The Atheist Experience 826 with Matt Dillahunty and Jeff Dee

[Music] won't you listen to reason well you open your eyes it's a wonder what you'll find with an open mind you may be surprised yeah got to get away from this illusion for the sake of the world this delusion it's got to got to got to yeah hey everybody Welcome to The Atheist Experience we're live it's Sunday August 11th 2013 I'm Matt D honey this is Jeff D hi folks hi Matt how are you I'm good yourself I'm all right we are here this is a live Public Access call-in television program we'll have the number up shortly uh we take live calls we talk about what people believe and why um we get into arguments we learn things we teach things maybe on a couple of occasions but uh I don't know whatever comes up whatever happens so we got a bunch of callers already queued up and uh you didn't have anything in particular that you want not particularly I do want to remind everyone that the nonprofit show is back uh you can find out information about that on nonprofits radio.com uh that's the old website it's being revamped but the info there is uh to my knowledge still roughly accurate well it's actually it's accurate again because I think we kept the picture of just you Russell and Dennis up that's right that's right through all the years that I was doing it and you weren't and now it's back yep it's it's me and Dennis leay and Russell Glasser doing the show again and uh and special uh celebrity guests we had a we had a message from um uh a uh pretend Pat Robertson and quotes from Pope in Boots Pope in Boots yeah listen to that episode if you want to hear what that's all about all right this is this show we'll go ahead and we'll get go ahead and get started uh taking phone calls as a reminder when this show is over the people involved uh a good chunk of them anyway often go uh to dinner there's the address there can't tell you to come down but you know that's where some people will be what are you gonna do um first up Mark in Mesa Arizona how are you I'm doing well uh just had a couple of questions for you sure go ahead um I am in high school and I go to a Socratic based learning school so we just discuss topics during history it's we go to a class called human letters it's a two-hour long period of literature and history and we're studying Greek philosophy and stuff like that mhm and I have uh well we were we were discussing the concept of objective morality and I was against it because I think that morality is subjective based on society and it got to the point where out of the classroom I was discussing with another student whether or not um the Bible and the the religion of the Catholic Church could actually promote morality or give its own morals and she was trying to convince me that without Church she wouldn't be moral she wouldn't happing someone was raised so you've got you've got a friend who's a non-believer who is convinced that without church or religion there would be no grounding for morals well she is a Believer I think but she's very on I mean I feel like she's on the cusp okay and I was just curious as sorry I'll let you go no that's fine I I I disagree with you on whether or not there are objective moral standards but uh that's a a big long discussion that we don't need to go into at the moment um I I this idea that you need religion for Morality is one that's pervasive but I wonder what the demonstration that it's true is because my position is that you know I gave a talk uh which you can find online actually if you Google superiority of secular morality and I've since had to to revise that further because it's not that I think that secular moral systems are superior uh they're the only moral systems I think we actually have because they find that religions are moral systems they're moral pronouncements that this is right or this is wrong with no real mechanism for people to figure out why something is viewed as right or wrong and so yeah yeah so I I don't uh I I would have to know exactly what her reasons were um and what's convinced her that you know you you're not going to have uh it seems to me that we you can build a moral system and I I'd recommend go ahead and Googling for that because I kind of outlined this um but off very simple principles um if morality is about well-being then and we are physical beings in a physical Universe then there are truths real truths about what is uh beneficial for us to our well-being and what is detrimental both as individuals and groups and so given those those facts if that's what morality is that's what we're talking about and if we're not then I'll need a new definition because that's what I'm talking about um then I have no good reason to think that religious pronouncements about morality um have anything to do with our well-being there's no demonstration of why a claim from a religion actually benefits us and no reason to think that even if there's a God who's making pronouncements that he's actually correct and that's what she's doing she's basing it on the Bible and the fact that atheists don't have a a rule book okay so what does she think about homosexuals um I think she's more lenient on that I don't think that she follows the Bible strictly on that but she does follow it strictly on a lot of other things what about slavery I'm sure she's against it though the Bible's for it yeah so if she's going to point to the Bible and say that this is the source of morality and yet she's going to reject it when her own senses her own understanding of what is right and wrong conflict with it then stop pointing to the Bible and stop pretending that it's it's where you're actually getting your ansers from in fact what she's doing is saying I really don't know what the answer is on this so I'm just going to accept the Bible's answer until somebody demonstrates that it's wrong that's not yeah any way to to work through a moral system I don't know do you I can definitely see that yeah I got to bring up I got to bring up youth afro are you familiar with the youth afro dilemma no I'm not uh look it up it sounds like your class is a place where uh that information should be available to you it's uh uh Plato talking about Socrates again and um the the basic question is uh Socrates asks this character youth afro uh are your your actions that you're so proud of claiming that they're moral are they because the gods say so are they moral just because the gods say so or are they inherently moral and the gods are just uh instructing you that they're moral right and that raises some troubling questions for almost every Christian I've ever met right that because if if it's just made up pronouncements then that's not really morality we understand that just because a big powerful guy says so doesn't make a thing right but if they're inherently moral and the gods are own the God is only instructing us