Speaker 1: Recently, I was thinking of the iconic scene in pulp
fiction where Vincent is talking about his time in Europe
and says, it's mostly the same, but you notice the
little differences, the little things. The same thing applies when
Christian nationalists are governing your country.
Speaker 2: I know it's a big jump, but stick with me.
Speaker 1: It's not like Christian nationalists won the recent election and
the very next day only Christians could hold office, or
only Christians could serve as jurors. No, they did a
bunch of little things. They issued an executive order to
quote eliminate anti Christian bias within federal agencies, which is
code for we need to start favoring Christians. They pardoned
people convicted of crimes, even violent ones related to protesting
against abortion. They appointed incompetent people to run all of
our scientific agencies and to stop grants to research they
don't like.
Speaker 2: The list goes on and on.
Speaker 1: But the latest little thing, the funniest little thing, the
thing I want to call out today.
Speaker 2: It happened at the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: The DoD recently reclassified Mormonism as non Christian. Why is
this funny to me? Well over two thirds of Mormons
voted for Christian nationalism in the last election. Then the
people they voted for turned around and said, to their faces,
you aren't true Christians, wouldn't you know it? Mormons and
Congress gave speeches and wrote sternly worded letters while they
pounded the table Christians in excuse me. Citizens in Utah
were interviewed on the local news about how shocked they
were and how offensive this was. Mormon law professors screamed
about the Constitution of all things. To use a famous metaphor,
the people who voted for the leopards eating people's faces
were screaming at the top of their lungs that they
didn't think they meant Mormon faces. After their public tantrum,
the DoD walked the change back somewhat, but it too late.
Speaker 2: The mask had already slipped.
Speaker 1: For example, the Defense Secretary Pete Hegsett's own openly Christian
nationalist pastor Doug Wilson called Mormon's quote polytheists practicing a
quote non Christian faith.
Speaker 2: This is what they voted for. This is how.
Speaker 1: Christian nationalism starts. We know this not because they grabbed
power and started shipping people off in box cars, but
because of what Vincent said, it's the little things. The
end game of Christian nationalism is never actually a unified front.
It's never just about keeping secularists or atheists or Muslims
or gay people or immigrants or whomever out of public life.
It is fundamentally about who gets to hold the theological
clipboard and decide who is the right flavor of Christian
to be favored by government. If you have thoughts about
Christian nationalism or any other theistic topic, give us a
call because the show starts now.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome everybody.
Speaker 1: Today June fourteenth, twenty twenty six, and we want to
welcome you all to the Atheist Experience.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, the Cross Examiner, and with me big
drum roll, jmi mody.
Speaker 3: I did not we got to.
Speaker 4: I don't even want to be here. I didn't actually
get a drum roll. So you're supposed to, you know.
Speaker 3: No, that's all good.
Speaker 5: There, we're there ghost there, Yeah, put in post absolutely.
Speaker 2: I love the background. By the way, Yeah, am I am?
Speaker 3: I allowed to steal the Joe?
Speaker 1: No, you know what, I'm not gonna know you should
like it makes me think you're a flat earther but yeah.
Speaker 4: So like I'm always asked if, hey, what do you
want for a background?
Speaker 3: Like uh, I think you said like flat earth.
Speaker 4: Because we were talking about it, right, and uh I
said how about yeah, like I don't know, cube eirth
or something like a square earth, and Craig's like cube
and he's like, it's six times six times better than
the flat Earth, when I was like, OK, I like that.
I wanted to shamelessly steal the joke, but I knew
I couldn't.
Speaker 3: Deliver it like I just did. So yeah, so what
you been up to? Man a lot?
Speaker 4: Actually, Like I wouldn't mention, you know, because I don't
think it's anybody's business, and uh, I don't want to
put put like the vibes down. Uh, But I I
think it's really important to talk about mental health struggles.
Speaker 3: Absolutely that I that I deal with.
Speaker 4: And you know me and you talked about this before
the show. But I have been dealing with the you
know a little bit of anxiety and depression. So not
the best if I'm if I'm honest, but I've had
conversations today with some friends and I feel a lot better.
So I'm I'm on the highest high I can do
right now, so so we're looking good. But I think
it's important to talk about, you know, mental health struggles
and that if anyone.
Speaker 3: Else is having this, like I deal with this all
the time.
Speaker 4: It's always a struggle, and it's really important to talk
to people because it really got me out of a run,
like I didn't even want to get out of my bed,
you know, So it really does it really does help.
Speaker 3: I would do you're struggle with any of that.
Speaker 4: As someone who's way more in a positive mood than
I was a couple hours ago, you know, it's really hard,
not it's really hard sometimes to want to reach out
to somebody.
Speaker 5: It's really hard, like that's what I struggle with.
Speaker 3: But do it because I promise it's.
Speaker 2: Liberating.
Speaker 5: It really is.
Speaker 1: Absolutely I myself was diagnosed with some mild depression back
in my college days and it sort of stuck with me.
And we've had that sort of depressive mental health issue
through my mother's side of the family. And it's something
to watch out for because it'll sneak up and get
you and you won't even think of it as.
Speaker 2: Depression when it starts.
Speaker 1: It's just like I don't feel like doing that today,
And it begins with procrastination and it sort of sneaks
into well, I just I'm going to veg and just
watch shows today, and then I'm not getting out of bed,
and then you just feel like I'm just self hatred.
Speaker 3: Yeah, self hatred.
Speaker 4: That that aspect of failure creeps in and you know,
you just think the worst of yourself. But it's almost
never true, right Like you you identify these propositions that
are like, oh, it's true I'm a failure or.
Speaker 5: This or that, and my buddy put a away with dude.
Speaker 4: It's it is the depression lying to you, you know,
and it's only going to put you in that mode
where you just are failing.
Speaker 3: You aren't doing anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: I think sorry if I put people down on this,
but I normally the type of person I am is
to just shove that ship in the back, not mention
it to anybody. It might be obvious with the way
that I'm speaking in my tone, it's really hard for
me to talk about it, but it's so important to
do it.
Speaker 2: So just oh, I'm glad you brought it up.
Speaker 1: It's it's and we can even analyze it through the
lens of this show as well, because I've had friends
who have been depressed, not just sad, but like clinically depressed,
and they were Christian and turned to a Christian counselor,
and what are they told to do?
Speaker 2: Well, pray on it, right, It's not not.
Speaker 1: Go out and get medicated, which is nine out of
ten times, as far as I understand it, part of
the problem, you know, Yeah, you have a few too
little or a few too many milligrams of some substance
in your blood and it's affecting your brain. And we
can fix that, we can at least help it right,
and a lot of it has learned behavior and all that.
But when you go to somebody and your pastor your
Christian therapist or whatever, and their solution is prey and
that's it, don't do that, like we hear Mike and I,
Yes we're atheists, but we're humans first, And I don't
care if you're a Christian or Muslim or whatever. If
you're if you've got mental health issues, anything from depression
to worse. You know, the single best thing I ever
did in my life was going to see a psychiatrist
and getting on at back in the day. It was
a little bit of prozac that got me into good
working habits, and then when I came off of it,
those working.
Speaker 2: Habit stuck with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that working habit was this structure of support
that sort of taught me, Oh, there's a positive feedback
loop here if I if I get up every day
and do what I need to do, then the things
don't pile up, and then I don't get depressed about
the things piling up exactly.
Speaker 4: And man, I've never had anyone, by the way it's
say like, oh, you should pray in this, and I
imagine a lot of the audience has had that said
to them. Dude, that would piss me off so much
because it's just totally invalidating of someone's experience and it
just tells that person you don't you are not connecting
with me right now. You don't even give a fuck
about me. You have some motivation and some alternative that
you some motiv that you really desperately want me to
be a part of. And it's just like I've never
had that happen. But oh my god, anyone, that's how
that happened to you? Like, I'm sorry for you. That's
that sounds terrible.
Speaker 2: I'm googling it right now. I think it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a secular therapy project by doctor Ray. I
can wholeheartedly endorse that I've spoken with him before. He's
seems to be a great guy. I don't know the
professional credentials, but I've met people who have worked with
the Secular Therapy Project, just so people understand. It's like, hey,
I want therapy, but I don't want you the therapist
bringing your religious or worldviewvat baggage to therapy session.
Speaker 4: So that's a great segue by the way, too, because
I was like, I don't want to just randomly open,
but when people ask how have you been, I'm like, well,
I not. I want to just lie and go out
yeah great, well good, I'm doing awesome, fucking great, you know,
because it's just not true. So yeah, it's I think
that's a really good segue for where I can this
might be able to help people who aren't in my
situation where I didn't have the religious baggage.
Speaker 3: Now that doesn't doesn't mean.
Speaker 4: That I'm still not possibly a victim of when I
go and seek therapy or something, that I become a
victim of this type of you know practice of you know,
you need Jesus or let me do the Bible or whatever.
So you know, it's it's really good to make sure
that the person you're talking to is someone that's going
to be completely and not have any of that religious
baggage or you know under overtones.
Speaker 5: Yeah, super important. Absolutely so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as as my mom says, better living through chemistry,
and as uh, somebody I watch on YouTube says every show,
take your meds and drink your water. So just make it,
make it a part of your your to the viewers,
make it a part.
Speaker 2: Of your daily tasks, and seek help from friends.
Speaker 1: I think that what Mike said at the beginning of
like just talking to people and deciding to go out
and see them, is that's a world of good just
to get off your butt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does help if you have a humanist friend
to talk to. In my case that was the case,
and so it does really help that someone has those
shared values and that you know that they're really dialed
in on how you think about things and how that
they can figure.
Speaker 3: Out how to help you around that, you know, not
just kind of.
Speaker 4: Feed your stuff where you're like you sit there and
scoff and like, I don't think you really get this
what I'm going through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't come in with an agenda.
Speaker 1: They're not trying to reframe your problem as an opportunity
for them to save somebody precisely.
Speaker 4: Yea, with all that now, I won't bore anybody with
my with my depression issues.
Speaker 1: But no, no, I'm sure everybody you know, I've not
met anybody that has seen you on our shows and
not thought you were an awesome guy. So I'm sure
everybody's cheering for you and happy for you, and you know,
give us a call anytime you want if you just
want to hang as well. I know I'm not in
the same state, but always glad to talk to you,
and I'm sure audience feels the same. So even Jesus
gets sad sometimes, Jeeven, Jesus does get sad sometimes or
on the cross or angry, like, hey, tables and father,
you forsaken me.
Speaker 4: I tried in the garden to himself and no one
was there to write it down, by the way, which.
Speaker 2: Is that's true?
Speaker 6: Weird?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I always revealed with the King of Kings
right now, that's right.
Speaker 1: Well, the atheist experience is a product of the Acist
Community of Austin, a five oh one c three nonprofit
organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism,
and the separation of religion and government. This means that
you can give us a tax free donation. I shouldn't
say us the ACA. We don't see a dime. Everybody
here is volunteers as many dollars as you want in fact,
and know that not only is it going to be
going to a good cause, but it also helps you too.
We are triple streaming today and I don't know if
you've heard about this, J Mike. We are on YouTube,
We're on TikTok, and we're on YouTube Mobile. So if
you guys are watching us on tik tak tonight, we
have the ability to bring you up and talk to
us as well. So just request to join and will
you bring you up on the stage when it's your
turn in line, But please make sure that you're over
eighteen or I should say eighteen or over before doing so.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of calls lined up.
Speaker 4: Should we get one, Oh yeah, I'm yeah, yeah, Sorry
for the delay. I'm on a I'm on a five
second mental delay of the barrel.
Speaker 2: I've got some I have new utterances.
Speaker 4: I have a new I bought a new monitor, And
now it's like my eyes don't know what to do
anymore because I was just stuck looking here, and I'm
like trying to admit I should have done this at
a time, very unprofessional.
Speaker 3: But now I got my screens all set up.
Speaker 2: No, no, it's good.
Speaker 1: All people who watch from home, we can give them
a peek behind, Like we're all at our.
Speaker 2: Homes or wherever on our own monitors.
Speaker 1: So I've got my show notes here, I've got the
camera feed here, I've got the the stuff down here
that tells me who the callers are. So if you
see us looking around, that's what's going on. It's a
lot to keep track of and try to listen and
pay attention when people call. So why don't we jump
on a call here? We've got Levi from Louisiana, And
the note here I have from Levi is why shouldn't
I I am Levi? Why shouldn't I believe that the
universe was created by a higher power? So why don't
we first check in with Levi?
Speaker 2: How are you doing? And is that in fact? What
you'd like to talk about tonight, LEVI.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I guess I've had my faith shaken up
a bit recently, And yeah, I think I would like
to hear an atheist standpoint on some good reasoning for
why not believing in a higher power.
Speaker 6: Is a better way to live my life? Or you
know whatever? Can you hear me?
Speaker 5: Fine?
Speaker 2: You absolutely?
Speaker 1: Why don't we start off with a broader category than
just why shouldn't I believe in any particular God? Why
don't we start off with a broader category where I
think you'll you'll agree with us generally, and then we
can then refocus on the God claim.
Speaker 2: So do you believe? Let me let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: Do you think it is true true that people should
try to believe as many true things and as few
false things as possible. Is that a good way to
go through your life?
Speaker 7: Uh? If I if I had to say yes or no,
I think I couldn't really choose. I would say that
sometimes believing in things that aren't necessarily true might be
good for somebody.
Speaker 1: Okay, why don't you Why don't you give us a
few examples, because I can think of some, but I'm
not sure what you're thinking.
Speaker 7: Of Yeah, Okay, well, I guess I could believe that
having a more positive outlook on a situation that would
truthfully turn out negative could potentially benefit the person who
believes that.
Speaker 1: Or let me let me I didn't before you go
on from that, I want to clarify what you said,
because you said I might believe that having a positive
outflick would be beneficial.
Speaker 2: Is what you're saying there? Saying if I believe a
false thing.
Speaker 1: That makes me think that I will have a positive outcome,
that just that false belief that things will be okay,
that could be beneficial, more beneficial than harmful.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Like, in a situation where and the end result
would be not what would be negative, having a positive
outlook throughout that situation could be beneficial to that person.
