Speaker 1: In the early two thousands, as conservative groups in the
Speaker 1: United States began losing legal battles over LGBTQ rights and secularism,
Speaker 1: they shifted their focus and money to Uganda, a country
Speaker 1: they identified as ideal ground for a religious takeover. Over
Speaker 1: twenty major American evangelical groups poured over fifty million dollars
Speaker 1: into Africa, with Uganda receiving the massive amount of shared
Speaker 1: the United States. Christians were successful beyond their wildest dreams. Fundamentalist,
Speaker 1: evangelical and pentecostal movements successfully embedded themselves within the highest
Speaker 1: echelons of Ugandan governance, to the point where parliamentarians now
Speaker 1: openly base legislative goals on biblical mandates rather than constitutional
Speaker 1: law or science as in the United States. Ugandan lawmakers
Speaker 1: framed this effort as defending quote traditional Christian family values.
Speaker 1: The result, Uganda has seen a major surge in state
Speaker 1: sanctioned arbitrary arrests, police torture, extortion, correctional rapes, the forced
Speaker 1: evictions by local councils. The anti science religious climate has
Speaker 1: gotten so dangerous that vital HIV healthcare providers and human
Speaker 1: rights organizations had to shut down out of fear for
Speaker 1: their safety. Oh And homosexuality is now punishable by death.
Speaker 2: This is not unique to Uganda.
Speaker 1: Russia recently developed a deep transactional symbiosis between Putin's authoritarian
Speaker 1: state and the Russian Orthodox Church. As in Uganda, homosexually
Speaker 1: has been homosexuality has been criminalized. Unapproved versions of Christianity
Speaker 1: like Jehovah's Witnesses were banned, their property seized, and hundreds
Speaker 1: of their members subjected to torture and long term sentences to
Speaker 1: Siberian penal colonies. Other Evangelical and Protestant groups in Russia
Speaker 1: faced tight restrictions, fines, and bans on worship outside of
Speaker 1: state approved buildings. Now, let's compare these early days of
Speaker 1: those movements to what we're seeing in Texas. Over the
Speaker 1: last three years, Texas has been systematically dismantling the wall
Speaker 1: of separation, replacing trained school counselors with unlicensed anti science
Speaker 1: religious chaplains, forcing the Ten Commandments into every public classroom,
Speaker 1: and just this week, mandating Bible passages as required reading
Speaker 1: for millions of students. As in Uganda and Russia and
Speaker 1: other places, the religious right in Texas frames US as
Speaker 1: harmless return to tradition and defending family values.
Speaker 2: But as we have.
Speaker 1: Seen the consequences of similar movements around the world, show
Speaker 1: us the true end game of codifying dogma into law
Speaker 1: by defining prosperity and security and religious terms. The state
Speaker 1: successfully framed human rights advocates, secularists, and minority communities as
Speaker 1: an existential threat to the state or nation, a thought
Speaker 1: to end on. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor once
Speaker 1: famously warned, quote those who would renegotiate the boundaries between
Speaker 1: church and state must answer a difficult question, why would
Speaker 1: we trade a system that has served us so well
Speaker 1: for one that has served others so poorly. If you
Speaker 1: want to talk about this or any other religious issues,
Speaker 1: call us because the show starts now. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, everybody.
Speaker 1: Today is June twenty eighth, twenty twenty six, and I
Speaker 1: want to welcome you to the atheist experience. Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us. I'm the cross Examiner, and I'm delighted
Speaker 1: to say joining us right now is godless engineer. How
Speaker 1: are you doing Godless?
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm doing pretty good. I'm pretty excited today. I
Speaker 3: know that we've already got some callers lined up and
Speaker 3: so I'm always up for some conversation. I'm I'm a
Speaker 3: little perturbed by the situation that we find ourselves in,
Speaker 3: but you know, here in America. But you know, other
Speaker 3: than that, I'm totally I'm totally stoked and excited today.
Speaker 1: Me too, Me too. We had we had some callers
Speaker 1: left over from the last show. I did see that
Speaker 1: a couple I wanted to talk to have dropped off
Speaker 1: just as we started. I hope you didn't think that
Speaker 1: things were over. Call us back if you want to,
Speaker 1: because we're eager to take your call and talk about
Speaker 1: these things. Because I don't know about you, godless, but
Speaker 1: I'm a firm believer that in talking with each other
Speaker 1: across the aisle, so to speak, the religious aisle, we
Speaker 1: can come to a better understanding of each other's positions
Speaker 1: and hopefully moderate each other to a point where we
Speaker 1: can get to live with each other without criminalizing homosexuality
Speaker 1: or prisoning people, or favoring my religious group in the
Speaker 1: tax law or whatever it may be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, same here.
Speaker 3: I mean, I hope that we can do that, But
Speaker 3: you know, I feel like every.
Speaker 4: Day is a big letdown.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I can only hope that the future
Speaker 3: brings better days, but we'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, I agree. First, before we get these calls,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get through this quickly so we can jump
Speaker 1: on them. We need to tell you that The Atheist
Speaker 1: Experience is a product of the Atheist Community of Austin,
Speaker 1: a five oh one c three nonprofit organization dedicated to
Speaker 1: the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the
Speaker 1: separation of religion and government. This means the fact that
Speaker 1: it's a charity means that you can give us tax
Speaker 1: free donations as many as you want in fact, and
Speaker 1: know that not only is it going to go to
Speaker 1: a good cause, but it also helps you too. We
Speaker 1: are I don't know if you've done this yet, John,
Speaker 1: but we are now try streaming triple streaming when we're live.
Speaker 1: A big shout out to our viewers on TikTok and
Speaker 1: YouTube mobile. If you're watching us tonight on TikTok and
Speaker 1: you'd like to talk to us, then request to join
Speaker 1: and we'll bring you up on stage. Please be sure, however,
Speaker 1: if you do that, that you are eighteen or older.
Speaker 1: And with that, I think we should just jump into
Speaker 1: these calls.
Speaker 4: What do you think Oh yeah, I'm totally down for it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm fascinator. There's two that fascinate me. I'm going
Speaker 1: to start with Tom, who wants to share their experience
Speaker 1: with God. And Tom did not give any pronouns. And
Speaker 1: it's Tom from Michigan. Tom, how you doing.
Speaker 5: I'm doing pretty well.
Speaker 6: I'm doing.
Speaker 5: I'm all right. I just struggle with finding people to
Speaker 5: have like friendships with or stuff like this.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I have certain friends, but none of them understand anything
Speaker 5: about me, and they kind of just think I'm I
Speaker 5: don't know, I don't know, they.
Speaker 7: Don't think they think I think off.
Speaker 5: But I know this is true. And I don't talk
Speaker 5: about this with like many people. I've told my closest friends.
Speaker 5: I've tried to talk to my dad about it, but
Speaker 5: my dad's like exactly kind of like you guys, where
Speaker 5: he's very atheist and he grew up with like just
Speaker 5: things that make people atheist.
Speaker 1: And well, why don't we start from the beginning, then, Tom,
Speaker 1: and tell us what you're talking about. So let's start
Speaker 1: with a question that we often ask people as a
Speaker 1: good starting point. What is it from a religious perspective?
Speaker 1: What is it that you believe. And more importantly, why
Speaker 1: do you believe it?
Speaker 5: I believe in a higher being that brings I believe
Speaker 5: in love and these love feelings that I have and these.
Speaker 1: What do you believe about love? That love exists?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So, John Godless, do you believe love exists?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it totally exists.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's obviously I think that it's you know,
Speaker 3: chemical reactions in our brains that gives us as certain experience.
Speaker 3: So sorry, the middle of my sentence interrupted the beginning
Speaker 3: of yours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tom, just just I asked John a question Godless
Speaker 1: so we could get a consensus here and then we
Speaker 1: were going to throw it back to you. That's how
Speaker 1: the show works. So please Godless, do you continue?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 3: So, like I understand, it is the chemical process that
Speaker 3: gives us those experiences, and so I don't need I
Speaker 3: don't see a need to like suppose a larger meaning
Speaker 3: to that. I feel like we can just have those
Speaker 3: experiences and let those experiences sit with how they are,
Speaker 3: as opposed to attributing them to some kind of magical
Speaker 3: wizard that is necessary for it or somehow enables us
Speaker 3: to have those feelings. I just don't see the need
Speaker 3: for that God or that wizard or however you want
Speaker 3: to present them.
Speaker 4: I don't see the need for them in that process.
Speaker 1: What do you think, tom Oh, there is.
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't know what to make that.
Speaker 1: I love well. I asked you what you believed from
Speaker 1: a religious perspective and why, and the first thing you
Speaker 1: mentioned was love. So we assumed you meant love was
Speaker 1: God or there was a religious aspect to love. And
Speaker 1: we told you, well, you know, we believe that love exists,
Speaker 1: so we agree with you that exists, but we don't
Speaker 1: think that there's a religious component.
Speaker 9: Do you.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't believe in everything that's been told in the Bibles.
Speaker 5: I don't believe a lot of the Bible stuff. I
Speaker 5: believe that some of these stories are probably true. I
Speaker 5: just know that there are deep feelings in hold on.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to answer. I'm trying to tell you something
Speaker 5: because this stuff doesn't make sense to me, or I
Speaker 5: don't really know how to make it. It does make sense.
Speaker 3: To me, yeah, I mean sorry. I was trying to
Speaker 3: interject so that I could help guide you in getting
Speaker 3: your thoughts collected and so that maybe we can actually
Speaker 3: instead of meandering around in the dark. Maybe I can
Speaker 3: give you a flashlight, right, so maybe you can tell
Speaker 3: us exactly what, how how do you know or what
Speaker 3: exactly is compelling to you that convinces you that there's
Speaker 3: something beyond just our mere experience.
Speaker 5: None of this like that I have can be like
Speaker 5: provable or anything I'm going to say. But these are
Speaker 5: like experiences and places that I've been to and has experienced.
Speaker 5: But it's just like a place that I went to
Speaker 5: and I don't know how I got there and I
Speaker 5: came back and everything that I used to know or
Speaker 5: care about or and I didn't even know any when
Speaker 5: I came back.
Speaker 6: I didn't know who I was or.
Speaker 10: Where I was, what I was.
Speaker 1: That's that's let me jump in, Tom, Well, you know
Speaker 1: you're in, you're talking, You're no. I'm going to guide
Speaker 1: the conversation because this is our show and I've got
Speaker 1: lots of callers on the line, okay, and you're talking
Speaker 1: in these abstract ways. I had experiences. I didn't know
Speaker 1: who I was. I don't know what to take from
Speaker 1: you as being literal or being figurative. What I am
Speaker 1: interested in right now is from a religious pass Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, let's back this up to a higher level.
Speaker 1: Why are you calling today? What's your goal? Is your
Speaker 1: goal to talk about your experiences or is your goal
Speaker 1: to talk about some assertion about God and why you
Speaker 1: think it's true, wrong.
Speaker 5: That God is not evil or something? And I just
Speaker 5: wanted to tell my story and tell you why I
Speaker 5: think that this is the most important thing.
Speaker 1: And do you understand that a story is not the
Speaker 1: best way to present evidence?
Speaker 5: We are also special to have those, and of course
Speaker 5: there's a god, Tom, Tom, I'm muting you, Tom, So Tom,
Speaker 5: do you understand that a story is not the same
Speaker 5: thing as presenting evidence as to.
Speaker 2: Why you're right?
Speaker 1: Right? I want you to contemplate this. If your goal,
Speaker 1: as you said, is to dispute the assertion that God
Speaker 1: is not evil, I would expect an answer along the
Speaker 1: lines of God has the following attributes, those attributes are
Speaker 1: not evil, therefore God is not evil.
Speaker 2: That would be like a sound and valid argument.
Speaker 1: What you're telling me is I think love is real,
Speaker 1: and I went places and I didn't know who I was.
Speaker 1: That's not a response to this prompt. Either you are
Speaker 1: unable right now, due to whatever reason, to answer the question,
Speaker 1: or you don't want to, So I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you another chance.
Speaker 2: Tom.
Speaker 1: Why do you believe that there is a God and
Speaker 1: that that God is not evil?
Speaker 5: I tried to give you context before I told the story.
Speaker 8: That's what that was.
Speaker 1: Okay, we don't need the context. Give us your argument, and.
Speaker 5: I can't give you an argument.
Speaker 1: I can just okay, story, that's fair.
Speaker 5: Explain that explains these things, and that's that's all that
Speaker 5: that would matter.
Speaker 1: But are you interested in any self examination today? What
Speaker 1: self examination? Turning your eye onto yourself and examining your
Speaker 1: thought processes and your reasoning, Because I think there might
Speaker 1: be an interesting conversation to have in that spot that
Speaker 1: might be interesting to our listeners. Specifically, the question would be,
Speaker 1: if you can't explain why you believe something, do you
Speaker 1: think that you should be believing it in the first place?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's a good way to find truth?
Speaker 5: These are feelings of love, feelings that aren't anything you'd
Speaker 5: ever have for like your kids, or your grandparents or
Speaker 5: anyone you've ever known in your life. I was brought
Speaker 5: somewhere and I felt feelings that I can't describe or
Speaker 5: really ever put into words for you, But it was
Speaker 5: a place where So.
Speaker 3: Hold on, I'm sorry, but I need to interject here.
Speaker 3: I don't understand the purpose of your call, Tom. Is
Speaker 3: it just because you wanted somebody to talk to? Because
Speaker 3: if that's the case, then I suggest they're recovering from
Speaker 3: Religion Foundation. They have people there that are trained to
Speaker 3: actually help guide anybody.
Speaker 5: I wanted to try to tell you why God is
Speaker 5: the thing and that it's definitely real and.
Speaker 3: Tell us why that instead of explaining how your thiefes
Speaker 3: are today?
Speaker 4: Can you do that for us? Tom?
Speaker 5: Well, well, it's a part of my dream and it's
Speaker 5: a story that I have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, let mean, let me give you an example, Tom,
Speaker 1: of what we're getting at, uh, godless engineers an engineer,
Speaker 1: I'm an attorney. We deal with you know, science based,
Speaker 1: evidence based reasoning and logic. It's kind of like, you
Speaker 1: know how the world gets better, right, It is how
Speaker 1: we build bridges that don't fall down and kill people
Speaker 1: because it's not because we felt like it was a
Speaker 1: good way to build a bridge. It's because we've measured
Speaker 1: the tensile strength of this particular bolt under this amount
Speaker 1: of pressure. If I went into court and I said,
Speaker 1: my client is not guilty because I had a dream
Speaker 1: and it took me to a place and I felt
Speaker 1: so much love for my client. He couldn't possibly have
Speaker 1: shot the victim. Right, you would laugh me out of court.
Speaker 1: I hope as a juror, do you agree with that
Speaker 1: that that would be not a good way to get
Speaker 1: to the truth if you were in a court of law.
Speaker 5: I'm not It's just stupid arguments.
Speaker 1: I'm not debating you in okay. Thing I'm here to
Speaker 1: talk about, yeah, off topic. Thing is is evidence. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. Evidence for your claim God exists,
Speaker 1: and your evidence is I don't care the details of
Speaker 1: your story. Your evidence is a personal story.
Speaker 5: Evidence has been hidden and deleted, and there's scholars that
Speaker 5: think they know everything to try and make us brainwashed
Speaker 5: into believing this.
Speaker 1: There now we're making some claims. What evidence do you
Speaker 1: have of that?
Speaker 5: There are scholars everywhere who make everyone think that they
Speaker 5: are right and so right.
Speaker 1: I would argue.
Speaker 5: Everything, and then they made these people and claimed them to.
Speaker 1: Be so John, what's your take on this?
Speaker 3: Well, I feel like what thom is saying here is
Speaker 3: that he had a dream that meant that made him
Speaker 3: believe that God was real, and so he wants to
Speaker 3: come up here and tell us in a vivid detail
Speaker 3: what his dream was so that we will then admit
Speaker 3: that his God is real. But I don't see how
Speaker 3: a dream that he had where I'm not exactly sure
Speaker 3: what he was going through there. That's why I suggested
Speaker 3: the we're recovering from religion foundation. But it seems like
Speaker 3: he had an intense experience that made him believe in God,
Speaker 3: and maybe it's a little uncomfortable for him to consider
Speaker 3: that other people don't believe it. Maybe he's getting a
Speaker 3: little bit of pushback from home, like hey, dude, that's
Speaker 3: just a dream, you know. Like I've had a dream
Speaker 3: where I was crawling at skyscraper heights and then I
Speaker 3: started to fall and that was scary. But that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that, you know, the giant skyscraper, you know, horrible
Speaker 3: reality is actually true in some kind of way. So Tom,
Speaker 3: when we bring you off of mute, I would really
Speaker 3: love for something other than a dream or a vision or.
Speaker 1: Something like that, or conspiracy theory or conspiracy theory.
Speaker 3: How do you know that your God is real? Don't
Speaker 3: shit talk, scholars, don't shit talk other people. Just tell
Speaker 3: me why do you believe what you believe about God?
Speaker 5: Because I get these love feelings from him and these
Speaker 5: other things.
Speaker 4: And now we're right back to the very beginning of
Speaker 4: our conversation.
Speaker 3: Where you use the love feelings? Is just using your
Speaker 3: word here your words the love feelings that you feel.
Speaker 3: Where does God take parts in the process of that
Speaker 3: experience of love? In my view, let me explain to
Speaker 3: you my view, and then I'll let you answer. In
Speaker 3: my view, it's a chemical reaction in your head that
Speaker 3: operates within the structure of your brain, and how your
Speaker 3: brain operates, and how you feel those feelings, how you
Speaker 3: have those experiences that cause other complex interactions with the
Speaker 3: other parts of your brain that then give you that
Speaker 3: full experience of love. Now, I don't know where God
Speaker 3: factors into that. Maybe you can tell me point to
Speaker 3: the part of the brain or the part of the
Speaker 3: process where God factors into it.
Speaker 5: It's got nothing to do with the brain or anything.
Speaker 1: Have you that's a great response. Have you ever? What
Speaker 1: evidence do you have that feelings exist in the universe
Speaker 1: absent a brain?
Speaker 5: Because I remember, man, I can't I can't say anything.
Speaker 1: Let me put it in another way, my body, Where
Speaker 1: do rocks have feelings?
Speaker 5: Tom was nothing but a consciousness?
Speaker 1: Do you see Tom? Tom?
Speaker 2: Tom?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 2: Tom? Tom?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do rocks have feelings?
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Do you think they have feelings?
Speaker 1: What's more likely a rock has feelings or a rock
Speaker 1: doesn't have feelings?
Speaker 2: What's more likely?
Speaker 5: Probably not?
Speaker 2: Okay, So at least we can agree on that.
Speaker 1: I have yet to experience anything that doesn't have a
Speaker 1: brain that I have any evidence of that it experiences feelings.
Speaker 1: I think you would agree if we took thirty minutes
Speaker 1: to pin you down on that. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: shortcut that and just say I think we agree. It's
Speaker 1: much more likely that nothing without a brain has feelings,
Speaker 1: So I'm just setting that up. So then my follow
Speaker 1: on question is what creates feelings in brains? Is there
Speaker 1: only one cause or can there be multiple causes? And
Speaker 1: then my second question is can the person experience the
Speaker 1: feelings experiencing the feelings? Can the person experiencing the feelings
Speaker 1: be wrong about the cause of those feelings?
Speaker 8: I e.
Speaker 2: Could you be wrong about the source of your feelings?
Speaker 5: That's what those beings? Do? They want to.
Speaker 1: Answer the question? Tom, Tom? Tom, Tom, answer the question
Speaker 1: why aren't you answering the question.
Speaker 4: Tom, maybe you should use his name Matthew.
Speaker 1: Tom, answer the question or admit that you were unwilling
Speaker 1: to answer the question. Could you be wrong about the
Speaker 1: source of your feelings?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 1: No, okay, you are infallible. Congratulations you got anything else? Godless?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Matthew, I'm just kind of curious. Sorry, Tom, I'm
Speaker 3: just kind of curious, like since you since you don't
Speaker 3: really have a good answer for where God factors into
Speaker 3: the process of love that we have, the chemical processes.
Speaker 5: There is no real answer for this. I can't actually
Speaker 5: explain it to you. I just know about.
Speaker 3: Then why then, why should we believe in your version
Speaker 3: of God places that I have been If you can't,
Speaker 3: if you can't explain, Matthew, Matthew, lock in, lock in, Matthew, Matthew,
Speaker 3: listen to me.
Speaker 11: You.
Speaker 3: If you can't explain it to us, then then why
Speaker 3: do you think that we should believe in your version
Speaker 3: of God? Why does it bother you so much that
Speaker 3: we don't believe in God, or that your dad doesn't
Speaker 3: believe in God doesn't bother me, then why are you
Speaker 3: calling in? It bothered you enough to call in because
Speaker 3: we don't believe in God, and you wanted to explain
Speaker 3: why your God exists.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, I wanted to tell you a thing
Speaker 5: that I experienced that was way more than it felt
Speaker 5: like reality was this reality feels way less than this
Speaker 5: place that I was in.
Speaker 1: How can we just differentiate your experience from the experience
Speaker 1: of somebody who's wrong experienced. How can we differentiate your
Speaker 1: experience from somebody who was on LSD but didn't know it.
Speaker 1: How can I tell the difference? You've gotta believe in me.
