Christian apologist and former cold case detective Jay Warner Wallace says it's important for theists
to understand circumstantial evidence, which is when an observation or argument supports a conclusion
not directly, but by way of an additional logical inference. Wallace notes that
it's rare and sometimes even impossible to have direct evidence of events in the distant
past, and that circumstantial evidence can be just as relevant and just as powerful
as direct evidence, and he's right as long as that inferential link can be
established. As atheists were often accused of dismissing evidence for the existence of a
god without even considering it. But before making that accusation, ask yourself,
have you established the inference that connects your evidence to your conclusion. If you
can't justify that inference, then you don't have evidence and you just have a
claim and you should be dismissed. But if you can justify that inference,
that means you're right. You do have evidence for your God. And if
you're right, we want to hear it because we want to be right too.
So here's your big chance to make your case, because the show is
starting right now. Yes, yes, we do want to be right also,
and that is why that was an amazing, amazing intro. Thank you
Scott Dicky for joining me today, everybody, thank you for tuning in.
This is talk Hethan. Today is Sunday, June thirtieth, and we are
live. I am Jimmy Junior, your host again. The great Scott Dicky
is with me, the world renowned mathematician. I don't know if he's well
renowned, yeah, but he's definitely ACA renowned, and dude, I'm renowned
in my own mind. Well, you know, I love working with you
and I'm so glad to have you here today. Folks, today is well
I already said the date. But this is Talking Than a product of the
Atheist Community of Austin. We are a five oh one C three nonprofit organization
dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and my
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We do have open lines, so get your calls in now at five
one two nine, two four to two, or from your computer for those
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All right, it is showtime. Scott how the heck are you.
I'm doing well. I'm excited to be here with with you. Jimmy.
I appreciate you having me on the show. You know, you and I
have been on the nonprofits for for for a little while now, and I
always love working with you. I always come I always come away knowing something
that I didn't know when I came into it. So so I'm looking forward
to today. Well, I appreciate that, I say, the feelings mutual.
You know, we have some good discussions. We're going to have some
good discussions today. Uh, Scott, I don't want to waste any time
we got Uh we got a caller, who's call I want to take?
So sure? Let you all right? Yeah? Yeah, So we have
got Mike. He him from New York. We're coming to you. Wants
to talk about DNA and the existence of God. So, Mike, you
are on the air with Jimmy and Scott. Yeah, Mike, what is
up? Hey? Mike? Hey? Are you guys? Very well?
Very well? How are you? And how can we help you? More
importantly? Fine, that was the first thing I was going to ask you.
How can I help you? I don't know, I mean, hey,
look, I guess I'm always looking for help in some way. But
you called today. You wanted to talk to us. What's the point you
want to make. I can't remember exactly what the statement was, but I
had something to do with believing in God, and I said, DNA is
all the proof that you ever need, and I'll give you a reason for
that. I'm sixty three years old. About five years ago, I was
starting to have some physical issues and I ended up going to the emergency room
and they told me my blood pressure was two forty over one twenty. And
that doctor said, you've never seen anybody still alive with those types of numbers.
But it turns out I have a blood cancer that's caused by a genetic
mutation of what's called the Jack two protein. So I went to Memorial Sloan
Kettering in New York City. I met with a specialist and talked with him
put me on medication. So I decided to do some studying of DNA and
the genetic mutation. Well, I have, as many people know, all
of your genetic information is basically three billion base pairs of information are in every
single cell of your body. And we all know about the double helix.
But I didn't really know how DNA actually worked and how it did its job.
Having Ama Lyman, I'm not going to tell you I'm some type of
scientists, but looking at how the DNA works from a translation point of view,
from transcription, elongation, ribosomes, these molecularly molecular machines. After reviewing
that, I came away with the impression that this is actual proof that there's
a designer. I'm a software developer. I've been a software developer for four
years. The way that DNA works is like a program. I mean,
when it's making a protein, it says there are codeons to say, start
making this protein at this juncture and keep keep compiging and translating until you get
to this juncture. All right, Well, Mike, I'm gonna I'm gonna
jump in right here. I think that you and I appreciate the call and
thank you for all the info. Yeah, I want to just keep the
conversation flowing. I'm not trying to cut you off and be disrespectful, but
I think I think that you have laid out the things that have convinced you
that God is a creator, that there is a creator God, And you
have basically said you know. Yeah, the studies that you've done and the
things that you've come up with have have led you to that point, and
so you've made your claim. Scott, if you don't mind, I'll let
you go ahead and take a first stab at responding to Mike. Sure,
sure thing, Mike, thanks for your excuse me, Thanks for your call.
I appreciate appreciate your calling in and sharing this with us. I suppose
the first thing that I would ask you is it appears that you are amazed
at the complexity and are and amazed at the seemingly step by step, and
you talked about software development. I have a little bit of a software background,
and in my own in my own life, I'm curious, how do
you make the jump from it appears like it was designed to the conclusion that
it was designed. I don't excuse me. I don't know if you heard
the opening to the show, but we were talking about making the inference.
How do we make the inference from here we have this thing, to making
the claim that this thing, the existence of this thing actually entails the existence
of a god. And so so, to restate my my question again,
how do you make that jump from this sure appears to I mean, you've
you've talked about how you weren't an expert in the field. How does it
How do you jump from it appears to be designed to me to making the
conclusion that it was designed A couple of things, And I'll give you a
real quick analogy. If you and I were to walk through the desert desert
southwest the United States, one hundred miles from anywhere and anybody. If we
came across a four x four post with a metal box on top with the
words US Mail imposed on it, and I told you, look what happens
with wind and erosion and rain over hundreds of years, you would think I
was a lunatic, would you not? But that is just not You would
clearly would know that there was somebody put that there and made it. But
that doesn't answer my question. That doesn't answer my question. My question was
how do you make the jump from it appears to be designed to it is
designed. If you want to ask me about the mailbox, I can give
you an answer to that because we know people that design mailboxes. We've seen
factories that make mailboxes, and so we didn't discover mailboxes. And from there
come to the conclusion that we have factories that make mailboxes. It was the
other way around. We knew about the designers first, and then we were
able to make that conclusion about the mailbox. And so that's what I would
say about about the mailbox. There. Can you do that same thing if
this is an argument for God? Are you assuming God coming into it?
Because if that's the case, it's not. It's kind of a you know,
you're begging the question, of course, but can you make that case?
Can you make that connection from your evidence to your conclusion. Well,
here's my number one reason that I believe that is a god, because,
okay, it is so complex. Let's take a biogenesis okay, the ability
to create life from non life. Scientists have been trying to do that for
decades now. But hold on, hold on, Mike, Mike, Mike,
Mike, let me just let me just interject here for a second.
You you are now completely changing the subject, right, You're you're introducing a
completely new topic, and you're deflecting from what Scott is talking about. Okay,
so you are trying to advocate for this idea that, because DNA is
so complex, that it must have a creator, and what Scott's question was,
how do you get from the fact that it's complex to the fact that
or to the bulief that because it's complex, there must be a creator?
Right, it's an awfully big gap. To introduce other scientific problems that have
not been solved, other hypotheses that don't have anything to do with what we're
talking about, is a deflection. You have to stay on course. And
so your claim was that DNA is so complex and that your research led you
to believe that there is a god that created everything? How do you get
there from merely looking at the structure of DNA purely mathematics. That's a great
answer, because go ahead, so lay it down the math for us here.
What's the I am a math literate, so feel free to get into
as much detail as you like. What's the mathematics of DNA that leads you
to the conclusion that there's a god? Okay? The proteins are the workforce
of the human body. They do every function. A small protein is made
up of one hundred and fifty subunits tie chain. Each one of those subunits
is made up of one to twenty amino acids. There are twenty that's it.
So if you were to take a polypeptie chain, and if you could
do this on your calculator, it's going to be one of twenty, and
the next one's going to be one of twenty, and the next one's going
to be one of twenty. Take twenty times twenty times twenty and just do
it about eight ten times, and you're already up over a trillion combination for
ten let alone one hundred and fifty subunits. Okay, so you multiplied a
bunch of twenties and you have a number. How does that relate to your
arguments? Sure? At the last of my argument is that evolution simply cannot
occur. You cannot have enough chance occurring and in a lifetime, in the
lifetime of this universe to do the things that you expect an organism to change.
To my feeling is that those the DNA elements were already designed in And
is there adaptation? I totally agree that there's adaptation. We get that that's
your conclusion. But what I'm asking you is how do you come to that
conclusion. It seems to me like you're saying there wasn't enough time for this
to happen naturally. Okay, So Let's assume that that's true. Let's say
that our understanding of evolution requires a certain amount of time for DNA to develop,
and let's say we haven't had enough, haven't had that much time.
My question still stands, Okay, how can you come to the conclusion that
there was a creator here just based off of what you've said so far?
