Atheist Experience 23.26 with Matt Dillahunty & Don Baker

[Music] [Music] [Music] there's a raucous group of people here not a huge crowd but a loud crowd hi hey welcome to atheist experience today's June 23rd 2019 with the usual addendums after how are you good good to see you I'm at Aulani hosting this week's show and joining me Don Baker hey you good to be here and now so you've done this show actually longer than I have a little bit yeah like a year or so something like that which means we've both been here for a decade and a half yeah we're getting to be old timers we wanted to talk about something Don of course has a failure that we're gonna get to and then we'll get to calls and I just wanted to take a few minutes there's gonna be a bunch of announcements and they in the coming weeks on a number of different subjects but there's one thing that I wanted to address which some of you are aware of and some of you are not there are four people who were previously on the Atheist Experience who have left to the Atheist experience some of them have left the ACA to go pursue their own interests and other things some of them are still involved in the ACA or taking a break or whatever else and that would be Tracy Jenn Phil and John I Coletti and you might be going holy crap that's like everybody except for you and Don yes which is one of the reasons why we added Jenna but there was a lot there were talking back and people always trying to stir up drama I wanted to make it clear and I'm glad Don's here to join me kind of in this look back of the show these people are our friends who dedicated in some cases 13 or more years of their life to doing something they love this show they deserve nothing but our respect and thanks and our best wishes as they go forward to something else and at some point it's not out of the realm of possibility that some of them might come back they're not the first people leave the show well Meyer also made big contributions to the ACA oh yeah all of them well our zoos and Martin Wagner let's show Ashley Perry unless the show Jeff T let's show Russell glass let's do it there are lots but been lots of people who've been involved this is a changing evolution but in this case with these four people we have John who was the treasurer of the ACA for three 18 14 15 gazillion d1 years then you have a former president and vice president engine a former I believe VP in Tracy but definitely a former VP and Phil there's been so many position changes over the years my big thing is that don't pay attention to the rumors the only thing that matters is that there were four people who dedicated a huge chunk of their life to doing this shows mission they were my friends they are my friends I appreciate everything they've done I am sad to see some of them go the show will continue and we're hoping to make improvements and make things better and and that's it I mean I can't possibly thank people enough there were some people who are like oh you lived and that's a bed that no if it turns no matter what your reason is like some day I'm gonna leave the shadow and my reason is probably going to be I'm either no longer able to do it or things have changed so much that what I want to do is now not the same thing as is what's happening on the show and when that comes if anybody says anything other than you know thanks for the time you put in don't let the door hit your ass on the way out I'll be grateful and but Don and I as the two people who've been here the longest in the current batch yeah well no in the previous batch there's nobody that it's done it as long as you and I have oh really I'll be darned yeah cuz okay well you're the trooper because you've been doing it nearly every week and I'm on just occasionally that's all right you actually come with content I just talk so we'll call it a go to the phone really well but anyway we wanted to say Oh a special note to Tracey Phil Jenn and John who are not part of the Atheist Experience now maybe they will be again in the future maybe not welcome them back yeah and and we're thrilled that the response that jen has received I saw Jenna for like two minutes and I was like yeah let's try her out on the show and then she was here for one show and I'm like thank you yeah hey happy to have you okay so yeah dawn and I are doing the show we got Jenna we're looking for potentially another host but we're gonna have a lot of guests and that's the point that I wanted to get to right before his fit failure for this week is next Sunday we will have Darryl ray on the show for those you who aren't familiar we talked about recovering from religion the organization all the time that's Darrell's baby he'll be down in the Austin and San Antonio area working both with the ACA on various shows and fact I believe it's fact in San Antonio on their stuff then the following week it'll be possibly we have to finish working out the details me and Seth Andrews because that went so well last time we thought we'd get some guests back we are gonna have some guests we are going to be working on the the tech to do some remote guests I've got some people in mind but at the end of the day this shows Collard driven so seems to me the key is to get as many good callers as we can yeah yeah we'll continue to do that how did you stumble on to the Atheist experience the first time I became involved with the ACA and immediately was drawn to the whole lecture scene because I I'm an academic or I used to be an academic and so I gave a number of lectures and then they they invited me onto the show Ashley and Martin back back from the day and had me on as a guest and it didn't go badly I'll say I got invited back yeah yeah so at some point Martin and Ashley were doing the show as a pair for many many weeks they did they were the host and co-host and play and that's all it takes a lot of stamina to do that every single week and they sort of cried uncle at some point and and said you know we gotta back off from this and we went to a rotating co-host right and rotating host at one point we had two hosts and five or six co-hosts right and the biggest thing that bothered me was that means the co-host is gonna be on every other month yeah it's a longer rotation but I think it's good in that we get a lot of different voices and pairs of voices and dynamics and it makes the show a little more interesting to have rotation the by the way the week after July 7th I won't be here I have to go to Phoenix for a magic convention so even I don't know if it's a on the schedule yet but I believe I believe that the July 12th weekend or whatever is going to be you and Jenna doing a show together okay sounds lovely well we'll figure that out on that note you have a failure for us to consider to do I do this may have it this will be number 64 if you're keeping track so the Bible and Christian history are loaded with murder torture persecution and atrocities I bring this up fairly often and how do Christians respond well via lame rationalizations of course and if you ever hear any of these rationalizations you can be sure someone's trying to dodge responsibility for some evil and their some of this has been in the news even lately and if you believe these rationalizations you're part of the problem and if you're utter them you're aiding and abetting as far as I'm concerned so there's actively perpetrating evil arguing the evil Bible and spinning past evil actively perpetrating evil there's a quote from Psalm 108 with God on our side we will win he will defeat our enemies and so God is God is on our side is is the cry of folks that want to you know claim that they're on the side of righteousness whether they are or not and it started off as the cry of the Jews because they were God's chosen people and so they would continually saying God is on their side but now it's kind of like Oh a god what are you doing with this right right and of course there's got me tons the German phrase and you can look that up what how that was used there's an culture who had a book called godless the Church of liberalism so if so V if the other side doesn't have God then you'd have God and so it's it's kind of her way of saying God's on her side so there's a claim of divine guidance in I call of course because you would be helpful to prove that a God exists first and then you can start using him for your advertising if he if he consents perhaps but it is true that God is party to some pretty evil in the Bible and so maybe he is on your side and we're on this we're on the side of humanity that's kind of an interesting point though about whether or not God consented because if I were to go like on Twitter mm-hmm and say Oh something just outrageous and then I said Don Baker agrees with me and then you never said anything right your silence would be viewed as tacit antacid readmission right so that's the only sort of agreement that we ever get from a God as this tacit silence there and so if there is a God then he must be in agreement with all of the worst things that have been he's been saddled with because he hasn't bothered to set the record straight that's right I agree with that that's right well if you're arguing about the Bible I often hear well that was the Old Testament mmm don't you love that as my it's my favorite and it wasn't that the same perfect God that in the same moral code or are you calling God a screw up that he had to you know come and fix things and God has a screw-up he is this group he's like he starts and he and then it goes bad and then he he says oh I got a way to fix it and then it goes bad and he's like oh I can fix that too and then it goes bad it's like it I'm gonna have to kill everybody except for this family and that it goes bad and then all right well instead of trying to save everybody I'm just gonna save the Jews and then it goes bad and it's a comedy of failure oh yeah yeah it'll be a comedy if it weren't such a tragedy and the stuff in the New Testament is far worse Jesus's follow him or be tortured so that's that's probably far worse than what can't I do both yeah oh wait I would say you can and if God these two revise as perfect moral code why not get the latest version which might be the Quran or the book of Mormon right you should be should be using those for the book of Eric which which Eric must have taken with him because not here okay some fern filed some of the books so if God messed up the first time and what makes you think you got to write the second time or the third time or how can you trust any of it one of the apologizes of course is that God didn't mess up at any of those times it was flawed human beings that messed up except that God's the one that created flawed human beings with the expectation that they weren't going to be flawed so he up even worse right and then he punished the human beings for being yeah yeah another phrase you hear is God had to change his message for the times and that's often used with slavery I don't I don't think I need to unpack that when apologizing for Christianity's evil past I hear those who aren't true Christians they weren't they weren't you know believers like I am and this is of course I know true Scotsman fallacy right it's changing the moving the goal posts and how do Christians differ through the times really we have the same holy book the same blind faith the same relationship with God the same God bla bla bla and it always seems that this definition of true Christian is always changing and flapping in the wind depending on whatever is going to be self-serving for the person who's using this sure and that's how it is and you know these these people who have done evil might be marching under the banner of Christianity but if you're if you claim they're not true Christians you guys need to figure out who is the true Christians and let us know it's not it's not the Atheist jobs to fix your fix your problems and and it seems very clear to me that there will never be a Christianity test because there's just too damn much money to be made duping the gullible and and and casting a wide net and bringing in as many people as possible so you guys could fix that if he wanted spinning past evils here's another one the devil made me do it and this reminds me of the old Flip Wilson sketches from the 70s do you have to be a certain age to to remember these but he portrayed a woman Geraldine Jones who had who had a phrase the devil made me buy this dress and it was all very very very humorous and and he made the phrase the devil made me do it a kind of a common phrase throughout the United States I have a friend whose unlikely to see this but I'm gonna say this just for her benefit gangster-rap made me do it alright so both with the the the Vatican abuse of clergy issue they've used tools of Satan to describe you know the this this thing and you know Satan's Satan's in charge apparently here's a here's a quote because he's marvelous Pope and worthy successor to john paul ii it's clear the devil wants to grab hold of him concerning poe press injure the recently in the baptist sex scandal has been excused as demonic and my response to this is if the devil is running your organization maybe they should be shut down so that they don't do any more harm anyway here's another one we're all sinners so this is one of the most annoying ones to me and it's it's like saying we're all human but not all some humans don't have to