The Atheist Experience 739 with Matt Dillahunty and Martin Wagner

[Music] will you open your eyes it's a wonder what you'll find with an open mind you may be surprised yeah got to get away from this illusion for the sake of the world with delusion it's got to it's got to [Music] hey everybody welcome to this week's edition of The anth Experience we're live it's December 11th 2011 which means it's my brother's birthday so happy birthday even though he's busy probably not watching yeah um I'm your host Matt Dy joining me this week Martin Wagner how welcome how are you I am well thank you very much uh last night this is by the way is a live Public Access television program sponsored by The Atheist community of Austin the ACA has weekly meetings every Sunday at Romeo's on Barton spring Road except for the first Sunday when we have our lecture series and then like today we had the board meeting and you can find out all about the atheist community of Austin at our web page www. atheist hyen community.org there's a frequently asked questions page there calendar of events a little tag thing on the the side that we'll point out special events that were going on um which would have pointed out that last night was the ACA holiday party except that we actually forgot to put it on the thing and to meet up so there's only about eight of us uh but I cooked my butt off and there were meatballs cheese balls I would have been there to eat all of that stuff there's leftovers come on over oh all right thank you think I should I'm good with me PS yeah and uh it's uh I said holiday party um because I don't know what anybody else El because it's the war on Christmas that we are waging against and I don't really care my thing is I it's Christmas at my house it just is uh to me Christmas is both a religious holiday and then a holiday and if you ask people you know name the five things that you think of when you think of Christmas the odds of Jesus being on that list of five or something religious being on that list of five uh probably pretty good but when you rank them it may not come in at the top I mean not when you've got like Santa and presents and trees and candy canes and frost on the degree of Hardcore fundamentalism in the individual person and by the way the the secular aspect of the or the part that was stolen from Pagan traditions and then uh morphed in into more secular aspects uh they this War on Christmas thing was won a long time ago there are Christian sects that don't even celebrate it anymore you know it's oh no no no no that's just become this uh commercialization secular Extravaganza well scripture itself uh has this uh prohibition against decorating trees right it can it can certainly be interpreted that way I mean yeah so like so many things in the Bible can be interpreted in so many ways so uh about decorating your trees totems Etc anyway um I celebrate Christmas just not Christ Mass it's exmas yeah uh but you guys and anybody out there feel free to celebrate whatever you want for whatever reason you want Call It Whatever you want yeah uh don't celebrate if you don't want to I just happen to think you know being consistent with my view that we should take the good and and leave the bad wherever we find it including things in religious Origins um that Christmas at the way we celebrate it the way I celebrate it it's a kind of holiday that I'd feel good about inventing if it didn't already exist this idea of taking time off and sharing time with others exchanging gifts maybe um but just you know enjoying each other yeah just peace and goodwill etc etc why not but I you know I kind of I kind of I laugh a little bit because I mean uh for the same reason that I don't tell somebody happy birthday on my birthday I don't run around saying Merry Christmas to people at random because I don't know what they're celebrating on the other hand everybody seems to there are people who are pushing for this no no no you need to say happy holiday days okay uh you know if we if we can ignore the word origin that holidays is Holy Days uh then certainly we can ignore the Christ part of Christmas yeah uh it just it's never been a big deal for just blows my mind that people could just get so hung up on on this kind of thing you know like how we label things what we call things identities of things and it's you know you have to flatter my own idea of how this is supposed to be yeah otherwise you are somehow insulting and offending me and it's like like just honestly just get a grip I mean that's it's completely the opposite of the character of what the whole period is supposed to be about which is we put aside all these stupid little petty niggling differences and just uh decide to be nice to each other yeah I was going to invite Ray Comfort to the party but he's in California so Ray next time you're in Austin for Christmas you can come over and see our pretty but uh so anyway this uh in addition of this program the ACA also sponsors a couple of podcast including nonprofits which is pretty much on Hiatus probably until uh after the new year although there's a chance we may squeeze in a show this coming Saturday um and Godless which is recorded every Monday night they did one last week doing another one this week uh I don't know for sure if there'll be one the following week is that's when we're getting ready to head out on vacation and stuff you can find out more you can find links to those from The Atheist community of Austin's website um and you can go to nonprofits radio.com for information about nonprofits um and there's a bunch of other events coming up in in the area I know that CFI is having its saturnalia festivities next Saturday um which I'm not for sure whether or not I'll be able to actually attend it but and I think instead of going through a whole list of announcements uh since we've already directed people the website just let I'm going just want to let people know that after the show's over uh the people involved get together for dinner at El Royo they'll have the address up at the bottom of the screen any atheist or atheist friendly person is welcome to join us you don't have to be a member to attend um and I just kind of how you feel about like shotgunning calls like let's see how many calls we can get in reasonably I mean if if somebody needs more time that that's great but please don't be uh offended if we just like take the question and move on let's do it you want to have fun indeed all right been a while for me sure ready I want to start here William gr Junction how are you what's your question or comment uh thank you I'm doing great uh my uh comment I guess you can say is in reference to sometimes you've referred or you've referenced someone referring to themselves as a devout atheist yeah that was uh Kirk Cameron who claims he used to be a devout atheist and my objection is that that doesn't really make any sense well it it does and it doesn't because I'm not disagreeing with you but I have referenced myself as a devout atheist and when I referen myself as a devout atheist I'm not saying that you know Hallelujah