Atheist Experience 22.15 with Tracie Harris and Eric Murphy

[Music] [Music] [Music] hello and welcome to the atheist experience today is Sunday April 15th 2018 I'm your host Tracy Harris and with me today is co-host Eric hello hello surprised everyone yeah surprised it's Tracy and surprises Eric I bet everyone is very surprised we're surprised let's see today the Atheist experience is a production of the Atheist community of Austin a Texas non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting separation of church and state and positive atheist culture before we get rolling today I do have a special announcement the Atheist Experience YouTube channel did roll over two hundred thousand subscribers and their here's the the even also important part is that we're gonna be partying here at the freethought library afterwards so do not go looking for us at Star of India restaurant this evening so we will not be at the regular dinner at Star of India we will be here at the freethought library at 1507 West Kanak Lane so just make a big note I will try to remember to announce that again later in the show just to make sure that we keep reminding people because I don't want people to show up at starve India and be disappointed so feel free to come out to the freethought library join us and help us celebrate two hundred thousand subscribers that is amazing yeah very very wild but I mean especially because it wasn't that long ago that we got the silver play button yeah I mean the axp has been just well it's already been big but just shooting up you know it's really fun to say yeah and so just to sort of let people know you know Matt obviously is in Canada so he was unable to host today so I'm on you get me instead and Don was also unable to make it today so Eric was good enough to stand in for us from taki then so you happen to be here since he helped rile up the crowd beforehand and also does the show right for this one so very convenient yeah do you have anything to talk about a couple things so first yeah you you as pooped over 200,000 week we popped over 15,000 it's not you know it's a thing for us also I actually became the social media coordinator for the ACA Congrats so a lot of work I do I do but it's but I'm really really excited and specifically to all of you if you are a member you should be starting to see things and if you are not a yet a member take a look go on the website and see what it takes to become a member it's gonna be really fun it's gonna be really exciting this year and I can't wait to get started Oh big job yeah good I'm ready for it good all right is there anything else I don't think so all right well then let's it calls right all right so we are starting tonight with Andrew in Twinsburg Ohio you are on with Tracy and Erik hey how you doing great how you doing there hey thank you I hope you're well as well I'm doing all right I wanted to talk about some scientific statements are found in the Bible okay it says in a job 38:31 can you bind the clusters of Pleiades or loose loosen the belt of Orion I find this interesting because the telescope was invented in 1608 but this book how did this book know that Pleiades are bound together by gravity but stars and Clea D's wait the Stars and Pleiades are bound together by gravity where does it say gravity it doesn't but oh okay fine like buying the cluster like they're bound together by gravity well it doesn't say gravity though right correct all right I mean I could observe we discover that right hundred which is probably why it doesn't say I mean loosen the belt of Iranian yeah cuz Orion has a belt I mean this is you realize job is like a poet like a poem right it's a it's a you know poetic fiction story it's written in in poetry and and there's like an added section at the end where they revamp the ending a little bit to to make it more in line with hey I I'm the you know the mighty God don't question me because originally it was written to show how bad things can happen to good people and then it changed into a story about how even if horrible things happen to good people it's God's so don't ask questions that's why it ends so weirdly right as opposed to the rest of the story but I think you're basically taking poetic language and translated poetic language you know at that and then applying modern thought to it and also I mean you're you're taking something and trying to interpret it into something that you know is scientific tight I I just find that dishonest I mean if your god wanted to talk about gravity it would say gravity is this right I mean if your God wanted to talk about the way that the universe works it would be clear wouldn't be hidden away in in home yeah well I just think it's uh astonishing just there's other things in this book to job behold even the moon has no brightness in the stars are not pure and it's in his sight Andrew didn't we not just talk about that like I just addressed right trying to find something in it trying to find something in your Bible and interpret it in such a way like give us some give us something hard give us your best not just oh yay all right we can talk about something in songs as far east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us before that verse only works if the earth is well moving from east to west only works if the if the earth is far as it or as far as the East is from the west so has God removed our transgressions from what how does that require roundness I could have like my arms out and say as far as you know that my arm on the left in my arm on the right that's how far you know God has removed our transgressions from us how does that they don't need to meet ya they can just be things that are considered far apart correct I mean you're reading poems I mean I'm kind of stunned because eat now Psalms that's not even there are some people who may not understand that Jobe was originally written as poetry but but everybody knows the Psalms are poems and that's where the songs are right so this is poetry this is not a science book you're eating this is someone writing flowery language very very taking a lot of liberties with the language to make poems and songs will you go to Corinthians a he wants you I mean we could do this all day I guess but I don't understand I I guess you know we could do this with the Quran as well and in fact people who believe in the Quran will do this all day long to the wall and I think people that believe in the the prophecies of nostradamus will take those and talk about all day long how those apply to you know modern situations or you know close to modern situations and you can reinterpret things all day if something's observable though like if I see stars near each other it would be like somebody saying what binds us to the globe you know or that the the God who has bound us to the planet and I mean you can see that we stick to the planet that we don't go flying off into the sky so observing that doesn't really explain scientifically how it occurs it's just a recognition that it does not only that but even if you talk about one scientific well it's it's an observable reality I I don't know I mean you calling it scientifically accurate is a little weird because there's no real science behind it it's just an observation making a scientific claim when I say people don't go flying off into the sky what sticks us to the ground it's just acknowledging that we do stay on the ground and you try to jump up and you fall back down to the ground something pulls things if you fall off a cliff you hit the ground something clearly is is pulling you toward the ground but just observing that it's not it I mean science may have thoughts about that or explanations for it or theories for it but me observing it it's just an observation observation right but it's observation as well who wouldn't be able to recognize it well they're talking about stars yeah laughs years away yes but I can see stars light-years away with my naked eye I can see constellations light-years away I see Orion every time I go out for a neighborhood walk and I see Orion's belt and you know what I've never seen it loosened he's always got it on totally same same belt loop every time okay I'll give my best evidence for God then okay I don't work ambergris it's when Jonah was I don't know how to say it's thrown up by the whale when we look at ambergris people spend thousands and thousands of dollars on whales on it yeah what's amazing about what's amazing about this is that one of the work God can make one of the worst smells in the world and turn it into a fantastic fragrance so God can make a sinner like Joey I think we're being rolled around I'm starting to think we're being trolled because I mean if you're talking about scientific proofs and then you raise Jonah I have to think you're pulling our leg because obviously it's not a sight when you talk about observable fact it's an observable fact that people don't get swallowed by a giant fish and survived three days in their stomach and then get vomited on ashore so this is in complete conflict with everything we know about things eating other things and what happens once you are eaten and the idea of something is big enough to swallow whole a human being even if there were such a thing it would digest you but when we find whales that are dead on the shore it's not a whale it was a great fish well there's because and if you have ever seen a killer whale eat something it's not swallowing it whole it's pretty gruesome well actually when we find whales on the beach when they're dead we find sweatpants we find plastic bags golf balls towels gloves I'm not saying they can't eat things I think say there's a reason they have I think I forget which whale swallows have you seen one of them swallows completely most whales have a baleen and those that don't have teeth and there's a reason for that and they may be able to swallow some things but saying that they swallow a human being and then three days later that human being is still alive and you're claiming that this book is scientifically sound I think you're pulling our leg in the Bible so it's scientifically sound except for when it's not I mean that's what you're basically saying I'm not saying that this is a miracle in the Bible right here's you're saying it's it's scientifically sound except for when it's not how is that even helpful I can write a book that's scientifically sound except for when it's not and then when you say that's not possible according to science I can say then let's just call those miracles those things that don't really you know tie themselves to observable reality or metaphor all right thanks for taking my call thanks Andrew have a great one okay so can trees logging off alright any fuss or I think we covered it yeah I everything that I wanted to say you just said so we're solid well now we're gonna let you say some things um so we've got no that's okay no this is cool water okay yeah Jimmy T from San Antonio on the Lion hi Jimmy you're on with Tracy and Erik okay so we meet again yeah I called drop I don't know if you call Jimmy called in earlier today to talk to you okay that's great you get to talk to Eric smart hmm okay I don't know really I wanted I really wanted to talk to you Jason yeah we I've called the show before and I got to talk to you for a little bit but um Matt ended up hanging up on me but I don't I don't know if you recall we discussed the studies being done at Johns Hopkins though with this other time in the mystical experience okay I don't ever look it followed up on it or looked up on it but uh oh basically what they're saying that their findings are in according to a view known by two negative Mystics philosophers physicists as the perennial philosophy and I mentioned it last time to you Tracy but I don't know okay well let's check it out right now in the meantime though yeah keep talking yeah is this what you know it's the same thing you called about to talk even on people who were dosed with psilocybin yes had mystical I heard your criticism