The Atheist Experience 768 with Matt Dillahunty and Martin Wagner

you [Music] [Music] [Music] yes the yeah [Music] hey everybody wasn't Hugh's experience live it's July 1st 2012 I'm Matt Dillahunty that's Martin Wagner you're the people watching the show let's get the ball rolling what do you got uh-oh hi I'm Howie amazing isn't it we shortened the announcement that is good they're not quite that short though I think I actually want to want to start off talking about last week's show hmm there there were a lot of people who really enjoyed last week's show hmm I wasn't one of them and you're just kind of having one of those days well yeah I mean I dislocated the shoulders I was in pain but yeah there's no excuse there were better ways to handle some of the calls a lot of people I know liked it and we're like hey you tried to tell them you know there's no point in having this particular conversation and they kept poking so they deserve what they get but you know I don't as much as people may enjoy it I don't actually enjoy being an just for the sake of being an I felt like last week I would have really good sound reasons for being yeah III my stick my toe second form has been that people tend to get or should get as good as they give on the show and that it means if they're not having an honest discussion and they're just calling in to preach or hear themselves talk then you know they deserve to be ridiculed or mocked or whatever at least called on it right but the fact that somebody just doesn't understand something yeah my thing is that we should make an effort to do a better job of trying to explain it and then call the conversation to an end if there's you know no hope no education reconciliation so I am going to make a concerted effort to avoid having these shows like last week so those of you who really enjoyed it you might as well just stop watching now because on the other hand I went camping again this weekend so I'm our big ol dicted and it's just it's a fuse ready to go it's ya know so anyway try to be the kinder gentler atheist experience today well I'm gonna I'm gonna at least be more thoughtful but anyway one of those that happened this week that you wrote a blog post about it is some evangelicals lost their mind over Oreos uh yes ah yeah that let's see Orioles and General Mills cereal and and what did they do to deserve all this abuse and opprobrium and Wow they support marriage equality just generally do they and there was this really cool picture of an Oreo with like rainbow colored laughing like seven seven different awesome one of my favorite rebuttals after people started losing their mind which they showed the rainbow color one and so that it's no no surprise that the evangelicals don't like this one and then it showed just the regular black and white Oreo easily didn't used to like this one either one yeah so today I brought in heads or tails Oreos these Oreos go both ways which should piss it off the evangelicals even more those are the really interact that this one's got like the blondie fate side and then the dark side mmm who knows yin and yang the cookie magic is in the middle that it is I just you talk from it I'm not just you know you know that's not necessarily my mmm I think I'm getting my share right now yeah there's these Rangers there's a little rainbow II thingy seeping in there you might want to be careful cuz it's gonna no no Matt no look no look it's just not it's like special cream you got to stop this man I mean it's like it's just kids this cookie is fabulous hmm I didn't say that you know Lee fabulous okay okay Kyle okay they're here no I'm no read them out all right what everybody have a Widow's hmm be gay and marry mmm Oh Emmy ROI and ma rry as well mmm anyway we're gonna because the show's only an hour not 90 minutes we're not just going to keep vamping here on all kinds of subject but cool that there are companies that are out there supporting marriage equality and making people look like bigger douches mmm kind of kind of annoying so huh let's get to Matt in Oslo Norway who is ha like three weeks in a row right at the end of the show and I apologize we hadn't got them on Matt you're on now do you hear me yes we do thanks for waiting three weeks or more at first we you hung up on me then by calling too late the second week and yeah and now I'm finally on you're not going to get away this time oh well I got to the hook down yeah I have the control box for the phone in front of me so I'm not sure who's got who on the hook but let's have some fun let's let's enjoy what's up beginning I have Oreos let's talk it's gonna ring comes from okay Mac um so I got proof that evolution is and yes so in creationism out once and for all hey hey hang on dude do you have a do you have a Nobel Prize to go with that proof do you have a PhD in biology to go with that proof I don't need it yeah I love you scientific papers that you have written that wish to go with that proof Martin come on no I mean it's like you are clear you're coming on the show and right out of the gate you're claiming that you can show that a foundational pillar of biological sciences it will take you eight okay so sure so yeah I mean can you demonstrate that you have any remote expertise or knowledge to make that claim well let's say let's say this you just admitted that it's an exaggeration just fine I'm okay with some hyperbole my question is the same one that I asked another caller last week which is let's say for example that you could right now disprove evolution what difference does that make my atheism is not contingent upon evolution being true oh yeah no so what differences why would you call into an atheist show to try and disprove evolution because we're not biologists we're not here to actually review anything we're not experts on the subject of evolution anything we say here could just be incorrect and even if you proved it wrong it still doesn't prove that creationism is true there's a few reasons as opposed the first one is that I've talked to many kristef and n atheists and many atheists say that the reason they can't believe the Bible is discuss it says that man was created mm-hmm and then evolution totally goes against that you know so that's a big reason it's closed and this evolution actually was proven wrong then more people become Christian maybe well they have really bad reasons for it I mean there may be people who say I can't believe Christianity because the Bible says people are created but that's only one of many things that are wrong with Christianity not the least of which is you can't demonstrate that it's actually true well I can't demonstrate that it's to an F why I'm calling it ok first place you know well then hey I would suggest that you start with proving