Speaker 1: So your assumption there is, I'll say, the only way
or the main way to have a positive outlook is
to believe something that's not true. That it's not possible
to have the same positive outlook by believing reality. Let's
say I'm diagnosed with cancer, so it's better to assume
I'm not diagnosed with cancer and just like cancer doesn't
exist than it is to deal with the cancer in.
Speaker 7: That particular situation, I would say that what I'm trying
to describe is believing that you'll recover from the cancer
even if ultimately you.
Speaker 6: Don't, could result in a better.
Speaker 4: But that I mean, that's a scenario where the future
is open, and so it's like it's not it's not
like there's a proposition that it false yet, right, So
it's a little so we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hold on real.
Speaker 4: Quick, real quick, but the hypothetical can't like I don't
because I might be sympathetic to like these open future examples.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, like, sure, it might be better for me
and still some confidence about me beating some type of illness,
but the future is open, at least as far as
I can see, Like, I don't know the outcome. And
so there's not a scenario where I'm like believing something
that's true and it's not true because there's no value
for that proposition being true or false yet, right, we
don't know, we have no idea. So if we're going
to use an example, I think it maybe better to
use one where it's like, no, this is actually in
fact true and you believe the opposite, or this is
in fact false and you believe the opposite and it's
beneficial for this reason or something.
Speaker 1: And I would go further and make the argument that
even in the case of this cancer diagnosis thing, believing
that you will recover is not necessarily.
Speaker 5: The best way to go about things.
Speaker 1: If you believe for sure, like if you are convinced
you will recover, then you don't prepare will you don't
prepare any sort of documents, You don't change your life
in any way so that your family and because you
got it paired, because you don't need to, because you're
going to recover. And I'm talking about belief, Like when
I asked about believing true things, you are convinced that
you're going to recover.
Speaker 2: So even if it is true that you are going.
Speaker 1: To recover, believing you will recover is unwarranted at the time,
and it can produce a bad outcome, you know, just
just giving somebody can.
Speaker 7: I can address both of those perspectives. Okay, First of all,
I would say that believing that you'll recover doesn't necessarily
mean that you won't hedge against the situation that you
won't as in creating a living will and things like that.
Speaker 6: So I would just you know, uh, but if.
Speaker 7: We're talking about believing in something that is demonstrably false,
then I'm not sure I would say that, yes, that
is a good thing.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not even talking about things that are demonstrably false.
I'm talking about believing things together that you're not supported
by evidence, Right, I'm talking about I am convinced there's
a giant diamond buried in my backyard, and that once
I get enough equipment in here, once I can afford
a digger and I go in and I dig into
my backyard deep enough, I will get a giant diamond
and become the world's richest man. I'm convinced that that's true.
That might be true, but it's unsupported by the current evidence.
That's that's the case I'm talking about. So I'm not
saying it's false. I'm saying it's unsupported by the current evidence.
I have, No, I have insufficient evidence to justify my
belief in that.
Speaker 2: Do you is that? Does that make sense?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 2: That's the space we're dealing with.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that makes that makes sense?
Speaker 6: And no, that would be not good.
Speaker 7: I mean, but that's I guess we're we're talking about
different types of situations.
Speaker 2: Are we are? We hold on? Hold on?
Speaker 1: In my analogy, the afterlife is the diamond if you
didn't pick up on it. So if I live my
life preparing to dig up the diamond and there was
never a diamond, haven't I wasted a ton of resources
gathering my digging equipment, surveying my yard, telling people just wait,
I don't need to work very hard to get a
career going. I'm going to get my diamond here in
a little bit. And then it turns out there's no diamond.
Isn't that a problem? Didn't I waste a bunch of time, resources,
and missed opportunities?
Speaker 7: Well, in a more literal interpretation of that example, it
would be that someone believes that they'll have an afterlife
where they meet their lost loved ones again, and when
they die, if the truth is that there.
Speaker 6: Is nothing in.
Speaker 1: It's not and they spent their life tithing hold on,
Let's talk about everything that comes with that belief.
Speaker 2: I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I'm saying you're convinced. Let's say that Christianity is true.
So what comes with that? You're convinced you're going to
see your loved ones. So the following things come with that.
A lot of people end up tithing ten percent of
their income to their church. They spend a lot of
time praying, They spend a lot of time worrying about,
in a guilty sense of all the other baggage that
comes with their religious beliefs. All of these things are
costs that you accrue while you are assuming with insufficient
evidence that the book that tells you you're going to
see your Weblums is true.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts there, J Mike.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I absolutely here with everything you said, And to me,
it just rears the ugly head of like golibility, Like
if do you just want like because in general like
this idea of like I want to believe more true things,
as many true things as possible, at least about as
false things as possible, Like one if I'm believing a
lot of things that are false, right, and that I
still really want to believe, like I still want to
believe more true things, but I'm just a you know,
I believe this thing and not for good reason. All
all that's being expressed is like I'm a gullible person.
I don't care about methodology and Conman can get me
really easily and like that, let me just like phrase
it in a really easy way. Do you want like,
is it is it better for you to have methodologies
that protect you from conmen, NFT scams, crypto scams, people
selling like.
Speaker 5: Reiki camp events, like all of this shit.
Speaker 2: There's so many.
Speaker 4: Grifters out there, right, Would you rather be somebody that
has that goes on the side of no methodology in
order to protect yourself from things that are true?
Speaker 5: Or that? Is that worth the cost?
Speaker 3: Is it worth going?
Speaker 5: You know what?
Speaker 4: There are some of these things that make me feel
a little bit better. I get good feelings, and it's
worth the cost of potentially being conned by these conmen,
losing my money in NFT scams, scams and all this kind.
Speaker 5: Of stuff, right, is what I'm saying making sense?
Speaker 4: Like it seems like it's very obvious that if you
pick this other side, you're just like it's okay for
those things to happen because it makes I still feel
good at the end of the day. And it's like,
I don't know, man, like I'd rather not feel great internally,
like lying to myself and just have it just be
like a little sadder. But knowing that I have some
integrity in a back but and I care about the truth, right,
it seems like more important to me.
Speaker 2: I don't know, what are your thoughts.
Speaker 7: LEVI okay, Well, there was a lot unloaded between Yeah.
Speaker 5: Sorry, I kind of cut like a wrestling for a them.
Speaker 7: Sorry yeah, yeah, yeah. And my first thought.
Speaker 6: Is there's a lot of equivocation there. But I don't know.
Speaker 5: Let me was let me maybe, let me let.
Speaker 7: Me clarify that I'm not exactly firm in my belief
at this point. I've I've lived my life this way,
and I've had some people.
Speaker 6: Give me.
Speaker 7: Reasons to start really questioning what I believe.
Speaker 6: And I'm not.
Speaker 7: Sure that a grifter is exactly the same as a preacher.
Speaker 1: Well tell me the difference then, between a preacher who
who doesn't believe what he's saying but is just in
it for the money, the free house, the tax free
free house from his church and all the benefits that come.
Let's take it to the worst case scenarios, right, the
preachers that that fly, the private jets, et cetera. So
hold on, hold on, no, no, hold on, just let
me hold on. I'm asking you a question, how do
I tell the difference between a preacher who's just like
I am no longer convinced that this is true exactly,
and I'm in it for the free house, the free food,
the status in society, the fact that I don't have
to go get a real job, quote unquote. How do
I tell the difference between that guy and the preacher
who's doing it because he believes it.
Speaker 2: Can you distinguish between the two?
Speaker 6: Maybe not?
Speaker 1: Okay, So the motivation of the speaker really doesn't enter
into it, whether they're a con man or they're genuinely believed.
Speaker 5: They've got a bridge to tell you and you you.
Speaker 2: Don't know that.
Speaker 3: Like that response, like charging me.
Speaker 4: With the equivocation, it felt like rude because it wasn't even
close to I don't maybe you could identify if like,
maybe you could identify equivocation.
Speaker 2: There, but I would not let that stand.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd committed no fallacy of equivocation.
Speaker 3: And the reason why maybe I maybe I did.
Speaker 4: I take that back, but in that case I didn't
because you don't know that the person that's selling you
the goods is a grifter. I mean, that's that's what
we're trying to argue for that developing a better methodology,
a better sense of knowing what's right versus not gives
those alarm bells that go, this guy's a fucking grifter,
which is why a lot of us in the community
have those bells go up and you see different people
and go, that's a fucking grifter. That's a fucking grifter.
That's a fucking grifter. And then we look at the
rest of the internet. They're like, this guy speaks so
much wisdom. He's just it's so good. They don't see that.
They don't see that, they don't see that, and we
do see this. We do see this guy is legitimately
a grifter, legitimately a scammer. So it's weird to like
take my example and then go, well you know this that, No,
you don't.
Speaker 5: I the point is to have a methodology.
Speaker 1: I get what Levi's coming from, and I think LEVI,
please continue. I think I hear you trolling to sort
of change the attack that you're taking.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to say that there's
a difference between someone who genuinely believes in what they're
saying and someone who doesn't.
Speaker 1: And but not to you do you acknowledge Do you
acknowledge our point that the person's knowledge, confidence, level, motivations
are irrelevant to what you you adjudicate to be sufficient evidence. Exactly,
if I have an alarm bell that goes off for grifters,
hold on, hold on, hold on. If I have an
alarm bell that goes off for grifters, I also have
an alarm bell that goes off for people who just
don't know what the fuck they're talking about. I have
an alarm bell for YouTube influencers who are just trying
to get views and have no idea like they they
they they may could be convinced that their latest trend
of rubbing illumina forehead.
Speaker 4: Professor Dave has a whole archive of these fucking people,
and that people believe these people, like thousands, even millions
of people believe these people, and he has to go
out of his way to help educate and provide the
tools for people to just even understand that they're being conned.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, like put it into real world examples. We
are in the midst of a measles outbreak in the
United States, the like of which we have not seen
since the disease was technically eliminated decades ago. And the
reason we're in it is not necessarily because people went
out there and said, wahaha, I don't believe that there's
anything wrong with vaccines, but I'm gonna make money by
convincing people there are I think some of them were
like that, but some of them were fooled by people,
and they generally went and presented those arguments and convinced
people on insufficient evidence to not give their children the
measles vaccine. To break it down to a real word, example.
Speaker 7: Against more isn't religion necessarily, but criptors in general.
Speaker 1: I'm arguing against accepting things on insufficient evidence. That's why
I said at the very beginning, let's break it down
to a bigger category.
Speaker 2: Come on my position. No no, no, no, no, no no.
Why I asked you? Is it better?
Speaker 5: I'm just animated? Shouldn't it?
Speaker 1: Shouldn't it be that you would want to believe as
many true things and as few false things as possible,
even if some of the false things give you comfort.
Isn't it better to believe only that for which you
have sufficient evidence? If I believe, if it makes me comfortable,
thinking there's not a tiger in the grass outside my cave,
and I'm wrong, I'm gonna get eaten by the tiger, right,
so I should.
Speaker 2: As a whole.
Speaker 1: My philosophy in life is try to believe as many
few things, as many things as that are true as possible,
and as few things as false are trouble. And I
was a little surprised to hear you say I don't
necessarily agree with that, and I just want to explore that.
And my first category of exploring that is shouldn't you
have sufficient evidence before you accept a claim? It doesn't
go to the motivation of the person making the claim.
I don't care whether the pastor truly believes there's an
afterlife or if he's just in it for the money, irrelevant.
My point is you should assess the claim.
Speaker 7: But I think that in when every example gets to
the extreme, then there are a lot of philosophies that
would fail but hold up in a more.
Speaker 2: Mild what's the extreme example and how does it?
Speaker 1: How are the rules different for analyzing that than a
regular example.
Speaker 7: Well, so, if there's somebody that who I trust, who
truly believes what they're saying, it's not the same as
a grifter who's trying to rob me.
Speaker 1: I don't think you've ever seen a good grifter because
you're coming in it with the assumption that you will
know that your trust is earned and that you have
the same level of evidence and analysis of a grifter.
And again, the grifter part is just an example. But
as I said after the grifter part, it could be
a genuine believer who's wrong. Your sincere friend that you've
known for twenty years could just be wrong. How can
we tell if your sincere friend is wrong about the
claims they're asserting? Do we have any sort of method
we've developed to containing whether or not your friend is right?
Can you stop talking and listen to the question.
Speaker 3: You can hear them all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're talking while I'm asking you a question? What
method do we have to determine whether your sincerely believing
friend is right or wrong about whatever claim they're asserting?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 7: What method do I have that my sincerely believing friend
is is genuine in the claim that they're as hurting?
Speaker 1: No, not genuine, that the claims they are asserting are
actually true. They come to you and they say, I
had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch. What evidence do
you have to support that claim to accept the claim
that your friend is making. You've heard of tuna fish sandwiches,
so that's some evidence. You know your friend. You know
your friend to be honest. You know that people eat
tuna fish sandwiches for lunch. There's nothing out of the
ordinary about tuna. You've been to the store and you've
seen that tuna exists. You've had tuna fish sandwiches yourself.
We've got a whole bunch of evidence, right, And you've
got the reputation of your friend and the history of
your friend and all of that stuff, And the consequences
of believing your friend are minuscule. If your friend's pulling
one over on you, not telling you the truth, who cares.
Speaker 2: What's the consequence?
Speaker 1: Right, So it's probably sufficient evidence to believe your claims,
your friend's claim that they have a tuna fish sandwich
for lunch.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Sure, what if they told you they had a tuna
fish sandwich on a UFO?
Speaker 7: So I guess the comparison would be that religious claims
are equivalent to.
Speaker 6: Alien abduction claims.
Speaker 1: No, I'm asking you a question, a genuine question. I'm
asking you a question. What would what would the analysis
you would go through if your friend said.
Speaker 2: That, I'm not talking about religion here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I wanted to talk about religion.
Speaker 1: I know, and we'll get there, But you are I
need to build the house brick by brick. So this
brick is dealing with your assertion that you just know
better because it's your friend. Okay, you trust your friend
more than the con man. So I'm taking the conment
out of it, and I'm saying, Okay, he said he
had a tune of fish sandwich. We've got a lot
of evidence and no reason to disbelieve him, and it's
a mundane claim. Now he says, oh, by the way,
I ate it while I was on a spaceship. What
sort of analysis should go through your head? That's all
I'm asking. What analysis would you use?
Speaker 6: I guess I.