then really morality is something outside of the Gods and uh and it dethrones them entirely as lawgivers because they're inherent we don't need them to EST them for us right yeah if it's if something's moral because God says so then God could say the exact opposite tomorrow and say and say as what's in the Bible that slavery is okay when we know it's not neither prong of the D dilemma is really satisfactory to most Christians and now they uh uh they often try to get out of it by uh doing this bait and switch to God's nature saying that oh well let's see he didn't just make them up it's his nature right and it's inherent in his nature well then the next question is where did his nature come come from if he authored his own nature then once again it's just his pronouncement if he didn't author his own nature then once again he is not the source of morality morality is just inherent in the universe yeah it's it's when when they when they I I'm I'm with Jeff when they when they try the uh it's God's nature well great then either um then then God himself becomes irrelevant to the discussion or you basically just move the the question back one step right they try to move the goalposts back you can take the the goalpost right back to them so so bring that up it it basically um it makes it really difficult for Christians to cling to the idea that morality could come from their God's commands in the first place which which is also potentially an absurdity anyway that that the idea I mean when I talk about morality I'm I'm mostly in line with Sam Harris I'd recommend the moral landscape I don't necessarily agree with everything in it but I I'm by and large in line with if we're going to be talking about this what we generally mean is we're talking about well-being and that is a uh the sort of thing about which uh Fiat declarations have no bearing you know drinking battery acid is bad for pretty much everybody uh even if you find somebody who can drink battery acid that doesn't change the fact that as a general rule um it's it's bad for you and it's it didn't take anybody's pronouncement to actually uh discover that or or make or change the truth of it um um the the there's an aspect of this that well I I'll just leave it at that and if you had a follow-up question go ahead um another thing I was talking to my father and I was pulling examples from the Bible of how if God really is condoning a lot of these actions bad he's a really mean guy I mean slavery you get stoned being sexual you should kill your children if that I mean and then I was pulling these up and he's he believes in the Bible but then he's saying to me well can you prove God said these things can you prove God condone these and I'm saying of course not they're the invention of man to condone this I that's that's kind of unusual I mean you know he he believes it but he doesn't necessarily believe it it reminds me of when we had Ray Comfort on the show and Ray said that he didn't agree or didn't believe that everything in the Bible was true and accurate and I thought that was a a big admission on his part but it then leads directly to the question of okay how do you go about determining what is true and accurate uh CU I fully admit that there are true and accurate things in the Bible and in the Quran and in pretty much any book you want to point to um even even in some high fantasy they you know point to real truths about you know Behavior it's just not true because they're in the book it's just true because it's true I would I would ask a Believer who um who wants to weasle out of responsibility for passages like that by uh by making the claim that well only some of the Bible is God's revealed word right only some of it is accurate and other bits aren't they can't get away from the fact that for you know um almost 2,000 years those passages were uh were descriptive of what their religion was all about they can they can poo poo them now but they are continuing a belief system that was that not only believed those things to be true but they were like core beliefs of the religion for many many centuries so um to to just discard them like that and not take any responsibility of the path their religion has taken to get them where they are now I think is uh is worth looking at yeah this this pick and choose mentality this kind of revisionist we're going to do a new interpretation they've offered no mechanism for how one can determine what is and isn't reliable they either simply make um assertions or appeals to Faith and I have no use for either yeah and they only seem to pick out the things that don't sound completely crazy anymore most of them yeah I I hear there's going to be a new uh TV show covering the snake handling preachers uh which I will definitely be watching but uh you know you can't paint everybody with you can't paint everybody with one large brush either reality show yes it is a reality show really one coming out about rich preachers yeah there is one about you just know the pre the the producers of the show about snake handling are desperately hoping there'll be some bites there are bites you'll see bites oh good but anyway that is good TV the uh you know the thing is I want to make sure you don't necessarily paint with a broad brush because just because somebody happens to use the Christian label that doesn't mean you know anything at all about which category they fit in there's everybody from the Reverend Barry Lyn who I'm happy to work with on Church State separation issues to the speaking in tongue snake handling uh let's not go see a doctor version pray over our children yeah it's uh kind of over the top but I appreciate the call and and check out um not to necessarily promote only my own stuff but it since you called to get my answer there's a an actual lecture out there superiority of secular morality um that gives my thoughts on it and also I'd recommend Sam Harris's book and there's a few others too that Richard carriers got a book out on morality uh Michael Shermer had a book out on the signs of Good and Evil um and these are all you know interesting takes on uh on the big questions about morality well thank you very much I'm very glad I got on the show thanks Mark have a good day and in a similar vein we've got Evan in Atlanta how are you hey guys what's going on can you hear me yes we can hi Evan awesome first time I'm this first time calling I'm an atheist I'm a huge fan of you guys well thanks um I was talking to a cus the other day and we were talking about morality because it usually comes around to that as you know Matt from your debates um and I asked them a question that I ask a lot is about hell which is is infinite punishment for finite crimes moral and they say yes it is because God said so so they're taking the position that um things are moral because God says so yep and I don't I don't know how I mean I