that your religious claims are true and not say I'm here to disprove evolution ok well I got the evidence like for creationism as well like I can get with that you know sure go ahead ok so there's a specific animal I would like to talk about and I think it's only logical if it came from creationism you know and I got a few reasons for that first of all the physical appearance of the animal like it makes no sense considering where it lives that you know well what kind of warrior Franco I'm referring to test Manian tiger you might want to google that sighs I was neighborhood you derived Iowa scene yeah piloting ok ok right if you if you look at this animal now I hope you get a picture up on it it looks like a dog right mhm and it's it lives south of Australia it looks like a wolf you know not not as valuable but like I will you know like and and well at the same time it looks like a tiger you know all the stripes now this would only make sense in the regard you know because you know it has no reason to look like a wolves you know because you know it's in Australia you know there's there's no native animals they look like wolves you know well it's indecent is a lousy specific animal hang on manly family of species like you know it look like that it really is if you know it I think that's actually creating this you know so your so yours your argument about thylacine is that you think it is evidence for a creator simply because its appearance is not something that you can think of a better explanation for other than a creator in other words its appearance is baffling and therefore you don't think it could have an evolutionary lineage that's that's basically your argument that's called an argument from ignorance fallacy I wouldn't play that man I would what is I mean I'm just saying it is if you say I think well that explanation a is true because it hasn't been proven false that's argument from ignorance in this case you want your term ads more about what Dawkins is referred to as the argument from personal incredulity and that is I can't think I can't I don't see how any other explanation could be better that's not the way science is done that's not the way we get to reality is to is to say I can't think of anything that fits this better so I'm going with this well okay okay maybe you don't have a failure of imagination or education no no no wait wait wait wait okay so it should it like directly point towards creation is okay okay that definitely the you know I must say Oh what about this points towards creationism the fact that it looks like a couple of different animals and you can't you don't see how a couple of different animals it's more of a you know a strange mixture if I don't think like yeah well let me let me let me ask you a couple of questions really quickly before we go on and I promise I will be a smartass all right iced uh now uh two questions that I have for you uh first off uh I'd like to get from you a definition of evolution like if I were to ask you about what is evolution how would you define that for me well can you just tell me what it is can you okay this okay I think evolution is like the theory because I don't think it's in your file I think that it's about the adaption of species 2 for example climate change them stuff like that and yeah that's that's my destination of like adaption changes and all that gas you know I mean I'm sorry I'm sorry then waited three weeks to come in and talk about something that you clearly don't understand yeah see because it went when you when you stumble upon a basic definition like that it if you're going if you want a critique of science like evolution which is a very well founded I mean it's it's a cornerstone of modern sciences that's fine that's what science is all about challenging you know the the existing paradigm knowledge always looking for different answers new answers questioning what is thought to be true at cetera et cetera that's great but you need to at the very least have a sound grasp at a basic level of what it is you're claiming to be able to refute okay well I and it and and in it should kind of start you know it helps if you aren't just stumbling through a very basic definition of evolution which can essentially be said to be changes in the frequency of genes gene frequencies allele frequencies in population groups over time that's help scientists that's how biologists define evolution okay now yeah but so you need to know what you're talking about before you can say I have really really good reasons for thinking that this whole scientific theory is not well founded and here are my reasons based on my understanding of yeah here's the here's the other thing is and you don't have that let's let's say that you did actually understand what evolution was and I do yeah don't you just demonstrate you you could not you could not give a clear definition of the science of the theory you couldn't do that just now and you started with it's a theory not a fact which demonstrates that you don't understand the basics of science because facts are things that are explained by theories theories are the graduation point of ideas in psychomat facts are inferior facts are just observations ok Matt but then while America like 4 out of 10 Americans own accept evolution because they're poorly educated poorly educated we have a very bad in this league this leads to my this leads to the second question that I had for you okay the second question the second question that I had for you the first one was you know asking for the definition in America we have almost have to almost have the people here yes they do reject evolution why because we have a very poor educational system in this country and it keeps getting worse okay we have conservative politicians out there who defund education we have a guy in the state next door Bobby Jindal governor of Louisiana who really really wants to miss educate children over there he has a voucher program that will allow people to to get state money to send their kids to religious schools where they will learn that the Loch Ness monster disproves evolution so maybe you guys and the Loch Ness monster people can get together on your on your dueling reputations and hammer it all out but my question to you is in contrast to America okay over in Norway you guys have really good science education you guys have a really good educational system you've got something like 98% adult literacy it's it's barely you know 60 percent here in America you know you have really really good schools yeah so how did creationism get its hooks into you well right I mean why art why would somebody from a culture like yours accept something as completely cockamamie as creationism when you have had access to a much much better