Speaker 7: Would ask for more specifics about the situation that put
in on the UFO. Sure, yeah, so I would be
seeking evidence.
Speaker 1: Okay, And you recognize in your head that you've never
seen an alien spaceship, right right, Yes, And it's never
seemed to have been accurately reported or conclusively reported that
we've seen alien spaceships on Earth, even though there's some rumors.
But the evidence for alien spaceships existing is much less
than the evidence for tunifish sandwiches existing.
Speaker 2: Would you agree with that? Yeah, okay, so.
Speaker 1: You are there is a there's an analysis going on
to say, well, oh and the claim that I ate
a tuna fish sandwich is a mundane claim, whereas the
claim that I ate it on an alien spaceship is
an extraordinary claim.
Speaker 2: Would you agree with that?
Speaker 6: I guess uh. I would have to.
Speaker 7: Understand the difference between extraordinary and mundane.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so mundane would be every day normal, not surprising,
where extraordinary is extraordinary. It's like not ordinary, it's it's
like a super unusual, very weird.
Speaker 2: It has a lot.
Speaker 1: Of like consequences if it's actually true, right, it's something
we've never seen before.
Speaker 2: Maybe, so comparing between the.
Speaker 1: Two tuoni fish sandwich versus alien spaceship, tuoni fish sandwich
is boring and alien spaceship is like worldview breaking for
everybody on the planet.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, if I'm if I could say that obviously
the UFO spaceship in this situation would be the claim
of religion.
Speaker 1: Or God or I promise you I'm not talking about that.
I'm literally just talking about the Spaceship. I honestly, I'm
just talking about the Spaceship right now. I want us
to agree with the methodology before we even turn and
look at religion. I just want to understand the methodology.
If somebody comes to me, let's say, I'm Steve's Jobs.
Speaker 2: You know who Steve Jobs was?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I know who's Steve Jobs.
Speaker 2: Do you remember how he died.
Speaker 6: Cancer?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: But why did he die of a treatable form of cancer?
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Because he became convinced through people around him, that some
alternative medicine would be a better treatment early on than actual,
scientifically proven medicine. And he went with this wu you know, acupuncture, diet,
all sorts of things instead of what science had shown us, right,
And because of that, his treatable form of cancer killed him. Okay,
so I'm not talking about religion right now. I'm just
talking about when you don't believe the things that have
been proven to be true, or when you believe things
based on insufficient evidence, you can hurt yourself or those
around you. And in my example with the Spaceship, I'm
just trying to get you to acknowledge that there is
a difference between claiming that you ate a tuna fish
sandwich and the claiming that you ate a tunafish sandwich
on the spaceship. And I think you demonstrated that because
you were like fine with the space the tuna fish,
but as soon as the space Alien spaceship was brought up,
you had a bunch of questions. You got very cautious.
I don't know if you were looking for me to
trap you. I'm not trying to do that. I'm literally
talking about the spaceship. But it demonstrates that there's a
difference between those two claims, doesn't it.
Speaker 6: I'm just saying that, can we move on from the
example and.
Speaker 1: Talk about I noticed every time I ask you these questions,
instead of answering them, you say what about or you
say something else. I'm just trying to, like, in order
for this conversation to work, I have to see whether
or not we agree on the.
Speaker 2: On the building block. So do you agree.
Speaker 1: The building block is I'm taking conmen concept out of
the conversation. I'm just looking at claims, and I'm trying
to differentiate between claims that are mundane and have no
consequence to them being true or false and claims that
are extraordinary and have a severe consequence to them being
true or false. For example, Steve Jobs, this diet and
Eastern medicine or whatever it was he did can cure
cancer better than all of the experiments we've run on.
Speaker 2: It was an extraordinary claim.
Speaker 1: He chose to believe it or he became convinced of
its truth, and that contributed to his early death.
Speaker 2: I think, just a famous example.
Speaker 6: Truth face value. I'll take that as true.
Speaker 7: Sure, yes, absolutely, And i want to make sure that
you understand I'm not.
Speaker 6: Here to try and win any kind of argument. I'm
just kind of curious.
Speaker 7: And I have you know, like I've said, I have
questions about my own beliefs and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: But it doesn't mean I'm not going.
Speaker 7: To question the premises that you bring up.
Speaker 1: Absolutely no, I encourage that. I just when you ask
a question, I'm going to try to answer it. When
I ask a question, I appreciate if you try to
answer it. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 7: So yeah, sure, Sorry. If I'm not answering questions, it
just feels like I'm not getting a lot of time
to sort of explain my thought process during the answering process.
It seems like there's a lot of push back as
soon as I don't immediately accept the premise as it is.
Speaker 2: Well, that's because to clarify, that's because.
Speaker 1: Lot hold on, hold on, just real quick, okay. That's
because I thought it would be about a twenty second
set up to the conversation. I thought the setup would be,
we all agree that we should only believe things when
we have sufficient evidence, and it's better to believe true
things and false things, and the tuna fish example would
be much easier to believe than.
Speaker 2: The spaceship example.
Speaker 1: That was about a twenty second I was expecting.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, agree, agree, agree. Okay, Now let's talk about religion.
Speaker 1: So just so you understand, that's all I was trying
to do is to set that up, and you, I
think I get the sense we're hesitant to agree with
any of that for fear of a trap or anything
like that. So why don't I start over and turn
it over to you. Why don't I turn it over
to you and say, Okay, given all of that, what
are your concerns about applying that logic to religious claims?
Speaker 7: Okay, Well, I would say that claims about alien spaceships
aren't exactly equivalent to claims about religion, and that religion
has centuries long dedicated theologists and philosophers who establish belief
systems and things.
Speaker 6: Like that, whereas modern UFO.
Speaker 7: Claims aren't based in any sort of long term I'm sorry,
logical reasoning or something like that, like that's that's sort
of my thought processes. It's it's not exactly equivalent. I
guess it serves as a good example.
Speaker 6: I'm not I'm not arguing against that. It's just there's
a lot of difference.
Speaker 7: And the differentferences are subtle, but they're worth addressing.
Speaker 1: So I agree they are literally the same thing. But
here's the problem I have with what you just pointed out.
I think you're making one of two logical fallacies. One
is argumentum ad popularum. Something is true because a lot
of people have believed in it, or putting a twist
on it. It's not necessarily true, but it is categorically
different than the spaceship claim or the diamond in my
backyard claim, or this this.
Speaker 2: WU treatment will cure your cancer claim.
Speaker 1: It's different because of the number of people who have
believed it, or another fallacy it's related, it's different because
it's been around for a long time. Right, one of
those two seem to be the argument that you're making.
Speaker 6: Can you explore Yeah, I.
Speaker 7: Would say that I'm trying to say that religion is
more akin to philosophical beliefs than to.
Speaker 6: Beliefs in UFO.
Speaker 8: So sort of.
Speaker 7: The various philosophies like humanitarianism or utilitarianism and things like
that are argued in much the same way as various
religious beliefs are.
Speaker 1: But we're not dealing with humanitarianism and utilitarianism. We're dealing
with a branch of philosophy called epistemology. And I agree
all of this, all of this is a philosophical argument,
but it's within this branch called epistemology, i e. What
actually exists and how can you tell it exists? So, yes,
it is all philosophical, but the fact that the fact is,
the claim is there is a God and there is
a afterlife, and it's not some like let's stare at
our belly buttons and say it would be utially, it
would be of utility should the afterlife exists. No, that's
not what's being preached in the streets. That's not why
people are voting for Christian nationalism. That's not all of
this stuff. It is there is actually a God and
he wants me to do this, and he'll be mad
if I don't do this. It's an argument about actual existence.
Speaker 2: So am I wrong about that?
Speaker 6: Toward Christianity?
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't hear your answers talking when I
was could you please, could you preally start again? Because
you were talking when I was asking the question. So
my question was, this is all epistemology, This is all
how do we know what actually exists? And can we
prove it? And so what I am I wrong about?
That is my question to you?
Speaker 7: I'm not sure because I was going to ask could.
Speaker 6: We get some more.
Speaker 7: Concrete, realistic examples rather than hypotheticals.
Speaker 2: So I don't know a more concrete example.
Speaker 1: Then there is a God, and there is an afterlife,
and there is a hell, and you're going to go
to one of them.
Speaker 2: Isn't that the most important question in all of this?
Speaker 7: Well I'm a well I'm a universalist, and.
Speaker 2: Well let's start there. Yeah, what do you believe in? Why?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 7: Yeah, sure, I believe that everyone will be joined together
in heaven after we're gone.
Speaker 2: Why do you believe then?
Speaker 7: And I think the answer to why would see mostly because.
Speaker 6: I was raised with that tradition and that the community
around the supports.
Speaker 7: That tradition, and if you're looking for, you know, logical
sort of concrete evidence for that, I absolutely would say
that I.
Speaker 6: Cannot provide that.
Speaker 2: Does that bother you?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 7: No, because whenever I try and ask questions and say that,
you know, I'm questioning as believe, I'm not met with
any sort of.
Speaker 6: Real world evidence. I'm met with conversations about UFOs.
Speaker 1: And no, I'm asking does it bother you that you
don't have any evidence to support your firmly held belief?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I.
Speaker 1: Don't see what that has to do with UFOs, But
so you're not bothered that you believe something without sufficient evidence? Yes, okay,
I think that's true of a lot of people. The
question I have of people who aren't bother that is
along the lines of what I've been talking about all along,
is doesn't that open you up to hurting yourself or.
Speaker 5: Others in what kind of way?
Speaker 7: Like we've talked about grifters.
Speaker 6: Sure, but there's a difference in believing one thing and
believing another.
Speaker 7: And just because I believe that God exists doesn't mean
I'm automatically subject to.
Speaker 6: Rifters of all sorts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but grifters was an example of what you can
be subjected to if you're gullible, not specifically this religious belief.
Could you tell me if somebody proved to you tomorrow
that there were no God, for example, right, how would
you change what you do on a weekly basis?
Speaker 7: Well, I guess if it was proved beyond a reasonable
doubt that what I believe is absolutely untrue, then I
would I would stop praying, okay, and I would stop
worship being at church. I don't think I would stop
communicating with the people.
Speaker 2: That care about right absolutely.
Speaker 6: Who also believe those things.
Speaker 5: Sure, but if for me.
Speaker 7: It was absolutely proof that there is no God, then sure, yeah,
why wouldn't I?
Speaker 6: I don't. I don't see reason.
Speaker 1: So that's one little example of an answer to your question,
right that, Well, if it was, if I'm wrong, I'm
wasting a bunch of time and emotional energy on the
acts of attending service praying.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you tithe money or donate.
Speaker 1: To those services that encourage people to believe those things.
Universalists tend to be sort of hands off on that.
So that's just one example, And then there's sort of
a meta level where participating in this religious belief system
is giving cover to other religious believers who either truly believe,
are being convinced to believe, or would give up the
belief were there fewer participants, and by you adding to
their numbers, they look around and make the same argument
you did, which is, Wow, so many people believe for
so long, I guess I'm going to believe it too.
So you know, there's x percent of the people in
the room at any given church service are actually non believers,
but they keep pretending they believe because they believe everybody
else is pretending and that wastes their time, etc. There's
other studied examples of how feigned religious belief or unsupported
religious belief can harm people. I'm sure you've experienced in
your life various people who say things like, oh man,
the devil's really on my ass today, or you know,
I feel so blessed for the glory of God that
we got this victory or whatever. Using religious terminology has
been shown to give cover to people with mental illnesses
because some people in those circles will say, the devil's
really on me today, and they're seeing a literal devil,
and they don't get mental health because they frame their
mental illness in this structure of these religious beliefs which
hold this special place in society to be not subjected
to the same level of scrutiny as the other beliefs. Right,
this is the tuna fish versus the spaceship thing. So
there are a lot of costs. Some of them are
external to you, but there are a lot of costs
for somebody to be wrong about such an important question.
For you, specifically, it would be all of this wasted time.
Think of all the hours you've spent in church, praying
and or worrying about this question, and how much it
would be you would have saved had you not had
to go.
Speaker 8: Through so much.
Speaker 6: There's so much that you're saying.
Speaker 1: Well, you asked what the cost would be, or I
always wanted to point out what the cost would be.
So those are some of the examples of how believing
something incorrectly when there's no fraud involved, there's no con man,
but how something could cost you. Right, if you were wrong,
it has cost you. I don't know how many hundreds
of hours of being in church, praying, worrying about the book,
all of those sorts of things. What are your thoughts
on that? Oh, we have looks like we have J
Mike back. Yeah, you had some technical problems.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm really frustrated. It's really weird to plug in
the YETTI. I can't hear anything. I just saw my
volume thing like forcefully going down to zero, and I'm like, no,
push volume up, and it's fighting me going down.
Speaker 5: I'm like, am I stepping on something?
Speaker 4: And so basically right now the scenario is I barely
can hear people because I gotta, okay through my TV.
And so when I go through my if I go
through my TV and they're here and I go, just
let me know and I'll do I'll be really good
at clicking that.
Speaker 5: Mute button and only talking when it's my term. But yeah,
no problem probably is over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's no problem.
Speaker 1: We were just kicking it over to Levi on his
thoughts on that cost.
Speaker 7: I wasn't trying to, you know, dodge any questions. It's
just you were You were stacking a lot all at once.
It's it's hard to keep up with each claim. But
the first claim that you made was that it would
be a waste of my time for me to pray
or worship.
Speaker 6: And I would say.
Speaker 7: That there, it's not an absolute waste of my time.
There are benefits to it as far as my emotional
state or my connection to my community.
Speaker 2: Can you can you?
Speaker 1: I'm going to interrupt for one second and ask you
to compare that answer to the answer you gave me
when I said what would happen if it was proved
that your your beliefs about a God were not true?
The first thing you said was I will stop praying
and I would stop going to church.
Speaker 7: Sure, but that's also not implying that I wouldn't replace
those activities with something that is fulfilling in a similar way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it would be a different activity.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If I can be honest with you, it feels like
you're trying to cover for this belief system. You're trying
to minimize your previous answer. Right, Your previous answer is
I'd stop going to church. I'd stop doing this, and
you might. You'd start playing board games, you'd find community elsewhere.
