The Atheist Experience 764 with Matt Dillahunty and Jerry DeWitt

[Music] [Music] Oh [Music] yeah [Music] hey everybody welcome to the Atheist Experience live it's June 3rd 2012 welcome everybody I'm at the Lonnie joining me this week Jerry DeWitt welcome sir thank you sir pleasure to be here for those of you who are not aware Jerry's a former Pentecostal ministry auntie coastal minister who is the first graduate of the clergy project we're going to talk to him a little bit about that and also we'll be taking your calls this is a live public access phone in television program that streams live over the Internet as well and we're really happy to you all joined us this evening or this afternoon or whatever but mostly I'm thrilled that you're here I'm thrilled to be here it is quite an honor I have been following this work for a long time and I'll say hello to my son Paul DeWitt who is very jealous that I'm here and he's not yeah Paul come down I'll let anybody sit in here haha oh now don't feel as good no so so why don't you do you know kind of briefly go through the process of you finding and getting involved with the clergy project and kind of what's happened since then moving toward recovering for religion ought to be very brief because I know the callers were the most important part of the show I I went through 25 years of deconstructing the traditions that I had learned from my family and in at the very end of that 25 year experience I realized that I was completely and utterly alone or at least thought I was and so I reached out to the Internet I remembered somebody by the name of Dan Barker I googled contacted he contact me back and he introduced me to the clergy project and the wonderful thing about the clergy project is is that it's an anonymous online forum where people who are in situations similar to what I was in at the time are able to communicate in complete secrecy not jeopardizing their life not jeopardizing their family or their friends or their finances or the favor that they have in the community and try to work their way out of a ministry that they no longer believe in we found ourselves in a position where we no longer held the supernatural beliefs of our religion and so the clergy project is a great online and on form and actually you know it's been growing quite a bit yes it's you know people when I remember when Dan Dennett first talked about the study that he was doing saying we're dealing with ministers who are still in the in the pulpit active in the ministry and do not believe and we were like wow I'm wondering you know how many of those did he manage to find and then the study the original study there was like five or six right working with right and then when you got involved there were twenty probably around twenty yeah probably around twenty and the last count that I saw were up to 250 actual members and during the month of May we received over a hundred applications Wow so it's it's growing it's extremely exciting it so as a side note to all of the believers out there who are going to church on a regular basis it would be interesting if you sat down and thought about whether or not the person standing in your pulpit actually believes the things that you believe you know are they are they somebody else this is a big deal because I mean I I know that you've gone through a lot in this in this process out but what people don't seem to understand is for a lot of people who are in the ministry they're stuck right I mean when your entire life and livelihood is wrapped up in this religious belief that's right especially for a lot of them I mean I know you got started at preaching at 17-17 saved at Jimmy Swaggart Church yeah and I know several other people who also get started there they ended up going to seminary after they'd actually been preaching and evangelizing for a while and you develop a certain skill set that is fine-tuned for the church right and you find yourself so many years later kind of disingenuously saying things wondering what do I do and if I leave this what do I have do I have a skill set that I can put to use anywhere is is there and and it's and and it's it's a little bit deeper than that that's obviously all very true the other side of it is this as a minister your life is about serving people and when you begin to see that you may have to disengage from the religious community and you know that all these other things are going to come about the loss the possibly family finances favor friends all those things you have to begin to ask yourself what is my own personal integrity worth is it worth that is it worth my spouse not having health insurance is it worth my children never going to college is it worth my family being ostracized in this small community is it worth all of that and you know this is real-life issues it's very easy for especially even me now that I'm on the other side for us to stand up and say you know just be honest up stop telling lies and I think the majority of the people in the clergy project are not lying they're trying to dance around the language anyway they can working out their exit strategy but the reality of it is it's just not that simple it's very condor how many of them I'm not asking you to break any confidences or anything but I've always wondered how many of them continue to do this and try to do good from the inside you soften the message yes you kind of lead people towards a more enlightened you know path about this and and let's get it you know we've lost a lot I mean if you go back to the fire and brimstone stuff you know you're quite as much of that as you used to anyway and so you've got Christianity in particular and other religions as well divided up into the you know the hardcore fundamentalists and then the moderates and the liberal you know the theists I wonder how many of the how many members of the clergy and perhaps for years many many years decades centuries even have been oh I'm in here and I've learned something new that conflicts with what I've been teaching and what everybody's been taught is there a way that I can work this in to try and educate you know the flock from that's exactly what I tried to do the last church that I pastored was a community church a very small community church and I really thought I could go be I didn't know the language I didn't know the terminologies but I really thought I could go be a Christian humanist was what I was really working towards and didn't even know it unfortunately by the time people connect to the clergy project they are so this is going to be Christianese so weary mm-hmm so weary of carrying the burden of living