know it's wrong and stupid but I don't know what to say to that where do you go from there uh if God told you to sacrifice your son to him would you do it I mean yeah if if they're really saying that this that this is just because God said so because God said so is their reason um then I feel sorry for them um they've sacrificed their humanity and their moral compass on the altar of deference to an idea which they don't even have good reason to think is true I it's it's absurd to think that merely because anybody God or otherwise said so that this is necessarily uh true and good how here's my here's my favorite question for that how did you figure out that God was the good one and Satan was the evil one what mechanism did you use to decide between those two uh and we're just going to go ahead and Grant that those two exist and you need to make some decision how did you determine that God was the good one and Satan was the evil one that's yeah that's a really good point I haven't even thought of asking that there is no way I mean you're talking you're talking about moral compass if if they're real if they're real you're talking about super two supernatural beings with power beyond ours both of which are capable of fooling us and you need to figure out which one's good and which one's not and the only way you can do this is to use your own understanding of morality and what what do you have to do then well you have to figure out what it is that you're talking about what it is um What mechanisms you're going to use to try to determine and that makes the two of them irrelevant and therefore I can judge both of them to be you know perhaps immoral on occasions and good on occasions I mean the gnostics knew about this ages ago when they wrote about the the Absurd Genesis account and when you look at the when you look at the Genesis account now I'm not assuming that the the talking snake was necessarily Satan that depends on you know whose tradition you want to read but if you look at that account the snake was telling the truth right down the line God says you're going to die when you eat this no you won't you're actually just going to get knowledge what is what is the bible say that the god that God says look man has eaten of this and has become like us which is exactly what the snake said would happen did they die no they got banished well people want to do a revisionist little it was a spiritual death okay whatever but the fact of the matter is you look at who told the truth in that story and it was the snake and when and the people who will admit this will say well of course because the devil's going to use truth um all it takes is a little bitty lie in the truth and they're absolutely right you're going to be more convincing in con jobs if you're mostly sticking to the truth and just insert the I understand I agree now how did you determine that God is the good one sufficiently for you to say everything God says is true and good you can you can't demonstrate that I love that that's that's exactly what I needed cool thanks Evan I got I got a bunch of other callers waiting but I appreciate it all right thanks thanks all right we've got Andrew in Allentown thanks for waiting hey what's up how's the weather down in Texas hot really hot my air conditioner went out yesterday uh but we got it fixed oh good but here's my question uh from my perspective of a being a YouTube user I'm usern name name same as you I'm noticing like a new fanaticism against theism these days it seems like fanaticism against theism yeah it seems like every time I bring up an argument there's always draw man arguments against it I know there's like a princip so can you give like an example of one of your arguments and the straw man against it well I mean there's both of them like is a mind and then it's like well mind is a thinking they would go back resort to a brain and how mind can't exist without a brain and so how is that a straw man yeah I don't understand how a straw man is when you erect something that is that is false where where are the examples of Minds that exist uh apart from physical brains there's um there's been scientific studies I mean this is thrown off my whole argument but there's uh been scientific studies that plants having um like a mental activity with each other underne Andrew even granting that there's something going on in Plants that's like a mind the plants the plant is then using its physical form to do that to do whatever it is it's doing that you're referring to right I mean a plant is not a ghost it's a physical thing so we're back to the same question where are these examples of Minds that exist without some kind of physical substrate def position it would actually be the default position because um oh let me think because when we're born we actually have self-consciousness whereas we have to learn how to relate to the physical world that comes over time what does that have I understand how yeah of course some people know more stuff than others we do learn things what does that have to do with anything no I mean um just the idea of Consciousness it's not something that we learn it's just there by the when we're born Consciousness is something that is uh that is that is produced by the functioning of our brains that's right so what's your point yeah but there's no real physical evidence of that I mean how can you tell the difference between there is Andrew Andrew it's not that there is no physical evidence that the brain is making all it is you just said there's no physical evidence that the brains are making the Consciousness but every time every time that we encounter clear evidence of Consciousness there's some physical processor that is producing it or that um there's some physical processor that appears to be producing it I'll I'll soften my position to that okay and no evidence of anything external or Supernatural or spiritual active and not only no evidence there's no Theory based on evidence of how that could even happen Okay so you got nothing well not necessarily like yes necessarily you have nothing here's a few examples like um well I I just want to say though first of all this was not my um best example of a strawman argument I admit we asked you for one this is the one you gave so so hang on hang on Andrew you know we we didn't we didn't choose to uh steer you down this particular path uh to beat up on it you came on and said that you know there's uh more of a I forget the word you used um fanatical fanatical uh attack on theistic positions and a bunch of atheists that are using Straw Men now I will fully I will fully acknowledge um that out there on YouTube it's a it's a mixed bag there are some people that are going to make brilliant arguments and there's some people who are going to make terrible arguments I hear terrible arguments from atheist and I've called people out of