I'm an atheist I'm using it more as a a stick or a pun to argue a Christian's position um in other words I'm saying that when when I say I'm a devout atheist I'm saying I'm an atheist because you know I've actually studied up and I know what you know I know about your religion and I can argue your points and I'm not taking them that position um I I like I said I don't use it as saying oh yeah I'm a you know all knowing you know whatever I say I like I said I'm poking at them with a stick when I say the word um so and I think most people that do refer to themselves as devout atheists that's kind of the way they think about it from my perspective people refer to themselves as devout atheists don't know what devout means I do understand what devout means but I like I said I'm using it in a context to basically poke not NE to influence the argument I'm sorry yeah no I understand what you're saying yeah um I you know I I am uh I'm extremely confident shall we say in my atheism uh and very comfortable at it I'm comfortable in my own skin and with that but again I do think that this is another one of these instances of of being very easily falling into the Trap of getting hung up on Words and terms and uh you know yeah if you want to sort of in in the way of making a satirical Point uh to Christians uh you know use use that term I mean again you can call yourself whatever you like but I think that uh my only resistance maybe to using a term like devout atheist is of course I don't want to want that to be misinterpreted and want my perhaps sense of humor to be misunderstood and understandable you know so uh um and I don't want to come across also as someone who is simply unwilling to change his mind which of course is is uh you know a criticism that Skeptics quite often get that you we're all close-minded and everything which is often you know the Believers doing the projecting and everything but again I just don't want to fall into that trap what I'm willing to say is you know I am completely comfortable with uh with My Views as an atheist but even when I will say you know I'll look at you straight in the eye and I'll say with very high degree of confidence that I don't believe that God exists I'm still I'm not making any sort of a dogmatic statement I'm not making a statement of uh of any kind of inviable belief that I'm not willing to uh you know modify if evidence warrants so I'd want to be so I try to be careful about that and I I think it's unwise for people to get hung up on just words and terms when we should be thinking about the ideas and just evaluating the ideas I I I understand um I think any give you give you a little background I'm oh hello I'm sorry did I cut off yeah no I was saying I think if anything I'm a devout skeptic not not a devout atheist well to give you a little background um I was actually kicked out of church at the age of eight for simply asking questions um I was uninvited back and so was the rest of my family um and you can you know you can imagine an 8-year-old not being that um forceful I guess you can say but I just find it kind of ironic that I was kicked out of church at at 8 years old just for asking questions and since then um I've been I don't know discriminated against I guess you can say I'm I'm a veteran of three tours uh and I was very a very outspoken atheist when I was in the military I was discriminated against I was actually refused promotion because of my position um and it it's just kind of funny cuz you know I I lean to the right on a lot of issues but it's kind of funny that all of a sudden if I'm an atheist now I'm a communist hater um and how disrespectful atheists in general are or disrespected atheists in general are just for simply saying I don't believe that and I find it kind of ironic that the very first words in the First Amendment to our Constitution say um Congress shall pass no law in respect to the establishment of religion and then you know you hear Christians say well you know the Constitution gives you you know guarantees you your right to you know freedom of you know the way our the way American culture our culture has sort of settled into place you know certainly doesn't necessarily always jive with the letter of the Constitution right and of course I haven't been in the military but you know Jen and Matt and everybody and and I'm I do read up on a lot of these things and I understand that there is this culture of religious fundamentalism that is just in inherent in the military these days and they really push that um and there a lot of things that the military seems to do that go against what they are supposed to do which is you know ostensibly supposed to do right which is defend the Constitution right and so I mean I I'm sure quite a lot of service men understand that it's sort of like yes I mean you know you want to protest against what we're doing but you know just I'm the guy who's fighting for your right to protest as long as you know that um but at the same time I have met uh I've met military guys who who will just sit there and say something like well if you don't like America get the you know GTFO right and I'm like right well wait a minute I mean I you took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution when you went into the service and yet you're basically telling people that they shouldn't exercise their free speech rights if they have some problems with they so it's like why would a military person of all people be against what the Constitution protects so and I don't think they think of that but that's that whole that's cultural so right well I I I wanted to say you know i' I've had a really tough time in my life um being The Outsider uh being the atheist and when I found your show I was I was happy it was the first time in my life that I I found that there were people out there like me um and ju to watch your show I mean it just makes me it makes me proud that Matt you absolutely amazing I've seen you on on many many many shows um he's going to start wanting some money if you pop up his head like that so yeah well I know but careful you you you definitely you definitely give me Pride um make me feel like I'm not alone and I appreciate that and and I I I mean I really appreciate that uh although uh if you the parts of the show that you thought you liked are not populated by people telling us how cool we are but back to back to one quick point you had made about uh getting kicked out of church at like 8 you know I've heard this from other people and I I just I I mean without you know without being insulting I just I can't even believe it I mean it doesn't make sense to me because there's not a single church that I went to that would have done anything like this um I I don't what kind of church was it yeah just think they're the church that couldn't that you know that wilted in front of the questions of an 18 an eight-year-old right why would you want to be that chur called The Church of the unity and the uh and and what it was is the reason they were the reason they explained it to my mother and I remember it very