Speaker 1: How can I tell the difference and you can take it? Tom?
Speaker 1: You're talking and not listening. How can I tell the
Speaker 1: difference between what you say is happening and somebody else
Speaker 1: who has a different version of the story but is wrong,
Speaker 1: like they were on LSD they got doosed and didn't
Speaker 1: know it. How could I tell the difference between you
Speaker 1: two that you were right and the other person who
Speaker 1: was unknowingly on LSD was wrong.
Speaker 5: Because mine gets into things that the person on LSD
Speaker 5: would have never gotten into.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're just wrong, Tom, you just have no logic whatsoever.
Speaker 3: Matthew, Matthew, let's lock in right and and you're just false.
Speaker 3: There the LSD and the hypothetical the LSD person has
Speaker 3: the exact same quality quantity of experience as you have.
Speaker 4: It's exactly the same.
Speaker 3: What's the differentiating factor in those experiences that makes yours?
Speaker 4: That makes yours real?
Speaker 5: And there's not, because mine lasts forever. And I don't
Speaker 5: know who I am when I woke up in there,
Speaker 5: and I didn't know who I was when I came back,
Speaker 5: and I didn't know anything.
Speaker 3: See, you think someone tripping out on LSD is gonna
Speaker 3: know who in the fuck they are in the moment, Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I've never done LSD's I guess.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but the same I mean, his saying
Speaker 1: mine lasts forever is actually, quite frankly, the most logical
Speaker 1: thing you've said today, Tom, Like, we could run experiments
Speaker 1: where we monitor somebody's blood intake and all that, but
Speaker 1: that wasn't the point, and I think you know that
Speaker 1: wasn't the point. The point is, as a third party observer,
Speaker 1: I'm getting testimony from you that you're right because you
Speaker 1: say you're right, because you feel you're right. And I
Speaker 1: get testimony from somebody else who calls me and says
Speaker 1: God is evil. And I know that because I feel
Speaker 1: all this hate from God, and it lasts forever, and
Speaker 1: I'm convinced that I'm true because I feel it's true.
Speaker 1: And then when I ask that person how I could tell
Speaker 1: the difference between you two, he says, because this other
Speaker 1: guy's wrong, just like you're saying he's wrong. How do
Speaker 1: I get out of that spider man situation where we're
Speaker 1: pointing at each other as to which one's wrong and
Speaker 1: which one's right. And to date, you haven't given us
Speaker 1: anything other than trust me, Bro, And that's not a
Speaker 1: good way to find out the truth. Anybody else comes
Speaker 1: to you with a proposition about something you should or
Speaker 1: shouldn't do, ninety nine percent of the time they're going
Speaker 1: to have some evidence that they give you that will
Speaker 1: lend support. Now it may be fabricated, but at least
Speaker 1: it'll be evidence. It's not just trust me, Bro. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't trust you if you said, hey, invest with me,
Speaker 1: give me a million dollars. I'll turn it over tenfold
Speaker 1: in ten days. Trust me, Bro. So why should we
Speaker 1: believe anything you say? What evidence do you have other
Speaker 1: than your feelings?
Speaker 5: I mean, they're not like my feelings. These were real
Speaker 5: places that I've been to No.
Speaker 3: You started off saying that it was your feelings, like
Speaker 3: these were your deep love feelings, right right, said yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, I appreciate the call. Tom, have a
Speaker 1: good day. We'll we'll work with you again if you
Speaker 1: call back someday. But man, that's not the best way
Speaker 1: to kick off the show with somebody that that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I have to address anybody that's watching. If
Speaker 1: you are a religious person of any stripe, do you
Speaker 1: think that Tom was the best argument for the existence
Speaker 1: of God if not give us a call. We gave
Speaker 1: him a chance. I don't think we were rude, but
Speaker 1: my goodness, I don't. I think that's the most abstract,
Speaker 1: illogical call I've gotten in years.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I do want to emphasize to people that if you
Speaker 3: feel the need that you know you want to call
Speaker 3: an express like these thoughts or feelings that you have
Speaker 3: and you're confused by them, there are you know, there
Speaker 3: are plenty of organizations out there. Recovering from religion is
Speaker 3: a perfect organization to call it.
Speaker 4: They have like a chat line.
Speaker 3: They've also both textual chat on their website as well
Speaker 3: as you can call in or you can use a
Speaker 3: Seculartherapy dot org and you can get a line on
Speaker 3: some good secular therapy either one. Those would be the
Speaker 3: places to call in and talk about your feelings and
Speaker 3: how they made you feel, and how confused you are
Speaker 3: as opposed to well, I mean, I'm just an asshole
Speaker 3: on the internet, you know, just calling an asshole on
Speaker 3: the internet and asks them what their thoughts are on
Speaker 3: it or something, trying to convince them of one thing
Speaker 3: or another.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, that's what I would suggest.
Speaker 1: I agree. I echo that I have serious concerns about
Speaker 1: the what Tom is going through.
Speaker 2: I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1: I hope Tom you find the help you need to
Speaker 1: address these issues. I think that if you're finding that
Speaker 1: everybody you know and everybody who cares for you, and
Speaker 1: people on the internet who do this for a living
Speaker 1: and analyze sort of claims, if you find everybody is
Speaker 1: in your eye ignoring you and maybe even eventually in
Speaker 1: a conspiracy against you to hide the truth, I think
Speaker 1: that's a sign you really need to talk that out,
Speaker 1: because I'd be very worried if you lived your life
Speaker 1: that way and didn't sort of face the question of
Speaker 1: what if I'm wrong, what if this is just an
Speaker 1: experience or a feeling I'm going through. I've told this
Speaker 1: story before on the show. The very short version is
Speaker 1: went through a fifteen hour surgery, came out of it.
Speaker 1: The nurse was trying to steal my stuff and not
Speaker 1: feed me in all these things, and after investigation of
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine, she found out, oh, you
Speaker 1: were put on this new pain med. Attending comes over,
Speaker 1: he goes, oh, yeah, we're putting you on the old
Speaker 1: pain med. As soon as that happened, nurse was the
Speaker 1: nicest person, and I realized I was just imagining the
Speaker 1: whole thing. But while it was going on, I would
Speaker 1: have sworn under oath, at the risk of losing my livelihood,
Speaker 1: losing my law license, I would have sworn that this
Speaker 1: was going on. You have to understand that your mental
Speaker 1: state is only evidence of your mental state. It's not
Speaker 1: evidence of anything else. Physical evidence is great, consensus evidence
Speaker 1: is great, but anecdotes, especially of one and where the
Speaker 1: anecdote includes everybody around me is trying to convince me
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. You might want to start looking into the
Speaker 1: possibility that you're wrong, and there's other causes. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've ever had any of those experiences godless
Speaker 1: where you're like, man, it could be little things like
Speaker 1: I swear to God this thing happened and everybody with
Speaker 1: me was wrong. And then I look at the video
Speaker 1: that was taken us. Nope, it didn't happen. But I
Speaker 1: think we've all had moments where we were convinced but
Speaker 1: we were wrong.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean I'm wrong all the time. My
Speaker 3: wife is sure to point out when I am. So
Speaker 3: you know, I've got that good barometer there.
Speaker 1: Excellent, very good. Okay, So, callers, I think you can
Speaker 1: do better than that. We set a very low bar here.
Speaker 1: If you want to defend what Christians are doing in Texas,
Speaker 1: call us. If you think that what happened in Uganda
Speaker 1: and the name of Christianity.
Speaker 2: Was good, call it.
Speaker 1: We have other callers. I have a few announcements and
Speaker 1: we'll get to you. Callers. First of all, please like
Speaker 1: the video and subscribe to the channel, enable notifications, and
Speaker 1: comment below on your favorite caller right now, we have one,
Speaker 1: maybe he's your favorite. Another way to support us is
Speaker 1: by sending in super chats. Get them in and we
Speaker 1: will read as many as possible on the air. That's
Speaker 1: a great way to support the team. Next, if you're
Speaker 1: in the Austin area, which is where the ACA is located,
Speaker 1: of course, follow us on meetup to keep up with
Speaker 1: community events. You can see what's going on at tiny
Speaker 1: dot cc slash ACA Meetup. There's events like Philosophy under
Speaker 1: the Stars, game Nights and more. Next, you can join
Speaker 1: our weekly watch parties at the Free Thought Library on
Speaker 1: Sundays for live viewings of Talk Heathen and The Atheist
Speaker 1: Experience every Sunday, doors open at noon and it's a
Speaker 1: great place for community building. Last, but not least, we
Speaker 1: have to thank the people who screen the calls like
Speaker 1: you just heard and try to figure out what there
Speaker 1: are before they get on stage. The people who man
Speaker 1: the microphones, the cameras, the mixer boards, get the streams
Speaker 1: together across three different platforms every single show, every single week.
Speaker 1: There they are a big thank you to our crew
Speaker 1: who put this show together every week. Video operators, audio operators,
Speaker 1: note takers, call screeners, chat moderators. Would you like to
Speaker 1: be one of these gorgeous, attractive, financially successful gods among
Speaker 1: men and women. Would you like to be a guest
Speaker 1: on one of our shows? Would you like to try
Speaker 1: hosting a show. We're always looking out for people interested
Speaker 1: in being a part of our productions, so if you're interested,
Speaker 1: please email volunteer at Atheist Hyphencommunity dot org to get involved.
Speaker 1: That's what I did several years ago, and I've really
Speaker 1: enjoyed working with the team. I eventually got to go
Speaker 1: out for the back cruise one year. That was awesome.
Speaker 1: Have you done the back cruise? Godless.
Speaker 3: I have not been lucky enough to do the bat yet,
Speaker 3: but I'm hoping to make it out there one year.
Speaker 3: I think that I think that I'm a little preoccupied this.
Speaker 4: Time around too. Yeah, but I'm really hoping.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm really hoping to make it out there
Speaker 3: sometime soon.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, well maybe we can see each other
Speaker 1: one of these years. I'm gonna take the next caller,
Speaker 1: unless you have any any other comments on the on
Speaker 1: the amazingly attractive crew we just showed.
Speaker 4: I'm really appreciative of the crew.
Speaker 3: They make things happen here, so I'm so glad that
Speaker 3: they're they're able to make stuff work all the time.
Speaker 1: It's stunningly good what they do. All Right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go to Gannon, who's been on the line. I know
Speaker 1: we have a few other callers. We will get you.
Speaker 1: Please hold on, Gannon. No pronouns given from California. All
Speaker 1: the comment is is crazy Jesus doom saying believer.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think our callscreener wrote this, but maybe that
Speaker 1: does describe you, Gannon?
Speaker 2: What would you like to talk about today?
Speaker 1: Would you like to talk about crazy Jesus believing doom
Speaker 1: saying mad men?
Speaker 9: It's funny. That's really funny what he said. When you
Speaker 9: see something like that.
Speaker 1: I am I'm having trouble hearing you. Can you hold
Speaker 1: your mic closer to your mouth.
Speaker 9: To you right now? Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: There we go. That's much better. So are you a
Speaker 1: doom saying madmen? Or do you want to talk about them?
Speaker 6: You don't, you know.
Speaker 9: I just wanted to share my experience. It's just like
Speaker 9: Tommy was trying to share his, and I hope Tommy
Speaker 9: is what he's searching for. I gotta tell.
Speaker 1: You, do you think quick question before you get into
Speaker 1: your story. Do you think Tommy was searching for something?
Speaker 1: Or was Tommy just trying to reaffirm his currently held beliefs.
Speaker 1: I hope that you're searching for something, and you're interested
Speaker 1: in the conversation. Tommy just wanted to just keep repeating
Speaker 1: his life. So what do you think was Tommy searching
Speaker 1: for an answer?
Speaker 9: I think he's a confused gentleman and the right elsewhere
Speaker 9: would bring him in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, go ahead for it, Cannon. What do
Speaker 1: you believe in? Why?
Speaker 9: The first thing I want to say, I'm really I'm
Speaker 9: really honored to be amongst a lawyer and somebody that's
Speaker 9: a general engineer. I think that's what you said. You
Speaker 9: guys are pretty smart, and you know I'm just a layman.
Speaker 9: I was born and raised in California, and I've worked
Speaker 9: my butt off.
Speaker 10: All my life like most laymen do.
Speaker 9: And ever since I was a child, I've been interested
Speaker 9: and I started reading this.
Speaker 1: Could you give us a statement first, and then we
Speaker 1: can get to the story if it's relevant. I asked
Speaker 1: you what you believe in why? And we've heard a preamble,
Speaker 1: So why don't you get to the point. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of callers, So what do you believe with
Speaker 1: respect to gods and why?
Speaker 12: I believe they've been right there.
Speaker 9: I believe that we've been taught traditions and and you've
Speaker 9: got to look at your history and study to see
Speaker 9: what the enemy has done.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm taking it.
Speaker 1: I'm taking it that you believe that there is a
Speaker 1: God and that there is a Satan. Is that correct?
Speaker 9: His name's not God, he is not a God. Okay
Speaker 9: the Hebrew that's the English word, and that's wrong.
Speaker 1: In fact, let's not argue about definitions. That's a losing argument, Gannon.
Speaker 1: The traditional idea that people have of a supernatural, very powerful,
Speaker 1: possibly creator of the universe is what generally people call
Speaker 1: God or whatever you want to call it. Do you
Speaker 1: believe that one of those exists?
Speaker 9: Most definitely?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Why do you believe that that thing exists?
Speaker 9: Because just the evidence alone of I believe the name
Speaker 9: is not Jesus.
Speaker 1: The name doesn't matter. I won't say it again, Scannon Gannon.
Speaker 9: You're a lawyer. You're a lawyer.
Speaker 8: The name matters.
Speaker 1: You're a lawyer. Come on, I'm a lawyer. You know
Speaker 1: what it has at the beginning of every statute and
Speaker 1: every contract has a definition section, and that definition section
Speaker 1: applies to the scope of that statute or that contract.
Speaker 1: So if I sign up a contract with godless here
Speaker 1: where he's going to sell me his car that was
Speaker 1: once owned by Elvis, and I'm going to pay him
Speaker 1: a million dollars for that car. I could at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the contract to say John, the owner of
Speaker 1: the car with the serial number x y Z that
Speaker 1: he is saying was once owned by Elvis parentheses car,
Speaker 1: or I could call it blurblop, right, But what we
Speaker 1: did is right at the beginning, we came to an
Speaker 1: understanding of what but blurblop meant or car meant. And
Speaker 1: then for the rest of that conversation, that is that
Speaker 1: contract or that statute, I'm just going to say blurblop,
Speaker 1: and we've come to an agreement on the idea. You
Speaker 1: shouting that the name or the label of the thing
Speaker 1: is important is concerning to me because I don't think
Speaker 1: you're genuinely interested in talking about why you believe. Because
Speaker 1: as soon as I asked you why you believed in
Speaker 1: this blurblop god thing, You've went off on a name argument,
Speaker 1: and that, to me in the courtroom is a sign
Speaker 1: that you don't want to talk about what I just
Speaker 1: asked you. So I'm going to ask you again. I'm
Speaker 1: going to take you off a mute and I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask you, why do you believe in this Blurblopannon?
Speaker 9: Are you with us?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So why do you believe in blurblop?
Speaker 9: What is blur block?
Speaker 1: Were you not listening to everything I just said?
Speaker 9: I was listening to your authority of the name and
Speaker 9: why the name wasn't important?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And what did I say? John's car that was
Speaker 1: owned by Elvis was it was blurblop? Just like we
Speaker 1: could call your god. The name doesn't matter. So why
Speaker 1: do you believe in blurblop?
Speaker 9: I don't believe in blur block?
Speaker 1: You don't believe in an all powerful beings?
Speaker 8: I believe it.
Speaker 12: Possibly, I believe that that God. Okay, I believe God
Speaker 12: became man, and he became pleash, and he walked the
Speaker 12: monks us.
Speaker 1: Okay, why do you believe that this god exists? That's
Speaker 1: the question I've been asking now for five minutes.
Speaker 9: Why too much archeological evidence?
Speaker 6: Man?
Speaker 9: They found?
Speaker 1: Give us your best one they found?
Speaker 7: They?
Speaker 1: Okay, John, John, I'm gonna kick it over you. We're
Speaker 1: gonna dress the first piece of evidence, the first piece
Speaker 1: of evidence we've ever been given. When I asked for
Speaker 1: your best was they found Noah's art. What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that? Godless?
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, this is a ron Wyatt aim that is
Speaker 3: not accurate at all. What they found was a case
Speaker 3: of paradolia in an area that they figured to be
Speaker 3: like where Mosark might have landed, and all they saw
Speaker 3: was a rock formation that vaguely looks like the outline
Speaker 3: of what they think.
Speaker 1: In arc or FYI, you're now talking to our audience
Speaker 1: because he's hung up, but please do continue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that was really interesting. I really wanted to
Speaker 4: interact with Gannon.
Speaker 1: I did well.
Speaker 4: I mean, he says that the enemy is Satan.
Speaker 3: And so the thing that I've been doing here lately
Speaker 3: is I've been trying to provoke an instance of cognitive
Speaker 3: dissonance with some people, and that's by juxtaposing what is
Speaker 3: part of the Satanic the tenants of the Satanic temple,
Speaker 3: against what God has commanded in the Bible. And so
Speaker 3: like I'll put up things like, Okay, tell me, is
Speaker 3: this God or Satan?
Speaker 13: Uh?
Speaker 3: The fact that you can sell my father can sell
Speaker 3: their daughter into sexual slavery, like.
Speaker 4: Is that God or Satan?
Speaker 3: And they're gonna be like Ah that they could either
Speaker 3: admit that it's God, or they'll say that it's Satan.
Speaker 3: Either way, the next question is, Okay, is this God
Speaker 3: or Satan that the freedoms of others should be respected?
Speaker 3: Is that God or Satan?
Speaker 4: And you know they'll be like, oh, that sounds like God.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, that's actually a tenant, but that's tenant
Speaker 3: number four of the Satanic temple. So no, that's actually Satan,
Speaker 3: the supposed enemy. And so uh, it's just it's rather
Speaker 3: crazy this preconceived notion they have of Satan in this respect.
Speaker 4: Now, I'm not saying that Satan.
Speaker 3: Is real or anything like that, but I definitely think
Speaker 3: that the Bible doesn't exactly have like a Satan figure
Speaker 3: that is as evil as they think he is. He's
Speaker 3: just portrayed as being evil and people have just been like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's fucking evil.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I too. Wanted Ghannon to stay on
Speaker 1: because he finally gave us a piece of evidence, and
Speaker 1: I gannon, if you want to call back, feel free,
Speaker 1: av your phone was just conveniently disconnected the moment we
Speaker 1: started talking about one piece of evidence you gave us.
Speaker 1: If you're not calling back because you just were asked
Speaker 1: for evidence, and we're allowed to talk around that question.
Speaker 1: You're a coward. You're a coward. And you know what,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for years, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: call Christians out on this. The Christians that are willing
Speaker 1: to call into the show and have honest conversations, I'm
Speaker 1: not talking to you. I've had a lot of great
Speaker 1: conversations with a variety of people with a variety of
Speaker 1: religious beliefs. The best conversations were where somebody was willing
Speaker 1: to answer honestly and explore down to the real point
Speaker 1: where we disagree. Because we don't really disagree on a lot.
Speaker 1: We tend to disagree down when we get down to
Speaker 1: good reasons to believe things. And we all have this
Speaker 1: little space of things that we reserve in our head
Speaker 1: that in order for me to stop believing this thing,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need a whole bunch of momentum. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need a whole bunch of evidence, a whole bunch of talking,
Speaker 1: years and years of exposure to counter evidence of what
Speaker 1: I previously held. It's not a just a one conversation thing,
Speaker 1: and it can be It can be religion for some people,
Speaker 1: it can be other things. I remember one of the
Speaker 1: best speeches I had that illustrates this was when Sam
Speaker 1: Harris gave a speech and he started out citing all
Speaker 1: of the stats about how bad having fireplaces in your
Speaker 1: house are for your health, like the smoke increases your cancer,
Speaker 1: it's it's bad for children, it can give them asthma,
Speaker 1: all of these things, like you can lose energy up
Speaker 1: through it. And his conclusion was we should outlaw of fireplaces.
Speaker 2: And houses in the United States.
Speaker 1: And that feeling of like, oh God, no, I like fireplaces.
Speaker 1: They keep me warm, it's cheery, especially at the holidays.
Speaker 1: I'm an atheist that likes Christmas. I you know, decorated stuff.
Speaker 4: It comes from right.
Speaker 1: I mean, all of these things. But it was a
Speaker 1: great way to demonstrate to somebody who is a non
Speaker 1: believer of hey, there's something in your head that when
Speaker 1: you're presented with evidence, you still want to reject that evidence.
Speaker 1: You want to reject that feeling. And I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of people will get to that space, and
Speaker 1: that's an interesting place to have conversations. But when you
Speaker 1: posture like Gannon did, when you beat your chest and
Speaker 1: try to gain control of the conversation on a call
Speaker 1: in show and then run away. At the first realization
Speaker 1: that you're not going to be able to do that,
Speaker 1: I'm going to call you a coward. So call back
Speaker 1: if you want to just man up and have the
Speaker 1: conversation and truly examine why you believe things, or don't
Speaker 1: call back one of the two, because I think our
Speaker 1: listeners are bored to people who just turn tail and run.