them I I called Sam Harris out on the this nonsense that the Bible says pi equals 3 Michael Shermer said something the other day on Twitter um that you know at first blush looks kind of impressive but when you actually look a little deeper it was not really a good argument the thing is I don't think Shermer me it that way I think he was just kind of having a bit of fun um but if you're going to say that that people are straw menting your arguments and I ask you for an example you don't get to cry foul when we No in fact they're not straw manting you well let me just run through a quick list and then I'll bring up some more strawman arguments um about uh mind existing without brains there is a heart transplant patients that when they they're heart to transplant from one patient to another actually receive memories of the donor no they don't uh Andrew once again Andrew just a moment Andrew even even taking that rather ludicrous claim at face value you what just happened there a physical part of one body got moved physically into another party another body so that still doesn't go anywhere near supporting your claim that that consciousnesses can be these like non-physical things that waft around or have or do not require a physical form to live in not to mention it wasn't a brain what not to you're oh come on you're going to play that and we already got went over this with plants right you claimed plants had some kind of thing that was kind of like Consciousness okay fine the plant is still a physical object a heart is still a physical object this thing you're calling God where's God's you know um plant fibers or his heart or his brain or any of that stuff but but even even in addition to that um first of all I don't believe for a second that this this claim that somebody got a heart transplant and got memories along with it um I don't I don't believe that I I think matter of fact I would I would suspect that somebody would be getting a Nobel Prize for demonstrating that this is actually true and that it wouldn't probably appear in like glurge creationist nonsense but let's say for example that we know nothing at all about Consciousness or the mind we don't we don't understand it at all let's go back a thousand years what the hell does this have to do with a god you actually have to have you have to supply evidence for your proposition not try to poke holes in the actual scientific explanations that exist because if we don't know the answer to something that doesn't mean that there's a God and a magical spirit that produces Consciousness any more than it demonstrates that Thor threw lightning bolts before we knew what they were well there's the whole monad argument of L I'm not sure if you familiar with that I'm not even sure you listen to what I just said well no I did um this is what you said you said even if we go back throughout all of history and we check all the physical evidence related to scientist there's no connection with that with the god CL yeah that's not quite what I said but go ahead but anyways well here's some more strongman arguments I guess okay um it's basically like the most um like from the Bible like they take things from the Bible and they even though I'm just using a say a new testament uh claim on the Bible they they throw things from the old test whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa um you you're you're saying so you made New Testament claims and somebody brought up Old Testament do you do you reject the Old Testament no but uh some of the things like where it comes to like doing animal sacrifices and things like that yeah but need to do that nowadays okay but are you're rejecting the Old Testament no no so how is it a straw man for somebody to bring up the Old Testament because it's it's interpreted differently now since the New Testament okay and and so was God wrong before no and here's another thing the Bible is a personal book so Jesus talk so you can interpret it any other way you want and not be wrong then if it's just a personal book if you can interpret it any way you want why can't uh Andrew if you're free to interpret the Bible any way you want how come these people who are disagreeing with you aren't allowed to do exactly that and you're accusing them of raising up straw man against straw man against you well they can interpret it their way but they're throwing that interpretation at me I'm supposed to be and you're throwing your interpretation at them Andrew but anyways here's my question well no no no no no you said you were going to offer Straw Men examples um and now you're complaining that people point to things in the Old Testament do you are you opposed to the Ten Commandments no not at all no not not at all okay um but um what about the what about the other 63 here's the thing about the Bible to those essential claim would be the um Sermon on the Mount because that's the testimony before the public well yeah why is that why is that the most important thing because that's his um his biggest presentation before the public so what why is that the most important thing in the Bible do you realize that that if it wasn't for the Genesis account and the fall that there'd be no reason for a Jesus to even exist wouldn't that make that the most important thing in the Bible Well I mean you were just talking about morality and this would be theal I'm asking I'm asking you questions because one of us uh definitely knows the Bible and I'm going to see if the other one does well I'm I'm a Christian who believes in Jesus as the Savior but okay as far as being a expert on the Bible I have to admit I'm not an expert so why do you believe in Jesus as a savior because I turn to it um when I need like um U let's say I I just need like um encouragement from God I would look through the Bible sure and some people have a drink and that's and that's doesn't answer Matt's question Matt asked you why you believe in the Bible and you told him of a religious practice that you have that is not an answer to Matt's question why do you believe well how exactly would you why why did you believe in Jesus yeah well in my own personal account um I was an atheist until like three years ago and I was sick and atheist for the first four or five years of my life but go ahead you were sick I used to arue argue against religion okay and I bet you were no more effective at it than you are uh at arguing for religion I never even asked my first question yet okay anyways um but then I uh I was sick I was in the hospital and I was sent home I and I wasn't feeling well even when I was sent home and a Christian friend of mine told me to open the B um and then just randomly open to a page MH I did that and I R there was a Psalm walking through the valley of death and that was the first thing I opened to okay and I talk to my sister and she said um I told her I wasn't feeling