The Atheist Experience 751 with Matt Dillahunty and Jen Peeples

[Music] well you open yours [Music] while you'll find [Music] yeah [Music] everybody what the atheist experience live on Matt de l'année and this week I'm joined by Jen people's who just informed me that she hasn't been on the show in almost four months yeah welcome back it's thinking it's probably my fault there's some there's some shuffling around with the schedule that happens and we're going to see about making some changes but also I'm going to be gone most of the month of April so hopefully anybody who got skipped can come in and fill in and do extra weeks in April while I'm out there is a lot going on this alive public access television program sponsored by the east community of Austin you can find out more about the ACA by visiting our website WWE - community org we'll have the telephone number for you shortly this is a live call-in show where we take calls from we would prefer you know theistic calls but it's not necessarily limited to that I have discussions about tell us what you believe in Y or just you know general discussions about atheism religious issues etc in addition to this program the ACA also sponsors a couple of podcasts which have been on hiatus while I moved from North Austin to South Austin they should be returning in the next week although I will warn the nonprofit's listeners that there may not be a live stream associated with nonprofits right away we're having some internet issues but we're still going to do the show and record it and post it you know it's all that's only going to affect 50 people or so who we're tuning in live and seems true for godless I don't know exactly what date Beth and Jenn and laneah and Tracy are planning on starting back up but it should be soon now that we're all rewired for podcasting um after this program is over anybody who wants to kids welcome to join us for dinner at Elroy you have the address of the bottom screen any atheist or a thief friendly persons welcome to come to our events you don't have to be a member to attend when you come down to preach proselytize provoked punched this off poke at whatever just pick up the phone and give us a call we'll be happy to talk to you that way there's a bunch of events coming up by myself okay we tested it beforehand yeah why villages why Arthur mature so all that stuff that that I just said I'm not going to repeat it hopefully there was enough carryover and Jen's Mike it's right through my shirt welcome to live TV there's a bunch of events coming up I wanted to make sure I point out that membership renewal for the ACA is available you can find out more information at the ACA website we have weekly meetings that was it Romeo's now it's where do we change it to I think that still kind of in flux it wasn't Schlotzsky's it may be in flux check the meet up and check the website and there's a Thursday happy hour at the dog and duck beginning around 7 o'clock or so you can drop by there that's 17th and Guadalupe I'm completely frazzled right now and you can't even respond because I've stolen your microphone but the big events that are coming up obviously the reason rally the biggest potentially the biggest gathering of non-believers in this to the United States is coming up in March and I'm hoping to maybe be able to get Dave Silverman or one of the other organizers on very soon to talk about that event and make sure people are aware of it also I was supposed to have somebody calling in at the top of the show but was unable to the imaginal religion to conference in Kamloops British Columbia is May 18th through 20th we were going to talk a little bit about what's going on there some of the speakers you can go to imagine no religion to dot the number to calm for more information but Lawrence Krauss PZ Myers Joyce Arthur Maron amazi Christopher DeCarlo dezirae Sheldon T Thompson Seth Andrews August Berkshire David Ebert me I'll be there giving a talk and I can't talk and read sign language just say what you want to say it's live TV yes I can go back to my mic and you can have yours I'll plug mine that's easy I see yeah so I'll begin to talk it imagine a religion too and I'll be doing a joint debate it's down your shirt all right it's fun I'm assuming can we just like restart we've wasted like five minutes anyway anyway I'll be there doing a debate with Krista Carlo I've also got a couple debates coming up in April there's a joint debate with the JTA Burkhard and some others that I'll try and promote on my Facebook page so you can go there and follow we'll get two calls here in just a second but there's been a ton of email that's come in some of it we can't possibly answer all of it and if you want to email us you can email TV at atheists - community org that goes to myself the co-hosts some of the people behind the scenes there's a lot coming in and somebody actually asked us to talk about something that I have actually recorded several videos that were supposed to be posted to YouTube but I have not actually got around to doing that and that's this issue about contraception in the United States right now I recorded one right off the bat when the the president initially announced his policy requiring employers to provide contraception and it you know I recorded one personally it was an ACA thing it wasn't an atheist thing it's just a little annoying about the kind of the kerfuffle from some of the Catholics and other religious organizations and initially this there was a dance about who was going to pay for it which I found really absurd because in the end the employer is going to pay for it no matter what there anything I'd pay for it directly or they're going to give their employers more money or they're going to lose employees or they give it employees more money or they're going to lose employees or they have to pay through the insurance companies in the middleman there's no way of avoiding paying for it well and actually it's a net benefit to the employer whoever's paying for the insurance because contraception coverage actually I think there's an analysis that was published recently that said that it's actually a net benefit to the employer of about a hundred dollars per person because you avoid a lot of medical problems and the costs of unintended pregnancies yeah it's one of the reasons why the insurance companies didn't have too much of a problem about saying yeah well yeah it's money in the long run and smart is saves lives it saves money it's a it's a good thing I wasn't happy when the president worked out a compromise on behalf of the Catholic Church because I don't think we should be compromising there on matters of health care I don't think we should be counting to religious organizations of false claims actually but I was at least happy that the end result the ultimate result of making sure this was available without a copay and stuff was there but that's kind of my personal political