Speaker 1: I don't know, godless on your call in shows, have
Speaker 1: you had had those sorts of moments where you had
Speaker 1: those really long, interesting conversations with somebody who is willing
Speaker 1: to admit yeah, I just kind of like it or
Speaker 1: something like that, where they it's it's my faith, right,
Speaker 1: It gets down to that point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that happens like all the time, but
Speaker 3: it just illuminates that they don't have like a good
Speaker 3: reason to believe yeah, you know, in those things.
Speaker 4: And for me at.
Speaker 3: Least, it creates this sort of instance where they start
Speaker 3: questioning their beliefs, like why they believe them, not necessarily
Speaker 3: so that they can leave their belief or anything like that.
Speaker 3: But the main thing that I want to do in
Speaker 3: all my conversations here is to provoke this sense of
Speaker 3: you know, questioning you know what I believe and why
Speaker 3: I believe it, and allowing yourself to come to your
Speaker 3: own conclusions without having other people dictate what those conclusions
Speaker 3: should be. I think that that's the biggest thing that's
Speaker 3: missing from a lot of you know.
Speaker 4: The religious community and everything.
Speaker 3: They're allowing people to tell them what to think instead
Speaker 3: of using their reasonable and rational faculties in order to
Speaker 3: come to their own conclusions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1: My part of my concern with religion has always been
Speaker 1: this sort of community group think combined with the possibility
Speaker 1: of covering up mental illness. You know, if somebody comes
Speaker 1: to me and says, man, the devil has been really
Speaker 1: on my ass today, they might really think that there
Speaker 1: is a devil that's been trying to eat them or
Speaker 1: pursue them, or they might be using an expression, and
Speaker 1: either way, their church will, their church community will give
Speaker 1: them cover to go undiagnosed longer or things like that.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, I think people who say religious
Speaker 1: beliefs are crazy or things like that, that's not what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. That's not true, And I will fight you
Speaker 1: on that one. I'm talking about this this like I
Speaker 1: can't tell when somebody comes to me and says I
Speaker 1: had love and I went to another place and I
Speaker 1: didn't know where it was, and nobody around me believes me.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're high right now, if they've
Speaker 1: got mental health issues, they genuinely believe it, or they're
Speaker 1: a troll.
Speaker 2: I just don't know.
Speaker 1: So when I find those people who are willing to
Speaker 1: actually turn that eye on themselves and question it and
Speaker 1: make me turn my eye myself in question my beliefs
Speaker 1: that I think are the great conversations, maybe our next caller,
Speaker 1: Mohammed from India, he him will do that. Let's see
Speaker 1: if I can get Mohammed on the line here. Mohammed,
Speaker 1: it says you want to respond to the show theme,
Speaker 1: God is Evil? Change our minds? So do I have
Speaker 1: you right? Is that what you'd like to talk about?
Speaker 6: Yes, we will start with that, then we will discuss
Speaker 6: as we move forward in Sharlah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you what's your response to the show's theme,
Speaker 1: God is Evil?
Speaker 2: What's your response to that assertion?
Speaker 6: I think evil and good both are a relative which
Speaker 6: can be applied to human beings because God is beyond
Speaker 6: evil and good, so it is from But you are
Speaker 6: measuring good and evil. That is one of the reasons
Speaker 6: your statement.
Speaker 3: So Mohammed, if I can ask, can I ask a
Speaker 3: clarifying question real quick?
Speaker 5: What is it?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 6: Absolutely, very discussing this, Ask whatever you want to ask.
Speaker 4: Okay, I don't know what it means to be beyond
Speaker 4: good and evil? Do you mean that God is beyond.
Speaker 3: Any kind of like moral either moral condemnation or any
Speaker 3: kind of moral analysis like is that what you mean?
Speaker 4: Or do you what do you mean by beyond good
Speaker 4: and evil?
Speaker 6: Okay, very good, very good question. Listen the philosophy. Because
Speaker 6: I am a believer, I follow Islam. So what we
Speaker 6: believe is that God is the one which created everything.
Speaker 6: So every rules in regulation is being derived from God
Speaker 6: itself sata. It will be very so it will be
Speaker 6: very logical to say to apply the same rule to
Speaker 6: regulation on God.
Speaker 1: So there's two forms of this. I want to know
Speaker 1: which camp you're in. One form of this is sort
Speaker 1: of the divine command theory, which says, if God orders
Speaker 1: you to do something or puts a rule in place,
Speaker 1: then by definition that is good. We are in no
Speaker 1: place to judge. So if God today told Abraham to
Speaker 1: kill his son and for no reason other than God
Speaker 1: said to do so. Then that, by definition is a
Speaker 1: good thing. So that's divine command theory. The other side
Speaker 1: of that coin or camp is, I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: you call this is God is in and of himself goodness,
Speaker 1: and therefore it is impossible for God to do anything
Speaker 1: that was not good. Like it's almost like he's constrained
Speaker 1: by a bigger goodness. He is the nature of goodness.
Speaker 1: So there are two sides of the same coin. Is
Speaker 1: that what you're talking about when you talk about this.
Speaker 6: God is capable of everything.
Speaker 1: See, capable of doing something that's evil.
Speaker 6: I've told you that evil and good is a relative,
Speaker 6: So is.
Speaker 1: It impossible for him to do something that's evil?
Speaker 6: These are wordplay only right now you're doing well, No,
Speaker 6: it's not.
Speaker 1: No, it's not it is true or false that God
Speaker 1: is it is possible for God to do something that's evil.
Speaker 1: If God can't do anything that's evil because evil doesn't
Speaker 1: apply to him, then it is impossible for God to
Speaker 1: do something that's evil. That would be the answer. That's
Speaker 1: all I'm trying to illustrate.
Speaker 6: No, you are just doing wordplay.
Speaker 2: It's not it's not.
Speaker 1: There is a set of things in the universe, of
Speaker 1: actions that could be taken that would we would define
Speaker 1: as evil. I'm asking, is are any of the options
Speaker 1: that God would take in that set? That is not wordplay,
Speaker 1: that's mass.
Speaker 6: I am saying very simple things. The things you are
Speaker 6: defining as evil is because those things has been described
Speaker 6: as evil by God's command. So you cannot apply this.
Speaker 1: You're not answering the question. Let me ask it a
Speaker 1: different way before I turn it over to John. Can
Speaker 1: a rock be evil? Can a rock do something that's evil?
Speaker 6: It depends upon you. What what do you mean by
Speaker 6: a rock doing evil? And what do you mean by
Speaker 6: rock doing a good?
Speaker 8: Ded? What? This?
Speaker 2: My question is very simple.
Speaker 1: It's not relative to me, unless you're telling me that
Speaker 1: moral morality is relative.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's your argument.
Speaker 1: Can a rock do something that's evil or even be
Speaker 1: evil in and of itself?
Speaker 6: Let me first put my claim.
Speaker 1: You're not answering two questions. Now you have not answered
Speaker 1: two questions, why should we keep.
Speaker 2: Talking to you?
Speaker 6: I think I've noticed a very simple pattern among all
Speaker 6: the Eightish community that you people have no arguments, and
Speaker 6: the only.
Speaker 4: We're trying to make an argument with you?
Speaker 3: So Like, for instance, Mohammed, if if a law were
Speaker 3: to somehow tell you to marry and grape a nine
Speaker 3: year old, would that be good or bad?
Speaker 6: That will be totally fine. Yes, that will be totally
Speaker 6: good because if God is commanding that to do so,
Speaker 6: that is a totally fine.
Speaker 2: Thing, because yeah, I'm dropping him.
Speaker 1: That's disgusting. I mean, you're a disgusting human being.
Speaker 3: Zero to be three too in like no time. Holy shit,
Speaker 3: that would be good. Yes, it would be good. God
Speaker 3: tells you to rape a nine year old child, that
Speaker 3: is a good thing because God told you, Like, Wow,
Speaker 3: what the fuck.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, it's divine command theory illustrated the best
Speaker 1: way I've ever heard it. I mean, this is there
Speaker 1: was a call that Tracy Harris took like fifteen years
Speaker 1: ago on this show where she spent twenty minutes walking
Speaker 1: this guy and she's the faintest one where she says,
Speaker 1: you know, the difference between your God and mine is,
Speaker 1: you know, I prevent the pedophile from raping the child.
Speaker 1: Your God says, you know, go ahead and rape, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to punish you later. And he gets the caller.
Speaker 1: I think it's the same call she gets the caller
Speaker 1: into a corner where she talks about the victim and says,
Speaker 1: you know what about the little girl or the little boy,
Speaker 1: And the caller says, well, they had to do something
Speaker 1: in their life that deserves that or something like that.
Speaker 1: And it was like mind blowing moment in me watching this,
Speaker 1: Like this guy genuinely participated in the conversation for like
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, got to this point and it was this,
Speaker 1: what you just said, Mohammed is a billion times worse
Speaker 1: than what that guy said. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Speaker 1: That's like, ugh, have you ever had anything like that?
Speaker 1: Like that's the first time I've ever heard that so
Speaker 1: blatantly on the show.
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah, that's why I immediately went there. I
Speaker 3: was here so I've got like an entire database that
Speaker 3: I've conscripted or constructed that has like all of these
Speaker 3: arguments for the Koran, and I don't know all of
Speaker 3: them by heart yet go through them, and I was
Speaker 3: trying to look for a good one that was about
Speaker 3: genocide and just because like I didn't want to go
Speaker 3: straight to the P three d oo thing. But then
Speaker 3: you know, he was he was telling oh, you know,
Speaker 3: Adees don't have any arguments. It's like, oh, okay, well
Speaker 3: maybe we don't. Let's say that we don't in this respect.
Speaker 3: For for the moral argument, if God tells you to
Speaker 3: do this thing that's obviously horrible, is it good? And
Speaker 3: him going directly to like it's itother goes one or
Speaker 3: two ways. Either they immediately go to P three d
Speaker 3: O apologetics or they try to make some convoluted argument
Speaker 3: that she that Ayesha wasn't actually nine years old.
Speaker 4: So it was gonna go one way or another.
Speaker 3: And you know, him going directly for P three d
Speaker 3: O apologetics seems, you know, pretty much spot on.
Speaker 1: I'll give him this. He wasn't playing word games. He
Speaker 1: answered the question like that's equivalent to getting a witness
Speaker 1: on the stand and being like.
Speaker 2: Did you shoot the victim?
Speaker 1: And they go, yep, well I did, and it was fun.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 1: I did it because I hated him, and I thought
Speaker 1: about it ahead of time, and I knew it would
Speaker 1: be illegal. It's like, oh my gosh, Mohammed, I sincerely
Speaker 1: hope that you were a troll. I sincerely hope that
Speaker 1: that was a show. I somehow think it was not,
Speaker 1: and I feel very sorry for you. That you. I
Speaker 1: think you're a better person. To quote what Tracy said
Speaker 1: on that episode, I think you're a better person than
Speaker 1: your God. I think you know that that's wrong. And
Speaker 1: you have been forced and backed into a corner based
Speaker 1: on a whatever caused you to want to believe in
Speaker 1: this god, your society and doctor nation, your parents, the
Speaker 1: consequences of not believing in your current community, whatever it
Speaker 1: is that has convinced you that that's more important than
Speaker 1: basic human decency. I don't think that you think that
Speaker 1: that ever really be true, that it would be perfectly
Speaker 1: fine for a grown man to marry and sexually assault
Speaker 1: a nine year old.
Speaker 3: I think that he was serious. But yeah, one can
Speaker 3: have a positive outlook.
Speaker 2: I guess yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I that's my funny, the self examination I
Speaker 1: talk about. That's my mind trying to reconcile the cognitive
Speaker 1: dissonance I have of nobody would ever say such a thing,
Speaker 1: and then hearing somebody say it, my mind jumps to, well,
Speaker 1: it can't be can't be real. They can't sincerely believe that,
Speaker 1: could they? But you're right, that's that's me trying to
Speaker 1: be optimistic about humanity.
Speaker 3: So uh, yeah, before we take our next calm. I
Speaker 3: do want to say everybody over there on TikTok if
Speaker 3: you agree with the prompt of God being evil now,
Speaker 3: we do sincerely want you to try to change our minds.
Speaker 3: So request up. Use that request button down there to
Speaker 3: request up and talk to if you would like to
Speaker 3: try to change our mind about God being evil. We
Speaker 3: you know, Abraham, God generally is what we kind of
Speaker 3: like handle here. But if you have some kind of
Speaker 3: like diy God that you want to prove is an evil,
Speaker 3: we would love to take.
Speaker 4: That challenge on.
Speaker 3: Otherwise, if you're on other platforms, you can call in
Speaker 3: using five to one to two nine nine one nine
Speaker 3: two four two and you can interact with us. So
Speaker 3: definitely get those calls in now if you think that
Speaker 3: you can prove that God is not evil.
Speaker 2: You've got such a great voice for this.
Speaker 1: I love it. Have you been told that before? No,
Speaker 1: I haven't.
Speaker 4: Normally people hate my voice because they.
Speaker 1: People who pull victim to your argument.
Speaker 3: Well they detect a little bit of that Southern twang
Speaker 3: to it on occasion, and so they don't like it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, I like the way you handle that.
Speaker 1: You can also visit by the way ACA dot show
Speaker 1: slash call lots of ways. I think you listening at home,
Speaker 1: if you're interested in sort of exploring this space, talk
Speaker 1: of out where the United States is going on from
Speaker 1: this Christian nationalism perspective, or even if you're religious and
Speaker 1: you're appalled by where the country's going, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. I think you would do better than
Speaker 1: the first three callers, which can be summarized as basically,
Speaker 1: I was in a mental state equivalent to being on
Speaker 1: LSD for a long time, and I think everything is
Speaker 1: God or something. I think that because I heard that
Speaker 1: somebody found Noah's ark, Therefore we need to call God
Speaker 1: some other name. And there's a conspiracy theory of trying
Speaker 1: to hide it. And then finally we should as long
Speaker 1: as God says it's okay, you should be able to
Speaker 1: sexually assault nine year olds. I think that's the bar
Speaker 1: we've set so far. If you're sitting at home and
Speaker 1: you're shaking your head and doing the nose, true scotsmen
Speaker 1: of call in show listeners and going those people weren't
Speaker 1: real arguers. Those people weren't real believers. You should call
Speaker 1: in tell us you believe in why even if you
Speaker 1: even you just want to chat. Uh that said, Let's
Speaker 1: go to Joel in California. Uh, no pronouns given. He
Speaker 1: wants to talk about what they believe and why. That's
Speaker 1: the questions we ask Joel. So let's pull Joe up here. Joel,
Speaker 1: what do you believe? And more importantly, why do you
Speaker 1: believe it?
Speaker 10: On the Sorry about that.
Speaker 1: That's okay. Whoever's in the room that you had to
Speaker 1: tell you were on the air, thank them for for
Speaker 1: giving you space. So go ahead, what what do you
Speaker 1: believe in?
Speaker 8: Why I'm so excited and nervous? I'm an says I'm Christian?
Speaker 10: Okay, and uh, why do.
Speaker 8: I believe it? I guess gets straight to the point, Well,
Speaker 8: I can see the devil? Than that?
Speaker 1: Can you say you can see the devil? Do you
Speaker 1: mean literally you're having your eyes or seeing things and
Speaker 1: that is a figure that has light reflecting off of
Speaker 1: it and it's a devil?
Speaker 8: Right? Well, I'm more wouldn't say that this, you know,
Speaker 8: I've had, yeah, video and photographic evidence of what I've seen,
Speaker 8: you know, so this is not like you believe in
Speaker 8: me or whatever. I guess you have to be me
Speaker 8: at this point. But I'd like I guess unless I
Speaker 8: could send the pictures into you and talk to a
Speaker 8: later date, I guess you can take that at my word.
Speaker 2: Well I can.
Speaker 1: I'll take turn it up to John. I think we
Speaker 1: could agree. We can take you at your word that
Speaker 1: you believe you can see the devil. I'll take you
Speaker 1: at that word. Go ahead, John, Okay, yeah, But so
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 10: You do have a voice for radio.
Speaker 8: By the way, you do have a voice for radio.
Speaker 8: My mom my mom was saying, I have a face
Speaker 8: for radio, or you have a voice for radio. So
Speaker 8: you do have a very good voice for it. Okay,
Speaker 8: thank you.
Speaker 3: I probably have a face for radio too, so we
Speaker 3: sharing no, no, you don't.
Speaker 4: Uh, okay, thank you.
Speaker 3: I feel like there is a bit of a preconceived
Speaker 3: notion of, you know, the the devil in him being
Speaker 3: evil and like a preconceived notion of like demons and
Speaker 3: Satan and everything like that. So I'm just kind of curious.
Speaker 3: I know that you're working off of a Christian theology
Speaker 3: sort of perspective here out of your understanding of the
Speaker 3: Satan in Christianity.
Speaker 4: What makes him evil? Exactly?
Speaker 3: Can you like point me to like any kind of
Speaker 3: like chap book, chapter, verse, or any kind of theological aspect.
Speaker 1: Well, we should probably clarify, because all he said is
Speaker 1: you can see him, right Joel quite quickly? Do you
Speaker 1: do you think Satan's evil?
Speaker 8: I think he's evil.
Speaker 1: Okay, So John's question stands, Then why do you think
Speaker 1: he is evil?
Speaker 2: We'll get to it.
Speaker 1: Why do you think he exists? But why do you
Speaker 1: think Satan is evil? What characteristics does he have? Well?
Speaker 8: I said that. I said that in a in a
Speaker 8: questionnaary sense, meaning that I was repeating you do I
Speaker 8: think that?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 10: Okay, I think that. I think that I think that.
Speaker 8: God makes all things in the good. So let's just
Speaker 8: say that, right it. I think that he is in
Speaker 8: charge of the space that allows us to have free will.
Speaker 10: And much of our free will doesn't coincide with what.
Speaker 8: God wants for us. Like I would say that like sin?
Speaker 8: Can I use that word sin? Would be like missing
Speaker 8: the mark? Right, well, missing the mark that God said
Speaker 8: we would call sin if you would call that evil.
Speaker 8: He's in charge of that space. So I'd like to
Speaker 8: I'd like to define my own terms because I don't
Speaker 8: want I don't want to have a loaded word like evil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No, I'm a big fan of nice, As
Speaker 1: the earlier caller demonstrated, I'm a big fan of defining
Speaker 1: our own terms. The terms don't matter, the concepts do.
Speaker 1: So if I understand you, you believe that there is
Speaker 1: this space of concepts or behavior or thoughts or activity
Speaker 1: where we are not living up to God's commands slash expectations. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a shorthand for that. We'll call it sin. And
Speaker 1: you said that Satan is in charge of that space?
Speaker 1: Is that what you said? Could you explain that? Sure?
Speaker 8: He he is that space? Really? So like he he yeah,
Speaker 8: in charge of me? Yeah, I would say, And you
Speaker 8: know that's a lot to do with where he's in
Speaker 8: locale like this earth I think is kind of where
Speaker 8: he was punished to like also in in behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 8: so because I don't think God really is in space.
Speaker 8: That's that's not true, right, And anything that's not that's sin.
Speaker 8: If not true, anything that's okay.
Speaker 1: Well, before we move on to God, I think John
Speaker 1: had asked the original question, John, if you want to
Speaker 1: jump on this of what characteristics? Did did Joel asked?
Speaker 1: Answer that question? He's evil because he's in charge of
Speaker 1: this of sin or he's he is sin?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Would that? Would that be accurate? Like the devil is evil?
Speaker 8: He allownts to the space for free will mean that
Speaker 8: we could go like if there was like a zero point,
Speaker 8: you know, and then there was positive and negative, I
Speaker 8: would say he would be in the negative part of
Speaker 8: the dark part. You could say the part, Well, yeah,
Speaker 8: I don't.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's more of you just classifying him
Speaker 3: as evil and not him actually doing anything that is evil. Right,
Speaker 3: So is there anything that Satan actively does that makes
Speaker 3: him evil?
Speaker 1: Well, let's let's let's let's clarify. I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask that question with a Joel Everything Joel Joel hold on. No, No,
Speaker 1: there's a there's cross talk.
Speaker 2: Sometimes.
Speaker 1: I want to agree with that question, but I also
Speaker 1: want to layer it above a presumption I think we're making.
Speaker 1: Do you agree that things are not good or evil
Speaker 1: actions are? And then assuming that yes, you agree that
Speaker 1: actions are the things that are evil, then we get
Speaker 1: to John's question of Okay, what actions has Satan take
Speaker 1: and that are evil?
Speaker 8: I'll go with you on behaviors are evil. I got
Speaker 8: to say that I do think that jergies can inhabit
Speaker 8: things and in that sense. I think things could be evil,
Speaker 8: but it's not the things themselves. Really, it's kind of
Speaker 8: our language really doesn't really work with a lot of
Speaker 8: this stuff. But I'll go with you with behavior for now.
Speaker 10: That that's fine.
Speaker 1: Okay, So John's question stands. It is what has Satan
Speaker 1: done that demonstrates he is quote unquote evil? Or what
Speaker 1: things had he done that different?
Speaker 8: If he defied God? Right? So he decided God he basically.
Speaker 2: So not doing what God tells you to do is evil?
Speaker 8: Well, not doing what God told him to do, which was.