So make that link? So at best, at best, what you've said
so far, at best, it would show that evolution can't happen. Even
if we were to assume everything that you've said about mathematics, although you didn't
present much as far as mathematics are concerned, how can you still make that
You still haven't done that last most important steps? How do you make that
leap? There? By the absolute complexity? The complexity I mean you have
you have twenty trillion cells in your body. In each cell in a mammal,
there are ten million ribosomes bike making proof. So are you saying that
complexity requires a designer or that complexity can't arrive naturally? I'm saying no,
it cannot write this type of vaultity cannot write what you now, you have
something that you need to justify what you're what you're doing is invoking the god
of the gaps fallacy. Basically, you don't understand how it happened, and
therefore you conclude that something beyond your understanding, like a god or a deity,
must have done that thing. But we have no pathway to arrive at
that conclusion. All we have, at the bare minimum is a bunch of
really complex human DNA, right, because that's what you're talking about. But
you could take DNA from any sample set of the biological world. Let's just
take one sample set. It's really complex, and your conclusion is because it's
complex, therefore a god must have created it. But that is not the
way anything works. No standard of evidence in anything else that we do as
people works that way. We can't just guess because we don't know the answer.
And that is what you are doing. Well, Listen, I tried
to break it down and make it simple for you by talking about a biogenesis,
because we go ahead and say it. Go ahead, go ahead and
bring up go ahead and make your point about a biogenesis. Because you tried
to talk about a biogenesis. But what you were also doing at that same
time was deflecting answering Scott's question, Uh, and you were, which you're
still doing, by the way, and you're still deflecting that, you're still
avoiding answering my question. Sorry, Jimmy, go ahead. No, No,
that's fine, that's fine. How do I make I want and I
want him to answer the first question before we start moving on. If you
want to talk about biogenesis, at least at least concede that you don't have
a pathway to arrive at God. My pathway to arrive at God is the
complexity. You can't have that kind of design, but we do. It's
not a design. Know, if we grant the complexity, Okay, if
we grant the complexity, how do you then make the next step to therefore
God? Are you saying all complex things must come from a God, must
come from a designer? But if I were to pick one hundred random digits
in a row, the chance of that happening is one over ten to one
hundred, right, and so it's extremely unlikely. Yet it just happened,
and not by any design, just by randomness. Random things happen all the
time. Most of the things that you see every day all the time are
ridiculously unlikely. People win the lottery every day, and it's not because it's
a likely thing. It's still an unlikely thing, but it's the entire scenario
that contributes to those to those things happening. Same thing here when we're talking
about things developing in nature. Yeah, there's all of these very unlikely things
happening. That doesn't mean that they can't happen. In fact, you could
also you could argue that they must happen, that rare things have to happen.
If everybody, if we have a million people and they all buy a
lottery ticket and we pick one of them at random, we've just guaranteed that
a one in a million thing will happen, and it won't matter who who
wins. They all have a one in a million chance of winning. That's
a guarantee that a one in a million thing will happen. And you know
what, if I do it again tomorrow, it'll happen again tomorrow. So
the unlikeliness doesn't necessarily lead to design. Unlikeliness just leads to unlikeliness. Ahead,
Mike, your thoughts back to why I called Okay, why I called
this because I have cancer? Well, hold on a sec hold on a
secon all right, I am an n genetic mutations are cancer. They are
they are. I do not favor the organ is. Listen, listen,
I am you're unlike I want to. I want to be very clear about
something. My cold on and I'm gonna just give me a chance to talk
so I don't have to use the mute button. Please. I hate that.
Uh. Look, I'm really sorry that you have to go through that.
Okay. I just want to make that clear that we are not insensitive,
and I appreciate that you're open about that. That, however, is
not grounds to land on God. You know. I mean if you called,
you didn't call because you have cancer, right, and I mean that
very respectfully. You called to say that the complexity of DNA is proof that
God exists. Okay, And we've been spending quite a few minutes now just
trying to get you to explain to us how you arrive there, and it
seems like your answer is, well, it's so complex we don't understand it,
therefore it must be God. But think about all the things we didn't
understand before. Right, There were plagues, right that people used to get
sick and die, and they thought it was witchcraft from other groups. They
thought it was witchcraft from within their own groups. They thought it was God's
will you name it? Because they didn't understand biology, they didn't understand germs,
they didn't understand hygiene, and so when people died, they didn't under
stand something and they said, well, it must be God. Here we
are and now we're in twenty twenty four instead of back in the Middle Ages
or even one hundred years ago, and we're still having these same conversations just
because we don't understand how something so complex can come into being, and we
can't understand everything about it. We don't ascribe that to a being that we
can't define, right, And you said that we can't replicate this DNA,
so therefore that it must be unique in that it's God. Well, I
would challenge you that you can't replicate God. I mean, you can't demonstrate
it, you can't summon it, you can't show it in any way,
we cannot measure it. We have no idea where it exists or how to
test it. But what we do have is DNA, and what we do
have is evidence for evolution. And so you're saying that those things are impossible,
but to the contrary, they are quite possible. What's impossible is demonstrating
God. And so here we have this conundrum. Right, you claim that
God is responsible for all these things, but you can't prove it, and
so now go ahead and prove it. If there is no God, it
should be child's play for us to do what DNA does and create life from
non life. It would be child's play. Why did you say should in
there justify the use of that word should? You said it should be child's
play for us to do it if there's no God. Why do you think
that should be the case. There's a lot of because with the supercomputers we
have today, with what everything that we think we know, we ought to
be able to replicate the primary primordial soup that you say, well, nobody
was involved in the ear. This all happened because of the elements, right
that you're just repeating what you said before. You said we should be able
to do it, and then I said, explain why we should be able
to do it, and you said, well, we ought to be able
to do it. Changing the words doesn't justify your use of the words.
Okay, why do you think that we should be able You're saying that we
can't do something that happened. Why do you think we should be able to
do that? We can't. We have attempted. There are many scientists that
have you said, you said we should be able to I want you to
just I want you to justify just at least one thing that you're saying today.
Why do you think that we should be able to do that? Listen,
we're talking to this PRIMORDI. That's not answering my question. I'll ask
you one more time, why do you think we should be able to do
that? Let me reframe, Let me reframe. What's what's going on here?
Sorry, Mike, let me reframe this here, and I want to
make sure I get what you're saying here first. Okay, are you saying
that this DNA could not have come about naturally? Right? You're so you're
saying we can exclude natural causes and so therefore it must be God. Is
that what you're saying? Yes, that there is a designer? Okay,
So if there is no God, could God have designed DNA? If there
is no God? Could if there's no God, could could DNA be God
designed? If there's no God? How could DNA be God designed? If
there's no God? That's what I'm asking you if I don't, Are you
saying that it couldn't? Are you saying that a God that doesn't exist cannot
design any DNA? Is that what you're saying. I'm saying that God does
exist and did create DNA. If God does not exist, can God create
DNA? It's a simple answer. We all know the answer. But I
want to hear you if you agree, can a God that doesn't exist design
any DNA? No? Okay, good, I agree? I agree God?
So how did God get on your list of possible explanations for DNA?
How did God get on your list? Because you're saying, I have this
list of possible things. We can eliminate all these natural possibilities if we're if
we're, we're granting you that that we can. Okay, so that's for
the sake of argument, we'll go we'll stipulate that if we can eliminate these
natural causes off of our list of possible explanations, you're saying that leaves just
God. How did God get on the list, Because, as you just
agreed, if God doesn't exist, then God can't be on that list.
So either you're assuming that God exists, which begs the question or some other
reason, how did God get on your list of possible explanations? To me,
it is clearly designed, which implies a designer to you, to you,
and that is a big distinction. That's a big distinction, Mike.
So you tell you what meant to me, But that's not what you said
in the beginning. Because what you said is that DNA is the only proof
that we will ever need, and I assume that Scott and I are included
in that we. The thing is, though both of us are somewhat educated,
I've considered myself to be somewhat educated. I mean, I'm not a
biologist or a scientist by any means, but I think I've absorbed enough information
about the natural world to understand why evolution and why DNA, or at least
how it formed the way that it did, and how evolution took place.
None of that provides for a God. In fact, we can separate the
idea of God completely from what we understand about the world, and we still
have the world exactly the same, unchanged right. God really fulfills no necessary
niche whatsoever. There is not a natural process that happens in the world that
God and only God fills. It's just this kind of outlier, right,
It's this thing, this idea that's floating around out there that people turn to
and say, well, how about God as an option? And that's what
Scott's asking you. You know, how did you arrive at God being your
choice? Out of all the other things that could have led to the development
of DNA? Right, all of the natural processes over fourteen billion or four
billion years, right, that could have led to the development of DNA,
You chose this if you will invisible what I would say, imaginary character that
you cannot test, communicate with, You cannot demonstrate this thing that's almost impossible
to show. Oh that's your your conclusion. You also seem to have have
eliminated any possible natural explanation that we don't know about yet, or that we
can't know about, or that we don't understand. Okay, so you're excluding
those, but you still have God and you still haven't justified putting God on
your list. You know, this happens a lot with these style of arguments,
these these what else could it be? Type of arguments, And there's
really two parts to what else could it be? Argument? It involves coming
up with some possible explanations for the you know, for the phenomenon, and
then eliminating the possibilities that you know it can't be. Okay, And so
there's two. You've you've done some of the second, or at least you
say you've done some of the second. If we grant that you've done some
of the second, maybe some of the processes that we currently are aware of
can't explain the existence of the DNA, even if we go in hulehog here
and we say, what if we could prove that evolution could not have generated
DNA? Okay, you still haven't told me. How could God be on
the list? How do you know God could be an explanation? Because,
as you agreed, God can only be an explanation if God exists. So
either you're assuming God exists or you have some other criteria for getting God onto
that list. And so that's what I would love it if you would just
answer at least one question for us today. How did God get on your
list of things that could have made DNA? Keep answering it, and you
keep taking I'm not answering it's answer, say more time, say yeah,
give it to us. I mean, if I can't explain, and if
somebody else can't demonstrate to me that they can reproduce any natural occurrence that you
talked about about all them natural things, Okay, we should be able to
replicate a natural thing from Okay, So what you're talking about crossing things off
the list? Okay, what I'm asking is how did God get on the
list? Crossing things off the list does nothing to add explanations to the possibilities.