last time man and I wanted to make a comment but I don't something happen on the car door no Holly drop and I I don't know oh yeah go ahead go ahead no no III you never answered what mysticism is or what a mystical experience is you say that all of these people experience mystical experience and then you say oh well I know they're I'm not sure why okay so I did take a quick look at this page right on the lineal philosophy and what it says here is that it's a perspective within the philosophy of religion which views each of the world's religions and spiritual traditions as sharing a single universal truth and a single divine foundation of knowledge is that your understanding yeah okay so this really doesn't matter if a person has a mystical experience or not because that would be irrelevant some religions don't have mystical experiences and yet they would be part of this tradition as well correct no I think what they're no the scientists are trying to say is yeah is that the authentic religion resides in India engaging is what yeah no I don't think that's that science tells us what is authentic religion well I mean that's the implication what what they're finding like in other words like I realized that science doesn't go out it's I'm in the purview to try to discover it God isn't God and say okay we're gonna go out to prove or disprove God each of the world's religions and spiritual traditions share a single universal truth and single divine foundation of knowledge is that your understanding of perennial philosophy well it's cranial fossa Pia has shifted and because due to this research in other words the view has shifted towards emphasis on these type of experiences that's why when there are when there are religions that are recognized that don't have these experiences why would it shift toward that instead of toward something more universal what do you mean what really we remember it refers to the major religion so it's been because perennial philosophy is speaking on the origin of the major religions right and I was raised Christian and we did not believe in mystical experiences so I'm saying we we would be a religion as well um you may not how do you study comparative religion but and if you go back to the Schism of 1054 it there is a the original Roman Catholic Catholic Church were separated the original Eastern Orthodox tradition always practices and there is Christian oh yeah let me try to make this simple there are loads of religions who do not have mystical experiences and those are legitimate religions if the idea is to find the universal reality behind all the religions I would think you would want to find the universal experience instead of something that happens on the other you're populating that you're populating that I don't think that's true no I'm reading it here at the definition of perennial philosophy I can try to find another definition oh I understand you're reading that but I'm saying that your assumption that the Christianity is not about my school experience is not true because if you actually go into the origins of the vision that's what you find I'm talking about religions all religions right and so there our sects of Christianity who do not have this experience that we would want to I would think look at the universal experience that would mean I agree but scholars have recognized this and they have found the point weight broke off okay well where wherever it broke off it broke off because some people didn't have this experience that you're saying is universal in religion but and so there are some people who do don't have this universal experience which means that it is not a universal experience well are you seeing it broke off in such a way where the religions that didn't emphasize this they took a if you look into the Schism of 1054 religion what difference does it make are we saying that these religions have a universal foundation or that they don't yes okay they do then the ones that don't have mysticism should be included in that and we should look for what is universal because I'm saying I'm saying those religion broke off from their original founder because they weren't having the same ideas thoughts and experiences no no not because of that because they misinterpreted their original text if you look no I'm serious no wait a minute I'm serious these are religions that exist today who do not have this experience therefore it is not a universal I understand that right it's because for thousands of years they have I don't care why they're not having the experience they're not which means it's not a universal and honestly is so so if it doesn t fall into your spectrum right if it doesn't fall into the exact thing that you're trying to say then oh they just deviated from it what about I don't know is there any room in there for it there's not my view I'm trying to read it reiterate what has been demonstrated by fun why would I want to talk to you about someone else's view yeah I thought this show was to talk to followers about what they believe in why sure but I'm adhering to the science I'm I'm you know I'm trying to you know what I mean I don't I follow evidence science doesn't tell us about true religion yeah that that word I I don't think it means what you think it means I know III would say that it that's your biased perspective if you actually if you referred to what I'm referring to the Schism of 1054 you'll see I don't care what happened in 1054 we have examples of religions today who do not have this experience I don't care why they don't have it I'm trying to tell in centuries today's today's conception is a contortion of what it originally meant it's don't care it's a religion it's still a religion these are still religions and where are you gay as a break off from Judaism but I don't care it's still it's a you know it's still a religion I don't care what it came from but I I would argue that it's a tell reflection of what it originally meant how would you know those reasons how do you know they didn't have a better path and that's why they broke off that they didn't find a more real path I can give you another example are you familiar okay you familiar with Greek religion Zeus and there's offspring and so forth yeah and Roman mythology which follows very closely well did you know that the major philosophers like the Chinese Socrates Plato they criticized the mainstream religion that's being something born out of the human imagination in Zeus and all his offspring and for them the true religion was through hypnosis it was with news would personís would eventually call it the one I don't what I'm saying as people can argue all day about which religions are the true religions because everybody's pointing at each other saying I am and you are and they are and half of Mercia and we're the only true religion and nobody else that tells you anything religious is telling the truth but my point is there are loads and loads of religious people who consider themselves to be part of a true religion who do not have a mystical experience and you explaining why doesn't change the fact that it's a fact my again I disagree I mean like you can't disagree it's a fact some people who are religious don't have mystical experiences and you have no more right to say that their religion is false than they have to say I agree that these modern sexes don't emphasize friends if you even try to mention it yeah I don't know that every second historically ever had this mystical experience I know that there are some days I would disagree with that we couldn't possibly know if that were true or not you could not yes not all religions have been historically recorded there is no way to know that every religion in history up until 1054 had mystical experiences do you understand the implications of trying to make that claim it's an impossible claim to make I think if people are making it today possible claim to make if somebody claims that they know that they are wrong III just think again like I yeah you can't be the party okay so he disagrees I don't know what to say we don't have a written history for every culture I going back for we don't have written histories for many cultures that exist today so I don't see how anybody could make these claims about every religion that ever existed everywhere on the planet for all time up until 1054 when suddenly there was this breakout of people who didn't have mystical experiences which would show that it's not a universal and it hasn't been for centuries so if you're looking for a universal that's not it I wholeheartedly agree I'm right there with you his his evidence earlier today was people who take magic mushrooms get high yeah and they're okay all right so that is that so now I I'm laying all my hopes on Benjamin and Elijah if you're talking to Tracy and Erik and please please give us something worth talking about a nice biblical name we just want to ask some questions just because we're not really familiar with 8 years old that's the best time you ask questions when you have when you want to know more totally yeah because we are see it yes but we just don't know much about ACA thank you for calling and we're happy to answer so kind of water like the basic foundations of atheism oh yeah yeah okay yeah go for it sure so let's start by the word a theism right AAA is the rejection of theism it's the negation of the statement that a God exists or a personal God exists so it's only the answer to the single question does it God exist everything else you gotta look elsewhere I mean we're skeptics we're secular humanists and those things help involve inform our morality and the way that we look at the world so the reality is beyond not believing in a god you're you have to ask each and then it it sounds really weird but you can have to ask each atheist what they believe or don't believe about any particular topic because there's no Creed and there are some atheists that believe some weird stuff there are yeah we have a problem with that because yes we do believe in asking questions and learning more I mean in fact that we're all about it so what are your just your two viewpoints and things you disagree with about what topics it's a it's a big world Oh surprise me any topic I like purple okay it's purple and I have no favorite color so there's a disagreement right there X is not you he can like purple it than me not having a favorite color doesn't really impact that you might be verbal so I guess you're not not atheist is here I'm just saying we have different opinions on colors right doesn't make either one of you right or wrong sometimes though a theist could be wrong about a thing and somebody else could be I mean I've been corrected on certain things that I've thought were correct and somebody will point out oh that's wrong I remember I'm so embarrassed but it's like I remember posting something about how there were you know science can't explain how bees can okay I fell for it and then somebody was like yeah that's kind of an old wives tale it's not really true and you know this so I looked into it I was like okay so there's an explanation for how bees can fly so sometimes I can be wrong about things yeah right we all get wrong at things at times um so why don't you believe in God okay so let's again remember the part where I said it's the negation of the statement yeah okay okay so let's let's be clear about this right am i speaking of been or elijah then okay Tracy has a jar of gumballs okay you and I both walk in we've never seen the jar Tracy's got the jars she says you need to guess whether it is there's an even amount of gumballs or an odd amount of gumballs in the jar and I say Tracy I know for a fact that there's an even an amount of gumballs in that jar Ben do you believe me yeah I know for a fact it's an even number of gumballs in that jar even though he's never seen the jar yeah until the same time you did well you could be wrong it could be an automatic well hold on hold on Ben are you saying are you saying that you know for a