You start going to a Sunday assembly of Quakers who
don't really have a religious belief and they just like
the French like whatever it may be. I don't disagree
that you'd replace it with something else. But there would
be a difference. There would be a delta. You'd give
up something. You'd give up the tithing, you'd give up
the church going, you'd give up the praying, you'd give
up the worrying about heaven and hell. You'd give up,
or you'd start, you'd start appreciating the current life as
the only life you have to live, knowing or at
least having been convinced that it's not guaranteed that there's
an afterlife. There would be a delta, and that delta
is a maybe small cast to you. But I'm just
demonstrating that you you, I think you agree there would
be a difference.
Speaker 2: Do you agree?
Speaker 7: Well, I have to say that it feels like I get,
you know, a few seconds of clarification before you decide
to interrupt, and I let you whereas you go on
and on, and anytime I try and interrupt, you accuse
me of being, you know, dishonest, and the discussion.
Speaker 1: Or I don't think I've ever accused you of being dishonest.
And if you rewind, I gave you a very long
time to talk just a few minutes ago. But yes,
this is a call in show where we ask questions
if you are if you want to answer a question
that is a fairly simple one with a long explanation
that doesn't make sense, that we would have to then
rewind back to the beginning where we say, okay, this
first thing you said didn't make sense, we would waste
a lot of time. So that's why that's why this
is like this.
Speaker 2: So my question was.
Speaker 7: Stackcorn a lot of.
Speaker 4: Things, And it sounds like every time you talk about
like what he says, you don't address the content, but
like this meta around the content, and it's just really
really annoying. Like I wasn't even here for out of the conversation,
but I came back and you were doing the same
thing or like like you did it with the equivalent
with the charging me of a false equivalence earlier.
Speaker 2: Hey, my can get over that.
Speaker 4: Well no, I mean it's but like he's done that
every time, and you talked to you like I think
you're loading this in. It's like okay, like that, I
don't know that this is working in that sense of
you're going to do well.
Speaker 1: Let me let let me use the most recent example.
All I said was I listed a bunch of potential costs.
And you're complaining that I listed a bunch of potential costs.
Is it that you couldn't keep up with all the
costs or you objecting to me listing costs at all?
Because we were talking about costs and I said, okay,
let me rattle off a few of the costs. Praying
cost time, going to church cost time. There's an emotional
cost of worrying about the afterlife.
Speaker 2: There's the cover that you give to.
Speaker 1: Those around you that the more normal religion seems to everybody,
the more other people will participate in religion. Those seem
to be pretty straightforward. Is that what you're complaining about
that I listed those four or five?
Speaker 7: Well, you know what, honestly, maybe maybe it's something.
Speaker 6: Where I'm just.
Speaker 7: Battling this belief system and when you challenge it, I
feel like I started getting defensive.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean that's that's I applauch. Go ahead, Jay, Mike,
that's a.
Speaker 5: That's a very.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry trying to Yeah, I'm just trying to understand,
and I guess maybe uh, an online debate format.
Speaker 6: Isn't the best way for me to work these oughts out.
Speaker 5: Maybe maybe not.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's some people might help, but like I will say,
like you said something at the beginning, we can.
Speaker 3: Move on, uh to our cars.
Speaker 4: I know we spent a lot of time and I
missed a giant chunk, but I was kind of weirded
out by the way it was phrased.
Speaker 5: And maybe maybe this.
Speaker 4: Is just a miscommunication thing or you meant it a
different way, but you were like, why should I not believe?
I mean, for me, if like there's a claim about
like there's a I abducted a leprechaun and threw them
in Graham's car, Like do you believe, like, like show
me that I didn't do that and that there isn't
a leprechaun and shoved in Graham's car. It seems like
a weird way to do it, because like it seems
like when you have these types of claims, the better
thing to do is to say, hey, well, like I
don't know that I have a good reason to even
think that's true, because being like you know more on that,
like highlighting the agnostic kind of side of it, of like, really, look, man,
I don't know. I could change I could totally have
my mind be changed on it, and I think that's
better than like, why shouldn't I believe a lot of
atheists are like, I don't know. I came to this
process realizing I didn't have good reasons to believe in
the first place. Right, So I guess that maybe that's
why am a little weird. I don't know, what do
you think about that? Or maybe I miss misrepresented you.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 7: Well, I guess maybe this conversation isn't going exactly the
way either one of us was hoping. But I would
say that I really appreciate the way you guys have
been talking about this.
Speaker 6: And if I've been.
Speaker 7: Defensive or reflective or you know, rudely interruptive, I want
to apologize for that. But you definitely believe lots.
Speaker 6: I'll go.
Speaker 7: You've given me a lot to think about, and I
guess it's just something I'm struggling with, uh, logically and
mentally and emotional.
Speaker 5: Early, i'd like to give you some advice.
Speaker 2: Believe I'd like to give you some advice.
Speaker 1: I think here to clarify, I don't think you've been deceptive.
I think when I've been pointed out things like hey,
when we ask you questions, you're not answering them. It's
not because I think you're trying to pull one over
us or anything like that. I was coming to the
same conclusion you were. That's that's the That's what we
call resolution of cognitive dissonance.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Cognitive dissonance is when you're trying to reconcile these two
beliefs or what you want to believe that are contradictory. Right,
Like I think I want to believe.
Speaker 2: There's an afterlife. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I don't want to put words in them out, but
this is an example. I want to believe that the
Bible's true, there's an afterlife, et cetera. But I've my
experience and these arguments I'm hearing and all the people
I've talked to in my life, it seemed to indicate
that I shouldn't believe that. And when you start to
resolve lie like which of these am I going to
deal with? The brain tends to, in your words, get
to it tends to say when I'm asked a question
about X, Y or Z, I say, well, what about
a this weird outlier, right, So I agree with you.
I think your self analysis is good, that that the
brain itself is a very tricky thing. And the other
piece of advice I have is, I think I've observed
in my life, and people have written about this, that
people tend to reserve a certain special place in their
minds for their very firmly held beliefs like religion, and
they don't apply the same rules of logic and evidence
that they would apply to any other aspect of their life.
And all of our questions from J Mike and I
so far have been targeted at that reservation that people
put on their brains to say, I'm gonna my brain
is going to tell me that asking about the diamond
in the backyard or the UFO spacecraft or whatever is
categorically different than religion. When I think I pointed out
it's not, it's just epistemology. It's just somebody's claiming something
is true and you're accepting it, but you're not applying
the same rules you would to the UFO, the diamond,
the cancer treatments, all these other things that.
Speaker 2: Are more real world where we have an answer.
Speaker 1: So I'm not arguing that you shouldn't believe these things
because they're false. All I'm saying is the proper answer
to is there an afterlife? Or is the Bible's mystical
claims true? Is probably I don't know. That's all I'm saying.
And I think your brain is from what I hear
from what you said at the intro to this call
and ongoing is you're struggling with saying I don't know
because you're uncomfortable with it, and maybe you still believe.
But maybe your answer really is I don't know, and
I'm okay with that. We'll find out when we die.
I don't know. What are your thoughts, Levi, And then
we'll hear from Mike again.
Speaker 7: I guess you know a lot of what you just
said really clarified it for me, and UH made a
lot of sense.
Speaker 6: And I guess my original question.
Speaker 7: Was sort of a misunderstanding of the non believer perspective,
because my original question is why shouldn't I believe in
something like And I guess my thought process was why
should I.
Speaker 6: Believe that there is no God? And what you're trying
to say.
Speaker 7: Is that not not believing that there is a God
and believing that there is no God, are ye?
Speaker 4: Yeah, most people on this show, like I'm I think
I'm the only one.
Speaker 5: I could be wrong. I think I'm the only one
on this show that affirms.
Speaker 4: That God does not. Like my view is, gods and
goddesses do not exist. They're not a thing. They're not
They're not a thing.
Speaker 5: They don't exist. They're not real. They're like a like
a unicorn to me, right, it's just not a real thing.
Speaker 4: Now, someone asking why I think that, I'm going to
get into a lot of boring philosophical justifications on my metaphysics,
which is akin to something like naturalism, and it'll bore people.
But I have no problem giving that. But it's at
the same time, it's not the right way to look
like if you came to me and go, why, look,
I believe in this thing, but why should I just not?
Speaker 5: Why should I believe what you believe?
Speaker 6: Like that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we can do that, and I do that kind
of trade process with people. But if someone's like genuinely
deconstruction and it's not just like this philosophical kind of
back and forth game we're playing, you know, I don't
I'd much rather them look like in toward themselves it
seems looking out towards other people, they don't have your experiences.
They didn't have your knowledge set growing up. They didn't
read the same books, they didn't watch the same shows,
they didn't have the same families.
Speaker 5: Everybody's experienced.
Speaker 4: That cumulative point of view of your experience is different
for everybody, and it only takes away from your journey
to properly potentially deconstruct if you focus on these other
positions as opposed to looking in or and going what
reasons do I have to think that this is even true?
Or like it just raises the probability of it being
true like a smidge, you know, and work from there
and really developing, like Graham said, like you're epistemology and knowing.
Speaker 5: Why do I believe the things I do and do?
I have good reasons?
Speaker 4: And even maybe more meta, what what is a good
criterion of even saying that this is knowledge?
Speaker 5: All this kind of stuff that we talked about before
the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have a I have a question for you, LEVI.
I don't know if you can see my screen, but
I am holding on screen a jar of marbles. Do
you agree that the count of marbles inside this jar
is either odd or even. This is not a trap,
it's just a demonstration. It's even the number of marbles,
it's either direct. H Okay, if I if I told
you if what do you now looking at hearing about
this marbles?
Speaker 2: Are you convinced that the.
Speaker 5: Count is even if you told me that they were.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I have these this jar. Are you
just just knowing that there's a jar of marbles? Are
you convinced that the number of marbles in the jar
is even? Okay, so it must be odd?
Speaker 5: Then?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: How many marks? Is it odd or even? The proper
answer is I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: So that's what we're saying.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that the marbles are even, the marbles
are odd. I've actually never counted the marbles.
Speaker 2: In this jar.
Speaker 4: Let me add that, like imagine, like I was the
person that was like, we're doing this example, and I
tell Gret.
Speaker 5: Craig, sorry, you're not. Greg. Greg is my other friend.
That's God.
Speaker 4: By the way, Graham's like, hey, you know, I al
he talks to me because what did you believe? I
go why it was an even or I thought it
was you know, an even amount for that, and I'm
I'm like, just I want to know, like, why should
I think it's odd Graham?
Speaker 5: And he's like, well, I I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm not an I'm not an otter, but I'm not
an even or either.
Speaker 4: What to think and what I should be doing in
that situation as an evener is go, why the fuck
do I even think that it's even?
Speaker 5: Have I counted them? Nope? Well, then what it's like,
presumably you don't.
Speaker 4: You know, it's not a great example because you have reasons, presumably,
like there are probably legitimate reasons that you've got you
to believe or whatever. But it's it's finding those in
analyzing them and being like, should I really just reserve.
Speaker 5: Judgment at this point?
Speaker 4: You know, that's kind of at least the way I
would take it, But I never went through your journey,
so you know, I'm kind of talking.
Speaker 7: Well, I just wanted to say I really appreciate you
guys talking to me and taking this.
Speaker 5: Time to let me on your show, for sure.
Speaker 7: And I wanted to say that if I was pushing back.
Speaker 5: To my well you're good, No, you're so good, You're so.
Speaker 7: Good, I wanted my intuition yeah, and I really appreciate
the conversation that we've had and you've given me a
lot to think about and consider. And uh uh, I
think I don't think there's anything more we can get
out of this conversation.
Speaker 5: I think that's good.
Speaker 4: I think if apologies, if anyone's like, this is a
really long call, this was These are the calls we
live for, Like, this is a call that's way more
important than why do.
Speaker 5: You think meta ethical anti realism is true? What about
metathical Like it's just you know, no, this was a
but it's not.
Speaker 4: That's not the importance, and that's playing a video.
Speaker 5: Game having fun. I suppose like this is.
Speaker 1: Real world ship, right, Yeah, this is a This has
been a great call, and I really appreciate putting up
with us in our format.
Speaker 2: So thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Please call back if you want to continue the conversation
or if you have you know, some answers to the
opposite question of you know what what we always ask is,
as you may mention, when we got to the middle,
where we got to your universalism, I said, okay, well
what do you believe?
Speaker 2: And why?
Speaker 1: The why is much more important, and we've been talking
about the whys and the methods that we we use
to come up with what we actually believe in the world.
And my only point is that those methods could should
be consistent. You shouldn't reserve a special part of your
heart or brain or whatever for a belief system that
you hold sacred just because it's sacred. It should be
able to if it's true. It should be able to
stick up and have the same level of analysis as
opening the jar and counting the marbles. So keep up
that journey. Please feel free to call back. I really
appreciate you call. I'll go ahead and drop you out
and we'll do get onto other callers. We've got a
lot of them. What a good caller.
Speaker 2: J Mark.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you weren't there the whole time, but I'm
glad you got back on.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know how this audio thing's working
out for people, So I will, like, I will get
Kelly in here, you know, for a call and stuff.
Just I'm sure this is like the producer's fucking nightmare
right now.
Speaker 5: And all that. And I mean, I you know, I.
Speaker 4: Have no no problems given my seat up for Kelly,
So I'll probably end up doing that at some point,
just to make this easier for people. If the audience audience,
I apologize if it's through your echo or something like that.
Speaker 2: I really sounds pretty good. It's just that we've lost
the show.
Speaker 5: Selfishly, I just want to be here.
Speaker 1: No, you sound you sound pretty good. You just we've
lost your background. So now it looks like some sort
of hostage video with just a sheet behind you.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and my like, my like on my green
screen looks like I shit all over my green screen.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do some announcements and then we'll jump
back onto our next caller. So first, we now have
a channel that hosts all of the shows in the
ACA UH in audio and podcast form. So you can
visit tiny dot c, c slash a n Podcasts, and
there you can listen to all the latest shows from
the Atheists, Experience, Talk, Heathen, Truth, Wanted, Nonprofits, and others
all on one channel.
Speaker 2: That's great news.
Speaker 5: UH.