multiple lives multiple personalities they're really just trying to find a way out and what the Dennett unless Cola study has has found is that it really depends on their age if they're young enough that they can get a new job get a new educational set then they'll probably make a move real quick if they're old enough they make and bear the burden for a year or two until they can reach their retirement it's all of those middle you know years that is just absolutely impossible to deal with in a light-hearted way now moving on from the clergy project we'll get the calls in a couple minutes but you know we have a mutual friend in Darrell ray yes who put together recovering from religion initially and you have now taken over I don't know what your is you titled president exactly no he's the president for forever and ever for as long as there's a never he's the president but you're the man I'm the executive director I'm the figurehead I'm the 15 minutes are I'm hardly adding to the pan yeah the the staff the staff does all the work Sarah Morehead she's the executive Deputy Director she really does all the work we've got a core group of volunteers wonderful people who are doing this fantastic work very similar to the clergy project but not limited to clergy right so it's people who are working their way out of religion some anonymous most not but basically they're coming to small groups where we're dealing with the core issues that people face as they're leaving one culture and going towards another culture and we help them make that transition we kind of consider ourselves like you know Hospital we're just there till they get better then we send them up to the rest you guys well it's you know these are questions that we get a lot both on the show and even more so an email and I get I get email from people who are going through situations where you know you've got potential custody battles sure you've got lots of family issues these questions come up a lot I'm glad you're here looks like our first caller is actually going to be related to that subject so we'll go ahead and get started real quick Ida in Florida how are you hi Matt how you doing good thanks for waiting hi Jerry hello Ida I just wanted to I'm really happy that I got I'm getting to talk to you been wanting to talk to you for a very long time I was a Roman Catholic all my life I'm 35 years old and you know I I've never felt like I fit in I always felt really weird going to church I just you know I didn't feel anything and it was just really weird so then I started going online I found you and I found your show and because of You Now an atheist oh thanks hey thank you so much you did the work we just provided information but thanks so much for saying so you're like the best debater i watch you know here's the base here in tampa and just many debates you had online it's like nobody could debate you amazing well I hope there are still people who can debate me because I like doing it but thanks so much your ask you one thing go like you know what my daughter she's 14 and you know she's open about being atheist also like in her school and ever since you know we came out and told people openly just how do you deal with the negativity because the people the kids in her school and people that I tell it's like you know they're just so negative mm-hmm I know how do you deal with that I mean one of you that's like I don't there's not so many atheist around here but it's but it they're just really negative you know the stuff that they see say it's like what do you suggest how do you deal with people like that well I - the first thing that I do is I've kind of created a niche for myself and that I just really try to love everyone out of my way and that may sound a little odd to say it that way but because they expect a certain amount of a fight and they're looking for a fight I really just try to show them as much love as possible now that's kind of easy for me because that's my thing that's my personality is I love truth and I don't love people not everybody is wired the same way I honestly had to avoid certain situations when I knew that there was going to be a fight I can remember one example where I desperately needed some stamps and I pulled up to our little post office I'm from a town of 10,000 I started to walk in I saw who was in there and I just turned around and walked out and quite honestly the bill was late because I didn't have a stamp because I just wasn't in the mood for the fight that day but what we've learned through recovering from religion is that for everything that you have to remove yourself from as you leave the religious community you have to find something to replace that and so with the power of the Internet and there there may actually be more people out there than what you're aware of at this moment I would do everything I could to connect Connect connect connect do everything you can to find those people and probably just being on the show is going to connect you with people that you never knew or in your area the community has saved my life honestly the community has saved my life yeah and I don't I don't disagree with Jerry my approach probably isn't I know my approach isn't identical it is and it's you know every situation is going to be a little bit different obviously I don't know exactly what you're going through what I do know is that one every time I hear from somebody who says I'm the only atheist in my area inevitably they're really really wrong and one of the things we tried to do over died on chariots there's a list of organizations and we probably need to do a better job of building that up so that you can find people to actually socialize and interact with so that you know you're not alone because building community and and we're working with the community is critical but my I don't I don't know how much negativity I ran into but when I do I tend to try and be kind of straightforward and analytical about it and by that I mean okay I understand that you know if it's a relationship that existed before where I'm losing a friend where somebody's disconnecting for me I have to own the fact that of the two of us I'm the one whose position has changed and that is my responsibility and I will own up to that and if they no longer want to associate with me that's one thing but if they want to abuse me that is something that I do have to take it all and then in response to that my thing is okay what really changed about me what is it about me that is different now from before that is causing you to react in such a hostile negative way because as far as I can tell it's the fact that I don't