fact there's an odd number of gumballs in that dryer I don't know first I'm just I'm just guessing because maybe there is maybe it may be but if we should probably wait until we count the gumballs right yeah that's the intellectually honest thing to do right yeah that would be yeah that's where we are with atheism so just yeah just to kind of help put that in perspective what he's trying to illustrate is the idea that first and foremost atheism would be the the idea that there's something called agnostic atheism which I think most atheists identify with which is the idea that I don't know how many gumballs are in the jar right I don't know if there's a god or not so I'm not I'm not pinning it on I'm not pinning anything down on this yet so let me just wait until there's better information because right now there's not enough information for me to make that decision people are making a lot of claims and I'm not buying any of it until I have better information so that's the position of a lot of atheists some atheists go a little further and they're just like I think it's bunk and that's like another attitude where they the thing they have in common though is that they don't believe but your follow-up question was you know well why don't you believe and that's gonna vary a little bit but most often you're going to get one of two answers you're going to get somebody who's going to say that they actually feel that they that they can solidly say that they don't think that there could be a god that exists and then you're going to have a larger batch probably that's going to say because I'm not convinced I don't think that there's sufficient evidence for me to you know hang my hat on at this point does that help you understand where they're coming from or where we're coming from yeah that helps us understand different point of views about it okay I like the fact that you differentiated you know that belief from from the reasoning because that really is important thing to to keep separate you know to say that it's the common ground isn't izzle' is not believing but there are different reasons and different perspectives that people can come from to get to that decision yeah that's the same with religion too is people have different ideas I've met a couple Christians that believe in evolution they're neither right nor wrong really we can't really prove it either way but there's only different points per topic yeah I think you're the host oh I would just I mean like what aspect of evolution do you think they look so for example let's say that I wanted to breed a new breed of dog I'm a dog breeder and I have this idea for a new breed and I start breeding and I like what I'm finding and so I keep on breeding until I get this look that I want right the this breed that I would like to apply to the whatever the group is that makes the dog breeds right the American breeders Association or something and I want to get my new breed approved so if we say evolution doesn't happen and that we can't tell if it's right or wrong do you have any kind of explanation as to how I produced that particular dog breed if we don't use evolution as our as our model oh I'm not sure about any of that cuz I'm not I'm totally not an expert but we were just wondering like if because a lot of evolutionists argue that or say should say that species for example a or like a dinosaur can evolve into like a bird or a bird can be well there's okay so there's this breakdown let's just go through this in little steps let's take little chunks and just we'll see where we start to disagree so we do agree let's say that I'm gonna say we agree and then you tell me if I'm wrong so I would say that we do agree that people or our speech species a population that can breed sexually will pass on genes to a future generation do we agree with that we agree yeah okay and we also agree and again I'm not I'm not assuming it I'm just saying it and you tell me if I'm where I go wrong we also agree that by breeding for particular traits like if I like a particular color of hair or color of fur or pattern I should be able to selectively choose animals to breed them so that future generations then will express that trait more and more and express the traits I don't want less and less by by selectively breeding do we agree with that yeah I agree with that it's like it's like breeding plants to get a turn flower yeah and I mean now some things are asexual and they produce clones right and it's the same plant over and over but when you have sexual breeding where genes are coming from a parent population then you have variation and you can control for that by selecting technically be special to you they can oh yeah they can no I'm not saying that they can't but I'm saying that there are some that are some things clone and those would be sort of different than what we're talking about here but yes plants can be bred sexually as well they actually they have very prominent sex organs in fact so when you so what the base what the basic fundamental like let's just say this is the the baseline evolution concept is is that when I have a population that can breed right within it that population because not not all species can breed with each other so when you have a breeding population you can the if pressure is exerted that makes certain traits selected for right then yeah the future generations will express that more and express less the traits that we genetically choose against and by doing that we can change what's called so a G there's a little saying when I was in school they taught it and it was the phenotype follows the genotype and all that a phenotype is just think of it in terms of traits traits that an individual can have right so I have two brown hair okay great great so the phenotypes can be altered in in subsequent generations by yeah so by selecting for or against certain traits now if we do this as the dog breeder were artificially selecting right so I'm using artificial selection I've basically I'm controlling it and I am producing a specific look in the next generations trying and trying and you know to get this look and and selecting for Sahn traits against others and then I'm changing the phenotypic traits of the species I'm changing the hair color whether or not they even have hair right you can see the hairless cats and you know so you can let's try let's weed out hair entirely or fur entirely let's make the ears folded let's make the the legs shorter let's and you can change this and then you then you can create a breeding population that actually has these traits that they start breeding and they're their own population at that point they can probably still interbreed with the parents parent populations because those are very close in time right so from a very basic standpoint the the idea of evolution is just that so you have this idea that species can change over time based on traits being selected for or against what Darwin added to this was to say that he felt like selection can happen through natural causes okay so that you don't have to have a dog breeder choosing the dogs that something could happen to separate these populations and then one of them has you know particular survival pressures put on them that are different than where this other part of the population went they have different survival pressures put on them and both of them in nature because of those pressures are going to have traits selected for or against like whether or not you have a fur pattern that is good at camouflage in the trees whereas the other population goes off into the plains gets split off into the plains and they end up having to be stealthy and to be you know creep along a little more quietly and maybe there they look better if they're just plain old you know tan colored or brown colored or something whereas the other one ends up with stripes eventually well I understand what you're saying you're saying that like depending on the environment depends on how the animal is going to change well that's the idea behind natural selection right is that the same pressures that we could put on an animal to breed them very swiftly could be put on an animal it went in it when a environment changes right you're gonna have different things that are useful in a different environment than you had in the prior environment does that make sense that does but wouldn't that be more adaptation rather than evolution because you know because because it's going to be happening through changes in in the the gene frequencies of the population so it it by definition is evolution and eventually if you leave those groups alone long enough they'll no longer be able to interbreed and that's when you get speciation and you get new species that can no longer right but there's a and just to kind of speak to what Erik's saying there's this idea I think that our misconception I think some people have that there's these little changes and then sometimes there's these gargantuan big changes when really what happens is you know a big change is just a lot of little changes over time it's not that you know there's some it's not like luck you know so when people are like well why don't I give birth to cats it's like well that's a big sure of what evolutions actually saying happens right it's not saying that there's this giant shift in the phenotypes in one generation it sounds like you understand that yeah yeah we do okay so I mean we do agree on a lot here I think yeah oh we really do we really do oh but like I just don't quite understand it okay let's say we have dog a and dog B dog D doesn't exist yet that's gonna come later evolution so at what point I know you can't really answer this because we haven't really studied enough signs about this what point will that species a turn into that species B because that species being a species any parent and it's got to make species yeaaaah free this is called angle this is called speciation right and speciation can occur and and has occurred and so I would recommend if you want examples of speciation cuz you're right it's not like I carry these around in my head but if you want to see if you want to see like a list of speciation there's a place called talk origins right and I will tell you right up front the the main purpose of the site is to deal with creationists claim like young earth creationist claims and so they kind of give the answers when people say like let you know it there's no such thing as you know no one's ever observed speciation and they will give the examples of speciation that has been observed and so when people have questions about evolution talk origins is a pretty good site to just that just kind of says here's the claims we hear most often and here would be the examples that that would apply to those questions so I don't carry around the list of speciation events in my head and I would think that even if you went to talk origins and you did look at their list you would probably want to go do further research on your own and I certainly wouldn't blame you for that I would say I encourage it so I wouldn't just say go to talk origins and there's your answer I would say go to talk origins look up the list of speciation right under speciation and look at those examples and then go look at them up on your on your own and see if if you think they're valid or if you problems with them okay okay so I'm good yeah I could have one more quick question about like evolution so well I mean okay okay cuz I'm not a bi I'm not an evolutionary biologist so I'm just kind of doing my best here yeah I mean I'm kind of confused because we were talking about you know how people want to have a certain I agree or and certain types of traits but where do you like them mutations fall all into this so yeah you could have genes can mutate right and I think that they probably could kick out some other diversity I doubt that that commonly speaking a mutation would result in like a huge population shift it would take a lot of metrics falling into place together so