Speaker 1: So some people can defy God and not be evil,
Speaker 1: but that.
Speaker 8: Was his fall from grace.
Speaker 10: Right, we're talking about let's.
Speaker 1: Get away from that story. You said he defied God.
Speaker 1: That's what was. Something that he did was evil. And
Speaker 1: I'm asking, okay, so anybody that defies God that would
Speaker 1: be evil? Right or wrong? Is that correct?
Speaker 9: Right?
Speaker 7: Right or wrong?
Speaker 10: Well there's someone that, Yes, there's someone that lies.
Speaker 8: Are they a liar?
Speaker 9: Well?
Speaker 10: Let me every other time?
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's what we call it, thetology, That's what I.
Speaker 8: Call it, the doing to me? Right, that's what you're doing.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not unless you're unless you're smuggling in the
Speaker 1: argument that says, anything God tells you to do is
Speaker 1: by definition good? Is that your assertion?
Speaker 8: It's no, you just said to me, there's some may
Speaker 8: does something that God doesn't want. Are they evil?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 8: If they do one bad thing, are they evil? And
Speaker 8: I'm saying that's the same thing and saying if you
Speaker 8: lie one time, are you a liar? It's exactly the
Speaker 8: same thing, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So answer the question.
Speaker 8: So if if some may does something God one time,
Speaker 8: are they evil?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 8: They didn't evil? Sing?
Speaker 1: And yeah, right, I agree with that entirely.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a guy named Ray Comfort, an Australian preacher who
Speaker 1: used to do this on the street. He'd walk up
Speaker 1: and say do you think you're a good person? And
Speaker 1: they say yes, and then he say have you ever lied?
Speaker 1: Have you ever cheated? Have you ever stolen anything? Oh?
Speaker 1: So you think you're a good person, you're obviously not.
Speaker 1: You need God? That was the argument. So I'm just
Speaker 1: sort of turning that around on you and on Satan.
Speaker 1: So Stayton, did this evil thing that you think is
Speaker 1: an evil thing? Does that make him an evil person
Speaker 1: or an entity? Or did he just do an evil thing?
Speaker 8: He didn't evil thing and choosing evil person. So John,
Speaker 8: you want to re ask your question though, No, wait,
Speaker 8: wait a minute, Wait a minute, I understand. I'm not
Speaker 8: I'm not as as silly.
Speaker 10: As some of the callers.
Speaker 8: I was just saying, you know, you're trying to you know, pinpoint,
Speaker 8: it is the behavior is the evil things. So he
Speaker 8: didn't evil think is the evil? And then I'm saying, well, well,
Speaker 8: knowing is, so they're both can be true, right, he
Speaker 8: here can be an evil thing and the evil that's true.
Speaker 8: Would you agree to that?
Speaker 1: I don't understand what it means for a person or
Speaker 1: a thing to be evil.
Speaker 2: That's the part I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you understand that, Josh evil John,
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, you've been talking. Let John asked
Speaker 1: the original question. I want to get back to him.
Speaker 1: I don't understand what it means for a person to
Speaker 1: be evil. In fact, I don't even really understand the
Speaker 1: term evil. I understand moral good and moral bad. But
Speaker 1: go ahead, Uh, let's let Godless finish his line.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, I mean it's far like I feel like, if
Speaker 3: you're proclaiming somebody to be bad or evil in this instance,
Speaker 3: you're making a claim that their their general behavior is
Speaker 3: to be that way to where you could generalize you know,
Speaker 3: their behavior is like you know, that's what you expect
Speaker 3: that of that person.
Speaker 8: Right then all then all people would be evil, though,
Speaker 8: I mean, you know, and all people would be good.
Speaker 1: I've not met a single person hasn't done at least
Speaker 1: a few good things in their life.
Speaker 8: True, but there's a very good argument. And none of
Speaker 8: those things were done for the sake of doing them.
Speaker 8: You know, they're done for the sake of making themselves
Speaker 8: still better at the very least.
Speaker 1: But that's that's an iron ran philosophy. We could get
Speaker 1: into that.
Speaker 8: But so I don't think we should God to be good?
Speaker 4: Well, well, Joe, I do.
Speaker 3: I do want to try to stress test your your
Speaker 3: your your criteria for some action being evil.
Speaker 8: You don't have to find evil. Aren't you supposed to
Speaker 8: define evil?
Speaker 10: When you asked me the question, you said you have
Speaker 10: to be the question, can you find evil?
Speaker 1: No, none of us have defined question. But you you
Speaker 1: said that he that God is naughty, So why don't
Speaker 1: you define it?
Speaker 2: You mean by evil?
Speaker 8: Let's let's start over. You ask me the original question.
Speaker 8: Let's start with that and I'll get. I'm going to
Speaker 8: be as direct as I can with you. Can you
Speaker 8: ask me the question and define your terms and then
Speaker 8: I'll go from there.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, that's no problem. Call No. Say you
Speaker 1: want to talk about what they believe and why? And
Speaker 1: I asked you, what do you want to what do
Speaker 1: you believe in?
Speaker 4: And you.
Speaker 8: Ask me a question? God has asked me a question.
Speaker 8: He said what and you want me to answer you?
Speaker 1: You asserted that that Satan was evil? And he said,
Speaker 1: what demonstrates that he's evil?
Speaker 2: Basically?
Speaker 10: No, I'm sorry. The original question was do you think
Speaker 10: that Satan is evil?
Speaker 8: Is that right? Do you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 8: That is evil? Okay? Now can you define your terms?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: I don't know if John can't go ahead.
Speaker 8: You cannot? You can?
Speaker 1: Okay, So you just how how for.
Speaker 3: The purposes of this conversation, I would define evil as
Speaker 3: being something that's so tremendously bad there is no context
Speaker 3: or no extenuating circumstances that can rescue the action. It
Speaker 3: is considered bad, regardless of any context that could be
Speaker 3: proposed as to redeem it. So it's like something it's
Speaker 3: beyond the pale, something that is so horrible in action
Speaker 3: like the previous caller Muhammad.
Speaker 8: Fine, that's perfect, that's perfect. Now ask the question for
Speaker 8: the callers.
Speaker 3: Okay, what action? What action did Satan do that makes
Speaker 3: him evil?
Speaker 8: I thought the first question. Would you think he's evil
Speaker 8: in that? In that? In that regard? Do I think
Speaker 8: that Satan is evil? I would say no, And you're
Speaker 8: by the way you define evil. I would say no,
Speaker 8: because I could make all things good.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So why do you believe that there
Speaker 1: is a God?
Speaker 8: All right? Can you define God?
Speaker 2: Do you believe that there is a God?
Speaker 8: Can you define God for me?
Speaker 1: Do you believe that there is a supernatural being of
Speaker 1: any sort that any person on this planet would reasonably
Speaker 1: call God?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, Why do you believe? What do you believe in
Speaker 1: that aspect? And why? Let's start with what you believe.
Speaker 8: I'm a Christian, so I believe that I believe in Jesus,
Speaker 8: that is our savior, and pretty much pretty much the Bible,
Speaker 8: you know, as as it's written, with exception or some things,
Speaker 8: for the most part of the Bible. That's why I
Speaker 8: believe it. Why do I believe it? Well, I asked
Speaker 8: that a long time ago. You know, it's always a
Speaker 8: kind of an amateur. By the way, I've always been
Speaker 8: really scared to call into yourself. You're doing great, you
Speaker 8: guys are you guys are spectacular people, honestly, and I
Speaker 8: really thank you for what you do because you do
Speaker 8: give honest space for people to come in and explain,
Speaker 8: you know, why they believe what they believe, which Christians
Speaker 8: are supposed to be able to do. So thank you
Speaker 8: very much for that, and I do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and I do like the fact that
Speaker 1: you are answering and you're thinking about your answers and
Speaker 1: or willing to say, well, wait a second, we need
Speaker 1: to define that first. That's a real conversation because we're
Speaker 1: not here to do gotcha's or create clips. We're here
Speaker 1: to have a conversation. So you're a Christian. There's variations
Speaker 1: on Christianity, you know, ten thousand different sects and all that,
Speaker 1: but we'll just say Christian. You believe either that work
Speaker 1: surf of faith will get you into heaven and that
Speaker 1: there's a God and God is related to good and
Speaker 1: evil in the ways that you've talked about. Why do
Speaker 1: you believe that?
Speaker 8: Okay, So I asked that probably when I was in
Speaker 8: my early teens. You know, if you're a real Oion,
Speaker 8: you don't show me like this because it's kind of
Speaker 8: hard to believe some of the stuff that is that
Speaker 8: you're saying, you're claiming basically speaking to him. And it
Speaker 8: wasn't until a couple of years ago that he gave
Speaker 8: me the answer. Based on my lifestyle that I was living,
Speaker 8: I guess the answer was to be saying, and so
Speaker 8: I'm able to.
Speaker 1: How did you receive this answer? I didn't quite audibly
Speaker 1: hear you. What was the answer and how did you
Speaker 1: receive it?
Speaker 8: Well, the answer was he showed me Satan. He let
Speaker 8: me see Satan. So that was his way of saying
Speaker 8: that he's real, because I know that he's the opposite
Speaker 8: or something, you know, And so for me from my
Speaker 8: own experience, right, because you know, why do you believe it?
Speaker 8: It's always a personal experience. If you had an experience
Speaker 8: where though you've been on the show all this time,
Speaker 8: you had an experience tonight that you thought was God,
Speaker 8: and then you have to come back and explain why
Speaker 8: you think that there's a God and you say, well,
Speaker 8: I have this experience, Well, then they'd have at you, right,
Speaker 8: they'd rep you to pieces based on that because you
Speaker 8: know it's not provable or whatever. But I don't think
Speaker 8: that God's something that's so much provable as a personal thing. Right,
Speaker 8: that's his connectedness to everybody, just the beauty of it.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, So, Joe, you say that you were you
Speaker 3: had this experience with God where you were your actions
Speaker 3: or how you were being was condemned by God, and
Speaker 3: compare and and he showed you Satan, as I guess,
Speaker 3: an embodiment of evil.
Speaker 4: That's what I kind of took away from that. Am
Speaker 4: I on the mark?
Speaker 8: With that? You're you're on the mark and He's not
Speaker 8: what you'd expect at all.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm going to go back to that other question.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. John. We asked you at the
Speaker 1: top of the show, just to clarify. Do you visually
Speaker 1: see him like you'd see a cup of water in
Speaker 1: front of you or a person standing on the corner
Speaker 1: or are we talking about other some other meaning of
Speaker 1: the words not at all.
Speaker 8: Great question. It's very hard to explain because I've never
Speaker 8: experienced it before and there's not a lot to compare
Speaker 8: it to. Right, So I'm going to do my best.
Speaker 8: But it's more if I would say, you know, it's
Speaker 8: almost like another realm. Right, it's really hard to explain
Speaker 8: that the stuff that you're wanting to you're wanting to
Speaker 8: me to answer for like a cup of water, it's
Speaker 8: an object. Definitely not that. Definitely not a thing, right,
Speaker 8: Definitely not a thing. If you know thing, definitely not right.
Speaker 8: He's like the spirit and spirit. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna list off the five hold on, hold on,
Speaker 1: we're gonna We're gonna jump in real quickly. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: list off the five senses that human beings have. These
Speaker 1: are methods that we have to detecting things around us,
Speaker 1: the only way we know to do this. We have sight,
Speaker 1: we have hearing, we have taste, we have smell, and
Speaker 1: we have touch. I'm gonna ask you for in a
Speaker 1: g loop. Can I can I see Satan? Can I
Speaker 1: hear Satan? Can I taste Satan? Can I smell touch Satan?
Speaker 1: Can I touch Satan? If I'm in your your place,
Speaker 1: are any of those applicable? Or are you detecting Satan
Speaker 1: through some other means other than those five senses?
Speaker 8: I would say site is the closest, the closest one that.
Speaker 1: I would say, it's close, but it's not the same
Speaker 1: because you wouldn't see it like a see a guy
Speaker 1: on the corner or you see my mother.
Speaker 8: It's not a thing. It's not a thing.
Speaker 1: So do you use your eyes when you see Satan?
Speaker 1: Are you seeing it some other webs?
Speaker 8: I can close my eyes and seam.
Speaker 2: Isn't that a warning sign?
Speaker 8: I can close my eyes and Sam I can open.
Speaker 2: Isn't that a warning sign?
Speaker 8: A warning sign of what?
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 1: What would you say to anybody else who came to
Speaker 1: you and said you should believe that this exists because
Speaker 1: when I close my eyes, I see it.
Speaker 8: I didn't say that. I didn't say that.
Speaker 1: I not asked the saying that you did. I would say,
Speaker 1: what would you say to somebody who said that?
Speaker 8: I would say that you should check yourself, because number one,
Speaker 8: you might be seeing things that are not there, and
Speaker 8: number two, you shouldn't ask anybody to believe things based
Speaker 8: on your experience.
Speaker 1: I agree with that, and you haven't asked us to
Speaker 1: do that, And I'm not accusing you of that. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to get to you where you were there
Speaker 1: so you can put yourself in our shoes. Godless, I
Speaker 1: think I don't want to speak for you, but when
Speaker 1: I hear I can see him when I close my eyes,
Speaker 1: that to me sort of raises red flags.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Godless?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it does definitely raise a bit bit
Speaker 3: of red flags, because I mean I take it to
Speaker 3: mean that you are actively being fed a vision of
Speaker 3: Him is as opposed to just remembering like some kind
Speaker 3: of dream or other state that you were you were in.
Speaker 4: Is that correct?
Speaker 8: That's correct? And I wouldn't say that, I mean said
Speaker 8: in the sense that I mean, yeah, said is fine.
Speaker 8: But I feel like I agreed to this before I
Speaker 8: was born, right, But I guess it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 8: So said city is fine?
Speaker 1: Fine?
Speaker 4: Okay, So that's that's fine. Now.
Speaker 3: The thing that I was kind of wanting to harp
Speaker 3: on here is the whole idea of you being shown
Speaker 3: Satan and being shown something that's opposite to God, which
Speaker 3: is uh, and correct me if I'm wrong on any
Speaker 3: of this. I'm trying to steal man your position on it.
Speaker 3: You were own a vision of Satan so that you know,
Speaker 3: God could show you, oh you know this is this
Speaker 3: is the evil this is the opposite of me.
Speaker 4: Am I am I on am I on the right path.
Speaker 8: I think that's why. I just know that I can
Speaker 8: see him. I don't can answer Anthony, I don't know right,
Speaker 8: I just know that I can see him, and I
Speaker 8: guess and seeing him meaning that this. I just want
Speaker 8: to add one more thing to this about my experience
Speaker 8: about it. I can see him. I can ask him
Speaker 8: any question I want, right, and I can He will
Speaker 8: answer right.
Speaker 2: Doesn't do you ask him vocally?
Speaker 8: I this was the mind blowing part when I realized
Speaker 8: that you can.
Speaker 10: I can ask him in my mind about talking and
Speaker 10: oh I.
Speaker 8: Don't answer me in the same way, and just on
Speaker 8: Q just.
Speaker 1: Just I think that should be mind blowing because that's
Speaker 1: very abnormal, isn't it.
Speaker 8: It is? It is extremely abnormal.
Speaker 3: Can I propose a well, Joel, can I propose a
Speaker 3: hypothe article for you? And you tell me if this
Speaker 3: is satan activity like evil activity, or if it's holly
Speaker 3: good activity. Can we can we run this exercise real quick?
Speaker 8: Yeah? I'll try.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, So, uh, let's say that you're a
Speaker 3: you're a soldier in the US Army or or any
Speaker 3: any army out there. Let's say you're a soldier and
Speaker 3: you're in a foreign country and uh, you you go
Speaker 3: into a city and you utterly destroy it. You unlive
Speaker 3: everybody in the city.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: But amongst those inhabitants that you haven't unalived, you notice
Speaker 3: a beautiful woman. And so you decide that you're gonna
Speaker 3: forcefully take that beautiful woman, and you're gonna bring her
Speaker 3: back home, and you're gonna you're gonna keep her in
Speaker 3: your house for a month, and and at that point
Speaker 3: you're then going to marry her, whether.
Speaker 4: She wants you to or not. Now, would you consider
Speaker 4: that to be godly things?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 3: Is that something that God would command or is that
Speaker 3: something that you you think would be inspired by Satan?
Speaker 8: I would think that that's a thing that has probably
Speaker 8: written in a Bible in some way. And I think
Speaker 8: that if I were to do it in these days,
Speaker 8: that it would be from Satan.
Speaker 1: I want to key in on a phrase you just said.
Speaker 1: Did you just say if I were to do it
Speaker 1: these days?
Speaker 8: Yeah, if I were to do it these days, like
Speaker 8: you know.
Speaker 1: If you had done it two thousand years ago, would
Speaker 1: it be morally Okay?
Speaker 8: Well, that's a that's a hard question.
Speaker 1: No, it's not, but go ahead, go pull that thread.
Speaker 8: Oh well, I think you're using it the time, the
Speaker 8: times that we're in now to judge other times.
Speaker 1: So morality is relative to the time you're in. The
Speaker 1: things that work. That are some things that are bad
Speaker 1: now We're okay, just because years.
Speaker 8: What well, things that are done now will be considered
Speaker 8: archaic a thousand years from now, right.
Speaker 2: Some won't, some won't.
Speaker 8: Right, and some will.
Speaker 1: We already we have already learned as what species, what
Speaker 1: kind of hold on? Hold on, Joel, We've given you
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: Of room, let me go.
Speaker 8: So it's a fair question.
Speaker 1: It is a fair question because I'm going to propose
Speaker 1: an answer here, so let me get to it. Right.
Speaker 1: So I agree with you that some of the things
Speaker 1: we do now will probably be viewed as immoral in
Speaker 1: the future. And I hope you agree with me that
Speaker 1: some things that were done two thousand years ago or
Speaker 1: five thousand years ago when we had the Old Testament
Speaker 1: were immoral then and immoral now, and we are considering
Speaker 1: them immoral now. There's multiple explanations for why that's true,
Speaker 1: and multiple definitional things that explain that. And that's where
Speaker 1: the conversation is, so I'm not trying to shut you
Speaker 1: off and just trying to get to that point. Either
Speaker 1: things are moral or immoral, and we as a species
Speaker 1: learn about morality as we grow up as human beings
Speaker 1: and more and more things we recognize as bad or good,
Speaker 1: so our view gets more nuanced and subtle and advances.
Speaker 1: Or we're just creatures of fashion. Whatever is fashionably okay
Speaker 1: to murder, then it's okay to murder. And it is
Speaker 1: not just we think it's okay to murder, it is
Speaker 1: actually okay to murder. If many people think that it's okay,
Speaker 1: I'm arguing that it's the former that it was always
Speaker 1: wrong morally, no matter if people. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: saying everybody used to believe the Earth was flat, therefore
Speaker 1: the Earth was flat. That's not my argument. My argument
Speaker 1: is everybody used to think that the Earth was flat.
Speaker 1: I'm going to mute you, Joel, if you won't let
Speaker 1: me finish this explanation. You've been a great caller. Just
Speaker 1: listen to me. Okay, this is a great analogy that
Speaker 1: just wrung in my head. Everybody used to think the
Speaker 1: Earth was flat. Does that mean that the Earth was flat?
Speaker 1: Or does that mean everybody was wrong? Everybody is wrong.
Speaker 1: Everybody used to think that slavery and raping women was okay.
Speaker 1: Does that mean that it was okay? Or does it
Speaker 1: mean that everybody was wrong? Do you get my point?
Speaker 8: I do I get you?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So Godless's question you sort of caught onto it of
Speaker 1: Is that more satan like or is that more god like?
Speaker 2: You said, I bet that's something that was.
Speaker 1: Written in the Bible that if I did it nowadays
Speaker 1: would be wrong. Would you like to amend that? Would
Speaker 1: it have been wrong two thousand years ago if you
Speaker 1: did it?
Speaker 9: No, I don't.
Speaker 8: I don't want to amend that.
Speaker 1: So it would have been morally okay to take a
Speaker 1: prisoner of war and sexually assault her and force her
Speaker 1: into America against her will.
Speaker 8: No, I don't think that that's okay. That's that's obviously
Speaker 8: the answer that that's only going to be excited.
Speaker 1: So that would have been moral immoral two thousand years
Speaker 1: ago as well? Correct?
Speaker 10: That would have been immoral two thousand years ago?
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, go ahead, John, Sorry, Well, I was just
Speaker 1: gonna ask because that is something that God commanded.
Speaker 3: Deuteronomy twenty one, twenty one ten to fourteen. That's part
Speaker 3: of God's commandments, that is to guide them. And it's
Speaker 3: the same commandments that's affirmed by Jesus in Matthew five
Speaker 3: seventeen to nineteen, for which there is a repetitive thing
Speaker 3: in Luke as well.
Speaker 4: So it's done twice in the gospels.
Speaker 3: That reaffirms these Old Testament laws that are given by
Speaker 3: God to Moses, as was the other people in there.
Speaker 3: And so given that God is the one that issued these,
Speaker 3: that's the mark that God. Playing back on to the
Speaker 3: beginning of our conversation, that's the mark that God has
Speaker 3: set right. So by not doing that in war that
Speaker 3: God has commanded, this is the behavior that God has
Speaker 3: commanded has allowed you to do. So by not doing
Speaker 3: that in war, it seems to me like you would
Speaker 3: have to say that your committee an evil action by
Speaker 3: not adhering to that mark that God has given.