Okay, crossing natural if you if we crossed off all possible natural explanations,
somehow we would end up with an I don't know, an empty list.
The only way we could come to the conclusion of a god is if
we know that God could design DNA, which you know God can't do if
God doesn't exist. And so again, are you assuming God exists or is
there some other criteria? The oh I can't think of how it's going to
work is not going to fly here. Okay, you have to cross natural
explanations off. You still have to get that God onto the list. How
does that happen? You asked me when I call Your producer asked me,
when I called it, am I theist? I said, I'm as I
grew up. I grew up going to church. But you know, I
always thought, well, you know what, maybe I'm believing in the Bible
is not the truth because we do have DNA, we do have science,
we do have all these things that maybe have proven that the Bible was incorrect.
But it says in the Bible God created the haven't done there created?
Man? Okay, I'm telling you, so you aren't coming into this with
some God belief then, so so perhaps and correct, please correct. I
don't want to mischaracterize you, So please correct me if I'm if I'm mistaken
here. It sounds to me like you're saying that you are coming into this
assuming that a God exists. And so if that's the case, if you're
trying to prove, if you're trying to provide evidence that God exists, and
the only way you can get to that evidence is by first assuming that a
God does exist. Do you think that's a good, solid, reasonable way
to come to a conclusion. Look, my conclusion is that based on the
DNA that I observed and how it works, my initial believer in God was
solidified. Let's put it that way, all right. So, Mike,
you you because you as a child were brought Oh listen, listen. You
as a child, right since the earliest days that you can remember, were
brought up being told by people you loved and trusted and protected you that God
was real and God was responsible for everything. You have absorbed a lifetime of
programming that confirms your suspicions, and that was further confirmed by the fact that
you went through a traumatic event and needed to make sense of it. And
I think what you keep coming up with is this confirmation bias that reaffirms what
you have been told by all the people that you love and trust and have
related to throughout your life. I mean, this is a very social and
cultural construct to believe in this kind of thing. But really, in the
end, what you're telling us is that your whole life you've been told that
God is the author of everything we know, the creator of all of the
most complex things. And here you have a complex thing. It must be
God. And what Scott and I are simply saying is that that evidence is
not good enough for us, because that's not evidence, that's just a guess.
It's a warm, fuzzy feeling that really doesn't do anything for the argument
that God exists. And so that is how I'm gonna actually end this call.
I think that this was a really good conversation. We've got other callers
on the line. Uh, Mike, thanks a lot for calling us.
I thought that that was a great, great exchange, And thank you Scott
for being so involved in that call. That was great. I just want
to throw in one more one more thing about Mike here. And and Mike,
I'm not I'm not saying that I think you're an unreasonable person. I'm
not saying that you're uh, you know, being negligent in your reasoning.
I'm just saying that I just want to I was I just want to know
do you think if that's a good way to come up with something that's true.
We can understand, uh why you might think that, but we want
to know epistemologically is it? Is it justified? Is that justified belief?
We know that we can come up with beliefs and and I know, I
know Mike's off now, but I just want Mike to think about this,
if he's still listening here. Is that a good way to come up with
a conclusion. We understand that you came into this with some God belief already,
and you know, there's nothing wrong with that as far as your character
is concerned. But just think about think about that, think about the baggage
that you bring in to the discussion. Does that taint or color or tint
how you proceed from there? And think about that. Yeah, for sure,
I thought that was a great exchange, Mike. You you were a
really honest caller, really gave us an opportunity to say what we wanted to
say. I hope you felt like you were heard, although man, I
think you could have answered the questions just a little bit better. We were
kind of dragging on there a little bit, but nonetheless, we love you,
Mike, if you're watching, but we want to move on, you
know, Scott, we got to do talk Ethan to me. We have
to get this out there because we had We have our viewers out there answering,
taking the time to put their thoughts out there on the interwebs, and
we're going to read them and let's go. So last week we asked what
is the proof that God hates you? And here are our top three answers.
So number three comes from James Larimer. The proof that God hates me
is that he wrote it on my heart. What more proof would I need?
Well, yeah, that's a good ja no, you know, I
mean apparently everybody has something written by God on their heart, don't they.
It looks like James is uh, James's got something different written than the rest
of us are supposed to have. But a fool would deny that. So
yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you James for that number two x million.
God hates me because in order to be saved, I have to believe
in Him, which seems to be predicated upon me believing in stories about talking
animals, which I cannot do. No, I got you there, Like,
that's a that's a difighting line for me too. I don't know about
you, Scott, but you know, people always tell me like, and
then I try not to be so insulting, you know, because my mind
goes there immediately. Sometimes those people will say, well, it's okay for
me to have my opinion, and I go, yeah, but you know
your opinion is also that a talking snake is probable, right that donkeys there?
Yeah? So uh man, we just you got to get packaged deal.
It's a package deal. You take it all or none. That's the
way it works. That's right, that's right. And then number one,
Cilia Gray, proof that God hates me. This is a deep one.
This is a deep one. God gave me a male body when I'm supposed
to be a female, and that caused me to suffer a lifetime of intolerance
from my conservative Christian family, in addition to the gender dysphoria and depression that
could only be treated by expensive transgender healthcare. Gee, thanks God, you
colossal jerk. And then she goes on to say, nothing wrong with being
a male. The problem is that it's not just me. Uh so,
yeah, I I Hey, Celia Gray, thank you so much for putting
that out there for everybody. And I'm sorry that you had to deal with
that kind of that kind of struggle. We love you though. And it's
still Pride Month, although every month is Pride month. I mean, let's
let's be honest, Pride month. Pride rights are human rights, right exactly.
But yeah, in honor of Pride Month and and people like you,
Celia Gray, I wore this head. Scott's got his little rainbow design on
his shirt going, and you're among friends here. But I want to thank
everybody who supported us and who continues to support the ACA. Thank you for
putting your thoughts there in the comments and letting us read them. Thank you
to the LGBTQI a community. Unlike God, we can't really thank God for
much. So anyway, next week we have got a new prompt, Scott,
You're gonna have to answer this one first as hit me with it.
Yeah, so when you go to Hell, who is the first person you
want to talk to? That's an excellent question and important question if there is
in fact a Hell. So it's best to be prepared right just in case.
And this might be a little bit before your time, Jimmy, but
the first person that I would want to talk to when I got to Hell
would be Julie McCoy. And for those of you of a certain age,
you might remember a little show called The Love Boat, and Julie McCoy was
the cruise director on the Love Boat and she had all of the hookups.
And so if I'm in Hell, I want somebody that can get me an
air conditioned room. I want somebody that knows where all the best buffets are.
I want to know somebody who knows the best spot to do some sun
tanning on that lake of fire. I want to talk to Julie McCoy.
First, Yeah, I think that sounds reasonable. I mean, she might
know, you know, how do we know she's in hell? Though she
knows, she knows everybody. Did she do something to land in Hell?
I means, what's going on there? We're talking about a fictional place and
a fictional character. So I think we're allowed a certain amount of literary leeway
here. Well, you know, nothing about the question suggests that you can't.
You can't request to speak to somebody out of hell. It just says,
when you go to Hell, who's the first person you want to talk
to? Vote. I'd invoke Jesus, I would write. I mean,
I'd be like, hey, dude, do you remember that time I was
baptized when I was a kid. I thought I was saved. I thought
I was safe. What am I doing here? But anyway, Yeah,
Scott, thank you very much. That is a very creative, very good
answer, And we are looking forward to the answers for next week. So
folks, remember to put your answer to talk ethen to me for next week
in the comments section of today's show after recording is done. And what I
want to do right now is go to the people that make it all happen.
Okay, this is not just me and Scott here making magic happens.
There's other people involved. Man, there's a lot of other people. Awesome,
the crew. So let's go to the crew. Yes, crew,
Yeah, look at all those people all right? Loving the shirt? Jonathan
great? Great? All right, yeah, so part proud to be part
of the team. Here. We are going to move on to another call,
though, I hope everybody feels heard and seen and feels like they got
an adequate shout out, because now we're going to Annie in Canada. So
Annie's calling says or asks, how can we infer from nature a designer?
And so it sounds like she is calling about the call that we just had.
I'm going to talk to Annie right now. All right, Annie,
you are on with Jimmy Ence Scott. How are you? I'm good?
Are you? We're doing great? We're doing great. Happy you called?
What's the what's the point you're trying to make today? So what I want
to start off with is by outlining that if a machine or a system has
the qualities of design, why can't we infer that they're designed? I'm not
sure what you mean, Like, if a machine has the qualities of design.