believe the same thing that you believe and in particular I don't believe this claim which you don't seem to be able to prove anyway see why would you be so offended that I just don't agree with you on this now I can understand you know the offense especially if in my position where I not only don't agree with them I think they're they're wrong I think that these God claims are delusional and I understand that that offends and bothers people and so you know I I own up to that I can't imagine I mean I did this in my 30s I can't imagine being a 14 year old kid and being openly atheist in the face of hostility I know what I was like at 14 yeah I didn't have I have the bosses to talk about you know my inner self at 14 even if I had been an atheist I there were plenty of other subjects that I was probably you know kind of a closeted about for lack of a better term term so you know kudos to your daughter for actually doing that the one thing is that by being yourself you have to be comfortable with the fact that being yourself is going to be a reward unto itself and that each one I didn't end any relationship that ended over my atheism there's not a single individual with whom I used to have a relationship that I don't know where I ended the relationship they all ended the relationship and that's on their head I did not do anything that would have or should have ended a relationship and you have to be you have to be honest with yourself about these relationships and how important they really are obviously when you're going through this situation everything is magnified all of your emotions are on high alert when things started coming out about me I went through I guess I had about 200 friends on Facebook at that time I went through and could only find eight people that I really really cared about talking to about this issue so you know I think you're I think you're exactly right yeah yourself as your own reward there's an aspect of that too which is if the only way I can get these people to like me and care about me is to be something I'm not do I really want those people I mean people ask all the time should I come out and we had a little conversation about this this morning after Gerry's talk and my answer has been well it depends you know definitely if you think your your life or livelihood or your happiness in general is just going to suffer from it then by all means don't let the rest of us who are out continue to work to build a safer world where you can come out where we can all be out but what I do say is that if you're considering coming out be sure that you're ready to face the consequences of that that you're comfortable knowing hey I'm going to sever there are relationships that are going to be severed because of this change and it's not my fault and I'm ok with that because I'd rather surround myself with people who like me for me that's right it's one of the reasons once again to reiterate that the community is so important yeah and the community is there especially for this fourteen-year-old atheist there's a huge community for her you you have to accept as hard as it is to accept that this is going to carry with it waves and waves of negativity that's just a fact there's no secret way of doing this where everybody in the world is going to love the fact that you no longer believe this mythology yeah and the last the last point I'll make on this because you're talking about dealing with the negativity is and this is there's just no way to say this without really irritating some people by and large with a handful of exceptions I am not mad at religious people for their reactions to atheism or me or anything else I pity probably isn't the right word but it's close because they are very much victims of their religion that the religious ideas have poison to their ability it's it's what is responsible for the for the damage in the relationship that's right and it's partly because it portrays a false sense of love no doubt Jarius is one of the sweetest men that I've ever met in my life genuinely loves people it's obvious we were fast friends right off the bat I also care about people maybe not necessarily to the extent that Gerry does but what I care about is that people treat each other in a way that is based on reality that is based on let's figure out exactly whether or not not ever not every two people should be in any kind of relationship and so religion gives this false idea that oh we're all brothers and sisters we should all love each other we should all get along there's going to be conflicts there's there's going to be two people who just aren't going to get along and so religions trying to to mend a relationship that is perhaps son Mendel and it gives people a false idea about what it means to love what about what it means to interact with people and then when you find out that they no longer believe what you believe what happened to that love wait weren't you supposed to keep loving me that's right actually I'm she's sitting right here next to me she's listening to you I know you know she says ever since she came out she's been kind of bullied like I've seen kids writing nasty messages to her around Facebook or you know she tells me what kids tell her in school and it's really sad you know I tell you it's not just sad you have to take action that's right you have to take action you have to contact the school administrators you can contact the secular Student Alliance you can't contact the ACLU can contact the Freedom From Religion Foundation bullying is not to be tolerated at all mistreating kids are going to snipe at each other and there are people you know there are people who are always going to hate me and I'm okay with that because they're the haters they're the people who are less than by definition okay like any of your like a score I don't have kids in school and well you you're not my son he's fortunate in the fact that instead of being a fourteen-year-old girl whenever he began to be public about his non-belief he was already sixteen seventy eighteen year old very big guy so he didn't get bullied that way but it definitely severed relationships and there was things said about him that obviously were not true and were inappropriate so there is a certain amount of that that is going to be natural within the dynamic of you know high school relationships but as Matt says the bullying cannot be tolerated that has to be taken to the authorities it has to be dealt with and there's this there's fallout from that to that sure it doesn't it doesn't solve every problem but what it does is every individual that actually speaks out makes it easier