science education than just about any American in a public school over here um well I actually had some doubts about my own beliefs right now like I recently got that and actually their stops like there are other creationists as well in Norway like I'm not the only one even if you make it sound like that and number what I'm saying is in America at least people have the excuse of having bad schools and a heavy heavily religious culture to influence them away from getting a sound science education you don't really have that excuse over in Norway so I'm just curious why this was more attractive to you then being able to learn the facts what you're able to do and nor you have with the good schools and the good education that you have I think yeah anyway already thanks like googling you know I think he already told us why it's more attracted to him he looks at something like the thylacine he doesn't understand evolution and I'm not going to that no I'll put it into camp Hogan and Eric Hovind and Paul Taylor I haven't finished talking I'm sure you've been influenced by a bunch of buffoons who don't understand science a bunch of people who are who are polluting this a so basically you're saying is the idiots from America that have been poisoning the mind of our people have made their way to Norway I understand you've already explained you don't understand evolution and you look at something like thylacine and without even bothering to investigate it you take a cursory glance at it and say hmm creationism explains this better than my lack of understanding of evolution you know what you know why creationism seems to explain it better even though it doesn't explain a thing it's because magic works as an explanation for anything it doesn't actually explain a thing in order to explain something we tend to explain things in terms of other things that we already understand creationism is an attempt to explain the mystery of the diversity of life by appealing to a bigger mystery there's no explanatory power there it is indistinguishable from its magic and that's why hey I just did a coin trick for you you don't know how I could have possibly done that with my fingers there for magic explains it well I'm sorry that you have a failure of imagination and a failure of investigation maybe you could actually go study five Essenes and thought in history where you bent you've been and actually like gone out and done the research on thylacine DNA and morphology and things like that conversion evolution I mean where did you do this because I don't think that was scenes in Norway did you go to a snowing on you want me to like go and feed them I mean they're extinct by the way like I'm aware of that and so on and so are their ancestors that would offer you the evolutionary explanation that you don't seem to want a bit grasp ok Matt I'll admit ok this is a bad example ok and well why wait hold it okay okay that's one but you'll agree what I'll agree that it probably isn't creation isn't there you're going to put it like that okay so you can call up to say that you're going to disprove evolution and then we actually explain why that's pointless and then you tell us that you can prove creationism and your first example is thylacine which you now admit is a bad example so are you done believe in creationism I mean what did you did you come in with like your tenth best argument because I'd recommend that in a short format show you come in with your best argument so what is your best argument for creationism well it's been personal you know does have any empirical evidence you know faith is like you don't need evidence you have to say to believe in something you know yes to believe it yeah I guess I don't have any you know we all right I can provide you that them okay you came up thank you Thanks I I hope that you realize that this lack of evidence probably means that you're believing something without a good reason this faith is not a pathway to truth faith is the excuse people give when they don't have a good reason now if creationism is true shouldn't we be able to have good reasons for it yeah well find those that find those good reasons in call us back all right I want to I wanted to talk about something more no yeah no we don't we are show we got more guys to get on to talk about something more when you come back with more thanks song about that last sentence of my made less sense than what he was talking about it's okay anyway Andrew in Bethlehem how are you hey how are you how are you okay yeah I called before but I have another point to make about when people say they want to prove God exists mm-hmm they're not trying to prove God exists with certainty what they're trying to say is that the possibility exists okay trying to prove that the possibility exists sure so assuming you're correct because we could talk about degrees of certainty and everything else number one I don't see any now depends on what you mean by possibility if you mean that it's not absolutely impossible I actually don't care whether not you can prove that something's possible which if you can just demonstrate something that something is not logically excluded do you mean physical heaven well yeah or did anything that can be studied or I hadn't hadn't really finished what I was saying or it's saying that you can prove that something is possible does it make any difference because possible doesn't equal true and I care about true things and I want to believe true things and so instead of possible we should talk about perhaps probable which would actually include some demonstration that there's a good reason to think this is true or likely true that's why we have beliefs and that's why will we go about justifying them so I don't care if God if your particular God is possible I mean that's just saying that you've managed to come up with a god that's not logically inconsistent which by the way I'm not sure I agree with depending on your god I also just some I'm sorry I'll I'll just make a quick point here and let you get on with it sometimes you will hear theists and Christians make the argument that you know God is a concept a being that is beyond scientific understanding etcetera etc etc and you know and generally those are more less ways of dodging the issue but one phrase that you'll hear repeated often is that absence of evidence does not equate to evidence of absence and I don't I would disagree with that I think you would disagree it's false yeah because in situations where if the claim were true you would expect to have evidence and I think that in situations where your most claims I can't think of a claim that would be a true claim where you would not expect to find evidence that would say yes in fact that is true right whether it's a