vividly um was because that I was asking questions that my teacher could not answer and because I was asking these questions in front of other kids you were bad it I was I was I was uh Not only was I damning them damning myself to help but I was putting doubt in the minds of the other children and damning them to Hell also see so much easier to just terrorize people with threats than actually answer the freaking questions I just like the fact that there are extremely incompetent Sunday school teachers yeah and like they go to training for that was my first leap I mean I've always been an Atheist MH but that was my first leap of well maybe what they're telling me isn't the truth so I started looking and I don't take every I don't take anything on face value anymore I'm very skeptical now um and I guess I can thank the church for that that the church made me an atheist just by simply saying well I can't answer your question and since you will don't accept my answer that you're going to burn in hell for all eternity and you're a horrible awful person what a nice thing to say to an 8-year-old child I do have an 18yearold son that I raised um to know about religion but is has never accepted any religious viewpoints he is now 18 almost 19 years old he doesn't drink he doesn't smoke he doesn't do drugs he is a Virgin by choice he actually broke up with his last girlfriend because because uh he refused to sleep with her and I I find and he's really good at lying to his dad that Christianity speak of I managed to raise my son on on with without the without that uh book of fiction and he's a great great person he any Christian girl would be happy to to have him you know if you believed in God except for the whole going to hell thing yeah right well I I we got callers waiting when we were going to try and shotgun these William thanks a lot for calling and we do appreciate it yeah but we want to get some momentum here so thanks thanks so much appreciate it no right anytime Mike in Alamosa what's today with it's all Colorado how you doing Mike hey doing great yeah do in a row um I was going to ask you a question about a previous show it was episode 714 about Dan Patrick and I wasn't familiar with the guy but apparently he is like a speaker who's promoting these laws that would um require people before they get an abortion to jump through hoops and you know get all this information he's a state representative from Houston Texas oh thank Senator sorry state senator from Houston Texas my bad okay uh now in there you said said I don't what's that uh don was on that day and I believe it was Don that was talking about Dan Patrick that's right I'm I'm sorry I meant the show exactly the person on the show said he said I don't believe that Dan is actually trying to reduce abortions and then kind of as evidence he gives this argument I've heard before that's basically you know because Dan is not willing to you know adopt these atrisk children and pay for their college and everything therefore he's not being consistent and I don't see how that's valid um there's a huge okay first of all I I think it's probably best if you email TV atheist community.org so that you can talk to Don who did the show that day um and can you know he can explain exactly what he meant and why um I have no doubt that in personally that in Dan's head he's trying to uh end abortion uh my problem is and I think this is the point that Dan Don was trying to make about Dan Patrick is that um there are ways to uh minimize the number of abortions that take place and the in a purely rational scientific fashion um which we have evidence for which are uh perfectly responsible actions and Dan is opposed to those on his religious grounds and so he's really uh working against his own goals and I think that conflict is what Don was probably trying to point out and that is indicative of a lot of what goes on in the whole anti- Choice Movement too which is there are very very easy ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies and that's you know get people very well and comprehensively sexually educated so that understand all of the risks involved in in having sex and they also know that if you choose to have sex because you simply cannot make people do you know you can't make everyone in the world decide to be celent so uh in those cases you want to make sure that people have a proper understanding of contraception you know condom use uh know pills iuds what have you and uh the anti-choice movement the anti-abortion movement is also thoroughly opposed to educating people on those matters so the thing things that are out there that would prevent unwanted pregnancies are also things that people who don't like abortions don't want to see happening and this I think leads to a a very valid criticism that this really isn't necessarily so much about reducing abortions as it is this attempt to uh just control the sexuality of Americans and you can actually go farther and make a fairly good case um and I'll I'll refer you to Godless which I'm I'm sure they'll make the case if they haven't already um the this is really more about a sense of moral superiority and punishing women mhm and it is women right I mean it's I I don't get to get pregnant so yeah you know there's no there's no the the the people out there on on the anti-abortion there may not be all of them but there is definitely a movement among the same people who are against abortion who want to make you know not just plan B and not just ru486 and these sorts of things but but birth control pills at all they want to make them impossible possible to get a lot of women take the pill for nonsexual non-reproductive reasons right um you know there there a whole host of medical reasons for the why why women might be on the pill um but you never see these people trying to make it illegal for men to get Viagra you know yeah those are very interesting points about contraception but my question was about the claims that were made about how because these these people don't uh you know adopt these these kids after they were born with you that I would not necessarily agree that there is that the one thing necessarily follows the other logically but like like Matt said you might want to ask email email the TV show address and ask Don Baker if he would clarify what he meant by that yeah because the point I mean I I can't really speak for Don but when you say something like that that um you know your your refusal to adopt all of these kids means that you're you're not really opposed to abortion um I think he's talking about not providing actually practical Solutions but quite frankly um there's an aspect of this uh where even if Dan Patrick and everybody else were completely willing uh to adopt all those uh who cares you don't get to force a woman to go through a pregnancy you cannot violate her bodily rights that way and so that's that's what this issue uh really comes down to but if you want to take Don up on on what he said to Dan just email TV at atheist Ren community uh.org and uh hopefully uh because we get tons of email we