Speaker 4: Would that be correct?
Speaker 8: No, that wouldn't be correct. That wouldn't be cursed at all.
Speaker 8: Because this is a problem with taking one era and
Speaker 8: and moving it and applying it to another era.
Speaker 4: Is God constrained by cultural norms?
Speaker 8: Do I have any time to talk?
Speaker 1: Have given you so much time to talk. We have
Speaker 1: given you so, we gave you compliments on how great
Speaker 1: you were, We've given you time to talk. This is
Speaker 1: a back and forth and if you say something when
Speaker 1: we need clarifications, we as the hosts, are going to
Speaker 1: ask for clarifications. So please answer John's question.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, Joe, So just just to give you a
Speaker 3: little bit more information, I'll give you your time to to
Speaker 3: respond to this, and I promise you. But see what
Speaker 3: it's coming across to me is you're saying that God
Speaker 3: either changes or God is compressed or constrained. Sorry, God
Speaker 3: is constrained by the culture that he is talking to.
Speaker 3: So like he like his commands are not meant for
Speaker 3: all the time, which is actually contradictory to what the
Speaker 3: Bible says, because the Bible says that God's law is
Speaker 3: a perfect law meant for forever. Uh that's somewhere in Psalms.
Speaker 3: But God says that, right, And so it seems to
Speaker 3: me like what you're saying is that God is constrained
Speaker 3: by the culture that he is either speaking to or
Speaker 3: the culture that exists at the time. That seems to
Speaker 3: be a violation of his omnipotence. Is all powerful nature
Speaker 3: and if God is constrained by that, then it seems
Speaker 3: like God is somehow driven by human need at least
Speaker 3: the laws.
Speaker 8: Of God, because God because are really good. No, No,
Speaker 8: God's not constrained at all. We're limited. We're limited on
Speaker 8: what we can and what God can apply to us
Speaker 8: at any given time, and we grow hopefully. But I
Speaker 8: got to say, going back to what you say that
Speaker 8: you guys give these two options. And I was saying or,
Speaker 8: and you kept going.
Speaker 2: And you said you give us the third option.
Speaker 8: Well, in this example way, we get worse. We don't
Speaker 8: get better.
Speaker 1: We don't absolutely we might get worse. Are you So
Speaker 1: that begs the question.
Speaker 8: I want to I want that to be one example. Okay,
Speaker 8: an Joel, you don't get offended, Joel.
Speaker 1: I'm not offended. I'm following up. I just agreed with you.
Speaker 1: You're right, we could get worse. We could move into
Speaker 1: the future, learn more about morality, learn more about suffering,
Speaker 1: and realize, you know what, it's great to rate people
Speaker 1: it is morally Okay, we could get worse. Right, No,
Speaker 1: I'm supporting you. I am saying we could do that
Speaker 1: right as a people. Right, So do you agree that
Speaker 1: what we think at any given time is not directly
Speaker 1: related to some constant truth. Do you agree that what
Speaker 1: we think about the Earth being round or flat does
Speaker 1: not affect whether or not the Earth is round or flat?
Speaker 2: That's my question.
Speaker 8: I think that's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So what we think about morality today, you
Speaker 1: are arguing, and I would agree with you, does not
Speaker 1: necessarily have any effect on as to whether or not
Speaker 1: something is actually good or bad, or whether or not
Speaker 1: there's even an actual objective good or bad at all
Speaker 1: in the universe. Right, what we think about it is irrelevant, right.
Speaker 10: Yes, I was okay to say, I would say that's true.
Speaker 8: I would. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then how can you know anything about the nature of
Speaker 1: God or Satan and goodness and evil?
Speaker 8: And how could any one person know?
Speaker 2: That's my question?
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, okay, Well I believe that I believe that,
Speaker 8: you know, he I believe that He put it into
Speaker 8: our hearts pretty much, you know.
Speaker 2: And but couldn't it be Satan deceiving?
Speaker 8: You be sinding deceiving? Yeah, it could be. I think
Speaker 8: he at text more of than mind, you know. But
Speaker 8: being when spending time with Jesus is like no anyone right, So, like,
Speaker 8: you know, God says to put him first, right, and
Speaker 8: like pretty much like that's it, you know, like that's it.
Speaker 1: And I don't who said to put him first any.
Speaker 10: I think I think the Bible says to put God first.
Speaker 2: And how do you know that that is true?
Speaker 8: How do I know that that is true, that it
Speaker 8: said it, or how I know that it's true that
Speaker 8: he wants it, or how do I know that it's true?
Speaker 1: So you're saying I believe if I want to paraphrase,
Speaker 1: I don't want to.
Speaker 2: Put words in your mouth.
Speaker 8: It's definitely true.
Speaker 1: That's so true. So let's back up to that. Let's
Speaker 1: get to the final question of the show, like the
Speaker 1: big question, which is why do you believe there's a God?
Speaker 8: Well, because I've seen Satan.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that would lead me to believe in Satan, right,
Speaker 1: not necessarily God?
Speaker 8: Yeah, well not me because like that meant fipping to me, right,
Speaker 8: This is this goes back to the personal experience He
Speaker 8: showed me, right, showing you would mean so enough, Like
Speaker 8: if I were to ask you the question, if I
Speaker 8: were to ask you a question, what would be evidence
Speaker 8: for God?
Speaker 1: For you?
Speaker 8: You probably wouldn't answer that. What would be with evidence
Speaker 8: for you? Sure? Answer that. Please tell everybody, tell the world.
Speaker 8: What would be evidence to you if there's a God.
Speaker 1: Well, if we're assuming the Christian God, the evidence would
Speaker 1: be probably I don't know, because God is so mysterious.
Speaker 1: No one can know God's ways, but God would know,
Speaker 1: so he would give me that evidence. Whatever that was.
Speaker 1: God would be powerful enough if he wanted to the
Speaker 1: question to me, it's an honest answer. Are you going
Speaker 1: to say I'm lying like I really don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Give me a scenario. Give me a scenario
Speaker 1: where you think I should take that evidence as proof
Speaker 1: of not only a God, but the Christian God of
Speaker 1: the Bible.
Speaker 8: That's not evidence for that.
Speaker 1: I asked you a question. Could you please give me
Speaker 1: a scenario that you think I should accept as evidence
Speaker 1: that the God of the Bible is true?
Speaker 8: No, no, I couldn't because you can't even give me
Speaker 8: a scenariosing me of lying. Oh, you're excusing me of lying.
Speaker 8: Wait a minute, I'm going to meet.
Speaker 1: You and explain this, because you like reacting more than
Speaker 1: you like answering. At this point, you're accusing me of
Speaker 1: lying when I honestly say I don't know. What would
Speaker 1: convince me that there's a God. I've thought about this
Speaker 1: a lot. I've thought about this for thirty years. I've
Speaker 1: had that conversation what would convince you dozens if not
Speaker 1: hundreds of times. And the honest answer is, I don't know.
Speaker 1: But I'm not the one claiming there's a God or
Speaker 1: there's not a God. Other people tell me things, and
Speaker 1: I am convinced or not convinced of their claims based
Speaker 1: on the evidence they present. To date, I haven't been
Speaker 1: convinced that there's a God. I haven't had any experiences
Speaker 1: that people who call in and say I had this
Speaker 1: personal experience that's proved for me, but not for you.
Speaker 1: I haven't had one of those experiences.
Speaker 2: In my youth.
Speaker 1: I did try to pray to a God and genuinely
Speaker 1: give myself to God when I was an Episcopalian school.
Speaker 1: That didn't work. So I really don't know what the
Speaker 1: evidence was. But I'm pretty sure that the God that
Speaker 1: most Christians believe in would believe that their God is
Speaker 1: powerful enough to convince me if they wanted to, And
Speaker 1: they are probably pretty sure that most Christians would believe
Speaker 1: that a genuine person who sincerely has tried to figure
Speaker 1: this all out and just hasn't been convinced is not
Speaker 1: doing anything wrong. Do you disagree with any of that? No, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know. John, Have you had a similar trial
Speaker 1: and error test?
Speaker 8: Though that wasn't cool? I never said you that.
Speaker 2: You rewind the tape. We'll move past it.
Speaker 3: I do know that if God does exist, he would
Speaker 3: be the one to know that you know what would
Speaker 3: convince me? So like, well, I don't know exactly what
Speaker 3: would convince me other than you know, just empirical evidence
Speaker 3: that leaves no uh no other reasonable explanation other than
Speaker 3: a supernatural wizard that really cares about you know, everything
Speaker 3: I do in my alone time. I feel like that God,
Speaker 3: if he is omniscient, he would definitely know what would
Speaker 3: convince me.
Speaker 4: And I just have not been convinced yet.
Speaker 8: And so right, And do you think that the callers
Speaker 8: do you think that the colors that you say, you
Speaker 8: show evidence after evidence after evidence and they still deny it.
Speaker 10: You put you know so much anti you.
Speaker 8: Know evidence to say, and they still don't believe it.
Speaker 8: Do you think that that could be what you're doing?
Speaker 10: Possibly?
Speaker 8: It's like, for instance, well, I.
Speaker 1: Don't understand the question. Honestly, I don't what you just said? Well,
Speaker 1: did you repeat it and explain it to me again?
Speaker 8: Sure? Sure? Do you think that you're doing what you
Speaker 8: accuse the callers of doing when you apply what you
Speaker 8: call anti evidence to their claim?
Speaker 1: Or I don't call anything anti evidence? Okay, come on,
Speaker 1: I don't. That's not a word in that I've ever
Speaker 1: heard of in my life.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So what I do is I ask questions. Somebody calls
Speaker 1: up and makes a claim, and I ask questions, right,
Speaker 1: how did this happen?
Speaker 2: What does this happen? What's you're reasoning?
Speaker 1: Then I try to see if there's any logical fallacies
Speaker 1: in their reasoning or their methodology. And if there are
Speaker 1: logical fallacies, then I point them out and say, this
Speaker 1: seems to be a logical fallacy, or there seems to
Speaker 1: be insufficient evidence to convince you that this is true.
Speaker 2: Why are you convinced? That's the conversation?
Speaker 9: Right?
Speaker 8: Right? And no matter how much evidence you give against
Speaker 8: their claim, right, that, they still will refuse to believe
Speaker 8: that you're saying it takes years, I think you were
Speaker 8: saying earlier, it takes years for people sometimes to convert
Speaker 8: to atheism or whatever it is, or to convert their beliefs.
Speaker 3: But I mean, I feel like what we do is
Speaker 3: we appeal to basic laws in order to convince people
Speaker 3: away from bad arguments, and we don't have any preconceived
Speaker 3: notion as to whether or not they're just gonna up
Speaker 3: and leave their faith, where we just hope to present
Speaker 3: good answer arguments.
Speaker 1: And we do the same methodology on Truth Wanted. I've
Speaker 1: been on Truth Wanted, and we'll take calls about Bigfoot
Speaker 1: and Crystal's healing people and UFOs.
Speaker 2: It's not just God claims.
Speaker 1: We're all about a methodology and hearing about people's reasons
Speaker 1: and so we can like, hey, is there anything out
Speaker 1: there that is convincing? So it's not unique to God.
Speaker 1: It's just a good way of living. I want to
Speaker 1: believe as many true things and as few false things
Speaker 1: as possible, because if I believe false things are true,
Speaker 1: I can harm myself for others.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 8: It does make sense. It doesn't make sense. It seems
Speaker 8: to me the like you know you're taking this claim
Speaker 8: the default. The default is that there's no God, right.
Speaker 1: The default is that the person making the claim has
Speaker 1: the burden of proof to establish it, just like in
Speaker 1: the courtroom where we think something's really important, we put
Speaker 1: the duty on the prosecutor. We don't just assume you're
Speaker 1: guilty because the neighborhood says you're guilty. We want people
Speaker 1: to come to court and present evidence. That's that's how
Speaker 1: humans have determined is the best way not to get
Speaker 1: scammed or tricked or do something wrong to somebody. Don't
Speaker 1: you want evidence of something before you believe it.
Speaker 10: Yes, yes, but I think it's the evidence.
Speaker 8: Yes, I do think that that's true. But some people
Speaker 8: look at the world as evidence, right, Like you're saying, like,
Speaker 8: you know, I hate to use this one because it's
Speaker 8: so it's so badly used.
Speaker 1: But you know, the fact that I know where you're going, Joe,
Speaker 1: go ahead say it.
Speaker 8: The fact that the fact that the world that we
Speaker 8: shouldn't be here, basically that the world is so rare
Speaker 8: that you know, blah blah blah, all these things that
Speaker 8: need to happen. Okay, And you say, well, that's not evidence,
Speaker 8: that's just you.
Speaker 1: Know, I would disagree, and I can I point out
Speaker 1: that you're putting words in my mouth a little bit. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm coming at it from a technical definition of evidence.
Speaker 1: So under the law, evidence is any fact or piece
Speaker 1: of material or whatever that would make a claim more
Speaker 1: or less likely true or false in any degree. So
Speaker 1: I might go to trial and I might say I
Speaker 1: want to, you know, hey, what's your hobby, witness, And
Speaker 1: they might say I'm a tennis player, and the opposing
Speaker 1: person says, I object, there's no reason that the person's
Speaker 1: hobby has any relevance on his bank fraud scheme. And
Speaker 1: I might say, well, you know, there's a statistical probability
Speaker 1: that people who are in nightclubs or excuse me, who
Speaker 1: are in tennis clubs and have to pay those fees
Speaker 1: are going to be slightly harder to earn money because
Speaker 1: it's expensive to be these clubs. So it's more likely
Speaker 1: to go to motive a little bit, that he might
Speaker 1: have more motive to rob the bank or do the
Speaker 1: embezzling or whatever. It is evidence, it's just not sufficient evidence, right,
Speaker 1: So I think almost anything is evidence, and I think
Speaker 1: that word gets used incorrectly. That's why I always use
Speaker 1: the phrase sufficient evidence.
Speaker 8: So like a painting, the painting like, that's not sufficient
Speaker 8: evidence of somebody painting? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1: I think a painting is combined with the fact that
Speaker 1: I've seen paintings before. I've seen people painting paintings. I've
Speaker 1: seen myself. I have tried painting. I've seen paint supply stores.
Speaker 1: I've seen all of these things. I've gone to museums
Speaker 1: and seeing paintings. I've seen people who told me the
Speaker 1: history of the paints. I've seen people frame paintings and
Speaker 1: unframed paintings. I've got a mountain of evidence that establishes
Speaker 1: that paintings exist.
Speaker 10: And as none of that was true.
Speaker 8: If none of that was true.
Speaker 1: Right, you found a rock right on a beach, a
Speaker 1: rock on a beach, right.
Speaker 8: No, they just found a painting. Come on, this is
Speaker 8: just a great point. I found a painting, right, and
Speaker 8: none of what you said it was true. You didn't
Speaker 8: know what a painting was. You didn't call it a painting.
Speaker 8: Would you say that somebody did that or did you
Speaker 8: would you say that it just happened to be like that?
Speaker 2: We don't know. The answer is I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I've never seen a painting, the concept of painting
Speaker 1: doesn't exist in the world, and we're we're all cave man,
Speaker 1: and I have no idea what it is. I might
Speaker 1: think it's a lunch.
Speaker 8: I feel like that's the earth. You might so thin,
Speaker 8: you might think this may did it. I feel like
Speaker 8: that's what the earth is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Joe Joel, listen what we have natural explanations
Speaker 3: for how the earth could form the way that it did.
Speaker 3: And this is analogous to the painting. Hold on, we
Speaker 3: know lege you talk. This is analogous to the painting
Speaker 3: thing because we have a natural explanation for the painting.
Speaker 3: Somebody had to paint it, A sentient being had to
Speaker 3: have been there to do the painting.
Speaker 1: Maybe ninety nine that happening by chance is impossible. Won't
Speaker 1: You won't here and say it's point one? Unlike some
Speaker 1: other people.
Speaker 8: I believe the point so I believe the burden of
Speaker 8: proof is on the point one, not the ninety nine
Speaker 8: point nine nine.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, but you're ignoring the evidence. I just went
Speaker 1: through a whole thing of evidence that makes sit a
Speaker 1: point one, And then you said, well, what if none
Speaker 1: of that evidence existed? What would happen? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: if I'm a caveman I've never seen a painting before,
Speaker 1: I might think it's lunch, just like animals when we
Speaker 1: put a mirror in the jungle. You've maybe seen these
Speaker 1: videos where people go put mirrors in jungles and these
Speaker 1: animals have never seen them before. They don't know what
Speaker 1: the fuck they are. They think they're seeing another cat.
Speaker 1: I said that, so I don't think we can put
Speaker 1: ourselves into the mindset of a world where we've never
Speaker 1: seen paintings. That's why I asked, what about a rock
Speaker 1: on a beach?
Speaker 8: I said that for effect, though, right, because we do
Speaker 8: know how That's why we said it's rare, because we
Speaker 8: do know about all these things, right. We do know
Speaker 8: that there's a frame of the frame, and the paint
Speaker 8: store and all this stuff. That's all the stuff that
Speaker 8: goes along with making it rare. Right, That's why we
Speaker 8: called it a rarity, right, because we know all.
Speaker 1: I'm sure what is rareness, And like paintings are very common.
Speaker 1: I'm confirmed you knew it.
Speaker 10: You knew that you knew where I was talking about.
Speaker 8: Comparing this to the earth, right that we're very very.
Speaker 1: Yes, got it? Okay, So to John's point, to John's point,
Speaker 1: if you go and study the literature, I think this
Speaker 1: is what you're making John. We have the painters, the painting,
Speaker 1: the art supply store, the canvases. We have that much
Speaker 1: evidence taking us all the way back to the Big
Speaker 1: Bang as to how this all happened. We know this,
Speaker 1: We have an answer and it doesn't involve God. Is
Speaker 1: that what you were saying, John.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't have a need for God to explain
Speaker 3: those things. So like, well, it's it's the possibility, which.
Speaker 1: Is what.
Speaker 8: Jump from there? How did that jump from that? I'm
Speaker 8: so sorry, but how did that jump from there? Are
Speaker 8: all the viewers that assume that that's true? How did
Speaker 8: that jump from that to that?
Speaker 1: You are you asserting that we don't have well established
Speaker 1: evidence as to what happened after the Big Bang till now?
Speaker 8: I you do agree to that?
Speaker 1: Okay, So that's what I'm saying. That's the that's the
Speaker 1: the evidence we have. It's not just we don't just
Speaker 1: look at the Earth and go, oh, a miracle, have
Speaker 1: no idea how this happened. We have tons of evidence
Speaker 1: as to how the Earth was formed.
Speaker 3: Right, So, Joel, what we've observed, what we've observed outside
Speaker 3: of of our Earth, you know, through astronomy and other sciences,
Speaker 3: is that giant gas clouds will collapse when they are
Speaker 3: hit by a shockwave from a collapsing star. And when
Speaker 3: these gas clouds, these huge glass gas clouds collapse, they
Speaker 3: eventually collect and using static forces, the particles will clump
Speaker 3: together in localized areas, and those clumps will get bigger
Speaker 3: and bigger and bigger until gravity takes over. And then
Speaker 3: and then gravity takes over and still collapse all these
Speaker 3: debris and dust. Now, once this giant gas cloud, there's
Speaker 3: trillions and trillions of tons of particles eventually coalaced one
Speaker 3: into a star that forms due to large gravitational forces
Speaker 3: that causes fusion to happen, and that this light and
Speaker 3: everything like that. The remaining dust particles around that star
Speaker 3: that start to coalesce into planets, and planets are a
Speaker 3: certain amount of distance away from that star that are
Speaker 3: in what's called the Goldie Log zone form and uh,
Speaker 3: they can form atmospheres, they can form in different kinds
Speaker 3: of ways that then progress into larger and larger planets
Speaker 3: then can sol.
Speaker 8: And holding all this and I understand and holding all
Speaker 8: this energy together is what.
Speaker 1: Gravity, small and strong nuclear forces, electromagnetic for I think
Speaker 1: all of those things.
Speaker 4: All right, Doctor Joel, Please tell me what's correct? Is
Speaker 4: it God?
Speaker 1: Is it the first?
Speaker 8: The first say that you don't know? Right?
Speaker 4: Do you know? But so are you?
Speaker 1: Are you literally asking what is holding particles together inside
Speaker 1: of planet dark?
Speaker 2: Because that's what we're talking.
Speaker 10: Understand you understand dark energy.
Speaker 1: I understand dark energy? Yes, okay, I mean I understand
Speaker 1: it as in I know what it is, but I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody on the planet understands it to the
Speaker 1: point of similar understanding of how to make a bicycle.
Speaker 8: I think you're right. I think you're right. I think
Speaker 8: there's a lot that we don't understand. And it doesn't
Speaker 8: mean that there's a god. Doesn't mean that there's a god.
Speaker 8: That's not evidenced directly if there's a god. But what
Speaker 8: I'm saying is that there's lots that we're going to
Speaker 8: be figuring right out, and I don't understand how that
Speaker 8: has anything to do with their being or not being
Speaker 8: a god.
Speaker 1: You were the one who said, look at the earth, dude.
Speaker 4: You you gave the look at the trees argument.