rationalize their evil because they're not doing it so this is really kind of a lame excuse and atheists of course don't recognize sin as a meaningful concept we're not about sticking up our heads up the butt of an invisible mass murdering monster and we do we do recognize an in front humanity when we see one and so screw the screw the sin stuff here's another one thou shalt not judge or God will get you for pointing out my evil and this is nothing more than an agreement between thugs and this is nothing good can come from this attitude and I want people to judge me I want people to tell me when I'm screwing up so that I can make things better and I want I reserve the right to do the same and that's how we make the world a better place and that's kind of the basis of secular morality is is we figure out what's wrong we go fix it finally in conclusion Christianity and other religions seem to be have some challenges in the personal responsibility front and since personal responsibility is not on the agenda rationalization is the next best thing or is it is it best I'm not so sure it seems to work ok with the gullible the people that are known as sheep and it does not work with atheists and people that have a strong moral compass and there really is no excuse for this evil and so why double down and try to spin it the actual evil and the lame rationalizations and spin are both failures of Christianity ok ok and obviously nobody will bother disagreeing with that get some ascent in the audience yeah we're gonna go ahead and jump to calls as a reminder we're here at the freethought Library in Austin Texas where are you you weren't sure didn't you tell me you're gonna be here today yeah it's anyway this building's open 7 days a week from roughly 11 and 9:00 or so and we're producing 8 or 9 different programs that didn't give in time there's something going on here at the building and what happens on Sundays is that we do this talk even show which today ran like oh I don't know an hour and some change over seemingly yeah we Jamie and I would just went on and on okay but then we do atheist experience and then all those people who actually bothered to show up who are on the other side of glass and in the back room and out on the back porch viewing area we're gonna have dinner just dinner like I'm pretty sure today we're ordering pizza ok there will be pizzas here for people if you're not in the Austin area I you know I'm not going to tell you to move well you can't move here but you can visit we get a surprising number of visitors by the way show of hands who on the other side of the glass it does not live in Austin Wow about half of the folks are at least a third wow that's great yeah so that's what's that's what's going on let's get to calls okay who would we like first one go with John sure John and San Antonio says that you believe there's a lot of truth in the deep truth in the Bible despite human error so thanks for calling you're on with Matt and Dawn yeah yeah hey what's up it's me John yeah I just heard y'all talking and I feel like a loser thought atheists have like a personal is the cut grudge against God or something but I don't I don't have a personal grudge against God because I don't think God exists or as a person I have what I don't like is when irrational and harmful beliefs are accepted by a good chunk of the population without good reason yeah I was calling because I was and I was just saying basically that I don't think the Bible I mean I don't I don't agree Howie I don't like how y'all ignore the fact that you know science politics and religion are very good tools of indoctrination and regulation but you're only focusing on you know the religious part of things and and you well this is an atheism show right yeah but that's my whole point the whole point the other thing is that the other thing is that's why you can be indoctrinated into any position science is not an indoctrination process and while politics is in a religion no science science is not a religion nor is it an indoctrination process okay so you think you're telling me okay anyway that's a that's a that's your belief I don't want to argue about it well then you shouldn't have called the show yeah they ain't no because yeah that's I was like just calling to say that there is truth in the Bible and so what is matter there's truth and there's truth in a spider-man comic to just I just call in saying that there's something true in the Bible and it's easy to focus on all the things that is wrong but what is right about it it's it doesn't matter what write about it because what's write about the Bible what's right what you do what's right what's right about the Bible and true is irrelevant to whether or not the foundations of the Bible are true so the Bible can say good things like sell your belongings give the mind of poor but that doesn't mean that that message has come from a god or that that book has anything to tell us about how what a God is or what a god wants or anything else so the things that you could point to that are true in the Bible are trivial and they exist outside of the Bible so it's not like you needed the Bible to find those things that are true and if it's written by God shouldn't it all be true one thing I always argue with people that are religious is that God is not just within the Bible that God is everywhere and well I would argue that God is not necessarily in the Bible and apparently nowhere so proves believe that no it's not belief no no stop John I don't choose to you keep doing this defensive thing of pretending shut up shut up you keep doing this defensive thing of pretending you understand what I think and then demonstrating that you actually don't you said you don't believe in God you said got a rat roast so that's a belief I know you don't know that you you believe it saying you can't prove oh my god are you gonna stop I'm done saying I do not believe in God but I'm willing for you to demonstrate evidence for the God you believe in that's my position reveals himself to you God reveals himself to us every day blade service to see it or not prove it prove to me that right is real unless you experience it you'll never know it okay but if I'm blind you can never tell me with words what it is you are flat wrong in that time how would you explain Raymond if you'd stop interrupted me and let me finish my sentence I tell you do you think that people who are color blind cannot be shown that they are in fact color blind I didn't say that there were the fact that the color of I said they can't experience the color red you with words you cannot you cannot oh my god he experienced the red I didn't say that there now where the fact that they're colored but I'm not finished I'm not finished you would learn something if you would just let me finish all right I'm done I'm sorry let's say dawn is colorblind and he can't tell the difference between red and green he will never know what it's like to see red in the same way that I do but it may be the case that nobody will ever know what it's like to see red in the way that I do however I can demonstrate conclusively to dawn that there is a red and that there is a green and that people can in fact do discern this and that there is technology that can discern this in addition to just human senses correct oh wait I want is a question I'm go you're not you know you're not no you're not this is a simple question can you simplify it again there would like less than John's colorblind John's colorblind but I can demonstrate conclusively to him that red and green are actual things that he cannot distinguish Bell would you demonstrate that to me if I was a blind because you're saying colored brain I'm talking about somebody being blind not able to see anything goodbye see here's the thing you have to do things in little bitty steps and the second your brain recognizes that we've taken the first steps towards showing the second step and third step which will show how absolutely asinine your position is you go into defensive mode and spin things around so I'll do this for you if someone happens to be red and green colorblind they can't distinguish between red and green we now understand the various causes for this including defects within the eye as well and if somebody is in fact red and green colorblind I can demonstrate to them the truth that red exists and green exists or that these are colors that other people can perceive and we can do this both with human eyes in double-blind experiments to hold up cards hey is this red as this green as this red as a screen is show that people who can distinguish between red and green can get a 100% success rate in identifying and distinguishing between two even if Don can't that's how I can demonstrate that red and green are there if someone is totally blind that still applies to them because they are now able to discern that someone can tell the difference between two things that they can't see at all it's even more powerful to a blind person that oh my gosh not only can you people see and demonstrate that you can see a test but there are variations in things though I can't even comprehend because I can't see them your your narrow view of the world that there would be no way to explain to someone who is incapable of seeing that other people can see is so monumentally stupid that it's embarrassing that we have to address it because we live in a world where for the entire history of human beings we have had people who do not have site and we've dealt with it and all of them have accepted that they can't see and get someone else can it is a fairly trivial exercise to demonstrate this and the fact that you want to go to that because your argument is well I've experienced God and you won't ever believe me until you experience God will congratulations if that's true if the key is that you have done some experiment that proves God to you and I haven't well you may in fact be warranted but until you demonstrate that to the rest of us who are blind you're not and it is just fundamentally logically identical to I am convinced I experienced this I can't prove it to any of you but I'm right and how do we distinguish that from a delusion yeah yeah oh well you can't teach a blind person this yes you can all kinds of stuff but people without sight are just as brilliant and able to understand these things as most anybody else other than you who called it's frustrating because I know the path that he's going down I've experienced God I understand you haven't so I'm not gonna hold that against you that you don't believe in God God just hasn't deigned to demonstrate to you now if you change those things I can see things I know that you can't I'm sorry that nature has prevented you from seeing things but you're just gonna have to take my word for it that I can see things do you see the difference in the experimental process there one is faith based bias bald-ass assertion and the other one is science which isn't a religion and isn't about indoctrination it's a test methodology that removes those biases and removes the baggage that you are carrying around okay okay oh you don't have to applaud for everything we have available in Florida does the Bible teach you how to be successful and motivated welcome to show you're on with Donna Matt hi my name is Abel and I'm kind of you know Christian but not really you know keep religion I just want to understand that does the Bible teach everybody how to be motivated to be successful like you know you know like some people who start from scratch and they start to read the Bible and they help to continue growing in a motivated it doesn't that possibly true well you started the question what does the Bible teach everybody and so they had the answer that's no because not everybody's gonna read or pay any attention to it or was even familiar with it but if I understand your question you're really saying can we get useful guidance from a book like the Bible okay is that is that the question yes yes sure but the the reason it's useful is not because it's in the Bible it's useful because it's true there are true things and useful things and all kinds of religions but those things are true and useful even if that religion is ultimately false so the Bible can say things like you know don't murder and Don and I are in agreement murders wrong but we didn't need the Bible to reach that conclusion and the Bible alone could never have got is there yet I would add that that the one glaring counter example here is is probably prayer right if if if this I there's this idea in the Bible you can pray and get whatever you want and that's you know good direct quotes from Jesus supposedly and and a number of places and all and you know if you can praise for stuff why bother working for it why not just you know say God gimme gimme gimme and that seems to be kind of you know there's there's this idea of secular humor and humanism which basically says hey we're the only guys around where God's not gonna solve our problems we have to go do it our elves and what could be more motivating than that yeah I personally happen because you know sometimes I don't have to ask God all this thing you know I could do myself like I'm okay you know they cut my parent they kind of forced me to pray and you know I'm not my parent would it'll force me to pray that they just ask what I want at it that's all