take on this my take as the host of the show comes down to this this has turned into a huge deal and even after the compromise people are crying that this is foul this runs afoul of religious liberties this is not a religious liberty issue at all that is a flat-out lie we have now the blunt amendment which is has come out which basically allows any employer whether it's a religious organization or not to opt out of providing health care almost any health care merely if they have a moral or religious objection to it now that is a Mack truck through health care that that's just unbelievable because now if your employer believes that your illness is the result of God's will and he shouldn't have to pay for it or they shouldn't have to pay for it then that's the case it allows them to just use their religion to single out single people gay people whatever pick it immigrants got an STD you shouldn't have been promiscuous you should have saved yourself for marriage and therefore we're not going to pay for your health care any number of little this this loophole is this loophole is so big that I just found it absolutely absurd and Rush Limbaugh has gone off the deep end for days demonstrating how little he understands contraception because he was talking about a Georgetown Law student who according to Limbaugh was having so much sex that she was going broke buying birth control pills and as others have pointed out the number of birth control pills you take as a long is not affected in any way about how much sex you're having yeah you could not have any sex or you could have sex ten times a day and still take the same number of pills so you're an idiot Limbaugh but we already knew that maybe he's lonely though because one of his suggestions was that if he was going to have to pay for people's contraception that they should film it so that he can sit around and watch it yeah there's some good family values for you by the way I have no objection to porn but I think most of Limbaugh's listeners probably do yeah and yet this is the guy that they're supporting but here's the thing even if this was about religious freedom let's let's grant for a moment that this is an this is actually an issue of religious freedom freedom the religious organizations are still wrong because now their position in that scenario is that the religious opinions of the corporation that owns the company Trump the religious opinions and religious rights and religious liberties of their employees and that is simply wrong nobody's health care benefits should be held hostage to the religious convictions of their employer I'm glad that religious organizations run hospitals universities charities things like that I would prefer that they didn't but I mean it's a service that they provide but these are secular services that are not part of their religion this is something that they do and they do it in part because they've gone run tax-free roughshod across throughout history and so their coffers are full and they can provide these services and create you know good for you but if you're going to run a service that is not a part of your religion that's actually a secular service to the community you have to follow the law and if your religion prevents you from handing out prescriptions that have been that come from a doctor and authorized medical provider you shouldn't be a pharmacist and if your religion prevents you from providing health care to your employees because of your religious conviction you shouldn't be running that business and the compromise that should have been made in this case was to say hey guess what you're running a hospital you're running a university you're running a charity these are not religious endeavors and you're going to follow the law or you can get out of that business it's not an easy situation they will you know it's not like we can just build a new hospital right now right off the bat we may be able to force him to sell it these are unpopular ideas but I find it absolutely disgusting that people are using their religious opinion as a weapon to do something stupid if your religion has you in opposition to contraception you're on the wrong side of reality it saves lives and it saves money but if your religion has you on in opposition to both abortion and contraception you need a serious reality check to get rid of that cognitive dissonance this is gone far enough yeah well and I will also point out that this is an example of yet again religious organizations trying to dictate public policy in this country it's not the first time that's happened and every other time it's happened it's been a disaster give you an example Don't Ask Don't Tell that was a religiously inspired policy whose aim was actually to prevent gay people from serving the military cost us billions and billions of dollars thousands of qualified service members were discharged as a result of it and all because some people's religious sensibilities were offended prior to that prohibition again we had people because of religious views dictating what adults could do what they could consume put in their body all because you know it their religious sensibilities yeah it's a it's a very a little annoying because it kind of it kind of runs around I don't think it quite gets around HIPAA laws and stuff like that yeah but it kind of does because the only people who should even know what medication I'm on are me and my doctor yeah now because we have you know insurance companies that have to end up paying for this they end up knowing it but I find it annoying because I've had the insurance companies call me to talk about getting the other care providers and rather alternatively you know this is between me and my doctor we're already paying you for this service you're making money hand over fist but I dare you as an employer try to impose your you know religious opinions on the people that are working for you that's you're not a doctor stop pretending but anyway we've got calls lined up and what with the outage of the microphone we're a bit behind schedule so we'll go ahead and get started with Clint and how are you doing well how are you pretty good that's kind of loud oh sorry about not your fault I'm telling the guys in the booth we're going to say I don't know what I would do I have that you could whisper microwave well I'm a big fan of the show I'm very new to your show I had had okuni so hear me I can hear fine thanks ok and so I started going to church when I was about 15 I'm 24 now when I hit about 18 19 years old I began to question things I've always done that very curious about things whenever people would say let's pray over our food let's bless his food that never made sense to me yeah why are we blessing this food and how is this food going to be any better when it enters our body shouldn't we be just saying hey thanks for making this food something that was very strange about the time when Bush and Kerry