you'd have to have a significant enough mutation to have an effect on the animal survival and it would have to be beneficial in that environment or pretty quickly in an environment that's changing so you'd have to have like a beneficial mutation for it to continue which isn't impossible but I think and when I'm thinking in terms of mutations a lot of times they're going to be negative things that will not continue or in some instances they're going to be situations where it's kind of benign and it may or may not become good or bad later or exaggerated or somehow feed into the population in other ways but finding a beneficial one of course that you know I would think that would happen occasionally but I don't think it's going to be the most common example of how mutations would fit into this alright yeah helps to kind of like I have another question also if you don't mind but I mean as atheist this might sound obvious like can you be good without God or like and like where do morals come from no you go or we're in trouble we're horrible people I'll let Eric go and then if I have anything to add all at it okay sure so I mean it's a really wonderful place I want to commend you as well for being so open and honest and ready to ask questions and and and you know meet us where we're at just like we're wanting to meet you where we're at and I really do want to just emphasize the importance of us having being able to have this discussion so thank you both yeah yeah so can you be good without God well yeah because where does God come into it I mean is there any part of the Bible that is so pivotal that that we can't address the same things I mean as far as we're concerned you're just the same as us man so like what about what about the Bible well I would just add if I can the idea of what you were asking like you know where do I think morality comes from like what yeah yeah and so there's what I what I find really interesting is Studies on other species and what's called moral metrics or moral tendencies some people call it proto morality because they're totally uncomfortable acknowledging that another species could have a moral tendency but I tend to think that I do believe we share some tendencies with some of these other species that I will I am comfortable calling moral tendencies so the question becomes what are you what are you testing for so if you wanted to know let's say another species you're looking at another species you want to know if that animal is moral right all right okay I'm I'm a human being I feel like I'm moral I want to know if this dog can be moral right does the dog have any kind of morality to it what kind of things would you test for right so you have to kind of define what it is that you're calling morality if you're gonna see if the dog can behave morally how are you going to test it what are you looking for and so for me though because Oh everyone's point of view for what's it cause for morality is different everyone could be different like like you said your favorite color oh it's one of your guys like purple one of you may like but this is why this is why it's super useful to read animal studies when they do studies to test animals for moral tendencies because it forces people to identify and define what they consider moral so there's tests that go on with human beings where people will take that you you I'm sure are familiar with moral dilemmas right because you guys sound like the type that would probably be familiar with them like those questions were you know it's like there's no right answer every every answer is horrible basically which horrible thing would you choose out of these horrible scenarios and so okay but the point with those tests is to try to get people to think about their their morality a little bit right like why am i choosing this and what is my thinking on this and in order to and this helps us define what we're calling morality and people which helps us define what we would be looking for in another species so there are actually are some metrics that are put forward that we say this is part of what we look comes together to form morality and some of those things would be mainly it's stuff that's going to impact your relationships with others okay others of your own species so the idea of do you understand or do you want fairness right so you do you have a comprehension of fairness do you have some comprehension of empathy do you see this other being do I see Eric as being like me so that if something happens to Eric I think oh if that happened to me right that the his arm gets hurt and I'm thinking oh that must hurt because it would hurt if it happened to me so I mirror myself in Eric because he's a human being and I'm a human being and so I relate to him on this really unique level and so we have empathy for one another and we have a sense of fairness for one another now not all I'm not saying every individual and the species has it but the species as a whole has a tendency toward these traits right toward empathy equity fairness yeah obligations the tight sense of obligation right and and there's also things like guilt and things like shame that we can actually leverage against people right we know that human beings are capable of feeling these things it's all the things that we tend to look at as the as those emotional drives right those instinctual drives that gear toward each other as opposed to just ourselves or just an object things that allow me to know that Eric is an agent and Eric is not an object and make me respect him as a human and so the question is you know does a dog have a sense of fairness does the chimpanzee have a sense of fairness does it have a sense of empathy and you can actually test for these things it's very interesting and it turns out that dogs do have a sense of fairness and it's different than our sense of fairness which is more similar to a chimpanzees sense of fairness right so in one study they had dogs that were doing tricks and they would give them treats and what they found in the particular study that they worked on was that when you gave the dogs treats when they saw each other get treats for the tricks they were content and they kept doing tricks tricks to get these treats and it didn't really matter the grade of the treat so if you gave one dog what would be considered like a higher grade treat like real meat as opposed to a kibble it didn't affect the dog's tendencies to continue cooperating but when you treat them when you don't give one dog a treat and you give another dog a treat the dog that's not getting treats will stop cooperating much much sooner so he's just like wait wait a minute he's getting treats like I'm not gonna keep working I'm not getting truth and so when you do the similar thing with Jim when you do a similar thing with chimpanzees they actually do quite like look at the quality of the treat right they they will get a little bit I'm not cooperating anymore because they're getting something way better than me and people are kind of like lean more toward that we don't just see compensation we see levels of compensation right and so right there are there are different senses of fairness which is to me a really interesting thing but what it shows me is that these kinds of metrics can exist in other species but they might be different than what we understand them to be but they're still demonstrable so for me when I think about morality I think of all these different like like a list of different traits that we would identify as separate things but they would all come into play in my interactions with another person right now like we share they're right now what's also interesting is there's this thing called the Silver Fox experiment right where they actually took these silver foxes who are mostly rogue animals right and even a rogue animal has to socialize sometimes right so a rogue animal will go out and it has to socialize when it breeds right you have they have to hope you have agreed they will they will socialize when they come into conflict with territory so I come to the edge of my territory and you're there and I don't expect you to be there because this is my territory and so we'll have an interaction there so they do still recognize each other as a species they recognize one another as the Fox as opposed to a predator or a prey animal but at the same time they are they are very very soft solitary animals but they are also highly prized for their fur right so in the fur trade they have a lot of these animals that they have to deal with and one problem is they are very ferocious animals they're very vicious little foxes so one guy got the idea to make them more passive so he started breeding them for passivity the the animals that didn't attack the cage every time you walked by he started trying to breed those to try and create something that was easier to work with I know you're talking yeah well eventually he created something that was almost like a little dog it didn't even look like the Fox anymore that was totally different it has this curly crazy tail it barked the Fox has never made noises other than like snarling and growling and assaulting the cage but these little guys you know they were just adorable little fluff balls right and he didn't expect to breed something that looked completely different in fact that was against like they wanted to try and breed something with the same fur and they got like poop all over all across the board different types of fur and cute little things that were barking and social and so these little guys were more inclined to socialize which is what is required for those moral metrics right I mean I have what if I just run around by myself all the time I don't really need to have a whole lot of those metrics but if I if you if you breed you know my species to the point where we start actually interacting more in a friendly way that's a demonstration I would think of instilling morality or at least moral tendencies or to make some people who are comfortable proto moral tendencies into this species which I found really fascinating that's past name you used an interesting word though you use the word metric yeah how do you how do you judge something by its metrics like let's do aa the meter for example the what the meter like I mean I'm talking I mean when I'm talking about a metric right fairness isn't isn't that trick and we would measure it I don't know what your bag okay I'm using it in a different form okay I do I do have a point where I'm going with this okay so play along for a little sure so how do you compare how do you make sure a meter is a meter well you have to have a scale right you'd have to develop a scale and you would have to test that scale alright so in in scientific research for example what you would do is you would try it you would go ahead and develop that scale and then you would have different people make judgments and then you would compare all those inputs they would have to do it separately and not in conjunction with one another and you get that back and you'd see if it was just all over the map so if people were looking at my instructions as far as how those metrics should be measured and what I get back is a whole bunch of different feedback on a similar test where they're all saying different things about the same set of subjects then I know that my metric is not well defined and well measured right but if I get back the feedback and I'm getting really high corresponding results that's a good sign that this metric is working is that what you're asking moral no well yeah because I'm talking about moral metrics in fact right that's not what I meant by relating this yeah sorry I didn't want to confuse you but like wouldn't we need a single a singular reference points in order to establish our morals and what is what we find morally correct okay wait this is a different thing so that now there's this there's the idea of do you have a sense of fairness right yeah okay this is a precept argument it's okay and then the