a lot I don't need to ask God you know so you're not trying to be yeah sometimes the reason why I don't believe that kind of much is I think the Bible destroyed the system because like what I remember when I was in Middle School the book is called Salem witch trial you remember that story Salem witch trials yes yes yes more than a story it really happened yeah it is that like what I read it I like oh that's strange is how come they people believe that kind of way and then this because of devil whatever kind of no it's because the Bible says thou shalt not suffer a witch to live the instruction is expressly in the Bible to kill witches Exodus 20 something like this happened 1700 you know and I'm like whoa and I leaned back and I was trying to like a study understanding you know what did that mean study the Bible a little bit and I'm not reading a Bible I stopped reading a Bible and I'm kind of like a little bit X Gnostic you know I might be a theist if I want to but and I try my best and I see you do you believe a God exists I don't know you know I try to figure out I'm asking you about your beliefs and so you know presumably you're the only one who could know that yeah you're either convinced some God exists or you're not convinced and if you're not convinced then you're an atheist under some level some label yeah I mean yeah it could capacitor you know I don't I don't I don't you know because I was because I have most of my family are very religious and I'm only one person though you're not push me to support you know they don't push me to pray it'll cause me to did all this things I gotta force me to go to church so I just you know I just be careful and - because what I believe I believe like morality III kind of deep into into a philosophy way when in what is the common sense you know and all that kind of stuff so I like some you know it thinks I said even college I think it's kind of mix into me instead of like crazy whatever by oh you should ask before you did this I'm like what what do you talk about you know there's one thing you there's one thing you said that that I'd kinda like to push back on for you to think about is you said well it's possible well how did you determine that it was possible that for a god to exist well sometimes people believe you know they think it's you know like when I look at it it's very people believe that way what you know they think is his spirit they come to them you know I don't know I can't I can't even explain that way God is is the label that people apply when they don't know something so it's like it's like let's imagine that I have a pair of dice behind my back and I roll them and I ask you is it possible that I just rolled a 27 no actually it is because I didn't say they were six-sided dice so if I have dice but let's say I have two six-sided dice in my hand and you don't know that and I say I'm gonna throw these dice is it possible for me to roll a 24 now with you not knowing how many sides are on the dice your temptation because you know it's possible if I have like a 20 side or in this exciter you know that's possible into that scenario and so the temptation is to say hey yeah it is possible and then when I show you that I have 2/6 ciders now you know it actually wasn't possible despite the fact that you reach the conclusion that it was this is the this is the the potential error that I'm cautioning you to consider that when you say something is possible you need to be able to demonstrate that just the same as when you say something is impossible and and and if you don't have enough information to reach the conclusion then the one and only right answer is I don't know if that's yeah III I'm trying to learn you know that's I'm not I'm not like you know you know I'm not that kind of other religion you know argue with you I just understanding your perspective that's all I want to know this yeah let me throw something else out I got at you there's often a presumption that there's a single God and and and that it's the Christian God and it's like no it's not necessarily mankind is made made up you know all sorts of gods and different religions have different sorts of gods and they're all incompatible with each other and so which God are you talking about yeah it's one of those things yeah we got it we got to figure out which god is possible then which one out of all the possible gods which right now I think the set is as close to zero as possible to demonstrate possibility of a God then you got to go okay which one are we talking about and okay that's why so it's like the previous caller who was trying to pretend that he could read my mind and it happened over and over again on nonprofits where I was just you've never even considered this and I'm like you know what I've considered I've been doing this for 15 to 20 years and you think that I haven't considered the most basic question about Oh have you thought about is it possible that no gods exist you know it's one of those things I get it people are at different stages people access different information we are all including me and Dawn and everybody else still learning stuff yeah yeah yeah I mean why I came from I'm from Ethiopia Ethiopia is one of the most a religion country and ever so there's not a lot of atheists who ever be coming there not a lot of Ethiopia communities because they're afraid it's going to happen to them it's gonna hurt them so I'm glad I'm in the United States I could say whatever I want to say you know yeah we're great freedoms for sure yeah on that note Abel that on that note Abel we're gonna let you go so we can move on to some other callers keep thinking about it call us back if you have other questions or if you come across some new site or whatever but yeah keep exercising the freedom to use your brain and explore things and to speak your mind thank you so much thanks man thanks yeah it's funny because I I remember a call oh we had somebody talking about censorship earlier and so we had this discussion and Verne printed up a little xkcd comic to hand out but it is impossible for me to censor you a censorship comes from the government if I hang up on you that's no different from if you came over to my house and started saying stuff I didn't like I get to remove you from my house that's that's the way that goes it's not censorship you can stand out on the street until my neighbors call the cops and then you can go find another street that's you know public and stand there with your sandwich board screaming about how the end is nigh and or you can even go join one of those independent baptist pumpkin loving churches that are out to kill all the homosexuals the LGBTQ community and it just needs to die according to these people yeah or you can choose to do what I do which is every time those little nasty-ass bigots show up and start talking about people I will now put on Taylor Swift's new song you need to calm down which is turning me into a much calmer person Ahn it is a video you should go watch it's okay Matt showed it to me just now it was awesome it's done we've got David in Georgia you're on with Donna Matt hey guys how's it going good yes sir I'm seeing a lot on y'all cellar y'all sit there and bring up the subject of slavery I was just asked and as the atheist has the moral high ground regards to slavery I do I've never enslaved anybody I've never advocated for slavery I have an understanding of morality and I should be able to preach about anything that is demonstrably immoral what what qualifications look hang on what qualifications would someone need to point out that slavery is an injustice well my thing is is it like you were just mentioned in your home so if we went to your house and checked all your good your shoes your electronics your computers your cell phones your groceries everything in your house and if we back Tracy and we can see which department of labor statistics show that it's made by slave labor child slave labor when that make you an agreement and accordance with slave labor since you purchased those goods if I was actually aware of it and didn't take actions then I'm at least somewhat complicit but I'm not one there's a difference between someone saying it is okay to own people as property and someone merely being a consumer of goods that are discovered to be through inappropriate and actually most of those cases it's whether or not that counts as slavery is property this is just abuse of humans in general but the high ground here the high ground here isn't I've never bought an item that was ultimately manufactured by children working in terrible conditions the high ground is in saying we should not live in a world and we should not advocate for a world that permits children and others to work in unacceptable conditions it's like if you continue to Bob that buy the products made by this labor you're a perpetuator of the system and therefore have no moral high-ground whatsoever to get known slavery because you support it ok well then I don't have any reason to talk to you because if you're going to equivocate to the point where anybody who might who might be actively opposed to this and yet is incidentally guilty because they bought something and equate that with a book supposedly giving a message from God to say thou shalt buy thy slaves from the heathen who surround you this is like if I if I got a new car and somebody wrecked it and we went to court and the jury gave me an incredibly good verdict and I managed to get you know after that car accident to live the rest of my life without working in a nice house with a nice car because I was injured and this jury decided to Ward that verdict that would be like you coming to me afterwards and say hey you know some of those juries they've been in car accidents before and they were just pissed off about that they didn't get anything out of it so they gave it to you that doesn't mean that I am advocating for vigilante justice that doesn't mean I'm advocating for jury nullification it doesn't mean that I'm advocating for outrageous jury Awards it just means that you've pointed to something where I've been fitted from something but if you have someone who's standing here saying slavery is wrong and you have person next to them standing there saying slavery is right and you point at both of us and say yeah well you both have Nikes that were made by children working in slave conditions you're missing the point so so David is slavery wrong it slavery wrong yes it is okay was was your God was was the Christian God wrong to to advocate for it can you show me in the Bible where slavery exists where slavery exists or where they were the Bible or where the Bible advocates slavery either or thank you Exodus 21 Exodus 21 correct you got a King James Bible handy sure I got every Bible handy there's an internet we want to street it to you yes please give me the verse that advocates for slavery in the Bible and then Jesus well we're wasting time because I have addressed this seemingly every week but I have a video on my youtube channel shut up and let me finish no you good bye jackass I'm done wasting time on this we talk about it every week and every week I show that I'm right and every week somebody accused me of being disingenuous when they are and somebody gives me had taken it out of context when they are I've already done a video if you go to youtube and search for atheist debates slavery you will find me not just pointing to what the Bible says but reading it showing the context and going verse by verse through this there's absolutely no reason for me to waste time on the 50th a slavery apologist who wants to call the show to pull up the verses in Exodus 21 that specifically allow you to buy the heathen from the slave or buy your slaves from the heathens and surround you that you can beat slaves as long as they don't die within a day or two that they are your property they are your money you're not to be punished if something happens to them other than you let them go if you put out there.i etcetera that there are different rules for Hebrew slaves than there are for non Hebrew slaves that there you have to let them go after seven years or you can trick them into actually being your slaves for ever by getting them married because yet let the man go but you don't let the woman go and if he wants to stay with his wife then he has to come forward and say hey I love my master and I don't want to be free in which case you put his ear to the door you drive a spike through it to pierce the air to show that he's now your property forever and immune from this seven-year thing and then I'm sure you'll come back with the yah but the fifty years and you'll come back with it yeah but that's not God saying you can have slave jesus down on it too jesus never actually acknowledges anything about it doesn't bother to correct it Paul doubles down on it and says that you should obey slaves obey your masters in the Lord for this is good even the cruel ones I don't need to go through this all matter of fact here's what I'd like to do somebody on the other side of this wall and they'll put up a picture any second here while I'm talking are the people who actually make the show happen there back there handling the video heading the audio during the call screening there they are those people are awful a quick note write it on a post-it for Mark or whatever I want to graphic that we can