can't answer all of them and Don's not always online but he's or you can call back on a week when he's on uh but I can't defend what he said because I first of all I I didn't say it I don't remember it and I might get it wrong yeah yeah all right it sounds like you disagree also so well you know there's there are certain ways in which you can validly uh accuse someone of being a hypocrite in other ways in which it's not necessarily valid but like I said we don't want to without knowing exact what Don said I don't want to try to like respond to you know what we think he said so there there's an aspect of of this too that I think is kind of humor oh well you know you say you're against abortion but you don't want to go and adopt all of those I I think that's a humorous argument not necessarily intended to be uh taken literally especially since I know Don's aware of you know the bodily rights argument Etc but yeah uh i' I'd go along that line of of emailing or calling back when Don's actually on all right right cool thanks Mike and a bigger problem that I would have just with um with Dan Patrick here is you know I've accessed this article of his and you know we have a direct quote from him where he essentially he makes no bones about the fact that this is him attempting to impose his right religion on the public at large through his office which I would suggest is flagrantly unconstitutional in a quote from him where he says directly quote the good news is through the blood of Jesus Christ he forgives and women who have aborted children need to know that message as an elected official he can't he's not you know he's not the state preacher you know he can't say those kinds of things and I'd say that is a highly highly unconstitutional when he's out there um essentially using his office to prosze and so yeah I kind of need to know where he said that and in what context because he doesn't have to necessarily check his religion at the door but if he's there as a state senator making statements in His official capacity about how we need to educate women about Jesus Christ um well here's the article on tnf tfn Insider they have and apparently they have a video of him saying it oh awesome yeah so that's where I got it from right maybe we'll get a link up uh on one of the websites later on on the blog we shall you can post it on the blog that I shall do yes look at that thinking and everything the internets Joe in New Jersey how are you I'm pretty good um uh first of all I'd like to wish your brother a happy birthday Matt uh thanks for on behalf of him all right um all right uh I recently became uh realized that I was an atheist I had named myself agnostic because I wasn't certain but after thinking about it and you know watching your videos listening to your show I realized yeah I'm pretty much an atheist because I I can't see a reason to believe but um I came to think about something and I kind of wanted your opinion on it um I realized that we talk about a belief system Weir we talk about how people uh take their faith in religion based off of you know books and stuff and what and what the Bible says so on so forth um but in a sense I guess you can say that we sort of do the same thing in terms of what scientists say because we can't necessarily verify everything that they say because we our like we if we ourselves went and learned and studied and proved it ourselves and did the readings we could be certain but otherwise we're kind of taking their uh what they say as truth even though we ourselves haven't done the actual research yeah I gotta kind of disagree I draw a distinction between trust and faith um faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have a good reason and trust is um uh it differs from faith in that it is evidence-based and it is uh I guess granted in accordance with the evidence that supports it and so when I read something uh in a science journal or a finding that's that's out there um the amount to which I am willing to accept that scientific finding is based on how much I understand it how reliable the evidence is what sort of evidence I have towards the reliability of the people that are uh saying this but the big thing that's that's kind of just sitting out there saying hey hey look at me is this idea that this is all public information and while you may not necessarily be able to easily go out in your garage into a test like this uh it all of their findings are in theory available to the public and are subject to peer review and so as other scientists test this to see if they can confirm or refute the results we build up a knowledge base that is the antithesis of faith-based and so I don't even like to to to try to link trust and faith other than yeah there are certain things that I accept I accept them alternatively um that I haven't gone out and tested myself because it's utterly impractical and silly for me to actually do that and instead I talk about this is the best model that we have based on the available evidence and information yeah the difference is uh one of degree not just degree but um you know their actual material components involved um if if you go to your doctor and your doctor says well your your blood labs are out of range or something like this okay well now I'm not a doctor right and so I don't know how to take these readings I don't know how to draw blood and and examine it for you know liver enzymes and whatever else might be in it so to a certain degree yes I might you might say I am taking on faith of what he tells me as a doctor but again as Matt points out that's more that's a trust not and it's not the same kind of faith that religion asks you to adopt when it tells you about Invisible Magic Men In The Sky who want you to live forever if only you love them enough right I mean that's a very very different sort of Faith um you know in the case of what my doctor tells me I can go get a second opinion I can now get online and I can read up on you know there all these things there's WebMD and all these different sites where you know if your doctor says I think this is what's wrong with you you can go home you can check it out yourself um there are people know the legal system as well there are people that we know who are experts who have had the education had the training and you can rely upon that and there's no equivalence in the world of religion where if Pat Robertson says some miraculous thing happened there's no real way to verify that there's no way that there's there there's no way that's not testable you can't you can't do religious peer revie where other preachers will go and test his Miracle claim and say I'm sorry that doesn't quite hold up there there are no journals right so you quite frequently hear religious people and you know Christians make this sort of false equivalence well will you say that my faith in your faith in science is just like my faith in God no not even close sure there is a certain degree of trust as you as you point out uh when you accept something that a scientist says on a certain Fe about a certain topic where you don't