God whether it's ghosts whether it's elves tending your garden if you're going to make a claim about something and you want to be able to say okay that is the true answer there's this puzzle that we're trying to solve there's this fact that we're trying to you know come to grips with and in order to distinguish this being the true thing from all these other possibilities that aren't the true thing what do we look at what do we look at as our evidence and so yes you would expect to find I think certain conditions would exist in the universe if the universe were the creation of an all-knowing all-powerful sentient purposeful deity right cuz I've never had a Christian tell me what they think a non God designed universe would look like how would it function well how we're talking about God so we're necessarily talking about Christianity but I'm just talking about like the evidence or what we would you know how what we mean when we say that sorry so go ahead Andrew so uh well I have a website it's proof of God as God true story webs calm what I do there I try to list like all the attributes of God all-knowing all good oh you are a lot of trying to show how they're consistent know something that you said said earlier with that taste is the absence of reason I think what it really is is faces the absence of physical evidence now when you say evidence I think what you're really saying just about all the time is do you have physical evidence what kind of other evidence is there well what I provide is rational evidence like I'm fine with rational argument argument that anyone could look at and Andrew no matter what they believe in and they would accept the argument Andrew I'm fine with rational arguments but rational arguments are formed on premises and the premises need to be demonstrated to be true so if we're talking about something that is real then the premises must demonstrate that this is actually real so I mean I just my question to you about what other evidence was there was whether or not you were making an appeal to supernatural evidence or extrasensory evidence or things like that well um well here's how I feel about God God would be a pure mind so when I say evidence I just look at my own mind and I just extrapolate sure okay so what's your basis for thinking that that's what God is well if it's about the fundamental idea with every religion is God is a mind okay but it's an absolute mind okay so um by definition God would be in a straight line because that would that would be the power I don't even know what absolute mind is okay well earlier on Martin said that how would a non godlike universe look like I would say that universe in that universe we're not possess consciousness how do you know what whoa whoa whoa so you think if a universe existed without being created by a god that universe could not have consciousness and then what reason why what and what do you mean exactly by that do you mean that the universe itself would not be a conscious entity or that the universe would not be would not contain like beings like us in it that have conscience can't it would not as as conscious being sure how did you get to that why okay why would that be the case well because if okay let me correct actually and we not have rational rationally conscious being whoa what's I don't I thought hair-splitting I mean what consciousness is it's a self-awareness but okay I'm talking about like a dog is self-aware right I mean we did what makes you think that there could be a non created universe with conscious entities that were incapable of rational thought I mean that rational thought would be excluded in this it would be the universe I can't think of a about its own existence I understand what you're describing I'm asking why well if we look at say a tree through a tree sure was an animal we will oppose doesn't have any rational thought maybe my same evolved brain that humans do since that it has the same body the brain mass ratio also has the same frontal lobe curvature the same aspects lot of okay why why would I would still why would this why would this be a thing that would still require a deity creating I don't know don't concede that yeah whoa no no you're saying that a tree shrew isn't rational prove it well she sure is at least self-aware you know we prayed we prayed all kinds of eternal we're going now like again we've trained all kinds of animals to do things they demonstrates they don't necessarily demonstrate the same level of thought that we do but they demonstrate if I push this button I get a treat and if I push this other button I get the shocked out of me isn't that rational thought according to the criteria I specified at this is the same criteria neuroscientist claimed how humans evolved unconsciously I mean let's just take a bolus no Mexico let's just take it back to basic self-awareness okay if the forest is burning a tree shrew will be sufficiently self-aware that it will try to run from the flames to preserve its own life so that's at least that much self-awareness mm-hmm so when you defined what you consider a consciousness rational thought as simply self-awareness earlier in this conversation the tree shrew qualifies so on that basic level yes I'm talking about like a rational self awareness about its own existence sure it would move in order to save its life but it's not pondering about say no philosophically sure that's what you're saying and and so this and that level of cognition requires a creators what you're saying yeah and there's no a reversal mind to get on if we look at consciousness we all know the components of how consciousness emerged or evolved we all know the chemical properties that caused it - sure so if we don't know by your own admission how did you determine that it's impossible for it to happen in a universe without a god and the true shoes don't have this uh well you would suppose that it came from a hundred mind I mean no no you don't just get to suppose that something comes from a higher mind that's not the that's not how right maybe you don't have reason thought yeah that is you I'm actually actually asking you to demonstrate something and you're just saying no no you just get to suppose it well I'm going to before I think it's more probable than it came from a heart mind and now if I don't care what you have to do I don't I don't care what you think is more probable I care what you can demonstrate is more probable how do you demonstrate this that wouldn't be hard to Bechet and so if you believe it if you believe that it's true and probable right now and you admit that you and to demonstrate this right now aren't you believing something without a good reason well now we're going back to where we started because um I just asked a question hmm okay