for everybody else this is what for example Damon Fowler found out you know or one of Damon's big question was is what why the hell didn't anybody do anything before I did why did I have to bear the entire brunt of this and as long as as long as we keep succumbing to the bullying tactics that attempt to silence people then somebody else is going to get bullied and then somebody else is going to get bullied yeah we've got to take action in that I know that JT is working on secular safe space as a project for making sure that educators can provide places where kids can go where they know that they're going to be free from this this this bullying is what it is and there's a small piece there just add on the end of turning the other cheek that we've received through our religious backgrounds that is obviously inappropriate in many many situations this is one of them yeah I've gone on record and I apologize all right we're going to have to let you go at this point I hope we got to your the crux of your question yes thank you guys now and thank you Matt for you know doing such a good job and you know it's been such a relief of becoming an atheist it's like the burden you know has come off it you know I don't know your eyes open up to everything and I don't know I can't tell you what a relief it is I am there with you a hundred percent and you know please feel free contact us again let us know what's going on if if things have improved drop us an email and you if you're looking for contact information for organizations it can help you can send us an email as well hey thank you guys thanks so much yeah it's and it's hard it is hard and that's the part I when I was naive when I went in the clergy project and I begin to receive counsel from people who had already been out been out for a while I honestly thought I could figure out a way to make this type of move that wouldn't be damaging and it's just not there yet not at this point in time in our in our history you know what you know it's really sad the move the other direction mm-hmm yes not damaging at all right so like I feel emotion you know how rich I could be tomorrow if I flipped sure and found Jesus right I mean it's a good thing I'm ethical you can sell DVDs by the millions it would be insane yeah oh yeah atheist guy does TV show for six plus years calling Christians you know idiots and now he's a Christian ha ha you said he who shall not be named which you probably don't know about got a bunch of press because he got some help from a Christian group became a Christian for two or three days and they went back to being an atheist so so if I lose my job and my mortgages do I might put out a call to churches to see if they'll learn if they'll loan me the money to to cover it will take up an offer Robert and DC how are you I I'm good uh my question for y'all today is uh as atheist um I guess if an 80 of them as dogmatic as theism and isn't agnosticism a more logical way of thinking no no and why and why is that I can clarify but I want to make sure you turn it down so that we don't get feedback because I heard myself first of all atheism isn't isn't as dogmatic as religion because it's not an ism it's a response to an ism it is the position that I don't accept your God belief it is not a declaration of absolute certainty and it is not anything that we're asserting is necessarily true that there are in fact no gods what we're saying what atheism is is this I don't believe and the idea first of all agnosticism and atheism aren't mutually exclusive terms one addresses what you believe one addresses what you know or claim to know and so they can be coupled because knowledge is a subset of belief so Gnosticism and agnosticism is a subset of atheism and theism so you could be an agnostic atheist and most atheists are or you could be a gnostic atheist and most atheists are not and it depends on your definition of knowledge but if I ask you do you believe in God and you say I'm an agnostic you haven't answered the question because I didn't ask you what you knew right I asked you what you believe whether or not you believe in a God and on that there are only two options I if you believe you're a theist if you don't even if your answer is I don't know or I'm not even sure what I believe you're an atheist because I failed to see how you could actually believe in a God and not recognize that you believe in a God I mean me theism is a positive assertion that I do believe in God if you can't make it that you're an atheist now that is a by and large dictionary atheism and that's kind of a philosophical look at it who atheist are who atheists are what we do what the atheist community is about it's about a whole lot more than just I don't believe in a god right there's there's there's a lot more to it than that it's not it doesn't derive directly from atheism is just positions that are consistent with atheism i80 ism is the product of my skepticism um my views on certain certain things are based primarily on my humanism these are all they're not they're not contingent upon one another but they're consistent ideas yeah the little creed that I I quoted during the presentation earlier today skepticism is my nature free thought is my methodology agnosticism is my conclusion atheism is my opinion and humanitarianism is my motivation and so that that sums it up for me another another quick point with that would be the dogmatic nature of religion is top and of course we try to we try to not give that appearance sometimes by saying I don't take my word for it you know read your Bible and find it for yourself but that's really an exception to the rule that's something that is said but not necessarily practiced the whole point of religion is to follow someone that's what religion does that's part of the rite that you're involved in where my experience with atheism has been exactly the opposite it's actually from the ground up each and every individual that I've met within the movement has absolutely they may be starstruck because there's celebrities throughout our culture but they are not in any way obligated to anyone out there regardless of how many books they've sold or how many lectures they give it doesn't matter who that person is if they get up and they say something that is scientifically wrong or fails to meet the test of reason they will be called on the carpet for it yeah it's it's not an ism there's no tenets there's no instructions there's no authorities there's no rituals there's none of the none of the things in and there's no Dogma because they were not asserting anything that that is beyond question religions do assert that