have any background in that field but it's a whole different kettle of fish from the kind of Faith the degree of faith that religion asks you to adopt when they talk about what is essentially magic yeah and it's one of the reasons why when people will ask me about things like strength here quantum mechanics that I I I'm not sufficiently versed in the subject to actually have an opinion all I can tell you is what what I've read um but if somebody says well do you believe String Theory no I don't I don't understand it well enough to say that I actually believe it I I don't have a good enough model in my head to even identify what it is that I would be agreeing with I don't believe in evolution well that's that's different that the belief in or belief that yeah I believe that Evolution actually occurred the question is do I believe believe that string theory is true and accurate no uh but anyway yeah I I that's we we kind of went on a little bit long there Joe I apologize that's fine yeah you basically answered my question because I just I hadn't thought of it that way so yeah it does make a lot more sense if you put it into perspective you know the difference between belief and truth so yeah it's one of those things where um you words kind of intermingle but at the same time they're not really the same thing they seem like they are but in a sense they're not yeah you know it's one of the reasons why I my definition of faith is that that's the excuse people give for believing something that they don't good reason trust though uh usually has a good reason behind it and it's proportioned to the supporting evidence and stuff uh yeah I don't even really put them in the same ballpark other than uh we're really talking about the basis for accepting a claim and one of them is about probabilities trust is How likely is it that I'm actually correct and what risk is there if I accept claim as is um the other one Faith um you can't calculate the probabilities and you get divide by zero errors was it was it Spinosa who said you know whenever I'm evaluating a claim I asked myself would it be more yeah or was it Hume where he said reject reject the larger Miracle yeah if the claim were untrue would it be more amazing if this claim were untrue than if it were true anyway thanks a lot for the call Joe appreciate move on thanks whoop I hit that too but too quick okay Don in Houston how are you hello hello you're on how you doing I'm doing good hey Matt I just wanted to say first off man I'm the caller from last week I wanted to apologize I was uh just joking but um oh the douchebag yeah that's me that's me I got I got your email sorry say again I got your email I just didn't reply to it I figured you'd call back at some point yeah that's fine that's fine I just want to let you know um anyways no uh I was going to call because uh or I am calling because uh I was just um curious to what y'all thought um you know of any of the natural theological arguments um are there any specific ones that yall think are more likely or more reasonable than other ones um sure there are some that will seem more reasonable than others but when you talk about whether or not any of them are both valid and sound no oh you don't think any of them are well no if I did I would be a theist well I mean I mean reasonable in the sense that you don't have to necessarily jump on board but it could make it that's not the way that's not the way cisms work yeah well no sisms yeah and of themselves because then it would be necessary I think I know what you're asking Don and um what I'll say is that I can respect the fact that uh apologists who are who are in the habit of employing these logical proofs uh do at least recognize that the whole Faith thing that we just talked about with the previous caller is probably isn't necessarily good enough and that there is a real need to uh take an intellectual approach to defending Christianity and I can at least respect that activity yeah I mean I respect that they they they understand that and they really are trying to you know exercise their minds in in their defense of the faith so if that's what you're asking yeah I mean I do acknowledge that that's what they're doing yeah it's nice that there's an effort made as opposed to just saying well you just kind of got to take it's a personal God has personally revealed himself to me well that's great but you know it doesn't do anybody else any good right argument from religious experience um well I mean do what what fults I mean I know good old William Lan Craig I know a he can be a jerk sometimes but um he uh you know he you know he's the foremost Defender the colam cosmological argument I mean what do what do you all think of that it's uh oh we've talked many times it's slightly better than Pascal's wager um I'll give it credit for for uh being difficult to address because the concepts are often Beyond uh what people are familiar with without actually spending time digging into this stuff um apart from that I mean I think it was you and Russell didn't did you guys do a whole episode on colam I was it was it that or did we talk about it when we were Taping that one time at your place because the studio was closed I know we've addressed we've done it yeah we've done it once and there's a there's a response up on before yeah and there's a response uh or I I didn't write all of it or or actually any of it probably there's a response on the iron chariots Wiki about colam as well yeah we have page there and uh yeah I don't I don't find it rather I don't find it very impressive all what colam tries to do right is it tries to get against the whole uh infinite regress problem of just the basic first cause argument by essentially switching the wording of its premise around to talk about you know anything that begins to exist must have a cause and and in phrasing it this way colam then you know simply by feel you know categorizes God as a thing that didn't begin to exist but the problem right there is well you know how do you wait where but where does that the the confidence in that assertion come from right I mean you can you you could just you sure you could say God is not a thing that began to exist but why should I simply assume that as a premise right off the bat so I think it it it fails in a the same way that a lot of the logical proofs for God fail like tag and some of the others in that it doesn't support its own Prem premises very well and in fact I think it's guilty of begging the question which is where you know the conclusion you what it seeks to prove is essentially stated in the premise and that's a logical fallacy it's a little bit of a little bit of a cheat to the old cosmological arguments would were easily defeated by the well then where did God come from and so the the reforming of this to be that which begins to exist as a cause and therefore there must be something that didn't begin to exist and we're going to call that God great well even if colam is true which is not but even if it was the most you could get out of it is that there's something you can't get to