you have admitted that you can't demonstrate this correct I can't physically demonstrate it yes and yet you believe it to be true correct that's where your faith answers okay and that's why I don't give a rat's ass because faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they can't demonstrate it when they don't have a good reason we're back to my definition I don't care what you have faith in people can have faith in anything faith is not a justification it's not a demonstration of truth it's not a path of truth it's gullibility but now what you're talking about is the difference between conviction and faith because if we look at like according to it seems to me like you're convinced by things that are physically demonstrable but uh yeah well that's at least there's an analogical ISM you seem to believe that everything real must be physically now you're working occasionally freehand row that is true and really what Wow and really finish it Andrew you're on hold not hung up on your confusing met you're confusing philosophical naturalism with methodological naturalism methodological naturalism is the purview of science that says you know what we can't be we can't rely on faith and supernatural explanations we have to rely on evidence and data philosophical naturalism on the other hand is the assertion that only the physical world is real I'm not making that case I'm talking about what is believable what is demonstrable and you've already admitted that that what you're talking about is not demonstrable that you have to rely on faith for it that's where faith interest yeah and it's why they why but because science seems to have limitations unless you accept physicalism that's true no no I don't know that science has limitations I'm you're saying that this is where faith comes in and I asked why and your answer is because science has limits correct yeah correct now why are you justified in just applying faith when you when you reach the limit of science how is that not gullibility what's not really true I'm not just a fine faith I also have a rational argument that's consistent that I accept like life at these more probable than the idea that the mind evolves from out of what another works is wrong the argument from incredulity fallacy is your rational argument it simply seems more probable that it would be this than that it just seems more fantastic that it would be the other thing than this thing that I prefer to be the answer while you're doing is your your spackling over the gaps and the knowledge with faith with assumptions with assertions with you know with leaps that you don't really have a justification for making you're hitting the wall where you admit this is where the limits of my knowledge are but what you do when you hit that wall is you say this is as far as we've gotten now this is this is how you purchase these questions honestly you say this is as far as we've gotten now so what do we do we keep studying we try to learn more we don't say okay this is as far as we've gotten now but in order to get over here which is where I want to get I'll just create a bridge of imagine a I'll just make stuff up I'll create the bridge myself science has an open this door yet yeah but it sure seems more probable to me that there's a lion on the other side of the door than a tiger the best you can say from your position andrew is look this is as far maybe it could be this maybe it could be the other thing but you're not in a position to say this is the answer because it seems more probable than this event you still have to as long as you admit you don't know you don't get a still I know I don't know yeah okay the finally thank you I don't continue to look in the phones are gonna piss me off though is a contemplation but I'm Andrew Andrew Andrew you don't want to you don't want to make the basic mistake that creationists and generally speaking religious people who don't really grasp how the scientific method works do you don't want to get in the position of simply putting your ignorance on an altar and calling it God well well that's what you get my god is possible I'm open for possibilities including neuroscience coming up with it as long as you don't mistake a possibility or a probability from an established fact from an actual answer where you can say this is the answer and as long as you stop saying something is probable when you admit that you have no criteria by which to determine a calculation of probability well you're talking about physical probabilities so you have to have a physical test to determine how probable is this idea of mine let me let me do this let me do this here let me do this Andrew let me do this because if I don't I'm just going to hang up on you here we go there are two possibilities either a God manifests in reality or no God manifests in reality correct true okay those gods that don't manifest in reality are completely indistinguishable from those that don't exist correct no no because how do you distinguish a group of fairies that created the universe no no you're not listening Oh either God manifests in reality or it doesn't if it if this God exists and doesn't manifest in reality in any way it is indistinguishable its existence is indistinguishable from its non-existence because it's not manifesting in reality okay let me get it yes or not what you're trying to say alright you're trying to say whether or not it's Zeus it could be Zeus it could be oh wow no no ya swab listen to what I mean actually listen to what I'm actually saying this is really simple here here's three gods go back to Tracey's analogy and I'll twist it this God exists and manifests in reality this God exists and does not manifest in reality and this God does not exist please tell me how to distinguish between numbers two and three okay so that's going to die like this the last God doesn't exist that's number three but there's a number two that the reality correct how do you distinguish between those two through rational time how how how based on the probability how did the consciousness yeah done uh when you can form a rational thought and a cohere one please call back Wow until then yeah okay so I'm a spy in a tall I'm gonna finish my thought because this is important I need an oil go ahead want an oil we need more levity uh-huh okay really Matt from Oslo called back already uh well it's too bad next week yeah next week I will talk to Matt from Oslo actually I won't be here next week so Russell can talk to Matt from Oslo I will be at the secular Student Alliance Leadership Conference you're welcome okay so there's two possibilities either God manifests in reality or it doesn't now if it doesn't manifest in reality my contention is that this God is indistinguishable from a God that