Speaker 1: We do also have another way to support us by
sending us super chats. If you send us super chats
now in your chat on YouTube, we will read as
many as we can on the air, So please do
participate in that. Also, if you want to go beyond
just commenting and want to actually take some actions that
might help you can work with our community. ACA wants
you to know what's going on and help out. If
you want so, go over to www Dot Atheist Hyphencommunity
dot org where you can learn about this organization, it's
policies and how you can get involved, and we always
are looking for people to help. Along those lines talking
about people who help, people who put up with me
and Jmike. We want to send a very big thank
you to the crew who put this show together along
with all the other shows that happen every week. We've
got video operators, audio operators, note takers, call screeners, chat modifiers.
There are the handsome devils on your screen now?
Speaker 2: And do we have any pets? Usually we have a
or two. I can't tell.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 2: Thank you all very much for doing this.
Speaker 4: Going to get fixed, fix my problems while this is
the whole show's going on the other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there they deal with me and J Mike and
all the other hosts who really just have to show
up and have a conversation.
Speaker 2: The real work is getting I was in there with.
Speaker 5: Greg and I was like, I don't know what to do.
Man Like I'm lost right now. He said, we're gonna
do this, got this and get this chucked that I'm like,
all right, cool.
Speaker 4: So Greg is like just baffled, like I don't know
what what even happened.
Speaker 2: He's a wizard, he is, He truly is figured it out.
Speaker 5: I was like, and let's test this audio thing.
Speaker 1: It works all right, let's go And and to emphasize
to everybody, this is a volunteer organization. I think they
have maybe three people who earn somewhat of a salary
on this. So getting this show on the air every
week along with all the others is quite astounding. Having
been behind the scenes now for a couple of years,
I've seen a few close calls where they run into
some sort of problem minutes before we're supposed to go live,
and it seems like I don't know if you've ever
seen Shakespeare in Love, the movie where they are always
trying to put on a show back in Shakespeare's time,
and it all just kind of works out.
Speaker 2: And the producer.
Speaker 1: Whenever he's asked like how does it all come together?
Every time, he's like, it's a miracle, Like he has
no idea, it just happens and that's what it feels
like to me. The show just gets on the air.
We get to have these conversations and explore with people what.
Speaker 2: They believe and why.
Speaker 1: And more importantly, other people can listen to these explanations,
even if they're not ready to have that chat. They
hear these conversations and might ask themselves some important questions.
So thank you crew for making sure this works every week.
Speaker 2: If you would like to be one.
Speaker 1: Of those very very attractive cute crew members you just saw,
or be a guest on one of our shows, or
eventually even become a host, We're always looking for people
interested in being a part of our productions, so email
volunteer at Highist, Atheist Hyphencommunity dot org to get involved.
I don't know, let's check and see if we have
any super chats. We do have a super chat. We
have Skeptoquest for four dollars and ninety nine cents said
I'm here for the tuna fish sandwiches.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, skeptic Quest. It was all a lie.
Speaker 1: There was no tuna fish sandwich. You were you were
very gullible to believe that there was one. No, thank
you very much. So what do you think Jami. Actually
we jump onto another call. We've got a bunch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I need all right, let's uh, let's get get
one where I don't hopefully get out of them right away.
Speaker 1: All right, So we've got Michelle I think from New York.
It's either Michelle or Michael. I think it's Michelle, says
she her from New York. Was Jesus a historical figure
because of fame from the Gospels? I'm not sure I
understand that connection, But Michelle, could you please explain what
you're talking about?
Speaker 10: Yeah, hey, mister the Cross examinter, and hey J Mike.
Lovely to be able to talk to you. Finally. Uh,
I can't wait to see how J. Mike is totally
going to destroy me. I mean, yeah, that's the thing.
He's good at that. But uh, but yeah, what I
meant by the you know, the heracity of the history,
the historiocity of Jesus. You know, was he a historical
figure based on the fame he garnered from the Gospels
and all the extra canonical works?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 10: And and uh and was he positive that proveny of
his his historiocity rather than him just being a myth?
Speaker 6: And did it?
Speaker 10: Does it possibly? Shed and did his does his game
possibly shed any light on him being god Blake figure?
Speaker 1: Is King Arthur or Robin Hood a historical figure because
of their popularity of their tails?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 10: I think it's well no, And like most scholars, there's
a lot of scholar can I interest? I'll answer that
by saying a lot of scholars there's to me, it
seems that it's a mix with the Jesus view. A
lot of some scholars say he was a mythical figure,
some say it was historical. I don't know of any
scholars that actually think that the King Arthur was historical.
I think everyone seems to kind of take it on
fact that he was. It was all a fictional story.
Speaker 1: So they're they're not a historical figure because of the
popularity of their stories.
Speaker 2: Then is that what you're saying?
Speaker 4: That's the point your Graham's trying to get.
Speaker 5: You to writing nine.
Speaker 10: Right, right?
Speaker 1: The popularity of those stories does not establish that they
are historical figures, is what you're saying.
Speaker 5: I can I know?
Speaker 10: Can I There may have been a there may have
been a figure in history that was a king named
Arthur or or Dragon, but his story, I mean, what's
there a magical sword.
Speaker 8: Was there a magical lady at the lake?
Speaker 10: They gave him a sword?
Speaker 3: In Avalon?
Speaker 10: I really much.
Speaker 1: Doubt that, So I'm gonna I'm gonna redirect back to
the original question. If you agree that King Arthur's tales
and Robin Hood's tales are popular, but that popularity doesn't
mean that they are true, doesn't that same logic apply
to the historical figure of Jesus.
Speaker 2: In the Bible?
Speaker 1: I E Yes, those aren't necessarily true because the story
is popular. And I'm hearing you say yes, Okay, I
don't have any other questions. How about you, Mike h No?
Speaker 4: I mean, but if we have a are we just
getting like a concession that the that's not the case.
Speaker 5: It might have just been phrases like a question or.
Speaker 2: Something like that, but like, so, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 4: What is what is your position? Like I got to
I need to go up more. If we just all
kind of agree that the popularity of a story doesn't
you know, make it, you know, true? Like it's not
like they're gonna dig up New York at some point
and be like Spider Man, this shit.
Speaker 5: Was real to you? Why a real dude?
Speaker 1: But you know, but if they did, that would be
interesting evidence.
Speaker 5: That would be cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so like I.
Speaker 4: Don't know, yeah, but maybe we get some more meat
on the boat. Like do you think that Jesus existed?
Speaker 5: Is at your position?
Speaker 8: And I think it's possible.
Speaker 10: And one of the reasons I think is more than
possible is because I think especially in the extra Canigal stuff,
like the extra Caniical gospels. I think it was the
Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of White where and it's
my opinion that there was more than one itinerate preacher
going around saying his name was Joshua, more than one
rabbi as most some scholars believe, going around saying they
were Jesus or Joshua or yeah, are you sure? But
I think one of the scriptures.
Speaker 8: That Moses dound in me was when Jesus said.
Speaker 10: In the Gospel of why did the Gospel Thomas, I
surely tell you the end shall not come until a
man can become a woman and a woman can become
a man.
Speaker 1: Now, obviously, what relevance does that have to whether or
not Jesus was a historical figure, And more importantly, did
any of the supernatural things that are claimed in the Bible.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and like this, I don't know this if.
Speaker 4: This feels like trully because like I mean, what you
just like pulled out.
Speaker 5: Because like from what I actually about the Gospel.
Speaker 4: Toomas, this is it's just like sayings from Jesus am
I right, right, Like you have, like anyone that thinks
that the fish will or the Kingdom of God will
be in the seas, the fish shall go before them. Man,
anyone that thinks that the Kingdom will be in the
in the skies, the bird shall go before I'm trying,
to like point, trying to argue with early Christians that
thought there was a literal apocalyptic.
Speaker 5: Judgment the Kingdom of God on earth, and they're arguing
with that.
Speaker 4: But like from my understanding of the Gospel of Thomas,
so that it's like these are sayings that Christians don't accept.
You're just saying like it could be because there's this
funny here or something.
Speaker 5: That's what it sounds like. You're saying, like there's this
funny like man.
Speaker 4: Becoming a woman, woman becoming man's like a trans joke.
Speaker 10: That what I mean by that is obviously you know
that Jesus that said that it is not saying was
not making some like future astoundment or future assessment about
sex changed operations.
Speaker 2: All right now, I'm just I'm just dropping this call.
Speaker 1: Yeah I don't, Yeah, I I I'm not interested.
Speaker 5: At tempt even at trolling. I was even good. I
was even good. Yeah that's oh it sounds man woman.
Speaker 4: And I think that's true because look at today, and
that's people think brother, brother, nobody, nobody's interested with the
word trans means, first off, because I bet you, like
when people say this ship, they're.
Speaker 5: Like, oh, man becoming a woman, when becoming man, Like they.
Speaker 4: Don't even understand what the word trans means, and so
they have this like fundamental confusion of like what a
trans person is actually fucking saying.
Speaker 5: So infuriating, Like I got on the like uh.
Speaker 4: Trans debates on TikTok, I had like I had to
like bow out for a little bit because these people
are so dumb, Like they're so stupid, they don't understand
the position they're arguing against.
Speaker 5: Like it's insane.
Speaker 4: So if that was you, please, like, I mean, understand
what the word means before you're like man become.
Speaker 5: Woman, woman become man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's a stark contrast with the previous call.
I'll just point out that I will take a million
Levis who will argue to death against me if they're
convinced but is coming from a point of honesty and
intellectual curiosity and uh and being direct and all of
those things. I'll take a million of those over somebody
who for some reason has a sad enough life that
they have some sort of acts to grind that they
call in a show about theism that talks about what
we believe in, why we believe it, with this sort
of performative bullshit, And you know, I'm bored of it.
It's so boring. It's I've seen for the last ten
years now, fifteen years now of what ignorance really looks like,
like ignorance put into political motion, and it's boring.
Speaker 2: It's terrifying and boring. At the same time.
Speaker 4: You should have saw earlier what I called the experience,
the trans show, and it didn't land.
Speaker 5: It wasn't funny. I really don't even what you do
after that?
Speaker 7: Is that?
Speaker 5: What you do you call people when you do that?
Speaker 2: Like, I don't know. It's it's sad, it really is.
Speaker 1: I do feel sorry for the caller because their life
could be so much richer. I don't think people understand
how rich life is when you start to honestly examine
epistemology and facts and sciences. The world and the universe
are stunningly, amazingly complex, and there's so much out there
to learn, from the social sciences to my area of law,
to your area of philosophy, to hard sciences like astronomy
or geology. There's so much out there, and a lot
of these people who have had the first clue about
this stuff, it's dunning Krueger to some degree that they
think they know better than everybody else when there's just
so much hard science out there that we've put on
the table to establish how to treat each other better
in all aspects of life, not just for trans people.
That you really sound like a very sad person when
you call in and do this, and all I can
do is pity you. So we have better calls to take?
Speaker 2: Shall we move on to the next one? All right?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm I want. I don't. I'm in this weird
position because I was like.
Speaker 4: I want to do a call like that wasn't a
fucking real call? And then I'm like, well, you know,
give Kelly an opportunity to But now I feel like
it's like, well, I don't want to leave yet.
Speaker 2: We're no, no, you're you're our co host. We'll have
Kelly up in a bit.
Speaker 5: I don't want to be a dick, but I kind
of want to. Let's take this, I don't want to.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, why don't we talk to Marcus?
Speaker 5: Him?
Speaker 1: He him from New Zealand. Thanks for calling in from
so far away. The question I see, or the note
I see, is that you said I came up with
a trilemma. Not a dilemma, but a trilemma that shows
either God interferes in free will or it's unfair thoughts,
So why don't you explain it to us? Marcus? What's
your what's your observation? And we'll give you our thoughts.
Speaker 5: Hi, I'm Mark.
Speaker 9: I'm Marcus from New Zealand, as you already know, yep,
already Colleen showed before. And I I think you will remember.
Speaker 6: Me or not.
Speaker 4: I'm really bad remembering calls, even if it happened a
week ago.
Speaker 1: I may have spoken to Marcus. I seem to recall
New Zealand and the name, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, I'm sure.
Speaker 5: There's so many audiences. I remember this guy. Yeah, I
don't know. I talked a lot of people online.
Speaker 9: A lot of stuff thats happened since since then, uh,
And I've been struggling with my religious upbringing. I've really
been thinking about God and about the judgment.
Speaker 8: Day and about that, and in.
Speaker 9: That I think I came up with this trilemma of
mine that I don't think anybody has done, specifically.
Speaker 8: Said in a way, in this way before.
Speaker 2: And I discuss it, okay, laid on ut.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 9: So the trilemma asks what happens to children on the
day of judgment, on the day of final judgment. Now,
the standard response from Christians is that since children are not, uh,
don't have the age of accountability yet, they they they
all get to heaven.
Speaker 5: But what kids?
Speaker 9: Yeah, but what if a kid doesn't want to get
to heaven? What if they want to stay with their
simple parents even in hell?
Speaker 8: And then.
Speaker 9: And then, as you have, God either takes them to
heaven anyways with kidnapping God, or he said them to help,
to bid their parents to be well. Sending children to
help would be really bad, or he brainwashes them and
in a way that they want to be with God
more that they want to be with Uh, more that
they want to be with their parents, against the original
wish wishes. Now, I seen some responses to this because.
Speaker 5: I lay on readit.
Speaker 9: I asked some questions about it online, and they said
that since God's perfectly lovable, the kid, by seeing God
will want who want to build God Martin, They want
to be new parents. And this is not pretty much
because that's just a natural way of things.
Speaker 8: But what is the kid even refuse? But what if
the kid even refuses to look at God because he
knows that still will happen.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you think.
Speaker 2: I'll defer to j Mike, he's sort of better at this.
Speaker 1: But my observation is you see a similar argument of Hey,
for God to expose himself to anybody and prove that
he exists would destroy free will because then they would
have no choice but to worship him. So I think
that point maybe makes sense. And then the other the
counter argument to that is there's stories in the Bible.
And I don't really get into arguing fan fiction, which
is kind of what we're doing, but there's other stories
in the Bible that sort of disprove that. So if
I understand the Bible correctly, Satan used to be in
the presence of God, walk with God, see God, and
Satan was able to exercise the free will to say Nah,
I don't want that. So I think this whole fanfic
free Will Heaven whatever. I agree with you, there's tons
of plot holes in it. What are your thoughts, Jamike?