any characteristics of it other than something Eternal as a prime mover thing you can't tell whether it's intelligent whether it even still exists Etc um and because the models that attempt to build off of this go back to kind of what call we had from last week where there's this something outside of space and time well we have no demonstration that any such is possible and moreover uh there are models in the universe in which we can say yes the universe as we understand it had a beginning um but that doesn't mean oh well we've got the idea of time beginning with the beginning of the universe as well um so saying before the Big Bang uh just doesn't make any sense there was no before and which is a very hard concept for people to wrap their heads around right because we think of things in terms of our own experience of things it's hard to imagine a a period of No Time La gr has a really good uh talk that he gave I think like the 2009 AI on a universe from nothing um these are these are the also fall into the category of I don't understand them well enough to actually vouch for them um or say you know what my confidence level is but I can say that uh I experience some existence and even absent a good explanation for its Origins doesn't mean and I should start accepting bad explanations for its Origins no matter how no matter how convincing an argument seems um at the end of the day there needs to be evidence backing it up and I actually don't find that argument that convincing because yeah I I can conceive of a model of a universe that has always existed and what we identify now as far as always has any meaning and what we identify as Universe right now is simply the current transitional state of this universe yeah that at the point of the Big Bang something which had always existed uh became the time space continuum in which we reside yeah the only thing that the Big Bang Theory describes and this is a point a lot of people miss and uh although if I'm wildly wrong I expect our a resident physicist in the studio audience to throw a chair at me in about a second and a half but I think that what the Big Bang Theory describes you could say is it's just the event that caused the universe to expand into its present form right it's not necessarily A a creation X Neo thing it doesn't necessarily say and before that there was nothing at all whatsoever right it's it it describes an expansion event right you know I mean you think about something had to go bang in the Big Bang right I mean but uh but beond but we can't really say anything definite and the problem that I have with uh just mention one more difficulty that logical proofs for God have is that at the end of the day even if you have one of these that is bulletproof in its construction right and you can construct a logical argument that is faultless and still false right you know well no well all dogs die George Washington is dead George Washington was a dog it's wrong well that doesn't that mean it's not fault but I mean in terms of The Logical structure of it right well there's a difference between validity and soundness mean validity goes to structure and go to content but it's like how even once you've still you've still got this proof it's like well how do you say that what you've just described in this logical proof still maps to anything in reality right because you can come up with that's the the tag argument when when you had that big episode with Matt slick and I wish I'd s been there to just be able to to talk to Matt slick for a bit and say look I just replaced the word God in your conclusion with Flying Spaghetti Monster and we have exactly the same proof right so well at the end of the day I mean can you really say that okay you have this really really great logical proof but are you still describing something that actually exists with this proof or is this just an intellectual exercise that's that's another problem that I well yall brought up a lot of OBS I'm trying to decide who to respond here bble that was um well I will say though that you um I forget which one of y'all brought it up but um that if you know even if the col is successful and I quote you it's not but um if it even if it was we wouldn't know the properties of the you know the first cause or whatever it is um and you know if the argument's unsuccessful obviously we wouldn't but in you know in the more recent VAR in the more recent variations of the colum um we that's we we would know something uh like changes list um timeless like it's a Timeless being materal I don't know how you got changelessness um which has absolutely nothing to do with the colum cosmological argument well it it it does if you want me to explain it oh please because this is a first changelessness um well if it goes obviously the arguments from uh infinite regress we can't have an infinite regress and then so therefore we must have that's not cause huh that's not colam no that's well the first I know what the colam is you know whatever begins to exist has a cause sure Universe began to exist therefore the universe has a cause but I'm saying how do you how do you get from that argument to therefore this cause is changeless all right once you if if you give into the three premises and you agree with the conclusion then you can analyze what kind of being deity whatever you want to call it that the the first cause is or whatever cause the universe and or immaterial you know the being being immaterial and changeless how did you get to it being a being well I think the it has to be conscious because how did you get to why would you think it has to be conscious yes see this is I was about to try and explain okay um um I if if I remember correctly it's honestly been a while since I've looked at the argument but um if if I remember correctly a a being can't or and there's only two things that can bring about a no wait how does it go I remember reading here it is right here I I've got it right here okay so two premises everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence the the universe has a beginning of its existence therefore the universe has a cause of its existence if the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God therefore God exists that's the classical argument okay now what colam does is that uh Craig Craig modified it to this whatever begins to exist has a Cause right the universe began to exist therefore the universe has a cause and the cause is the god of classical theism and is a personal being because he chose to create the universe now how he goes from one two and three to four is um where the argument happens right I'm still wondering how you got to Consciousness well I'm wondering how Craig gets to I think I I think I vaguely remember we we sort of got in a little bit deeper than I was hoping I was hoping for a general discussion of the arguments but um well you called in about you called in about colam and now you're saying you haven't looked at it a while and didn't know you were going to get into a deep discussion about it here's a good idea go study it and call back another