doesn't exist because we only are able to actually examine things that manifest in reality so you can think that there's a God out there that doesn't manifest in reality and you have no rational justification for it and what you believe in is indistinguishable to you and every other thinking being on this planet from the God that doesn't exist therefore it's a big old fat time waster and I will not waste time discussing it which means in order for us to have a discussion you better be talking about a God that manifests in reality and that by definition if it manifests in reality then this is at least theoretically detectable in which case you should be able to produce evidence yes physical evidence real evidence and by the way every single one of you sitting out there who is a Christian that's the God you believe in if you're a Muslim that's the God that you believe in if you're a Hindu well maybe one or two of them are go down the list everybody who has posited the existence of a God and formed a religion with a couple of minor exceptions of philosophical deism and you know some kind of different versions of Buddhism but by and large we're talking about the world's major religions especially the Abrahamic traditions right down to you know Mormons they're positing the existence of a God who manifests in reality and they songs about how often he manifests in reality and they make cleans all the time about how he manifests in reality flame he answers prayers answers prayer heals people find your car keys whatever if that's the God you're talking about by this grammy please come and talk because that's the only god that matters if you want to call in and talk about well my god is logically possible i don't care all you're saying is that it's not impossible that there's a being out there somewhere that might qualify for the criteria that I'm putting on the god thing I care what's actually true what's demonstrably true so if the only conversation worth having is about a God that manifests in reality if it manifests in reality it's at least theoretically detectable and by the way all of you who believe in it who claim to have had these experiences are claiming to be God detectors how hard is that to get through your skull and who I felt the Holy Spirit coming through me and I know that God healed my aunt of cancer well congratulations you've made a testable claim have an Oreo my son thank you sonica you've made a testable claims know that we're talking about there's not a single Christian who got up this morning put on nice clothes and went to sit in church who believes in a God that is just a possibility or an idea every single church-going Christian in this country and I would say around the world believes in a God who does real stuff yep and who is gonna do a real thing when they really die they think they've got a real soul inside that's gonna get plucked out like a pomegranate seed and shipped off to some wonderful place called heaven where I guess it's or cable and pizza and and yeah and and they think these are real things that are gonna happen when this lunatic Harold Camping was doing his old you know it's all gonna end recently he got people the people who sent him money and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and then the world didn't end that day they were really genuinely bewildered that that didn't happen they thought an actual physical event was going to occur the end of the world the rapture them going up and waving goodbye to all his sinners they were talking real things that's what Christians actually believe so theoretical God's logical God's possible gods I love philosophy I'm just chilling back with an Oreo I like Oreos nothing gay about that now I like philosophy I like having philosophical discussions we've had debates about free will these are Orioles totally sixty-nining look well they just because you stuck your nose into their bedroom close that back up you don't you don't care you shouldn't be allowed to peek into other piece of bedrooms unless they ask you to hmm but I love philosophical discussions I I have a I have a passion for the transcendental argument for the existence of God mm-hmm that's going on YouTube that's and we I love discussions about identity I think it's incredibly important how we go about determining who we are and what sort of definitions we're going to put on identity we're gonna have big issues in the future that deal with identity that deal with you know what maybe not necessarily whether or not we have free will but how we deal in a world where we most probably don't have free will or it's an illusion we're going to have issues related to identity we're already having all sorts of issues related to other smaller subsets of identity we're you know for years the intersex individuals have been either had their sex determined by a doctor or raised under one enculturated gender identity there are people now who fit into every possible category in some categories we couldn't even have dreamed possible mm-hm and these are all people and we're going to have to deal with the interactions there I love the field I think we have big problems coming down the pipe and religion is standing in the way because it has these archaic black-and-white which are mostly wrong ideas about identity and interaction in-group out-group thinking I'll I'll have debates on tag and I love the philosophical stuff but not a one of you became a Christian because of the transcendental argument for the existence of God it's it I'm sure somebody will write me or call in and say you're wrong sir I was an atheist and it's the transcendental argument for the existence of God that convinced me to be a gonna get a liar 100 trolls are a liar you are absolutely a liar because first of all transcendental argument existence of God can't get to Christianity there's 50 people in the chat room right now who are composing that email just to piss you I don't care I'm I can delete emails my point my point is this you believe in something and you've got some reasons for it so just call in and say what those reasons are why don't people often do that I mean granted we had pretty honest people here today that eventually fell back to the oh well it's faith well I but but that's that's them being honest that's yeah I know I'm that's that's the moment of honesty when after all the scientific pretense that they begin their calls with yeah when you know when your blanket of illusory reasons is pulled away when the last little thread of that is gone and you say oh it's faith well you've admitted defeat you have admitted that you don't have a reason position that you cannot defend it and so don't you dare after getting to faith come back with tag or plantinga's moto logic ontological