Speaker 1: Come on, all right, So you have been a lot.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Guys, thank you for calling. Do you
Speaker 1: have other colleagues to get to but that's a good note.
Speaker 9: It's not as funny as you think.
Speaker 8: It's not as funny as you think.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, call back again.
Speaker 8: Bye bye, all right, thank you.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, I don't know what any of this has.
Speaker 1: To do with God.
Speaker 3: I thought that was a pretty funny thing, like I'm
Speaker 3: pretty comedic.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: I didn't really understood the whole, the whole idea that
Speaker 3: God is necessary for physical processes to happen.
Speaker 1: Again, I don't know that that's what he's making I
Speaker 1: think I think him asking what's holding that all together?
Speaker 1: He was speaking figuratively, and uh, he was hinting at
Speaker 1: he was looking for an I don't know, Like I
Speaker 1: readily admit, I don't think anybody understands everything about dark matter.
Speaker 1: We still don't have a unified theory of physics as
Speaker 1: far as the four forces go. There's a lot we
Speaker 1: don't know. But that doesn't mean God exists. We we
Speaker 1: used to think the Earth was flat. Now we know
Speaker 1: a bill jillion times more so we've it's really a
Speaker 1: God of the gaps argument. We don't know this therefore God.
Speaker 1: I think that's where he was going. I don't know
Speaker 1: what were your thoughts.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I feel like that's incredibly Uh, my
Speaker 3: camera has apparently decided to die real quick.
Speaker 1: It's okay, it's a permanent kind of eye roll.
Speaker 4: But I think that I'm trying to fix it problem.
Speaker 3: I think that what he was where he was going
Speaker 3: to know, where he was going to go with it
Speaker 3: was simply that you know, God is necessary to hold
Speaker 3: things together and everything like that.
Speaker 4: And I'm not exactly sure why my camera has.
Speaker 1: Well, while you're fiddling with that, I'm going to jump on.
Speaker 1: We have a few more calls where near the end
Speaker 1: of time, I do want to get them on. They've
Speaker 1: been patiently waiting, So I'm going to jump to Will
Speaker 1: no pronouns given from Canada wants to address the chat
Speaker 1: question for the week, which was God's Evil Change our Minds?
Speaker 2: Sort of provocative prompt, Will do I have you right?
Speaker 1: You want to talk about whether or not there is
Speaker 1: a God and whether or not that God is evil? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: what's up with you? What do you believe? Why do
Speaker 1: you believe it? And what does that have to do
Speaker 1: with an evil God?
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 14: I probably like it's about all the things of God, right,
Speaker 14: But I would consider myself a Catholic heretic, and I
Speaker 14: came to God like in nineteen.
Speaker 7: But it's kind of personal. I don't really like to
Speaker 7: talk about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, you said you wanted to address the chat question,
Speaker 1: and the chat question was God is evil? Changed our mind?
Speaker 1: So change our mind? Why which God are you talking about?
Speaker 1: And why is that God not evil?
Speaker 7: Which God that I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 7: First, the I would say, like the train turing God,
Speaker 7: the train.
Speaker 1: Team, the one depicted in the Bible, specifically, possibly the
Speaker 1: Catholic version of the Bible generally, Yeah is that God?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Yeah, God?
Speaker 7: Just Christ, God, whisper Godfather understood?
Speaker 2: Okay, why is that God not evil?
Speaker 7: I would say, it is misunderstood?
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, let me can I test that real quick?
Speaker 8: Okay?
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 3: So there's a passage in Exodus where it stipulates that
Speaker 3: a father can sell their daughter into sexual slavery, and
Speaker 3: you seem to think that I'm just misunderstanding that, and
Speaker 3: I'm just wondering, can you clarify that.
Speaker 1: One for me?
Speaker 7: It is said that is it?
Speaker 8: Is it?
Speaker 7: It's a commandment directly from God. Yes, I think you
Speaker 7: talked about it earlier, but like my point of view
Speaker 7: on this is like God is working with people with
Speaker 7: the times that they're in.
Speaker 1: God's meeting people where they are. God is a political gradualist, right.
Speaker 7: What is a political gradualist?
Speaker 1: God? A political gradualist is somebody who realizes they can't
Speaker 1: get what needs to be done done right away because
Speaker 1: they got to deal with people and make deals and
Speaker 1: sort of eventually, if we position ourselves and everything right,
Speaker 1: eventually we'll get this country or this state or this
Speaker 1: county to where it needs to be. But I can't
Speaker 1: come in and just dictate things or otherwise the people
Speaker 1: will revolt.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 7: Some kind of right?
Speaker 1: But like, so, why did God say no gay sex
Speaker 1: and you can't eat shrimp as just absolute laws? Shrimp
Speaker 1: was very popular. Why did he come in and say
Speaker 1: can't do that absolute no gradualism there. But when he
Speaker 1: says you can sell your daughter into sexual slavery, that
Speaker 1: was because he felt like he couldn't come in and say,
Speaker 1: don't sell people, don't sell your daughters. That would have
Speaker 1: been too much.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying, right?
Speaker 7: It's about what no gay sex and eating shrimp? Bruh,
Speaker 7: I'm look, I'm not like I'm not going to say
Speaker 7: like I understand why God does things or not?
Speaker 15: Right?
Speaker 1: Can I reframe it? Go ahead?
Speaker 3: John, Well, I was just gonna say, maybe maybe I
Speaker 3: can ask you this more direct question. If you were
Speaker 3: in a governorship, or let's say you're president, would you
Speaker 3: ever maybe king, let's say king, because that that one
Speaker 3: I think is a bit more analogous here. Let's say
Speaker 3: you're a king. Would would you ever make a law
Speaker 3: that says that fathers can sell their daughters as a
Speaker 3: sexual slave to another man or another man's son?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: Would you ever make an edict or a law that
Speaker 3: that allows that in your kingdom?
Speaker 4: Would you do that?
Speaker 10: First?
Speaker 7: It what depends in which time period? It would depend
Speaker 7: on context.
Speaker 8: I and.
Speaker 1: Now you yourself right now, you your brother.
Speaker 8: Will anything, Will Will Will Will Will Will.
Speaker 3: Just think of the economy. What is the fucking economy
Speaker 3: I have to do with selling your daughter?
Speaker 1: John asked you you right now, would you pass that law?
Speaker 2: Sitting here today? Boom, we've just.
Speaker 1: Given you the power. Yeah, We're just giving you the
Speaker 1: power to control all of the universe. Would you tell
Speaker 1: people on Earth it's okay to sell your daughters into
Speaker 1: sexual slavery.
Speaker 7: Maybe if I was in the I would be or
Speaker 7: something like that.
Speaker 1: But what you're a bad person then.
Speaker 3: No, but right now, no, no, you hold on, hold on,
Speaker 3: you're shifting. You're shifting, you're changing it. Right, I'm saying
Speaker 3: you yourself right now, your person not like any No,
Speaker 3: you would not. Okay, God does Why are you better
Speaker 3: than your God?
Speaker 7: I don't think. I don't think God allow allows it?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 3: No, no, he allowed it is God. You believe in
Speaker 3: the true and that God changed his mind.
Speaker 5: Yeah, human did with the.
Speaker 1: God changed his mind. No, this is okay, so two
Speaker 1: thousand years ago.
Speaker 7: Yeah, people at the time, right, you're working with the
Speaker 7: people at the time.
Speaker 1: Right, this is so he's a political gradualist. He could
Speaker 1: are you saying he's working with the people at the time?
Speaker 1: That is in if I came in and said slavery
Speaker 1: is wrong. Okay, let's take let's take the Ten Commandments, right.
Speaker 1: I think you and I can probably improve the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 1: Right now, three of the verses are I am a
Speaker 1: jealous God, obey me, don't go to other gods. Right,
Speaker 1: that's three of them. There's really only four that have
Speaker 1: rules of don't kill, don't murder, don't covet you know,
Speaker 1: don't rob, don't lie. Couldn't we take one of those
Speaker 1: ten commandments that said, don't worship another god or I
Speaker 1: am the Lord God, fear me type of goud. Couldn't
Speaker 1: we take that one of those three and it's change
Speaker 1: it to you shall not own people as property. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: that have been the best rule that would make the
Speaker 1: Ten Commandments infinitely better if from day one the Ten
Speaker 1: Commandments said don't own slaves.
Speaker 10: But okay, I don't want.
Speaker 1: Would that be have been better for humanity? Sure?
Speaker 7: Yes, but okay I want to I don't want. I
Speaker 7: don't support slavery in any kid.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you do. I'm just asking pointing out
Speaker 1: what John is pointing out, which is your God in
Speaker 1: the Old Testament endorsed slavery, and then in the New
Speaker 1: Testament says the old laws shall not shall go unchanged,
Speaker 1: Not a jot or tittle of the law shall change
Speaker 1: until all things have been accomplished. So your Old Testament
Speaker 1: God said, not only is slavery okay, but if they're foreigners,
Speaker 1: you can own them for life, You can give them
Speaker 1: to your kids, you can have sex with them. That's
Speaker 1: what the Old Testament says. And then you come to
Speaker 1: us and say God's good. And that's where John has
Speaker 1: this question. Go ahead, John, Well.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say.
Speaker 3: And then you're you're telling us that God has God
Speaker 3: is this sort of what did you call it there?
Speaker 1: Political gradualist?
Speaker 3: Political gradualist when it comes to selling your daughter into
Speaker 3: sexual slavery. But immediately he could be like, yo, guys,
Speaker 3: no butt sex, all right.
Speaker 1: Don't kill people, don't steal, don't cove it. Not even
Speaker 1: don't don't covet.
Speaker 4: It's not even don't kill people.
Speaker 3: It's it's you know, don't kill people asterisk I tell
Speaker 3: you babies and children in the face and then it's okay, right, So,
Speaker 3: like God is a progressive gradualist when it comes to
Speaker 3: sexual slavery and regular chattel slavery and all that. But
Speaker 3: you know, also don't wear mixed fabrics and you gotta
Speaker 3: have guardrails.
Speaker 4: On top of your roofs, and like that's just And I'll.
Speaker 1: Go back to the covet like that one of the
Speaker 1: ten commandments is don't be jealous of your neighbor. Like
Speaker 1: how is that? I mean, it's not like only do
Speaker 1: it when it's reasonable if he has a really nice car. Like,
Speaker 1: it's not a gradualist thing at all. It's literally don't
Speaker 1: do it full stop. So he's not a political gradualist
Speaker 1: on don't be jealous, But somehow he couldn't muster up
Speaker 1: the will power to say, you know what you.
Speaker 7: Talk about it earlier with Joel. I think the name
Speaker 7: it was is like there's something like there's something right
Speaker 7: now that in the future will be immoral, but the
Speaker 7: thing that would still be moral as we have with
Speaker 7: them today.
Speaker 1: Right, So what you're what you're arguing is it was
Speaker 1: morally good back then because people thought it was good
Speaker 1: back then.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the people think I thought, so what people good?
Speaker 7: But maybe maybe not good? Right, but more like like
Speaker 7: the utility kind of way.
Speaker 1: So you're a utilitarian Oh, I don't know what is that? Basically,
Speaker 1: you know, do whatever, it's okay to murder if that
Speaker 1: ends up in as a net positive for the most
Speaker 1: people type of thing. I don't think you're really want
Speaker 1: to make that argument, do you. It's okay to torture
Speaker 1: this one little girl and keep her locked in a
Speaker 1: room if everybody else can go look at that little
Speaker 1: girl and go, Wow, I'm really lucky. This makes me
Speaker 1: really happy to be in this society. You wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to torture and imprison a little girl just to make
Speaker 1: everybody a little happier, right.
Speaker 7: No, but no, no, no, but I don't like it.
Speaker 7: It's kind of complex through you.
Speaker 1: Here's why it's complex. We got other callers, John, I'd
Speaker 1: love for you to chime in on this as well.
Speaker 1: But here's why I think it's complex for you. You
Speaker 1: know that slavery's wrong. You know that it was wrong
Speaker 1: two thousand years ago. You wouldn't want to be a
Speaker 1: slave two thousand years ago. You wouldn't want to be
Speaker 1: my slave today under the laws that were in effect
Speaker 1: under the Old Testament. You surely wouldn't want that. You
Speaker 1: know it's wrong, but you can't say it's wrong because
Speaker 1: saying it's wrong creates this cognitive dissonance in your head
Speaker 1: where you're like, I know it's wrong and it was
Speaker 1: always wrong, but this script that I'm reading from this
Speaker 1: Bible thing says that God said it was okay. How
Speaker 1: do I all of those two things? And your brain
Speaker 1: is sort of doing these backflips to say, well, maybe
Speaker 1: there was some sort of you know, consensus, and God
Speaker 1: was a gradualist and he couldn't dictate this rule even
Speaker 1: though he dictated six hundred other rules. You know, That's
Speaker 1: what's going on. What are your thoughts, Joe, Well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I don't really understand restricting God in the
Speaker 3: sense that is being restricted, because like it seems to
Speaker 3: violate the traditional view of God, like the trinitarian view
Speaker 3: as well as the triomny view. I would assume that
Speaker 3: you would think that God is omni benevolent, omniscient, and.
Speaker 4: See I'm omnipotent. Yeah, so, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, if he is omnipotent, then he definitely has the
Speaker 3: power to make the small caveat of like you know,
Speaker 3: don't don't grape women, don't rape women, or don't own slaves,
Speaker 3: like he can make those small caveats he and and
Speaker 3: all throughout the Old Testament.
Speaker 4: And you'd have to.
Speaker 3: Agree with me on this will that throughout the Old
Speaker 3: Testament God has laid down his commandment six hundred and
Speaker 3: thirteen of them, and God expects the Israelites to follow
Speaker 3: every single one of them, and when they don't, he
Speaker 3: perceives that as them rejecting him, and he has to
Speaker 3: punish them as some form of justice, and he does
Speaker 3: this several times throughout the Old Testament.
Speaker 4: It's like a running thing. You could plot it on
Speaker 4: a line, like the Israelites.
Speaker 3: They fall away from God, and then God gets mad
Speaker 3: at him. He punishes them in one way or another,
Speaker 3: and then they come back in line with God for
Speaker 3: a little bit, and then they.
Speaker 4: Fall out again.
Speaker 3: It's like a fucking sign wave right of all these
Speaker 3: troughs and everything like that, and then falling away from God.
Speaker 3: So God definitely expects them to follow on and do
Speaker 3: what he asked them to do, and when they don't,
Speaker 3: they are getting punished. So with him having that expectation,
Speaker 3: there's no reason for him to be like, I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna put you know, don't own slaves, don't institute sexual slavery,
Speaker 3: don't don't kill children ever. Like he could put those
Speaker 3: things in his top ten of the commandments that he gives,
Speaker 3: but he didn't. He never issued those particular.
Speaker 7: I can I say something real quick, real quick. Honestly,
Speaker 7: I made a mistake.
Speaker 8: I almost think.
Speaker 7: I'm properly like equipped to answer this question that God
Speaker 7: is evil, right, And I think it's evident because I
Speaker 7: didn't really know what to engage with right the question.
Speaker 1: So that's an incredibly honest answer, dude. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: that we're coming at you having read all of these passages.
Speaker 1: We sort of have AMMO in our bandoliers ready to shoot,
Speaker 1: and you're being very honest with us, and I really
Speaker 1: do appreciate that that's you should be applauded for that.
Speaker 1: I do think that John was on the right track
Speaker 1: bringing all this up. This is sort of the demonstration
Speaker 1: that either you really haven't read your Bible and you
Speaker 1: haven't thought about it in the context of wait a second,
Speaker 1: all of these laws are in here, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: say don't own slaves.
Speaker 2: In fact, it says the opposite.
Speaker 1: You can own slaves, and you can rape them, and
Speaker 1: you can sell them, and you can give them to
Speaker 1: your children, just so long as they're foreigners. You can
Speaker 1: treat foreigners like shit, you can beat them with an
Speaker 1: image of your life, and as long as they can
Speaker 1: get up and walk around for about two days and
Speaker 1: then die later, you're okay, you did nothing wrong. And
Speaker 1: we have that as sort of being like, ah, I
Speaker 1: have to explain this as people of the time really
Speaker 1: wanted to own slaves, so he couldn't come in and
Speaker 1: say you can't own slaves. But then we have laws
Speaker 1: that say things like, don't have sex with your neighbor's wife.
Speaker 1: No if aans or, but just don't do it. And
Speaker 1: if you're going to sit around and tell me that
Speaker 1: men since the dawn of time have not both coveted
Speaker 1: their neighbors wife and actually had sex with their neighbor's wife,
Speaker 1: and you don't think that would have been a problem
Speaker 1: for people to follow. I got a bridge to sell you.
Speaker 1: So John, do you want to wrap up on this?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean essentially, I do. I understand feeling out
Speaker 3: of your depth. And we definitely weren't mentioning like you
Speaker 3: haven't read your Bible as being like.
Speaker 4: A knock against you.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, not at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I when I was a Christian, I did
Speaker 3: not read my Bible.
Speaker 4: I did not.
Speaker 1: Some real quick sure, absolutely will. But yeah, let's let
Speaker 1: John finish and then we'll give you the last word.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I was Yeah, I was just going to
Speaker 3: say that I you know, I I didn't read my
Speaker 3: Bible as a Christian. And it wasn't until I got
Speaker 3: challenged on that to like what I you know what
Speaker 3: I believe, why I believe it. When I got challenged
Speaker 3: on that, that's when, you know, I started really analyzing
Speaker 3: that and reading the Bible and.
Speaker 4: Everything like that.
Speaker 3: So I think taking this opportunity to really go through
Speaker 3: and suss out what you believe, why you believe it,
Speaker 3: about the Bible and the Trinitarian God, I think this
Speaker 3: is a you know, a key opportunity for you to
Speaker 3: really solidify you know, those things for yourself, as opposed
Speaker 3: to having somebody wants instruct you as to what to think.
Speaker 7: Yeah, right, well on that right. I think ultimately the
Speaker 7: quest of God, like believing him in him or not
Speaker 7: or whatever, is an individual quiest that you have to
Speaker 7: figure out for yourself. And I do believe that you
Speaker 7: have to put at someone, You have to put your
Speaker 7: ego on the side, and you have to say that
Speaker 7: you you don't understand more than you understand, and so yeah,
Speaker 7: it's you have to figure like those questions. But I'm sure,
Speaker 7: I'm sure there's many answers of God is evil and
Speaker 7: why he isn't or this or that, but at the
Speaker 7: end of the they have to make up your own mind.
Speaker 7: And like for me, I think for me, a person
Speaker 7: in my fathe in God like I didn't get it fair,
Speaker 7: I got like revelations, right, I got some visions and
Speaker 7: stuff like that. But I I know I have the
Speaker 7: right to be angry with God, to say I don't
Speaker 7: understand God, and it's it's it's very tough because the
Speaker 7: reflexes would be just to close myself to God.
Speaker 14: But I.
Speaker 7: Think I find much more value in cultivating a relationship
Speaker 7: with God and with faith and and trusting in God
Speaker 7: for my life and my purpose and meaning.
Speaker 1: So this is yeah, I appreciate your honesty. Will I
Speaker 1: think that my advice to you were I to give you,
Speaker 1: and it would be instead of focusing on you having
Speaker 1: to trust in God, focus on why you believe in
Speaker 1: God in the first place. I know you said you
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk about it, but focus on that
Speaker 1: and ask yourself what I know I understand, but I
Speaker 1: focus on it, and then ask yourself, is that a
Speaker 1: good reason to do anything else in my life? Would
Speaker 1: I believe an investor who wanted a million dollars for
Speaker 1: me based on these reasons or things like that? And
Speaker 1: then compare those feelings the reasons you have for believing
Speaker 1: a God and the next step is to say, okay,
Speaker 1: does that lead me to believe in the Christian God?
Speaker 1: Because those are two different things. A lot of people
Speaker 1: have these, like the person in our first caller had
Speaker 1: these sort of what he would call spiritual experiences like
Speaker 1: I just feel love and that's God. And then they
Speaker 1: glom on to what's around them in their community. They
Speaker 1: glom onto Christianity. Christianity because it's the easiest answer they
Speaker 1: have of the pocketed like answer to why am I
Speaker 1: having these feelings? Just because you believe there's a God
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily you need to be a need to be
Speaker 1: a Christian. And just because you're a Christian doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: mean you need to be an Old Testament Christian. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's lots of things to consider there, and I
Speaker 1: want to pay.
Speaker 7: I told you guys, I'm a cat sleek heritage soul.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I found that interesting. By the way, I
Speaker 1: didn't get to ask that question. So that's good, all right,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. There will anything for you to
Speaker 1: add there, godless No, oh right, we have a one
Speaker 1: more call if you have a moment, should we take it?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Great? So I think the pronunciation is Eve or a
Speaker 1: E V E. Eve Morning Star. She her they from
Speaker 1: Canada wants to talk about how the Christian God seems
Speaker 1: to view worship as a sexual thing. Am I pronouncing
Speaker 1: your name right? Is it Eve or Eve?
Speaker 11: Are you able to hear me?
Speaker 1: I'm able to hear you.
Speaker 11: WE got you, thank you, And I go by Eve
Speaker 11: as a play on atheist. I'm child free, so I've
Speaker 11: gone a whole lot of pressure to have children, and
Speaker 11: I like a play on not a mother.