well she said just go just stay at home because I've been through the emergency room a few times already so I talked to my family they said stay home but when I read that passage um it kind of like irked me so I I went back to the hospital and as it turns out if I didn't go back at at that time I I would have died okay so you weren't feeling very well and somebody had you opened the Bible at random and the Bible didn't say anything about go to the hospital because you're about to die but it but it irked you and you decided to take that action and based on that you um are accepting that the Bible is true true and Jesus is Lord well here's another thing I was hang on that was a question that was a question yes that's true yes okay so when you say you were an atheist before I have no problem accepting that were you ever a skeptic or a critical thinker because oh yeah in fact I just wrote a book about um proving God was nothing I want to prove God was nothing yeah um uh see the thing is the thing is the thing is this what you've described doesn't demonstrate anything at all about the truth of a Bible or Jesus at all I mean there's nothing it's it's like it's like you have not it's like you don't know anything about skepticism or critical thinking what if what if somebody told you to open the Quran and You' to open the Quran to a passage that irked you enough to go back to the hospital M if that happened I I would be um a another one okay and so why are you writing books about skepticism because you don't have the first clue about it well no that's not true because um I was skeptical what how would you define skep skepticism skepticism is twofold there's philosophical skepticism and there's scientific skepticism and the philosophical skepticism is the idea that we should not believe things until there is sufficient evidence for them and the application of that which is the scientific skepticism is to come up with a mechanism by which we can establish the truth of claims to the best of our ability it involves the tools of science and critical thinking it does not involve hey I got a feeling and I'm going to use the fallacy uh I'm going to make a fallacious argument that of causation or Truth uh by either you know circling the hits and avoiding the misses or just I I I it's your argument or your your argument about what you read in the Bible is so fallacious that it is beyond my capabilities to identify the exact fallacy in it right now that's is Jesus Tau in Parables Jesus Is God so the Bible teaches in Parables it seem to make sense can we just lose this yeah I'm sorry um you you said you hadn't got to your question uh I'm going to let you ask your question and then we're probably pretty much done because Jesus spoke in Parables Jesus was God therefore the Bible speaks in Parables is another one of I I I I ask your question well you're so do it excess any physical evidence from its colors I think that's what you were relating to what's physically demonstrable but nowhere at the beginning of the show does it state that disclosure what no where at the beginning of the show do you state that you you only want to hear physical evidence from from your callers how many times have you called this show Andrew I recognize you from previous shows you haven't figure that out by now yeah and first of all it's not just physical evidence I want actual good evidence if if you could demonstrate see here's the thing um we can only investigate scientifically those things that are in the natural world there's this barrier that we can't go beyond but if there's something beyond that barrier that manifests in reality we can test for the phenomenon and that's what we do in in every case when for example psychic mediums claim to be speaking to the dead we can't actually investigate whether or not they're speaking from the dead what we can do is investigate the veracity of their claims are they getting good information is there good reason to think that there's something Beyond this likewise when it comes to intercessory prayer may maybe there's a God who exists outside of of space but if people are saying that this God answers prayer in reality that is necessarily A manifestation that we can test and we do test it and it comes out to be no more reliable than chance and actually worse in situations where people are knowing they're being prayed for there's a methodology to determine whether or not something is true and if you believe something absent that methodology you are necessarily being irrational and UNS skeptical because you are accepting things without good evidence well you're saying like um the doomed to be delusional in the same sense that fund fundamentalists CLA they're not they're not doomed to Hell Andrew they're not doomed to be delusional at all I'm not sure those words or anything like those actually came out of my mouth if I thought people were doomed to be delusional I wouldn't be wasting my time trying to disabuse them of their delusions there certainly could be people out there who have uh sufficient evidence uh and have and have have uh Analyze That evidence with sufficient uh careful thought and Clarity that they have a valid reason to believe in some of the things you believe you're not one of those people but they could be out there I think and even you're not doomed because you could stop well your position was if you don't have physical evidence then how can you distinguish your belief from a delusion okay explain that f fine explain then you have an answer to that question sort of but in in debating there's something known as the principle of Charity which is where you try to judge or promote the opposing view as the best possible interpretation so if you take the principle of ter and appli to a spiritual person they're not going to have a physical argument like they're not going to no sorry a mistake sorry we are not having formal debate even if what you say is true and I have no idea whether it is but even if it is this is not a formal debate right here we are asking for you to come up with to present us with the reasons why you believe what you believe and if we think those reasons make no sense we're going to tell you that's what we do on the show The principle of Charity is such that you don't attempt to misrepresent your opponent's positions or hold them to standards Beyond theirs what I'm doing is saying that your standards are insufficient you have demonstrated if my position is I it's it's not there is no God there's it's not there is nothing Supernatural it is if you are convinced that the supernatural exists I want to know why so that I can determine whether or not you are rationally Justified or not and when you offer nothing more than I randomly opened a book and it said absolutely nothing about my situation but it irked me enough to go back to the Hospital you are not demonstrating