put up that just shows the slavery video with a link give me a tiny URL for it and every time some jackass calls asking me to pull up Exodus 21 and read it to him again I can say here's the video here's the link to the video go read it yourself I'm not here to do your homework for you that's where we're going on that just because they doesn't exist in your church doesn't mean it's not in the Bible I have in fact already done your homework for you which is how I'm not you we've got Brian in Las Vegas what am I probably a second favorite town you're on with Matt and Don yes how you doing can you hear me yes I think I heard Don say he hates los hey you did go ahead Brian I like it because all the magics there used to be here I just want to be real quick I just wanted to put out whole points that everybody could think about okay the first point I wanted to put out is minds only come from other minds the second point I wanted to put out is prompts I'm not sure I even understand that the second anytime there's an existing of a mind it only comes through from another life force or mine it never comes through non-biological process well well I would agree that we're aware of no mines that have not come through a biological process but except for we're working very hard on AI which is gonna be potentially a silicone version of it which is not a biological process right but AI is also not won't be self-aware though it won't feel it won't happen you know that we don't know I don't know how you could just assert that because I don't know what the answer is I don't see any reason why true ai ai is like it would be like a computer but it's not gonna be sofa we're how do you know that you cannot do that how do you know that because it's just matter without a soul hey I okay now we're there off the rails back in here we don't believe there's a soul okay and I have a mind and I don't see anything that is contingent upon a soul or any demonstration of a soul so you've entered a new word in the conversation in order to undergird your assertion that AI won't be self-aware but okay that is assuming that is assuming facts not in evidence so it just becomes an assertion okay okay so we have some issues with your first one what's your second one my second one is pumps such as like a fuel palm oil pump pumps only come from a designer so anytime there's a pump it only comes by design that's not true that that's just not true you could look at my heart as a pump and there's no evidence that it was designed at all into that not a pump has a purpose the heart has a purpose doesn't we never think yes yes don't let do your body no no no no stop stop stop you are describing what it does purpose Oh might no stop you are describing what it does purpose is oh my god I love it purpose is different so if I take a hammer purpose and function are different if I take a hammer which was designed for the purpose of hammering nails and I use it to Club a baby seal am I using it for its purpose no but it's still a function so in order to demonstrate that there is function with purpose you have to actually demonstrate that you don't just get to assert just like you say there can't be self-awareness without a soul now you're saying there can't be function without a purpose and that's simply not true I you know what's the purpose some things have multi purposes things that we invent and create but what's the purpose of a tree there's no evidence that there was an intent to put a plant down that converts carbon dioxide to oxygen that's what it does that is one of many things that a tree does but you have no evidence that this was an intended purpose of a tree I want to go back on that hammer because the hammer the hammer is is only operates through somebody making an intent with it now if it's built for nails and hammers and somebody says I'm going to club a baby that's a choice the heart doesn't have a choice it just simply has a purpose that's totally different I understand that's why I went to the tree example I picked two to put a button on this to show why you can't just assume an intentional purpose and pumps only comes from minds and another life force okay like a heart okay euro for two so far the fact the fact that a pump the fact that something kept that can be described as a punk pump only comes from an intentional purpose of a mind or natural processes right there there's no pump that only that comes from a non-biological process no no I didn't say I didn't say non-biological I said natural but the only time you could get biology is with life and life comes through about apart from just simply non you have an electrical process you have no idea how life came about desert doing came by a life force another you don't know that how can you demonstrate that what's the life we see that observable evidence no no no no this is this is this is a mistake this is a fallacy the fact that stop the fact that we observe Jesus I swear just stop for a second this is easy okay the fact that we have observed something let's say a thousand times where a always leads Jesus Christ yeah should we observe something minute if you would shut up and let me finish because here's the thing here's the thing with the audio the second you say something and the with the history of the callers see perfect this is the perfect sample I'm put you on hold I will take you off holding second let's assume that for 15 years every time I'm in mid-sentence and I hear a sound come through my earbuds it's been somebody desperate to interrupt me to continue down their path it's reasonable for me to assume that that's what you're doing even if all you wanted to do was just agree with me but the fact that I have that bulk of experience of a always leads to B doesn't mean that a always leads to B or that B is always the result of a it could be the case that you were simply saying I agree continue so it's a mistake for me to assume that because I've seen a particular pattern that that is necessarily required you could look at it as the black swan fallacy if every swan you've ever seen is white you might be tempted to say there are no black swans and you would be wrong and so if every pump you've ever seen comes about by biological processes or by the intent of a mind you could reasonably get to that point that that's what happens but you would be wrong you would be fallacious you cannot yes necessarily it's a fallacy we see we see these observations a billion zillion times a day all over the world and there's not another alternative you know what we've never seen you know what we've never seen what a god or a God doing anything or a life force or so they're you happy who says you have to see him where his work his word is unseen I have no demonstration that he has any word you are once again assuming facts not in evidence that's my video for this week is assuming fact into your heart your heart is how do you know that prove it prove it prove it no no that's a fallacy how can you know God in your heart if it's made for plats a fallacy it's a logical fallacy this is an undeniable if you're saying how can you know God in your heart if it's made for pooping in labs right now I'm talking about the physical pop no pumps come through a pumps only come through design curve it we see it every day what do you know no we've seen that pumps come from design not pumps only come from design that is the assertion that is a fallacy on your part prove it I don't know I'm not the one here I'm not the one calling in to make a statement that I can't defend and see every heart every pump it only came from a designer you can't get around go ahead girl look every swan you see is white you can't get around that until you do yes we are yes we are alright I'm talking about swans you're not talking about if every Swan I've ever seen is white that doesn't mean that all swans are white if every pump I've ever seen comes about through a biological process that doesn't mean that every pump comes through biological process if every pump that I'm interact with is there it'd been the result of a mind that doesn't mean that there isn't something that also is a pump that is not the result of mine but at the end of the day when you look at the function of physical body there are things we know and things we don't know but you know what we definitely don't know we have zero evidence that any supernatural being or event has ever interceded and affected anything in the history of humanity that is an inference that you are making based on a fallacious set of reasoning that's it it's undeniable the fallacies of fallacy that doesn't mean you're wrong here's here's the important thing people need to get about fallacies if I put together a logical argument in structure where I've gotta syllogism two premises one conclusion as long as the structures valid and I put true premises in the conclusion must be true but if either the premise is not true or the structure is such that it is invalid I have no idea whether the conclusion is true or not so if you say all pumps have to come from a mind and your reasoning is every pump I've ever seen comes from a mind that's a fallacy it's like saying all swans are white because all I've ever seen is white swans and that's going to be true right up until you go to Australia where there are black swans and perhaps other places now - like a zoo but this is the fallacy what it means is you're not wrong it means that your reasoning is flawed because let's say instead of all swans are white you said all humans are mortal because every human we've ever seen is mortal that's a reasonable inference it's not based on every human we've ever seen is mortal because that's simply not true Don's not dead and I'm not dead so we don't know if we're mortal yet we can infer reasonably that we're mortal for good reasons but what if we found some way somebody or something or something like a tardigrade that may or may not be mortal maybe there's a biological thing that has never died all you can do is get to the point where you say hmm it seems to be a reasonable inference that Don and I are gonna die because every human beings died we certainly can't be absolutely certain about that but what it means is Jesus didn't come back from the dead as you know all humans are mortal right oh Jesus wasn't human well prove it well it says so in the book okay we can do this all not only can we do this all day whatever is he dead I'm not quite sure he's like he's like Schrodinger's God hey we've got Frank in Dallas Texas you're on with Matt and Dawn Oh Karia you guys I can't understand what you're saying okay and it's still bad audio or oh that's better I don't know thank you keep talking to me I guess Vern will try and get your question out yeah I called three weeks ago spoke with you but you guys had to cut me off again because of bad audio difficulties you had also said that we were kind of in consensus because I had maintained that critical thinking was the best way to approach must be discussions I had kind of stated that it was an all-powerful force and you would correct me on that what I should have said was that it's a all-encompassing weapon with with which to approach all human problem back in December that's a big claim yeah I think it's a powerful weapon I think there may be exceptions to that I'm a huge proponent critical thinking and teaching critical thinking in schools and not as an elective because getting people to understand sound reasoning and evidence so that they're better reaching conclusions is a good thing but I can sit around and think critical critically about all kinds of stuff and sometimes there are scenarios where I may not be able to get to any sort of answer and yet I need to so if I meet someone new and they're like hey do you want to go out and have dinner I could sit around and analyze that and weigh the pros and cons and investigate this but ultimately it comes down to do I actually want to go down to dinner so I'd rather just answer that question and say hell yeah oh yeah I mean I absolutely agree that critical thinking takes way more time and effort than ordinary daily thinking and we don't have to think critically a hundred percent of the time probably 85 95 percent of the time we can just do what we've always done and we don't have to resort to critical thinking this is what I this is what saving is frustration this is what Sagan was talking about by training your Bologna to section KITT you use critical thinking such that your visceral inferences are more likely to be correct not that they're necessarily going to be correct exactly and you also bring up a good point that you say critical thinking will not necessarily lead you to a truth my point is that it at least keeps you from bouncing into logical fallacies and the cognitive biases which are obviously frustrating you with these other callers and when properly applied you know we're four fallible humans we make mistakes and yeah investing in a proper investigation in critical thinking if you're walking across a football field that's been laced with Minds there's no guarantee that your exercise of critical thinking is going to help you find the path across that field but proper investigation and critical thinking will increase your chances of avoiding the mines exactly and that's like you're saying you advocate teaching critical thinking in schools if everybody was at least familiar