argument or any of those other philosophical philosophical obfuscation 'z that don't prove what you think they prove are fallacious and aren't the reason that you believe at least be honest about what you believe and will have an honest discussion in return and if you get to faith and say that hey that's okay with you I'll say it's not okay with me and then we can go on our merry way I think the big fear is that when you another people see you in a conversation where all of your arguments fall by the wayside and you're left with faith that's why I want to have this conversation because those people are now in a position where they get to recognize hmm do I want to be do I want my positions to be based on reason and evidence am i okay with faith why should I be okay with faith if faith can simultaneously justify my belief that Jesus turns into a cracker or that Jesus walked on water or my faith that I'll get virgins in heaven when I die if I'm a martyr if or any number of things you can justify anything with faith so what good is it and isn't it actually bad don't you care about an actual pathway to truth I know you do because you keep calling in to give reasoned arguments and then when they fail you go back to faith just give it up Thomas in Champaign Illinois hi how are you hi good thanks how's it going man how's all morning good we got Oreos yeah yeah I was thinking that if Jesus was turned into a cracker the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man turned into one of those Oreos meaning okay so I might have a question for you guys when you were transitioning from your theism to atheism I'm not sure about you Martin but I know Matt you did did United to have did you get rid of any physical objects like crosses books things that you kind of collected over all those years that had you know personal and sentimental value but did you actually get rid of them nope here well there were probably I was never big on decorations so I didn't have like crosses hung up all over the house or the footprints poster it always seems kind of kitschy to me so I mean I wasn't the type of Christian who had my my house decorated plus I spent a number of years not really carrying that much about my religion it was until I got back into it that I got some of that but I still have the Bible that I actually I still have the New Testament that was given to my parents upon my birth and I still have the King James Bible then I used all through my teenage years it's highlighted verses are marked notes in the margins I took it to camp I've still got the flyer from from the summer camp that I went to neatly tucked in the Bible I have a couple of other Bibles one that I bought after I was an atheist because I wanted to have an NIV for this you know to reference those because the NIV is copyrighted I don't know how you copyright the Bible and I have lots and lots of apologist books some of I got while I was still a Christian there's books on like Revelation prophecy and things and others I got afterwards like most of the Lee Strobel crap I keep all of it it's on a bookshelf I use it for reference it's I don't see any reason to get rid of it yeah that's for me though like though I had a few things collected over the years like the palm leaves that you fold into cross or sometimes it's just like a prayer book and I found that like over the last year or two I would go in through a bunch of my stuff I saw it and I thought of actually and I threw it away and me it was almost like a letting go of it completely like and not keeping around for fear of you know like if I throw it away I'll be fearful if I do I just threw it away and yeah actually last year I bought a Bible and I plan to keep that just as kind of like reading and reference material with just other things like that I accumulated over the years and this is like a kind of a snarky thing that I did was when I was reading The God Delusion I thought what better to use as a bookmark than my certificate of baptism yeah it's one of those things that's entirely personal if throwing away all that stuff actually is a form of catharsis and makes you you know more comfortable that's fine but I wouldn't I mean if keeping it like I don't have any crosses that I folded out of palm leaves my mom probably might have had some I don't even know she kept him but if it was a key you know there were keepsakes that meant something to me I have pictures of our church youth group I still have some pictures some of those pictures some of those people I'm actually still friends with some of them friended me on Facebook and found out what I do and immediately unfriended me yeah keep what you like get rid of what you like you know yeah you know you make em you make those rules and your own yeah you don't ever want to throw anything away that would actually be useful to someone else but yeah kind of talk about the little things that you've developed just a pure sentimental attachment to and is for me personally that kind of helped get me over you know a certain edge it yeah hey buddy I don't I don't hear this very often but you know sometimes Christians will talk to atheists and they'll they'll have this assumption that you know there's something horrible was happened to upset us that the alien aided us from the church in religion and that's why we're a theist now and then and a lot of people are really surprised to hear me say that I have nothing but very enjoyable pleasant memories of you know my youth I was through early adolescence Beneatha but I was a regular churchgoer and then there was a big church in Houston that we went to my parents and I and I was involved in in the youth group and and used the choir and and going to camp and all the rest of it it was a summer camp and when I was 14 years old where I saw the most impressive exercise in crowd manipulation from the youth minister didn't realize that's what it was at the time but now I mean it was it was really amazing um but again I I have I and I enjoy all those memories those were good times and people are a little bewildered to hear me say that I'm like little bit it had nothing to do with how good a time you have it sort of the fun that you have in the activities the the personal enjoyment the friends you make it cetera et cetera those are all separate issues apart from our that's kind of actually true Drowsy god really exert was genius and I've mentioned before I'm pretty much in the same boat with Martin and that is that I don't have a lot of paraphernalia though I don't I don't have any real bad members memories of this I haven't pretty much nothing but good memories i i i like or genuinely love most of the people that I interacted with I didn't have bad experiences I didn't get mad at God I didn't lose anybody