Speaker 1: I got it understood a Eve got it as in
Speaker 1: an atheist, ave got it?
Speaker 4: I got it?
Speaker 1: Very nice. So you want to talk about Christian God
Speaker 1: that views worship as a sexual thing. So could you
Speaker 1: explain to us where you see worship, what is worship,
Speaker 1: and how that is either literally or symbolically sexual?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 11: So first, are you guys comfortable to talk about this
Speaker 11: content of sexual discussion, about sexual assault definitions and everything
Speaker 11: else like that before I proceed.
Speaker 1: Absolutely sounds good.
Speaker 11: So I am working on a master's thesis that's heavy
Speaker 11: and feminist discussion where I apply John W. Lostis's the
Speaker 11: Outstar Test for Faith. I combine with Tector A. Garcia's
Speaker 11: book Alpha God, and I also combine it with as
Speaker 11: well with tetter Ablosis Fighting Words books, where he discusses
Speaker 11: his view of religious violence, and so I can take
Speaker 11: those together to create a feminist version of the idea
Speaker 11: of religious violence. And after Outlows discusses where I say
Speaker 11: that all right, So whenever Christians have a definition like
Speaker 11: with the Outstar test for faith, where they apply to others,
Speaker 11: therefore a week apply it to them. And so when
Speaker 11: the Bible goes into detail saying that worship of other
Speaker 11: gods of adultery and a whoring after other gods, woul't
Speaker 11: them amply that the worship of the physical God is
Speaker 11: also a sexual matter if you'f use worship in general
Speaker 11: as something that's sexually related.
Speaker 1: Have you done any linguistics? Can you hear me? By
Speaker 1: the way, my headphones are okay, good? So this is
Speaker 1: an interesting concept. Have you done any linguistic studies of
Speaker 1: the meanings and translations of the word adultery from original
Speaker 1: text or the closest to original text we have, because
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised if multiple different words are
Speaker 1: translated as adulterous or adultery and they have subtle but
Speaker 1: different meanings. I'd be intellectually curious to see if you've
Speaker 1: done any research there.
Speaker 11: I fail in my linguistic capabilities, and so I heavily
Speaker 11: rely on tests by those who are more scholarly in
Speaker 11: a topic, such as, for instance, Professor Jennifer Bird and
Speaker 11: her Book's Marriage in the Bible, where she goes to
Speaker 11: when in translations of law, different terms with fascinating.
Speaker 1: So, John, what are your thoughts here on on this
Speaker 1: this study?
Speaker 2: This is an interesting study to me?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean I think that there there's a
Speaker 3: lot of sexual connotations with it in in UH, especially
Speaker 3: in the Old Testament's portrayal of like the UH of
Speaker 3: being in a relationship with God. Sorry I had a
Speaker 3: dark screen up and but being in a relationship with God,
Speaker 3: like it being a marriage and like you know, Israel
Speaker 3: is in a marriage with God. And there's so many
Speaker 3: different analogies of portraying God as the as the groom,
Speaker 3: and Jesus as or not Jesus but Israel or the
Speaker 3: people the followers as the bride and everything, and uh,
Speaker 3: so I think that it's it's it's a.
Speaker 4: Rather unique view, and I definitely think.
Speaker 3: That that part of it is some kind of sexual
Speaker 3: coercion because God is definitely trying to control the sexual line,
Speaker 3: or at least the character God in the theology is
Speaker 3: trying to control the sexual lives of the adherents, and
Speaker 3: specifically the sexual lives of women. Uh, not so much
Speaker 3: the sexual lives of men, other than to protect men's properties.
Speaker 2: What I am shocked.
Speaker 1: I'm shocked at the accusation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I definitely see your point.
Speaker 11: There a a eve a yes, A kind of like
Speaker 11: the same emphais as atheist so A.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I was trying to I was trying to
Speaker 4: do it, bnail it. I suck at pronouncing things, so
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get it right.
Speaker 11: You're doing great, So I willso take a lot of
Speaker 11: different theories, like of course, my thesis is nine hundred
Speaker 11: pages long and its draft form alone all my tribute.
Speaker 11: So this is more of a leading questions, more the
Speaker 11: one about the idea of that as such, especially because
Speaker 11: we have definitions of AGVID, sexual assault and sexual assaults
Speaker 11: in its different degrees. I'm from Canada. Would you mind
Speaker 11: if I read out our definitions of sexual assaults that
Speaker 11: way any listeners would be familiar with the topic.
Speaker 1: I'd say the time that we have is probably limited,
Speaker 1: but we can probably just explain it to say, the
Speaker 1: higher the degree, the more invasive and morally offending the
Speaker 1: behavior is. It can be in everything from a low
Speaker 1: degree with an unwanted touching all the way to full
Speaker 1: on sexual penetration with some sort of motive getting all
Speaker 1: the way to the highest degree. So I accept the
Speaker 1: premise that we have most cultures nowadays have degrees if
Speaker 1: various criminal offenses, including sexual assault, is the specific wording
Speaker 1: relevant to your.
Speaker 11: Point just one where I want to note that sexual
Speaker 11: assault does not have to include actual silence penetration, or
Speaker 11: I think it can simply be sexual attend or for instance,
Speaker 11: someone was stalking a person, for instance, the ever present
Speaker 11: God of the Bible who is apparently watching us all
Speaker 11: the time, including the two people in the Garden of
Speaker 11: Eden who were not aware to even be ashamed to
Speaker 11: cover themselves up, and so he was essentially being a
Speaker 11: voyeur at that point in time as well. But I
Speaker 11: wanted to know that acrid sexual assault could simply be
Speaker 11: violence that has a sexual connotation to it as well,
Speaker 11: where it's for instance, a stalker who commits the violence
Speaker 11: against someone's reproductive or gentle organs because of a desire
Speaker 11: to punish them sexually. And I would like to note
Speaker 11: that what if hell is both punishing atheists for unwanted
Speaker 11: sexual attention that we have declined from a biblical God,
Speaker 11: not to mention that the curse of ease appears to
Speaker 11: be accurate sexual assault as well too, for if women
Speaker 11: are cursed with childbirth, So what does that make all
Speaker 11: maternal mortality and morbidity statistics?
Speaker 1: So I find it interesting. I'm not sure what conclusions
Speaker 1: or purpose or utility the observation would have other than
Speaker 1: just to point out some similarities. So I would encourage you.
Speaker 1: First of all, it would be more interesting I think
Speaker 1: if you expand it beyond the Canadian law and sort
Speaker 1: of look at all cultures that have been strongly.
Speaker 2: Influenced by you.
Speaker 11: It's best on our talk show and our time today.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Perfect, Okay, So that's point one. Point two is what
Speaker 1: is the end point of your publication? What do you
Speaker 1: want people to take away from it? And more importantly,
Speaker 1: what do you want? But what behaviors do you want
Speaker 1: to change based on this? What's the point is it?
Speaker 8: Hey?
Speaker 1: The authors of these scriptures were heavily influenced by concepts
Speaker 1: of sexuality.
Speaker 2: Or is there something more than it than that.
Speaker 11: My own premise is the idea that previously we had
Speaker 11: blasphemy and heresy laws, where those were laws that Christians
Speaker 11: apply to non Christristians who they viewed as an ethnicity.
Speaker 11: As the original Christians said that non Christianity is an
Speaker 11: ethnos ethnicity, earned viewed it as almost in a racialized
Speaker 11: manner by viewing non Christians as racialized task what if,
Speaker 11: as for the outstart test for faith, where religious views
Speaker 11: that are put onto non religious members instead are put
Speaker 11: back onto them. What would it mean for ethics and
Speaker 11: morality discussion of philosophy if we would say that, what
Speaker 11: if the biblical God is a rapist as sexual like
Speaker 11: someone who's committing sexual assault of non Christians or just
Speaker 11: people in general, such as, for instance, all women, And
Speaker 11: what does that mean for those who choose to politically
Speaker 11: and financially support that being when we already have cases
Speaker 11: such as for instance, Jeffrey Epstein cases going on. So
Speaker 11: it's more of a plastical consideration of currently in the
Speaker 11: world we are still fighting Hairstine blasphemy laws. What do
Speaker 11: it mean if we would have a counterpoint to it
Speaker 11: in the exact same way that whenever we have book
Speaker 11: fans going on, so we can always note that the
Speaker 11: Bible actually violates a law of their obsceneity definitions for
Speaker 11: try and take down for instances LGBT books or for
Speaker 11: instance housey tag temple has for instance in the past,
Speaker 11: but a bath met statue in order to challenge ten
Speaker 11: Commandment statues. What if we knowed that, just like how
Speaker 11: Christians and others have used haresing blasphemy laws against non Christians,
Speaker 11: what about using mortal laws based on epicure and ethics
Speaker 11: aka ancient atheism against Christians by knowing that if you're
Speaker 11: going to say that we deserve to have been charged
Speaker 11: with them in the past, and you're still not exonering
Speaker 11: past which child victims for instance, and past heresy child victims,
Speaker 11: then should you not be subject to our laws being
Speaker 11: applied to your God? Why is your God not being
Speaker 11: able to be subject to human laws and morality?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a couple of quick answers from I have.
Speaker 1: One is you don't have any place to address to
Speaker 1: serve God process, so you can't sue them, and you
Speaker 1: can't you can't arrest them. So from a practical standpoint,
Speaker 1: that's that's like the legal answer is yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a tongue in cheek answer. But there are it
Speaker 1: might be fun to include in your paper. There are
Speaker 1: there are cases where judges have dismissed lawsuits against God
Speaker 1: by on civil procedure grounds. Just you know, when you
Speaker 1: sue somebody, you file a complaint with the court and
Speaker 1: then you have to serve the papers on God, and
Speaker 1: if you can't, you have to go to the judge
Speaker 1: and say here's why I couldn't serve. And judges have
Speaker 1: just dismissed the case because you know, instead of saying
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as God, they're basically like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'll let you sue God if you want, but you
Speaker 1: have to serve on papers, and if you can't, then
Speaker 1: the case dismissed. And I kind of have that as
Speaker 1: a tongue in cheek response, but I also have it
Speaker 1: as a as a sort of it would be interesting
Speaker 1: to add those cases to your paper as sort.
Speaker 2: Of a counterpoint.
Speaker 1: The other the other one before I give it over
Speaker 1: to John, is I think intellectually it makes a good point, right,
Speaker 1: I think that intellectually saying to this day we have
Speaker 1: anti blasphemy laws where we get calls occasionally from people
Speaker 1: in countries where if their family or their government knew
Speaker 1: they were calling us and saying they were the atheists,
Speaker 1: they're risking their lives. We have journalists being executed in
Speaker 1: places like Singapore because they write about, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not great to be a Muslim, or something like that.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of those laws. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how convincing the argument would be to say, well, those
Speaker 1: laws are designed to protect a god. Are What you're
Speaker 1: saying is those laws are designed to attack non believers,
Speaker 1: And I'd agree with that generally, with some exceptions. And
Speaker 1: then you're saying, wouldn't it turn about be fair play
Speaker 1: if we attacked believers with man made laws, specifically those
Speaker 1: having to do with sexual assault, and accuse God of
Speaker 1: being a sexual assault perpetrator. If I'm understanding you, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that that would move the needle on anybody's
Speaker 1: scale anywhere. I'm not sure do I have your argument right?
Speaker 1: Am I summing you up? Probably too tightly? But is
Speaker 1: that generally sort of the idea of what you're saying.
Speaker 11: I actually go over a bunch of different things. I
Speaker 11: have two parts to my thesis. One is on semistery
Speaker 11: and the other one is more on religious silence, where
Speaker 11: I take up the topic christ of fascism. So it's
Speaker 11: all laws being applied, but specifically I was suscessions byed
Speaker 11: by godless engineers post today advertising for the show whereak
Speaker 11: you know his name? About atheists? So why didn't you
Speaker 11: just fabricate a body for yourself like you did for Adam?
Speaker 4: Do you know?
Speaker 11: I just really like raping little girls. I enforce them
Speaker 11: to first. So I want to focus on that topic
Speaker 11: because it is half of my thesis is because I
Speaker 11: do have a focus on semistery. However, I would notice
Speaker 11: that as for the outstart test for faith, as Christians
Speaker 11: in the past have brought non believers into court by
Speaker 11: saying that they represent God, that we went half to
Speaker 11: bring God into course with someth we have to bring
Speaker 11: the exact same group of people so previously playing that
Speaker 11: they could represent godfully in course on their own.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you will get any or your thoughts, John Well.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you, are you sorry? I
Speaker 3: was trying to follow along? Were are you in agreement
Speaker 3: with my posts? Or do you think I went too
Speaker 3: far in my post?
Speaker 11: I became atheist in the pews, hide in the pews
Speaker 11: eleven years old from being sexually assaulted at Christian Summer Counts.
Speaker 11: I am in poor agreement with your post.
Speaker 3: Okay, now, yeah, I because I you know, I get
Speaker 3: pushed back sometimes from from atheists on that. I'm so
Speaker 3: sorry you had that experience. By the way, I agree, uh,
Speaker 3: And I'm kind of curious in in your dissertation there,
Speaker 3: what what kind of do you discuss like Mary being
Speaker 3: being raped at all?
Speaker 4: Like in the Okay, yeah, because I you know.
Speaker 3: It's so strange and I don't know if you've found this,
Speaker 3: Like I don't know if you talked to many theists
Speaker 3: out there, Christians specifically, but they always seem rather surprised
Speaker 3: whenever you point out the fact that Mary was raped
Speaker 3: by God.
Speaker 11: In that I got so much pushback at university.
Speaker 1: Really well push I'll push back to John and I
Speaker 1: have had this conversation. But I'm coming at it from
Speaker 1: a lawyer's point of view, and if you use the
Speaker 1: word rape, it's got this sort of You talked about
Speaker 1: the tears, right, and typically it has to do with
Speaker 1: you know, sexual organs interacting against the will. I totally
Speaker 1: agree that she was assaulted. I e battered technically if
Speaker 1: you go with a traditional law, but I disagree that
Speaker 1: she was raped. I'm not sure I agree that she
Speaker 1: was sexually assaulted, but I agree that something happened to
Speaker 1: her against the will that we would criminalize today.
Speaker 4: So so the way that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you ask the question because I know
Speaker 1: what John's question I think is going to be. But
Speaker 1: let's see if they're the same question. Go ahead.
Speaker 11: Are you aware of Professor Richard Carrier's books The detailed
Speaker 11: how earliest Christianity viewed God essentially as an alien. For
Speaker 11: heaven hell we're said to exist somewhere between the Earth.
Speaker 10: And the moon.
Speaker 11: As I believed that the heaven, we're part of the atmosphere,
Speaker 11: you know, the firmament. And therefore, why must we think
Speaker 11: about God in the same limited sense that modern day
Speaker 11: Christians do, rather than in historic ways that Christians did,
Speaker 11: such as, for instance, simply referring to God as an
Speaker 11: alien and therefore might have different concepts of sexual behavior
Speaker 11: than we do. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 11: even if there is no sexual contact, is not sexual harassment?
Speaker 11: Does it not also include in multiple definitions and cases
Speaker 11: that have them processed in our course as well too,
Speaker 11: simply unwanted sexual attention, even if that does not come
Speaker 11: out to actual phallic or like phallax penetration of bagual
Speaker 11: caavies or reproductive organs.
Speaker 1: I think where you lose people, And John, I would
Speaker 1: like you to give your side, because John's got a
Speaker 1: very good take on this that I just happened not
Speaker 1: to have bought into at this point. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's because I disagree with it. I'm just not
Speaker 1: convinced yet. But I think the hiccup is always this
Speaker 1: concept of sexual and my objection is from a legal
Speaker 1: standpoint and from a practical standpoint.
Speaker 2: I don't think this sells.
Speaker 1: I don't think people hear this and go, oh, you've
Speaker 1: got a point. I think they hear it and they
Speaker 1: recoil from it and go, there was no rape. There
Speaker 1: was no physical God, he magiced a baby into her,
Speaker 1: and that under the law might be battery, right, it
Speaker 1: could be pretty high degree of battery, but it's not
Speaker 1: a sexual assault because there was no sexual desire. Now
Speaker 1: you're coming along and saying, well, what if he was
Speaker 1: an alien or thought of sex differently and all that stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: you're really losing your audience right now. You're really doing
Speaker 1: You're stacking a hat on a hat to try to
Speaker 1: say I've got something cool here, when in reality, I
Speaker 1: think most people will shy away from it. My argument
Speaker 1: is just the legally correct and better based on people's
Speaker 1: popular understanding of what God was and what that incident was,
Speaker 1: is that it was a battery. But that's a very
Speaker 1: you maybe a distinction without a difference. I don't know
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts, John.
Speaker 3: Well So the way, and I just want to point
Speaker 3: this out that I've I've Grandma sorry cross exam. I've
Speaker 3: I've heard your particular like objection to mine, and I've
Speaker 3: taken that as a challenge to to Well, I mean
Speaker 3: to we.
Speaker 1: We had it back and forth. It was great and
Speaker 1: like genuinely I asked him to flesh it out and
Speaker 1: all this stuff.
Speaker 2: I find it an interesting concept.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what I've done is I've synthesized a bunch
Speaker 3: of scholars in the area of some of it advanced
Speaker 3: like feminist literature concerning sexual assault and rape and all that,
Speaker 3: and I've come up with this definition. And I've ran
Speaker 3: this by doctor Ben who agrees that this is that
Speaker 3: this would apply.
Speaker 4: To their rape label.
Speaker 3: And so my definition is, and I'd like to get
Speaker 3: an ape's take on this, the imposition of sexual access
Speaker 3: to another's body in a way that nullifies that person's
Speaker 3: authority over their own embodied domain, transforming them from a
Speaker 3: self governing subject into a sexual object within someone else's control. Now,
Speaker 3: this sort of refocuses it to the harm that rape
Speaker 3: does as opposed to the mechanism of rape, because I
Speaker 3: don't think that the mechanism is necessarily important. It's the
Speaker 3: harm that is caused, and it's the controlling of sexual
Speaker 3: access to someone's body and all that.
Speaker 4: Oh, what are your thoughts there? Abe?
Speaker 11: I completely agree. I find that, as with law of
Speaker 11: semis theory, that a lot of people have a misinterpretation
Speaker 11: of what sexual assault actually entails, and that includes more
Speaker 11: of a loss of the tommy loss of power then
Speaker 11: it does simply the mechanism. So, for instance, when I
Speaker 11: was fifteen years old and being messaged inappropriate depicts and
Speaker 11: stuff like that by people in authority over me, was
Speaker 11: that not a bit of sexual assault? Not only was
Speaker 11: I minor, which, of course, the mother Mary of God
Speaker 11: was supposedly according to the earliest Christians approximate between the
Speaker 11: ages of twelve fourteen years old. But also we also
Speaker 11: have other cases well too where sexual conduct is not given.
Speaker 11: For instance, there's cases of artificial insemination where doctors use
Speaker 11: their place of authority to artificially inseemate with their own
Speaker 11: semen even if they do not actually have sallace penetration.
Speaker 11: I think it's more that a.
Speaker 2: Lot of that is argument right there.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I think that it does not have to be
Speaker 11: about the mechanism because law of are laws, and our
Speaker 11: famous discourse has not been about simply that has to
Speaker 11: include actual penetration. That's why I was reading out to
Speaker 11: actit sexual assault definition which does.
Speaker 8: Not include it.
Speaker 1: Correct, And you're going to find different degrees, but the
Speaker 1: commonality that people will impose upon that is this concept
Speaker 1: of carnality, of desire, of sexual interest and then some
Speaker 1: sort of overt act. Right that's typically Now you can
Speaker 1: have some fourth degree sexual assault where you don't have
Speaker 1: to prove some sort of sexual intent possibly, and those
Speaker 1: are usually prescribed out like hey, you're a teacher in
Speaker 1: a school and they're like they're in your care and
Speaker 1: then you touch this thing. You might not have to
Speaker 1: prove intent there like this carnality concept, but it is
Speaker 1: often part of especially the more advanced ones, and certainly
Speaker 1: anything that the average person would call rape. When you
Speaker 1: go look at the law, at least in Maryland that's
Speaker 1: where I practice, you're going to have these concepts of intent,
Speaker 1: sexual desire, carnality. They use all sorts of different words
Speaker 1: to differentiate it from I cut you open and put
Speaker 1: a fertilized egg in you and I closed you back up.
Speaker 1: That's aggravated assault, but I wasn't. There was nothing sexual
Speaker 1: about it in the legal sense. Now it had to
Speaker 1: do with like your gender. Maybe, so it might be
Speaker 1: sexual in the biological sense, but in the legal sense
Speaker 1: that was just like I cut you open, I put
Speaker 1: a lego in your uterus, versus I cut you open,
Speaker 1: I put a fertilized egg in your uterus. Those are
Speaker 1: both just aggravated assault, you know. And again this is
Speaker 1: me coming at it from a lawyer. Yeah, that's half
Speaker 1: of my objection. But the other half is, I don't
Speaker 1: think it wins you any arguments.
Speaker 2: To say rape.
Speaker 1: I think assault or battery and things is it is
Speaker 1: a softer, more convincing argument that doesn't shut down brains immediately.