idea is different people are going to apply this in situations differently so you could have like for example those moral dilemmas you could be asking people what they would do and they'll give you different answers and some of them will say well I think it would be fair to handle it this way I think it would be fair to handle it that way there's been many times when you can look at a situation and say you know what I can see both sides of this I can see why this person feels like they have a beef and I can feel like why this person feels like they have a beef and you know this is not an easy question to answer you're talking about how the metrics are applied not whether or not there are metrics right so the there are there is a sense of fairness but now when a moral philosophy if you want to develop a moral philosophy from that if you want to say like I'm going to say that the most good for the most people is my moral philosophy and every time you know something comes up my sense of fairness my sense of all this stuff is going to come into play underneath this moral philosophy that is most good for the most people I'm not saying that's the way to that that's just a moral philosophy somebody might use but you ever a lot of people have different moral philosophies or moral codes that they're gonna go by about how they apply these things but the metrics themselves are what is morality yeah okay I understand it's like using a fun like like using a fun ruler with a meter ruler we're going to be slightly different but face positioning and some people are going to have a stronger sense of empathy some people are gonna have no empathy and some people are gonna have so much empathy that they may have trouble you know like using a can of raid I mean it there's some people that are gonna have empathy that just overflows so far it even goes into like other species and things right whereas some people are gonna have no empathy even for other human beings they'll see horrible suffering and be like yeah whatever it's a it's a range that happens just like every trait in a species happens at different levels with any different individuals but you can also tell that there are biological things that are part of us that lend themselves to empathy as well I mean take a look at mirror neurons right you can you can put somebody in a cat scan and if you show them someone suffering you know maybe they get a injury or maybe it's a foot or something like that the part of the person watching the brain that relates to that that that hand or foot you experience that your mirror neurons go off and you can actually feel for somebody their pain and and those things are built into us and brain damage you know your capacity to judge things and you know so for example you can have people who have damage to emotional centers of their brain have difficulty making value judgments and and on top on top of that those things are like Phineas Gage and the frontal lobe yeah no yeah no empathy after the metal spike drills through his head with you messing with your brain can really mess with you just just to just to just to complete the loop on that though there are different strengths rough responses when it comes to mirror neurons and so you can't have people empathetically react much stronger than others and in that way you can you can put a number on it you're not you're not measuring a ruler versus you know a meter it's very much this is the strength of the response in the brain okay I really enjoyed this call we do have other callers did we hit though I think it was a really good call it's really great to have an honest conversation with some folks yeah yeah I I learned a lot so thank you for taking our call thank you for your questions and thank you for actually calling and asking questions that you were genuinely interested in answers to because we often get questions people just want to manipulate a conversation so it's great to have somebody say I'm really asking because I'm curious yeah thank you yeah you too bye-bye can we clone them oh gosh I wish there were every call hardness and that's the thing I hope people understand that at the end of the day I don't it doesn't bother me that they hung up and there's still theater it's like that's okay they called and they had questions and we had a conversation we exchanged information we found things that we agree on even though there's a big thing we don't agree on it was a cordial and informative conversation I really really liked it so definitely okay you don't have to call the show to try to trap us it's not the that's not where you learn it's not where we learn so it doesn't help anybody if you just call to to ask a question that you already wanted you know you already have an answer in your head don't waste everybody's time with that okay so let's try here we'll go with good yeah what's so good this is Aaron in Hyannis this is Eric hey thanks for hanging on my brother's name is Eric so that's kind of a small world no good names strong name from last week the gentleman that was hearing voices the second call is a guy okay basically didn't want to go to the that was Teddy D yeah Teddy thank you yeah yeah I actually knew someone like a friend of a friend or whatever who basically was hearing voices in his head and then end up going uh getting some help and ended up being like a tumor so really either tours like a stroke or and I think that would that John well I think it was John that was on with me and he even said like hey this could be a physical issue that you need to get checked out you know so yes I mean we had some real completed he's listening in yeah he did show up at the blog and some people gave him a lot of feedback a lot of empathetic feedback so hopefully you know he can figure his situation out and do what's best that's pretty cool you know I think so but yeah but anyway the main reason why I'm calling is let me preface this kind of a little bit it's probably gonna be a little confusing and probably a little simple is taken away but always not but like religious people like Christians and others like religious people that don't want that that don't change their mind on their religions I noticed like basically fall into three basic camps the people that that are unable to change their minds about religion ie like head-injured people or whatever mm-hmm these people that people that I just like total jerks bought it they just refuse to look at at the like the evidence or whatever like saying why there that there is no God or whatever sir and and the people that that that don't look at the evidence but they they kind of stuck in their ways they just kind of spaced their good nature they're you know they're they're basically basically good-natured but the well me well-meaning but they still gonna get stuck in the religion sir religious pissed bit well that's I think what the other callers were saying people are religious for a lot of different reasons yeah and like yeah pretty much for different reasons but uh and the people that are like like for whatever reason can't deal with it I can't change their minds and people that are just jerks about it and like I don't really deal with people like to add too much and thankfully I don't have anyone that I know on a regular basis are like that but most people I know that are religious are of the type that that are well-meaning good you know they but they play kind of play lip service to to you know like oh yeah looking look into all this stuff but they actually don't you know they're like linked into history and look into like the scientific stuff and blah blah blah but they act that they actually don't that sorry that doesn't make sense I'm probably a little nervous but basically how do you guys deal with that type of person the person that like they they're smart enough to well look into more like the scientific stuff and all that but they don't all on the show I mean do you see that person on the phone a lot with us because I think most people who are not inclined to to care enough to look something up or probably not going to be inclined enough to pick up a phone and call the show to defend their beliefs well I've heard a few people calling up your you show like basically I don't like like generally speaking like II can't think of any things in person but but basically like a couple of times not too often calling up the show like like it'll just refuse to see there might be good nature like like the little lady or whatever Oh cup that's you're just the same even though you know I noticed that a little bit but I guess I run into people like that more like a case in point my mother 65 years old she's religious she's smarter than anything like all the studying but religion says anything is said she studies up on on religion and all that but but like like actually uses religious material to basically confirm right I understand your stuff and I like every so often like like like actually send clips from you guys sometimes or like like like clips of videos from like other people like it's common sense like I don't know if you I'm sure you guys know if Richard Shermer like this skeptic guy I know Michael looks from him and all that hmm but my mother is like refuses it refuses to basically refuses to take that stuff seriously and just looks like it like the history teacher is she I mean has she expressed an interest in receiving these clothes not really that may be the problem she's getting unsolicited material and Sangji thank you very much for your concern yeah I mean it may be that she's interpreting this as as what you might think of as I'll pray for you right she yeah pretty much yeah and so the problem here is that she's not looking for a difference or a change yeah it's kind of mushy man like I don't know like how you guys deal with that you solved I just kind of like like after a while it's kind of like or not we don't really get into arguments per se but we can get more like the discussions and I cut back before things get into like arguments I'm walking up to people through that but I guess I'm wondering I mean does she ever initiate these conversations sorry I'm supposed to snap my pendant oh yes pretty fair amount this is like a like a bit actually a period of time where she was trying to convert me and because she's like nah okay so she what she was pitching she was in their kitchen okay and then she stopped for a while but before I told her really like hey much okay okay so she yes so now she's sort of getting payback I guess yeah I mean it sounds like though I don't mean I don't know I she understands it sounds like that you don't believe what she believes she made her pitch of the night sounds like she backed off after a bit and kind of sank into her that she wasn't going to get anywhere your pigeon said it's like the person is brain injured and can't think like pass our thing that that's one thing or like like or if they're like like totally argumentative and the just like refused to yeah I got that they're honest about it that's another thing but people who think they're like my mother's thing how pathetic you know like she basically thinks she's like Kari it's more like an atheist stuff but she's actually not and that does she bring it up any more like any of this is she still bring it up really once a while so like like come up with my god oh you know looking over here like so mention like my name being like brother of Moses like like I'll go your names like as religious meaning so we will sorry you spent all that means you're gonna get a special spot or whatever in bubble bond like little jabs like that more than actual a little weird yeah I wouldn't think about this or whatever I mean maybe take those opportunities where she initiates something if nothing else it'll it'll maybe squelch those few initiations you still get you know I actually my mom was actually like let go for it talk to her this fan she my mom actually did that for a while and you know at first I thought the little jabs I'll get right back