anything even the most charitable person on the planet would call a rational argument and you're calling in to complain that people are strawmanning you when you couldn't argue your way out of a paper bag well it's like you're asking me to physically provide evidence of my most introspective thoughts no no no Andrew Andrew not once have I said please provide physical evidence of your innermost thoughts I I've asked you what your reasons are for believing and talked about whether or not I find them acceptable if you're going to keep misrepresenting what I actually said in order to keep your delusions safe from interference then I will just hang up so what was your question that you didn't get to ask well I was wondering how how you encourage um open debate as without um resorting to strawman arguments but but Point since you don't know a straw man from a paper bag there's your answer I I just flipped a coin and on heads we should hang up on him and it came up head so now not only did you do the right thing and hang up on him I also worship Abraham Lincoln oh my gosh that is so awesome penny for your thoughts and a little less for some others wow but uh all right me um okay uh Israel in East Hartford hey Matt what's up how you guys how you doing uh who's your partner over there Joe D Jeff D Jeff D hi hey how's it going Jeff good what's up L um it's a pleasure calling it's my first time I watch you guys a lot on YouTube um I'm basically calling cuz I me I was a dire Heart Christian at one time um converted to atheism well now hang on yep uh I don't want to necessarily say I don't believe you but on here on my board it says you'd like to share deconversion from Judaism so well yeah I well actually what happened was that I started out as a Pentecostal and then I transferred over to Christian um to Judaism sorry to Judaism what was that like well what was your process of becoming a Jew well I actually thought I was you know I descended from Jews I actually thought I did at one time so I followed that along but then I wasn't really convinced with what I was learning in the Pentecostal what what was your process of becoming going from Christianity to Judaism my process yeah I mean you know I mean the reason why I transferred over no I I mean how did you go about becoming a Jew oh I just um basically started going to a synagogue and um I was supposed to um get circumcised and all the other laws that you have to go through in order to become a Jew okay I never I never got that far oh okay and then um you know I started thinking because I watch you guys on YouTube a lot and the things that you say sometimes that you know you your family I don't know but all your family but some of your family completely turned their back on you am I right um sort of not me but yeah other people other people yeah some of my wife's family has turned their backs on her I okay nobody's nobody's cut me off uh in my family I have friends that don't speak to me anymore well I had that problem I have that problem myself I had that problem actually when I was in Judaism they all turned their back because they thought you know I said I didn't believe in Jesus M but that I believed in you know in Judaism but not that Jesus was the Messiah but of course they turned their backs on me completely and now that I decided I am an atheist I just flat out don't believe anything by studying and studying the Bible and realizing that what I'm you know everything I Learned was a hoax so um here I am I'm a born again atheist and I listen to you guys a lot and it's like uh you know bre breath of fresh air listening to you guys I learn a lot from you I also debate a lot of the I also heard man then no but but um I do study a lot which I think I wish I knew more science like you guys did but I debate mostly uh the Bible and I and I look up things and and I try to pinpoint things that I think are not true like for example everybody knows that the the four gospels you know they they were they had no names they were Anonymous and there was a guy named Theo Theophilus I think it was in in 180 ad he actually was the was the bishop of antio he was the one that added those names in there you know the the Matthew Mark Luke and John the names are matter Church tradition and I don't know that we've actually can can pin down no yeah but what I'm basically saying is that Theophilus who was a bishop in Antioch in the 19 180 ad was the one that actually from what I understand was the one that actually put the names in there you know Matthew Mark Luke and John yeah that that's what I'm saying is that well anyway go ahead yeah so um you know I I debate a lot in I think I heard you guys talk about one time well I'm Bic basically going to give you a little information about people who are starting out like I am you know like brand new atheist who kind of still sort of in the closet halfway mhm you know um they want to defend themselves I think there's some books that can help them out like um there's one by Burton LM is who wrote the B who wrote the New Testament the making of the Christian myth I think they should read that that should open their mind a lot about what's going on in the Bible and how it got started and then there's another one the mthm that basically Paul the Apostle Paul was the one who invented Christianity yeah there's there's a number of good books on those subjects um unfortunately I'm not in a position where I can actually recommend any of them on the show well you know but I mean if they're hearing they probably you know sometimes I hear people that say well I wish I had more information about it you know how to defend or ar what I'm saying is that I can't talk about them on the show that way no okay I'm sorry but nonetheless you know I believe you know I like I said I wish I knew more science because I see now that when with people you you can go do that yeah I'm starting to study and I listen to you guys a lot but I'm starting also to look in you know Lawrence Krauss and some other atheist people and I wouldn't worry too much Israel I mean um uh it's it's it's what my friend Dennis Lu likes to refer to as a Target Rich environment there are so many things wrong with so many places where you can where you can uh you can find problems with various religions um that uh you know me I don't make a practice of arguing about stuff in the Bible because it doesn't particularly interest me and I don't have any trouble debating with Christians it's just you know you don't have to go there there's plenty of material to cover what whatever is your area of expertise but but by all means if you're interested in learning more you you can do that and and I apologize but we're we're running short on time and I got a couple other calls we need to get to before the show's over can can I run this real quick to you I think you should have you ever got to