to God I was never mistreated in the church it wasn't molested although I know of people who were which I found out much later but yeah I got I got nothing but good memories which is why after a few years of being in the Navy in the tech industry I went back and that was that was this is I'm still Christian I've been a Christian but I have been backslidden you know I didn't really care that much about it and now I want to get serious because I had all those good memories and it was a process of learning and study that led me away from religion and not any anger or irritation and now I absolutely despise the religion and the fictitious you know thug that they worship and and what it actually does to people but I don't hate the believers so you know I mean people in my family and all that other stuff and it didn't change my memories yeah I don't like the him I don't like hearing the hymns that I used to like as much because now they have a different meaning but that doesn't change the the Fineman out of a vinegar training music anyways yep yeah you can't really get rid of that yeah okay yeah thanks thanks so much for calling appreciate it Ellis nected call it all right thanks take care what by uh Rick in Buena Park how are you I'm pretty good how you doing uh well it's it's interesting that I got through uh especially because of what I believed that I told them gentlemen that answered the phone that I didn't know if anybody ever talked to you about things that I'm going to talk to you about uh I haven't watch a show but a co I watched a few on YouTube and I got interested I wanted to call in because some of the things you said back at that time I was interested in that I do not believe in okay and I am a Christian I've been a Christian for roughly thirty years I'm 66 years old mm-hmm was not a believer till I was 37 years old had one of these so-called experiences that you don't believe in no that's not true that's not true I believe that people have experiences I don't believe the explanation for the experiences that they offer okay well I won't give into it because I never told you what happened to me because it's so weird no one believed it anyway but it didn't the experience was witnessed by my wife because I thought actually I had a horrible nightmare and was freaking out about the next day and but I remember my wife was there and so I went in and talked to her next day about it having the middle design about three o'clock in the morning mmm and and I asked her something happened and she explained him what she saw and then I realized it was not a dream or nightmare it was real okay that's what turned me into Christianity I was I was trying to be a Christian for about six months but I went out piled at the moon try to speak in tongues and all that stuff because people told me to be a Christian you did this and he did that night rise didn't work yeah depend not to reveal himself to me if he was real well maybe that's the problem you were trying to become aware of Christian yeah I wanted I wanted to believe I wanted to see if this was true because tell you the truth it scared the hell out of me reading and proverbs is the first thing the Bible that I ever read and I thought if this is true I'm in trouble I was I was 37 years old retired never had to work again the rest of my life I was financially secure I told people I had a big house I had three kids four dogs a beautiful wife and never had to work again and I got bored I sold my businesses because things got bad back in the oil embargos back in Navis and I told everything and and I sat around the house for about three a year year and a half waiting for something to come up and I kind of briefly interrupt you Rick all right can I just briefly break in here we have 3 min get back yeah because it's saying is yeah we're down to like the last four minutes of the show and I figured you didn't call just to give your testimonial because the note here says that you have something you want to talk about the subject of freewill so I thought let's get to that quickly case Orient's I'm sorry now we're just running out of time that's all I get a little wordy so I'm sorry yeah that's okay I didn't realize those are too short of time let me see if I can get the computer so I can see you guys as I'm talking to you hold on a sec I well in any way when I called about yeah go ahead basically are you familiar with super Lempira nism with what Sagan super left some super lapped arianism yes now it's the belief okay well I just found out I read a little bit about it but I just read out from Bible study guide that I'm involved with on Monday nights that that's actually what he thinks we are super I did very few people believe what we believe or we'll admit that they believe what we believe and basically what I believe is God is and I'll give you maybe this will tell you where I'm coming from everything that happens is God's plan nothing is beyond what he has planned to happen including the good the bad the ugly he's everything that bad happens this world is in God's hands and he's planned it that way everything good is the same thing did you email pardon me did you email the show and get an answer yesterday no I didn't okay well so predestination wedding this idea of this idea that everything's God will and God planned is not uncommon and the rejection of freewill I mean Calvinists don't hold to libertarian freewill yeah yeah I am a Calvinist okay yeah all right so okay so then so then your question to us is my question is to you is the statements have I heard you made a few things of a have seen watch you guys program seems to me that you are thinking of a God that I know you I think if I remember right he's this awful horrible God or whatever that does these mean things well you just said you believed in that God I do okay if you read the Bible you can't believe in anything but a God that is willing to kill millions and millions of people why would you worship that God because the alternative is number one I would go to hell okay stop I can't no I got 30 seconds they're putting the credits up and put you on hold here's the answer to I sent somebody else who wrote in with some of the same crap so we're all puppets of a capricious dictator who may or may not reveal himself may or may not make your life miserable or wonderful irrespective of our desires or actions if your God does exist he's an immoral thug and I wouldn't worship Him and it's pathetic to keep hearing from people who toss aside their humanity and morality in order to support this inhuman

Channel: The Atheist Experience

Views: 116,017

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: GGQsM6j8szE

Length: 58min 15sec (3495 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 04 2012