were in the election and Oh for I was not I was not a bush supporter I did not like him that's my political stance and that was looked down on in the church and I got upset about that so I realized that there's definitely so apparently if you're going to be a Christian you got to be this way you got to think this way and so fast forward you know this year within the last month I've just finally looking at all these things that we've all agreed upon in Christianity and you know it's funny how you you know talk about contraception well I'm going into the healthcare field I'm a second year chiropractic student and so you know we've taken embryology we've you know we've taken you know a full year of human anatomy you know we understand a lot of the implications of removing proper health care proper sanitation and what that's done throughout history you if you go back to the third and fourth century you can yeah.the at that time in history the church took over Europe in that part of the world and what do they do they took out everything that kept you know people healthy that kept them clean because they looked at them as dirty because they you know because it permitted you know this and permitted that and so they removed all that they removed sanitation and garbage collection I mean you know I come on people and so today you know they want to tell you what you need to do and how you need to live your life and we want to control that so that we can make ourselves feel more holy you know oh we're going to make that a law because we want to make that the example well okay let's let's make logic out of this if we're Christians and we want people to come to Christ why are we going to take away the human rights that they are do you know why are we taking that away that doesn't make any sense to me at all and so well it falls in line with a particular type of I mean I granted I don't know exactly what church you are in but there there are fundamentalist organizations where where this is a big deal I mean you see it with even some of the the presidential candidates which which always shocks me that we're talking about you know things like contraception but I can't say what their motivations are but I can say that the effects of a lot of their policies serves to punish women and it serves to actually enforce or attempt to enforce a bunch of I I don't even really want to say biblical ideas about sex and marriage and things like that because you know they're still reading into it quite a bit but it is from from within their fundamentalist viewpoint they're enforcing what they believe God wants them to do that sex is for marriage and so they they set up these roadblocks because I mean you can listen I mean you know not to pick on any individual but I mean you if you're in Santorum talking in recent time he thinks contraception is a license for people to screw that's I mean that's his take on it and that is directly in opposition to what he thinks God wants and therefore he thinks he is you know anointed by God to go and change the law to for everybody else so there there is I I don't even know I want I want to almost said you know there is a legitimate you know Christian argument I don't even know how legitimate it is I just know that it was one that I used to used to accept but it's you know a lot of it depends on which church tradition you're coming from and what baffles me is that in this case you know and not to keep hammering on Santorum this is more about religious issues what I'm seeing is that somebody who is a Catholic I've started actually calling them Roman Baptists because because some of the some of these Catholics have you know they're still Catholics but they sure sound a lot like the Southern Baptists I grew up with so I'm a big fan of Roman Baptists as a new new tag for them I'm going to have to use that well well that kind of leads into leads into the next thing I'll get right to it it's when you I started looking at you know talking about just these religious religious issues you know whether it's about prayer whether it's about you know just kind of talking about more Christian practices in general you know if you look at prayer I realized something and this is as I'm seeking out my faith and trying to understand where I'm at I'm still not completely there yet I don't I'm not fully sure what I believe and where it where it falls but I'm realizing that you know when we pray the only change that happens the only the only thing that that ends up changing through prayer is when we believe in what we have faith in something so my question was where where does God come into play because we choose to believe something and whenever we believe in something no matter what it is our lives change it's like our lives change around it because we have faith in something and now our actions are going to change because we think a different way well I can put my faith in anything and it doesn't matter what it is I could put my faith in a jug of milk which I'm stealing from a really clever YouTube video yes you know I could put my faith in the Geoghan and I could believe that that jug of milk is going to change my life well if I do that I'm going to change accordingly and my faith is going to actions will come from that so if I believe in the Bible or whatever book I know that my life is going to change now if I believe that you know if I believe that I'm held together by something that is self-healing and self-correcting if I believe that that's how my body works because you know like a healing wound a healing bone you know your organs get get remade you know once a year anywhere from you know six months to to two or three years you know seven months and you got new bones you got a whole new body so that happens now I believe that about the body but does that mean that oh it's a miracle you know I've been paying attention to things like just things that make up our body things that hold everything together well you know I've been reading about how matter really uh you know how matter is really non-existent what we believe to be you know what we know about matter like matter is energy fluctuations of energy you know in one given place at one given time and you can't measure you know we get a snapshot of something and so we know that that you know we know that everything that we see we can be sure that it's always made up of energy so so Clint where were we I think we've addressed 36 topics at this point and I'm wondering if we can kind of narrow down to you know what it is you either called in to ask or talk about specific I mean they're interesting ideas the thing is that when I find people who are searching you know as you are searching for a better understanding reality searching where their religion might fit in what it is that they do and don't believe when you start addressing a ton of substance at once and all of these possibilities and everything it does you know give