Why cannot we infer the machine is designed? I can infer a machine
is designed? Is that what you're I mean, I know machines are designed,
but the sell, for example, is a machine. So if well,
what are these properties that you're talking about? Give us some of these
properties that you're looking for. What are the properties of being designed? I
suspect that Jimmy knows that a machine is designed. But because he probably knows
some machinists, he's probably knows some engineers. He probably maybe a scene of
factory or two in his life, he kind of knows that that kind of
thing happens. And so we didn't just walk into it. We didn't just
see a car and wonder where that came from and say, you know what,
there must be a car manufacture somewhere in the world here. It usually
works the other way. Usually we find out we know about these the people
maybe our parents design things, or maybe people we know, or maybe you
know, somebody comes in to you know, talk about a career day at
school or something. We learn about people that do these jobs and they make
these things. So so we know ahead of time about the about the people
that are designing and From there we can we can come to the conclusion that
these things were designed. But that's not necessarily the case in the universe.
So what are some of those properties? How can we determine ahead of time
whether or not something was designed? What are the properties we're looking for?
So the properties of design? There are five quars complexity and specificity, Complexity
and specificity, Okay? Is that one property or is that two separate ones?
That's okay, so I'll number them. Then that was one. So
the first one is complexity and specificity, okay, second one is purpose,
The second one is purpose and function, the third one is patterns and regularities,
and the fourth one is irreducible complexity. And the fifth one is contained
information. So if we find machines or systems in nature that have these qualities,
then why can't we infer they were designed? Sorry? What was the
fifth one? Again? Please? And I'm just jotting these down here?
Contains information information? I could answer that easy. I mean, we have
no reason to believe there's a designer because there's no evidence of that designer,
plain and simple. We have evidence of how hold on, hold on,
Annie, we let you talk. We let you talk. Annie there's no
evidence of a designer, and we have plenty of evidence to show a long
timeline of how life became so complex. It wasn't always complex. I mean,
would your argument be applicable to the most non complex single celled life forms
that, well, they still exist today, but were the only kinds of
life form many many, many millions or billions of years ago. Would your
argument still be applicable then we still would not have evidence of a creator then,
or a designer then, Nor do we have that evidence now. So
again you're just guessing. You're filling in a knowledge gap with something that sounds
good to you. Well, let me just point out that the question is
not about the designer. The question is about the natural machine or system.
If it has qualities of design, most or all of them, then why
can't we infer that that machine or system wasn't also designed? Now you're saying
most or all? So how many of these are required to come to the
conclusion of design? How many out of these five properties you gave us what
would be the bare minimum? And it doesn't matter, let's just stick with
all? Oh, okay, okay, So, how can you determine a
purpose of something? Well, we can determine what if you said if something
has purpose and function. If something has purpose and functions, that was one
of your properties. And then you said, if we're missing any of these
properties, then we can't conclude it was designed. So how do you come
to the conclusion that something has a purpose? Okay? I did not say.
I did not say that if something is missing these qualities, we cannot
conclude they are designed. I'm saying, for the sake of argument, let's
just talk about machines that have all of these qualities. Okay. My question
was how many of these properties are required? Because you're saying you're coming to
the conclusion of design because you're being led there by some sort of inference.
We want to make sure that we're satisfying the requirements for that inference. You're
saying, if X, then designed, So we want I want to narrow
down what is that X. So, out of these five properties, how
many and which of them are required for something to be designed. I'm not
I am talking about machines that have all of these qualities. All right,
So let's say, well, I'm going to do this, I'm going to
do this, I'm going to do this. Annie all right. So let's
take the human heart. Okay, we'll talk about heart, all right.
Let's say that the heart has all of the qualities that you just laid out,
all right, so complexity and specificity. Sure, I would say the
heart is complex and it specifically does some things. Okay, purpose and function?
Uh, that's where you kind of lose me, right, I would
say to Scott, you know, or I would I would counter or build
on what Scott had to say. How do you determine something has a purpose?
You know? But let's just say, for argument's sake that the go
ahead, say go ahead, Sorry, we can determine whether or not what
the purpose and function of a heart is when it stopped or removed? What
about? Okay? So so if if the heart has all of these things,
though, you would say that it meets the qualifications of a machine that
has a designer? Right? Sure? Okay, what if somebody's heart doesn't
work? If somebody is born with a heart and the heart does not function
and they die, did they have a designer? We only know that.
We only know that the heart isn't functioning because are supposed to function. So
that's a nonsensical question. It's not nonsensical. It's it's not nonsensical. It's
not nonsensical because that would have had a design. Like, so all of
the hearts that work, right, they had a designer, Okay, and
then we have a heart that doesn't work. What happened to that one?
So I'm not talking about specific hearts. I'm talking about the heart as a
as a machine. So it's the concept heart. It's not specific hearts in
individual people facing different challenges. The heart as a concept, as a machine,
it has all the qualities of design, regardless of whether or not there
are hearts based on that concept, based on that blueprint that don't function,
right, But it's easy to kind of set that boundary there. But what
I'm saying is we have an example here of something that you're claiming is a
machine, but it actually doesn't meet the criteria of a machine, right I
am. I am of the mindset that pard it's a broken machine. So
it's still seen it's just a broken machine, a machine that doesn't function,
Okay, and then I guess it would render its purpose absence as well.
Right, So I mean, we have this thing that you're claiming as a
machine, but we can still have it without having these properties. Right,
So my question is, how do you determine whether the design or designed one
versus the other? Because the only reason we know what a dysfunctional heart looks
like is because we have functional hearts. So you're asking me, how do
we know what? How do we know that darkness is? Or sorry,
no, no, listen, Annie, I'm just going to stick with my
original question you are trying to I'm talking about the heart as a contract,
as a machine, not as individual hearts with their own problems, systematic problems
like things break, things are not built correctly. We know that things break
and are not built correctly because you know what the heart should look like.
We know it's and well, I would want to be able to talk to
the designer about that. How do I do that? How do I figure
out where the designer is? I mean, you've given me these properties that
indicate something as a machine, and therefore, if it's a machine, it
has a designer. Right. Initially I told you that there was no evidence
of a designer, right, but your evidence is that, well, we
have these five properties that would indicate a designer, and I'm telling you that
these properties are not consistent. These properties are very imperfect. These properties don't
always show up in these machines that you're talking about, and therefore that's poor
evidence of a designer. No, no, no, I'm trying to explain
to you that the fact that we can talk about errors and dysfunction and brokenness
is evident that there is a standard of what the things we're talking about should
operate as. So those things don't stop being a machine. They don't stop
being designed. They are just broken or malfunctioning, or they weren't built properly.
Those things are still under the category designed machine based on the qualities they
have. Or I think is that how you decide whether or not they're designed?
You assess the complexity and the specificity. You look for purpose and functionality,
You look for patterns, irreducible complexity. You look at if it contains
information. Is that how you tell if something's designed? If you if you
walk, if you were walking down the street and you find a baseball,
what kind of information is that containing? Well? The or are you concluding
it was designed because you already know about designers? I'm going to ask you
the same question that we asked Mike last time. How do you know God
could have designed anything. If God doesn't exist, God can't design shit,
right, God can't literally and and so so, how do you know.
Let's let's say we don't know. Let's say we came across this thing DNA,
we don't know how it came about. Let's say let's let's assume,
for example, that we've eliminated everything we know about genetics and about biology,
and then we have no idea how this is happening. Why do you think
it might be a God? Can't that only happen if there is a God
already? I mean, you're trying to prove or you're trying to at least
provide some evidence that pushes us in the direction of that conclusion. There needs
to be some force there to do a push though. You can't just walk
up to somebody and say push and expect them to fall over. You have
to actually do it. So where's the connection? How does God even get
in the picture here? If it's in the original argument, if a machine
has the qualities of being designed, then the career that it was designed and
to bring it back to the mailbox in the Sahara desert or the baseball because
of prior knowledge and experience that the things that are manufactured or have elements of
design or purpose are designed. I can infer that the mailbox was designed.
So if I go into nature, what experience do I refer back to to
suggest that it wasn't designed? Exactly? She you just answered your own question,
and I think that that was great. So yes, a mailbox or
a baseball, we can look at that and we can say, yes,
that had a designer. And you said, but if I go into nature,
what evidence can I refer back to to indicate that something was designed?
I would ask you the same thing. I would ask you the same exact
question, What evidence can you refer to to show that the heart or the
human cell was designed? I say that there is far more evidence to show
that this is just a compilation, a conclusion, an end result of a
bunch of a random acts in the natural world coalescing into what we now understand
as organisms and their parts and nature in general. So my question was,
actually, we have no referential experience or evidence that the elements of this in
objects or machines or systems without a designer. There is no There's nothing I
can refer to you they have. We have no evidence that they arrive in
an organism. We have no evidence whatsoever that there is any kind of creation
or design, any planning that goes into the development of an organism or any
of its parts. And I'm sticking with organisms here, right, because we
talked about the heart, we talked about human cells, Falies. The five
qualities don't tell me anything. The five qualities are your opinion on what a
machine should be. And then you defined aural a natural organism, right as
a machine. That's not necessarily the same thing. I see what you're trying
to do, but that's not the same thing. You're you're you're essentially strong
manning the cell, right, But there's more that goes into biology, and
you can't explain it away by five qualities that it takes to make machines.
I want to I just want to answert something in here. Annie. And
and by the way, Annie, I appreciate your call. I'm from Minnesota.