you know but it took me living my best life and I'm gonna give any advice is that live your best life because what you're doing is you are quietly and consistently showing that all of those preconceptions about atheists are wrong and if you continue to behave in an empathy and be kind and you know just be happy then she'll you know she'll notice people do notice and it took a very lie I did not expect my mother to approach me about atheism don't get hide your light under a bushel yeah I well and yeah I was just completely blindsided when she was just like so this atheism thing tell me about it one day I was like what you we had a moratorium for years then now we're doing this okay but um you know just just do that man because for somebody who doesn't want to talk about or argue about it they they can't deny when you are just the good person that you are right yeah yeah exactly you know certainly how I try to live my life anyway like actions not words kind of thing you know but as you say like in general anyway but especially with my mother's soar show people that atheists aren't I think these evil little trolls or whatever that you know hey really dating or whatever you know and then you send her clips of Matt Jette okay well I mean I think that was actually a really good advice I can't top that yeah that is awesome advice you know okay dear diary Tracy said alligator random question I'm sorry and I'll let you guys go okay it kind of has do it like that that ol like like like my mother did this a little bit but more than a general sent like CS Lewis atheist or was it is the atheist who in their becoming religious oh I don't know if he was an atheist I just I know his right he's known to be religious okay yeah yeah oh yeah if you guys ever got this and so what's up with this like my mother and I've seen like heard and a few other people doing this but my mother gave me if he was his box mainly like mine what's on a wardrobe okay and I think I think in the general sense and they're not bad books but in general sense a you read these you might like these but oh it seems like I like it like I've seen other people do doing that and I think that's an opportunity for a book exchange I will read your books I have a book you might like mom why don't we each read each other's books and then come together and talk about our books that we read yeah I've done that a few times with Ariane more like general history stuff but they're like a few things were like okay here's a good book from a religious author that has nothing to do with the religion but my turning religious just the same or even Bart Ehrman would be a good yeah well good primer you know what's funny is um I was I was a kid in the church and the first Harry Potter books were coming out and the California version of Hamish was the this this he's this he was this elder in my church and he was complaining about Harry Potter how it teaches Witchcraft and Wizardry and and how you know you're gonna be saying the magic words and inviting the devil into your soul and I I'm listening I was reading it and I was like it's just weird Latin it's Latin II sounding stuff but and and I said it I spoke up don't that was not good but he said how dare you you know you're really you're you're crossing into the devil's territory and I looked and we were in the Christian bookstore and CS Louis the the whole Chronicles of Narnia was on the freakin shelf and I looked I was like that has magic oh that's just allegory for Christ the first one and a half and I notice that that there might be some religious up but that there's just as much magic in there you know I think it's that's okay some the does have you know religious allegory use whatever you know and Harry Potter is a bunch of but those are good wishes and that's a dangerous message exactly all right we're gonna let you go Aaron thanks very much I'm sorry if I like a rambling a little bit it's alright sometimes it takes a little bit to get your thoughts together so what's good call yeah have a good evening good luck with your mom okay okay bye thank you very much okay okay let's see we're gonna go it was fun we're gonna go to Josh in San Antonio he's close and this is Tracy and Erik hey hey guys how you doing first and foremost I want to say thank you guys for all this a being stuff I became an atheist I was around 12 13 I'm 32 now but it was scary for me to come out friends or family or anything growing up and dealing with people in school but had I had an outreach like this I think that might have helped so with that 200,000 that you guys just hit then that's I hope one of those is maybe a kid you guys are helping it's a nature yeah deal with all this better yeah it was now onto this I I first of course I'm a theist I don't believe any of that paranormal stuff but I have just a pondering and if I'm wrong in any way please correct me now we are just in a - we are two dimensional beings we only see 3d because we have depth perception so but we're on a four-day universe of space and time so that's kind of cool I think but people are always about oh we should go stir this or that or I saw something out my iron our eyes can only pick up I think with 30% of actual light so there's different light spectrum so we're not catching so is it possible that our eyes are catching a glimpse of another light spectrum and we're just not a lot of us one we can't see well then to it I'm curious about because I don't know I can't even see it into it you know you can see what you can see right I mean it may have to be able to reflection and it's not it just lies just what is I mean I I don't contribute to insight I imagine oh I I don't know that I would put too much stock in making too much of something like that I imagine that vision as a trait is you know it goes on a spectrum some people can't see anything can see no light and there's probably those people that are colour-blind that's see light in different ways so I mean definitely within within individuals in the species we have that trait that a dead different you know capacities individual Middle Eastern but I'm not sure even at the best that you're gonna start seeing too much that's you know yes I mean like goes yeah cuz I mean if you're I can't pick it up how are you gonna see yeah II understand I get that it was just a pondering like well maybe I would tend to wonder if it wasn't something going on with my brain as opposed to my eyes you know like did my brain just do it hiccup and rationalize it yeah if you can see I mean you scan it's just one of those things like alright okay cool but how are you going to even examine ETSU know what that even is yeah I mean I've heard things before that I know that I couldn't have heard right and like people talking to me that weren't there like you know it's so yeah I understand that that's just me falling asleep and exactly think we're doing drugs right so yeah I mean your brain actually is what's processing this stuff right so you have these input the sensory input comes in and then your brain sort of says this is what you see this is what you hear this is what and so that's why when your brain gets a little you know off kilter your senses become off-kilter as well right you don't feel things because your nerves aren't working like they should and you know you don't you don't see things or you do see things because your brain is a little you know not doing what it what it normally would do and so yeah I mean and that's another I guess that's another thing you can take drugs that would make you see things that aren't there there are prescription drugs that can cause hallucinations and there are medical conditions that can cause that so it's sometimes when you're seeing things it's not because there's actually light doing something because your brain is doing something but I'm curious about what you bring up the drugs there are studies that show with LSD and you know acid mushrooms that's a higher elevation in your brain work instead of this little corner of your brain being active your entire brain is active so is it possible in that your entire brain being active with the drugs okay that it opens up a different light spectrum to your eyeballs so you think I walls kids aren't physically interpret that I want to make sure that you understand that like your your whole brain does actually work I mean it's not like we just have this little piece of brain that works and then you take drugs no certainly different different brain centers are going to light up with certain chemicals that that's okay there are yeah there are some misconceptions with that I just want to make sure this wasn't one of them but yeah yeah yeah so yeah there are illnesses there are drugs there are experiences that can cause all kinds of we you know Eric was just talking a little while ago about you know people scanning people's brains for empathy and how you can tell like more and more empathy based on higher level of experience yeah and if I mean if you're gonna do a drug that you know you're gonna trip balls on why are you gonna be surprised they have your brain lights up like July I mean yeah that's that's kind of you know why you did it in the first place as far as your eyes are concerned you only have so many rods and cones so are you going to grow more rods and cones in your eyes temporarily to be able to get that vision of that in yeah it's probably more likely something from another dimension has found a way to break through so thank you guys for having all this thank you and now we get to go to John who gets like the most patient caller award so John you are talking to Tracy and Erik you have been on since the show has started you were the last line we're getting to from the original lineup so thanks for your patience hi John thank you so what's up so alright so I'm a teenage atheist in a person household and I just recently started to doubt my beliefs my there's no good evidence oh my god as I could find so okay so my question is kind of off that topic a little bit where would you start when pointing out flaws in Christianity okay so first of all do you does your family know what's going on no do you want your family to know what's going on no okay so can I ask what is this question for um just you know it's kind of for me but it's also for people who might ask questions about I believe ok so right now what you're basically saying is that you don't have a belief right oh I have those I have beliefs I'm well no but I mean as far as Christianity you don't have like a belief in in this religion as being true or correct and what it's cleanly okay and so what you're kind of you're I'm gonna give you some advice that a an a preacher gave me one time who I was going to go in and speak to another preacher and and my beliefs are my lack of beliefs and one of the things I was told before I walked in by another by a third party preacher was just remember you don't have to defend anything because you're not the one making the claims right and that was very important to me because the other person is the one making claims and the other person is the one that's got something to defend right as long as you're just saying I because what you said the beginning call is you looked and you couldn't find sufficient evidence to support what you could call belief and so you're not making a claim you're not saying there's no God you're saying if there is a God I just don't see the evidence that's convincing me in it so when someone comes to you and starts to make these Christian claims you're not in any position to have to defend right you're in a position where they're claiming things and all you have to do is say well based on what like where are you getting this information and and you just all you can do is look at what they claim go look it up go look up the what they're claiming look up the critiques of what they're claiming and then see what makes most sense to you do you think the critiques are valid or do you think that they're unfair do you think that what they're claiming