Speaker 2: But I agree that it's an interesting statement.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, John, Sorry, Well, I mean I was I
Speaker 1: guess I was going to say that I think that
Speaker 1: it is a difference in what were and what we're
Speaker 1: classifying as sexual, because yeah.
Speaker 3: Maybe correct me if I'm wrong, they're a cross. But
Speaker 3: it seemed to me like when you were describing sexual
Speaker 3: you were describing it as like a attraction, like there
Speaker 3: was some kind of attraction that was behind it.
Speaker 1: That is at sort of the medium levels. Typically, like
Speaker 1: in Maryland, if you do vaginal penetration against their will,
Speaker 1: that's rape, right, that's the definition of like first degree rape.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any sort of carnality in it,
Speaker 1: but there might be a version of it, a first
Speaker 1: degree rape that's like you know, sub item three.
Speaker 2: I can look it up and all that stuff and
Speaker 2: get back to you on that.
Speaker 1: But the primary usually first degree is forced what we
Speaker 1: would consider sex, vaginal penetration. That's rape. But then there's
Speaker 1: these degrees. There's first seconds, third degree rape, first second, third,
Speaker 1: fourth degree sexual assault, and then there's attempted in all
Speaker 1: of those and each of them have multiple sub sections.
Speaker 1: So it is something that legislators have spent hundreds of
Speaker 1: years on. For example, this is you probably have this
Speaker 1: in your paper. You seem very well researched. But another
Speaker 1: interesting stat is that the FBI didn't didn't classify male
Speaker 1: rape as rape until like the nineteen seventies, even though
Speaker 1: it fit the definition, and we had to go back
Speaker 1: and look at all of these things. So add that
Speaker 1: to your paper because that's interesting. But yeah, if you
Speaker 1: go and look at all of them and you just
Speaker 1: google for your state, you know, rape criminal law definition,
Speaker 1: you'll get into all of these and the ones that
Speaker 1: are not like the obvious rape, the one that people
Speaker 1: think of, those tend to have you touch to the
Speaker 1: person with some sort of mal intent. There's an intent
Speaker 1: like they don't want people getting arrested because I accidentally
Speaker 1: brushed up against somebody, Right, there is this intent element
Speaker 1: you need to.
Speaker 2: Prove as a prosecutor.
Speaker 1: You can't just have somebody bump into you on the
Speaker 1: subway and say, oh, I was sexually assaulted because you
Speaker 1: happen to hit my breast or my vagina or whatever
Speaker 1: or penis, whatever whichever way it's going. So there are
Speaker 1: these intents, and those intents tend to have these this
Speaker 1: concept like how do you fine intent? Like if I
Speaker 1: just intended to touch you there, but I didn't do
Speaker 1: it for some sort of sexual gratification or carnal reasoning,
Speaker 1: my legislature might classify that as aggravated assault but not sexual.
Speaker 1: Whereas if I can prove that it was done for
Speaker 1: these reasonings out of sexual gratification reasonings, now all of
Speaker 1: it's sexual assault. Other jurisdictions might draw the line elsewhere.
Speaker 1: So I think that's an interesting study. Is comparative sexual
Speaker 1: assault laws across jurisdictions in Jodeo Christian influenced countries?
Speaker 11: Thanks? So, may I bring you back to my original question?
Speaker 11: Is it possible that due to the heavy focus on
Speaker 11: the Book of God wanting humans to love him above
Speaker 11: all else and calling the worship of other gods adultery
Speaker 11: and afforing and viewing it as that even making threats
Speaker 11: of sexual violence quite frankly speaking, saying he would lift
Speaker 11: up the skirts of Israel and other threats that quite
Speaker 11: frankly seem like marital rates, is there not a caste
Speaker 11: to be made that the Bogo God has shown intent.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, because I don't believe there's a god. Now,
Speaker 1: if we get past that I think. I think the
Speaker 1: God character, well, it depends the answer I would give,
Speaker 1: has layers that are related to Like I don't believe
Speaker 1: on God. Do I agree that the people who wrote
Speaker 1: those passages had sex on their mind one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: That's how they dealt with the world. I think if
Speaker 1: you study history, it's all about property and sex. That's
Speaker 1: really all it's about. So that's the analogies they had.
Speaker 1: Now you then have to go further and say, people
Speaker 1: take this to believe it is sexual in the same
Speaker 1: way that we classify sex as a crime in certain
Speaker 1: situations in our law, and I think that's a.
Speaker 2: Bit of a leap.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people will say that symbolic
Speaker 1: it wasn't meant to be literal. We hear that all
Speaker 1: the time on the show. You'd have a lot of
Speaker 1: work to do to convince somebody that, because there's all
Speaker 1: this symbology in the Bible about worshiping another God, is
Speaker 1: like you're cheating on me. To then turn around and say, therefore,
Speaker 1: I should apply modern sexual assault laws to you a believer.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm wondering if there's because you know, hearing
Speaker 3: it described that way, there across it. Just it really
Speaker 3: reminds me of the power dynamics contained within pedophilic you
Speaker 3: know situations, because like you know, the because you know,
Speaker 3: biggots all the time when I try to portray pedophilias
Speaker 3: as sometimes homosexual and right, and that's not at all
Speaker 3: what it is, because the main thing about the like
Speaker 3: a mind of a pedophile is the imposition of control
Speaker 3: and power over another individual. It's less about like the
Speaker 3: sexual attraction that they have to any specific like sex
Speaker 3: or gender. It's more about the power that they can
Speaker 3: exert over an individual and everything. And I'm wondering if
Speaker 3: there's some kind of like you know, connection there, which
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's if you've considered that at
Speaker 3: all their eve at all.
Speaker 8: But I have.
Speaker 11: Made a comment earlier or right, sorry about interrupting there.
Speaker 11: I have a party made a comment earlier about how
Speaker 11: out of an eve we're not even aware to be ashamed.
Speaker 11: That seems like if you have to eat a medication,
Speaker 11: well say pharmacopeia like witchcraft, where if you take a
Speaker 11: certain purbal or fruit medicine that gives you a specific power,
Speaker 11: which is what the fruit of the tree of knowledge,
Speaker 11: the fruit of the tree of Good, of knowledge of
Speaker 11: good and evil, appears to be in the Garden of Eden,
Speaker 11: where they have to consume this in order to even
Speaker 11: be aware that they are walking around naked, in order
Speaker 11: to be ashamed of themselves. They obviously have a mentality
Speaker 11: far below the biblical God, even simply to gain knowledge
Speaker 11: that cycal God has. But that's not even just the
Speaker 11: mental differences. There's also the difference of age gaps. How
Speaker 11: in the world can humans who reach max. One hundred
Speaker 11: years or if you believe the Bible, nine hundred years,
Speaker 11: how can we ever approach a God who supposedly, according
Speaker 11: to the Bible, is your somewhere between six thousand years
Speaker 11: old two constantly billions of years old, if you believe
Speaker 11: that he's existed since the Big Thing? How can you
Speaker 11: ever approach that level of mentality of difference, especially when
Speaker 11: one is omniscient and one is limited to a mortal
Speaker 11: life that does not have any capacity to have omniscients.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, yeah, I definitely think that that's that's a
Speaker 3: concerning like connection there between the two, and I think
Speaker 3: that you're right on the money as far as all
Speaker 3: that goes. Of course, I know that you know cross
Speaker 3: here is going to disagree with the both of us
Speaker 3: on you know, the God's grap being age towards Mary.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, I mean I think that there's a
Speaker 3: lot of connections, uh, you know, in the Bible between
Speaker 3: the sexual nature that God is portrayed in and his
Speaker 3: relationship with human beings in general. So I think that
Speaker 3: I think you got a good paper, a good idea there.
Speaker 3: And I'm not surprised that you're getting pushed back from
Speaker 3: from university.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, people when you whenever you question the long
Speaker 3: standing like ideas.
Speaker 4: Like that, you're always going to get pushed back.
Speaker 3: I hope that, uh, you know, you that you stay
Speaker 3: strong in that and you push forward with it and
Speaker 3: and don't let them, you know, intimidate you into silence,
Speaker 3: because I know that that can happen sometimes. But but yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that you're on a good track.
Speaker 1: There, thank you. I agree. I think that despite my objections, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the research you've done, your knowledge is obviously
Speaker 1: very impressive and I would continue to pull that thread
Speaker 1: and see where it takes you. I am a where
Speaker 1: the rubber hits the road type of That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: I don't like academic h papers. I read them all
Speaker 1: the time, but I always want the paper to say, therefore,
Speaker 1: society should do X, and if that X is, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this language in the Bible about sexuality, a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of studies about sexuality. Therefore, we should prosecute Christians
Speaker 1: for sexual assault. If that's the there for, I think
Speaker 1: you're not You're gonna not going to convince anybody, because
Speaker 1: I wouldn't vote for convicting Christians.
Speaker 2: Of sexual assault for because they were Christian.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's an interesting hypothetical, like what
Speaker 1: if we did it? But I would try to if
Speaker 1: that is indeed the conclusion, I would try to buttress
Speaker 1: that with some other proposed legislation that would be would
Speaker 1: even if the proposal is, hey, simply introducing this legislation
Speaker 1: would create a discussion that would be helpful in moving
Speaker 1: the ball.
Speaker 2: That would be an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's more of a hypothetical. And the same way
Speaker 11: that Hector Ablos discusses the idea of religious violence and
Speaker 11: how to approach it, by redefining this hesitance that people
Speaker 11: have to even label a very clear instance of religious
Speaker 11: violence as religious violence. It's instead being like, all right,
Speaker 11: but how about we actually label us as a problematic
Speaker 11: matter in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I totally agree, saying you know, the headline
Speaker 1: of Mary was Raped is serves that purpose tremendously. I
Speaker 1: always worry about is it going to shut people down
Speaker 1: too early? Right, That's why I say, well, wait a second,
Speaker 1: you know, let's slow, let's use a slightly different term.
Speaker 1: But I think our goals are the same. Yes, all right,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time today. This was
Speaker 1: an excellent call to end on. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most unique calls I've ever gotten doing this.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Please, thank you so much, ye for calling in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, please please call back or send us an email
Speaker 1: and update us as to how it's going. And if
Speaker 1: you do get published, please let us know because I'd
Speaker 1: love to see I can get behind the paywall and
Speaker 1: get a copy. Don't get me started on academic paywalls.
Speaker 11: Yes, thank you so much for your time, Domina for
Speaker 11: all Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks a lot. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Well, godless, I think we got through it. It was
Speaker 1: longer than I expected. We had a lot of calls.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you, uh your insights, especially on that
Speaker 1: last one. I knew that would be right up your alley.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I know that you're coming in from a
Speaker 3: legal perspective, and I know that there's a vast difference there.
Speaker 3: And you know, my wife, she speaks legaliese and so
Speaker 3: I usually have to run things by her, and and
Speaker 3: like you know, as to whether or not I can
Speaker 3: say this or that, like.
Speaker 4: It's technically correct.
Speaker 3: You know, I always want to be technically correct, and
Speaker 3: so that's something that I always have to kind of
Speaker 3: keep in mind. So, uh but but yeah.
Speaker 1: I I agree, it's it's I want to be technically correct.
Speaker 1: But I also, like I said, I'm this rubber hits
Speaker 1: the road guy, And I'm like, if you get up
Speaker 1: on stage, if you're out in the parking lot, you
Speaker 1: say Mary was raped, and you know, prove me wrong.
Speaker 2: Maybe you'll get some people to drop by.
Speaker 1: But if you say, you know, God violated Mary's rights,
Speaker 1: let's talk about that, then you'll get I think a
Speaker 1: bigger audience is willing to actually listen to that. That's
Speaker 1: just the only point I was making. But I'm wrong
Speaker 1: about things all the time, and that maybe I'm not
Speaker 1: a politician, and I don't know what plays. I've seen
Speaker 1: politicians get elected that do some crazy shit, as we
Speaker 1: say lately.
Speaker 3: Well, I will admit that the Mary was great thing. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm one hundred percent behind that, like I will that's
Speaker 3: a hill that I will definitely die on. Sure, but
Speaker 3: I will admit that because of the reception that it gets.
Speaker 3: I usually run with it, because of the fact that
Speaker 3: it will cause people to be like, yeah, it's they
Speaker 3: want to argue with it so much, like no, no,
Speaker 3: And like even if I went with your version of it,
Speaker 3: they would still have a problem because they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: but she agreed that that was fine.
Speaker 4: It's like, no, maybe you should read that again.
Speaker 3: Becaueah, they don't understand the difference between acquiescing and giving consent.
Speaker 4: And yes, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I actually went there when you were talking about this
Speaker 1: the first time I heard you propose it. I went
Speaker 1: and did a bunch of research and made up some
Speaker 1: documents about definitions of different degrees, and went and read
Speaker 1: the passages in the Bible, and then I went and
Speaker 1: read apologetic defenses of that impregnation and all of that.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating topic and I really do think it's
Speaker 1: it's something we should all pursue as some sort of
Speaker 1: have that sort of thing ready to pull out of
Speaker 1: our belts at an even time, because there is a whole,
Speaker 1: there's a there is a mental somersault that people have
Speaker 1: to do to defend it, which is, well, she couldn't
Speaker 1: resist and she didn't want to resist because it was God.
Speaker 1: That sort of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the thing that.
Speaker 3: Gets me every it seems like every time, at least
Speaker 3: every stream where that comes up, you get, you gets.
Speaker 4: Somebody that's like, but she liked it. No, why are
Speaker 4: you gonna meet that?
Speaker 7: Hey?
Speaker 1: You know what's end on a super chat? Shall we?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's end on a super chat?
Speaker 3: But also I think that we've got uh don't we've
Speaker 3: gotta we've got a backup.
Speaker 1: We have to bring Jamie on. Yes, so let's uh,
Speaker 1: why don't we bring Jamie on and read the super
Speaker 1: chat at him and then ask him he's currently oh.
Speaker 4: My god, thirty five right now? Hey, what's up there?
Speaker 1: Jamie?
Speaker 4: Are you doing?
Speaker 7: So?
Speaker 15: This is this is my anti irrationality helmet and my
Speaker 15: straight pipe to this tank of cope you might have.
Speaker 1: How did it work? And I tell I have to
Speaker 1: tell viewers have multiple hold on hold on, Jamie, He's.
Speaker 2: Got it, my guy.
Speaker 1: When we are on we can see the main feed,
Speaker 1: you see, and then we see cameras for each participant.
Speaker 1: Jamie has been s thing and that thing for at
Speaker 1: least an hour, just.
Speaker 15: For the jokes. I am a weirdo that way, but
Speaker 15: I was putting it on and taking off as a
Speaker 15: kind of visual commentary on some of the calls.
Speaker 4: The more I put.
Speaker 15: My mask and visor on, the less I was getting
Speaker 15: on board with some of the people. Your first caller,
Speaker 15: the vibesman, just vibes and vibes and vibes, and I'm like,
Speaker 15: cool for you, cool story, bro, But if you can't
Speaker 15: provide any kind of evidence of any kind, it's not
Speaker 15: going to be very convincing to anybody, let alone us
Speaker 15: who are skeptics. Mohammed, I was watching Truth Wanted early.
Speaker 15: He called into that, and he was just as odious
Speaker 15: and that you cut it off at the right time
Speaker 15: like that, like, oh, it's no problem marrying a nine
Speaker 15: year old. It's like divine divine command theory all the
Speaker 15: way up, all the way up and down the line.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 15: The penultimate caller talking about trying to I'm almost getting confused.
Speaker 15: It was like a it almost becomes static in my head,
Speaker 15: so many different arguments about how he's going to go
Speaker 15: about believing in these god and justifying things, and I
Speaker 15: apologize it just it all kind of got blasted out
Speaker 15: of my head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were a couple in there. We had the
Speaker 1: person who was the Catholic heretic who didn't really want
Speaker 1: to talk out about why and was I think unfamiliar
Speaker 1: with some of the passages we were talking about. But
Speaker 1: they before that was the one that was I thought
Speaker 1: he started out really great. He had some problems with
Speaker 1: us interrupting and asking questions, but it was a big
Speaker 1: giant circle and we ended up back where we started out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then the final caller.
Speaker 15: While I again I would never deign to even close
Speaker 15: to minimize the horrific impact of sexual and violence against
Speaker 15: sexual violence against people, women and children especially, I don't
Speaker 15: cancel with this as a rhetorical tool against actual believers.
Speaker 15: UM actually in them about the technicalities around was it
Speaker 15: rape or not? I think maybe somewhat obfuscated. I put
Speaker 15: it kind of in the same category of like Jesus
Speaker 15: was female, you know, because only one set of DNA
Speaker 15: was in that Zigo from his mum, so he's probably
Speaker 15: got Ovarias and I'm like that great thought experiment, write
Speaker 15: a paper and it's fantastic. It does mean no good
Speaker 15: because I want I am like you ge as, I'm across.
Speaker 1: I'm a brother hits the road kind of guy.
Speaker 15: I'm also stupid, so I need like simple actionable despite
Speaker 15: the voice, I had simple actionable arguments that I can
Speaker 15: just go, let's get down to brass tax. God violated
Speaker 15: this woman's body autonomy. However you slice it, is that okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of where I am.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think it's a great, great topic and
Speaker 1: what either way, go ahead, John Well, I.
Speaker 3: Was gonna say, I don't think that the apologetic response
Speaker 3: though to that is any different than me pointing out
Speaker 3: that it was it was rape, right, Like, I don't
Speaker 3: think that. I think that regardless of how you package it,
Speaker 3: there's still going to be like nah.
Speaker 1: She she, I totally agree. And there's two approaches here.
Speaker 1: There's this is I don't mean this in a negative way,
Speaker 1: but there's the clickbaity t title value of it, of
Speaker 1: me putting up the table that says God raped Mary
Speaker 1: changed my mind. There's that attention grabbing, and I think
Speaker 1: that serves a purpose. And then there's the the efficiens
Speaker 1: argument of if I say, if I don't use the
Speaker 1: word rape, and I say battered or assaulted against her will,
Speaker 1: I save myself three four five minutes of arguing about
Speaker 1: vaginal penetration with a penis right, I get that out
Speaker 1: of the way, and I just say, he put a
Speaker 1: baby in her. She couldn't have consented. Look at the
Speaker 1: power dynamic. That's battery, right, And I sort of get
Speaker 1: to the point of he's doing this without her consent.
Speaker 2: That to me is the prime, the ultimate.
Speaker 4: We can get to the super chat here.
Speaker 3: And to say, I don't mean to get off too
Speaker 3: much into the weeds on this, but I think that
Speaker 3: you're going to encounter the same kind of definitional argument
Speaker 3: or tug of war with battery, because they're not going
Speaker 3: to appreciate the idea of God engaging in battery with
Speaker 3: Mary in general, like they're going to have a problem
Speaker 3: with any way that you package it when it's some
Speaker 3: kind of negative action towards Mary.
Speaker 1: Yes, I agree, I'm just able to pull out the
Speaker 1: law and say cause himself or something to touch her
Speaker 1: without her consent, that's battery, and like I can say
Speaker 1: definitionally what he did at battery, and then they have
Speaker 1: to go to where they really want to go the
Speaker 1: whole time, which is she wanted to he can do
Speaker 1: it all of those arguments, which is really where they
Speaker 1: end up anyway.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, I mean that's that's what in our conversation specifically,
Speaker 3: is what made me generate that that definition that I
Speaker 3: can just pull out and be like, ah see, this
Speaker 3: is the definition and like that that's the one that
Speaker 3: we're working off of here, and so then we can
Speaker 3: move past it quick.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: It's great because and if you have like a poster
Speaker 1: of it where you can just say, here are the
Speaker 1: elements A, B and C. Did he do A? Yep?
Speaker 1: Did he do B? Yep?
Speaker 2: Did he did C?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he meets our definition of something we determined,
Speaker 1: we deem as a society is criminal.
Speaker 2: Why is he a good guy?
Speaker 1: And then you get to the backflips.
Speaker 15: Because I'm so dense that light bends around me. My
Speaker 15: biggest fear is that I don't want to get into
Speaker 15: the weeds on something technical, for fear of accidentally stumbling
Speaker 15: into a mordern Bailey argument. That's that's my big thing,
Speaker 15: Like I can't defend this. I'm going to go broad
Speaker 15: now and that's just me anyway.
Speaker 1: Spat yeah, yeah, all right, super chat. We had one
Speaker 1: super chat and it was from and Christine the Donut Fiend.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I want to say that again.
Speaker 1: And Christine the donut Fiend, I want to join you
Speaker 1: in your fiend of the donut organization gave us five
Speaker 1: dollars and said divine command theory is always used to
Speaker 1: justify sociopathic behaviors. I cannot I cannot come up with
Speaker 1: a better summation of it. I can't think of an
Speaker 1: argument where somebody has said divine command theory is the
Speaker 1: answer and it wasn't in defense of something that was horrific.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 15: Also, and I am still the slow boy donut rock
Speaker 15: on Donuts.
Speaker 1: On that note, we should say goodbye, thank you, come
Speaker 1: back next Sunday and see all our shows again.
Speaker 4: Bye bye.
Speaker 13: Please stop passing egg the bullshit everywhere around you, your
Speaker 13: buys setting.
Speaker 16: Of yall, walcle dom'sory, mas diet lemm damn of y'all.
Speaker 1: Watch Talk ee Than Live Sundays at one pm Central.
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