a good feel for you know how big the universe is and how little we know but it can also serve to actually really muddy up the topic so since since we're limited on time if you can kind of get to where you were going well I actually just with that I wanted to bring it down kind of a kind of to the point right there it was you know I feel that that most you know that most people I can really only speak for Christians I can't speak for other believers but that we have you know really over religious sized and over spiritual eyes what what we think God is and you know I I do believe that there is you know I do believe that there is something that holds me together I tend to think you know the the energy that you know that fills up the universe I think sometimes it's like we've we can't understand it so but we know that you know we know how energy works through physics and and you know that that kind of energy that's what I'm talking about and so we give it a name like I feel like we give it God you know that's what we call it and so you know I don't know well I will certainly think about that I would certainly agree that people often slap the god label on things that they don't understand I mean that that's just a given my question is you know and I realize that you're still in the searching process but given everything you said what reason do you have to actually believe at all I think because throughout my whole life I've had a lot of moments where where something happens that is so outside of my ex OH outside of my understanding when I am around somebody I can I can ask them I'll feel sad or I'll feel a very very specific emotion or I'll see a picture in my head whether it's something good or something bad you know for instance um I sat next to a friend in a married couple and I saw a picture in my head of just a couple fighting and I just I asked them I engaged them in conversation and got around to asking them if you know if they were fighting and they said that they have been for the last months and it's been getting really bad that's one example you know of this this thing that I've had going on for years and then okay another thing I got hang on you little click I'm sorry but before we get to another thing and I know you want to chime in I want to say something and then Jen wants to go and that is okay even assuming that that your you know your story is accurate and that you did get something some feeling or some premonition and and it did come I don't know not from the fact that every married couple is going to fight sure what justification do you have for thinking that this comes from a God if it's beyond your comprehension if you don't understand it if even further we acknowledge that this is a rather trivial thing I don't know I don't know what justification there is for putting God on that and I know Jen wanted to add something yeah this this whole idea that you picked up on the fact that there was some kind of conflict between those two that's a very common human skill we're really good at figuring out you know something's wrong with this person it's called empathy it's one of the first things we learn about and we're kids you know and I understand that you want to attribute that to some you know some higher thing there but there's really no justification for that so I'm wondering you know you say you don't understand it but it's it's pretty well understood well the thing is I don't necessarily attribute it to God like I used to I did very you know just very blindly because that's you know the community that I was a part of that where I felt I belonged and that's what I felt I believed but now I don't necessarily I you know I don't really know that I attribute that to what what we think of as God I I'm not necess I don't I'm not sure at this point and so I'm searching I was a very know trying to figure it out that's a it's an entirely fair position to be in I point out that you know you know Jen's right about empathy we're also extremely good about body language you could have picked up on any things it could have been a lucky guess it could have been there could be countless explanations for this not the least of which that I don't know any married couples that don't fight on occasion and you know maybe you caught them at a particularly bad time when it was obvious that they've been fighting you know more often people fight you know I've only been married since October Beth and I've been together for three years and some change I can tell what kind of mood she's in really easily I'm not psychic and there's no God telling me right you know there's we're pretty good at you know kind of putting ourselves in somebody else's position we're not perfect at it and figuring out hey you know something's a little off here or you know oh you don't have to necessarily make a sad pouty face for somebody to know that you know something's not quite right well and if you think about throughout human evolution what's what animal on the planet has been the biggest threat to to a human another another human yeah we are we are always our own worst enemies and so particularly reading negative emotions and other humans is something we're very very good at our entire survival is the species depended on that and so and I don't have to read these facial expressions of a bear too sure I'm in trouble yeah yeah I'm pretty sure the second I see a bear I'm gonna say this silhouette impaired and that's what I went when I learned how much that you know how perceptive we are you know we can we can pick up you know we can tell when someone's in the room if we're if our eyes are shut or for about asleep we can tell someone's there so I mean that's you know it's not supernatural that's just something we all the ability for so that's why you know I've learned you know an incredible amount you know I'm at where I'm at for a reason but anyway well I just wanted to put that in front of you guys and see what you thought and just kind of get your opinion I I think I am kind of waiting in in this direction you know really kind of shedding my beliefs quite a bit and but um well keep quite what the super time shows I'm still searching yeah you know keep questioning keep looking for answers thing that you know and by the way you know if you come across something you don't have an explanation for look around see if you can find an explanation and if you think you've found an explanation have some other people check it out and see if that explanation actually holds water but if you can't find an explanation then that's the category of I don't know maybe we can find out later maybe somebody else knows but it's never the you never justified for just saying oh this is so such an amazing coincidence it's too amazing to be a quinces this is so amazingly unexplained that it must come from Supernatural source there can be no justification no intellectual justification for making that leap but absolutely