I'm a big fan of Canada. In fact, we often consider ourselves
to be honorary Canadians. And so but I want to go back to something
that you specifically said. You said, we don't know how this could have
arrived naturally therefore, okay, So do you think your own ignorance, or
our excuse me, our ignorance as a as a conversation here, or even
our collective ignorance as humanity. Do you think ignorance of a process means that
that process can't exist? So do you think there's anything that nobody knows.
I'm not saying that we're ignorant. I'm saying there is no reason you said.
You said, and I'll quote, we don't know how this could have
happened. Therefore, okay, we don't know. That's ignorance. That's what
we're talking about. You did say ignorance. You said, we don't know
how this could have happened naturally, therefore it must have been supernatural. That's
what you said. I'm saying. I did not say that. I said
that there is no referential experience or knowledge that can inform whether or not something
was designed, that can inform whether or not machines are systems with the quality
of designs do not have a designer. There's no way, so there's no
knowledge that can infer this. That's way different than saying we don't know.
That's exactly what I said. So you misunderstood what I said. I know
those mean the same thing. If you say there's no knowledge of X,
and I say we don't know X, that's mean you're saying the same thing.
We're saying the same thing. You're we're talking about ignorance. There is
no knowledge of these things. Therefore these things can't exist you're talking about you're
making an argument. You're literally making an argument from ignorance. So, from
my perspective, there is if a natural machine or system has element, has
all the qualities of design, then it was designed. I don't have to
there are millions of ways that could have been designed. Oh that's that is
a big leap. It was the multiple I please such my point. Okay,
so if all of the systems have qualities of design, then that it
was designed. Go ahead if I And so, what I infer from machines
and systems that have the qualities of design is that they're designed. There are
perhaps there are a million ways they could have been designed. But from the
evidence, I conclude it was at least designed. You, on the other
hand, want to leave room for the possibility that it wasn't designed. There
is no reason to leave that room. And yes, there is. Yes,
there is, Yes, there is, and we should infer that it
was designed. That's how because you're taking these qualities. I don't even know
where you got them from, right, But you're taking these qualities and you're
saying, these are my standards and these systems in the human body. Let's
say meet these standards. Therefore there was a designer. And I'm saying,
hey, how do we know that those standards even define what it means to
be designed? Number one? Number two? Where is the designer? What
designer are you talking about? You are just making up some inference here,
right, and then you are assuming the conclusion without supporting it with any evidence.
You know, how do you tie a god or tie a designer to
what you are saying? How what evidence of me if they were to cut
my body open, would make a doctor or a scientist say, aha,
he was designed by a designer? Right? What evidence is there? So
I have irreducible complexity, I have function, I have purpose, I have
patterns and regularities and specificity. What am I specific to? What's the specificity
of me? Reproduction? Okay, so I can reproduce. So I have
one of the qualities that indicates I was designed. Okay, Annie, you
are just confirming something that I was saying earlier. I said that I asked
you if these things were required for there to be for there to be designed,
and you said, no, we're just talking about things that happen to
have these five these five things. But then now you're saying that the existence
of these five properties in a thing entails a designer. Okay. So what
that means is that if these things are here, you know there must be
a designer. Okay. So that's the connection you must be must make.
But I would even take it even further than that. What if we were
to grant you Okay, I don't think you've you've made your case for a
designer by any stretch of the imagination. I think appeals to ignorance and appeals
to authority and that and that kind of thing. I think that that totally
undermines your your entire case here. But let's assume. Let's assume that you
made the case that DNA was designed. Okay, take me to God.
Now from that, DNA has all of the qualities of design. So if
if we're granting, if we're granting that DNA was designed for the sake of
argument. Now take us those last few steps. How do you get from
there to God? Well? I didn't call in to take maybe I did,
but I say that first any any you let me let me fill in
your silence for a second. Maybe no, no, no, let me
answer the question. I have the answer because the word has element has as
awed. The qualities are designed, and I infer that it was designed so
that person that saying that designed the universe would be God. That's how.
Now that's how. Okay, designer to God. So you have two burdens
of proof to meet, now, okay. Uh. One, that all
of the all of the design qualities are in fact design qualities. Okay,
So you need to prove that those are, uh you know, without without
being able to be overturned the qualities of design. Number one, okay.
And then number two. You took a huge leap, which is exactly what
Scott was talking about. You said, therefore that designer is God. Well,
if you can prove the first premise, you still have to prove the
second one. And we haven't arrived there. So you know, you you
say that something has these qualities, which I don't think that there's any consensus
on I'm not sure. Maybe, But even so, even so that let's
say design across the world of scholarship, of science, of medicine, even
let's say all things that were designed have in common the qualities that you listed,
how do we know God, your God specifically is the designer. I
didn't come with a god and specific If you just said that the qualities,
I didn't come with a specific God. So I would call whoever designed the
universe God, whoever or whatever? Right are you are you? Assuming it's
a who are you? That's a leap too. You're going from the universe
was designed to a who designed it? Right? So how do you even
make that leap? Yeah, matter who or what, It doesn't matter who
or what. So you're you're saying the universe was designed and whatever was the
cause of that design. That's what we're going to call God. Is that
what you're saying? Exactly? So when you when you call into the atheist
community of Austin, do you think that's what we mean when we say we're
atheists, we think do you think that we don't think that the universe exists?
Or do you think that we're trying to deny the existence of some existent,
You're some kind of power or some kind of thing out there that did
or do you think we're talking about a person? I think when I seek
to atheists, they all say they they lack a belief in all God or
gods, so it wouldn't not. And when they say that, do you
think they mean you can define the word God to be anything you want.
And then well, I guess we I guess we have to deny, you
know, not believe its existence. If I said God is this pencil,
then I'm a theist. If I say God is not that pencil, then
I'm not so when when so, do you think that when you when when
you're making these kind of implications, do you think you're trying to sneak in
your your your definition here. I don't know what it could have caused,
but whoever it was, we're going to call that God. Do you think
that that's a convincing argument that we're going to that we're going to fall for
that. I didn't call in to make a defense for God, only that
the evidence of design and the universe suggests that it was designed. You are,
yeah, but at whatever it is, are you willing to get to
the point of accepting that. Oh, I don't accept your standards. I
don't accept I just ca yeah, I don't accept your standards, your five
qualities that define something as a machine. I don't understand the human body or
the human heart to be a machine in the way that you designed it,
excuse me, and the way that you described it, and I don't Well,
but if you're prepared to talk about design, then you should have your
own standard of what needs the Why why do I need to have my own
standards of design. I am not out here building washing machines, or microwaves
or human hearts. Okay, I am simply saying that I am here to
discuss the existence of a proposed God or deity or higher power, and I
am willing to hear people's evidence for that. What you called in to do
is say that you think the human body, the universe, the human cell,
the animal cells are designed by something. And you started calling it God,
and God is excuse me, God is from for all intents and purposes,
a deity. You know, the way that we have come to understand
God is the way that God has been defined over ten thousand years. But
you know, then you turned around at the end and said, I don't
know what God is. I'm just calling it this thing that I don't know
how to define. How do I defend that? I mean, you're just
coming up with some concept that says, DAD, don't really know what it
is, so I'm just going to call it God? Okay? Cool?
I mean I don't have to call it God. I don't have to call
it God. And I certainly don't have to walk around with my own standards
of evidence. I mean I have I have philosophies on how you should treat
people. Does that mean that you have to have your own philosophies on how
to treat people if you don't agree with mine. Yes. If I'm going
to say your blocracy is wrong, than I should have a standard of kase.
No, well I disagree, we don't. I don't have to walk
around being prepared to talk about a designer just because you want to. Does
it mean that because I don't accept your claim, that I have to have
a claim of my own. There are so many claims I don't accept.
I don't accept that Cain killed Abel. I don't have to have some other
story in its place that makes more sense to me. I don't accept that
God created the universe, and I do not have to have some other explanation.
I just am saying, as an atheist, the explanation being presented to
me is not one that I accept because of a lack of evidence, because
it's not been corroborated across across multiple fields by experts in those fields, you
know, unlike evolution, which I accept to be true because biologists, genealogists,
geologists, physicists all can relatively agree on the processes that have taken place
over long periods of times. That those people come from different walks of life,
different cultures. You know this. There is some consensus there. What
you're saying doesn't make sense to me. And I respect you, and I
appreciate that you called. But I don't have to agree with you. And
if I don't agree with you, I don't have to match your uh,
your presupposition with one that makes more sense. I just want to slip in
here, Annie, let's I want to list out specifically where where I think
your your argument is failing. Here. You gave us these five properties,
okay, but you didn't justify your inference that you made with them. You
said, if they have these things, these five things, then it was
designed. Okay. So that's something that you failed to do, and that
that you would need to do if you if you wanted to make a solid
case. Second thing, you did not show that the universe or the DNA
or what or the mailbox or whatever. You did not were not able to
justify that these five these five properties existed in the universe or DNA or whatever
it is you happen to be talking about. So first of all, you
need to establish that that inference is valid, that if these things, if
something does have these properties, then it is in fact designed. Okay,
So you need to show that. Then you need to show the thing you're
trying to show is designed. You need to show that it has those five
properties. I think purpose in particular would be would be very difficult to justify
or very very difficult to back up. And then once even beyond that,
you still have a big jump between figuring out what that purpose or what that
designer is, or how the design process works. I mean, there's just
so many holes here I can understand. You know, it sounds like it's
very important to you. It sounds like you're you're very interested. You've clearly
done some reading on this, and I appreciate the fact that you at least
seem to me to want to come up with a with a good conclusion.