with the leaf a list of logical fallacies and partner biases they could not only recognize it in the other person's arguments but also recognize it in their own yeah and when they realize that they are indulging in these poor poor reasoning processes sometimes they can correct themselves even before you or somebody else who's disgusting thinking correct them right yeah and that's that's the perfect thing so like the last caller if he had a good understanding of logical fallacies then even if he committed one I would be able to point it out and say here's the fallacy and here's why and you would get immediately assent to oh yeah much better conversation that's happened to me live on stage in the middle of the debate where I thought I had solved the Assad problem and John Ferrer correctly challenged me that I was actually smuggling an AW in and showed the fallacious reasoning and I was like oh yeah because it's not that you're always going to see it it's that when somebody shines a light on it you should be able to see it and what happens frequently on the show is I shine five lights on something and then somebody goes nope that's not it No no cuz every of these is it happened on nonprofit talk either today where I pointed out to somebody was shifting the burden of proof and he literally said or I'm not gonna say literally Maybach that this is a close to paraphrasing as I can get I'm not shifting the burden of proof I'm just expecting you to prove me wrong before I'll change my mind yeah exactly and like with Brian the last caller he was talking about the heart has to have a purpose of their fourth designer you correctly pointed out this is the Black Swan fallacy now Brian already Oh Black Swan fallacy and you pointed it out to him if he was intellectually honest you would say oh crap dude he got me I was wrong and sometimes that happening obviously okay exactly you're lucky what it does yeah now back in December Matt had given they both talked I think a magic show and dallas-fort worth of them that's like a theist for the winter solstice party yep it was afterwards were relaxing at the radisson hotel lobby I walked up to you and I handed you a copy of my book the final pattern the critical rate for critical thinking yeah I don't know if you've had a chance to read that I have not but it is still sitting on the nightstand next to my bed in the you know do this next okay now you probably familiar with Peter Burgos yet yes he's a pasta professor at Portland State University I would talk of his one of the very first slides that he had in his presentation was just the word fact FACC s but the huge X through it and he asked everybody please not take a picture of that but come on State didn't want them saying oh here think the facts aren't important but he went out to say no this me don't wait for time yeah I fundamentally disagree with him well I mean when he wrote the book you know Immanuel creating eight years but which isn't what that book is exactly it's a manual for creating critical thinkers maybe but his a his approach is not to attack what fact they believe in or even their beliefs themselves like you guys that yes what you believe and why yes you focuses on the bible's distil knowledge yes that's my focus as well the why is the important part exactly and again that's that's why I wrote my book because it centers on the biases that everybody has you me and everybody else we all want to think that how we were raised during fact that we have come across must be the truth and so we are frustrated with the third dollars thank you this behind us you have to point out their biases if the spinner wheels over and over again the frustrating process because the caller will not know it's their own bias to begin with yeah but we don't get to choose our callers right they choose us so some some callers some callers do have the temerity to point out and acknowledge when we've exposed a particular bias or flaw and some don't but the one concern here is I don't do this show for the person that I'm on the phone with I do it for the thousands of other people who share their views who are sitting back watching in relative safety watching that other person get exposed as being unreasonable because that's an incredibly uncomfortable position for the rest of them to be in I'm almost never trying to change the person's mind that I'm on the phone with I'm trying to do the best job I can to potentially change their mind so the people who are not in the spotlight because we know that if someone has publicly professed a belief they are now less likely to change it under any circumstances and in some cases pointing out that they are factually wrong will cause them to just double down and so while it's nice when when a caller is willing to engage honestly and acknowledge errors etc that's not the sorry callers you are a tool for me to reach everybody else who shares your views you don't have by the way that is a function not your purpose yeah I mean like you say they become defensive and you spend all your time trying to get around that defensive nose and that's what I think you're an hour and I'm kind of the same page always say teaching critical thinking and recognizing fallacies and biases is step one you can't really have a very constructive discussion or at least poke the change you're not gonna call point a caller this is this is really this is really subtle but there's one tiny thing that I disagree with that on and that is it takes multiple approaches for the people who are willing to acknowledge their biases when you point them out cool do that for the people who are on there are people who are unwilling to acknowledge your biases who may be willing to say oh yeah that is in fact a logical fallacy let me rework the argument they may never get to the point where they recognize the biases that are leading them in the wrong direction but if they are at least honest and open in in addressing things in a logical reasonable fashion they may get there so at you know there's this old statement for lawyers which is when the facts are on your side argue the facts when the laws on your side argue the law and when neither the facts and law on your side pound the table as hard as you can my thing is when the facts seem to be the sort of thing that might compel someone present the facts when exposing their bias might be the thing that is going to compel someone expose that bias when when pointing out logical fallacies might be the thing that changes somebody's mind do that I want as many different approaches as we need to reach as many people as possible totally agree and like to say everybody some better I'm a different angle my only contention is that I feel when I hear your frustration and I'm frustrated listening to your discussions a lot of believers as well I say well again if you're all you're gonna do is be hammering against their biases and the way that they're already coming in there expensiveness you know it can be very paining but ultimately it's frustrating but I I agree that it's the listeners the listeners that are listening that don't have to be defensive themselves yep which make something out of it yeah I totally agree with that my attention is just that if everybody works to learn logical fallacy part of the biases the same way that they learned not to employ a couple things at the speech or to content that 2+2 equals and it would be so obvious all rhetoric all discussions and all debates yeah it would be the end of the show that shows there was exactly what you want yeah which is what you want so you and frankly you want everyone I I don't want to be I don't wanna be rude about this but you and I are in agreement either 90 plus percent or whatever I'm gonna switch back to some other calls where I might be in much more disagreement that's fine please read the book thank you well thank you sir I appreciate it oh all right so we've got we're not taking by the way there are five people who are currently in the queue on hold we are going to get to all five of you and we're not going to bother adding but it's cute because I already did a long episode of talk Ethan okay and then when after that's over we'll be out back for pizza and whatnot but who you want next oh my goodness let's take the oldest one how about that Melanie sure Melanie in Ottawa you're on with Matt and done you're a trooper you've been on the phone all night climber actually my problem is the people around me mine too hell is other people yeah I love humanity I'm sorry Melanie hopefully that they give me trouble what's going on with the people around you that's bugging you and again for like the second time in my life being ostracized you know they're trying to get me back over and again and I don't really mind about but when it comes to family and very close friends it becomes an issue because I don't want to lose those people from my life but I also need a way of being Who I am without losing you know I mean so the context is is and family can't just discard so I mean really I just don't know like I i've tried counseling and so on but i still have to deal with these people day in and day out what do you guys do or are there you know i mean i've talked to counselors and so on but i just have no way of really having a coping mechanism well it is it does take a lot of energy to head to debate all the time right and and you you may just want to be yourself with your friends and family and just enjoy their company and not have religious discussions so so maybe one suggestion would be to say hey let's agree to disagree on this subject and talk about other things and and focus on things you do like to do together i'm gonna say that agree to disagree is one of the phrases that I hate the most but I don't disagree with what Don is saying I will agree so usually when somebody says hey let's agree to disagree that's because they just lost an argument and have nothing else to say and really don't want to keep engaging and what I'd rather say is I will agree that we do disagree and that you're wrong but there's no easy answer for this I have friends and family where the subject of religions and gods virtually never comes up because my interactions with them have nothing to do with that and they don't care about that stuff that much there are other people where we we know that we disagree and we just maintain conversations that don't put us in a place where we're gonna get in fights it's like it's like living in a house with half of them being UT fans and the other being miserable terrible Aggies it was fightin word for the record that's a bit of fun cuz I don't give a rat's ass about sports ball or universities at all I'm neither a UT fan nor an Aggie fan but I knew it would draw some people up but the other thing and this is the hard part you're probably gonna have to get better at figuring out who in your life is actually a toxic negative influence and cutting them out it sucks I've had to cut people out of my life who I genuinely love and care about because they could just could not let this stuff go when I read my 50th birthday card thing from my parents fortunately I have not had to cut them from my life I still interact with him but my foot has most firmly been put down and if I had had to say mom and dad are no longer part of my life I was comfortable with that as a possibility it wasn't what I wanted to happen but I was willing to accept that that happened fortunately we didn't have to go down that route it's one of the most difficult things you can do but what might make it easier is this when you reach the point where there's someone you love who is making you so miserable that you feel you would be better off without them in your life they did that and they already didn't love you enough to not do that they have a perverted view of what love is love is oh you need to be the person I want you to be you need to agree with me on this I can't count the number of times I've had Beth and other people would get messages from family members you know we're praying for you to come back to Jesus so that you can be a part of our family again because we love you we love you we that you don't know what love is what you are doing is being an emotionally abusive manipulator and when you realize that that's what those people are doing that they don't love you they love what they want you to be it makes it a lot easier to cut them out of your life it doesn't make it easy it just makes it easier and maybe before that stage you can set some boundaries and say hey you know this this is not something I want to talk about or or you know I would rather we don't discuss this topic because I would rather I care more about us getting along than us agreeing and if they're not willing to accept that yeah if they're not willing to accept that like if let's say Don and I disagreed on on anything we've had a few and yeah but I in 15 years I can't recall an argument with Don and either guts as heated as any of the major dollars now we had a vehement disagreement on the logical absolutes at some point in which now that I have a better understanding of what he was saying he was right but golly yeah it funded it fundamentally over a long period of time helped change the way that I listen to talk about that but if I said to dawn I would prefer that we never discussed this topic again because all it does is create tension we're better