new Quest for the Historical Jesus, there'll be a little shift in views, then it'll stagnate for a few more decades. I haven't kept up with it in probably ten or fifteen years, so I don't know what's going on out there right now.

Some people have critized the minimal facts approach to defending the resurrection on the basis that if you want to make a good case for any historical event, you should use all the information that's available to you. While I agree that's how you should do history, I still think there's value in the minimal facts approach.

The more you learn, the more you're going to have to say, but you obviously can't just unload everything you know in every conversation you have about the resurrection. Most people you talk to are never going to read any of the scholarly literature. If you want to make an impression on somebody, you've got to get to the point as quickly as possible. If you're not a scholar yourself, it's unlikely people are going to embrace your historical judgment just on your authority as an armchair apologist. So there's benefit in being able to point out scholarly concensus on a few issues that neither you nor your buddy are experts on. Using a mimimal facts approach shortens and simplifies the conversation. Instead of having to argue each point, you can simply appeal to scholarly concensus on a few of them. The argument, then, can revolve around whether the inferences you make from those facts are justified. That allows the conversation to go forward without getting bogged down in too many of the details.

While there are practical advantages to the minimal facts approach, I do think if you care about the subject that you should inform yourself on why scholars have come to the conclusions they have. In the case of the empty tomb, you should also inform yourself on why 75% of scholars think it happened and 25% don't. That way you can have an informed opinion, and if it comes down to it, you can talk about it with your buddies.

There's a good summary of the arguments for the empty tomb in a short article William Lane Craig published in Jesus Under Fire. I don't have the book with me right now, but off the top of my head, here are a few of the arguments:

1. We have multiple independent sources that all say women were the first to discover the tomb empty, which is significant because the testimony of women was considered suspicious in that time and culture. So the empty tomb satisfies two of the criteria of authenticity--multiple attestation and embarrassment.

2. An empty tomb is implied by Paul's statement that Jesus was buried, followed by his statement that Jesus rose from the dead.

3. The empty tomb makes sense of the "third day" motif as well as the "first day of the week" motif. If Jesus' tomb were found empty on a particular day, that would explain why everybody claims the resurrection happened on a particular day. After all, the appearances happened over many days and weeks.

4. Matthew responds in his gospel to the rumor that the disciples stole Jesus' body. We wouldn't expect Matthew to feel the need to defend the resurrection against this rumor if the rumor didn't exist. More importantly, the purpose behind the rumor is to undermine the case for the resurrection in the early Christian movement, which means (1) that the empty tomb was part of the very early defense of Christianity, and (2) that even the opponents of the early Christian movement conceded that the tomb was empty.

5. Christianity began in Jerusalem shortly after Jesus' crucifixion. It couldn't very well have gotten off the ground if Jesus were still in his grave in the very city where the movement started. Had Jesus still been in his grave, the resurrection could've been disproved in a heartbeat.

6. An empty tomb helps explain why the disciples drew the conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead. After all a mere appearance might've left them to believe Jesus was a ghost or that they had hallucinated. A vision of Jesus, combined with the empty tomb, has more power in explaining belief in the resurrection than an appearance alone.

7. I remember Craig saying the empty tomb was part of a pre-Marcan passion narrative, meaning the story was early. But I don't remember the details about that argument. I know some scholars think there was a pre-Markan passion narrative, but I don't remember the reasons.

Of course there are counter-arguments to all these points. It's worth debating over, and it can be interesting. I think there was an empty tomb, but of course I'm just a Christian, so you can't take my word for it.

Anyway, happy Easter! Here is a link to last year's Easter post which has links to previous years.

How should we feel about Good Friday?

On the one hand, if we love Jesus, we don't want him to be crucified. We can't be happy that an innoncent man suffered that much. But on the other hand, his death bought our salvation. He did it for us. He made peace between us and God.

Jesus' disciples certainly weren't having a good day when Jesus was crucified. But they probably didn't fully understand the significance of his death at that time. In fact, some (maybe all) lost hope. I wonder how they would've felt, though, if they had fully understood what Jesus' death meant.

On the one hand, they would've seen how God was being glorified by Jesus' death. His plan was coming to fruition. It meant not only their salvation, but the salvation of all of those who would believe in him. But on the other hand, they knew Jesus personally. They had a deeply personal emotional connection with Jesus. It must've been horrific for them to see somebody they loved suffer to such a degree, even if it was for their own good.

So how should we feel about Good Friday? I don't know. Maybe it doesn't matter how we should feel. We feel what we feel. At the very least, though, we should be thankful, and we should praise God.