time well I I think if you go back I didn't specifically say let's argue the colum I said what do you think about it but um but uh what what what I would say about the Consciousness aspect is that um I if I remember correctly he said that a non-conscious being can't bring about and something infinite has to bring about okay non a non or a non infinite Universe let let me so go ahead let me pause for a second second because you you start with if I remember correctly he said um well whether or not you remember correctly is one thing but why do I care what he said um but then you talk the argument I don't care what he said I mean you're cting this I'm telling you the argument if he wrote the argument then that's what he said okay no you're trying to construct it from memory and Martin just read it but anyway that doesn't make any difference you just said that non-conscious beings can't wa now hang on hang on the words that you said where non-conscious beings can't and first of all that makes no sense it's got the same type of assumption in there it's assuming that we're only talking about beings and limiting it to there and then saying oh non-conscious beings can't do this kind of action so it must have been a conscious being okay first of all you you were you were saying about memory why should I you know you need to brush it up and you can't bring it up if it's just for memory and you don't know for sure he was just talking about Spinosa I think it was sposa that said that that's from memory it's from another person it can still be legitimate even though he might not know word for word the concept's still the same no well I'm not I'm not challenging the whether or not people should be able to say things for memory I'm challenging whether or not you are reliably and accurately relaying the information that you're trying to remember after admitting that it's been a while and since I've spent a lot of time on this argument and one of the biggest objections is how do you get from X there must have a first cause to this first cause is a conscious being and have found nothing along those lines I'm just asking you how you get there and if your response is well if I remember right he said that's not an argument that's just an appeal to what somebody else said it would be an argument from Authority if I said because he said it it's correct but that's not what I'm saying all I'm saying is that if I remember correctly if if I remember correctly dogs die blah blah blah just even if I'm in inaccurate with my memory if the concept still legitimate I think we're getting into like if you're inaccurate then it's pointless to continue is my point if my if my memory is inaccurate but the argument still legitimate why would you even care because if the argument is legitimate and you relay an entirely different argument then we wasted a bunch of time what point what's the point in debating an argument or discussing an argument that isn't the actual argument so you're saying if I added to the argument myself and I improved the colon cosmological argument right here but it's not the original colon cosmological argument that I was trying to relay then you would say it's pointless no that's not even close to remotely what I'm saying I've asked you to present a valid argument for how you get to Consciousness and you haven't even come close to attempting that all you've done is tried to remember how somebody else might have done it and you haven't gotten that accurate present whatever argument you want for how you get from first cause to to Consciousness but present it as an argument okay well if we're on the same page there then I have no problem with that um I I guess we uh got a little bit confused there when you brought up me inaccurately remembering something I the only argument the only argument that you're presting if you just presented an argument I don't care where it comes from I have it doesn't impress me anymore that an argument comes from William L Craig or dog well all right if it came from a dog that would actually be fairly impressive um but it doesn't make any difference I don't judge the validity or soundness of an argument based on the person who's relaying it what I'm saying is present what what is the justification for getting to Consciousness and in answer to that instead of presenting an argument the best you could do is say well if I remember right he said something like that's that gets us nowhere well yeah no I think I I agree in general it's just general conjecture I wasn't trying to absolutely prove it I'm just throwing out an idea for how we could get to First Consciousness and then what's the idea what's the idea because we got 10 minutes left so what's the idea for how to get to the first cause must be conscious okay I because I don't see the link in Craig's argument I don't see where he gets from his premises to this must be not only a God not only a think thinking intelligent being but it has to be this specific God this specific thinking intelligent being I'm just going to let him just give me anything give I'll go ahead and give my last shot at it um whatever begins to exist has a cause there the universe has a cause therefore the universe began to exist and the universe is not infinite it's finite um and a finite thing can't bring about another finite thing without be there being an infinite regress of causes and so an infinite thing would have to bring about a finite thing and in order to do that um an infinite thing the infinite being whatever it is would have to be conscious otherwise the thing that it created would also be infinite wow H um yeah I tell you what um I'm sure this clip will end up on YouTube and when it when it does transcribe it and write that down no I'm not saying that's what G I'm just telling you that's that's how I remember you asked for it I'm just first of all um no the at best you got to an infinite thing you didn't say you didn't demonstrate that there was any necessity of Consciousness for this infinite thing um you and and you threw the word being in there again although that hasn't been Justified either that's my point well I think if it's if it is conscious then it would be you know a being well yes I agree if it's conscious it's a being and you haven't offered a justification for it being a being or for it being conscious at best even if I accepted your entire argument you only got to infinite not being and not conscious okay I that's fine with me I have no problem with that I called in for a discussion about natural theological arguments and here we are you have no problem with great okay all right cool catch you later Don thanks thanks for the call Don all right let's see so want to say stuff but it's just not fair Jorge in Utah hey how's it going guys um that was kind of painful to go through but okay yeah sorry where we're sitting yeah sorry about that um I'm calling because um for one I'm not from the Utah area originally um and because of this I'm obviously not of the faith and I've tried you know I've I talk to everybody I'm very much open on U my lack of belief