things are beyond question even when they pretend that you can question it's it's that this is true it reminds me we were in Kamloops I was in Kamloops recently and had a debate and you know one of the opponents was talking about how it's just true if the God exists and if you're open and honest he'll reveal himself to you and my question was okay why has why didn't I get this revelation and you know it would just not try hard enough and his answer was pretty much yeah you really just yeah you had some bias you didn't try hard enough and to me that's it's absolutely despicable and it's based on this idea that oh I can't possibly be wrong about this and the Bible can't be wrong about this and so the Bible says God will reveal himself to you I've had what I think is this revelation so clearly it's true which means that if you haven't had this revelation it's your fault right that's how they get to the questionable aspect of it there's nothing remotely like that there's nothing in a theism but nothing like that and it's one of the most disgusting parts about religion is because it it is seen as being your fault if you don't get this revelation or if you don't have this understanding then once again instead of having a situation where you have the burden of proof being put upon the person making the claims you have something even worse than that not only is there no burden of proof but also the guilt is shifted to the person that doesn't see it so a claim is made and if you don't see it then you're at fault it's it's filled inherently with guilt yeah yeah well I mean there's no question that religion is you know is not is not sound way of thinking but you know in my opinion and this what I don't understand is I guess you're saying atheism is sort of like like your opinion is what you were saying is if you just don't believe personally correct that that that something can be there I no longer believe that you're not sure whether want something new there or not there yeah the example the example there's a there's a burden of proof that goes with the claim that a God exists the example that I've continually used as a court case if the the fact of the matter is the defendant on trial is either guilty or not guilty or guilty or innocent that's the fact they either did the crime or they did not do the crime and likewise a God either exists or does not exist but the question for the jury is not did they actually do this it's what do you believe about the claim that they did do this and so that's why juries don't vote guilty or innocent they vote guilty or not guilty and those people in the not guilty category may actually suspect that the individuals guilty there just wasn't enough there to convince them they don't have to be convinced of innocence likewise on the question of the existence of God there are people who are convinced as I am that there actually are no gods there are other people who just aren't convinced that the various gods that have been suggested actually exist and so the the line that I used was I find the defendant God not guilty of existing if you can't see the distinction between saying not guilty and saying innocent then you'll never see the distinction between atheists and perhaps antitheist right and it also sounds like the same old story of if you have an opinion then you're being dogmatic you know if you're sharing an opinion you're being dogmatic and that's not a fair argument yeah the closest closest thing to and it and it's not even Dogma but the closest thing to a flat assertion that atheism makes is that theism has embedded its burden of proof right and and I'll keep all happily defend that in a debate anywhere anybody wants to because the ISM hasn't met its burden to prove no brand no doctrine no denomination of any branch of any religion has actually met its burden of proof and some of them not only recognize this but assert that they couldn't ever pause oh I couldn't ever possibly prove to you that a God exists okay then why are we talking about it that's right just take it by faith just trust me because you like me yeah and if you and that gets down to the you have to believe to believe that's right that's exactly right well does that make sense him and where where else in the rails in reality do you hear the sort of excuses and arguments and language twisting that you hear in this you know the discussion about the existence of God and faith it's what adults call pretending that's that's what faith is it's pretending yeah I used to I used to have a bunch of different working definitions of faith but I've changed to where faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have a good reason so pretending is a good shortcut for that Robert I hope that gets to your question thanks so much for calling in thanks we've got whew I can't even find the right number there there we go Simon in Norway how are you Oh Marlo thank you how are you I'm pretty good okay wonderful I want to talk about logical absolutes or logic and in the in relation to the tag arguments I guess so my wife just left the room haha she would love that yeah sure what did you want to say and the argument is that so that the logical absolute has has a conceptual nature and I think this is wrong because logical absolutes are nature's of things that exist so except that they can't they can't have nature's because they are nature's in the same respect that colors can't have colors because they are colors except that the logic the three logical absolutes the foundations of logical thought identity non-contradiction and excluded middle they're true even if nothing exists that's why they're absolutes they're not they're not contingent upon things now there wouldn't be anybody to recognize that they were true with that without something existing this is a this is a really heady conversation that we had a 45-minute discussion with what's-his-name max like ages ago and we're probably not going to be able to rehash it in the remaining time in the show without me getting stuff thrown at me but if you want to send me an email if you want to send an email to TV an atheist - community org I'll happily talk to you about it and and spare everybody else from what is I love it but it's a really tedious topic that well not the cases that I agree with you in just about everything okay an atheist so I just want to give you arrived about just about everything examples the logical absolutes don't work the way max like think they work well I agree they don't they don't work the way he does but we can watch you send me an email we'll talk about it offline it because we may actually agree and we agree