off not discussing it and Don agrees cool that's somebody who genuinely cares about our relationship and if Don goes hell no you're wrong and I'm still coming at you left and right then my thing is bye Felicia unfortunately when a family I mean they don't take liberties with you that a friend may not yes you know and you know even though they claim they're not judging really I'm sorry I see it that way I feel like I'm being scrutinized every single time I'm in front of them and even a simple little thing like them saying a prayer you know seeing grace before dinner if I choose to say almond or not say almond it always becomes a point of contention oh then I'd never say it I will stand quietly while people in my family pray over their meal as if that's going to make it not give them salmonella I will stand quietly and pray but if any of them ever expected me to say Amen at the end of it they're in for a rude awakening because that will never happen it's just like I had no I had no desire to ever draw Mohammed until Muslims told me I couldn't and then I will I'm a I'm a veteran I have no desire to burn a flag until somebody tells me I can't and then I will be producing videos of me burning flags left and right in all different configurations to show how absolutely ridiculous the particular idea is I'm gonna borrow something that Jen people's said years ago which is always stuck with me which is your family if you act like family and in my case I don't care if we're related by blood as kin either we have a relationship that's family or we don't and I have people who I consider family who I'm not related to in any closed sense and there are people who I am direct blood relatives to that are definitely not family of mine there are relatives and that's relatively comforting when I don't have to talk to them yeah it sounds to me just kind of reading reading through the between the lines here that you're being a little too a little too easygoing a little too giving them a little too much power in the in these relationships and you may need to pull that back I mean you write like I just the last week or so listening to you guys and I wish I had not what's the word gunship or what do you call it anyway you know what I mean atheist looseness [Laughter] how about courage of your convictions the real difference the real difference is that while I am NOT as keen on controversy as some people would think that I am I'm actually far more interested in you know diplomacy and and trying to I am the peacemaker and a number of things some of which we'll find out in a week or so and some other stuff it's not it's not that I have something you don't it's that you haven't been pushed to that breaking point yet where you have to make the hard decisions you are a good caring person who doesn't want to end relationships with your family even if it hurts you because it still hasn't reached the point where it hurts you more than the benefits that you get out of it or the fear of being completely ostracized so we would be remiss if we didn't mention a couple things especially with Darrel ray coming down next we you should look into the recovering for religion organization and potentially the secular therapist project and I know that there is an atheist organization in Ottawa and find some like-minded people that you can use as a place to vent and and potentially other people other than us non experts to talk to about how best to manage your life where you can be more open than you can be calling into a TV show okay thank you good luck to you appreciate your time as melyandd by all means call us back and let us know if things have improved I've gotten worse and gotten worse and we're sure yeah I don't speak English right Eric and try to give you better advice next time worse or worse or oh that was a worser turist mistake I've made today all right we got Hugh in Oh New Zealand how are you yeah good just having a big anxiety attack all right are you north or south sorry I north or south north on okay what did I did I get to meet you and I was there no sorry I hope to come back it's even to Auckland Denis I went to Auckland and it's yeah yeah so I loved my trip to Australia and it was fine I have never been any place where a I felt more comfortable and that was prettier I will say that New Zealanders seem to have the most casual relationship with time of anybody I've ever met like I'm stressed I like to get places earlier and the guy that was driving us around is like oh don't worry about it you know we'll get there it's not a big deal and we were like late everywhere right what are you get first today though how can we help well yeah okay we do I start you know we're all the kid I don't have a TV so I read a lot of books and I used to love the books about gods and starts you know and I read about them all you know the Pacifica gods and the European gods and stuff and I mean you know I've never been a believer and the thing that gets me is that the the stories are in a team to explain reality right right and so my attitude is like why why just cut out the why not just cut out the middleman and go straight to the reality and just take God as a label for reality well good to me no that doesn't know oh I'm all in favor of let's just cut out the middleman and let's just deal with reality I just don't see any reason to call reality God because all that does is yes is given our another service well yeah I don't see any reason to either because there's a whole lot of baggage but it's not my baggage and and my again you know when I was younger I wasn't a believer and I came up against all these people who were sure I actually have a little bit of a chuckle my soul because a lot of atheists 4x fierce and they used to give me when they were fierce right and I just thought you know like what are you talking about and now they're atheists and I'm saying well I just you know think that it's reality and they go ah I know and it's like we'll make up your mind you know I've always believed in real reality is amazing yeah it is awesome you know they've been said of old books and stuff which you can interpret any way you like just examine reality yes that's the truth that's where the truth is there's the thing that's consistent for everybody all these stories I think consistent you know but just yeah q have you people when they talk about God I say sorry have you ever considered leaving the the paradise in which you reside and moving to Austin Texas because I'd put you on the show to say this thing to everybody but he just did but you know remote because we have to know I have been trying to get through for a while you know I mean I say to people like do you think God is real right so and they go yeah and I say so it's part of reality right is it a subset of reality I can't be a subset well then it's the whole thing so get rid of your book and just focus on reality yeah I won't say Amen to dinner prayers but I'll say amen to that yeah so I mean I mean I I mean I basically heard people bring this up and shows in the past and the stable got God is reality news people we've already got a word for reality it's reality but yeah if you're gonna define something you have to use other words sure you know what I mean so it's like but the problem is is that while God isn't particularly well-defined it normatively applies to a conscious thinking agent of immense power how powerful I mean yeah and this that's my problem with atheism it's like your kind of stool got your baggage you still dragon this belief that you used to have along with you instead of just like cut it away and like focus on reality instead of arguing the toss about with us no no here that's a story is real or not it's clearly not know you here's where you completely lose me so you won't be the new ghost because in fact a fact about real at reality is that the overwhelming majority of people in reality believe in gods and this impacts their decision-making and the way they vote which impacts the rights and privileges of everybody around them that's the reason to argue this the reason to argue this isn't oh gosh I used to believe that silly you believed and now I'm just so much smarter and so much better no it is about this stuff has a real impact so I could go live my life and ignore the god thing but I would be ignoring the single biggest elephant in reality yeah but what's what I'm trying to do it needs to be a kind of a meeting point because if we just argue the God beliefs this is reality you're just not gonna get anywhere well you fall all set cause no no no no no some people yeah I have thousands of emails from people who change their mind yeah thousands yep yep yep so isn't that worth it but not with everybody will you change their minds and and as matt said we're often we're often really trying to reach the audience and and we may or may not change the mind of the caller and and so it may seem like it's a futile I would I would have done this for 15 years and I said this I did a debate in Amarillo and a young 12 13 year old girl came up to me to say that kind I've told this story before so I'll keep it brief in case she had been considering a bunch of different religious views and she came up to say thanks because of what you said tonight I now identify as an atheist and I would do another 15 years of batshit crazy calls and arguing until I'm yelling and hanging up for one more 15 year old girl and yet we already know this show and the debates and the other efforts that we do have literally helped thousands of people some of them it's helped find their way out of religion some of them it helps them find their way to be more comfortable out of religion as with the last caller of dealing with family murders it's not futile to have these discussions even though I will admit on many occasions it appears futile and one of the better example not one of the better examples is there was a guy who used to call the show on a weekly basis every couple weeks and he thought I was an and he thought I was wrong and he kept arguing and it kept getting shut down and he'd argue and he'd get shut down and finally he stopped calling but about three years later he sent me an email and said hey I'm not gonna tell you my name but I stopped calling three years ago and started listening and taking notes with the sole purpose of finding a way to prove you wrong and now I'm an atheist sometimes it takes done yeah yeah but okay yeah I understand that it makes a difference but I just think it's best to focus on me because even a key is the same well you know there's a possibility the supernatural is beautiful I know it's like for me I just can't believe that anyone could think the supernatural by definition has made up you can't demonstrate it in reality it's it's an imaginary thing and yet there are people who are convinced they've seen ghosts and had experiences with all sorts of supernatural stuff yeah but but and that's what I'm saying to those people you've got to explore the effects around us like people see things because we have--we're of God we're biological and it's an array of problems were their brains so what is dinner what is going to encourage those nations all the time I hear things but I know that they're not real because I do a little bit of research and you know it's quite interesting that stuff about schizophrenia that's been done how I'm and we're people how do you convince people to do that work and investigate because when they think they have the right answer that's where investigation stops why would you keep looking for an answer if you think you have one how do you convince somebody that they might not have the right answer and continue investigating if you don't engage in the way we in god-belief is a one-size-fits-all rationalization yeah it's being supported from around but I don't know there are people whose minds will change and people whose minds won't I don't know how to tell the difference between those people so I'm gonna talk to all of them as if they can potentially change their mind yeah there may be some differences between the culture there and New Zealand New Zealand versus the coal fire in the United States a big part there doesn't make part of it because we just don't have religion and politics coming the politicians you know some of them are religious but they don't sort of force it on people Lessing's I think we're about like as much we still have a little bit of an issue around the board yeah but I mean I look at it and interesting you people are insane I mean we have lost their minds I will say you should probably reach out to the group in Auckland that I worked with because they seem to be aware of a whole bunch of problems of religion encroaching on in government so even when I was in this paradise of New Zealand thinking I had maybe escaped the bat II for a while it turns out I hadn't it's just that I live in a country that's so batshit New Zealand that looks like a paradise when there are still problems there as well oh yeah that was part of a movement to try and get Jesus taken out of the prayer when they open Parliament which they just recently did I think did you guys get your new flag yet no okay no it was a bit of controversy about it yeah I loved watching it on John Oliver but I tell you what I appreciate them appreciate the heart of the call hewing we're largely on the same page I hope to come back to