um but my question is how can I approach members of the lbs Church considering how prominent it is here in in Utah but also it seems to be kind of spreading throughout the rest of the US uh rather fast and do you want to approach them or do you just want to know how to respond when they approach you well I I know how to respond to them but it seems to me that uh you know that a couple of people are on the verge of like kind of breaking away but because they're so firmly indoctrinated there's no way to like break through those berries I mean I give them examples of you know hey this is there's no explanation there's no reason to believe in any of this and they go well yes there is I've seen it I felt it and you I can't break that past that barrier that they've set up um yeah first of all on the how to approach them thing I I don't go door too I don't make outgoing calls from here so I I'm engaging people who are asking to engage on on various subjects on this issue of of personal experience uh that's it's a powerful thing uh yeah because every every we rely a lot on induction about our past experiences influence the kind of decisions we're going to make about future events um and I can tell you that you know when I was as a southern baptist um I could have talked about and did would have talked about um personal experiences I had you know hey I I've been in the church and I've been singing and praying and praising and you know had goosebumps and the euphoric feeling that everybody around me identifies as the Holy Spirit and there just was no other explanation for it and it was later that of course um I found out well by George there are other explanations for it and they're all much more plausible than and a magical invisible being that goes around and uh giving people Goosebumps yeah um and when something uh hits you with a great deal of emotional Force you're going to sort of interpret that experience through whatever kind of biases whatever kind of previous you know uh belief filters that you've installed so in in there in many ways you know just personal experience is not necessarily the best uh testimonials the best it's certainly not that's this is why we say anecdotes are not evidence right um you know a person who really really really really really wants to believe in God and really does believe in God is going to see God everywhere they're going to see God in you know squirrels and trees and you know just whatever so it's it's so that's a that's the first thing to take into account is that our minds you know we're subject to confirmation bias we can be incredibly unreliable and we believe what we want to believe in most cases and sorry so no I'm done pretty much the the really quick and easy kind of thing um and I Rely as you've seen a lot on questions and here's the here's the thing if somebody tells me they've had some personal experience and that this is the reason for their belief um I have no doubt that they've well I've had I guess I have some doubt I have very little doubt that they've had a a personal experience so my questions are um given that you have something have had some experience what is the justification for your explanation of it because that's important oh well you know I watched um I watched somebody singing and praying and they fell on the floor twitching around and speaking in tongues and now I know that the Holy Spirit you know was filling this person well how do you know that is that is that the only exp is that the best explanation yeah sorry to interrupt you um it seems like it it goes even deeper than that because I have talked to people here in fact there was a girl who um was you know friends with me for a few months and then she got engaged which um that's a whole another topic but I started asking her you know so why are you getting married and she's like well you know because I've known him for a little while Etc ET I'm like yeah but what's the hurry to get married well because of this and that and eventually I broke down all of her reasons and she admitted that one of the main reasons was that she so that she could have sex and I said well don't you think that sex is less important than marriage I mean I on a hierarchy of importance of big decisions I would put marriage much higher than I would put sex and what her answer to me was you know I don't think I can talk to this about about um about this to anymore because you make me question myself and it's and this is kind of the example and this is pretty much predominant with just about anybody who's in this area with this church well don't expect this sort of immediate you know this flip of the light switch of ah suddenly reason has occupied my brain right I mean it's it's this it's going to be a gradual process it's a long painful if they really are going to deconvert at some point you just it's not going to happen in a day or a week or even a month it could take years so I don't even know why you asked us cuz it sounds like you're doing fun yeah I mean you're put you're put putting the seeds there and that scary tingly feeling she's feeling between her ears that's called thinking and you know she's going to keep it up at some point and it's scares her right now but she'll keep it up and you know or she might not you can't you can't control that only she can control that but I got to let you go H because we're almost out of time but I appreciate it thanks so much for calling thank you so um we've got like a minute left and hey Tyler in De Moine yeah yeah uh don't have any reason to believe that alien have actually visited the Earth but it's possible that life exists in other places in the universe matter of fact it's probable almost certain given the vastness of it uh but I don't know either way and I don't see any reason to think that they're responsible for ancient civilizations or whatever the History Channel wants to pump out that's that's about all I got for you that's it for the show uh thanks everybody I didn't even didn't get to say anything there's the people who actually make the show happen Thanks Martin Everybody enjoy whatever holiday you do or don't celebrate um even if you're enjoying just being a grinch take pride in your Grinchy and and and make it as pleasurable for you as possible without bothering or hurting anybody else and the callers we didn't get to email us TV atheist tyen and community.org and we'll answer you there okay oh Andrew hung up

Channel: The Atheist Experience

Views: 63,296

Keywords: atheist experience, the atheist experience, theatheistexperience, atheist, atheism, atheist vs christian, atheist debate, religion debate, atheism debate, Matt Dillahunty (Broadcast Artist), belief, faith, reason, rational, proof, evidence, logic, fallacy, religion, religious, science, secular, Skepticism, skeptic, questioning god, doubt, is god real, agnostic, agnosticism, evidence for god, Christianity, Islam, morality, evidence for jesus, Jesus, Jesus Christ, debate, Bible, Bible contradictions

Id: 3j9tO0B4yak

Length: 58min 29sec (3509 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2011