I know okay well cool but short I've given this short time given the short version of the show give the short version show I'm not gonna spend time talking about tag if we agree on it I love you but love me we all agree thanks so much for calling in Simon appreciate it okay all right I like yeah I'm not doing not - in Tagalog Rhian yeah Ron in Canada how are you good how are you guys doing doing very well we're alright doing I think we're having a good time saw a great show last night had a great meeting this afternoon I have my bow ah I listened to your show last week Matt mm-hm and I just I really appreciated something you said last week that you had struggled at one time with having anger against the Christian himself as opposed to the faith and seeing the Christian as a victim as well and that really that really meant a lot to me to hear that because I found myself exactly the same way being so angry Christian thinking they're so stupid not realizing I was one of those stupid people okay and that was part of the realization was that you say I didn't get smarter I think it depends on your definition of smarter as to whether I did actually get smarter nation um my IQ didn't go up or and you know I were all gullible about certain things we are all duped we all live our lives you know based on inference and induction nobody's immune to being fooled and when you live your entire life surrounded by a bunch of other people who have been fooled it's really easy as a matter of fact it's difficult to break out from that that you know constant environment that environment of constant reinforcement absolutely I mean like you know I was a Christian for 24 years and went on a two-year journey and became an atheist it was a long process for me and you know I firmly believe that one of the things one of the problems is especially for Christians to come out is that the whole faith is based on fear and you know they're afraid to look at the other side of what the other side might say because if by chance it contradicts what they believe then what are they going to do yeah there wasn't there was something losing their salvation yeah what if I does play on it does only on our natural fears and it religion I only plays on our natural fears but religion also manufactures fears as well somebody had referred to it as religion poisoning people and then offering the me antidote and but Beth Beth came up with the idea because we're talking about this constant argument that we hear about you've got a god-shaped hole in your heart well religion punches a god-shaped hole in your heart and then offers you the God to fill it and it can only be filled with the God that they're offering yeah and you can't forget that religion is is more than just showing up for Sunday school or attending service religion is our culture it's the place that we're at in history today so that hole is punched in your heart from a lot of different directions yeah the other thing that that makes it difficult and which causes me to have sympathy is as I like to say the same people who taught me the sky was blue and that the stove top is hot are the same people that taught me what I was feeling was the Holy Spirit mm-hm the same people that taught me the fundamentals of my religious experience yeah so as a child it's pretty difficult to know when to shut off the learning yeah you know when to stop believing what you're told it's actually it's you know we talked about it before from an evolutionary standpoint it's a good thing that children are born with a kind of a natural intuition to trust the people who are older them because they know better you can learn quicker if we had to if we had to learn everything ourselves so the society would never progress right you'd not see any really big changes we have the ability to stand on the shoulders of all the people who come before us we take shortcuts to learning this is what allows us to make grand leaps to why you know I've got a cell phone that talks to my car and I can navigate around with it and all that I mean we would never have gotten there had it not been for this ability but what it does is it imposes upon us and over dependence on authorities and perceived authorities yeah we can't all be experts on everything it's absurd we can't all learn everything we even experts in a particular field cannot reasonably be expected to know everything about their field there's just too much information right right and so we tend to rely on things and we the only the only damage that's done is when we rely on authorities without question or when we over rely on them David Hume has a one of my favorite quotes I think it's my Facebook quote which is the wise man apportions his belief to the evidence and we should apportion our reliance on authorities to the degree first of all that we even understand what the authorities are saying right the recognized desperate experts in a field I know I know next to nothing about cosmology and stuff like that I recognize that Lawrence Krauss is an expert in this area and I I try to do my best to understand what's what the scientific experts are saying about early models of the universe and things like that to the extent that I understand them I can say yeah I I guess I kind of agree that that's the model that seems to be working that seems to be producing results but I don't I don't claim absolutes I don't claim absolute certainty about anything but I'd even claim a high degree of certainty about the big questions you know Big Bang Cosby s Big Bang happened we've got observations from cosmic microwave background radiation yeah but my understanding of that field is so miniscule that it could from where I said it could turn it at Eddie or it could turn on its head tomorrow and I just have to say okay oh well you're just having faith in the experts no I'm not I'm not having faith because first of all I have good reasons to trust to the experts and they're good and second of all I am NOT asserting that they're right and science doesn't assert that it's discovered truth right it just builds models and theories that are the best most reliable most consistently reliable independently verifiable explanations of the observations of the universe yeah as long as you realize that you're not hanging yourself out on a limb of oh my whole world is going to fall apart because Lawrence Krauss was wrong you know yeah and I'm nuts on top of all of that is also just life yeah day in day out life where trying to pay the mortgage you're trying to raise the kids you know do you really have time to go get a theological degree on the side so that you can you know