Speaker 5: I was actually gonna point out that, like.
Speaker 4: There's like a lot of different kind of thought experiments
or different things you can point, like, like, for example,
like I'll talk about how it's pretty clear that.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess it depends if you're a don't.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I want to get into open
theism and all this kind of stuff, Like there's certain
views that might push back for certain reasons, but I
guess I'll just echo the same kind of point at Graham.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of different ways you can construct these, and.
Speaker 4: I'd have to really analyze your argument to see if
it's like a true trilemma or whatever.
Speaker 5: It's kind of hard for me just to do it
on the fly. I got to like really make sure
I'm hearing everything you're saying right down and all that.
Speaker 4: But I think you can develop these things all the time,
Like I you know, I think it's easier for me
when I'm in these conversations is rather than getting into
the kind of fan fiction about it, like I kind
of agree with Graham, I focus on like, look, I
don't even think free will.
Speaker 5: Is like at all.
Speaker 4: Yep, right, So like this like this trial Ama or
these arguments might be good, but they assume something that
you're kind of granting them, and I'm I'm like, look,
I just don't see how a choice that's made by
an agent isn't either explained and thus you have determining antecedents,
or that there's no explanation and it's indeterministic.
Speaker 5: I've had friends that don't agree with me on this.
I haven't heard like good pushback. I really haven't. I
end up getting kind of frustrated at pushbacking and we're
not getting anywhere.
Speaker 4: So I'm just done with the conversation. You have, but
a real good pushback. But it does not seem like
it's an option. It's either there's these antecedent factors that
fully determine or partially determine, or it's the case that
you that nothing explains that it's indeterministic, and so it's
either an explanation or no explanation for why an agent
chose A over be.
Speaker 5: And I just find those to be a little bit
more compelling.
Speaker 4: In the sense that someone's now thinking, like if they
if you get them on that, they're like, oh shit,
now I got to be like a Calvinist or something
like they're going to start. You'll start to see them
not just like a band in the view, but like
take these Calvinists of approaches or like deterministic approaches to
Christianity and like the.
Speaker 5: Elect or whatever. So yeah, I think maybe I'm weird,
and I like fan fiction as well.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 1: Another variation of that is uh is, hey, you know
you just say, well, does God know the future when
he created the universe? And yes, so there's no free
will because no matter what happens, I'm going to choose
X instead of why. When we come to that point
of their decision and then and then the Christians will
typically say, well, no, you're making the choice. It's just
like rewinding a film, right, and you just watch that
choice being made over and over again, and you could
go down that rabbit Holeham.
Speaker 4: If you go down that route, it's the proverbial I
have God as a file cabinet of everybody's free actions
for any possible world, any permutation, Like Graham does this
on that there that like he looks at all the
ways the world could be and that they could freely act.
And so I think kind of to the point you're
making is like if somebody, if somebody says like, well, look,
God's free, God's not fore knowledge doesn't actually affect our freedom.
It's like Graham says, like rewinding it and looking at this,
But then then you can just get them on what
I think are easier arguments like problem of you arguments
we go, well, then God knew the world where we
would all freely make the right decision and decided to
not go with that.
Speaker 1: Explicitly said that because I learned that argument from you,
and I wanted to set it up so you could.
Speaker 5: So I'm sorry to get off the point of your thing.
Speaker 4: It's just I think me and Graham, it's like we
might be able to like go through this argument and go, yeah,
that's like that's a true trilemma or something. But I
think we're both in the same page that this isn't
like our style of doing it as much as.
Speaker 1: Yeah, plus plus I think your Marcus. I think that
point where you say, hey, if the child is just
taken to heaven, that's kidnapping. If he chooses to go
to heaven because it's irresistible, that destroys free will, that
part is the black hole of the argument. Right, You're
going to get sucked into a definition of free will,
and that's where the argument would really lie with that
branch of the trilemma, if it's a trilemma. So I
would sesh that whole part out first and then come
back and see if you've got a you know, and
does this I'll ask you, Marcus, does is this the
type of thing that would convince somebody not to believe?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 9: I I am an agnostic to taste, I believe there's
more possibility to that God exists and he does not
for reason that I may cowardly another episode explain.
Speaker 5: Hold on, can you repeat that you might have missed it?
You think it's more probable than not, but you're an agnostic. Yeah,
I don't understand that.
Speaker 9: Like I use, I choose not to follow him because
I think he's an evil stadistic be But.
Speaker 2: Then now I remember Marcus.
Speaker 5: But you do, but you do hold on.
Speaker 4: But this is like, this seems confused because then you
do believe in God. You are a theist. Definitionally, that's
just definitionally true. You're a theist. You believe God exists.
It doesn't matter what your additional motivations against or for
Him are.
Speaker 5: That's irrelevant.
Speaker 9: It's just whether I don't know, I don't I don't
have faith because I don't want to have faith.
Speaker 4: But that's that's also relevant that not all, not all
God concepts rely on a on a constitutive concept of faith, right.
I mean I would argue, yeah, you're going to all
the concepts have in faith in favor or in a
comment that you pretty much got to take it on
faith on these claims. But you can have a view
of God that where they're like there's no faith in
the war of the of the of the New God
story or something like that's not even a thing, right, Like,
so that's it seems irrelevant, Like you you believe God.
Speaker 5: Exists, right, and in a way I do. This is
what I'm interested in. Why should I revise my view
and think that God exists.
Speaker 9: Well it's niche, but it's if you want to get
into that, I can uh say say it to you.
Speaker 4: I can, Yeah, what what do you what do you
think would help would help me revise my view and
go Okay, I think Marcus views giving me some trouble here.
Speaker 9: I'm not I'm not interestingly evangelizing because I hate God
pretty much. But if you want to know my views, well,
why God, it's you're gonna take a little bit of
pump of why. I think God is still going to
take a little bit of context.
Speaker 6: I think uh.
Speaker 9: Across it is already already knows if he remembers that
first time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember this.
Speaker 5: Now I'm interested.
Speaker 2: I will I will encourage Marcus.
Speaker 1: I think the last time we spoke to try to
summarize at a higher level first, right, like if you
have uh, you know, a structured argument or if it's
if it's personal experience. I don't recall where you came from,
but if you could give us a category first, I
think that would help guide the conversation. But yeah, I
do remember this because I found it very interesting. So
why don't you start off with Mike and give him
the high level I believe God exists because X Y
n C.
Speaker 8: Because it's an itch. It's an itch content.
Speaker 9: I don't see many people in uh agnostic its.
Speaker 8: Talk de baby about this.
Speaker 6: It's about it.
Speaker 8: Because of this so called prophet called.
Speaker 9: Ellen White of the Seven Day Advances religion, where she
had a bunch of weakness I think four weaknesses. Yes,
she didn't.
Speaker 4: Talking about the one that had like severe you're talking
about Wait, you're talking about one that had like severe brain damage?
Speaker 5: Is that the what you're talking about?
Speaker 2: It?
Speaker 5: You know I'm talking about Yeah, like Ellie something name
Ellen White? Ellen?
Speaker 6: Why? Yeah?
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I have an interview from like six years ago with
the Seventh Day Adventist and I learned a lot about it.
And uh that So first off, I'm sorry, I don't
mean to be like rude, but like that you're saying,
that's that's that was convincing to you.
Speaker 5: What happened to Ellen?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 9: Well, I I'm conviniced because there are witnesses to have
conditioned by envision.
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt because our listeners
had heard this before. Marcus, let me interrupt and summarize,
and you can tell me where I'm wrong, but I,
as I said, let's keep it at a high level.
If I recall correctly, and our listeners have heard this before,
you believe witnesses of the times accounts. That's why you
believe all of this. And then there was some question
about some documentations and those there was a little bit
of a conspiracy theorist about people breaking into offices and
changing things or or no, maybe it was she prophesied
things because it was written on a document and people
attested to the date of the authorship of the document,
et cetera. But it basically it boils down to you
accept the claims of people that were involved at the time.
Is that fair enough just to put it into a category?
Speaker 9: Yeah, because yes, because it's well documented and their names
aren't their signatures.
Speaker 1: And this is I remember this now because we kept
talking about, like, I'm an attorney and I understand what
well documented means, and I don't think you too.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 2: I would encourage everybody.
Speaker 1: There's a Wikipedia article, there's lots of stuff online for
Ellen White.
Speaker 2: You can read that.
Speaker 1: But the category is you accept evidence of these people
and some documents, and that is the main reason you
believe all of this. You know, I'm not trying to
discount it. I'm just trying to save time because we're
getting near the end of the show. So that's the category.
It's not that you have a logical argument, it's not
that you have evidence like you had a personal experience
with God. I just want to confirm this is the
main reason you believe all of this correct.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, well, and if that's the case, I just
want to point out so far, since we're doing these
nice little I think Graham's doing a great job of
these little book marks, check marks.
Speaker 5: We know where we're at.
Speaker 4: I feel no threat to revise my view that you
believe that a girl was hit in the face with
a stone and had like prophetic messages subsequently went to
go right creationist.
Speaker 5: Style books where she if it.
Speaker 4: Was so prophetic, why didn't why didn't why didn't she
get noetic information about biodiversity?
Speaker 5: And why was she so just vastly wrong about it?
Speaker 4: Just seems like this seems like a person that was
hitting the face with the stone that was a little
high on what she thought she knew and prophetic information.
I don't know if she was getting that information from God,
but she was. She wrote stuff on creationism. From what
I understand, she had like a lot of works, So
I don't feel threatened to like change my view. That's
not to say you don't have more, but like do
you do you understand like why Like I might not
be convinced by like someone else going well, I believe
this own white thing and there was reported witnesses, And
I'm sitting there.
Speaker 5: Going like, yeah, but have you met any of these people?
Like how is this?
Speaker 1: How is She's in the time of Joseph Smith. So
putting it into context, this is when this great revival
and creating our own religion stuff was going on across America.
So this is Joseph Smith era stuff.
Speaker 5: I just don't you know, it's ostensibly different than.
Speaker 4: Anyone any Christian that comes back to you and says like, oh,
well these look at the Gospels and what they reported
about Jesus and stuff, like You're on this level playing
field that just seems epistemically like bankrupt or like just
really low bar to be, Like, well, I heard these
other people heard a story that I heard in we
don't have first hand experience of like her getting prophetic,
but she just reports it, Like sure, I could grant
that all of these people saw her, like you know,
say these things and do these things. But it's irrelevant
of whether or not she's like actually getting a prophetic message.
There's still like all of our work left ahead of us.
I feel like if I granted so many elements of
your belief here, I still would be like, but why
should I think that she's reporting the truth and not
just lying?
Speaker 9: Okay, so can you give me I know the time
is sharp, but can you give me a.
Speaker 5: Minu Oh yeah, put a minute on the clock.
Speaker 2: Ye, go ahead.
Speaker 9: So there is this book written by this eventist minister
how the Second Great advent Movement, and in me has
five signatures from.
Speaker 8: People who who saw her in.
Speaker 9: Vision uh and saw doctors that administering tests on her.
And they and they say the doctors nothing, not themselves,
not the people, the doctors saying, yeah, I couldn't detect
any breathing. I cannot explain this. And these doctors and
this is the thing that gets to me. These doctors
were named. There is specifically a name name, so anyone
could go and talk to these doctors. And this prove
the whole history because was just invaded, invented. I think
one of the doctors was doctor called doctor Lord. I
did that your research, and that may be his name
was Charles Dart, But I could finding why could anyone else.
Speaker 2: So here's a question I have.
Speaker 5: You've given you a minute.
Speaker 1: What you're doing is a very common thing that we hear,
which is this there's no explanation for this. I'm taking
this evidence, this document is true. I'm taking this person's
testimony is true. I'm taking the stories of how impeachable
their testimony was as true. And you're dealing with a
handful of people, right. I can't tell you the number
of times I've heard that about all sorts of claims.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I've heard that about the origin of the Quran. I've
heard that about cultists. I've heard that from you. I've
heard that from lots of people, and they're all different claims,
and they all can't be true.
Speaker 2: So I'm confused.
Speaker 1: Is why you put so much weight into these stories
when it's very easy for somebody to stay up, come
up to me and say, man, there was this guy and.
Speaker 2: He was driving along and he hit a bridge.
Speaker 1: With him car, and every doctor said it would be
impossible for anybody to survive something like that, and he did,
and he said it's because Jesus, therefore Jesus is real.
That's kind of in the same space that you're doing.
When the commonplace answer is, well, the doctors are wrong
or the stories about what the doctors said are wrong.
Speaker 5: It's worse also, like hundred plus years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's all outdated.
Speaker 1: It's all what we would we most of this evidence
would not be admissible in the court of law these days. Like,
there's all this stuff that's problematic. I'm fascinated why you
find that set so convincing as opposed to all the
other sets of similar stuff.
Speaker 4: That's Graham a brilliant point, because I like, literally what
I wanted to say. Why not then, on turn, take
all these other views that just contradict the view.
Speaker 5: But for the same reasons.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, so what about this story is so
appealing to you outside the somebody who told it to
you or wrote about it said, no, it would have
been impossible for the doctor to know. Therefore true.
Speaker 5: Yeah, where does Graham's analogy fall apart?
Speaker 9: You know, it's just because anyone, like I mean, anyone
who would have read this book would have simply going
to that doctor who was named was named there was
name and said, hey, did you read it?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna interrupt you.
Speaker 1: You've said that a bunch of times anyone could have
disproven and they didn't.
Speaker 2: That's not an argument, it's not.
Speaker 1: That's just saying that they either there was a missed
opportunity or I have no reason to believe you saying
anyone could have gone and disproven it. But even if
nobody did, that's not an argument as to why it's
true or even like in the realm of being believable, Like,
there's lots of claims out there that nobody's disproven that
you don't believe.
Speaker 8: So uh uh, what you would do?
Speaker 9: You accept us as evidence? Us evidence?
Speaker 5: J Mike.
Speaker 1: We just talked about this before the show Giant Letters
in the Sky. What evidence would you accept for proof
of a supernatural claim?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 4: Am all really weirded out by those kind of questions, Like, well,
I don't know if you phrase it in that that way,
but if it was one of these kind of what
do you accept a lot of times, I don't know,
if someone presents this scenario of like like you know
the letters in the sky, or like would you change like,
I don't really know. I don't like the problem is,
I don't think I live in that world like that's
you're asking me to imagine a world that goes against
my metaphysics, which is like, you know, something akin to naturalism.