But I just see too many holes in what you're talking about here. Can
you Can you at least understand why we're having trouble accepting your conclusion, even
if you disagree with us, even if you think we're being unreasonable. Can
you at least see what I'm talking talking about? Yes, but yes,
I can't understand why you're having trouble understanding my arguments. But it's mostly because
when I make my arguments, they're not addressed. You sip to something else,
and then we're in this tumbleweed of like almost irrelevancy. I disagree we've
addressed everything that you've talked about. I was accused of inferring that God is
the creator of the universe, But you're the one who asked me. I
was perfectly okay with just assuming that natural systems and machines are designed. It
doesn't matter who the designer was. I was willing to. I wanted to
see whether or not you could. You are saying who you are saying who
designed it? And you said I will call the designer God, you said
those things. We're not accusing you of things. We're addressing the things that
you're bringing to the table, right, We're just following you here. Okay,
Well, I'm okay. People are going to be able to watch this
back and see that you're the one who brought up God. I was okay
with staying with the standard of objects that have evidence of being designed are designed.
They don't have to be designed by God. They don't have to be
designed by the multiverse or from aliens that came and did whatever experiments they wanted
to. But are you able to at least acknowledge that it is reasonable to
infer that systems and machines that have elements of design, all of them,
all of the ones that I listed, it's it's perfectly reasonable to suggest they
were designed. By calling them elements of design, you're presuming your conclusion.
Right, So let's let's so let's set that we don't we don't want to
be you know, we don't want to we don't want to beg the question
here. So if by calling them elements of design, you're you're kind of
you're you're you're jumping over that first hurdle that I mentioned before, and we
want to know if we have these If we have these properties, how can
you come to the conclusion that there was a designer? All right, and
you are off mute, now go ahead. Well I was, I would
there's no point in me giving my explanation if I don't have any thing,
I don't have common ground with you. Well, there's a there's a per
there is a reason, and that is that I want to understand your argument.
Do you want us to understand your argument? I do? Do you?
Okay? Good, me too. We have a common goal right there.
Let's call that our number one goal for this call here. We want
to understand what Annie is saying. So we have a toget. We have
a goal together that we can that we can work towards. So please help
me understand of those five properties that you listed, why do they imply a
designer? Because we see them in the qualities of things that are designed.
That doesn't mean that they're necessary. That doesn't mean that they're sufficient. Okay.
Just because it's just because you see white swans all over the place does
not mean that there's no black swans. Okay, So you're you're you're using
a fallacy there using a fallacious argument by saying, well, we see these
other things are that we know they're designed not because of their properties, but
because we know of the designer. We see that they have these properties,
but those but they're but mailboxes are also blue. Does that mean that all
blue things must be made in a mailbox factory? I don't think that you
would agree with that. And so what we're saying is we want you to
We don't want if you're gonna if you're going to prove something by example,
you have to be exhaustive. I'm a math teacher. I deal with this
all the time. You can't just give one example of something that that makes
an implication and say it's true for for everything. That's that's an improper generalization.
You're you're you're assigning things to a general category of things based off of
your one example. What I'm saying is, if you want to prove that
this is the case any if you want to show that anytime we see these
five things, that we can infer that there is a designer, you need
to back that up. You need to show your work. You need to
demonstrate how can we make that inference from those five pieces of information, and
it's and and and I'll remind you that just giving me we've done it before,
that's not going to fly. That doesn't work that way. Okay,
you need to show that it's true even for things that we haven't done before,
even things that we can't even think of, even things that we've never
even heard of. So why do those five properties imply a designer? I
think that it is not fair that I have to meet such a high standard
when you don't have to meet any standard at all. If you've made the
claim at the conclusion that these if you're going to arrive at the conclusion that
biological machines and systems were arose naturally, then you have to why can't you
Why don't you I didn't say that, I didn't claim that, Jimmy,
did you claim that I did it? But you know what, you did
so much work to come up with these five properties. Why don't you put
the same dedication into understanding how life came about on our planet and how everybody,
Uh well, I shouldn't say everybody. That is a sweeping generalization,
but how many scholars on the subject, on various subjects that have to do
with the life sciences agree on them, and why don't you go down that
road? And I don't think that us asking you to justify your premises is
setting the bar to We're not giving you such a high standard of evidence.
We're asking you to back up what you're saying. Hey, so the standard
of evidence that something is designed would be evidence that it is designed. So
what would those evidences be in your opinion? There? You're assuming that these
are problem, that these are evidence of design. What I'm saying is,
how do you know these are evidence of design? And I'm asking your opinion
of what evidence of a designed of a designed machine would look like. How
would we be able to tell the difference of between a machine that was designed
and occur naturally. I would say there might be might be multiple ways,
but the one that immediately comes to mind is if the designer walks up to
me, shakes my hand and says, hey, I designed that thing,
and here's how I did it. And that's where we're talking about the argument
from ignorance, the big leap that you're not making. You can you can
be correct about these things in nature having characteristics that are in common with things
that we know to be designed. But you're talking about coincidence at best.
What you're not doing is providing us the designer. And you can call it
God or not God or whatever you want. But in the end, you
know, you called an atheist show where we tell people to call in with
their beliefs and what they believe and why. And you know, typically the
designer is associated with God. And you said that you would call the designer
God, but you haven't. You haven't presented any proof of that, and
so you know, that's kind of where we're stuck. It's fine, you
know, I could say, Hey, we design things all the time that
have the number four in them. Right, there's four legs to a table,
there's four walls to a house, and oh, these humans have four
appendages. Wow, that's probably designed. I just made up my own standard
of design. But now I have to provide the designer and that's just something
I can't do. And that's something that you haven't done. And Annie,
I say that respectfully because I really appreciate your call. I appreciate all your
calls. Actually, I'm actually a big fan of your UH. You've called
truth wanted before. I think you've called uh, you know multiple times I've
heard your calls, and I appreciate that you continue to call, and I
encourage you to keep calling in you haven't swayed myself for Scott one way or
the other. You know, maybe you'll you'll watch this back and see where
we're coming from, but we're gonna have to let you go. So I
appreciate your time, Scott. That was uh, that was great. Yeah,
I like it. I like Anie a lot. And yeah, she's
she's animated as we both can be. So I really enjoyed it because it
perfectly illustrated what I was talking about in the opening about making that we're not
the bar that we're setting is like laying the bar on the ground that that's
our standard of evidence. We're just saying, if you want to make a
claim, back it up somehow, okay. And and and make that connection
if if if she's going to say that these things imply this, okay,
why do you know that? How do you know that we are also not
responsible for for replacing her claim with our own person. I mean, that
was a huge mistake. That is a fallacy if I've ever heard one.
I have no responsibility to give you something in place of your own thing,
you know. So anyway, there's nothing wrong with saying I don't know,
that's right, that's right, And I could say that with pride because there's
a lot I don't know. But that's why I want to take these calls
and I have these discussions. You know, Scott, we're a little behind.
We have there. We've been neglectful here of super chats that we got
to get to. So if you'll do the honors, you can go back
and check out. Yeah, so drook them back. We have. We
have a few super chats here. We got one from Nika, a new
member, gave two dollars, says, has Mike ever shuffled a deck of
cards? Has Mike evil scheffer your deck of cards? So yeah, so
so that was back when we were talking about rare events happening all the time,
right, So anytime you shuffle a deck of cards, that's probably the
first time that deck has ever been shuffled that way. Next up, we
have another super chat from Nika, who is still a new member. Although
I think once you send in your first super chat, I think you qualify
it. You know, you kind of you're you're you've broken the seal on
that new member classification there, Nika said, with another two dollars donation,
shuffled cards equals fifty two factorial, which is about e times ten to this,
So uh an eight with sixty seven zeros and saying, boy, that
seems impossible. Yeah, so every time you shuffle a deck of cards,
you are doing something that is vanishingly unlikely. Let's see what else do we
got super chats here? We have another one here from from common super chatter
Miranda Rensberger. Remember two months now five dollars donation. Uh. Don't you
guys know that my medical degree from the University of Facebook proves God. As
long as you stick to my script, I think that was the key there.
As long as we stick to that script, I think that brings us
up to date on the super chats there. I didn't see it, it
does. But you know, we have somebody, some great people that we
have to mention and those are our top five patrons. Oh definitely yeah.
So you know Scott again co hosting the honors for this one, brother,
I certainly will. Okay, So our top five patrons dingle Berry Jackson number
one there oops, all Singularity de voor Valgean. We have Coleevi, Helvetti
and number five is left in the leaves, and we're going to give an
honorable mention for Frikin Hany Frikan Hany and ologize for butchering any of those names.
But hey, I did my best. I'm not sorry. It's part
of the heritage of reading the top five patrons that you're expected to butcher names,
and quite frankly, you should give your own interpretation of those names from
time to time. Okay, I'll remember that for next time. So yeah,
thank you to our patrons, everybody that donates and supports the ACA.