debate William Lane Craig yeah no that's that hasn't happened um my understanding is that he wouldn't debate anybody without a PhD but uh this past weekend I did a like a 90-minute Q&A on pal talk and evidently somebody who works with Craig was there and they're going to maybe try and arrange something but who knows I would recommend that you don't because I think it's not even worth it oh I would disagree I think your wi I think your win hands down but me too a tricky character I'm pretty sure that all the atheists will think I've won and all the Christians will think I've lost but that's for sure thank you for having me on your show cool thanks Andel okay take care you too all right we've got Gman in Jersey City how are you I'm good um I uh spoke to M honey home my um on my YouTube channel not too long ago yeah how you doing that I'm all right you had promised to call today and when the show when all the lines were full and there was a theist on there I thought maybe it was you but it wasn't so what have you got for us well I would like to present my um my evidence of the existence of God and I and I I I will be happy to let you do that but I have one quick question ahead of time have you changed your position on on the Bible and slavery um I'm aware that um um that many people believe that uh that God supports slavery in the Bible and he even tells the people how to um how to deal with how to deal with slaves but um I think there's a misconception about um slavery in the Bible versus the slavery that you see going on in the transatlantic here okay stop because not only did I give you this information I specifically addressed it if the Bible says you can own people as property is it moral or immoral to own people as is property but God says no it is not okay stop hang on just a second um it sounded to me like you said that whether or not it's moral depends on what God says so if God says slavery is okay then slavery is okay absolutely okay I'm gonna go ahead and let you give your let me this let me say thise let me say this there is no commandment in the Bible where God says Thou shalt have Slave oh my God oh my God oh my I'm going to go and let you make your argument for the of God but you might after we have we had this conversation and after you looked it up you are so desperate to make excuses that you will sacrifice your humanity and your morality and say nope slavery might have been all right if God said so that is absolutely disgusting but I'm Gonna Let You Go ahead consider something for a moment though let's consider a moment on a slavery issue and what not okay um you you saw the video I made concerning slavery amongst the eags and whatnot yes saw I saw you I saw you just I saw you say that the people uh who disagree with you are wrong and don't know the Bible and then when I offered you the verses and made the arguments now your position has changed to well if God says it's okay then it's okay you're not even willing to admit you were you're not even willing to admit that you were wrong about what the book says before but there it different no no no no it's not my point is you're my my point is that you will not admit that you were wrong about what you said when you were wrong and demonstrated to be wrong instead you change your argument to be that God says if God says it's okay then it's okay no actually actually if you remember the comment that you left it was um me saying that I should have gave a more exhaustive um example about what slavery was yes and I find that to be Gman g g g man I find that to be completely dishonest too because saying you should have given a more exhaustive treatment does not do anything to De to to change the fact that you were wrong demonstrably wrong wrong and you will let me get a word and I can explain why I tell you what I said I tell you I tell you what whether or not you get another word in depends on the next things that you say um concerning the the whole thing with slavery Again the video that I made I primarily focused on the slaves um that the Hebrews had and amongst their own people and whatnot which was done because a lot of them couldn't support support um themselves for economic reasons you don't think it's Gman Gman hello you don't think it's dishonest to only focus on Hebrew slaves and claim what you said was the Bible says you have to let slaves go after seven years and what I showed you was that you were only talking about Hebrews who owned other Hebrew slaves because that rule only app applied to fellow Jews you portrayed it as the Bible's position on slavery when in fact it was the Bible's position on Jews it was a special set of circumstances for them and it includes a loophole by which you can enslave them forever and you don't find that it was dishonest to say that wait a minute wait wait wait wait there is no loophole there is no loophole in the I bet you a paycheck that's how you interpreted it no no but can I present my EV thing no actually you can't present a damn thing just yet because I already provided you the passage I'm not even going to look it up it's Exodus 21 and after it says that you must let them go in the within after serving seven years it says if they came in with a with a wife that wife leaves to them but if you gave them a wife and they come to you and say I don't want to leave my wife you then take them before the Elders of the town and they say I love my master and I want to stay with my master you drive a a spike through the air to mark that they are yours and they become your property forever the Bible describes exactly how you can enslave your fellow Jews forever and that is get them single and marry them off because their wives and their kids remain your property if they didn't come into the slave situation with them that my friend is an absolute loophole which I already told you about you are going to disagree on then you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong and you're done it is blatantly written there word for word move on to your argument for the existence of God okay so we agree to disagree on the sleep no you're done bye this is not agreeing to disagree I'm going to pull up the passage right here and I'm going to read it to you Exodus come here computer Exodus 21 because I want to make sure that I don't misrepresent it because what you did for those people who are interested Gman has a channel where he tried uh he tries to make excuses for the Bible in slavery by saying well slavery wasn't like that it was just indentured servitude no it wasn't slavery isn't like that the Bible says you got to let him go after seven years no it wasn't you were absolutely dishonest in everything that you said about there I provided you the verses and gave you ample opportunity to be prepared for this before you walked onto the show today where I said I would embarrass you if you did not did