debate the Southern Baptist guy who's witnessing at your door there's just there's a lot to this and real life does get in the way of becoming an expert in things that ultimately end up being very important why are you picking on Southern Baptists well because I'm Pentecostals and Southern Baptists aren't really sincere or they would be speaking in tongues well I'm I I was Southern Baptist as you guys were the crazy people dancing around the pews and speaking that's not in the Bible let me let me let me tell you a quick story real quick story please I'm getting on me I'm not wrong go thanks so much for calling on thank you I really appreciate it guys you guys do a great job thanks so much this is this is hell a little thought can get in your head about that and work on you for for the rest rest of your ministry career I you know I just started being a Pentecostal minister so I'm probably 17 18 years old and I'm living at my grandmother's my grandfather had stopped going to church for quite a ways before then and so I'm getting dressed one Sunday morning I'm sitting down on the couch putting on my black dress shoes you know didn't look a whole lot different than I look now just maybe a little lighter and so I'm putting on my shoes and he says Jerry says I want to tell you something and he was such a quiet kind of backwards person it really caught me off guard and I said yes sir he said this morning you're going to go to church and all of you Pentecostals are going to condemn all of the Baptist to hell because they don't speak in tongues I said duh you know you know yes of course you know and he said but at the same time across town all the Baptists are going to get up and preach that that speaking in tongues is of the devil and they're going to preach all you Pentecostals into hell and I'm like but they're wrong and he said and once y'all are done y'all are both going to meet up at the chicken place and eat fried chicken and I thought holy cow we don't believe anything yeah and it will play softball against each other unless our churches are too small and then we'll be on the same team against the Methodists that's right oh we could be trying to evangelize use poor Southern Baptists that's never been filled of the Holy Ghost but instead we need your catcher well the other thing is and I didn't find out about this while was the Southern Baptist because this annoys the hell out of it first of all the entire speaking in tongues handling snakes drinking poison that's mark 16 nine through twenty which doesn't appear at all in the oldest rot manuscripts and is most likely an interpellation now you tell me yeah and now but but when the Southern Baptist would rail against the Pentecostals for their their charismatic behaviors and and paying attention and taking this passage literally why didn't anybody tell me well it shouldn't be in the Bible at all right I mean yeah indispensable manuscripts it shouldn't be there because that means that the Bible has something in it that's not right right and that opens both of our houses up to scrutiny we can't have that so we'll agree with them that it's in there we just have to reproduce agree on how you're supposed to interpret it that's right regardless of what Leviticus says we will not throw any stones at glass houses my mic my mics buzzing again it's the power yeah I was I was faking it hopefully it's it turning it off and turn it back on stop the buzzing we got Brandenburg Birmingham UK how are you yep grant actually granite I'm Mary understood trying be concise here so um recently new atheist recently D converted from also true um after having been an atheist a little bit my team's very having one example sorry he converted from what be converted from also true Norse paganism that sort of thing okay okay and um you know now that I've D converted once again once again I find myself harking back to my Christian baggage from when I was in my formative years and I was thinking about the fact that you know going along with your theme of recovering from religion there's one paradigm from which I'm particularly interested in recovering it has to do with the fact that in the Bible you have uh the Christian God giving humanity dominion over the earth to do with as we please and all the developments that came along with it such as eventually leading up to consumerism and the like and I've been thinking about that and all the environmental damage that worldview has done over time and as such now that I'm an atheist again I get to thinking that um how to put this sorry I get to thinking that as atheists I would think that we would you know in our reason have something of a moral duty to actually protect the environment in that we wouldn't poison the air and the water and that we might be a little more considerate of how what we do impacts on the very environment on which we depend and on which future generations will depend and I was going to run the idea by you what do you think of my idea about a thinking atheists having such a moral duty I don't know that you can necessarily tied to atheism but I agree yeah I mean I determining what our moral duties are as opposed to our moral values there's a lot of work that needs to be done in this area and religion I'm going to stop saying religion because we you know I want to paint all religion with the same brush there are very different religions Christianity in particular has pretty much dominated all discussions about morality in the Western world which I find particularly ironic because Christianity is not only not a moral system it is grossly immoral and it is inhibiting our ability but it what happens is these are really difficult questions that require effort and we are no we we are lazy yes and we would prefer the comfort of certainty even if it's false certainty and the comfort of having a ready easy answer that we don't have to think about and so when you are taught from the pulpit this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong this is right this is right this right this right everything all the works been done for you and you don't have to think about it unfortunately when they're wrong about those things and they're wrong about quite a few of them that skews people's natural moral compass they've sacrificed their humanity at the altar of these you know genuflecting patriarchal domination and religions yeah and um either it's one of the reasons why I want to eliminate religions entirely or as close to entirely as we can through reason not through force and legislation through reason so that we can begin to do the work that we need to do because guess what the moral