So you're like, hey, assume naturalism is false the thing
you think is true. Would you believe this thing if
this whole thing that wasn't the way the world is
was that way.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I don't know, I might, but it just
sounds like if God exists, would you think God existed
and you had better evidence?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean maybe if you construct the evidence in
such a way that I'm like, yeah, seems pretty reasonable
to believe it.
Speaker 5: But I don't believe in a world like that.
Speaker 4: What I would rather do the world I live in
is I view these kind of views like my even
my type of naturalism, as these are hypotheses. These are
views that we have to rely like the science is
blind to you can take all the empirical data and
come up with all these spooky, crazy metaphysics that work
with it.
Speaker 5: You can be an idealist, you'd be all these sorts
of things.
Speaker 4: And so for me to believe any of these kind
of metaphysical claims about God and all these kind of things.
Speaker 5: What I need is something.
Speaker 4: More metaphysical, like a methodology in determining which metaphysical hypothesis
we should prefer. And I think the best way about
doing that is simplicity, you know, versus explanatory breadth and depth.
Speaker 5: You want this trade off simple.
Speaker 4: Theory, and you want the trade off of having great
explanatory breadth and depth. Right, I'm not going to convince
that like someone heard a story or something, you would
have to lay out your world Like if someone wanted
me to believe in God, what they would have to
do is go through a worldview comparison and show me
that for each point that we go on, theism is. Sure,
it's not simpler, but it better explains things that naturalism can't.
Speaker 5: And I've yet to have that type of a person
fall in.
Speaker 1: Let me ask, Let me ask Marcos like, I agree
with that, and let me ask Marcos.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: A lot of times when I hear this, they say, well,
what evidence would you accept? There's this, I hear this
implicit implicit parenthetical comment at the end, it's what evidence
would you accept?
Speaker 2: Parentheses?
Speaker 1: Because there's got to be a line somewhere, right, that's
the implicit sort of argument that's making. Well, you have
to accept some sort of evidence.
Speaker 2: What is it? What would be satisfying? I'm going to
ask you what.
Speaker 1: Makes you think that there is in the universe that
we live in, and this may be a flavor of
what Mike's talking about, where that would even be possible
to present evidence of a supernatural cause?
Speaker 2: That may be impossible.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because you're exactly that, you're asking something.
Speaker 4: That's definitionally it will be impossible under my naturalism.
Speaker 2: Right, So do you think there must be a line?
Is it is it?
Speaker 1: Would it be a satisfying answer for us to say
we don't know? Or would it would it be satisfying
to say, actually, given what we understand about physics and
what you're claiming is the definition of supernatural, it would
be impossible to provide sufficient evidence of a supernatural clause
because there's no way to reach outside the natural to
prove the supernatural, or put more simply, uh, maybe nothing.
Speaker 2: Is that an okay answer?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: But if I saw look, I know, but if I saw.
Speaker 8: Someone not read for two hours and.
Speaker 9: The doctors say, I don't have the doctors most sparified
people to deal with atips say, I have no idea
what's going on here? It must be paranormal.
Speaker 1: And honestly, then you're putting your faith in a doctor
who has no evidence that the paranormal even exists, and
who is making an argument from ignorance. I don't know
how this could happen. Therefore, this thing I can't explain
must be the answer. That's what you're putting your faith in.
You said you don't have faith. You've got faith in stories,
my friend, you've got you've got faith in the recorded
words from one hundred and something years ago, two hundred
years ago of a doctor who wasn't the wasn't the
person that we can all go and examine in question.
That person's not available for cross examination. The person who
recorded what the doctor allegedly said is not available for
cross examination.
Speaker 5: Oh he said it. He said it. The title of
the movie like.
Speaker 1: That, you know, like there's like that's why we have
in courts of law, you know, statutes of limitation on
certain things.
Speaker 2: Because evidence deteriorates.
Speaker 1: We can't we don't allow hearsay, because we want to
talk to the person who actually said the thing, not
the person who claims they heard the thing being said.
We've got all of these standards we've developed as a
society to ensure that we get the best possible evidence
in front of a jury, and you're going two orders
of magnitude below what we would call reliable evidence in
any serious hearing. So I continue to be impressed at
your ability to argue for reliance on one or a
handful of people from one hundred, two hundred years ago,
and their confidence and the fact that what was said
was recorded correctly and not hyperbole or not slang or whatever,
and that has convinced you that God exists.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's impressive.
Speaker 5: Yes, I know.
Speaker 8: May I ask you? I don't know if I can,
but may I ask you a favor?
Speaker 9: If you may? You know, I would like you to start
the bout because I don't like living in God.
Speaker 7: I do.
Speaker 9: I do believe in God, and I want I don't
like kids.
Speaker 5: He's fascinating dynamic.
Speaker 9: I keep imagine my options are either hell or heaven.
Speaker 5: Or heaven.
Speaker 8: I don't want to go with in because he said,
if you have.
Speaker 9: To abandon your father or your mother, and imagine if
this forever with my father or my mother or people
I'm very close with, and honestly.
Speaker 6: It's I.
Speaker 9: It's it's giving me inside, honestly.
Speaker 5: That that idea that it might be more of a
grand things. I know, you know, like gram I always
you know, were you a cradle atheist? Are you a believer?
Speaker 2: Kind of cradle atheist?
Speaker 1: I only I only would have said yes, I believe
in God when I was very young and going to
a Christian school. But once once things got like, oh
people really believe this, this isn't just a story. I
pretty much yeah, And then my family was never like
there was no indoctrination. It was just sort of like, yeah, okay,
I'll go long.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I struggle with this fear of hell thing that people
bring up.
Speaker 4: Because I haven't had that problem, Like hell wasn't the
concept like magically eternal, eternal punishment land sounds very silly
to me. That sounds very This is what humans want
because they see a lot of injustice in the world.
Speaker 1: We had a call, Mike, I'm glad you brought this
up the two weeks ago when I was on We
had a call from a woman who after an hour
basically said that's why she believes like she had gone
through some ship in her life and it was one
of the most honest calls we've ever had, and we
talked about it. I hope she's doing well, but she
literally was just like, I want there to be punishment.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, we don't.
Speaker 9: Advocate people the skeptical from inquire like the journal people in.
Speaker 2: That I don't know anybody there, No, No.
Speaker 5: I don't. Oh, I know, I know people I run
into in.
Speaker 4: The debate spaces as basically basically it for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what was the what was the favor? Marcus?
Want to wrap that up with, like, what are you
looking for?
Speaker 9: Because I would like to be an skeptical investigation of
these claims because everyone I see doesn't have it, because
I don't see that much interacted with I see there's
skeptical investigations.
Speaker 5: From got to start internally, there's Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, there's two things I can suggest,
and I'm sure Mike has some as well. One is
to realize the non uniqueness of the story you're accepting, Okay,
that if you really are curious, go out and learn
about all the other origin stories of all the other
minor religions, or more seriously.
Speaker 2: Ones like the one.
Speaker 1: The last time we spoke, I think I brought up
Joseph Smith in Mormonism. Right, there's a reason you don't
believe that, but you believe the Seventh Day event is one.
Although the level of evidence for both is about on
par a hand a handful of people to testify that
what they saw, what Joseph Smith do, even though he
had this record of doing all sorts of deceitful things
and all that stuff. But there's there's a million of
them to go and read about all of them and
then say, what makes this one special? And is it
special enough to prove to me enough to pay the
cost of believing and all of this stuff, that this
is actually true rather than just yet another.
Speaker 2: Case of people tell stories.
Speaker 1: Man, you've been on the block, you know you're talking
to friends that talk about how big the fish was
that they caught, or how it was a miracle that
the Bible survived the fire in the church.
Speaker 2: Or whatever the story is.
Speaker 1: It's always flavored with these adjectives and adverbs, right, that
you don't need if you're being serious. It's always like
the Bible was completely safe and it should have like
all the experts agreed the Bible should have burned. And
you know that's the same as people who are nine
to eleven truthers, right, They still they tell the same stories,
but it's all bullshit.
Speaker 2: It's just people talking. And back then they wrote it down.
Speaker 5: It was on fire for nine hours with it right night.
Speaker 1: So that's my first tip is go read all the
other stories and realize how mundane her story is. That's first,
and then second was I think what Mike was hinting
at is is just accept the fact that there's nothing
special about religious beliefs. Apply the same level of skepticism.
The more outrageous acclaim gets, the more skeptical you should
be right, you should demand more evidence of it. Right,
if I go to court and I charge somebody with jaywalking,
I'm going to have to provide very little evidence, and
there will be very few resources put into that trial.
There won't be pre trial hearings, there won't be disclosure
or discovery, there won't be all sorts of motions because
it's a mundane thing. May and the consequences it being
convicted to jaywalking are so small. But if I'm going
to court and trying to convict somebody of murder, there's
going to be eight million pages of documents, all sorts
of subpoenas, all sorts of stuff. And that's just the
murder of one human being. That's not the question of
whether or not there's an eternal life after this one.
So demand the appropriate level of evidence before you fall
in with any one camp, because there's a million of them.
What makes you think that this particular story is the
right one much less you know you have evidence for it, Mike,
what other advice do you have to give?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 5: Well, I probably mean the same thing.
Speaker 4: And basically you said there, but because like you hear
this slogan of like extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and
people throw that out a lot of theists like scoff
at it and stuff. But if you think about this
in a sense of like your background data that you have,
and someone gives you these kind of claims like I
saw an alien or I saw an alien do a
backflip off of you know, my mom's van or something
like crazy and absurd, like you find that like I'm
gonna need a little bit more for that, Like just
like clearly I am not going to treat this in
the exact same way and I and yeah, like your
views are aren't any more special than this Christian view
or uh well, I guess this is also Christian, but
alternative Christian views. I'd really look inward and realize that
what this process is is not a microwavable process. You
don't just pop yourself in and then like you come
out hot and ready. You know you got it's a
crock pot, man. You gotta let it really stew. And
that process of letting it stew is this internal dialogue
with yourself and like getting a paid like I know,
for me and the wooly type of beliefs I had,
I had to like get a like paper out when
I had a confrontation with a friend and he was
basically calling me an idiot for stuff I believed, and
like he's like, you know, dude, you're so smart here,
Like I grew up with you didn't believe in like
god like and Christianity all.
Speaker 5: This stuff, and you believe in this, Like we like,
what do you like? Why not? He asked this question,
why do you believe that?
Speaker 4: And not any of these other claims they seem like
on a par to me, And that internal reflection for
me was kind of like really it was a really
easy deconstruction from my WOOI type of like.
Speaker 11: Yeah, man, DMT open some doors and you could see
real realities, Like, you know, I appreciated the empirics of
the brain more and why we experience stuff like that
when you take a psychedelic drug.
Speaker 5: It opened me up just.
Speaker 4: To way more things that I think I wouldn't have
if I hadn't had that conversation. I think of writing
it down and really like going, why the fuck do
I believe this thing?
Speaker 5: Like, let me list out some some reasons, right.
Speaker 4: Reasons for and I find what you'll at least for me,
I couldn't write a single thing down that I had
a legitimate reason to think that d MP or these
other substances were like unlocking doors or salvia and all
that kind of stuff. Right, Like I was really into
thinking that I was having some noadic experiences in my life,
you know.
Speaker 1: And one other thing, Marcos, just to give you an
example of what we're talking about, have you ever heard
of the James River Church in Missouri?
Speaker 8: Uh No, I haven't.
Speaker 1: Pastor John Lindell who's the owner of these or a
pastor at these mega churches in Missouri, lots lots of
people came out a couple of years ago and gave
out news of a medical miracle. This woman, Chrissy Thompson,
had had her toes amputated at.
Speaker 2: An early age and.
Speaker 1: Uh she came to one of their services, went backstage
when she said, Hey, I'd like to my toes to
grow back. They followed the instructions of the Bible. They
anointed or toes with oil. They had a prayer group
pray over her. There were a dozen witnesses. Her toes
grew back. They had a doctor come in and examine her,
and that doctor said he's never seen anything like it.
It had to take an act of God based on
her medical records and what he saw when he saw
her toes. And they made a huge press in the
splash splash in the press for doing this. Why do
you not believe that story? But you believe this two
hundred old year old story that happened before cameras were
everywhere and et cetera.
Speaker 5: So convenient. Yeah, I'm sorry, Go ahead, I'm sorry. We've
been talking a lot.
Speaker 1: So why why do you why do you say, to God,
show me the toes in the first case, But you
accept an ancient story based on some hearsay of hearsay
of hearsay in the case of the Seventh Day Adventists, you.
Speaker 5: Can go to God's only fans only gotten show.
Speaker 2: Me the toes. Yeah, so, what are your thought?
Speaker 8: I haven't heard of this story yet.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me tell you how it ends. All right,
Here's how the story ended. They called in experts from
nih They agreed with her. They won the Nobel Prize
in medicine. Every university around Earth has opened a theological
school of medicine to study this phinomal Oh wait, no,
that's what would have happened if it were true, right,
this is what we have to sort of studies Like,
what would have happened if they were serious about it
is they would have called an independent third parties. The
doctor turns out was the husband is somebody in the
prayer group and wasn't her doctor. They refused to show
me the toes. Somebody created a website called show Me
Thetoes dot Com. I did a whole podcast episode on this.
The person came out, the pastor came out after the
international press got attention on this, and he came out
and said out of respect for Chrissy's privacy, we are
not going to be discussing this further and refuse to
give any evidence, despite the fact that it probably would
have bought millions of people to the church. If this
had been proven true, it would have saved people for Jesus.
So that's what really happened, Okay, because we have cameras,
because we have a twenty four hour news cycle, because
we have the press. But it was more people than
in the Seventh day Adventists. We're a testifying to the
truth of this, and they provided video of Chrissy talking
about this and testifying that this really happened, that her
toes grew back. So people will lie for a variety
of reasons. I'm sure they didn't all lie for the
same reason, but people will lie. And we only don't
believe this now because of two reasons. One, we now
live in an era where we demand show me the
picks or it didn't happen, because we have the ubiquity
of cameras, but also because we know that in this
case the claim was a step too far. Why won't
God heal amputees? Right, that's the website to go visit.