I'm a searcher and always will be so thank you guys very much it's free answer thanks Mike alright as a reminder once it show's over people involvement she'll be going to Elroy oh I'm sure they'll put the number up on the screen I forget to announce it ten times a show like I'm contractually obligated to do but I'll try and do a little bit better today we've got Jonathan and Arlington how are you hey how you doing good waiting this is my third time calling second time talking you met mm-hmm the topic is unfalsifiable God and falsifiable soul and happiness and I'll try to be brief and smash your youthful navel I was talking about about a month ago what we left off was obviously I believe that one should one should believe in unfalsifiable not if it indeed makes them happy and what we left off was you said I asked you what was the problem with there and you said well who the hanukkah calls what is is that um well essentially I mean I don't care about happiness I mean I don't care about are they true them sighs yeah and I take exception to that because I feel like I do care about the truth well you're wrong I told you how to think about that and I thought about and I think I think if you're a little bit off in general I don't care about the truth I think why I said assessment will be mmm not that I don't care about the truth coming to different levels of caring I don't think we'll do that carat oh yeah and my position is that your level of caring about the truth is insufficient well what I would say is it is that I just I'm just more willing to I'm willing to risk having Anshu believe yeah it's called gullibility yeah and I don't say that to be insulting I mean you know I realize that people going to take it that way the thing is if you actually care about whether or not something is true then one of the primary things is to say I'm no longer willing to simply believe something because I feels right or feels good because I understand that I can be fooled and I can be wrong and so I need to take steps to try and find out what the actual answer is and if I'm unable to find the answer as I was just explaining to the last caller I'm in a position of I don't know I'm not justified in claiming that my lack of understanding or my inability to find a better answer justifies a god answer or anything like that but if we make a sense that I've heard on the show we make assumption that such as press for the pain like stressful to death if the pleasure truly is preferable to pain I'm talking about unfalsifiable guy on the unfalsifiable so that's something that were to say that you're going to search for the truth neither you or I could search for that truth because by definition there is no truth to search for value and get there yeah if you're asserting that it is necessarily unfalsifiable you then yes it's a dead end and I don't know why you're wasting in a more time marking for the unfalsifiable death I want to speak to their God well why I'm asserting okay here's here's the thing if you're if you're asserting that you're you only want to talk about an unfalsifiable god there's no point in continuing the discussion because I have zero interest in that it is it it is an intellectually vapid exercise was it because you have no interest among philosophers do things that are discussed things that maybe people don't like interested in but they discuss it lots of glue sure but I care about it your view if you said I'm not coming up and you know I care about truth and if you're going to set up something that cannot be demonstrated to be true then you're just wasting my time okay you say I'm wasting your time but this is this is this is a path that many believers go through and go from a fundamental belief to atheism in fact and right now somebody in the middle like myself it comes down to a god this unfalsifiable that's that's the dead middle is that I met and I'm asking a question of watch that I not believe it's collecting step-over so even though you might not be interested for your state because it doesn't make any difference to you it makes a whole lot of difference to mean a lot of other people don't ask the question I know I understand I'm just what I'm saying is I don't know how many other ways I can explain I'd love to come up with a different explanation of you seem to understand that if the god proposition is unfalsifiable that you cannot be rationally justified in believing that it's true correct I believe you can be justified then rationally justified requires falsification or falsifiability not by what definition is that something that I could look up well you can start by reading some Karl Popper on the philosophy of science but the big point here is that let's see if I can cut this down if it's not falsifiable if this is if this is not something you can demonstrate how can you be justified in believing it the same wax if you justified in any iia to orange this morning just saying where I was justified maybe you've been eating knowing I'll open the fridge and ask should I eat an orange I like the taste of annoyance it was logically for me to say I should eat an orange that's why I'm justified you're you're eating an orange is an actual testable ah now that it's in the past I can't go back and test it but I mean from your perspective you ate an orange because you liked it but are you saying that the orange was did not that that there's a some possibility the orange didn't exist well no I'm giving an example of Britain yeah I don't care about preference I care about truth well your personal preference I'm saying that what justified is that I want to do it no I understand that you okay you're saying this is my personal preference I care more about my personal preference than whether something is factually true therefore I am justified by my personal preference and I'm saying when we're talking about whether or not something's real your personal preference is irrelevant the truth is not impacted in any way by how strongly you believe something or how much you like something it's it's simply not but the truth is the truth is online of our size using atheists and Liat theists the truth is not an innie of our size you're just not willing to accept how is the truth not on either side going how is the truth not on either side of a binary proposition either there is a God or there's not correct but you said you answer the question either there is a God or there's not correct but you don't so you believe there's no God you just said you don't you don't hold to believe so you're not believing I don't know if you're pretty because you have strong atheism but the typical 80s is not going to say I believe there is no God they're just going to say I don't hold the belief that there's a guy sure and I'm going with both of those but if you believe that either there's a God or there's not right then either your position of theism is true or false oh yeah I agree with that that's a