questions and more dilemmas that we're going to be facing in the future don't get any easier and it's well the fact that somebody is turning contraception into a moral issue once again in 2012 after having settled it settled it ages ago what now you know that that may cause a chance to me I either I mean it's a cancer it's a natural preventative measure against having too many babies isn't it I mean we already have 7 billion people on the planet don't we that's another sort of environmental law has issue as 7 billion peasant and we somehow don't make an impact that seems to use a British expression a load of rubbish to me you by the way don't sound British at all well I'm an American expat married to an English woman and I've been here Nayan 8 years the end of the month makes it 8 years nigh on sold it for me by the way ah well yeah three three quick things would be one would I agree with you that atheism is really just about one particular subject yeah it doesn't obligate you in any other direction that's I think once again a bleed over from our cultural understanding of religion that you can just put a label and classify everyone under a particular label which is what we're trying to get away from number two would be that I see for me personally atheism is just the beginning it is freeing me from religion Christianity in particular allowing me to work on these issues to discover what I feel about priorities as far as these things are concerned and number three I think he may have been talking about all my hairspray it's very possible that he was launching grant I gotta let you go we're running short on time I appreciate the call robot squad all right thanks Jeff I'll be tuning in next week as I normally do so well thanks for taking the time to talk to me and talk me through these issues Jerry got more questions in future so thank you few people listen uh fuel actually and Friends of the UK and so now I'm making fun of them and I didn't make fun of callers I'm having fun we appreciate grants call Jonathan in Chicago how are you good how are you not thirsty evidently I'm drinking my water like crazy it's under warming it's about 300 degrees I just want to talk to you guys about a presuppositional apologetics yeah it's yeah I had never heard you here take on it and I just I don't know these butyl about this site and Rueben Kate yep he's full of you can use it at him here's the thing with presuppositional apologetics i think it is an oxymoron apologetics is the process of offering the explanations for why you believe and if you are going to presuppose the existence of God or presuppose characteristics without justification that necessarily lead to the conclusion that a God exists you're not engaging in apologetics you're engaging in I believe this I believe this I believe this I this with your fingers in your ears and I don't care to talk to you right yeah it's some of the debates I've heard a lot of people have trouble getting past this argument atheists have trouble getting past this argument but it seems like just a bunch of tricks well it's one trick yeah yeah yeah I don't I've seen people struggle with this and it's it's probably because to people who understand or to proof the nature of evidence the foundations of epistemology and how we're actually going to go through determining whether or not something is believable it comes off as so absurd that they're caught completely off-guard if seitan what's his face wants to call into the show you know what I'd rather he didn't because I've heard from other atheists that he's called in or done podcast with them with the express understanding that he's not to use the content without their permission and then he's gone and edited things and thrown in on DVDs and then sold it to make money and if I don't get to make money off this nobody's making money off this so SIA isn't going to be very pleased if he calls into the show now if he won state if you wants to have a public debate at some point okay as soon as he gets up and stands up and acknowledges that he's engaging in presuppositionalist apologetics I'm going to eat his lunch and then we can talk about something else yeah he is one of the questions they always have because what is your source of reasoning like how do you justify your reasoning and then he says if you save through logic then that's circular yeah except it's not this philosophical idea that you need to have it that sensory information or even the logical I'll offers well I'm fine with logical absolutes but we're not going anywhere near that again today is that you need this is false because even if you even if things weren't properly basic the results are what matters and we know that things work by testing them and so the processes of using logic using reasoning lead us to conclusions that are continually reliable and if you were going to demonstrate that there was some other way of knowing how would you do that without beginning with logic reason and evidence you can't even begin to establish that your alternate way of knowing is viable and reliable without beginning with this I'm not just we're not proposing reason we are applying reason because it has demonstrated itself to be reliable yeah it's that's that's time waster arguments there yeah yeah well thank you very much for Wayne and I really appreciate it I enjoy the show sure thanks Jonathan appreciate your home boy what is logic y'all keep talking about IDEs I don't know you're from Louisiana I'll explain it later but John and Seattle are you this am I on for about 30 seconds I wanted you at least get your comments in alright so uh here's what I'm thinking okay I'd like to just get this off my chest and there's most succinctly so okay with my rising up he's currently true or an 8 is red hey hey John coming chair hey John hey John I tell John Dee okay John and I'm Bentley we had a problem with John's audio and now they're putting up the credits which means we're completely out of time first of all Thank You Jerry so much for coming down to Grand doing the show my pleasure to welcome back any time wonderful get into town we can have a lot of fun thanks so much for the people who are here in the studio audience who will scream and yell at this point and we'll see you all again next week by the way um we're gonna go to like el Arroyo which is this place that you know will be cool I'll be there to learning about logic see you next week poor collars

Channel: The Atheist Experience

Views: 88,864

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: KvP4-0AKH4Y

Length: 58min 10sec (3490 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 10 2012