For those of you who are not aware, you know you can get on
Patreon. There is there is other content that is not available to other members
that is specifically available to you, so go check it out. But what
I want to highlight is the bat Cruise, Fun, Fun, Fun,
the wholemark event of the ACA. I will be there other hosts Forrest Valci,
j, Mike Secularity, Scott can I say, Scott Dicky you can
certainly add me to that list. I'm looking forward to it. I had
a blast last year and yeah, I'm looking forward to it again this year.
We got to spend some more time together actually, and I'm hoping that
I get to spend a lot of more time with the nonprofits because I have
really, you know, developed relationships with quite a few of you, and
I love the nonprofits. I love all you guys. I love working with
you. But yeah, our back cruise is going to be on August twenty
fourth, so a lot of the ACA hosts and other team members are going
to be in attendance, So get more information buy your tickets at tiny dot
CC forward slash bat Cruise. And while you're there, just check out our
new updated website. Let us know what you liked what you didn't like.
You can look at the website. You can email us and contact us about
any questions you might have. Any feedback app for us, so excuse me,
it's team. We had atheist typhoncommunity dot org. And if you are
in the Austin area, we do have a meetup group, so keep up
with our community events and you can see what's going on at tiny dot CC
forward slash ACA Meetup, Philosophy under the Stars, Game Nights, et cetera.
Lots of events going on, including our Free Thought Library watch party we
have on Sundays for live viewings of Talkithen and The Atheist Experience, which is
going to be playing after this show. So tune into the Atheist Experience.
But remember, if you're in the Austin area, you can go check that
out with a live viewing. Meet some people. I hear there's pizza sometimes.
I don't know if you're a pizza fan. Uhh yeah, gotta go
for the pizza. Doors open at noon. And don't forget to send a
super chat to us. So we just read off some great super chats.
Love our supporters, and we can count on seeing some of those same names
week by week. Miranda Rensberger shout out to you. But it looks like
we got another call. So all right, now that we're all caught up,
now that we've had some great calls, we're going to turn to another
one. Brother call him from Arizona. He Jimmy on Facebook stated that God
is not loving. That's me. I think I'm Jimmy. Jimmy he's talking
about Uh yeah, I at Jimmy on Facebook. We'll have to see that's
true. But uh yeah, I would, I would, I would say
that I probably said that. So let's talk to brother Bob. All right,
brother, Bob, you're on with Jimmy and Scott. How can we
help you? Sir? Well, at first, I hope you're having a
good day. I having a great time. I'm I'm I love working with
Scott and we've had some good callers. I'm glad you're here with us.
What's going? Okay? So I was just kind of wanted if I could
take time for review refute that claims that you kind of made about how God
is not loving me, and you put quite a few things as to sway
great concubine is burn out the stay women. And so the question that I
have is that you know when you leased the quam about God destroying the Canaanites,
you know why? Uh? I feel like I don't know. I
don't know exactly what you're talking about. So why don't you go ahead and
just tell me? Well, the reason I don't know that it matters,
to be honest with you, I don't know that it matters to me,
you know, because for a God to be all loving and then destroy a
bunch of people counteracts that love or it negates that love. Can you give
a quick example, okay, can get a quick example that I counter Let's
say I live in the neighborhood and one of the dogs get loosed, and
he's a pitfull and only people in the neighborhood have small children, and that
dog goes out and kills one of the children. Would you be an advocate
that that dog is let the loan or would you want to put him down?
I'd certainly want to get the situation under the control. Look, I
don't know that I would want to go out and kill a dog for killing
a child. I would control the situation if I could, and I would
do what I had to do, But I don't understand what that has to
do with God. And let's say killing the Canaanites, for example, which
I don't even know that that happened. Archieology, uh, you know,
wouldn't suggest that a large scale wipeout of the Canaanites actually took place. But
from your standpoint, you're saying that God killed the Canonites and you have a
justification for that. So what is that? Let me let me brother Bob,
sorry to interrupt here, Let me just h are you saying that God
might be good and that we just it might just seem bad to us?
Is that what You're saying, God's really doing something that's good, but when
we look at it, because of our limited perspective, our limited information,
our limited you know, mental capacity, we just can't understand God's mysterious ways.
Is that what you're saying, that that it actually was a good thing
that God was doing and it just looked evil to us. Yeah, I
would use a little different phrase, and I was okay, okay, So
then well there's a flip side to that question. All of the things that
you think God does that are good, then if we if we are limited
and we can't see the outcome, if God oversees every thing and knows more
than us and has a deeper understanding of consequences and intentions and that kind of
thing. If God could be doing something that's really good but it just looks
bad to us, then couldn't God also be doing things that are ultimately evil
that just look good to us. No, That's why I was trying to
make the basic point about that dog in the neighborhood. I mean, I've
got six kids. If that want of that dog up into my neighborhood and
that killed one of the neighborhood kids, I would they put it down,
all right, But you know what that is a that is a kilt.
Hold, let me just finish the point. You know, you guys like
to always interrupt. I know, I want to get to the point.
I want to get to the point. And that's actually where I was going.
That's actually where I was going. So let me just say, brother
Bob, just for a second, let me just say this, if you
were being disingenuous to say that, you wouldn't say, I want that dog
out of you. Okay. Well, the same point that takes place in
this passage with the Canaanites. The Canaanites were practicing so much evil stuff that
they were taking their children and putting them on coals of fires and burning them
alive. The town practiced this that they would bring the bells of the town
so that they couldnt hear the screams of the children. This is just one
of the aspects that they do. Okay, Okay, that my community and
people were doing it, I would say, you guys don't deserve to live,
all right, all right, brother Bob. Now it's my turn.
Okay, Now it's my turn. Okay. We have no idea if that
story is true, we have no idea if Canaanites were actually doing what the
ancient Hebrews said they were doing. This very well could just be propaganda.
This very well could just be legend or mythology, because we have absolutely no
evidence of the interactions between Israelis and Canaanites other than what's in the Bible.
There's very little archaeological record to support the Bible, especially the further back you
go, and for you to say, hold on, it's for let's just
say that we have no idea what happened, okay, and let's just say
that these people were doing that thing. Okay, how do we determine that
God is even real? Let's say people were burning their kids at the stake,
or let's say that we don't even know what was happening. Okay,
those are two different scenarios. How do we determine that God is real in
any either of those scenarios? Okay? But you know you're trying to expand
it on me. I thought we were trying to discuss this point of love,
so you know, you kind of broadened this instead of saying, hey,
let's talk about what the things did you Well, that's important. That's
important because you're stating this story as factience of God. You know, if
I came up, you stated, listen to me, hold on. You
know what, brother Bob. You know I'm muting you for a second because
you're raising your voice at me. And that's really like not called for.
You stated a story about canonites being wiped out by your God as fact.
I don't care if you want to talk about God or love. You stated
you made a claim, okay, And what I'm telling you is that what
we know as far as the archaeological record is that that story has not been
verified. Okay, there's no way to verify it. We have no idea
if that's true. So you are giving me a fictional story to kind of
determine whether or not I think what your fictional God is doing is right or
wrong. So now we have a bigger problem, right, we have to
determine, well, how do we even know that that story is true?
If that's your criteria for defining love and for defining God as being. If
you don't want to prove God, how do you assign the characteristic of love
to it? Right? You can't say something's loving but then say, well,
you know it might not be real. I mean, it's got to
be real if it's loving. So anyway, please don't yell at me.
I'm trying to have a conversation with you. I don't believe that your story
happens, and I have no reason to believe that God is loving, because
if God is real and all these stories are real, God's done some really
horrible things. You're unmuted. Go ahead, brother Bob, all right,
thank you so much. Sorry about the vine. So the one that I
get at is that in your logic that you've paid here is that you made
the case point in this Facebook that all these things were all wrong, so
God coundnot be loving. Now you're questioning if they happen. So it's like
you're speaking on both sides of your mouth. You can't see. At one
point, Oh, God's terrible because he destroyed these people. On the flip
side, we don't even know if it's rue. The character, the character
of God in the Bible is a bad God. Do you think what the
joker in Batman is bad? Right? It doesn't mean I think that the
joker is real. It just means I think he's a bad character. The
problem I have there, and then the claim that I made that God is
bad is that he does all types of horrible things to all kinds of people,
and people worship him and call him loving. Right now, he could
be real, or he should be just a character, but that would hold
true to it no matter what. How did you make this claim that God
does all these horrible things to people? How do you know that that you
don't believe in God? I don't believe in God. We're talking about the
character of God in the Bible. Okay, there's a separate conversation about whether
or not God is real. We can still discuss the morality or lack thereof
of a fictional character. People do it all the time. It's you know,
much of literature is about analyzing fictional characters and then using that to,
you know, to look at ourselves. And so you're saying, so Jimmy
said he believes that this God character is not loving and gave a list of
reasons why. And you said you were started talking about, well, would
you kill a dog if it was going to go kill a child? Well,
yeah, and that would be you could argue at least that that would
be a good thing to do that, or that you could argue that maybe
genocide in the case of God, had some kind of bigger, good thing,
good kind of outcome, but that really but by making that claim,
you're actually undermining your entire case. You're undermining your entire case that God is
good. If we say, if we can't judge God based on what we
see and what we understand of morality too, and we can't make those judgments
that God is not loving, we also can't make the judgment that God is
loving. So at the very best, at the very best, what you're
accomplishing in here as you're saying human beings just don't understand the situation enough to
make that decision. That and if you were to prove your case, you
would show that maybe Jimmy overstep by saying that God wasn't loving. But you
are also put that mirror on yourself, and look back at yourself, you
are also undermining your own claim that God is loving because if we can't know,
if we can't know because we don't know all of the outcomes, then
we can't judge either way. So at best we're looking for we don't know
that God is good. We don't know that God is not good. We
don't know anything about God, Jimmy was. That's where the does God exist
come into play. If we can't reason our way into whether or not God
is good based on the stories because we just don't have enough information about the
stories, then the next thing we would do would be to turn to Okay,
well show me God. We can look at God and talk to God.