and sometimes sometimes they can make a claim that's correct right like somebody is called earlier to say that the Bible says that the that a constellation is bound together and he's like and it is by gravity right it's like well sure it's bound by gravity but you know you see the Stars all clustered together so I mean it's like saying I'm bound to the earth by you know something well sure I see that so it's not that there's a lot of claims in the Bible that are not incorrect because they are actually things that people witnessed and observed and they're they are correct but I had somebody the other day post for example this this description of something that happened with Moses like why he saw a burning bush and they were jumping through hoops to explain like how a person could think they were talking to a burning bush like from a really purely scientific you know perspective and I wrote back and I said you know Moses is a myth right we don't really have to explain how he talked to a burning bush because there's no reason to believe Moses existed and so I mean like good no please go like Noah's Ark and stuff like that like we were talking about that today and I Church Noah's Ark there's like and I just realized that there's no no scientists seem to realize that there was a global flood like four thousand years ago right you're right that's commonly understood yeah it's funny how all the geologists and all you know like everybody that has anything to do with this it basically says we don't they're not they're not postulating a global flood and it was funny we had a caller the other day that I just said okay well I'll just give it to you because so we can move on with the conversation but he was saying that people were asking him well what happened all the water like where'd the water go it's like that's actually a very good question what happened to all the water where did it wouldn't it just if the planet was covered in water where did it go so there should be some geological evidence if there was such a large-scale flood and you'd be able to see it in the rock layers what you're gonna find out is that they seem to have no beef with anything in science except those aspects of science that don't back up what they're claiming and suddenly they have all kinds of problems with science and it becomes a giant god-hating conspiracy of you know atheist scientists who don't believe the Bible and they were not going to accept God and what's really interesting is that a lot of these scientists are believers right so a lot of the scientists involved in this this atheist conspiracy to disprove God in the Bible believe in God right Francis Collins was works with jeans or he's a genetic genetic scientist and he's actually made comments about how you basically just from genes alone you can see the evidence of evolution in a way that makes it impossible to to deny and this is a man who believes like Trinity Christianity right I mean this is like a hardcore Christian Christian this isn't just like it's deist so it's it's kind of amazing how they only seem to have issue with the science that is not biblically supported that's where they kind of go deep you okay so you would say like the biggest flaw with religion in general is it's the burden of proof basically you can't say that you can't say that basically someone's making the claim they have to back it up and it's you're you know you don't have enough evidence then you don't have to you yeah when you when you have to start saying that science is a conspiracy in order to support your position but and this is what happens a lot of times they'll say oh Jesus existed and they're you know and I know that this is a controversial thing that there are some a lot of people that are like you Jesus didn't exist there was no Jesus there was this you know there's there's a lot of different perspectives on it but let's just say for the sake of argument that there is this mythical guy at the core of the religious leader myth right of the miraculous Jesus so if you have that what they'll do is they'll pull out every biblical scholar that says that has it has requisite credentials that says Jesus existed as you know what there is a historic Jesus the moment you point out that those same scholars assert that he was very different and not the Son of God as the Bible Jesus suddenly they start disputing okay so a minute ago it was you can't just throw away all the work of these scholars and just take your you know like the mythos is who are the minority and you know and go with that just because it doesn't fit your narrative but the moment the majority of scholarship doesn't fit their narrative they do exactly that the same scholars they're accepting who are saying yeah there was a historic Jesus are the same scholars who say this this yep and it wasn't a miraculous son of God and yet they reject them went as soon as you hit that point okay so how about this event so are there any flaws in like Christian logic so when someone's trying to prove those main ones that you can have so that's really the question that I'm getting in you might want to look at just some fallacies in general right I mean how recognizing that because there's all kinds of you know there's our from popularity we'll lots of people you know and the arcanist for popularity are especially weird because those are just claims right so you have a writer who wasn't even there who's claiming that there was like 500 people that witnessed this thing and they all went and said this thing and there's really no it's just a story of a story of a story that he's writing down and yeah it becomes well this guy is claiming that he heard that there were all these people that saw this thing and then went and told other people and so all those people can be wrong and so it's like it's an argument from popularity where you don't even know that you had a popular population that even ever did this or said it or believed it and then another one is at antiquate 'm it's because it's really really old it stood the test of time and it's and what's hilarious is that you'll have people that that they'll turn their nose at the fact that there are older manuscripts than the Bible that have fiction written on them and oh of course those are really old stories but the Bible yes did the test of time I would read some there's Bart Bart Ehrman has a book out called misquoting Jesus where he just goes through what he learned in you know basically I don't know if it was seminary or Bible College whatever you call it where he was studying you know manuscripts that the Bible is based on like the Greek manuscripts and he writes about his experience and how he came to change his perspective from a very conservative you know young I don't have as a young earth creationist but very very literalist a Bible student to actually become far more open-minded and realized that hey these books aren't what I was raised to believe they were and he's a very readable author if you just want to see like what's really going on with the Bible that to me is very very impactive also if you want to focus just on Jesus David Fitzgerald's written a couple really good books if you want to start with nailed ten Christian myths that prove that Jesus never existed at all that's a fun read up a little help thank you guys so much yeah no problem all right well good luck with that and you know it can be tough in your situation but the good news is you sound like you're like an older teen so maybe you'll be out of the house soon I'm actually 16 right now alright so you got a couple years oh man I was a little girl back then thank you thank you I appreciate all right buh-bye yeah man yeah it was so far up my own keister when I was 15 alrighty so anyway what do you think we got a minute left let's um let's see what how it goes if we can do this or I don't know if if we can hit these in a minute there they both seem like long-term topics I'm up for running long if you up for if you're up for all right we'll give it a shot we'll try this is Matt in Moscow Idaho this is Tracy and Erik hey can you hear me yeah we can hear you oh very cool well I'm glad to be on the show very cool show I love listening to you guys talk I'm Eric in particular I watched the show recently you're on there with an aerospace engineer that was there and that was hilarious I've lived it yeah he do is amazing yeah it was very cool um anyways let's get into it um I grew up an independent fundamental Baptist and I'm looking into my beliefs more and I trying to find a term for what I believe in and the closest thing I can find is an agnostic contemporary deist because I believe in a God but I know that you can't prove or disprove that a God exists as far as I know you know there's no test that can be actually demonstrated to prove or disprove that so um I guess it's based on faith for me at this point would you agree with that it depends on your God there are some very very specific things that some people say about their deities and you can test those there's a there are some people who really truly believe in intercessory prayer and that's been tested there are people who believe in miracle healings and you can test for that but there is a specific claim here right because so I get what you know belief is different than then you know knowledge I get that and I'm down with that so you describe yourself as an agnostic deist you started out by saying you feel like it can't be the question can't be answered at this time so why are do you feel and need to subscribe a belief to it without without it's just getting better information I think that just judging the possibility of God existing or not at this point I can't rule that out but why would you then believe it right I exist if I can't rule out Bigfoot existing I don't say okay well then I guess I should believe Bigfoot exists the way I approach that problem is is by asking myself if a God did exist what would the qualities of that God be and I try to answer that question and see if there is a God out there that you know what what would it be like and you're saying that you have identified such a God I don't think I have I have identified things that that God can't be but you're saying that you believe what they're describing you as a as an agnostic deist and I'm interpreting that to mean that you accepted as true that a God exists am i misinterpreting you maybe maybe not I don't know I don't know if I would say it's true I just say that I would I am I believe in such a thing because I choose to it if that makes any sense at all I don't understand I'm trying to anything I'm trying to prove not prove it but I'm trying to prove it for myself or I can understand that my faith with logic yeah I mean I can understand wanting to demonstrate it like if somebody comes and claims something to me if I'm interested in it I can see me wanting to you know prove the claim like saying okay well then what would prove this claim let's see let's test this thing I can't see why I would believe it before I run the run the testing that's the process that I'm in it was mo I'm trying to determine what what that is and and if I can believe it or not you know okay okay I guess I'm starting from the other end because I I began my beliefs as a Baptist and I'm gotcha going away from that gotcha gotcha gotcha earning from that point of view okay I understand what you're talking about and I totally relate because I went through the same process I thought I heard you talk about about in a previous show and so it works out really well yeah I understand the point you're at so what is it that you need what are you looking for from us everything is we're not gonna help you prove I got you this so what could you need I mean a cool trick yeah um I think I was trying to figure out do you guys little directed to each of you I suppose do you take the position that God does not exist or do you simply refute the claim that I got does exist I refute the claim that a God exists and you Tracy I take the