New Zealand if you ever make it to Austin you're welcome to come down to the Atheist community as well in us we're gonna let you go and move on to some other callers but thanks for your time and there's still people on the other side of glass we are now up against the wall and I have three callers left for us to get to okay you didn't do lightning around I'm gonna I'm gonna let you pick one and take the whole thing yourself so that you know what ended Oh my goodness but I okay let's be honest we know that I'm probably gonna say something oh but I'm gonna in gävle okay I don't know number four then number four Adrian in Texas you're on with Don Baker hey Adrian Matt likes to do this trick to me yes I can what do you got for us today okay you want to talk about intelligent design right right I just wanted to talk about what I believed in why okay great in a creator gut because of all the evidence it was left behind like the moon and the and DNA and the tilt of the earth and Adrian didn't you didn't you literally call and have the same conversation with me a couple weeks ago yeah okay I just wanted to check I'm gonna shut up there we give you the same answer if we invoke that here yeah I wanted to talk to both guys but they wanted to talk to so so I don't I don't believe that there's a creator I have I haven't seen any solid evidence of a creator you know there are things that might appear designed but there are processes that do these sorts of things yeah that's what I'm talking about done what you just said there okay that abused ice that's what the experts are also saying like thank Richard Dawkins about DNA and you know about the moon and Jupiter position in super they say protects us from asteroid strikes and plate tectonics okay your your boy why don't we pick one okay there's a lot of stuff here yeah why don't you pick one and we'll we'll talk about it a little bit and then we'll move on to another caller right I know there's a lot of them so yeah really your best heart rate I mean I guess we'll just start with DNA do you need okay so DNA is is a complex chemical right it has the ability to make copies of itself right right okay and sometimes there are mistakes or or or things that can go on with that copying process to create different versions and then there's this recombination this this double double helix thing that can be you know you get part from your father apart from your mother right and so the the genes that are expressed in you are a combination of the your parents very good yes okay so where is where is God in all that oh just like what you said earlier how looks to be designed that's also with experts like Richard Dawkins are also saying now I'm pretty sure your quote mining him and get him giving the getting the wrong answer there he yeah he did go on to baby doesn't know you know no well the time the time to believe something is when you have positive evidence for it right not because something appears the way that you you kind of like like the answer so do we have it do we have any evidence of God coming in and tinkering with DNA or having created it in the first place or something like that yes we do awesome so can you expand on that yes because it'll just look that way it appears that way and there's a lot of other things also this just okay however sticking your DNA though right right for now for now oh you you you have have some evidence that God would did what with DNA would it piers to be designed and I guess that designer with would be like a God like something godlike right or something that we would consider godlike so so it might appear that way but is it is it really that way do you have evidence that it is that way right right that's that's also like how people can go to jail and they they get out later whenever the evidence they find evidence later that they prove them innocent we can always let the let them out of jail later and I have no problem with letting God out of jail just right now a bit but you just want to believe without we got really strong evidence because of right now the evidence that's what the evidence shows and that's why people go to jail that are innocent but you know there's a lot of people that do go to jail that Marc Gill has medically here guilty so are you are you suggesting the because that it's okay to lock up innocent people based on evidence that's clearly flawed because later we found out they were not guilty you know if you're being honest you'll let them out of jail once you find that there's only it looks like you're you shouldn't put them into jail in the first time what that means anytime you find out later that somebody was clearly innocent we need to live let them out of jail that means you up in the original decision so let's avoid that so here's the thing here's the thing a lot of things a lot this lots of things can give the appearance of design because that's what we're tuned to project and your your reasoning is such that if it appears designed I'm going to believe it's designed until it's not but if you apply that reasoning universally you will be convinced that I have magic powers because I am an expert at giving the appearance of having magic powers and if you can't explain how I do a trick you in order to be consistent would have to conclude that Matt has magical powers are you willing to do that and we would have al are you willing what do that if if we went by the logic that you're using ah we would have a lot of guilty guys yes we would yes we would but we wouldn't have an assent people dying and being locked up and giving up their better than a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent good man goes to prison but that's not the question I agree it's not quite yeah don't agree you don't agree you don't agree and that's not the cause I say stop I'm not this stop that's not the question I asked if I do a magic trick that you can't explain are you gonna be convinced that I have magical powers No and you even laughed at it which exposes how ridiculously you are engaged in a set of special pleading when it comes to God which you want to believe in you will take the appearance of a God as evidence for God but you don't want to believe that Matt's got magical powers so the appearance of Matt having magical powers you will smooth laugh and mock and toss aside no I'm saying we have to have evidence to prove that you don't have magical powers and otherwise we have to prove it no no you just said you would not believe that I had magical powers and now you're suggesting that we need to have evidence that I don't yeah of course you do need evidence for everything you know that Matt yes but the appearance of design is not evidence of design no it's not by definition the word appearance makes it distinct from actual if I say I can give the appearance of magic that's different from me saying I can do magic so the reason we put the word of it the reason we put the word appearance on there is a recognition that at first blush you could look at this and go wow that kind of looks design but you know that you should not reach that conclusion otherwise you would not include the word appearance you just say design because you'd actually have evidence for design but you don't have that and you can't get it and that's why you are selectively agreeing that appearance of design is enough to convince you that a God exists until somebody proves you wrong which is a shifting of the burden of proof which we told you two weeks ago so we're moving on to somebody else [Music] [Applause] anybody who Matt wants to brush this along so good oh there's pizza coming in I haven't I've had like one doughnut all day long Oh Michelle in Ontario you're on with Donovan must be your evening for speaking to Canadian ladies I'm in yeah I'm north of Lake Huron and well I want to hurry I wanted to ask you from your perspective how do you understand and how do you frame the notion that most of First Nations have very strong senses of spirituality of the sacred sure if you if you oh yeah it's easy there are no perfect thinkers including in First Nation Native Americans etc people are prone to making mistakes they are human just like everybody else and when they see something that appears to be designed some of them are gonna leap to design and when they see things that appear to not have an explanation they are going to infer that there's something spiritual about that they can be wrong just like everybody else well I was wondering about in particular the legend of Hiawatha which is related to the coming together of the five Iroquois nations as the as the Iroquois people I'm not talking about the poem by Longfellow the Hiawatha poem but the actual legend of how and this is depending on which version of it you read online there's various different ones but they they date this back to 1400 before Christopher Columbus ever crossed the ocean so before there was any cross-contamination from say the European Space Agency so and the legend goes that in those times the five nations the Mohawk Seneca we need because you can own were at each other's throats constantly and that this young warrior Hiawatha lost his wife and daughters and one virgin says they died of disease and other version said they were killed by a neighboring tribe well if we have different versions I don't know yeah isn't isn't that obviously just cherry-picking the version it seems to be no but because they both lead to a common point and that the common point is that Hiawatha was just discouraged his friend said well let's do what we usually do I get a war party together and go out and take out our angst and our anger on the neighboring tribe which is why the five tribes were constantly at each other's throats I don't understand it's getting someone if you could bear with me okay I just I'm trying to I don't understand the point well the point is that he was heartbroken he went into the forest he wanted to die and there he met the great peacemaker who was the figure which came out of nowhere and who the people the the Iroquois people say this figure was sent from the Creator and the great peacemaker what parts of the story are demonstrably true and teaches Hiawatha how to have compassion and together they bring the five nations together and so it is an important part of the self I the identity of the Iroquois people it does call upon the notions of spirituality revelation of a Creator God and it is part of that First Nation many First Nations but at the end of the day at the end of the day it's just a story that people found compelling that achieved a goal that doesn't mean anything about the story is true I could disappear and go off into the woods for a while and come back to the Atheist community of Austin and say I've just made the great peacemaker and I have the information that's going to bring us all back together and as long as I'm convincing and it works people will ever tell the story of how I met the great peacemaker well maybe he deserves a credit perhaps the big thing is if there is no no it's worse than it's worse than that Michelle because if there is a great peacemaker and much like alien abductors he's only meeting with one person in the woods to pass on a message he's a dick he's not the great peacemaker he's a manipulator a great peacemaker wouldn't have had waited for one person to go off in the woods the great peacemaker would have walked in in front of everybody and said I am the great peacemaker and here's how we fix this instead the great peacemaker decided to go off and you know meet with one person to pass on the message this is exactly like Moses being the spokes are actually sorry Aaron being the spokesperson for Moses being the spokesperson for God it's a story sure may I thank you the legend does talk about how it was a progressive revelation and that took time and that the great peacemaker works with Hiawatha progressively to bring the five nations together but besides I've and beside everything you said my my query to you is don't you think that everything you said and your atheist perspective isn't a bit of a European colonial Western take on spirituality and in your view if the world would be such a better place without religions and with just the Atheist perspective isn't that a little bit racist - no and that's some absolutely bizarre to suggest that an entirely intellectual exercise to say where is the evidence and when I look at these stories I didn't say hey the Great Spirit could have done these things because I am being racist against First Nation people I'm saying it because it's a ridiculous reason to believe something and as I pointed out we are all human and we're all guilty of that kind of thing how dare you remotely suggest that because I'm a privileged white Western European that I'm pooh-poohing a Native American story which I'd never considered prior to today when it is ridiculous at its face yeah okay well I think it does sound very racist well you and I have no idea what race you are but you because if your response to proper skepticism to say hang on a second let me make sure I understand the story this guy goes off in the woods and supposedly gets a secret message and comes back and relays it to everybody here's a number of problems with that to suggest that my dismissal of it was because I'm a racist just put you in the position of people I no longer need to speak with and and if it's if