truth proposition not a preference proposition it's not like I like the taste of oranges but what you're arguing when you're what you're arguing when you talk about your preference for oranges is like well I don't know whether there's a God or not but I prefer this God to this other God no I'm saying I can choose to believe belief in that belief is not a choice belief is not a choice in any simple sense can you choose to believe that you can fly my opinion belief is a choice believe no no your opinion once again is it relevant oh go ahead I'm sorry no the question was can you choose to believe that you can fly yeah you can't choose okay and we believe above anything thank you God yeah okay so if you test that you'll find out in fact you cannot fly I I'm a this is this is something we're not actually going to solve here about belief being a choice I am firmly in the in the camp that belief is not a choice belief is belief when we say I believe something that means you accept that this proposition is true that means that you are convinced now you can be convinced for good reasons or bad reasons you can be convinced to varying degrees of certainty but you don't ever simply make a conscious choice to be convinced you can certainly make a conscious choice to act as if you're convinced because you're convinced of some benefit to acting as if you're convinced filament but in a foundational level beliefs aren't choices I agree that that belief is a matter of being convinced passive belief of what you're talking about where you're being convinced by some external source that's possibly where you you're not doing anything I'm talking about as active belief I am being convinced but I am the condenser yeah I'm being convinced them with no time are you told me it's not possible for me to commit for somebody to convince themselves no that's not exactly what I'm saying at all but that's what I'm talking about I'm convicting myself so I am being too sure why would you want to convince yourself or something if you don't know that it's true because a lot there before next year the same white shoes they don't work and now we're back to where we were a month ago and we've wasted more time on this show you don't care as much about the truth as you do about what feels good to you my question is what what what harm nikon by doing that at the end of the day what's going to happen to me to Palm Bob what I'm doing right now well I don't know I'd say the first thing is you're not going to find out whether or not your proposition is true but I don't know what decisions you're going to make based on your personal preference neither are you you're not going to find out whether or not there's a god whether or not that promise is true as well neither one of us are going to find out whether that problem this is true or not no my position doesn't prevent me from continuing to seek the truth yours does we're talking about unfalsifiable guys so in that sense none of us is going to find out whether that proposition is true I'm sticking to that guy because you always ask what God do you believe in yeah but I don't believe I don't believe that the god proposition is unfalsifiable that's an unjust sort of assertion that you're making I'm not asking me to believe it again propositions on bottom I'm saying I believe in unfalsifiable God and I'm saying it on there I God and I'm saying I don't care what what point is there in believing and it's something that's unfalsifiable and if you're just going to come back with well I like doing it well good for you but it has nothing to do with truth I'm going to ask you to agree with what I call what I call God you asked me or you have to viewers to determine on it but declare what God they believe in and that's all I did sure what's the point of believing in it well I mean that's another topic no it's the only topic I care about it it's the only topic I care about once you have stated that you believe in an unfalsifiable god my question then becomes why see it's a two-part question tell me what you believe in and why and so my why question is why I believe in that and if your best answer is because it feels good well good for you but some of us care about whether or not the proposition is actually true and the fact that you're talking about an unfalsifiable proposition means that we don't have any truth claim about it so at the end of the day let's just pretend like this is scored at the end of the day I'll be off this call what go ahead I don't know if you hung up over here no no oh it's a little bit later the score being capped and whoever has the least untroubled East wins yes we both go through our lives I believe is on the table God you don't let's just say you were right yeah and there's no one fun table god you win but who's going to ever know how does that affect your life now in my life now if ma Polly understand here's a cable even here's your happy this is what I raised today we die well unconscious nobody knows what difference does it make okay first of all this I raised a month ago or so last time we talked I can't tell you exactly what impact your belief has because I'm don't live your life but if we think that your beliefs exist in a vacuum and that you can just believe something because you like it and it doesn't affect anything else you believe that's absurd all of our beliefs impact the other things that we believe and make us more likely to believe absurdities and the more absurdities we believe the more out of tune with reality we are and the more out of tune with reality are the more potential harm there is now it may be the case that you believe in some nonsensical God for no good reason and it never really does you any clear harm mm-hmm but that doesn't mean that it was absent of harm that doesn't mean that it didn't impact any decisions you made made and it doesn't mean that you lived the maximally positive life once the group they want to assess what the most the maximum positive life I'm just trying to see if there's a direct link to this belief that I have anything negative happening because like you say you don't you don't live my life so you don't know what the what's the ultimate utilitarian beliefs would be I don't think anybody to know that but if I can make a direct link between this and Megan something negative that's what I want to base it off us I wanted to see if you could make that link in any way possible um and if you can't because you don't know my life or you don't know what other things I believe I understand that if I can't talk about this specific belief if that's what I'm talking about what I care about now and I care about truth okay so there's nothing directives Oh direct link to anything negative I don't know I don't know your life I just told you that but what is it specifically what is it okay what hang on hang on hang on apart from unfalsifiable God tell me what you actually believe don't describe with that