position that I can say a God does not exist to the same level of certitude that I could say that a fairy does not exist so while I cannot prove or disprove the existence of fairies I accept they do not exist for the same reasons that I would apply to a claim of God mm-hmm yeah I think that make sense to me I think I was trying to figure out you know you're asking a question earlier as to why I will even such a thing if I can't prove it right but I think I understand now why because you did describe yeah I situation I think it's uh I think it's kind of like a placebo if that makes sense I think a lot of people believe it because it makes them feel good about themselves or feel good about the possibility of something you know and I don't know if it actually has any positive effect but I think it makes people feel better about what they believe so I guess that's I had really strong feelings like I had super strong feelings that I had a soul and that a God existed and when the when I left the church that didn't go away right so I just kept I just felt like there was a God and I felt like I had a soul there wasn't you there was no arguing me out of my feelings right that was the problem and so I went on the journey trying to define what is God you know what am I calling God since I know it's not the Christian God anymore so what am i calling God what am i calling my soul and it was that deep dive into years of trying to figure out what I was talking about looking at all kinds of pseudoscience looking at science talking to people arguing with people that believed other things arguing with people who didn't believe anything about God you know just kind of running all this stuff you know narrowing it down changing it redefining it until there was nothing left and that's what happened to me now I can't say that's good what's gonna happen to everybody but you sound like you're in the middle of a similar process now where you're gonna end up I don't know but right my my stuff was tied to feelings like I felt like God was you know in my life I don't know if you have that same experience I feel like God is kind of a hand off God okay because I think that if he was omnipotent or omni-benevolent there would be a different world that we live in today how could it Greek yeah so then if the God is that distant right and so then and you're saying that you're hanging on to it and you think it has to do with the way you feel about things in your life but what kind of comfort does that give you that he doesn't do anything I'm not sure yeah I'm not sure if it's a comfort as far as I'm not sure if it's a comfort I don't know if that's the right word I don't really know how to explain that feeling I think it's more of the way I see it is if a God did exist I feel like that he would or it or she or whatever I feel like the God I feel like God would want some lesser being to understand him and the place that may have been created you know that we live in but it that a search for knowledge in that scenario is something that you would but wouldn't that entail leaving evidence I mean how else would we know the God um I think that that's a good question I don't I don't know how we could like if I look if I create everything and then I like totally block myself off from it and I don't intervene and I don't look at what's going on and I don't care about it at all how would that translate to me also wanting these beings to acknowledge my hand in this when I'm giving them nothing to go on literally that's a good point I don't know I mean I don't know either I'm not trying to like you know Sara there's the trap it's like no I'm just that's that's the first thing that pops into my head when you're describing your position that's why I'm calling you know I want you you know the types of questions and ideas I want to you know I want I want my beliefs to be tested because if there's something that I believe that's false and can be proven to be false then there's no point in me believing in that I would invite you I would invite you to post to the blog right this is Matt a caller Matt yeah I would say post some of this stuff to the blog because usually I'm gonna nine times out of ten you know you I'm not gonna say that there's there's nobody on there that can be brutal but nine times out of ten the the people are super cool with callers who are super cool so if you say hey I'm searching I'm calm the caller I was Matt I'm the one who's trying to work out my beliefs and here's kind of where I'm at with this I'm pretty sure that they're gonna throw down some challenges right most of them will be respectful challenges so I'm telling the blog posters right now be respectful Matt is being respectful on the call and I'm sure he'll be respectful on the blog and you should give him you know the benefit of the doubt give them some generous interpretations and give him some honest responses and be kind and at the same time Matt I'm gonna warn you that when you post to the blog it doesn't automatically post your post if you've never posted on our blog before so you'll have to get that post moderated so the first time you try to post nothing's gonna happen but it's only because your post is being for moderation the moment it gets moderated you can post freely after that does that make sense yeah sure okay so I would say go to the blog kind of think about how you want to define your beliefs put down sort of here are the high points of what I believe and I need some help to sort this out like please tell me you you know what what do you see is like the questions that come up from somebody making the claims that I'm making here and see what they say all right I'll check it out yeah do I think it'll be a funny I spent a lot of time in forums and you know sometimes I felt really beat up after you know after a harsh week or something but you know you it's it's like you say it's the only way to learn sometimes and and I'm doing my best to make sure that they handle you politely and civilly because you know we ought we want will always want everybody to be civil with the blog but especially when someone is searching and giving an honest set of questions for those who don't know the only the name of the blog is well it's it's the Atheist Experience blog attach a free thought blog so it's free thought write blogs /a XP I think is the address for it they'll probably put it up and in the meantime we're not going to Star of India we're already in at the free thought library tonight and Matt does that help you yeah no that's good I appreciate you starting to me it's difficult to find someone who doesn't get defensive about their bully yeah I talking to you guys about that hey I am always open to an honest scholar you know if you've got nothing to prove and you're just calling and you're like hey let's have a conversation here's what I think here's why I think it yeah I don't know why I think that but you know thanks for bringing it up I mean that that is to me is the best conversations just people that won't have it that well that's what I was here for thanks for talking to me thank you brother okay bye bye have a good one good yeah you too you know it the most intellectually honest thing to me is to be able to say I don't know when you asked him and in it and it he just you know what I don't know that's a good question holy moly stop the presses that is fantastic and did you notice I didn't smack him around I didn't say like good huh you know it's like oh yeah it was like okay well I mean I'm not here to trap people I'm not here I'm here just the said this thing it made me wonder about how that works in this regard and I asked the question and if you don't know the answer you're right you say I don't know it's a good point I hadn't thought about that and now you know what he can go home and he can think about it and maybe he'll come up with a reconciliation and say okay this is how I'm doing this maybe I should have worded it differently or maybe you know but whatever it'll help him define and redefine his thoughts it doesn't it's not about you know proving him wrong or changing his mind or it's just about he's thinking he's thinking about his beliefs and he's thinking about how he wants to define these things and that's only good only good agreed agreed do we have time or do you think we're gonna this is your call well I'm gonna say I mean I'm the host technically but well the only things that I want to say and make sure to get out is hey everybody we had two hundred thousand subscribers let's get to 300 thousand faster if you haven't liked and subscribed to the Atheist Experience you're watching it on YouTube do that now and if you know somebody who wants to see it pass it along let's do that give talki that's um we want to catch up this is our big sister show and we're just so proud to be on here okay we're 13 minutes past let's do it all right we're gonna try so this is gonna be Justin in Colorado Springs you're on with Tracy and Erik hi hey yeah I just I know like atheists don't believe in anything not even nothing I'm assuming that you don't believe in the Bible well I mean I don't believe that everything in it is literally true if that's your asking yes that that would be correct okay but since science does back up the Bible then why do you think the other things are not true okay we talked to a guy earlier who believes that the a man was swallowed by a fish and survived three days in the belly of that fish and then got spat up on a shore and survived and this is a guy that was trying to tell us about the sign two proofs of the Bible who referenced something in Jonah and when I pointed out that Jonah survives three days in the belly of a fish only to be vomited on a shore somewhere he basically said that's a miracle and I said okay so your Bible is scientifically accurate except for when it's not is that the point do you have anything better than what he offered you believe in miracles do you believe in miracles in the miracles in the Bible okay so you believe that it's scientifically accurate except for when it's not it's not scientifically accurate in that part exactly I can't anybody can write a book that's scientifically accurate except for when it's not it's pretty much all bugs yeah like that that's the power of God though he can yeah but that that's when it's not scientifically accurate so me and you agree that the Bible is not always scientifically accurate you just simply call it a miracle and say there's no problem there and I say that's a big problem your Bible is not scientifically accurate you simply excuse it as magic well you don't I think you need to think some more about this maybe post to the blog or call back another time give that some thought and we will talk to you next week or whenever you call back again you're free to post at the blog I will give you the same advice I gave Matt which is that your first post will need to be moderated so please don't panic if you go to post and nothing shows up once you get moderated once your comment goes through you will be able to post at will and you will not need moderation after the first comment does that make sense yeah okay so go for it and that was Justin that was good [Applause] probably want pizza I want pizza you know I apologize to to our producer to whom I had said yes let's do audience questions because okay if they're like no no pizza pizza I think I think we're good to go so how do we how do we sign this off how do we finish this um they're supposed to tell us I have I usually have like a like a goodbye we don't have a goodbye we need it there is it so we are done and done that's my goodbye bye [Music]

Channel: The Atheist Experience

Views: 115,732

Keywords: TheAtheistExperience, Atheist Experience, atheist, experience, atheism, religion, religious, faith, belief, secular, science, reason, rational, proof, evidence, logic, fallacy, Tracie Harris, argument, God, Eric Murphy

Id: EbTsWsn-lu4

Length: 107min 31sec (6451 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 15 2018