it's evidence that is is not sufficient or or if that's something that it's not going to get us to the truth present us with what is and let's talk about it by the way in a side note as long as I'm saying you to people I got a message on my phone that said here I'll read it this is one of the reasons why I don't spend any time in the in the live chat during the show because it would be a monumental distraction live YouTube comments on the show are making derogatory comments about your statement quote if I could have one more fifteen-year-old girl are you kidding me so so now when I say something you're gonna be like oh clearly a massive pet arrest and he just wants them younger if you can't get the context out of that story that it was worth it for me to put this effort in if one more fifteen-year-old girl abandoned religion or one more anybody abandon really you're just as ii as the person who wants to dismiss skepticism as if i was it was rooted and racism am i racist yeah probably guess what so are you am i a normal human being who may have been instilled with biases and bigotry about people who are different for me yeah the difference is that rather than running around dismissing skepticism on the grounds of racism and dismissing honest statements in order to make a potential potentially even joking accusation about something else I actually have been working to change myself and eliminate the things as best as I can with the understanding that I'm never gonna get there but you know what I'm also never gonna do when somebody calls them to tell me well you just don't believe in God because you don't like my particular heritage I'm not gonna say well you're just racist against white guys the whole world's coming down on white guys white guys white guys especially there hey Abe thanks for waiting you are the last caller you're in New Jersey and you're home with Matt and Dawn oh hey guys how is everything uh a mess I don't know I just saw you here you're destroying her over there it's funny yeah I'll try not to be racist what have you got first today so I have also let me first say that uh I'm uh I'm a Muslim and I've been listening to your guys show recently for quite some time and it's very interesting and I think that you're you bring a lot of good points and I'm then you know I've been considering your viewpoints for quite some time that's great thank you yeah I appreciate you doing that yeah so basically what I want to present I just want to I want to present this argument that a lot of Muslims and like they they present this kind of argument and it's just um it's there's just something uh particularly strange about it like it's just like it's strangely convincing but I don't know if it should be convincing well that's good because you're it sounds like your your detector is is going off so let's let's let's hear it and let's tear it apart okay hey yeah so okay so basically the first okay so the first part part of this is of that in the Quran ah in the Quran the Quran presents a literary and linguistic challenge to humanity so basically within like the first chapter of the Quran it presents this challenge it says that if you doubt that this book was written by God then produce something like it and that's supposed to mean not like as a subjective literary judgment but more like a produce something that's even of similar quality in terms of literary merit okay we can stop there we can stop there that's a fallacy that something is true until it's shown to be false so the uniqueness of the quran which every book is unique except for copies of book but Christians use the same thing they talk about the uniqueness of the Bible the uniqueness of prophecy the uniqueness of what Jesus supposedly fulfilled it Center Muslims do the same thing with the Quran at the end of the day it doesn't matter how unique it is it doesn't matter whether somebody could produce something remotely similar that is not a testimony to the truth of the claims within the book period yeah so uh no I understand what you're saying I guess what Muslims are trying to say they're trying to say that it's invisible in a sense that I don't care not have been written that's not relevant the fact that you couldn't I'm first of all I'm not conceding that it's true I'm saying even if it were true that doesn't change whether or not this is a book that speaks on behalf of God so yeah I guess well the thing is is that what so what they're trying to say is so I because I've heard this argument from like a couple of I guess apology uh Muslim apologists and what they're what they're trying to say is basically not like all like they're trying to say that the only way this book could be unique as if it actually comes from God that is a bald assertion that they do not demonstrate that they cannot demonstrate at all they are they are snowing you they are Buffalo in you they are bullshitting you they bullshitted themselves they're saying this book is so clearly and obviously important that it must have come from God no man could produce this book while simultaneously acknowledging that a man actually you know dictated and wrote the book but they do it with oh well this is with the guidance of a and no man on its own could put could produce this which I don't accept is actually true but I don't care because even if it were true that nobody else could produce this other than the individual who did that doesn't mean that he could only produce it because he was communicating with God that it that this is this video for this week I you not is going to be assuming facts not in evidence because that's what's happening over and over and what they're essentially doing is saying we're convinced that this could only come about from a god and we will remain convinced until you prove that something like this could come about from something other than God here's the problem you can say that about the Quran you can say that about the Bible you can say that about the bhagavad-gita you can say that about the urantia stuff you can say that about Nostradamus writings you can say that about anybody and any represented motorcycle maintenance ya know you could say that about a numeracy John Allen pollicis book that I recommend all the time you could say nobody but John Allen Paulus with it with the guidance of a God could have produced a book like a numeracy and even if there even if there were no way to demonstrate that was wrong that does not prove that God was involved yeah it's an attempt to shift the burden of proof yeah it is prove me wrong and if you've set up an unfalsifiable scenario the easiest thing you can ever do is say I'm gonna believe until you prove me wrong and you'll never be proved wrong because you have an unfalsifiable claim if there's no way to falsify it it's not a claim worth considering yeah so that makes sense I guess like the way I think about it is that you have so you have this book and there has there has been some agents who wrote this book right you have a book there needs to be an explanation for who wrote it right usually books have authors yeah yeah yeah so have an author so what what they're trying to say is that a person could not have written the book okay because whatever they explaining if they are claiming it is impossible for a person to write this book without God they need to actually demonstrate that it's not up to you to disprove it you're buying into the thing that they're doing where they're shifting the burden of proof yeah so so what I'm just trying to do is I wasn't trying to say like oh you have to disprove that I was what you're saying yeah so I was trying to like I guess so they're what they do is like they'd like show all these like quotes they give all these quotes from like like linguistic scholars whatever they say all these quotes they what they consist of like scholars saying all the in terms of linguistic merit like the Quran is very good or whatever and and it's just like okay so that doesn't necessarily mean that it's from God but you have and it doesn't mean it's true you have to have some but you have to have some you have so like there needs to be a best explanation then you have to rule out other explanations yeah but there the problem here is that while there is an explanation that doesn't mean anybody necessarily has access to it at any given point yeah and it has no bearing on whether the the book is true right I mean literary criticism is a mess that's pretty weak evidence in my mind yeah the rain yeah like I was like it the thing about like like I don't know it like I was a little skeptical of it because it just thought like if you say like like literary like judgment is not like it's not very objective Brian is being right well I just that's why I was like it's just like it doesn't it didn't seem right a little bit you know so yeah that's all I would demand better evidence right that's pretty pretty poor evidence yeah so I mean yeah yeah that makes sense I guess yeah I just wanted to like because like I never really like heard a response from like atheist like for this kind of argument like like I've heard like responses to like you know the cross being scientific miracles it's kind of a weak T argument we we roll our eyes at that sort of thing yeah you know so I'll just I pulled up kind of like random quran stuff huh and of course it's in English so all the Muslims that are getting ready send me hate me over saying I didn't get it right tuff I'm going with what I have access to right you can read in Arabic man so those who disbelieve will be burned in the fire that's three one sixteen I could have written that anybody attempting oh well that's very very similar to what's written in the Bible so clearly we can find individual verses that don't seem remarkable at all as a matter of fact they seem like the same manipulative that's in every other religion where you're trying to threaten somebody into actually believing in worship so I found at least one verse that clearly anybody without a decent moral compass and with a desire to encourage people to believe them without evidence could certainly write something like that I need to know from from the Muslims exactly which verses do they think could have only been written with the guidance of a god because I don't buy that but even if they're convinced of it that still doesn't prove that there's a God and the big question is where the is Allah why do I have to read what His Prophet told me why can't he interact with this when it comes to Christianity if a Damascus Road experience is good enough for Saul then it should it be good enough for everybody and when it comes to Islam if Allah has a message for me he can come give it to me yourself yeah he's all-powerful right I'm waiting you know not for you for Allah yeah for the other garbage concept that's been shoved down people's throats to manipulate everything for for millennia well not millennia 700 years no I agree I think I'd also argue that if there was a God that was going to inspire a book where it was clear that only God could have inspired this book maybe he should have picked a prophet that wasn't into little girls okay we don't need to go there yes we do no no this is this is this is the obvious thing so in Christianity when God's going to destroy the world who does he pick to save to be the progenitor of everybody else he's going to exist Noah a drunk a miserable drunk who curses one of his sons to be slaves of the others the descendants of him when Allah needs a prophet who does he pick somebody who's okay with marrying a nine year old oh I will say your issue with him you know saying hey my friend here I like your wife quite a bit I should you should give her to me yeah that's that's the thing that's always coming up I have yet to hear any message from any God ever but I keep hearing from the chosen representatives of that God and they are all pieces of every one of them have moral failings and character flaws that are beyond what we would accept is tolerable if I have an important message for everybody you will get it from me guaranteed until the day that I'm dead I don't need a prophet I don't need somebody to come and be my representative and if I had to pick someone like if I'm laid up in the hospital and I had an important message to deliver on the show I would certainly not pick a monumental piece of on that note we got to let you go I appreciate the time hopefully that helped out yeah there's uh there's a lot of stuff going on but there's gonna be peace in the other room thanks to everybody who showed up here live thanks to the people on the other side of the wall who we've already shown but we'll show them again cuz they deserve it they make working happy thanks Adan and a special closing thank you once again to end off they share the exact same way we started it to our friends and colleagues who spent countless years of their lives doing exactly this thank you thank you see you next week [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Atheist Experience

Views: 162,492

Rating: 4.7900028 out of 5

Keywords: TheAtheistExperience, Atheist Experience, atheist, experience, atheism, religion, religious, faith, belief, secular, science, reason, rational, proof, evidence, logic, fallacy, argument, God, Matt Dillahunty, Don Baker

Id: NmqRTj6dpjE

Length: 120min 17sec (7217 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 23 2019