it's unfalsifiable tell me what you actually believe that's that's a nothing yeah what do you get from that well fun fun time ago that night I said I should take you back that with unfalsifiable so some believe there's an afterlife some type of afterlife provided by this guy sure I said what kind of a life what a what is it that you believe about the afterlife it's an extension of this this more life I mean there's nothing else like it really uh hang on to it okay sure that's actually to some extent we can demonstrate that that's not the case I mean we can actually assess the truth value of that we can't we can't get to absolute certainty we can't you know go beyond death's door but what we do know about the brain and what makes you you and your memories and preferences and everything else in it in the studies that we've done with people with brain damage all of the evidence points to the conclusion that when you're dead you're dead that there's no use left to continue and so you're believing in a proposition a lot of about an afterlife for probable so unreliable so you say unfalsifiable one more time swear to your god that is nothing I'll hang up on you we will you ask me what I believe and you're saying you could assess something you can't assess something that's unfalsifiable up that's what I feel like anybody I can if it's unfalsifiable it is unfalsifiable which means there can be no rational justification for believing it that's it that is that is an assessment it is a pointless waste of time thing hey Jonathan Jonathan have you and we heard the when you say unfalsifiable then you by definition are saying that there's no evidence for it correct oh yeah I was noting awfully if we can't we can't measure the evidence okay so that so there's no evidence so have you heard the saying that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence I've never heard that but I mean oh okay yeah well it's the reason I've almost got up 12 times since you got that phone you're really and I don't because I you know I'm optimistic that we can actually come to some kind of understanding but it's incredibly frustrating I'm not because we're back do you think that any evidence that can be that can be provided below perfumes or the question should I eat an orange sure sure we can actually we can actually determine whether or not an orange would be beneficial to you or harmful to you let me feel like I've done that that the always provides just as much nutrients I'm not allergic capisco my diabetic or anything like that let's just say it came down to whether or not I liked it can there be evidence whether now should eat it that the health the health thing a better question if you neutralize everything but opinion can I find anything other than opinion what a completely ridiculous unfair way of narrowing things that is the simple question no you have to provide oh you're doing it you are you are constructing and eliminating all possibilities that don't fit within what you want to happen it's the same thing you do when we're talking about questions of truth you don't care as much about the truth as you care about what your opinion is and so yes I will say to you Jonathan all other factors are equal and the only determining factor about whether or not you should eat an orange is your personal opinion then that's all there is congratulations you defined a tautology and wasted an hour well that and you've you've discovered how we make dietary choices every day I mean you asked whether or not there are not allergic and I want to eat it yeah that reminds me it reminds me of in in some contentious discussions like on abortion that have taken place where somebody says okay we don't get to include rape cases we don't get to include these case we only get to include this narrow set of cases that make my point easier to defend well I'm not here to make your point easier to defend I'm here to point out that your position is indefensible where we start we start around with rules all the time that says pleasures probably would obtain a life is preferable to death so the baseline is faithful as ground rules analogical um okay I I did it I did I have actually used those phrases what I'm talking about secular morality and I say that you can start with those simple beginnings as rules of thumb that as a general rule life is generally preferable to death pleasure is generally preferable to pain etc but those aren't absolutes pleasure is not always preferable to pain if I put my hand on the stove and I feel pain there's a problem in my brain I need that pleasure I need that pain in order to identify me in order to identify the risk so it's not a global absolute that pleasure is always preferable to pain these are generalities that we use and we build from that and when and those will come in conflict at some point as well when your life is so painful and miserable that death may actually become preferable to continuing to live so you're trying to take generalities turn them into absolutes in order to go right back to what we just finished talking about which is justify that you believe something because it makes you feel good and that's what you want to care about you don't want to address these other issues because if you did you could go do some research into what we know about human identity and whether or not there's any good reason to think it's were mostly feasible that anything that makes you you survives your death because it doesn't like I said I mean there are generalities but I think that's a good place to start those assumptions pleasure versus pain lifers event I think that's build a good places to start front I agree that's why I've used them what I don't what I don't do is finish there and then use them to justify my own personal preferences but if I but I mean I think in a way I'm not going to say you know I think in a way you can mean the truth for you making it gives you pleasure to feel like you you have you hold us as few boss believes in isn't ism you know many true believes I think that gives you pleasure yes I can I give you pleasure actually I don't do that because it gives me right now you know anytime anytime we feel like we have discovered the answer to something some truth yes that we feel pleasure there is actually a brain chemical that gives us pleasure well we feel like we've discovered so what if everybody doesn't have their chemical than what what have believers they don't have a chemical what I do anyway every human has this well you don't think the different levels with um from what gives people more pleasure than another likewise that might not give you pleasure if the person sheer so let's test your let's test your hypothesis are you saying that my brain chemistry changed in between the time I was a believer and when I was a non-believer you couldn't well I'm not saying it couldn't have I mean do you think that that's really plausible I think it is probable okay