We can judge, you know, we can judge God based off of
what we see there. And if we don't have either of those ways,
then where does that get you? I would imagine that if I accused you
of improperly saying that God was loving, you would probably find, you know,
probably be defensive about that. You would probably try to argue that no,
God is loving, and here's why. But all of those things that
you would list on that list of the reasons why God is loving, you
have just as much reason to believe that that that implies your conclusion as Jimmy
had when he gave the list of things that evil people do. God does
these things. Therefore God is evil or not loving? You see you see
that connection there. Let's give Bob a chance to respond. Go ahead,
Bob, Sure, yeah, I liked it so one that I'll I say
is that you said proven that the count is possibly fictional. One to disprove
that it isn't is not fictional because we see that count that it's proven today
that they're red Sea is a crossing. It's actually proven factial account. We
see it. It's cross I mean fish. Okay, I interrupt. You
asked me to complain about me doing it. You gotta be fair. So
there is a site that you can look up and it shows the spokes of
the chariots that are in the depths of the water that have been left there.
There's also on the side of the shore sand that has been burned.
Supposedly the Israelites were led by a pillar fire and it was a scientists said
it takes over three hundred degrees make celsius to burn sands. What does that
have to do with whether or not the character in the Bible is good or
evil? No? No, I've just carried on. He wanted me to
say, Hey, I don't even believe that the cake came and I swear
we're taken by Israel. So that's part of the account, isn't it.
But no, it's not so. So we have beaten this to death on
this show. And I don't want to like start ripping this apart. So
let me just let me just go back and let mean and reiterate what I
say. Hold on, hold on, let me reiterate what I said.
Okay, In the Bible, God kills millions of people with a flood.
Right in the Bible. God kills the children of all the firstborn in Egypt.
In the Bible, God allows people to be raped, even allows slavery.
God allows, he does horrible things to Job. I mean, are
you kidding me? He loves Job in the Bible. God, I could
go on and on, and I have read the Bible. It's been a
long time. But when you look at the Bible, you see multiple instances
of atrocities being sanctioned by God, being directed by him. And you even
started the show with, well, do you know why God killed the Canaanites.
I mean, this is God we're talking about. If let's say God
did kill the Canaanites, and I will reiterate, there is no archaeological record
that supports that. But if it did happen, could God not have been
powerful enough to sway them without using violence? Could God not have been the
one that they worshiped instead of the god Molech that they were burning their children
to. I mean, this is all stuff of fantasy, of the stuff
of fiction, and it's not it's not supported by any facts. The chariots,
the wagon wheel, the partying of the Red Sea, these are not
supported by science. But these are not supported by the scientific method. There's
no consensus that that happened. I mean, do you think that there are
no chariot wheels in the Red Sea? I mean, the explanation is that
the Jews left Egypt. There's no hold on Bob. There's no evidence that
the Jews were even in Egypt in the numbers that they talked about. Where
is their garbage, where are their habitats? Where is the archaeological record that
says that. Heck, there's no mention of Israel except for two different places
that are that come from hundreds of years apart, and it's they're referred to
as the House of David. It's not even really Israel. So you know,
look, man, there's this is a large hill to cline. You
asked me why I think God is not loving? And God is not loving
for the reasons that I gave you. Now, if I want to talk
about why God is not real. Well, it just doesn't. It's not
supported by evidence. I mean that your claim is God is real. You
know, I just don't get this. You got to talk about five times
compared to the amount of times I have, and you asked to talk about
something, and then you go off on these other things. You're saying something
that needs to be corrected. You're saying something. Let me let me finish.
You know, I don't get that Job wasn't God didn't punish Job for
what what happened in his life. That's not true at all. I want
to bond up that I didn't say he punished him though. Don't know,
Bob, Bob stop, you know what I'm muting, Bob. I'm muting
Bob again. So this is why I have to interrupt, because I never
said that God was punishing Job for what he did in his life. Okay,
that you're changing the context of the conversation. I said God did horrible
things to Job. That's accurate, Okay, And I have to keep interjecting
because you can't change the course of the conversation. Go ahead, Bob,
You're back on all right. Sole You've shown me the passage where as God
did all this damnies to do, it does not say that in the Bible.
The Bible clearly states that Satan came to God and he asked for permission
to cause damnies to him, and God said, you can do anything to
him, but do not take his life. And at the end of Satan
doing all this horrible thing taking all his children, job winds up with I
believe twice as many children as he had before, in greater wealth than ever.
Bob, I would not sacrifice my two children that I have right now
for four children later. Number one. Number two, I would not let
my neighbor kill the children, kill somebody else's children if they promise to give
them more children later. For God to allow Satan to do that, God
is an accomplice. And this, by the way, this God that you're
talking about is the most powerful being in the world. What the hell does
he need to prove the Satan? Ok For one, you were willing to
let your dog live in the neighborhood that was going to potentially kill your kids,
And now you're saying no, I never said that. Oh my God,
let Bob. Can he do that? He's so wrong Bob, you've
done nothing. You have I'm sorry you have not accomplished anything, and we
are extremely grateful for you to call and to put yourself out there and you
know, just have a conversation with us. But I have to admit this
is getting a little bit exhausting. We're not getting anywhere and we're going to
have to move on. So I really appreciate you calling. Thank you so
much, Scott. I think we had one more super chat come in.
I believe we have two that we haven't gotten to yet. We have super
chat from Ben nine Lives, a new member four ninety nine dollars four ninety
nine. Thank you for Sunday's weekly church replacements. You're welcome, Ben nine
Lives. We also have a super chat from Coach Frankie donated twenty bucks.
All right, thank you Coach Frankie. Great job. Guys love the show
and you know, we love doing the show. We just for conversations just
like we're having today. It's just been things get contentious. But I think
that anytime we of communication between people that disagree, I think that's a good
thing. And so I'm happy to have been part of the show and I'm
I'm I'm glad that we've had the callers that we've had. Yeah. Yeah,
who did we have today? Mike, Annie and Brother Bob? Is
that it? Yea? Yeah? Yeah. So appreciate you guys, appreciate
everybody who supports the ACA. Scott, thank you so much for joining me
today this week. Pleasure dude. Awesome. Yeah. So all the viewers
remember our prompt for this week is when you go to hell, who is
the first person that you want to talk to? Uh? And so maybe
remember to put your comments in the chat or excuse me, I hate when
I say put them in the chat. Remember to put your answers in the
comments. Boom, there it is, and we will read out the top
three answers next week. I want to thank Richard Gilliver. We bringing up
richards Man. There he is there, he is boss the producer. We're
bringing up Richard. Thanks for having nail folks copyright them by singing a famous
wrestling entrance theme when you said the boss shand yeah. Well Richard, thanks
thanks for backing the sat Man and being willing to step in. I'm looking
forward to working with you again sometime soon. But yeah, we had a
great show. I hope you were happy with it. Yeah, absolutely,
I very much enjoyed this show. I think Mike's Mike. I want to
thank Mike and Bob first and foremost, because there were two people who were
asked to call in from the Facebook is Community of Austin facebook page after responding
to some of our videos on there, and they have and I always,
I really really do appreciate that. I literally ask hundreds of theists who comment
straw men, accusers on there of all sorts of things, and when people
like Mike and Bob actually take the step to call in and have these conversations,
I genuinely, genuinely do appreciate that, and I hope they continue to
do so. I would like both of them to call back, and I
hope more theists who do take those steps to comment, you know, take
the step to follow that up and actually have the conversation with us. But
absolutely brilliant. So I appreciate both of you guys. I appreciate all the
callers. Anne again very much appreciate her calling in the criteria she gave for
design. I was I was screaming all the way through that call. Where
have you got this criteria from? Yeah? You know, which which kind
of authority on designing things have you taken this criteria from? And you know,
and we didn't ever get there. She never presented that, and that
was hugely frustrating. But again, you know, I'd love her to call
back and kind of continue that conversation. The great show, guys, love
it. Appreciate you both very much, Thank you very much. Now,
Richard, get the heck out of here. Scott and I got some stuff
to do, all right, And most importantly the thing that we need to
do is send out lover rings. So yeah, we're just sending out our
rings, and I hope everybody feels our love. Scotty, you're joining us
in the in the after show, I'll be there. I'll be there.
We'll be in the discord in just a few minutes, So join us for
the after show. Remember, everybody, if you don't believe, this is
your community and we appreciate you being here. But if you are a believer,
we do not hate you. We're just not convinced. We want the
truth. So watch Truth Wanted live Friday at seven pm Central. Visit tiny
dot cc, slash y t tw and call into the show at five one
two two or connect to the show online at tiny dot cc, slash call tw assass