Why won't God heal amputees. It's amazing that God cures
cancer that can also naturally go into remission. It's amazing
that God cures glaucoma that could have been the mistaken
diagnosis of the physician. But for some reason, we have
no documented case, even though people pray all the time
to get their fingers, arms, whatever back of God healing amputees.
So there's lots of reasons like that that these stories
should be suspicious to you, especially one from like two
hundred years ago.
Speaker 2: Anything to add, Mike, I'll go ahead, Marcus.
Speaker 9: I would search the history about that. But then but
I'm afraid if I.
Speaker 8: Go on to a bedside called so of your totals not.
Speaker 2: Going on, I think he actually took it.
Speaker 1: Think yeah, go to Google. Why won't God heal amputees?
That is one of the sites that made me a
passionate activist because it is an insanely good argument.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: This website gives you a lots of examples. But if
there is a wonderful argument for at least disproving certain
versions of God, that website helps you disprove a version
of God that would actually heal like do what he
says he would do in the Bible. You know, Jesus
says multiple times to the Bible, just pray for it
and you'll get it the milk. Truly, truly pray for exactly.
The milk jug argument came from that website, which is,
when I pray to Jesus, I either hear yes, I
hear a no, or I hear a wait or not yet.
And this website points out if I pray to a
milk jug, I get a yes, I get a no,
or I get it not yet or a wait. You
can't distinguish between God and a milk jug because God doesn't.
Speaker 5: Heal amputees and milk reading.
Speaker 2: I was like, so it.
Speaker 1: Goes to what you're talking about, which is and this
I don't mean this in a negative way.
Speaker 2: I mean it in a clinical way.
Speaker 1: It goes to gullibility, and by that I mean willingness
to believe despite not having sufficient evidence. And you're willing
to believe this story for some reason that I cannot fathom.
I encourage you to go out and read all the
other stories and judge why you are giving more credence
to this story than to all the others. Go read
up on Heaven's Gate, Go read up on Mormonism, go
read up on the origins of the Quran, just anything
and see that. You know scientology, right, there's tens of
thousands of people who will attest to what goes on
with scientology being real.
Speaker 2: But I'm assuming you don't believe that.
Speaker 1: So go out and explore and educate yourself and then
apply the standards that Mike was talking about, and I
think you'll find the answer that we would give.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it will satisfy it.
Speaker 9: Yes, okay, thank you, Okay, just so I can research
it is part of my research. What's the name of
the miracle woman.
Speaker 8: With the toes?
Speaker 1: Just google James River Church toes or Chrissy Thompson toes.
Speaker 5: I don't know that you should do that.
Speaker 4: That sounds like he's gonna get in trouble with the
significant other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just to just do Church regrow amputated toes and you'll.
Speaker 5: Find google j Mike Booty picks on.
Speaker 1: Or go to my website and listen to the whole
thing where I put up all the video everything. I
won't pump pump it, but uh, it's all over the interwebs,
and it's a classic case of he this is the
Chain Church. They claimed all sorts of miracles that were
always explainable as natural remissions, natural cures. And then he
got a little too cocky. He was feeling the spirit
of the Lord, and he went out there and said,
you know what, we even grew back amputated toes, and
all of a sudden he got.
Speaker 2: More than he bargained for.
Speaker 1: Literally, there was press from like Japan coming down to
interview him, and he was like, oh shit, what did
I do?
Speaker 2: And everybody clammed up.
Speaker 1: Nobody would talk about it, and they couldn't provide a
good reason for doing so, because Chrissy herself did a
video before to present when he announced this, where she's
sitting in a mall, hopping on her feet saying, I
couldn't have done this before my toes grew back. Right,
go watch those videos, right, testifying on videotape in the
name of her Lord, which presumably, if her beliefs are true,
would not look kindly on the lying and deceitfulness of
violating the ten Commandments and doing so for whatever reason.
Because she was an indoctrinated follower, she wanted the fame.
A little bit of both who knows right she was
sleeping with one of the prayer people.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying she was, but you have nott idea that.
Speaker 5: God doesn't exist, so she didn't have much to worry
about that.
Speaker 1: But the point is go look at that and realize
this happens a thousand times a day. This guy got
caught because they were like, oh, you're finally talking about
something that is scientifically impossible. Do tell and then they
shut up. Even though that would have been a miracle
that would have convinced a lot of people. When people
when people talk about what would convince you. If I
was in a room and I watched somebody's toes grow back,
I would certainly have questions, right, that would be stunning.
I'd be looking out the window for alien tech. I
would be like, did you give her like everything? I'd
be really interested in that. But no, no, they didn't.
They didn't call in independent doctors, they didn't contact on IH,
they didn't win the Nobel Prize, all of which would
have happened if this were true. This happens all the time,
but most of the most small time players, and I'm
guessing it happened in the seventh day. I'd be in
church because the likelihood that there's a million explanations that
are mundane for what she did, and one that's extraordinary
that seems to be the same as everybody else's claiming,
and they all disagree. So start with start follow the toes,
follow the toes.
Speaker 2: What do you think, J Mike, I'm not.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't want to beat a dead horse.
I think I think no everything there is, Yeah, I mean,
I just call back and let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Marcos, go go look into it, Go research
ten different you know, popular cults that you don't believe
in in their origin stories. Pick a, tell me why
you don't believe those, yet you believe these these supposedly
inappeachable witnesses that were documented in writing. Yea, and I
think you'll see that it's it's fairly mundane. And unless
there's something more, as Jack Nicholson says in a few
good men, please tell me you have something more than
phone calls and foot lockers. Give me more than phone
calls and foot lockers, and then we can talk. But
thank you very much, Marcos, appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you, J Mike.
Speaker 2: We're at the end of our show. We check super chats.
Speaker 1: Nope, all right, Kelly, can we bring Kelly up to
talk about what we've just listened to over the last.
Speaker 4: And he's gonna call me out and be like, hey man,
you said come up here.
Speaker 3: And I got to be on plenty of shows today.
Speaker 7: Believe me.
Speaker 4: When I saw that in the chat, when you're like,
I've been on a couple shows that, I was like,
I don't feel as bad.
Speaker 12: But you know, cross Examiner, you mentioned what would what
would have happened if this was true?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 12: And that totally resonated with me because I get as
many of you know, my son now owns my old
rock shop, so I talk to people that come in
and want to buy healing crystals all the time. One
of the things that I always think of is these
crystals could really heal people. One of two things would happen.
Either every mother in America would have a ten dollars
crystal kit in her medicine cabinet for when her kids
had accidents and skin their knees right, or they would
come in a box smock Pfizer and be and cost
like two hundred dollars apiece.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So there's a bit from a British comedy show
from I don't know fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: Google it.
Speaker 1: It's called homeopathic er or whatever the A and E
whatever the term is for the er there, and it's
all things like.
Speaker 2: Oh, he's here, he's been shot. Quick get me.
Speaker 1: You know some Saint John's ward deluded to one in
a million, and then nurse goes, are you sure is
that strong enough? He goes, You're right, make it one
in a billion. That's what the world would look like
if this were true. You're absolutely true.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's kind of annoying because it's like, there are medicines
out there for like muscular dystrophee that like cost when
I was looking up, well, there's one that was one
point something million dollars after like the insurance gets involved, right,
you're talking two point three or two point four before,
and it's just like, I mean, I don't know why
a medicine cost that much. There's something very weird to me.
We don't have to get into all that, but the
point that I want to draw is that so fucking
disrespectful that there are people that like have to give
up their whole life for this medicine or other medicines.
And you think you could rub a fucking rock on
them and like that's it or it's like conveniently for you.
It doesn't work for like that type of muscular diystrophee
or something. But it's like man like, it's it's really
annoying to me. My best friend growing up has muscular DISTRICPTE.
So when I was reading about that and then you
bring up the the you know, every mother, I didn't
even think to ever make that connection, Like, yeah, that's
so true. Like the next time I talked to like
a Louie person on TikTok, I'm gonna fucking point that out,
Like why doesn't every mother or father, single father or
whatever parent have you know, those all in the cabinets
for their kids and they're sick, you know, And it's
just like, I don't know, it's so disrespectful to me.
Speaker 12: Citering real quick, you know, Yeah, bro, you're making more
pissed off at that that community than I already was.
Speaker 5: Kelly look at.
Speaker 3: Some hematite to stop the beating.
Speaker 2: Kelly's first aid kit weig.
Speaker 12: That's kind of how I got into this, like getting
like kicking back and wanting to do is because I
was on I was on Facebook like twenty years ago
and a woman asked what would be the best crystal
for my daughter's diabetes, and it just freaked me on.
I was like, no crystal, or take her to the
freaking doctor.
Speaker 5: You know. I sweat just hearing that.
Speaker 2: So there's there's a guy. I quote him a lot.
Speaker 1: There's a guy named Tim mentioned he as a poem,
a poem called Storm, And I think this passage is
applicable to what you're pointing out, Kelly.
Speaker 2: I'll just read a quick quote.
Speaker 1: Does he's talking to somebody that's a wooed to sort
of person. Does this idea that there might be knowledge
frighten you? Does the idea that one afternoon on wick
a fucking pedia might enlighten you frighten you? Does the
notion that there might not be a supernatural so blow
your hippie noodle, that you'd rather just sit in the
fog of your inability to google.
Speaker 5: Isn't this enough?
Speaker 1: Just this world, just this beautiful, complex, wonderfully unfathorable natural world.
Speaker 2: How does it so.
Speaker 1: Fail to hold our attention that we have to diminish
it with the invention of cheap, mad made myths and monsters.
Speaker 5: I love that. Who said that?
Speaker 2: Because I I tim mentioned storm?
Speaker 4: Okay, because I as say I that's that's like a
way better way of phrasing things that I've said online
that I wish I just would.
Speaker 5: Have phrased it like that. Every time we watch.
Speaker 2: It, it's he's He's incredible. I I He's I get amazing.
Speaker 4: It's like people are like, yeah, but like if physicalism
is true and it's just like brain physm Like why
if it was spooky.
Speaker 5: Magical ethereal stuff.
Speaker 4: I don't know what the substance does to make it
like cooler or less cool, Like is.
Speaker 5: It made out of legos or not legos?
Speaker 4: Like it's only cool logos just so fucking dumb.
Speaker 5: It's so dumb. Yeah, Yeah, I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: It's that the it's a fictitious It's nine minutes of
him sort of doing this beat poem where he's re
enacting a fake conversation he had with a you know,
uh woistic type of person and he goes through all
my arguments but in this poetic, rhyming, funny, very funny way.
And he's done a lot of other shows that like
his other show, as other number that comes to mind
for Marco is thank You God, where he tells the
story about how this guy came up to him after
a show saying and told the story about how his
mother was diagnosed with this cataract or something like that,
and so his whole megachurch prayed for her and she
went back and it was cured. And so Tim's like
pretends like, oh, I asked for a miracle, and there
it is. And then he sings this very sarcastic song,
thank you God for fixing the cataract in Sam's mom.
Speaker 2: And then he goes on to.
Speaker 1: All the explanations of what it could have been, which
is where I got when I was talking to Marcus
about the misdiagnosis of the initial physician. It comes straight
from that song. It's like he just lists all the
possible things and obviously it's not this, and it's not this,
and it's not this, and it's not a lack of
physics visa vise physics visa vi Sam's mother's congregation and
all of this stuff. He's so good a summarizing this stuff,
so I strongly recommend it.
Speaker 2: You will you will love Storm.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a philosophical argument wrapped up in this beautiful, rhyming,
wonderfully talented package.
Speaker 4: Oh that sweet yeah ot to DM because I will right, yeah,
because I can say.
Speaker 5: It, then it will just be gone.
Speaker 1: And so, Kelly, what did you think about LEVI? I
would like to hear your th I am.
Speaker 4: Going to quietly bounce out to go eat up, but
I do want to thank you guys.
Speaker 5: And all that.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm going to get some well deserved food because
I have not eaten much days.
Speaker 5: And but I gotta say, like.
Speaker 4: I started the show off kind of focusing on portions
of some issues I've had with my own mental health
and depression and anxiety, and I want to say, like
thank you. Like Graham, I love doing a show with you. Kelly,
I always love hanging out with you in person, and
I wish we, you know, could do more shows and
stuff together. But like this, I always realized, like this
group of people, the A C A.
Speaker 5: You know, my buddies that are.
Speaker 4: One of my buddies is who is vice president for
I'm not sure if he still is so maybe I'm
speaking wrong here, but he's a vice president for Arizona
as UH Cycular Community and Mace Arizona or Phoenix, Arizona,
and it's just those Having those people like you around, man,
makes me feel so much better.
Speaker 5: So I just want to thank you.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I'm flubbing my words here, I don't but I
just really appreciate all of you guys so much because
you guys help me be better reasoners and hopefully I
can have the same trade off. And I just love
love being around you guys, really do.
Speaker 12: Thanks so much saying the community is about man, absolutely,
that's that's what it's all about. Oh yeah, and I
feel the same way about you, man.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we've had some fucking great times guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll just say that this is one of the
reasons that people don't leave their religion is for fear
of losing that type of community. And this is a
very good example of you don't you find friends that
will take care of you because we really care about people.
We don't think that we can just pray your sadness away.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So humanism is in extremely Uh, it's become selfishly more
important because it's I find that the more humanist time around,
the happier I am, you know, So they just they
get it.
Speaker 5: So but yeah, I appreciate it, guys.
Speaker 4: Thank you for everyone in the you know, in the
kind of my private area of my left that's reached.
Speaker 5: Out and all that kind of stuff. I really do
appreciate it. So it's absolutely awesome, really cool.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, why.
Speaker 1: Don't we instead, Kelly, we can chat after the show
about Levi if you're available.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, that's fine, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why don't we call it at that. That's a
great note to end on, Mike, I really do appreciate it.
To everybody out there, take your meds, to drink your water,
have a great day.
Speaker 12: Bye bye, everyone, start a.
Speaker 5: Stop the.
Speaker 7: Ready Watch Talk ee than Live Sundays at one pm Central.
Speaker 3: Visit tiny dot
Speaker 2: C c slash y t t H and call into
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two four two, or connect to the show online at
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