based on what by the way his opinion oh oh wow everything on excuse me because he ate an orange so yeah when I say that I don't want you know I say I want to believe is may treat fault through things in as few false things as possible and yes that gives me pleasure I don't do that because it gives me pleasure because it doesn't always give me pleasure sometimes the truth can be actually kind of painful but you would do something or gives you point well now you're asking about an action which is separate and but but yes yes some situation I really believe that the leap of an action that's what my argument hinges on Matt you don't agree with that look that's kind of a dead end yep which is what I said 15 minutes ago if you think believe the matter of being convinced that I think that one leaf isn't brain state which building is belief is a brain state the action that you're wanting to call belief is the profession of belief not believe you don't think I can call my own brain state by convincing therefore you don't think anybody the cell not in this simple sense that you're talking about the process of becoming convinced is more complicated than simply an act of will okay I didn't work were to disagree with them yep because I don't think you mean that me that's an opinion I don't think you guys were scientist if you say you don't think that you can be that you can convince about I'll take it as a state of my opinion no we're not we're not scientist but the thing is we actually do understand how beliefs are formed and the fact that this is a brain state and I don't think you understand that well the other thing is that I'd encourage you to actually go look at what some of the neuro sciences are actually finding out about when decisions are made with respect to when you think you made a decision because the decisions made before you think you made it that's just science but also I look up vs Ramachandran there's really liquid V s those are the initials and the last name is Ramachandran RM acha and dren I think some really good talks including I think at the first imagine no religion conference where he talked about his foot brain patient where the brain had developed two separate personalities and one of them was at the east and one of them was an atheist there's also cases where people's brains and personalities have been reset they've lost their memories their personalities have changed there's big questions we need to address about whether or not that's still the same person and how we view them what obligations are they still under there's huge questions about these things and as long as people like you are more comfortable anything that your identity carries on after death in spite of these evidences to the contrary that you as an individual can be reset right now while you're living I'd say that's a potential harm of your belief that it inhibits the discovery of what's actually happening and it can cause you to hold views that may not be in your best interest but I don't know your whole life so I don't know I mean I know plenty of Christians who are Christians in name only oh yes I believe I believe I believe and what they go out and do every day it doesn't seem to be impacted in the slightest by what Christianity tends to be but at the end of the day if they actually believe that's going to inhibit their ability to find out the answers that Christianity asserts now you're not accepting a full on you know doctrine with a bunch of assertions you seem that well so far we've only been able to narrow down that you believe in an afterlife but you know believing in an afterlife based on personal preference is indistinguishable from believing there's no afterlife based on personal preference and I don't want to believe either based on personal preference I want to believe the proposition that is supported by actual evidence and I don't understand my spirit either my position or your position but I guess either one of us any further committee will vote for the same level I don't see how what you're believing is going to get you further happier and make you more successful life than what my position is well if I'm going to cross the line to be yoga I want to be an atheist so I'm going to do that I need some type of motivation if I want to find anything no we have to share you know I should that's a shifting that's a shifting of the burden of proof go ahead we perform if we're doing this right we form our beliefs based on where the evidence leads not on the fact that oh I don't have anything to disprove this thing that I want to believe so what you've done is you put the belief out there this is what you want to believe and now you're looking for some justification for it that's backwards okay what you want to do is go from the evidence go where the evidence leads ask you to understand understand that mode of thinking but my question still is and I know as you can see it on my life but just according to this belief what do I gain what do I gain by doing that what does it make what let me let me ask you something how has believing in false things ever helped anyone whatever has helped anybody else but if I can come back and judge based on me if it's giving me hope and happiness that's helped me a little bit is that why why don't you something else that can help me more well why did you why would why would belief in something that you can't demonstrate to be true give you hope and happiness I mean what's hopeful about that hello oh damn I thought you stumped him and then we just lost him dad oh well unfortunately there's only like a minute left hey Kevin how are you hey Matt hey Jen how you doing you got 30 seconds or so okay something real quick on eric's call from Mesa Arizona last week where he had supposedly seven premises and he couldn't get past the first one because words in your mouth met Tracy had pointed out that we never had perfect nothing to investigate so we don't know the properties of it and so we can't make any claims about it the same thing though can be said that starts putting the burden of evidence back on his assertion if somebody's facing the type of an argument have the person making the claim come up with a case where we have something coming from something because as far as I know we don't have any such thing everything is that yeah yeah yeah no no we're talking about the Big Bang creation of the universe kind of things oh sure sure saying that there's no other no other initial events to compare it to sure yeah it's a date it's a change in scope we gotta let you go thanks everything for tuning in appreciate the calls we'll be back next week same time 4:30 sorry that building get through but keep an eye on the calendar for upcoming events you

Channel: The Atheist Experience

Views: 66,341

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: gd8Bc-QN3E4

Length: 58min 22sec (3502 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 06 2012