not acknowledge that you were being dishonest if you buy a Hebrew servant Exodus 21:2 if you buy a Hebrew servant he's yours for six years but in the seventh year he shall Go free without paying anything if he comes alone he is to go free alone but if he has a wife when he comes she is to go with him if his master gives him a wife and she Bears him Sons or daughters the woman and her children shall belong to her master and only the man shall Go free but if the servant declares I love my master and my wife and my children and do not want to go free then his master must take him before the judges he shall take him to the door of the doorpost and Pierce his air with an all then he will be the servant for life you sir are dishonest and unwelcome to call back in until you acknowledge that do you have anything to add I wasn't even part of that original argument so yeah sorry uh uh let's move on yeah it it it's just absolutely sad Allan in is it boia Florida uh yes that would be it talk to Jeff I'm drinking some water all right it's my turn what do we what do you got Alan well I was having a conversation with my cousin who who is an atheist and I am as well and he is a n nalist or nihilist and um I was wondering what your opinions of nihilism were and your responses to people like William Lane Craig who thinks that um if you're an atheist you're not being logically honest if you are not a nihilist uh I I can't claim to be knowledgeable about the issue you're raising um if you told me your cousin was a solipsist I'd had have an answer for you right on on my lips but um I'm going to pass this back to Matt so he can address nihilism um so so this particular form of nihilism that they're saying the atheist must be is to acknowledge that there is no meaning and purpose in life and um quite frankly this is is utterly dishonest because it's a little bit of a bait and switch um I'm perfectly happy acknowledging that there is no meaning and purpose in life the way Craig seems to think that there is and not only that but I don't wouldn't want there to be an externally imposed meaning or purpose to my life it's like somebody else telling you what your favorite flavor of ice cream is um I am the pilot of my ship I get to determine the meaning and value and purpose of my life and um I live a life that is full of joy and meaning and uh I don't need a God for it to be so and he people can assert that I'm being intellectually dishonest all they like um but this is just a big red uh a big uh salmon that they're red herring there we go a b big red herring that they s Red Hammond salm or Snapper it's a big fish that they're dangling in front of you to distract from the fact that they have no good reason to think that their God exists because if you look at their argument and it was true hey without the exist with you know if God doesn't exist and there's no meaning and purpose in life okay maybe there's not meaning and purpose in life what the hell you know if if you haven't demonstrated that your God exists just what what they're really saying is I want there to be meaning and purpose in life I can't see how there's meaning and purpose in life without a God and therefore or I'm going to believe in God you talk about intellectually dishonest that is leading yourself to the conclusion you want to reach that is not about following the evidence that's about saying I don't want to live in a world like this so I'm going to believe in a God so that I can convince myself that I don't live in that world and and now that I know what alen's talking about I'd like to jump back in on this um uh yeah um what the other thing that Christians don't explain is how come their God is uniquely empowered to uh to impose this meaning which they think he his existence provides to the universe seems to me if he is a being and uh he has uh ideas about what he'd like to have happen well we're beings and we have ideas about what we'd like to have happen and we have goals and plans and so forth I don't see anything about a God that makes it uniquely uh empowered to decide what the meaning is um compared to you and me I think Jeff's a really good example because Jeff creates games and so even if there was a Creator like Jeff who created a game the meaning and purpose of that game is determined ultimately by the people who play it they can well actually it's established by the rules of the game um but you can have your house rules and you can change one of my arguments against God is a argument from game design which talks which uh examines uh what a crappy a bass award set of rules the God has established uh it that you're supposed to follow and yet you're supposed to get a certain outcome it doesn't gel but that was a whole other show I guess there's probably a better example which would be a pool table as as I look out at my friend here in the audience um pool table doesn't have any intrinsic meaning or purpose people invent games for it so you could play nine ball you play eight ball you could play strategery you could play uh you know any number of things or you could make your own rules there's there's uh you know if if you syn the white ball in many games it's a scratch or foul but there are games Kum games where the object is to consistently make the white ball go into pocket off of balls and and in say a board game where there are Victory conditions right you can say the designer of the board game established the victory conditions but that really doesn't stop the individuals playing the game for playing uh their own way for whatever reason they have it's one does not Trump the other so even in a universe if there was a God that set up the victory conditions we still would be individuals fully capable of coming up with our own reasons for doing things that what I was saying the first I get it the the other aspect of this is I'm not aware what the victory conditions are for life but my best uh my best guess if there were such a thing it' be about uh survival and being uh having a a good time uh as a you know being well I'm not just talking about rampant Hedonism but um it would be about surviving and and living a full life and I don't see that Craig's God or anybody else's seems to have that as a primary concern because their God has this life as a place to wipe your feet before you get on to the real one and on that note I got to thank the people behind the show I apologize we're completely out of time thanks to everybody who called except for Gman don't call back until you are ready to admit that you are a lying troll who is still in fact a Slave see you next week I'm going to take one call oh hung up take another one so Matt from Boston if you're actually watch

Channel: The Atheist Experience

Views: 34,643

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: PragLvsJBDM

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 16 2013